Nipponica

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?