Menu
Search
 
October 19, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

JAPAN

History

Politics
Crime & Legal
Science & Health
Society
Explainer
History
Legal scholar Shigeto Hozumi conducted some 250 lecture sessions for Empress Nagako, posthumously known as Empress Kojun, between 1924 and 1950.
JAPAN / History
Late Empress Kojun received lectures on World War II from experts, records show
In a lecture in February 1942, after Japan went to war with the United States, one scholar explained to Empress Kojun speeches delivered to parliament by the then prime minister.
JAPAN / History
Official records of late Empress Kojun's life include her experiences in World War II
The empress spent Aug. 15, 1945, when Emperor Showa declared Japan's surrender in World War II, inside a bunker facility that had served as her home, the records state.
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Japan Times 2000: Japanese professor wins Nobel Prize in chemistry
Hideki Shirakawa received the Nobel Prize in October 2000 along with two American scientists for their revolutionary work on conductive polymers.
Hisao Ito, a former resident of Tinian in the Mariana Islands, points to himself in a family photo taken when he was a child.
JAPAN / History
Sep 24, 2025
World War II survivor bears witness to family tragedy in Tinian mass suicide
Eighty-one years after the mass suicide, the memory of his father killing two of his sisters remains lodged in the survivor's mind, yet he holds no grudge against his father.
In the “Kojiki,” the origins of the Japanese archipelago are attributed to the coupling of Izanagi and Izanami, two kami from the Plain of High Heaven.
JAPAN / History / The Living Past
Sep 20, 2025
Humanity's tales of creation, cataclysm and kami
By Michael Hoffman
Cultures the world over have invented their own distinctive creation myths since antiquity. In Japan, the “Kojiki” offers insight into premodern perspectives on the nation.
Yasuhiko Ito speaks of his experience as an internee under the Soviet Union after World War II, in the city of Fukuoka in April, prior to his death in May at the age of 100.
JAPAN / History
Sep 17, 2025
Former Japanese internee in Ukraine pained by Russian invasion
After World War II, Yasuhiko Ito was taken as a disarmed soldier of the Imperial Japanese Army by the former Soviet Union to Ukraine for forced labor.
Prime Minister Yoshio Mori declared in September 2000 that Japan must “grab the historic opportunity of the IT revolution."
JAPAN / History / Japan Times Gone By
Sep 6, 2025
Japan Times 2000: Prime minister pitches ‘e-Japan’ as way of life
Japan must “grab the historic opportunity of the IT revolution,” Prime Minister Yoshio Mori declared as the final Diet session of the century opened in September 2000.
U.S. military personnel stand guard in front of the New Grand Hotel where Gen. Douglas MacArthur stayed circa September 1945 in Yokohama.
JAPAN / History / Perspectives
Sep 1, 2025
How the Allied Occupation changed Japan: A love story
By Michael MacArthur Bosack
A wartime GI and a Japanese civilian fell in love during the Occupation, embodying the peace built after Japan’s surrender.
Japan's World War II surrender documents went on display at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration in Washington on Thursday.
JAPAN / History
Aug 29, 2025
Instrument of Japan's World War II surrender on display in U.S.
It will be on display until Oct. 1 as part of a special exhibition to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of the war.
Police round up war orphans in an underpass in Ueno, Tokyo, in a file photo taken in February 1948.
JAPAN / History
Aug 28, 2025
Never again, says woman orphaned by Tokyo air raid during World War II
Yoriko Suzuki, who died at the age of 87 in June, lamented about how her life and those of many others were turned upside down by the war.

Why I chose Japanese citizenship over permanent residency
Jon Heese (second left) takes part in a 2024 New Year's nihonshu barrel opening ceremony.
Tokyo ordered to pay damages to South Asian woman over police response
The Tokyo High Court held that, “even taking the woman’s consent into account” for sharing her personal information, the officers breached their duty of care and acted unlawfully.
Former PM Tomiichi Murayama dies at age 101
Former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama speaks during an interview in Tokyo in March 2007.
Japan's fractured politics could ensnarl Takaichi's economic plans
Sanae Takaichi, the newly elected leader of Japan's ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, attends a news conference after the LDP presidential election in Tokyo on Oct. 4.
Tokyo's best Sunday roasts and all their trimmings
Swan & Lion's Sunday roast, which is drenched in a red wine gravy, is part of a three-course meal.
What does Jimbocho think of its unexpected ‘cool’ status?
Tokyo's Jimbocho neighborhood is a haven for book lovers, its rows of secondhand bookstores spilling over with printed materials.
What you need to see at this year's Tokyo film festival
Chloe Zhao’s "Hamnet"
New film explores how Japan and the U.S. found common ground through baseball
Masanori Murakami became the first MLB player from Japan when he made his debut with the Giants on Sept 1, 1964.
As they wrestle for power, Japan’s political parties must remember their base
Rengo's head Tomoko Yoshino speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Oct. 8.
Sumo is about to hit London and the West with a force previously unseen
Preparations advance on Monday for the Grand Sumo Tournament at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Rock group The Yellow Monkey played K-Arena Yokohama in June as part of a nationwide tour. Concerts are increasingly popular in the age of social media as users value in-person experiences.
Inside Japan’s arena boom: Sports, sound and city-building
By Patrick St. Michel

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons
Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER

Latest News

Seoul says North Korean soldier who crossed land border seeking to defect
2 hours ago
Ex-French President Sarkozy says 'not afraid' ahead of jail term
2 hours ago
As 'No Kings' protests decry Trump, surveillance worries emerge
4 hours ago
Growing India-Taliban ties anger neighboring Pakistan
5 hours ago
Bad weather forces postponement of JAXA H3 rocket launch
5 hours ago