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Novak Djokovic plays a forehand return to Italy's Jannik Sinner during their men's singles semifinal match on day 13 of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland-Garros Complex in Paris on June 6, 2025.
TENNIS
Jun 11, 2025

No rest, no gain: Novak Djokovic’s go-to tools for a mind and body reset

Japan residents with deep pockets now have a chance to replicate Djokovic’s wellness and longevity routines at Aman Tokyo.
Eating locally grown food could be part of a decokatsu lifestyle that's both good for the planet and your wallet.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Jun 15, 2025

Decokatsu could save you money and help the planet. But you probably haven't heard of it.

The ambitious government program aims to get people to live in ways that are healthier for the planet without being restrictive about it.
Tobias Bieker settled in Osaka in 2018 and started "Unpacking Japan" as a side project with ZenGroup five years ago.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Jul 11, 2025

Tobias Bieker: ‘A good interviewer helps the guest shine’

The host of the "Unpacking Japan" podcast offers his take on Osaka life, Japanese jazz and writing fiction.
Reporters and photographers, including long-time baseball beat writer Keizo Konishi, swarm around Ichiro Suzuki during the World Baseball Classic in San Diego in 2009.
BASEBALL / MLB
Jul 27, 2025

Three decades and a pile of notebooks: The beat writer who chronicled Ichiro’s career

For nearly three decades, this journalist's job revolved around one man — Ichiro Suzuki. But covering the baseball legend was never boring.
Kunshiro Kiyozumi, 97, who was the youngest crew member of the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine I-58 in World War II, on his way to a restaurant to have lunch in Matsuyama, Japan, on April 29.
JAPAN / History
Jul 29, 2025

Last soldiers of Imperial Japanese Army have a warning for younger generations

"In their last breaths, no one shouted for the long life of the emperor,” said one veteran about his comrades. "They called out for their mothers, whom they would never see again.”
Masayuki Yamauchi teaches junior high school students about the history of Okunoshima, an island in Takehara, Hiroshima Prefecture, in May.
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2025

80 years on, former teacher conveys history of hidden island in World War II

The tiny island in Hiroshima Prefecture hosted a poison gas plant of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II, leading to its removal from maps for confidentiality purposes.
A shipwreck of a boat, used by refugees in the past, is stranded at a shore in the northern part of Lesbos island, Greece
WORLD
Aug 1, 2025

On Europe's hardened frontier, Greek island keeps migrants at bay

Ten years after it was a hot spot for migrants, Lesbos shows how far government responses have hardened against people seeking refuge in Europe.
A surviving streetcar from the World War II atomic bombing of the city of Hiroshima runs near the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima on July 27.
JAPAN
Aug 5, 2025

Hiroshima streetcars continue to serve and educate 80 years after atomic bombing

Streetcar service in Hiroshima resumed in some sections just three days after the bombing thanks to intense repair work, becoming a symbol of the city's reconstruction.
Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Aug 8, 2025

The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person

At 17, Koichi Tagawa survived Nagasaki’s atomic blast and recording two months of grief, destruction and the loss of his mother in a diary he kept for life.
Hideo Shimizu, 95, says he cannot forget seeing the prisoners' bloody wills scribbled on the walls of prison cells at Unit 731 in 1945.
JAPAN / History
Aug 13, 2025

The indelible memory of being a part of Unit 731

For 95-year-old Hideo Shimizu, the 4½ months he spent with the biological and chemical warfare unit of the now-defunct Imperial Japanese Army were just like yesterday.
Osaka Asian Film Festival, which will hold its 21st edition early to draw on Expo 2025 visitors, is set to open on Aug. 29 with a restoration of “Tracing to Expo ’70.” The Taiwanese film follows a Japan-raised Taiwanese woman whose search for her long-lost benefactor takes her to the 1970 Osaka Expo.
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2025

Osaka Asian Film Festival gets an expo boost

In a rare double bill, the Osaka Asian Film Festival will stage a special summer edition to make the most out of interest in the ongoing world's fair.
Members of the nonprofit group Japan Youth Memorial Association search for the remains of dead soldiers in a cave in Okinawa Prefecture in February.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Aug 15, 2025

The long search for Japan’s lost soldiers

An decades-long effort to recover the remains of those who died during World War II, most of them abroad, may be entering its final phase.
Muddied prospectors pan for gold in Manica province, Mozambique, near the Zimbabwe border, in 2010.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability
Aug 20, 2025

Mozambique's illegal miners reap risky rewards but land suffers

Rivers around mining sites are polluted, and mercury has seeped into the soil, creating a nightmare for farmers.
In what is billed as the first major production in English of Hisashi Inoue's "The Face of Jizo,” the Japanese play will have performances at the Seymour Centre in Sydney both in English and in Japanese.
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 22, 2025

'The Face of Jizo': Hisashi Inoue's play staged in Sydney commemorates WWII victims

Billed as the first major English-language production of the play, "The Face of Jizo" also increases the variety of roles for Japanese actors in Australia.
Koryo High School players greet their cheering section after beating Hokkaido’s Asahikawa Shiho in the first round of Summer Koshien on Aug. 7. The school withdrew three days later as a bullying scandal enveloped the team.
BASEBALL / FOCUS
Aug 27, 2025

Koshien’s dark summer forces reckoning for high school baseball

A young player’s dream was to play in the National High School Baseball Championship. A series of bullying incidents this year changed all of that.
A nation made wealthy by the discovery of diamonds in 1967, Botswana is now facing an economic crisis.
BUSINESS
Sep 4, 2025

Lab-grown gems are robbing Botswana of its diamond riches

A diamond-market crisis has turned the finding of the gems into an affliction and a cautionary tale of what can happen to an economy that becomes overly reliant on one commodity.
Melos Han-Tani is a game designer of eclectic interests whose upcoming releases, Angeline Era and Danchi Days, are set in alternate-history Ireland and a public housing complex in Japan, respectively.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Sep 12, 2025

Melos Han-Tani: ‘Figuring out what you value is valuable for any artist’

A designer, programmer and composer, Han-Tani draws inspiration from a wide range of sources and channels his creativity through games, music and writing.
Originally from Brisbane, Australia, Linda Joyce moved to rural Tochigi Prefecture in 2024 for a career shift from teaching to hospitality and sustainable tourism.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / 20 QUESTIONS
Sep 25, 2025

Linda Joyce: ‘We hope people recognize the benefits of exploring rural areas’

Former teacher Linda Joyce shifted careers to the tourism industry in 2024 and now works at a historic property in rural Tochigi Prefecture.
A Swedish snowboard instructor works at the Niseko ski resort area on Hokkaido, in Kutchan, in December 2022
JAPAN / Society
Oct 4, 2025

A Japanese ski resort town is roiled by a debate over immigration

Residents are protesting a planned housing facility for foreign workers, exposing the conflict between labor needs and worries over immigration.
The Gas Pavilion had welcomed around 500,000 visitors by the end of August, making it one of the most popular exhibits at the Osaka Expo.
ENVIRONMENT / Energy / OUR PLANET
Oct 12, 2025

At Osaka Expo, gas giants promote a greener future. But is it a lot of hot air?

While major Japanese gas companies have lauded e-methane as key in fighting climate change, experts paint a different picture.
Inna Ilina, vice president of the Ukraine Pavilion, says she is grateful her country was able to participate and send out a clear message: Ukraine and its democratic values are not for sale.
JAPAN
Oct 13, 2025

At Osaka Expo pavilions, staff recount ‘life-changing’ experiences

Nearly 160 countries and regions participated in the Osaka Expo, with each bringing staff from overseas to help run their respective pavilions during the six-month event.
Alleged victims of Myanmar's scam centers in the process of repatriation on Feb. 12. Fraud factories in Myanmar blamed for scamming Chinese and American victims out of billions of dollars are still in business and bigger than ever.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Oct 14, 2025

Myanmar scam cities booming despite crackdown — using Musk's Starlink

China, Thailand and Myanmar had pressured militias into vowing to "eradicate" the compounds in February, releasing around 7,000 people from a brutal call center-like system.
A woman in Vatican City on July 19 during a heat wave. Projecting temperatures is inherently imprecise because modern humans have never experienced such extremes.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change
Jul 29, 2023

An overheating planet requires extreme climate solutions

Projections say warming will only get worse, but humans exert control over planet-warming pollution and can change these models’ trajectories.
Materials derived from cabbage (left), iyokan (center) and onion by Tokyo-based startup Fabula, which is working to develop new materials that can replace concrete.
ENVIRONMENT / Sustainability / OUR PLANET
Aug 27, 2023

Japan’s scrap-and-rebuild culture faces an environmental reckoning

The nation's tendency toward new construction — rather than renovation — is coming under renewed scrutiny amid concerns over sustainability.
Eiko Takeuchi talks about a traffic jam during last winter’s heavy snow along National Route 8 in Kashiwazaki, Niigata Prefecture, on Sept. 18.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Dec 11, 2023

Evacuation plans for nuclear incidents called into question

Effectiveness of preparations as a “last line of defense” to save residents in the event of a nuclear disaster are in doubt.
In writing "Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions," journalist Akshat Rathi said his goal was to try and determine where climate solutions are being built and uncover the challenges that they face.
ENVIRONMENT / Climate change / OUR PLANET
Dec 24, 2023

Finding crucial solutions in a time of climate crisis

Journalist Akshat Rathi explores the economic side of the emergency in his book ‘Climate Capitalism.'
Yurii, 53, and Tetiana, 51, attend a rally of families of Ukrainian prisoners of war  in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, on Jan. 21.
WORLD
Feb 22, 2024

How life in Ukraine has been shattered by two years of war

Even in remote villages, signs are everywhere of the two-year-old war that has irrevocably changed the face of Ukraine.
Britain's Catherine, Princess of Wales, appears in this still image taken from video released Friday in which she announced that she is undergoing preventative chemotherapy after cancer was found to have been present, following her abdominal surgery in January.
WORLD
Mar 23, 2024

Catherine’s cancer diagnosis puts U.K. royals on even more uncertain terrain

First King Charles and now Catherine, Princess of Wales, are facing grave health concerns, stretching an already slimmed-down monarchy.
Since launching in 1961, the iconic Salone del Mobile furniture fair has firmly established Milan’s status as a leading force in the global design world
LIFE / Style & Design
Apr 18, 2024

Salone del Mobile’s Maria Porro: ‘Italy and Japan share many things’

Maria Porro became the leading global design fair's first female and youngest-ever president when she was named to the position in 2021.
Children give a presentation on volcano studies during a workshop at Tairadate Elementary School in Hachimantai, Iwate Prefecture, in February.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Apr 29, 2024

Raising awareness over Mount Iwate eruption urged as memories fade

Interest in preparing for possible volcanic eruptions is difficult to muster in a nation prone to other natural disasters.

Longform

The byzantine process for converting a foreign driver’s license into a Japanese one entails mountains of paperwork and significant stamina — unless you're a lucky license holder from a country or region where these requirements are waived.
Driving in Japan isn’t hard. Getting the license is.