Tag - kobe

 
 

KOBE

Security camera footage shows a person who appears to be Masashi Tanimoto on Aug. 20, the day when a woman was murdered in Kobe.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 29, 2025
Kobe murder suspect targeted victim because she was his ‘type’
Masashi Tanimoto, 35, had also allegedly followed a different woman home prior to last week’s incident.
Masashi Tanimoto arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the fatal stabbing of a woman in Kobe, is sent to prosecutors on Sunday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 24, 2025
Man arrested in Kobe stabbing had been staying at hotel near victim’s home
The suspect, a resident of Tokyo, is believed to have followed the woman home from a nearby train station.
Masashi Tanimoto, 35, the suspect in the deadly stabbing a 24-year-old woman, is taken into custody in Kobe on Friday night.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 23, 2025
Man arrested over deadly stabbing of woman in Kobe
The victim was found bleeding from multiple stab wounds on the sixth-floor landing of an apartment building Wednesday.
Investigators from the Hyogo Prefectural Police examine an area near an apartment building where a 24-year-old woman was fatally stabbed in Kobe on Wednesday evening.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Aug 21, 2025
24-year-old woman fatally stabbed in Kobe apartment building
Police are treating the case as a homicide and are searching for the suspect, believed to be in his 20s or 30s.
English forward Marcus Rashford during his introductory news conference after he joined Barcelona on loan from Manchester United on Wednesday.
SOCCER
Jul 24, 2025
'It feels like home': Rashford joins Barcelona on loan from Manchester United
Meanwhile, Barcelona canceled a preseason friendly against Vissel Kobe on Wednesday, citing "serious contractual breaches" by the tour promoter.
Japan's Shohei Ohtani carries the Japanese flag onto the field before the start of the World Baseball Classic final against the United States in Miami on March 21, 2023.
BASEBALL
May 15, 2025
Historian Rob Fitts discovers earliest ever reference to baseball in Japan
The widely held belief is that American Horace Wilson introduced the sport to Japan in 1872. Fitts' discovery revises the timeline to 1869.
Yamaguchi-gumi executives (center and right) leave the Hyogo Prefectural Police headquarters in Kobe after submitting a pledge to end turf battles on Monday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 8, 2025
Yamaguchi-gumi pledges end to yakuza war
The crime syndicate has been involved in turf battles with the rival Kobe Yamaguchi-gumi, formed by more than a dozen gangs that splintered from it, since 2015.
Hyogo police believe the handgun a U.S. tourist inadvertently brought into Japan slipped through security procedures at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Apr 2, 2025
U.S. tourist arrested after bringing a handgun into Japan
The man has said the gun was for self-defense and that he had packed the firearm by mistake.
The building of new high-rise residential buildings has some alarmed that they could empty and fall into disrepair as Japan's population shrinks.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Feb 24, 2025
The high cost of letting Japan's condos crumble
With rising repair costs, dwindling reserve funds and an aging population of owners, thousands of buildings are at risk of falling into disrepair.
Katsumi Murakami, a Lawson convenience store owner in Kobe, talks about his experience in the 1995 earthquake and how convenience stores can serve a lifeline in times of disaster.
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2025
Convenience stores' importance grew after Kobe earthquake, one owner says
The owner recalled handing out food from his Lawson convenience store following the 1995 earthquake and ensuring it was open for business three months later.
Children pray for the victims of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake during an early morning ceremony to mark the 30th anniversary of the quake, in Kobe on Friday.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 17, 2025
30th anniversary of Hanshin quake marked with desire to pass on lessons
Hyogo Prefecture is also calling on the central government to pick Kansai as the base of a new disaster relief agency currently in the works.
Sunflowers grow in an empty plot of land in 1995 in Kobe where a home once stood before being destroyed by the Great Hanshin Earthquake.
JAPAN
Jan 17, 2025
30 years after the Kobe earthquake, sunflowers serve as a ray of hope
The sunflowers that grew in an empty plot of land in Kobe became the topic of picture books and textbooks.
Roxana Oshiro and her husband gather their belongings in front of their house in Furukawacho, in Kobe's Suma Ward, after the Great Hanshin Earthquake in 1995.
JAPAN / Society / FOCUS
Jan 17, 2025
The efforts to bridge the disaster information gap, 30 years on
Disaster information didn't reach many non-Japanese speakers after the Great Hanshin Earthquake struck. Thirty years later, has the situation improved?
Mitsuaki Gatayama (right) poses for a picture with his wife, Miyuki, and their children, Kaede and Yo, in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, last week.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 16, 2025
Man born on day of Kobe quake strives to brighten lives
Thirty years later, Mitsuaki Gatayama still carries the hope of his parents in his name, in his heart and his career.
Kinki Taxi President Kiyoto Morisaki in Kobe on Dec. 16
JAPAN
Jan 15, 2025
Disaster area tour helping Kobe revival 30 years after 1995 quake
The tour program began in around 2000, and over 100 schools have taken part so far.
Staff Sgt. Akihiro Yamamoto reflects on the Great Hanshin Earthquake while looking at materials at the Ground Self-Defense Force's Itami base in city of Itami, Hyogo Prefecture in December.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 14, 2025
How the SDF has earned trust through disaster relief efforts
Public sentiment toward the SDF was markedly colder during the Great Hanshin Earthquake, service personnel recall.
Participants observe a minute of silence for the victims of the Jan. 17, 1995, earthquake during an event for the the Coming-of-Age Day in Kobe on Monday.
JAPAN
Jan 14, 2025
20-year-olds celebrated in Kobe 30 years after earthquake
A minute of silence was observed for the victims of the Jan. 17, 1995, earthquake.
Two people who were found Thursday in their relative's home in the city of Kobe had sustained wounds like they had been beaten.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jan 3, 2025
Three people found dead in Kobe home
Three people were found dead at a home in Kobe in an apparent dispute between relatives.
Police inspect the scene of a stabbing at Sannomiya subway station in Kobe's Chuo Ward on Wednesday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Dec 18, 2024
Police detain woman in Kobe stabbing incident 
The suspect, Yuko Yamamoto, of unknown address and occupation, was detained on the spot on suspicion of attempted murder, according to local media.
Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako speak with winners of the Praemium Imperiale at the Imperial Palace on Nov. 20. The imperial couple will attend a memorial ceremony to mark the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake in January.
JAPAN
Dec 16, 2024
Emperor and empress to attend Hanshin Quake Memorial on anniversary
The imperial couple will be briefed by Hyogo Gov. Motohiko Saito on the reconstruction situation and visit the Hyogo Prefectural Hyogo-no-Tsu Museum.

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past