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Manga artist Kazuo Umezu
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Nov 5, 2024

Japanese manga artist Kazuo Umezu dies at 88

Kazuo Umezu started drawing comics from his childhood and made his debut as a manga artist in 1955, when he was a high school student.
The Tubassadors are (from left) Tomohiro Sosogi, Kazuto Shikada, Soen Tamura and Keisuke Nishibu.
CULTURE / Music
Nov 5, 2024

The Tubassadors hope to change the tuba’s tune

Orchestras aren't known for tuba solos in their performances. However, this Tokyo-based quartet puts the instrument front and center.
The topics nominated for this year’s buzzwords of the year ranged from new banknotes and Olympian quips to political scandals and rice shortages.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 5, 2024

From cat memes to Olympians with too much rizz, these are Japan's 2024 buzzword nominations

The buzzword of the year, along with the top 10 picks, will be decided from the 30 nominated terms on Dec. 2.
Kioxia, formerly Toshiba Memory, had planned to begin production at the fab last year but has delayed that to autumn 2025.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 5, 2024

Kioxia sees flash memory demand almost tripling by 2028

The chipmaker, which was hammered by a downturn in the market for memory chips, is readying a major capacity expansion at its new fab.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks during the launch of the supercomputer Gefion in Kastrup, Denmark, on Oct. 23. Nvidia's recent strength has come as the company calmed investor concerns about issues involving its Blackwell chip, which was delayed due to engineering snags, as well as its long-term growth prospects.
BUSINESS / Companies
Nov 6, 2024

Nvidia rides AI wave to surpass Apple as world’s largest company

Its share price rose 2.9% to $139.93 on Tuesday, taking its market capitalization to $3.43 trillion, ahead of Apple's $3.38 trillion.
Rizwan Gondal, the head police officer in Rahim Yar Khan distric, says that his detectives have a dossier proving the "heinous criminal activities" of Pakistani gangster Shahid Lund Baloch, who broadcasts on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram defiant messages delivered gun-in-hand, romanticizing his rural lifestyle and cultivating a reputation as a champion of the people.
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Nov 6, 2024

TikTok bandits terrorize and transfix Pakistan riverlands

In riverine terrain in central Punjab that has long offered them refuge, bandits use the internet to enthrall citizens even as they prey on them.
Toshiyuki Nishida performs at a rock concert held in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, in September 2011. Nishida appeared in many events and dramas filmed in Fukushima to help the prefecture recover in the aftermath of the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Nov 18, 2024

In his home prefecture of Fukushima, actor Toshiyuki Nishida lives on

Friends and others who knew him paid tribute to the late actor, who was well known for his folksy charm.
Masayoshi Son (front, center) poses with the members of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks after the team won the Pacific League championship at Kyocera Dome Osaka on Sept. 23.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Kyushu
Nov 18, 2024

Masayoshi Son’s aim for SoftBank Hawks remains, 20 years after buyout

This year, the team became Pacific League champions for the first time in four years. But its owner has loftier goals.
Reiko Okada shows her ink paintings that depict female students making paper balloons as she talks about her wartime experience on Okunoshima island in Hiroshima Prefecture.
JAPAN / History / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Nov 25, 2024

The stories behind Japan's WWII 'balloon bombs'

Former students are detailing wartime work that had the potential to unleash devastation.
A bear sighting warning sign in a park at a residential area in the city of Hanamaki in Iwate Prefecture. Hanamaki has deployed along riverbanks artificial intelligence-equipped cameras that identify bears and alert city officials.
JAPAN / Society
Nov 13, 2024

Municipalities in Japan turn to AI and digital maps to prevent bear encounters

Akita Prefecture's online map consolidates reports of sightings and incidents while the city of Hanamaki in Iwate Prefecture has deployed cameras that identify bears.
In the past two weeks, developer DeNA has raked in over $50 million for the Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket app, a free-to-play game that charges for premium features.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 14, 2024

Gotta collect 'em all: New Pokemon trading card game becomes big hit

The novel yet nostalgic app has amassed over 30 million downloads worldwide in the first two weeks of its release.
Shannon Turner, who is often in and out of the hospital due to waterfall effects related to the interplay between long COVID, psoriatic arthritis, antiphospholipid antibody syndrome and autoimmune diseases, sits up on a hospital bed in Philadelphia, in May 2023.
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 15, 2024

Many long COVID patients adjust to slim recovery odds as world moves on

Recent scientific studies suggest the longer someone is sick, the lower their chances of making a full recovery.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen is tied for fourth in the NFL with 17 touchdown passes.
MORE SPORTS
Nov 15, 2024

Bills looking to derail Chiefs' quest for perfect season

The matchup features two of the most successful quarterbacks in the NFL in Mahomes, a two-time MVP, and the decorated but overshadowed Allen.
Positioned as Google's answer to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Gemini aims to tap into Apple's vast user base to expand its footprint in a rapidly evolving artificial intelligence landscape.
BUSINESS / Tech
Nov 15, 2024

Google launches Gemini app — with Japanese support — on iOS App Store

The app gives iOS users direct access to Gemini, which was previously accessible only by navigating through the main Google app or a web browser.
The facade of the Okinawa Prefectural Museum & Art Museum graces the cover of Paul Tulett’s new book “Brutalist Japan: A Photographic Tour of Post-War Japanese Architecture.”
CULTURE / Books
Nov 16, 2024

Brutal beauty worth saving from the wrecking ball

Paul Tulett advocates for preserving concrete Brutalist architecture in his new book “Brutalist Japan.”
Workers remove flowers from a makeshift memorial outside the Zhuhai Sports Center in Zhuhai in south China's Guangdong province on Nov. 13, two days after 35 people were killed in one of the country's deadliest car attacks in years.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Nov 20, 2024

Mass casualty attacks in China put focus on mental health as economy slows

The events have led to a spike in worries about the health of society in China, where attacks have occurred with alarming regularity throughout 2024.
Mika Abe (right) opened a restaurant committed to animal welfare in Sendai in November.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Dec 2, 2024

Restaurant committed to animal welfare opens in Sendai

Muku offers dishes including grilled pork from pasture-raised pigs and poached eggs from cage-free chickens, served as part of a salad bowl.
A strait-laced tax officer (Seiyo Uchino) teams up with a gang of con artists to take down a crooked property developer in “Angry Squad: Civil Servant and Seven Swindlers.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2024

‘Angry Squad’: A caper comedy with a lot of heart

The film’s two-hour running time breezes by as a strait-laced tax officer joins a colorful crew of con artists.
A post-election analysis by the polling company Blueprint discovered that the top reason why American swing voters eventually supported Donald Trump over Kamal Harris was culture (+28) followed by inflation (+23).
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2024

It’s too soon to say wokeism is dead

The Republicans ran the most unwoke man in America for the presidency, Donald Trump, and were amply rewarded for it.
Scientists worry that if H5N1 spreads through commercial pig farms, it could evolve into a form capable of causing a human pandemic.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 20, 2024

Bird flu in pigs is one step closer to endangering humans

Flu viruses have historically been transmitted from pigs to people and from people to pigs — either on farms or at agricultural fairs.
Students at Fujinokuni Junior High School in the city of Iwata, Shizuoka Prefecture, learn how to write postcards in Japanese.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Chubu
Dec 2, 2024

Night schools offer alternative route to completing compulsory education

More such schools are being set up, which would provide learning opportunities to those unable to complete junior high school education.
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2024

The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’

Junichi Yasuda’s film about a time-traveling warrior is a loving tribute to the “jidaigeki” (period drama) genre and its practitioners.
The remains of the original Moji Station in Kitakyushu
JAPAN / Society
Nov 22, 2024

133-year-old Kyushu railway station remains to be partially preserved

Sections of the foundation of what used to be the locomotive shed — which experts believe is the most important element of the remains — will be kept.
Police officers remove a protest banner outside the West Kowloon Court following a sentencing hearing for 45 pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
EDITORIALS
Nov 22, 2024

Paranoia and Beijing trump democracy in Hong Kong

Concerned nations must step up as China discards the promises it made when it regained control of Hong Kong. Anything less is a betrayal.
Alarmo and other recent products reflect Nintendo's strategy of using its iconic intellectual properties to engage users while preparing for the inevitable transition to a successor console after the Nintendo Switch.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 24, 2024

Nintendo’s latest device, the Alarmo, is a $100 wake-up call

Alarmo and other recent products reflect Nintendo's strategy of leveraging its iconic IPs to engage users as it prepares for the successor to the Nintendo Switch.
Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Nov 25, 2024

Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat

The modern sauna experience is more than just taking a seat in some steam — whisking, aufguss shows and spectacle all play a part.
Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s “The Making of a Japanese” is an even-handed portrait of elementary school in Japan, where the citizens of tomorrow are forged.
CULTURE / Film
Dec 5, 2024

‘The Making of a Japanese’: A warm and engaging portrait of Japanese schoolchildren

Ema Ryan Yamazaki’s documentary is a candid and heartfelt glimpse of elementary school in Tokyo.
According to a recent survey by Child Fund Japan, a nonprofit, one in eight minors in Japan have experienced online requests from strangers to meet or for sexual photos. Despite the potential harms of social media, strong regulations are lacking.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 28, 2024

Japan doesn't need a social media ban, but it must protect children

Short of stopping minors from using social media, Japan needs to beef up its response to an evermore perilous online environment. One that adults often struggle to grasp.
Customers enter Aeon's Shinagawa Seaside store in Tokyo for a Black Friday sale in 2022.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 29, 2024

Master this double negative to better express your Black Friday urges

What better time to learn how to say you can't resist a deal than on a weekend of discounted shopping.
From late 2025, platforms including Meta's Instagram, Elon Musk's X, TikTok and Snapchat must show Australians they are taking reasonable steps to keep out users under 16 or face fines up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32 million).
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal / ANALYSIS
Nov 29, 2024

Australia looks for ways to enforce its teen social media ban

From late 2025, social media platforms including Instagram, X, TikTok and Snapchat must show Australians they are taking reasonable steps to keep out users under 16.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji