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November 20, 2025
 

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JAPAN

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Cloudflare has been ordered to pay ¥500 million after four major publishing firms accused the firm of copyright infringement for its role in hosting sites that distribute pirated copies of manga titles.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Japanese court orders Cloudflare to pay ¥500 million over manga piracy
Four major publishing firms accused Cloudflare of copyright infringement for its role in hosting sites that distribute pirated copies of manga titles.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
University of Tokyo Hospital doctor arrested for allegedly taking bribes
The suspects, a doctor and a medical equipment company official, are believed to have abused a system allowing for donations to support research.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
U.S. Navy member suspected of sex crime against Okinawa minor
The police did not disclose whether the serviceman has admitted or denied the allegations.
The mother of the man on trial for the 2022 killing of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told the Nara District Court that she feels responsible for her son’s actions.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 19, 2025
Even after Abe’s death, suspect’s mother stays faithful to Unification Church
By Tomoko Otake
The church’s influence on Tetsuya Yamagami's family has become a focal point of his trial, as a grudge he said he held against it had led him to target the prime minister.
A view of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward at night. Last year in Japan, 66 people were put in protective custody as victims of human trafficking. Among them, 58 — including all 41 minors — were Japanese nationals. International pressure to act on human trafficking led Japan to make efforts to crack down on the crime, such as a tightening of conditions in 2005 for entertainer visas.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Nov 19, 2025
The reality of human trafficking in Japan
By Yukana Inoue
Its shifting nature, as well as the ever-changing demographics of potential victims, make it hard for authorities to crack down on trafficking.
Authorities have determined that a woman in her 70s found in a rice field in Kazuno, Akita Prefecture, died of hypothermia.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 19, 2025
Akita woman thought to have been killed by a bear actually died of hypothermia
By Jessica Speed
Authorities concluded that a smaller animal had inflicted the wounds on the body of the woman, who was in her 70s, after her death.
Police officers examine a poster, marked with a large “X,” at a building where a woman was stabbed in Tokyo’s Minato Ward on Sunday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 18, 2025
Akasaka stabbing suspect carried out attack in under 30 seconds, police say
Footage captured near the commercial building’s entrance shows a man, believed to be the attacker, entering directly after the woman, then leaving about 30 seconds later.
Metropolitan Police Department investigators examine a poster put up at a building where a woman was stabbed, in the capital’s Minato Ward on Sunday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 17, 2025
Suspect on run after stabbing woman in Tokyo’s Akasaka area
The victim, a woman in her 40s, was stabbed in her side and her left hand while in the basement of a building in the busy Akasaka area, according to police.
Iwao Hakamata's legal team heads to the Shizuoka District Court in the city of Shizuoka on Oct. 9 after Hakamata, a former death row inmate who was acquitted in a retrial for the 1966 murder of a family in Shizuoka Prefecture, filed a damages lawsuit against the central and prefectural governments.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 17, 2025
Ban on prosecutors' appeals in retrials wins expert support
For Iwao Hakamata, a man who was acquitted of murdering four people in a retrial, it took about nine years for the decision to start a retrial to become final because of appeals.
Hirohide Mori (left), head of the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor's Office's public security division, and Tetsuro Kamata, deputy superintendent-general of Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department, bow toward former Ohkawara Kakohki executive Junji Shimada (second from right) and company President Masaaki Okawara in June in Yokohama.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Nov 16, 2025
Ohkawara Kakohki seeks audit on Tokyo investigator liability
The audit will be conducted within 60 days. If the company disagrees with the outcome, it may file a resident lawsuit.

Beware of China’s strategic distortion of reality
China holds a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, in Beijing on Sept. 3. 
Japanese court orders Cloudflare to pay ¥500 million over manga piracy
Cloudflare has been ordered to pay ¥500 million after four major publishing firms accused the firm of copyright infringement for its role in hosting sites that distribute pirated copies of manga titles.
The reality of human trafficking in Japan
A view of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward at night. Last year in Japan, 66 people were put in protective custody as victims of human trafficking. Among them, 58 — including all 41 minors — were Japanese nationals. International pressure to act on human trafficking led Japan to make efforts to crack down on the crime, such as a tightening of conditions in 2005 for entertainer visas.
Economic security minister stresses crackdown on rule-breaking foreign nationals
Economic security minister Kimi Onoda speaks during a group interview in Tokyo on Monday.
China to reimpose ban on Japanese seafood imports amid row over Taiwan, reports say
A sign reading, "Suspend the sales of all fish products imported from Japan" is displayed in an area home to Japanese restaurants in Beijing in August 2023. China will reimpose a ban on imports of Japanese seafood, media reports in Tokyo said Wednesday, as a diplomatic spat between the two countries deepens.
Onosato stumbles in quest for first perfect championship
Yoshinofuji (left) beats Onosato by <i>oshidashi</i> at the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament on Tuesday.
The reality of human trafficking in Japan
A view of Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward at night. Last year in Japan, 66 people were put in protective custody as victims of human trafficking. Among them, 58 — including all 41 minors — were Japanese nationals. International pressure to act on human trafficking led Japan to make efforts to crack down on the crime, such as a tightening of conditions in 2005 for entertainer visas.
Why we can’t get enough of the sham of the rental family
“Rental Family,” directed and co-written by the single-named Hikari, follows out-of-work actor Phillip (Brendan Fraser), who is hired as the “token white guy” at a Tokyo agency called Rental Family.
Economic security minister stresses crackdown on rule-breaking foreign nationals
Economic security minister Kimi Onoda speaks during a group interview in Tokyo on Monday.
How Band-Maid brought anime energy into the hard-rock sound of ‘Scooooop’
Members of Band-Maid combine heavy riffs and maid-inspired visuals in their latest project, "Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty."

Podcast

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

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo
By Kathryn Wortley

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