Nipponica

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.

The man, a resident of Sapporo's Chuo Ward, was arrested on suspicion of speeding in violation of the Road Traffic Act. According to police, his recorded speed of 183 kph -- 123 kph over the limit -- was the highest speeding violation since the introduction of portable speed enforcement devices in 2019.

Police said the man was on his way home at the time, and had admitted to the allegations against him, stating, "I was going fishing the next day, so I wanted to get home quickly to sleep."

Obvious safety violation but I appreciate the honestly. Sleep is worth it.

Japan and the United States are making arrangements for U.S. President Donald Trump to visit Japan around the time he attends a forum in South Korea starting Oct. 31, government sources said Thursday.

Prepare the defenses.

Pilots are treated differently compared with other employees. The average annual salary for pilots is 20.05 million yen ($135,000), according to JAL's securities filings, while ground and cabin crews average 6.43 million yen and 5.92 million yen, respectively.

Before JAL filed for bankruptcy in 2010, pilots were allowed to commute from their homes to airports using chauffeured vehicles.

Tottori's remarks last week suggest that JAL management still faces obstacles disciplining pilots, who are regarded as nearly untouchable.

Wow, they are all little kings in their own kingdom which makes their behavior even more inexcusable.

Amid growing calls in Okinawa prefecture for some of the US facilities there to be relocated to other parts of Japan to ease the burden on the southern islands, the Asahi Shimbun published the results of its survey on September 13.

In response to the question on whether respondents could accept an American military base being opened nearby, 82 per cent of the 2,376 people polled said they would not. The newspaper conducted the same survey in 2010, when that figure was 74 per cent.

Of course, most people don’t want military in their backyards. But the majority of Japan doesn’t truly understand the burden that is being forced on Okinawa and a shift to more mainland bases will make them see.

Japan Airlines said Wednesday that it has decided to cut the remuneration of President Mitsuko Tottori and 36 other executives over a scandal involving a captain who drank excessively in Hawaii prior to his duties.

JAL dismissed the 64-year-old captain on Sept. 11 as a disciplinary measure, the airline said.

Tottori's monthly salary will be cut by 30% for two months. Managing Executive Officer Yukio Nakagawa, who also serves as chief safety officer, and Masaki Minami, who is in charge of flight operations, will have their pay reduced by 20% for one month. The remaining 34 executive officials will see their pay slashed by 10% for one month.

Docking a month or two salary from executives is hardly anything for what could have been a significant loss of life. Shameful.

A volcanic eruption on the west side of Iwo Jima, known in Japan as Iwo To, began Sept. 1 and continued more than a week, according to public broadcaster NHK and the Japan Meteorological Agency. The crater spewed white smoke and pyrophores — material that ignites when it contacts air, according to the agency.

As long as that activity continues, “there is a possibility of an eruption that could affect the area around the crater,” according to a meteorological agency bulletin Sept. 8.

When you constantly bomb an innocent island, you can’t be surprised when it gets mad and lashes out.

PayPay Corp., a SoftBank Group Corp. firm, said it chose South Korea in its outward debut as the neighboring country was the most popular overseas destination among Japanese travelers and cashless payment is prevalent there, making it easier to gain cooperation from local merchants.

"We hope to further expand PayPay use abroad in places popular with Japanese tourists," such as Taiwan, Hawaii and China, said Masayoshi Yanase, head of the finance business strategy division of PayPay, which now has over 70 million users.

Rather than this being a service for Koreans, they are taking the Chinese strategy of forcing national payment systems on other country’s infrastructure. Not a fan of this approach to exporting black boxes offshore.

Kyushu is where Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's top contract chipmaker, opened its first Japanese plant. The island sees Taiwan's Hsinchu Science Park, which brings together TSMC and other companies and universities in the semiconductor sector, as a model for building a cluster for technology research, development and manufacturing.

The vision is for Kyushu to not only manufacture semiconductor devices, but also use them to create new industries.

Yet finding a single site the size of Hsinchu Science Park's 1,471 hectares is not realistic for Kyushu. Instead, the Kyushu Economic Federation is promoting the idea of a network of science parks with locations across the region.

This is the ongoing problem for a mountainous island nation but one that major urban areas are attempting to solve with land reclamation. The question is whether they can create land fast enough to sate the appetite of industry.

"They deleted all necessary data upon leaving" or "sent a farewell email filled with sarcasm" are some of the troubling situations experienced by about 10% of workers in Japan when their bosses or colleagues have left their jobs, according to a survey conducted by the Tokyo-based management consulting firm Scholar Consult Co.

This retaliatory behavior when leaving a job is known as "revenge quitting." With job switching becoming less of a hurdle than before, what is happening in workplaces today?

Sarcasm: the nuclear option in Japanese communication.

CDP President Yoshihiko Noda unveiled the new lineup of his party’s leadership at a general meeting of its lawmakers held at the party headquarters, where the plan was approved.

With the leadership reshuffle, Noda intends to strengthen party unity at a time when some members are showing frustration over the party’s failure to increase its presence in the July 20 election for the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of the Diet, the country’s parliament.

Something, something, deck chairs, Titanic.

The Japanese government said Wednesday that it plans to close all of its six economic centers in Russia because of strained relations between the two countries following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine..

“Amid major changes in the situation around Japan-Russia relations, the Japan Centers have fulfilled their historic roles,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told a press conference.

Kinda surprised it took this long. The return of the Northern Territories becoming more of a dream each day.

The major Japanese air carrier has in recent years faced multiple similar drinking incidents involving its pilots, and it comes after a previous warning given to JAL in December by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism.

The ministry said JAL employees lacked due consideration for safety, urging the company to compile measures by the end of the month to prevent a repeat.

“We take this issue very seriously and deeply apologise for causing trouble and worries,” JAL president Mitsuko Tottori told a press conference, adding that her company will fire the pilot.

The fact that this pilot stayed employed this long is outrageous. This guy should have been fired on the spot for putting himself and hundreds of passengers and crew in danger.