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September 16, 2025
 

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​WWII

Emperor Emeritus Akihito and Empress Emerita Michiko strolled through a cabbage field in Ohinata settlement in Karuizawa, Nagano Prefecture, on Saturday.
JAPAN
Aug 24, 2025
Emperor emeritus and empress emerita visit postwar settlement
The former Emperor and former Empress have frequently visited the settlement, developed by people who returned to Japan from Manchuria in northeastern China after World War II.
Chinese military personnel take part in a rehearsal ahead of the parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Chinese People's War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War, which will be held on Sept. 3, in Beijing on Wednesday.
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Aug 24, 2025
History, triumph and trauma to take center stage at China's WWII military parade
The event will be a projection of China's growing military might amid deep-seated mistrust in the West and territorial rows with neighboring countries.
At the memorial ceremony for the sinking of the Tsushima Maru evacuation ship, attendees observe a moment of silence in honor of the victims, in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture on Friday.
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2025
Victims of 1944 U.S. torpedo attack remembered in Japan
At least 1,484 of some 1,800 people aboard the Tsushima Maru, including 784 schoolchildren, lost their lives.
Ann Burroughs, head of the Japanese American National Museum, called it "inconceivable" for the United States to be "building concentration camps, denying the lessons learned 80 years ago."
JAPAN
Aug 22, 2025
Japanese American museum blasts Trump's use of internment camp to detain people
The Trump administration set up an immigration detention center within the grounds of an army base that was used during World War II as an internment camp for Japanese Americans.
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.
JAPAN / History / Longform
Aug 22, 2025
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past
One man’s experience traces the capital's arc from wartime devastation to modern megacity in a story of resilience and reinvention.
"'Permanent peace' was uttered for the entire world. I hope there will be peace all over the world," said Michiko Suzuki, granddaughter of former Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki.
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2025
Granddaughter conveys former wartime prime minister's wish for peace
Michiko Suzuki, a granddaughter of former Prime Minister Kantaro Suzuki, continues to convey his wish for peace through her writings and lectures.
Hiroyoshi Takizawa looks at pictures from his days in wartime Manchuria as a child during an interview in Nagano in June.
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2025
A life upended by wartime mass suicides
Hiroyoshi Takizawa's life in Manchuria was comfortable at first. But when the Soviet Union invaded, his father, fearing the worst, chose mass suicide.
Students visit the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima’s Peace Memorial Park in late April. Attitudes in Japan are shifting away from the traditional pacifist views that have held sway since the end of World War II.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Aug 20, 2025
Trump shock spurs Japan to think about the unthinkable: nuclear arms
There is a growing willingness to loosen the country’s decades-old pledge not to produce, possess or host nuclear weapons in its territory.
A photograph of Akiko Kirkham and her husband, Glenn Kirkham, in their younger days
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2025
Japanese woman faced hardships in Australia after World War II
Memories of the war, such as the Imperial Japanese Army's bombing of Darwin, remained vivid for many Australians, and marriages between Australians and Japanese often faced unease.
Kenta Torihama, 33, often describes kamikaze pilots as "human beings like us."
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2025
Passing on the stories of kamikaze pilots as 'human beings, not heroes'
Kenta Torihama, 33, says the pilots "had people they wanted to protect, and they departed (on their suicide missions) after much agony and anguish."
Teruko Yahata speaks to elementary school students in the city of Hiroshima on July 1 about her wartime experience.
JAPAN
Aug 20, 2025
Atomic bomb survivor uses English to convey horrors of nuclear weapons
Determined to speak for herself, Teruko Yahata resolved to convey the cruelty and sorrow in her own words, in English, rather than through an interpreter.
A Japanese soldier (Eiji Funakoshi) with tuberculosis struggles to survive in the Filipino countryside during World War II in “Fires on the Plain.”
CULTURE / Film
Aug 20, 2025
‘Fires on the Plain’: Haunting imagery in restored 1959 war film stands the test of time
Now restored in 4K, Kon Ichikawa’s film is a far from simple survival story that stares into humanity’s darkest corners.
Inside the Mount Zozan underground bunker, which was once planned as a relocation site for government agencies, on May 22 in the city of Nagano
JAPAN / Society
Aug 19, 2025
Nagano residents recall wartime efforts to build replacement military HQ
The replacement headquarters was not completed, but construction continued until the day of Japan's surrender in the war.
Hajime Sakata, 88, talks about his war experience in the Korean Peninsula at his home in Fuefuki, Yamanashi Prefecture, in June.
JAPAN
Aug 19, 2025
Japanese man recalls 500-km journey home along Korean Peninsula after WWII
Hajime Sakata traveled with his family from what is now North Korea, where they lived, to get to Busan's port so they could return to Japan.
Shoichi Takahashi holds a photo of himself when he was younger, in Otaru, Hokkaido, on May 17.
JAPAN
Aug 18, 2025
103-year-old remembers Soviet attack right after WWII
"Since we had been fighting Americans, it was beyond my imagination that Soviets launched an attack on us three days after the end of WWII," Takahashi said.
Michi Saito touches a piece of a dummy atomic bomb that took away her brother's life in 1945, during an interview at Zuiryu Temple in Fukushima on July 14.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Aug 18, 2025
98-year-old woman recalls brother's death from dummy atomic bomb
A U.S. military unit dropped dummy bombs in various parts of Japan as part of exercises aimed at training forces to gain the high skills required to drop nuclear weapons.
The area around Shibuya Station in Tokyo. After the end of World War II, population concentration in the capital accelerated while other parts of Japan continue to see population declines.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Aug 18, 2025
80 years on: Tokyo prospers while local revitalization still insufficient
Experts stress the importance of setting up a system in which industrial resources are circulated locally in order to create a sustainable society.
Atomic bomb survivor Keiko Ogura (left) speaks with students in Sydney on Saturday.
JAPAN
Aug 17, 2025
Hiroshima hibakusha calls for nuclear abolition in Australia
Ogura has been talking about the devastation from the nuclear attack in about 50 countries.
Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto (left) and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Walter Mondale during a news conference at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo in April 1996 announcing the decision to return to Japan the site for the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air station in Okinawa Prefecture
JAPAN / Politics
Aug 17, 2025
Okinawa’s backers in LDP dwindle, prompting concern
At present, not many lawmakers are putting priority on Okinawa after measures taken by the government in the past for the development of the prefecture produced certain results.
Demonstrators burn a Rising Sun flag featuring a portrait of Hideki Tojo, former leader of Japan's Imperial Army and prime minister during World War II, outside the Japanese Consulate in Hong Kong in September 2015.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 14, 2025
Continued demands for an apology ignore Japan’s postwar progress
As the 80th anniversary of World War II’s end nears, demands for renewed Japanese apologies risk empowering authoritarian narratives, especially from China.
SDF spots China’s biggest aircraft carrier for first time
The Fujian aircraft carrier is seen in Shanghai in May 2024 as it leaves for its first sea trial.
Why more hotels in Japan are offering room-only service
Nipponia Hotel Ise Kawasaki Merchant Town in Ise, Mie Prefecture
Is America ready for Japanese-style 7-Elevens?
Convenience stores are a fixture of Japanese life and 7-Eleven, a chain that began in the U.S. in 1927, opened its first store in Japan in 1974 — and then became wholly Japanese-owned in 2005 through parent company Seven & I Holdings.
Final weeks of World Expo in Osaka likely to see large crowds
With one month left to go, crowds are expected to swell at the World Expo in Osaka during its final weeks.
Japan's elderly population down at around 36.2 million
The estimated number of people age 65 or older in Japan stands at 36.19 million as of Monday, accounting for record 29.4% of the country's total population, according to the internal affairs ministry.
Strikes on Qatar and Poland shake U.S. sway among friend and foe
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Museum of the Bible in Washington on Sept. 8. Israeli strikes in Qatar and Russian drone incursions into Poland have challenged the U.S. leaders claims of global respect.
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.
An aesthetic escape to Hakone’s art-drenched hills
Between traditional examples of fine art and sleek, modern exhibitions that blend with nature, Hakone offers a unique escape from Tokyo's urban sprawl.
Niinami’s ouster quick but not unusual as corporations protect reputation
Takeshi Niinami resigns as chairman and CEO of Suntory Holdings.
As Manila modernizes its military, new opportunities emerge for Tokyo
A Brahmos missile system is displayed during a rehearsal for a military parade in New Delhi in January. The Philippines will soon receive its second batch of the supersonic cruise missiles from India.

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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