Prius ranks as best-selling car in Japan for 16th month in row
News On Japan via pddnet.com -- Oct 05
Toyota Motor Corp.'s Prius hybrid was the top-selling car in Japan in September for the 16th straight month, selling 22,091 units, industry bodies said Thursday.
But sales logged a 33.5 percent plunge from a year earlier due mainly to the termination in September of the government subsidy program for the purchase of environmentally friendly vehicles.
The ranking data were compiled by the Japan Automobile Dealers Association and the Japan Mini Vehicles Association.
The Prius was the best-selling car also in the first half of fiscal 2012, selling 150,468 units in the April-September period.
A 24-year-old woman was in a serious condition Friday after being stabbed by a man whom she reported to police for stalking her in Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. (Japan Today )
China's television regulator has ordered a crackdown on dramas about the country's battles with Japan during and before World War Two and demanded they be more serious, state media said on Friday, following viewer complaints about ludicrous storylines. (Reuters )
Police said Friday they have found four dead bodies in an apartment in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, in what is believed to have been a family murder-suicide. (Japan Today )
Shukan Post (May 24) conveys the difficulties experienced by other parts of the adult-entertainment biz in servicing customers from the communist nation.
A deri heru (“delivery health”) call-girl tells the tabloid that she is often requested to arrive at major hotels in the Shinjuku and Ikebukuro entertainment areas of Tokyo by Chinese visitors. (Tokyo Reporter)
Six sailors were found dead after a fire on a foreign freighter docked at a port in Hokkaido, northern Japan.
The sailors are presumed to be Russians. (NHK )