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August 11, 2025
 

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Despite Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's serious and studious personality, he is by nature a nonconformist and is less socially inclined compared to other politicians.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 3, 2024

The Shigeru Ishiba I personally know

Ishiba takes pride in his mottos and interests, remains steadfast in his beliefs and stays true to his path.
Plamo Furniture’s Baum series of interior works, designed by Takuro Izumi, is made with vertically layered panels of engineered wood that can be custom-designed to seamlessly fit any space.
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Oct 5, 2024

Japan's flat-packed furniture doesn't skimp on aesthetics

Disappointed by flat-packed aesthetics? Not if you give these Japan-designed pieces a look.
There's long been one mantra in mainstream economics: Growth is good. But recently, an alternative term has begun taking root in popular culture and policy: "degrowth."
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 5, 2024

These are boom times for ‘degrowth’

Kohei Saito believes one reason degrowth has had increasing appeal is because "younger generations are not enjoying the fruits of economic growth.”
Japanese film director Kiyoshi Kurosawa gestures as he poses for photos during a press conference at the 29th Busan International Film Festival.
CULTURE / Film
Oct 5, 2024

Japan's 'master of horror' Kiyoshi Kurosawa highlights 'B-movie' appeal

The director, who received the Busan International Film Festival's Filmmaker of the Year Award on Wednesday, said he'd like to see more artists explore genre cinema.
The industry ministry plans to set up a liaison committee of officials from relevant government agencies to discuss support measures for brick-and-mortar bookstores.
BUSINESS
Oct 6, 2024

Ministry reports issues facing bookstores

The ministry will set up by year-end a liaison committee of officials from relevant government agencies to fully launch discussions on support measures for bookstores.
Coffee house owner Vu Dinh Tu making coffee at a cafe in Hanoi, Vietnam on Sept. 30.
BUSINESS
Oct 7, 2024

Vietnam's young coffee entrepreneurs brew up a revolution

Coffee has become a byword for creativity and self-expression among young entrepreneurs — though their parents may take some convincing.
Construction at Michaelerplatz in Vienna, Austria, in July
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Oct 7, 2024

Europe’s urban dilemma: Saving the past from a warming future

European cities face a tough choice: adapt to rising heat or preserve historical landmarks.
Ayato (Hayato Isomura) and his younger brother do their best to navigate difficult life circumstances in “The Young Strangers.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2024

‘The Young Strangers’: A tough watch but thrillingly alive

Takuya Uchiyama’s drama about two brothers trying to make it from one day to the next is audacious and emotionally wrenching.
Local activists and tech workers protest against Google and Amazon's Project Nimbus contract with the Israeli military and government, outside the Google Cloud Next Conference in San Francisco, California, on August 29, 2023.
WORLD
Oct 8, 2024

Decoding the role Big Tech plays in the war in Gaza

The Israel-Hamas war has spotlighted how artificial intelligence and machine learning can be used on the battlefield.
Omar Abdullah (center), leader of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party, arrives to address the media outside his residence in Srinagar on Tuesday, after his election win in Indian-administered Kashmir.
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Oct 9, 2024

Indian Kashmir elects first regional government in a decade

Voters backed opposition parties to lead the Muslim-majority territory's regional assembly in the first local elections since 2014.
SV League players and Chairman Masaaki Okawa (front, holding a volleyball) during a news conference in Tokyo last month.
MORE SPORTS / Volleyball
Oct 9, 2024

Japan's new volleyball league has big dreams as it gets set to launch

The SV. League replaces the V. League as Japan's top volleyball league and aims to eventually become the best volleyball league in the world.
Two childhood friends (Hayato Kurihara, left, and Yukito Hidaka) living in a near-future Japan see a rise in student protests against oppressive surveillance in “Happyend.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2024

‘Happyend’ tests teen friendship with authoritarian dystopia

Neo Sora’s ambitious coming-of-age film follows a group of friends attempting to disrupt a surveillance society with something less than life-or-death urgency.
Annual festival Peter Barakan’s Live Magic! was born a decade ago when Barakan (left) decided to create a platform to share his love of roots music, which he attributes to growing up in 1960s England.
CULTURE / Music
Oct 11, 2024

Peter Barakan’s Live Magic! takes its final bow

The 11th edition of the annual blues, jazz and roots festival will also be its last, at least in its current form, but the core concept of the event will live on.
Han Kang is the first South Korean author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 10, 2024

South Korean author Han Kang wins Nobel Prize in literature

Han is the first Asian woman and the first writer from South Korea to receive the award.
Natalie Nakase will lead the Valkyries, the WNBA's newest team, after spending three years as first assistant coach with the Aces.
BASKETBALL
Oct 11, 2024

Natalie Nakase named as inaugural head coach of expansion Valkyries in WNBA

Nakase, 44, has more than 16 years of coaching experience, including 10 seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers in the NBA.
Nobuyo Oyama
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Oct 11, 2024

Long-time 'Doraemon' voice actor Nobuyo Oyama dies at 90

Oyama voiced the nation's beloved blue cat-robot in her own inimitable way from the time the show debuted in 1979 until 2005.
The history of cooking shows that no country can claim exclusive ownership of a dish, as many iconic foods like kabobs, pizzas, or pad thai have international roots shaped by cultural exchanges.
COMMENTARY
Oct 11, 2024

A battle over the kebab’s nationality

National dishes are often recent constructs, with many foods evolving across regions and influenced by various cultures.
South Korean author Han Kang, the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, attends a press conference, in Seoul in November.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 11, 2024

Han Kang’s Nobel win underscores essential role of translators as literary tastemakers

The trailblazing South Korean author was virtually unknown in the West just 10 years ago — then came Deborah Smith’s translation of "The Vegetarian."
Toshiyuki Mimaki, the co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, speaks at an event held in November at United Nations headquarters in New York on the sidelines of the second meeting of state parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2024

Nihon Hidankyo awarded Nobel Peace Prize for efforts to achieve nuclear-free world

The organization was given the honor for its work to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons.
“The Cats of Gokogu Shrine” centers on a local shrine in Ushimado’s Honmachi district, which has become home to a colony of street cats.
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2024

Kazuhiro Soda embraces the wisdom of street cats

The filmmaker turns his camera closer to home in his new documentary, “The Cats of Gokogu Shrine,” and brings a community into focus.
Capsule hotels were created as a way to deal with the amount of overwork employees tend to do in Japan. Can't commute home? Then spend the night in an tiny, affordable sleeping space.
BUSINESS / Tech / Longform
Oct 12, 2024

Japan wakes up to the market for a proper sleep

After years of sleep deficits and drowsy mornings, a growing number of products and services are being developed to help us rest easier.
Toshiko Hamanaka (left), the assistant secretary-general of Nihon Hidankyo, and the organization's co-chair, Terumi Tanaka, during a news conference in Tokyo on Saturday, the day after the group was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2024

Nihon Hidankyo members hope surprise Nobel win cements nuclear taboo

Senior members of the group noted that the Nobel committee chose Nihon Hidankyo at a time when the threat of nuclear war is becoming more intense.
Kim Yo Jong, sister of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un, arrives at the Vostochny Сosmodrome before a meeting of Russia's President Vladimir Putin with her brother in the far eastern Amur region of Russia in September last year.
ASIA PACIFIC
Oct 13, 2024

North Korean leader's powerful sister warns of 'horrible' response to drones

The drones allegedly sent by the South had dropped anti-regime propaganda, North Korean state media claimed.
A man searches through the rubble of a wrecked house in the Turkish town of Cankiri after a strong earthquake hit central Turkey in June 2000.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 13, 2024

Earthquakes, hurricanes and other disasters will shape our future cities

The progress of Antakya’s renewal bears watching. However it proceeds, there will be lessons to learn.
Japan has been trying to boost its fertility rate for 30 years and now the rest of the rich world is, too.
WORLD / Society
Oct 14, 2024

Can the government get people to have more babies?

The number of babies born in Japan last year fell to the lowest level since the government started collecting statistics in 1899.
In his July Republican Party acceptance speech, Donald Trump vowed to launch the largest deportation operation in U.S. history.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 16, 2024

Who wants to buy the miracle tonic of mass deportation?

Donald Trump's mass deportation plan could result in thousands of deaths, tear families apart, and devastate communities.
Liam Payne performs during the Jingle Ball at Madison Square Garden in New York, Dec. 8, 2017.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Oct 17, 2024

One Direction singer Liam Payne dies in Argentina after fall from balcony

The 31-year-old singer had been in Buenos Aires to attend the concert of his former bandmate Niall Horan.
A gravely ill man (Arata Iura) starts to question if it’s worth sacrificing the life of his clone in order to save his own in Sayaka Kai’s “Adabana.”
CULTURE / Film
Oct 17, 2024

‘Adabana’: Existential sci-fi will have you seeing double

Sayaka Kai’s drama set in a world where a privileged elite extend their lives by keeping clones in reserve is imbued with literal and figurative darkness.
Raiders receiver Davante Adams carries the ball against the Panthers during their game on Sept. 22. Adams was traded to the Jets on Tuesday and is expected to make his debut with the team on Sunday.
MORE SPORTS / Football
Oct 17, 2024

Star receiver Davante Adams to make Jets debut against Steelers

The Jets acquired Adams from the Raiders on Tuesday for a conditional third-round pick in the 2025 draft.
Toshiyuki Nishida has been a mainstay in entertainment for decades, with an expansive career in film, TV, music and theater.
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Oct 17, 2024

Actor Toshiyuki Nishida dies at 76

The actor, known for his roles in works including “Beyond Outrage” and “Tsuribaka Nisshi,” was found dead at his residence in Tokyo on Thursday.
Tokyo’s WWII museums hold diverse views on war and peace
A carrier-based Type 52 Zero fighter marks the entrance foyer of Yasukuni Shrine's Yushukan, a museum that tells a more nuanced story of Japan's experience in World War II than the controversies around the shrine might suggest.
Japan starts survey on foreign nationals' unpaid resident taxes
In the most recent regular session of parliament, problems were highlighted regarding some foreign workers leaving Japan without paying outstanding taxes.
Summer bonuses at major Japan firms hit record
The fourth consecutive year of increase came after many firms raised their monthly wages this spring and as a result of solid earnings mainly among manufacturers.
Japan's inheritance tax is high, unforgiving and sometimes avoidable
The National Tax Agency at the Ministry of Finance, Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. Japanese tax authorities can bill foreign residents in Japan for assets inherited globally.
Weather agency warns of landslides and flooding in Kyushu as heavy rain continues
An embankment on the Amikake River that collapsed due to heavy rain in Aira, Kagoshima Prefecture, on Friday. Downpours continued in the Kyushu region over the weekend.
At Himawari Shokudo 2, Italian food with a Japanese soul
At Himawari Shokudo 2, chef Hozumi Tanaka serves Italian-inspired fare with a focus on Toyama produce, such as this appetizer of lightly blanched "hotaru ika" (firefly squid) served atop mixed wild plants and a crepe prepared from "yamato-imo" yam.
Cheer with caution: Expert advises sports fans have game plan for extreme heat
A Cardinals fan fans himself during the seventh inning of a game against the Pirates in St. Louis, Missouri, in June 2022.
Australia's warship selection signals Japanese defense industry's arrival
The Maritime Self-Defense Force's Mogami-class frigate. Australia's selection of an upgraded version of the Mogami-class warship for its next frigate class could prove to be a watershed moment for Japan’s defense industry.
Japan's inheritance tax is high, unforgiving and sometimes avoidable
The National Tax Agency at the Ministry of Finance, Kasumigaseki, Tokyo. Japanese tax authorities can bill foreign residents in Japan for assets inherited globally.
Will the movement seeking Ishiba’s resignation succeed?
Liberal Democratic Party youth division head Yasutaka Nakasone (center) and other members speak to reporters in Tokyo on July 25.

Podcast

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

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person
By Naoko Abe

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