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September 19, 2025
 

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BUBBLE

Residential buildings under construction in Shanghai in July 2022. The Chinese government risks long-term decline by repeating Japan’s policy mistakes in handling its real estate and demographic crises.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 6, 2025
China’s housing crisis is worse than it seems
Chinese policymakers — who are facing an even more severe housing and demographic crisis than Japan —are at risk of making the same mistakes.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during a discussion on the employment ice age generation in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Apr 25, 2025
‘Employment ice age generation’ returns to spotlight ahead of Upper House election
The generation, which graduated between 1993 and 2004, has long grappled with pay stagnation and irregular employment due to a tight labor market.
A Good me tea store, operated by Guming Holdings Ltd., in Chongqing, China, on Saturday. The tea chain's shares began trading in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 12, 2025
Hong Kong’s latest bubble tea IPO mints another billionaire
Guming Holdings' IPO has made founder Yun’an Wang a billionaire as China’s bubble tea market continues its rapid expansion.
People at bubble tea chain Mixue Bingcheng in Beijing on Thursday. Bubble tea is wildly popular in China, where people sipping through straws from large plastic cups is a common sight across the country.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Sep 1, 2024
Penny-pinching youth transforming China's bubble tea craze
Bubble tea is wildly popular in China and a common sight on high streets and in shopping malls across the country.
Japanese workers in their 40s and 50s — known as the "lost generation" — saw their wages rise slightly in the second quarter.
BUSINESS / Economy
Aug 29, 2024
Japan’s 'lost generation' gets a raise, and the economy, a small boost
The pay bump in the second quarter is vitally important to the economy, as consumption by Japanese workers in their 40s and 50s is an important driver of growth.
Robert C. Neff, passed away at after a long illness at 77 years old on July 31, 2024, at his home in Hayama, south of Tokyo.
COMMUNITY
Aug 25, 2024
The American journalist ahead of the game on an ascendant Japan
Neff was part of a golden age of magazine journalism as Tokyo bureau chief for Businessweek magazine and a lover of hot spring retreats.
From behind his desk in a Tokyo office, Hideki (Arata Iura) yearns for something more in life, but he is not prepared for the culture shock of life on a Montana ranch in “Tokyo Cowboy.”
CULTURE / Film / CULTURE SMASH
Jun 13, 2024
‘Tokyo Cowboy’ strikes balance between cross-cultural comedy and fish-out-of-water tale
From behind his desk in a Tokyo office, Hideki yearns for something more in life, but he is not prepared for the culture shock of life on a Montana ranch.
People exit the platform at a train station along the Yamanote Line in Tokyo in 1986. A time-traveling TV comedy with a bawdy middle-aged hero from the era has become a big hit in Japan, juxtaposing brash 1980s attitudes with the more politically correct present day.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Mar 29, 2024
Satire TV show strikes a generation-spanning chord in Japan
"Extremely Inappropriate" uses a time-traveling protagonist to humorously highlight the gap between attitudes of the 1980s and the 2020s.
Customers make a toast at an eatery in Tokyo. Many view Japan’s economy as being on the rise, and that of regional powerhouse China as declining. But how accurate is this narrative?
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 18, 2024
Japan is back, China is over. The trouble with narratives.
The idea that Japan and China's roles have flipped, with the former on the rise and the latter in decline, obfuscates important facts and trends.
Pedestrians in front of the Shinsei Bank headquarters in Tokyo in October 2021
BUSINESS / Companies
Sep 8, 2023
SBI Shinsei Bank to go private to repay public funds
By going private, SBI Shinsei Bank will free itself from the shackles of stock prices and be able to pay back the public funds "at some point."
As China slips into deflation, one word is popping up more and more to describe the gloomy atmospherics: "Japanification."
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 30, 2023
'Japanification' for China? It should be so lucky.
China is not on the path to global dominance nor set for collapse, and observers should consider the various shades of gray in analyzing these countries.
A new high-rise is erected in Beijing in October 2021. The same year, 41% of the assets in China’s banking system were accounted for by property-related loans and credit.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2023
Is Japan’s economic past China’s future?
China is facing a long period of low growth similar to Japan’s experience since the 1990s.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE RECIPE BOX
Nov 13, 2022
Recipe: Bubble and squeak
A bite of Old Blighty fit for both commoner and king.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 28, 2022
‘Bubble’: A thin plot brings down exciting visuals
Tetsuro Araki's film about teenage parkour practitioners living in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo has some exhilarating action sequences, but its jumble of genre elements falls flat.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 15, 2021
‘Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop’ bursts with love for the 1980s aesthetic
Kyohei Ishiguro's coming-of-age anime is a sweet and summery ode to the music and style of city pop.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 7, 2021
Who is afraid of bursting the bubble? Not Japan’s elite
We will never know whether the elite's proactive bursting of the bubble brought more or less pain and hardship on society than a laissez-faire approach would have.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Dec 31, 2020
In 2020, sports was about staying safe and speaking out
When the pandemic subsides, what will endure from 2020 in sports?
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 8, 2020
Zombie companies feed off the living
Like their namesakes, zombies feed off the living. They are companies that should close their doors but don't, cannibalizing healthy businesses, depriving them of customers and income.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 25, 2020
The post-COVID-19 industrial revitalization
There's still no end in sight for the pandemic crisis, but as Japan's economy averts a worst-case scenario, how to revitalize its industries is becoming a major issue.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 24, 2020
Pandemic pushes Japan's wealthy to spend like there's no tomorrow
Since overseas travel has become virtually impossible, some people have been diverting more of their disposable income into luxury items such as new cars.
Wealthy foreign nationals picking up ultimate souvenir — a condo in Tokyo
A high-end property in the fashionable Daikanyama district in Tokyo
Japan dispatches five language education 'partners' to India
Five members of the Japan Foundation's Nihongo Partners program (front) gather at the Japanese Embassy in New Delhi on Monday.
End of U.S. de minimis exemption causes headaches for some businesses in Japan
Proxy-shopping services — companies that ship Japanese products ranging from cosmetics and snacks to limited-edition stationery on behalf of customers abroad — are already feeling the impact of the U.S. suspending de minimis exemptions.
Over 90% of low-income families in Japan struggling to feed children
Save the Children Japan domestic program chief Sonoko Kawakami speaks at a news conference in Tokyo in July. A survey conducted by the group in June has found that over 90% of low-income households with children face food insecurity.
Struggling train firm in Chiba Prefecture turns to self-deprecating humor
"Laughter is important when you're in a difficult situation," said Katsunori Takemoto, president of Choshi Electric Railway, on Aug. 5 in Choshi, Chiba Prefecture.
Japan’s front-line researchers see bright path ahead for dementia treatment
A scientist looks at scans of grains at the Memory Centre at the Department of Readaptation and Geriatrics of the University Hospital (HUG) in Geneva, Switzerland, on June 6, 2023.
Still plenty to fight for, says Japan’s team leader at worlds
Race walker Hayato Katsuki earned bronze for Japan on the opening day of the World Athletics Championships on Saturday.
Wealthy foreign nationals picking up ultimate souvenir — a condo in Tokyo
A high-end property in the fashionable Daikanyama district in Tokyo
Japanese athletes inspired by raucous home fans at World Athletics Championships
Fans cheer on the home favorites during the women's marathon at the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo on Sunday.
Japan's major art events converge this fall
Shinji Ohmaki’s “Tokinokage” exhibited at Fuji Textile Week 2021 shows the use of fabric as art.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’
By Alex K.T. Martin

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