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June 06, 2025
 

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COURTS

Okinawa Gov. Denny Tamaki (center) takes part in a joint patrol by the U.S. military and the Okinawa Prefectural Police in the city of Okinawa in April in response to a series of sexual assault and other incidents involving U.S. service personnel.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 2, 2025
U.S. Marine in Okinawa pleads not guilty to sexual assault
Okinawa has seen a series of sexual assault and other incidents involving U.S. military personnel since last year.
Plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit seeking welfare benefit cuts to be revoked and their lawyers walk to the Supreme Court in Tokyo on May 27.
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2025
Welfare benefit reductions totaled about ¥300 billion between 2013 and 2018
The government decided to reduce welfare benefits during that time period based on factors such as the cost-of-living falling.
Remains taken by researchers from Kyoto Imperial University, which is now Kyoto University, from a tomb in Okinawa Prefecture in the early 20th century have been returned, it was learned Thursday.
JAPAN
May 30, 2025
Okinawan remains looted in early Showa Era returned by Kyoto University
The remains had been taken from a tomb built in the middle ages in the Okinawan village of Nakijin.
Ohkawara Kakohki CEO Masaaki Okawara (third from left) holds a sign saying "Complete victory" in Tokyo on Wednesday after the Tokyo High Court upheld a lower court ruling ordering the government to pay damages over investigations into a case against him and the company.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 28, 2025
Central and Tokyo governments ordered to compensate over probe
The case related to spray-dryer-maker Ohkawara Kakohki and allegations of an illegal export.
The Yokohama District Public Prosecutors Office on Friday indicted Hideyuki Shirai, a former boyfriend of Asahi Okazaki, whose body was found at his house in the city of Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture. The photo was taken on May 3 at Haneda Airport.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 23, 2025
Ex-boyfriend of dead woman charged over Kawasaki stalking
The prosecutors office in the Kanagawa capital charged 27-year-old Hideyuki Shirai, of no fixed occupation, with damaging and abandoning a corpse.
A female Osaka prosecutor in her 50s speaks about how she was sexually assaulted, at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 21, 2025
Female prosecutor says she experienced secondary victimization in rape case
The prosecutor said the prosecutors office where she worked turned a blind eye after she reported the case, and slanderous comments about her spread at work.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and other ministers ahead of a Cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's Office on Friday
JAPAN / Politics
May 16, 2025
Japan enacts bills to make criminal procedures digital
The revised laws will make trial records digital to allow lawyers to view them online.
The Tokyo District Court on Friday handed suspended prison sentences to Keito Hosomichi, 27, and his 58-year-old father, Masato, after finding them guilty of violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 9, 2025
Former Tokyo Stock Exchange employee and father convicted of insider trading
Keito Hosomichi, 27, passed along confidential corporate information to his father, who then profited by investing in the shares of three companies.
The Tokyo High Court in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward. The court also upheld the Tokyo District Court's sentence of 18 months in jail, suspended for three years, for Kenichiro Yokomizo, the former president of a Hakuhodo group firm.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 9, 2025
Hakuhodo's appeal dismissed in Tokyo Games bid-rigging case
It is the first high court ruling in a series of bid-rigging cases related to the Tokyo Games, held in 2021.
Sapporo’s Susukino district. Hiroko Tamura, the mother of a 31-year-old woman suspected of killing and beheading a man in the district in 2023, was sentenced on Wednesday to one year and two months in prison, suspended for three years, for aiding in the mutilation and concealment of a corpse.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 7, 2025
Mother of suspect in Sapporo beheading case sentenced for role in cover-up
Hiroko Tamura was sentenced to one year and two months in prison, suspended for three years, for aiding in the mutilation and concealment of a corpse.
Chief Justice Yukihiko Imasaki
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 3, 2025
Supreme Court chief vows to handle retrial requests swiftly
"There have not been many requests for retrial, so it is not easy to share and accumulate experiences," Supreme Court Chief Justice Yukihiko Imasaki said.
In a news conference in Tokyo on Friday, Tokie Tanaka, 64, details her allegations of sexual abuse against a Catholic priest.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 2, 2025
Woman says archbishop of Tokyo ignored her pleas after priest allegedly raped her
The woman's lawyer blamed the archbishop for failing to take appropriate actions after the woman told the congregation about the alleged abuse.
Plaintiffs celebrate the Tokyo High Court's ruling in a same-sex marriage lawsuit in Tokyo on Oct. 30.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 2, 2025
Signs of change emerge in constitutional interpretation of same-sex marriage
In a country often seen as a laggard on the rights of sexual minorities, five high courts all ruled against the ongoing ban on same-sex marriage just in the last year.
Satoshi Egura, who was accidentally swapped with another newborn at a Tokyo maternity hospital in 1958, speaks during a news conference after the Tokyo Metropolitan Government agreed to help him find his birth parents.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 25, 2025
Tokyo government to search for birth parents of man switched as newborn
The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will begin a search for the birth parents of a 67-year-old man accidentally switched as a newborn at a now-closed maternity hospital.
Takahiro Fujii (center), the president of Try and E, and his lawyers speak during a news conference on Friday in Tokyo after a ruling was handed down in a case against Amazon Japan.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 25, 2025
Tokyo court fines Amazon Japan ¥35 million over counterfeit products
Presiding Judge Yuko Shintani deemed Amazon’s response to the issue to be “indicative of willful misconduct, or at the very least, gross negligence.”
A group of lawyers representing a former journalist — who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a now-deceased secretary of a lawmaker — speak at a news conference in Tokyo on Thursday following a ruling that ordered the government to pay damages to her.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 25, 2025
Government ordered to pay over sexual assault by lawmaker's former aide
A Tokyo court ordered the ¥4.4 million ($30,850) payment to a former female journalist who was allegedly assaulted by the now-deceased government-paid secretary.
A plaintiff for a damages lawsuit against Morinaga Milk Industry speaks at a news conference in Osaka after the Osaka District Court dismissed her claims.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 23, 2025
Osaka District Court dismisses lawsuit against Morinaga Milk in arsenic case
Presiding Judge Takenori Nomura ruled the 20-year statute of repose for tort claims had already passed.
The logo of Jetstar Airways on an aircraft parked outside a maintenance hangar in Melbourne, Australia, on Feb. 27.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 22, 2025
Jetstar Japan fined for failing to provide adequate cabin crew breaks
This is the first time a ruling has been handed down in Japan regarding flight attendants' rest time, according to the plaintiffs.
The first meeting of a subcommittee under the Legislative Council to discuss a review of the retrial system on Monday at the Justice Ministry
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 22, 2025
Panel agrees on need to revise retrial system
Public calls for a review of the retrial system, which has not been revised since the country's criminal procedure law was established in 1948, have been growing.
Plaintiff Satoshi Egura, 67, stands near the former site of the now-defunct Sumida Maternity Hospital in Tokyo's Sumida Ward on April 16. A mix-up at the hospital in 1958 led to Egura being raised by a couple who are not his biological parents.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 21, 2025
Tokyo government ordered to find man's birth parents 67 years after mix-up
The mix-up in 1958 at the now-defunct Sumida Maternity Hospital led to plaintiff Satoshi Egura being raised by another couple.
Japan’s fertility rate hits record low despite government push
The total number of births dropped to about 686,000, marking the first time the figure has fallen below 700,000, according to a health ministry release on Wednesday.
Japan eyes tougher rules for foreign residents and tax hike for tourists
A tax-free shop in Kyoto in April 2024. Last week, members of a Liberal Democratic Party study group drafted a proposal seeking to scrap the country's tax-free shopping system altogether.
Hakuho’s departure highlights worrying sumo trend
Former <i>yokozuna</i> Hakuho performs a ring-entering ceremony at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in February 2020.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
Is Japan ready to say goodbye to tax-free shopping?
Arrows lead to the tax-free counter at a branch of discount retailer Don Quijote in Tokyo's Shibuya Ward.
New Naoshima museum bets on Asia, not the West
Detail of Takashi Murakami, “Rakuchu-Rakugai-zu Byobu: Iwasa Matabei RIP” (2023-25)
Japan’s prison reform focuses on rehabilitation
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Friday. Suzuki said preparations for the changes that will focus more on rehabilitation are being actively made at each correctional facility.
Six months into 2025, J-pop is having a full-on identity crisis (and a great time)
The year so far is only proving that Mrs. Green Apple is the biggest band in Japan. Their success also seems to be hinting at a change in the musical landscape more broadly.
Nintendo’s Switch 2 console is finally here
The Switch 2 is Nintendo's first new gaming console in eight years.
Hakuho’s departure highlights worrying sumo trend
Former <i>yokozuna</i> Hakuho performs a ring-entering ceremony at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in February 2020.

Podcast

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

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
By Alex K.T. Martin

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