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June 06, 2025
 

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POLICE

Keita Ueno (right), the owner of Kiki Driving School and an instructor who supports both foreign nationals and Japanese citizens returning from abroad in getting their foreign driver’s licenses converted, is worried about the current lax system for the process.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal / FOCUS
Jun 6, 2025
Accidents raise concern over how Japan vets foreign drivers
A driving school owner points out that traffic signs could carry different meanings in other countries, and driving standards might vary significantly.
National Police Agency data showed a 24.1% increase in stalking-related arrests last year, with 1,341 individuals detained for violating the anti-stalking law, marking the highest figure since its revision in 2016.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 5, 2025
Stalking-related arrests surge by 24% in 2024 to record high
Restraining orders issued under the anti-stalking law also climbed 23% last year, according to the National Police Agency.
The National Police Agency headquarters in Tokyo
JAPAN
Jun 5, 2025
Child abuse cases hit record high in Japan in 2024
The number of victims rose by 285 from the previous year to 2,700.
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.
JAPAN / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 5, 2025
Japan eyes tougher rules for foreign residents and tax hike for tourists
Ideas range from stricter driver's license tests for foreign nationals to increasing taxes on foreign visitors.
Investigators inspect a construction site in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward on May 28 after an explosion occurred there a day earlier.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Jun 2, 2025
Tokyo construction site blast caused by gas cylinder buried in the ground
The gas cylinder "may have been illegally dumped a long time ago" at the site, which was a paved parking lot for about 40 years.
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.
Members of the Kyoto Prefectural Police department's bicycle patrol unit, known as the Be-Unit, in the city of Kyoto in April
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 28, 2025
Kyoto police deploy bicycle squad to crack down on reckless riding
The unit, launched in April last year under the traffic police force, has proven to be agile and effective.
"Handguns" sold over online shopping websites. The National Police Agency has issued a warning about toy pistols sold online that are capable of firing live ammunition.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 27, 2025
Police issue warning over toy pistols capable of firing live rounds
Possession of such products constitutes a violation of the firearms and swords control law, the National Police Agency said.
A photo provided by a witness shows the scene of an explosion in Tokyo's Edogawa Ward on Tuesday.
JAPAN / Society
May 27, 2025
Gas explosion injures 10 at Tokyo construction site, prompting evacuation
Police said workers had been driving piles into the ground for a new condominium when they likely struck an underground gas pipe, triggering the explosion.
Osaka Prefectural Police have arrested two men for allegedly stealing a safe containing roughly ¥100 million ($702,500) from the home of a company president last year.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 27, 2025
Osaka police arrest two men in ¥100 million home burglary
Investigators believe the suspects may have had advance knowledge of both the cash and the location of a spare key inside the home for the safe they stole.
Members of the Okinawa Prefectural Police and the U.S. military conduct a joint patrol in the city of Okinawa in April. Prefectural police arrested a U.S. Marine for an alleged hit-and-run case on Sunday.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 26, 2025
U.S. Marine arrested for Okinawa hit-and-run that injured four
Lance Cpl. Ivan Garcia-Martinez’s breathalyzer test showed an alcohol level approximately twice the legal limit, police said.
Posters, flowers, and letters are placed at a memorial honoring victims of police violence in George Floyd Square in Minneapolis on May 18.
WORLD / Society
May 25, 2025
George Floyd's uncertain legacy is marked five years on
Americans on Sunday mark five years since George Floyd was killed by a U.S. police officer, as President Donald Trump backtracks on reforms designed to tackle racism.
Family members, friends and Minneapolis residents pay their respects at the memorial site where George Floyd was murdered on May 25, 2020, by police officer Derek Chauvin, ahead of the fifth anniversary of Floyd’s death on Friday.
WORLD / Society
May 25, 2025
Did George Floyd protesters miss their moment for change?
Despite widespread revulsion at racism and police brutality, many turned away when BLM activists broadened their message to calling for the defunding of law enforcement.
According to the Aichi prefectural police, the suspect is a high school student in the prefectural capital of Nagoya who returned to Japan after being taken into custody by Thai authorities.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 24, 2025
Aichi police arrest Nagoya teen for involvement in Myanmar fraud ring
The boy allegedly conspired with other suspects to defraud a man from Mie Prefecture who was on a business trip to the U.S. state of Oregon.
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.
Police have arrested a former taxi driver on suspicion of drugging and raping a female passenger, with media reports saying there could be dozens more victims.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 22, 2025
Japan taxi driver suspected of raping 50 women, reports say
Reports say that the police found about 3,000 videos and images of him sexually assaulting around 50 women in his taxi or his home.
Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department headquarters. Along with the National Police Agency, the MPD will carry out a major reorganization to beef up investigations into tokuryū groups.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 22, 2025
Japan police to launch team targeting tokuryū masterminds
The new police office is set to gather and assess information on tokuryū leaders around the country and identify targets for crackdowns.
Liberal Democratic Party policy chief Itsunori Onodera (fourth from left) visits a driver's license center in Shinagawa Ward, Tokyo, on Wednesday to see how foreign driver's licenses are converted into Japanese ones.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 22, 2025
Japan considers toughening rules on driver's license conversions
The National Police Agency revealed the plan amid concerns that the system for converting a foreign license is too easy.
Tokyo police have arrested a postal worker on suspicion of making a threatening call to a woman using personal information found on her mail.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 22, 2025
Postal worker accused of making threatening call to woman using delivery info
Suspect Yoichi Nose allegedly called the woman using a phone number found on her mail and threatened her by referencing voyeuristic videos he claimed to have had of her.
The family of a woman who was found dead in her ex-boyfriend's house in Kawasaki have complained that the Kanagawa Prefectural Police failed to make any moves after she went missing.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
May 21, 2025
Family of deceased stalker victim had complained about police inaction
According to the family, the victim had frequently told her friends and relatives, as well as the police, about harassment and stalking by the former boyfriend.
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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