NEWSWORTHY
Elementary school kids can say the darndest things online
People usually don’t take the thoughts of a 10-year-old child too seriously. Elementary school kids can say the darndest things, and only the nastiest of bullies take any notice of them saying something stupid. Unless, that is, the child in question happens to be an ...
Attempting to switch off from social media during Golden Week
As the relaxed vibe of the recent 10-day Golden Week holiday slowly fades, many commuters in Tokyo appeared to struggle last week to return to the rat race. The longer than usual holiday offered people an opportunity to travel abroad or chill out at ...
Social media fails to follow traditional news outlets' stricter approach to portrait rights in Japan
A man in Chiba Prefecture became irritated last month at how long it was taking for a barrier at a rail crossing to open. Losing patience, he fetched a hand saw from his van and removed the barrier arm so that he could drive ...
Japan's internet took on a life of its own during the Heisei Era
The story of a recent online phenomenon offers a great snapshot of internet culture in Japan during the Heisei Era (1989-2019). Twitter user @Ninjamaaaaaan posted a blurry photo of a pooch in motion, with its tail swooping in front of its face. It looked ...
Exploring rural Japan from the comfort of your living room with 'The Inaka Project'
Video games usually have some level of conflict or pressure — solve this puzzle, blow up this machine, defeat this monster and so forth. That’s not the case with Inasa Fujio’s “The Inaka Project,” a first-person narrative game that leisurely takes players through Japan’s ...
Social media weighs in on design and purpose of Japan's new bank notes
Social media has been awash with posts following the public unveiling of Japan’s new era name, Reiwa, at the beginning of April. The announcement was almost the complete opposite of an April Fools’ Day joke and yet every detail has been picked apart online, ...
Getting to the bottom of Chicano subculture coverage on Japan
Over the past month and a half, a number of Western media outlets have revisited a topic that has long been a hit for online publications. In late February, The New York Times published “Inside Japan’s Chicano Subculture,” a video documenting a niche group in ...
Denki Groove campaign reveals what Japan truly thinks of celebrities embroiled in drug scandals
It doesn’t take much for a celebrity drug scandal to be picked up by domestic news outlets in Japan, so when TV personality Pierre Taki was arrested on suspicion of cocaine use on March 12, it’s perhaps not surprising that TV and print media ...
Alarming results in literacy survey stir debate on social media in Japan
A Feb. 16 report on the country’s literacy has been causing a stir on social media, prompting a number of users to warn of impending intellectual doom. The report on Bunshun Online discussed a 2013 study compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and ...
Spotify has one eye on untapped podcast market in Japan
Spotify paid nearly $340 million to acquire podcast producer Gimlet Media and services provider Anchor in deals disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, prompting analysts to start considering what this all meant for the industry. The growth of podcasts in recent years ...
Reaction to Niigata bullying video reflects changing attitudes in Japan
A video of a first-year high school student in Niigata being bullied appeared online in mid-February and quickly became a topic of discussion. The clip shows a group of male students pushing, kicking and eventually striking the victim with a stick, all while throwing ...
Japanese teen's aborted bid to hitchhike across the United States divides social media
Twitter user @REIbahobahoanta had an ambitious dream: The 15-year-old junior high school student wanted to hitchhike across the United States. This wasn’t the teen’s first attempt at traveling around a region via another person’s car, as he has already traversed Hokkaido, Tohoku and Kyushu by ...
