Nipponica

The story of a group of young women who were drafted from high school to the front lines of the Battle of Okinawa as Imperial Japanese Army nurses is being told through a traveling exhibition, with the many who tragically died serving as a lesson on the horrors suffered by Japanese civilians in the conflict.

Personal stories about civilians in a horrendous battle overshadowed by the atomic bombings just a few months later.

"I will concentrate on making achievements on issues that cannot be postponed," Kishida said during a parliamentary debate among party leaders, adding that he is "not thinking about anything else."

Sure buddy.

As the number of children with foreign citizenship in Japan grows rapidly, a tool enabling teaching staff to display their translated speech in real time has been introduced for the first time in the country by this city's education board.

This is great news to inclusivity for foreign students not versed in Japanese. The article states that the numbers of foreign students without language skills is over 600 in Kobe so this is a total game changer for their education in an already restrictive system.

Japan's parliament passed amendments to its political funds control law on Wednesday, cracking down on lawmakers who fail to appropriately report political income.

The amendments are part of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's efforts to restore faith in his ruling Liberal Democratic Party, which is facing record-low approval ratings and local election losses amid an enduring political kickback scandal.

This is a good explainer to the new law as well as the bottomless pit of disapproval that Kishida and his government are currently in.

Students at a junior high school here are now able to set their own class rules apart from school rules in an initiative intended to address issues in school life. However, while the system reflects some students' input, others find it confusing, and parents are questioning the entire project, the Mainichi Shimbun has discovered.

This entire story is worth a read simply to see how feckless the school was from preventing students from abusing each other with the regime they created. A personal favorite to demonstrate the monster that was created:

Meanwhile, there are also rules that the school is unaware of, such as, "Gym short drawstrings must be the same color as when purchased." The male student said, "There was an uproar in the class when someone changed their drawstring color." His mother wondered whether the students had adopted the mindset of binding people with rules.

The complaint filed with the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office the same day alleges that Koike's persistent lies about graduating from Cairo University in Egypt constitute false disclosure, Toshiro Kojima said at a press conference in Tokyo.

She denies it as expected, but if true, how did this stay under wraps until now?

Japanticket Inc., one of the partners in the project, said it started to sell tours in which travelers will fly on HondaJets to Toyama, Hiroshima and Yamaguchi prefectures. These tours are aimed at foreign tourists, with ticket prices starting at 1.5 million yen ($9,500) per person.

Definitely out of my price range and definitely not the market for the common traveler. But this could be a first step to build out a domestic aircraft manufacturer that could complete with some markets.

Tokyo Gov. Yuriko Koike and her biggest rival, opposition-backed lawmaker Renho, clashed over how to tackle the declining birthrate as they finally unveiled their pledges for next month's gubernatorial election on Tuesday, just two days before official campaigning starts.

Policy aside, it is refreshing to see no old men in the election for the top job in the capital.

In Japanese summers, the most common type of web, ones that are found ALL AROUND US, are in fact, horizontal “shelf” or “funnel” type webs. Though they are usually much more densely woven than the iconic “suspended” spider-creations, they often go unnoticed, lost in the greenery of the shrubbery in which they are set – and hard to see because of their horizontal “flatness”. But in the morning, when the dew has set in, after a rare summer-rain, or when the sunshine hits them just right, you can see that these webs cover almost every inch of the hedges and shrubbery (where left alone and untrimmed) – a veritable mine-field for unsuspecting insects who want to have a rest in the bushes.

From a local blog, a reminder from home. Do not click if spiders aren't your thing.

Tanegashima, closer to Shanghai and Seoul than Tokyo, has fewer than 30,000 people and is best known as the home of Japan's answer to Cape Canaveral, the rocket launch center of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The next launch is scheduled for June 30.

But with launches few and far between, the center hasn't spawned a broader industrial base, leaving fishing and sugarcane farming by an aging workforce as the backbone of the island economy. With Japan's fertility rate at a record low, speeding population decline, success in regenerating Tanegashima's economy could serve as a blueprint for regions across the country seeking rural revival.

Communities across rural Japan are experimenting with many different models on how to pull people in and have them stay. The JAXA draw for Tanegashima could be huge but there does looks to be a lack of investment on their part to assist the island to grow.

The digital nomad angle could work but it is still quite remote for many. And then there is the marketing problem. How does such a small island promote itself out in the wider world? A difficult proposition but hoping they will find success.

Heavy rain battered wide areas of Japan on Tuesday, disrupting bullet train services between Tokyo and Osaka and prompting the weather agency to urge caution for landslides and floods.

People living in Japan will likely recognize "Hotaru no Hikari," a song based on the Scottish folk song "Auld Lang Syne" which has become the standard tune played at shops in the country just before closing. Outside Japan, the folk song is often sung by crowds who gather on New Year's Eve to mark the turn of the year.

"When 'Hotaru no hikari' plays, Japanese people understand that it is time to close the store. However, in recent years, the number of foreigners has increased, and more people are present who do not understand its meaning. It's difficult to announce that the store is closing without spoiling the enjoyment of shopping. Therefore, we have come up with new closing music that casually announces the closing, but still allows shoppers to leave comfortably."

This is classico Japan taking an element from overseas and transforming it into something befitting local culture.

Japan's restaurant industry is deploying a two-tiered pricing system in tourist spots as eateries look to cash in on an influx of foreign visitors without alienating local customers.

Compared with the castle pricing for tourists below, I do have a problem with this if it starts to become common outside of tourist areas. For foreign residents wanting to have a meal, an identity check should not be part of the ordering process.

"We would like to charge around $30 for foreigners and around $5 for residents," Kiyomoto said at the symposium on cultural heritage and natural disasters.

When asked about his reason for the $5 fee, Kiyomoto told reporters Monday that he wants "to avoid raising the admission fee for local residents."

For cultural sites like castles, I think a higher admission fee could be appropriate for certain tourists from higher wealth countries. But grouping all tourists in a single high-cost bucket is unfair for people from less developed nations. But the challenge is obvious in devising a pricing strategy like this. You can't expect a passport check at a ticket window.

A once-bustling shopping district in the city of Gifu which boasts a 135-year history and inspired a hit song that defined its heyday will see the withdrawal of department store mega-chain Takashimaya Co. at the end of July.

Takashimaya's departure from the Yanagase shopping arcade in the central Japan city is a portent of a more worrying trend sweeping the country, as commercial districts that have coexisted with major department stores lose customers amid Japan's declining birthrate and aging population.

I have seen multiple shopping arcades fall into disrepair around Japan in recent years and it really is a sad loss. There are still many that are vibrant, but the rural areas are hit the hardest.

Japan's parliament on Friday enacted revised laws to replace the controversial foreign trainee program, which has been criticized as a cover for importing cheap labor. Japan seeks to ensure foreign workers will stay on longer in a bid to address an acute labor shortage in a rapidly greying society.

Under the new system, workers will be able to move after working in a job for one year provided their Japanese language and professional skills meet certain requirements.

Businesses in Japan that employ immigrant labor are getting a wake up call and hopefully exploitative practices start to die out. Props to the national government for passing immigration reform for this classification of visa but there is still work to do to raise all workers up to a better overall standard wage to catch up to the rest of the world.

More than half of people in Japan are not comfortable with the recent trend of emphasizing "time performance" in leisure and other daily activities, such as watching movies at double speed, a recent survey by watchmaker Seiko Group Corp. showed.

I haven't heard of タイパ before and the idea of watching a film at double speed is crazy. However, I am guilty of doing the same thing for podcasts and audiobooks so perhaps I am just as culpable for not slowing down and enjoying art.

The transfer of U.S. Marine Corps troops stationed in Japan's Okinawa to Guam will start in December, a Marines official said Sunday, the latest development in a long-agreed Japan-U.S. forces realignment plan aimed at reducing the southern island prefecture's base-hosting burden.

The plan to move 4,000 of the approximately 19,000 Marines currently in Okinawa, agreed upon in 2012, is set to be completed by around 2028, according the Congressional Research Service and other sources.

About 50 years too late and it is only a small portion of the total military based in Okinawa, but it will be a welcome improvement.

When viewed from an angle, the building resembles a ship without the bow and stern, forming a U-shape with gentle curves. According to the company, it is thought that the design was in fact inspired by a ship, since the headquarters was built on the site of a former shipyard.

I love the ugly concrete buildings that seem native to modern Japan and the unique design choices made to make them stand out. This is one example with an interesting curved base to keep fumes from coming into open windows.

The owner of a ramen restaurant in the city of Nara appeared frustrated as they described their search for a new hire. In January, they registered their business on a major job search site to hire a part-timer, but received few inquiries. Finally, in March, they got a nibble, but still couldn't fill the position. "Three people were supposed to come in for interviews, but they all pulled out. And only one of them notified me. Young people's thinking is off the rails," they said.

Interesting article about a phenomenon happening elsewhere around the world that is surely linked to a wide dissatisfaction with wages and the expectations of the worker/company relationship. The article also posits that inefficiencies in the application process turn away qualified applicants which also rings true. But they place part of the blame of workers submitting multiple simultaneous job applications as a problem when, in reality, it is a necessary part of job hunting.