Nipponica

Japan said Wednesday it has lodged protests with Russia over its warnings of a live-fire drill and temporary restrictions on foreign vessels in waters off Russian-held, Japanese-claimed islands off Hokkaido.

The islands, called the Northern Territories by Japan and the Southern Kurils by Russia, have long been a source of friction between the two countries, preventing them from signing a peace treaty after World War II.

Japan's top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said at a press conference that the government had received two warnings from Russian authorities regarding the moves taking place in areas including in Japanese "territorial waters."

As someone that appreciates consistency in foreign policy, I welcome a unification in Russian strategy for violating borders on both sides of its empire.

Payments for popular water buffalo cart rides on remote islands in Okinawa Prefecture will soon become smoother thanks to contactless technology.

From Oct. 23, contactless payments by credit and debit cards, as well as smartphone apps, will be accepted at the ticket counter for the roundtrip rides across the shallow sea between the Iriomote and Yubu islands in Okinawa Prefecture, according to an announcement made Tuesday by Bank of The Ryukyus, a regional bank based in Naha, and other companies involved, including Sumitomo Mitsui Card.

So disappointed they aren’t installing Suica readers on the Okinawan wildlife.

With Japan’s parliament poised to vote on who it wants to next lead the country, a resurgent opposition and the collapse of the ruling coalition have put the prospect of the nation’s first female prime minister in real doubt.

Good summary of the PM state of play as of now.

Overseas assignments are often seen as prestigious and a fast track to promotion, but a recent survey found that more than 90% of companies have experienced cases where expatriates returned to Japan before completing their term abroad.

The most common reason for early returns was "failures in adapting to local culture," according to a September survey by Bizmates Inc., a Tokyo-based provider of programs including business-focused online English conversation services. The survey targeted 400 human resource development managers at companies with 500 or more employees that offer overseas postings. While pre-assignment training typically focuses on safety and language skills, the survey noted a "potential mismatch between training content and actual needs."

Interesting to see the opposite view of a Japanese person working abroad and the struggles they face. Perhaps this will help increase mutual understanding of how foreign workers in Japan feel. Or, more likely, perhaps not.

The continuing development of Tokyo's railway infrastructure is fueling further growth of the capital's sprawling metropolitan area, solidifying its status as the world's largest with 37 million people -- about a third of Japan's total population.

The railway network growth has facilitated Tokyo's outward spread, attracting more people from rural regions to urban centers. The ongoing development includes investments in railways and redevelopment projects, with the future completion of the super fast Linear Chuo Shinkansen maglev line promising even faster commuting options, such as from Nagoya in central Japan to Tokyo.

Since the 2000s, redevelopment has led to a resurgence of migration to central Tokyo. The Greater Tokyo area, encompassing Tokyo and three neighboring prefectures of Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama, continues to expand both outward and inward.

Love the shoutout to Tsukuba and the Tsukuba Express commute as the example of urban growth in the Greater Tokyo region. TX forever!

A cable car connecting the middle section and top of Mt. Tsukuba in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, celebrated 100 years of operation on Sunday.

The cable car is an indispensable means of transportation for more than 400,000 tourists visiting the mountain each year, but it was once discontinued during war because it was considered unnecessary. Tsukuba Scenic Railway Co., the operator of the cable car, says it hopes that visitors will feel the history of the long-loved cable car.

The 1,634-meter-long cable car line links Miyawaki Station at an altitude of 305 meters above the sea level and Tsukuba-sancho Station near the top of Mt. Nantai, with a one-way trip taking about eight minutes.

A salute to an icon from my hometown.

The Hokkaido Spaceport in the town of Taiki, located on Japan's northern main island, has rocketed to global prominence after it hosted the first launch of a foreign vessel earlier this summer.

The port has now received inquiries about possible launches from 13 or 14 companies from around the world.

"Until recently, our main challenge was to raise awareness," said Yoshinori Odagiri, CEO of Space Cotan, which operates Hokkaido Spaceport (HOSPO). "Now we've reached the stage where people are coming to us to collaborate."

When you have the major infrastructure like a launch site already built, industry will build around it. Should be bright days ahead for south Hokkaido.

Resembling shark fins poking above the waterline, the tails of taxiing airplanes are just visible over the tall white fence that separates Kinone Pension from the runways of Narita airport.

Like circling marine predators, the aircraft represent the threat the surrounding airport poses to the property that rises like a green island oasis from the asphalt.

A really cool visual history of Narita and the fight against its expansion by Kyodo.

East Japan Railway, or JR East, said Tuesday that it will introduce a successor to its East-i inspection train for shinkansen lines in fiscal 2029. The next-generation model's design will be finalized around next summer after ideas are sought from employees across JR East group companies.

Launched in 2002, the East-i inspects the tracks and other facilities of the Tohoku, Joetsu, Hokuriku, Yamagata and Akita Shinkansen lines while traveling. While the East-i travels at speeds of up to 275 kilometers per hour, the maximum speed of its successor will be 320 kph, the same as that for trains on the Tohoku Shinkansen line.

Doctor Yellow, a similar inspection train for the Tokaido Shinkansen line of Central Japan Railway, or JR Central, and the Sanyo Shinkansen line of West Japan Railway, or JR West, is slated to be retired, and a regular shinkansen for passenger transportation is expected to take over its role after being equipped with inspection devices.

We need our own Doctor Yellow up north.

Sanae Takaichi, former economic security minister, was elected leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Saturday and is likely to become the first female prime minister within two weeks, succeeding the outgoing Shigeru Ishiba.

She defeated Agriculture Minister Shinjiro Koizumi in a run-off that was held after none of the five candidates was able to secure a majority in the first round of voting.

She is also the first female president in the LDP’s 70-year history. The arch-conservative was close to the late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, another right-wing LDP leader. She has publicly stated that she sees former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as her role model.

Good to see the trend line of horrible election results is continuing.

Octopus mobile app users can now make payments at millions of merchants across Japan in a move that will bring convenience to many Hongkongers planning to visit the country.

This is using the PayPay system to register payments. It’s kinda crazy that PayPay is becoming a quasi-open network for payments in the country but I’m all for it if they continue to integrate foreign systems.

The municipal government said Thursday that it was no longer able to secure a spectators' gallery for the fireworks because a related "open base" event at the Yokosuka base was called off amid the government shutdown.

The U.S. Navy base has been one of the venues for members of the public to see the annual fireworks display for years. The city was expecting that half of the roughly 190,000 spectators it had hoped to attract this year would view the event from the base.

The one kind of boom that will be cut by this government.

In January, the government decided to recognize same-sex partners under 24 laws and ordinances including the spousal violence prevention law and the land and building leases law.

Meanwhile, the government maintains the position that same-sex partners are not covered by 120 laws and ordinances, including those related to taxes and social security.

As the article cites, 120 more unequal laws to go. The Japanese government will do anything to not alter marriage laws but if we do this piecemeal, maybe this is the way to backdoor equality.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Wednesday was given an award for the celebrity who looks best in glasses in the political category.

The 68-year-old Japanese leader, who has decided to step down after about a year in office following setbacks in national elections, is the first sitting prime minister in 29 years to be chosen as the politician with the "best dressed eyes" after Ryutaro Hashimoto, according to the award presenter.

"Sometimes good things happen in life," Ishiba, who called the award "unexpected," said at the ceremony held as part of a major trade show for optical and eyewear-related products in Tokyo.

Hey, give the guy one place where the public likes him.

Analysts and tourism officials say the slowdown points to deeper structural shifts in Japan’s outbound travel patterns, though some US states are reporting modest gains and looking to high-profile events and celebrity appeal to reignite interest.

At the Tourism Expo Japan 2025 in Nagoya, which concluded on Sunday with nearly 127,000 visitors, only three US states – California, Washington and Hawaii – hosted stand-alone booths. That marked a significant pullback from previous years, when Alaska, Oregon, Florida and major cities such as New York and Chicago were also prominently represented.

“The outbound tourism market to the US is very tough, although there are some small increases to the mainland,” said Masakazu Yamaguchi, head of Japan sales for Delta Air Lines and a member of the Visit US Japan promotion organisation.

The weak yen and safety concerns were always a concern but now both have exponentially increased in recent years. Bad news for Hawaii but will the rest of the country even notice?

Repeated sightings of brown bears near a residential area in this northern Japan city's Minami Ward have prompted city authorities to call for caution.

On Sept. 30, the Sapporo Municipal Government released an image of a brown bear spotted at about 3:50 a.m. the same day by a surveillance camera set up on a forest road in the ward's Fujino district. The footage showed a brown bear walking by itself. It remains unclear how big the bear was as its full body was not shown.

All technically correct but it is important to note that southern Sapporo City is largely rural and mountainous so it isn’t like these sightings are in the urban city proper.

Star Flyer will resume regular international flights to and from Japan next year, anticipating traffic from Taiwan as domestic business passenger numbers languish.

The regional airline, which is based on Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu, has not flown scheduled flights on international routes since March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. "We will restart international flights sometime in 2026," President Osamu Machida told Nikkei. "We want to take advantage of Kyushu's proximity to Asia."

More competition in international routes, the better.

Toyota Motor Corp. on Thursday officially launched Woven City, a cutting-edge demonstration site where participants including companies from a range of industries will work together to develop new products and services.

The site in Susono, Shizuoka Prefecture, will host experiments on auto-related technologies such as autonomous driving and other diverse themes including food, educational methods and air conditioning.

Toyota is among the 20 companies and individual “inventors” participating in the project. Major air conditioner manufacturer Daikin Industries, Ltd. will conduct experiments to create “pollen-free spaces,” and coffee product maker UCC Japan Co. will use cameras to analyze the movements of cafe users to investigate the effect of coffee on people’s creativity and productivity. Toyota has high hopes that harnessing the technologies and knowledge of each participating company will help lead to the development of new products and services.

Been following this for a long time. This is essentially a Japanese EPCOT with a heavy focus on the automotive industry. The key to success is if ten years from now, there is still innovation going on here. Otherwise it will just be a boondoggle for 2025 tech.

The scheme, which would have promoted international exchanges through observation and training, was not intended to encourage accepting immigrants or to issue special visas.

Despite this, the four cities received numerous complaints, leading the municipalities to request either a change in the name of the project or a complete review of the program’s scope.

The management and PR of this program was a cluster from day one. Ultimately, this was just a rebranded ‘sister city’ arrangement, but poor communication convinced people that it would allow open immigration from these four African countries. Complete disaster.

The change, approved by an education ministry working group, will give local education boards the options of adopting only digital textbooks, using them alongside paper ones -- an option already available -- or sticking with paper textbooks only.

The Central Council for Education has said that the move will lead to wider textbook choices, facilitate learning that accommodates the increasingly digital nature of society and generate new, creative teaching methods.

However, some experts have expressed concern that the use of digital textbooks may increase the burden on teachers and textbook publishers and cause impaired eyesight and other health issues among students.

There will be pushback for some good reasons but this is clearly the future. I do worry though about the ability to change history in all of a country’s textbooks on a whim. The potential for abuse is huge and needs to be addressed.