Nipponica

Currently, the Justice Ministry only allows online birth registration when submitted with a digitally signed birth certificate. Due to the additional complexity of processing documents with digital signatures, no municipalities have accepted digitally signed birth certificates, effectively requiring all birth registration papers to be submitted or mailed to local government offices.

Under the new system, local governments will be able to receive birth certificates in a digital form directly from medical institutions starting as early as fiscal 2026.

While I hope that this system will launch without issue, a rush of fake births registered to this system could be the solution to the population crisis.

Japan's top court on Friday recognized a transgender woman as the "father" of her 3-year-old daughter conceived using her frozen sperm and born to her female partner after legally transitioning, in the first such ruling.

One step closer.

The Japanese health ministry announced that it found no substantial proof of "black rain" that dozens of people reported witnessing in the area around this southwest Japan city shortly after it was hit with an atomic bomb in August 1945.

The national government defines Nagasaki's "hibakusha," or atomic bombing survivors, as those who were in a specified zone within a 12-kilometer radius of the blast, and provides them with relief. Those who were outside the zone, but still within the 12-km radius, are considered "hibaku taikensha" -- people who "experienced the A-bomb," but who are not certified as hibakusha.

Who exactly wins by denying these already elderly people with extra benefits? It seems quite petty to be so strict about who can be hibakusha or not. These people, regardless of them being within 12km of the blast or not, were witnesses to one of the worst atrocities in human civilization. That alone should merit some compensation.