| Jul 04 | Chinese with annual income over 250,000 yuan can tour Japan (People's Daily) |
| Starting in July, Japan will issue tourist visas to Chinese individual tourists who meet specified conditions. Chinese tourists can enjoy "freely touring Japan" as early as July 8. The policy will initially be implemented in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, then following a one-year pilot implementation period it will expand throughout Chinese mainland. |
| Jul 04 | High school student arrested over classmate's stabbing death (AP) |
| A high school student was arrested Saturday over the death of his classmate in Sakurai, Nara Prefecture, after admitting to stabbing him, police said. The 17-year-old senior was apprehended at the scene on suspicion of attempted murder as he admitted to stabbing Tomoya Hamada, 18, on his abdomen and back at a train station shortly after 8 a.m., they said. Hamada was brought to a nearby hospital, at which he was pronounced dead around 90 minutes later. |
| Jul 04 | 55-year-old man arrested over Odawara murder (Yomiuri) |
| A 55-year-old man was arrested Friday on suspicion of murdering a man in Odawara, Kanagawa Prefecture, police said. According to the police, Yoichi Umino, a construction worker residing in Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, allegedly killed 60-year-old Norio Inage in mid-January by stabbing him in multiple places, including his back and chest. Umino reportedly denied the allegation. |
| Jul 03 | Bagelheads the latest fad for Japanese teens (nj.com) |
 Have you seen the latest fad for teens in Japan? They are called bagelheads. Teens in Japan are injecting themselves with saline, which causes bumps in their heads.
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| Jul 03 | Firefighters penalized for hazing recruits (Yomiuri) |
| Eleven senior firefighters have been punished for hazing new recruits by making them perform 10,000 pushups, among other abuses, the Matsudo Fire Department said Wednesday. The action taken against those disciplined included cuts in their salaries. Five of the 10 new recruits who participated in the harsh training quit after the incident. |
| Jul 03 | Young adults turn to home sharing (Yomiuri) |
| Rather than forking out money to rent their own apartments, young people struggling during the economic downturn are increasingly moving in with friends or acquaintances as they try to make ends meet. Many of these young adults used to place priority on having a good time, but are now unemployed or working in low-paying jobs. They appear to be moving toward cheaper, shared accommodation, and with it, finding emotional support in these bleak times. |
| Jul 03 | Japan was Jackson's other Neverland (Japan Times) |
 Much has been made of the fact that Jackson chose Japan to make his first public appearance following the trial, which, despite the acquittal, effectively ruined what was left of his reputation in America and Europe. It was certainly clever of MTV Japan to offer him its Legend Award at that particular time.
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| Jul 03 | Knife law tough shuck for oysters (Japan Times) |
 Be careful next time you're about to shuck a fresh oyster at a restaurant - you may be using a knife considered illegal under the Firearm and Sword Control Law. Possessing certain types of oyster knives will be punishable from Sunday, after the moratorium expires on a revision to the law that was implemented in January.
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| Jul 02 | Aussies embrace their inner Japanese superhero (thewest.com.au) |
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| Jul 02 | Shimbashi cafe booms as oasis for smokers (AP) |
| Salaried workers feeling cornered by the growing smoking ban in the city can take a breather at a "tobacco cafe" that recently opened in Tokyo's Shimbashi district, becoming an oasis for smokers. Suitably named Cafe Tobacco, smoking is allowed in all of its three- story premises with 44 seats. The cafe also offers original blend coffee with a bitter taste, which is believed to go well with cigarettes. |
| Jul 02 | Amuro survives a hard life with limitless talent (China.org.cn) |
 In a life of ups and downs the popular Japanese pop singer Amuro Namie is heading for one of her happier up moments. On July 11-12, Amuro will perform on the Shanghai Grand Stage. It will be her first solo concert in Chinese mainland, granting at long last her Chinese mainland fans an opportunity to watch their idol live.
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| Jul 02 | Whether to come out at the office (Japan Times) |
| 'Do you live on your own?' It's a perfectly casual question at work, one that would naturally arise in conversations. For many gays and lesbians, however, if they happen to live with their partner, queries such as this often become the moment of truth - or the moment of avoiding the truth. |
| Jul 02 | Govts lift ban on riding bicycles with 2 kids (Yomiuri) |
| People who ride with two children on bicycles that do not meet the standards will be fined up to 20,000 yen for violating the Road Traffic Law. |
| Jul 02 | Wider range of pet funeral services gain popularity (Yomiuri) |
| With an increasing number of distraught pet lovers seeking to mark the passing of their cherished animal friends with a funeral service, the range of relevant services on offer has grown considerably. |
| Jul 01 | 2 men busted over disguised yakuza end-of-year hotel party (Mainichi) |
| Two men were arrested Tuesday in connection with a yakuza end-of-year party at a hotel here, police have announced. Arrested were 47-year-old Hidetsugu Sato, a top member of a recognized yakuza group, and 47-year-old Hideo Koike, a company worker, on suspicion of fraud, obstructing a business, and misrepresentation causing reputation damage. |
| Jul 01 | British followers of Japanese fashion (BBC) |
 An underground youth culture in Japan with distinctive music, fashion and make-up, where the skin is darkened using tanning products is spreading worldwide.
Young people in the UK have been learning about the intricacies of 'manba' by making friends on the other side of the world using social networking sites and learning how to re-create the style through videos on YouTube.
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| Jul 01 | Law enacted to support reclusive youngsters (AP) |
| The Japanese parliament enacted a law Wednesday to help young people who have withdrawn from society to stand on their own feet, approving it unanimously at a House of Councillors plenary session. The growing presence of socially withdrawn juveniles and those not in education, employment or training, dubbed NEETs, has become a social issue in recent years. Prime Minister Taro Aso called for legislation to support such people in his policy speech last September. |
| Jul 01 | Visa overstayers given too many breaks: rightist (Japan Times) |
 Daisuke Arikado believes the government is too easy on foreigners overstaying their visa and this frustrates him. Arikado is a former member of an ultra-rightist group who founded and heads the 30-strong nonprofit organization Movement to Eradicate Crimes by Foreigners.
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| Jun 30 | Former yakuza boss, already sentenced to death, given moot 20 year sentence (Mainichi) |
| A former yakuza boss was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Mito District Court on Tuesday for the murder of a curtain shop owner. The defendant, 50-year-old Ryoji Goto, was sentenced to death in 2007 for the assault and murder of five people in Mito and Utsunomiya, making the sentence handed down Tuesday essentially moot. |
| Jun 30 | Woman found stabbed to death in apartment, man's body washed up at nearby river (Mainichi) |
| A woman was found dead with stab wounds in an apartment here on early Tuesday, police said. Police received an emergency call at around 12:30 a.m. on Tuesday from a woman living in another room of the Matsue Heights apartment building, saying that she had discovered a woman lying in a pool of blood in a room on the second floor. |
| Jun 30 | Japanese TV dusts off the competition with Maid Detective (inventorspot.com) |
 Japan's TV Asahi
has a new show that features a maid who works undercover as a detective. Featuring upcoming actress and singer Saki Fukuda, 18, Maid Detective is the story of a maid named Aoi Wakatsuki works for Toshiaki Kaido, a detective for the Kyoto Prefectural Police. Kaido asks his maid to infiltrate stately mansions to conduct investigations, since for one reason or another the police can't operate in the open.
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| Jun 30 | Nara, Japan's 1300th anniversary celebration in 2010 (examiner.com) |
 2010 will mark the 1300th anniversary of the construction of Heijo Palace and Nara becoming the capital of ancient Japan. With the help of the celebrations mascots Sento-kun and Manto-kun, festivities will be held through out the year in Nara city and surrounding areas.
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| Jun 30 | Teacher, wife held over secretly filming in toilet (Yomiuri) |
| A primary school teacher and his wife were arrested on suspicion of using a hidden video camera to secretly film people inside a women's toilet at a public park in Yokohama on Sunday, police said. |
| Jun 30 | Police find 398 baseball caps in suspects' Saga homes (Yomiuri) |
| The arrest of two young men in Ureshino, Saga Prefecture, last weekend led to an unusual discovery at their homes--398 baseball caps that may have been stolen from more than 20 different high schools, police announced Sunday. |
| Jun 30 | 'Reefer madness' hits Japan's shores (Japan Times) |
| To the Japanese government and law enforcement authorities, there has been a lot of discussion about marijuana in Japan recently. Some people have gone as far as to call it the start of a panic. |
| Jun 29 | 4 college students arrested for gang raping 18-year-old in Gunma (Mainichi) |
| Four college students accused of gang raping a drunken 18-year-old girl they met through an acquaintance have been arrested, police said. Arrested were Ryoya Asaka, 20, a student at a welfare college in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, and three other 19-year-old students at the college, whose names have been withheld because they are minors. |
| Jun 29 | Japan to issue tourist visas to Chinese individuals starting Wednesday (AP) |
| Japan will start issuing tourist visas to Chinese individuals Wednesday, responding to demands from Chinese people that they be able to enjoy their stay in Japan without the presence of tour guides, a Foreign Ministry official said Monday. Applications for the visa will be accepted at the Japanese Embassy in Beijing and the consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou during the first year. The service will be expanded to other diplomatic offices in China if conditions are judged appropriate. |
| Jun 29 | Police eye Japan's mafia over body parts (ABC News) |
| Japanese police have found a number of severed hands and other body parts in Tokyo Bay. Investigators believe the Yakuza, or Japanese mafia, could be behind the killings. A man was fishing in Tokyo Bay off Yokohama when he reeled in a man's head and part of a leg. Police divers later found more body parts, including several severed hands. |
| Jun 29 | Japan airport starts tricycle patrols (BBC) |
| One of Japan's major airports has introduced single seat electric tricycles that will be used to patrol the airport halls and information desks. The tricycles, developed by Toyota, can operate at a top speed of 15 kilometres per hour. Some of those used at Chubu Airport will also carry emergency medical kit and computers that will allow airport staff to check flight schedules for passengers. |
| Jun 29 | Altered fingerprints detected in illegal immigration attempts (AP) |
| Japanese immigration authorities have had some success detecting people trying to enter Japan illegally via fooling the vaunted biometric authentication technique. Narita airport officials said Monday that since January they have discovered four people trying to escape the authentication system, which is designed to detect foreign nationals with a history of deportation from Japan based on fingerprint data. |
| Jun 29 | 'Mosquito whine' fails to deter vandals at Tokyo park (Yomiuri) |
| A public restroom for women was vandalized at a Tokyo park in which an experiment is under way to stop youngsters roaming around at night by installing a loudspeaker system that emits an offensive high-pitched frequency, it has been learned. |
| Jun 29 | 'Tent village' for jobless closed, many still unemployed (AP) |
| A "tent village" for laid-off temporary workers set up in Tokyo's Hibiya Park over the New Year holidays was officially declared closed Sunday at a symposium to discuss unemployment issues, although many of the former "villagers" are still jobless. |
| Jun 28 | What's in a name? Soaplands still going strong 25 years on (Tokyo Reporter) |
 This coming December 19 will mark a quarter century since political correctness forced the operators of the erotic bathhouses that used to be known toruko-buro (Turkish baths) to drop that term in favor of "soapland."
Writing in Shukan Shincho (July 2), Yoshinari Fukafue points out that while facilities referred to as Turkish baths first appeared at the Tokyo Onsen in Ginza in 1951, it was only from 1958, when the anti-prostitution law went into force, that such establishments began adding sex to the menu.
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| Jun 27 | Big in Japan: Tokyo mourns Jackson's death (Time) |
 In Tokyo's bustling Shibuya district, a woman makes a beeline for the Michael Jackson display on the second floor of the HMV music store. Crying under her green knit cap, she reaches for "Visionary," a black box of video singles from the King of Pop and a few of the Michael Jackson boxed figurines on display. Sho-ma - a dancer whose first exposure to Jackson was the album "Off the Wall" when she was in the third grade - said she first heard the news of Michael Jackson's death at 8 a.m. at her home in Tokyo. Another fan in the shop, 23-year-old Toshiki Nakamura, pulls out his iPhone and scrolls through a long list of Jackson albums. "I was so shocked when I heard," he says.
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| Jun 27 | Former economist to get 4-month prison term for groping (AP) |
 Kazuhide Uekusa, once a well-known TV commentator and economist, will get four months in prison for molesting a female high school student on a Tokyo train in 2006 as a petty bench of the Supreme Court decided earlier this week to turn down his final appeal. According to the lower courts' rulings, Uekusa, 48, put his hand up the high school student's skirt and touched her body on the night of Sept. 13, 2006, on a commuter train between Shinagawa and Kamata stations on the Keihin Kyuko Line.
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| Jun 27 | Japan gov't spokesman retracts Jackson gaffe (abs-cbnnews.com) |
| Japan's top government spokesman hurried Friday to retract potentially controversial remarks about the late pop icon Michael Jackson, who he said did not appear to be black because of his pale skin. "My knowledge (on Jackson) was very poor, but I didn't get the impression that he was a black man because his face was all white," Takeo Kawamura told reporters, recalling his meeting with the singer in 1998 at the inauguration ceremony of then South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung. |
| Jun 27 | Human body parts found floating at Yokohama Port (Mainichi) |
| Human body parts of at least two individuals have been found floating at a port here, police said. Kanagawa Prefectural Police received an emergency call from a 39-year-old company employee on Thursday afternoon saying that he had found part of a human thigh floating near the pier at Yokohama Port in Kanazawa Ward when he was fishing. |
| Jun 27 | Standard of living meets house of correction (Japan Times) |
| From our second-story window we gazed down upon the pizzazz of the city streets - the glistening facades of the storefronts, the sleek fashions of the passersby, the state-of-the-art flash of advertisements, and the overall fabulousness of a scene that could have been snipped from Lucasfilm. |
| Jun 26 | Police to raise reward to 10 million yen for tips in Hawker case (AP) |
| The National Police Agency has decided to raise the cash reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the murder of British woman Lindsay Hawker from the current 1 million yen to 10 million yen, taking an exceptional step to capture Tatsuya Ichihashi, who is on a nationwide wanted list, the NPA said Friday. |
| Jun 26 | Korean stars draw fan base in Japan (ESPN) |
 On a recent Saturday evening, hundreds of people milled about the lobby of Chungmu Art Hall before the start of "The Three Musketeers" musical.
It's a common scene ahead of any performance. But something stood out about the makeup of the crowd waiting to see this particular show, a Korean version of the Czech musical that recounts the famous story of d'Artagnan and his friends. Sprinkled about the lobby were small groups of Japanese women, most of whom looked like tourists rather than residents.
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| Jun 26 | Sapp losing weight after toilet seat gives (ESPN) |
 He's made millions in his career and can't walk across a Japanese street without getting mobbed, but there are apparently limits to the benefits of being Bob Sapp: The super heavyweight tells Larry Pepe of ProMMARadio that he's down to 320 pounds after breaking a toilet seat.
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| Jun 26 | Cosplay California: Anime conventions still set trends (Japan Times) |
 More than 40,000 people are expected to gather in Los Angeles between July 2 and July 5 for the largest anime, manga and games convention in North America, Anime EXPO. Despite reports suggesting Japan's most ubiquitous cultural export might have peaked, AX is in it's 18th year and is expecting another record turnout. According to estimates from the Japan External Trade Organization, the American market for Japanese anime-related products peaked in 2003 at $4.8 billion and has fallen ever since, to just $2.8 billion in 2007.
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| Jun 26 | A re-imagining of Osaka's riverfront (Japan Times) |
 "Tadao Ando Exhibition 2009: The City of Water/Osaka vs. Venice" seems like a fixed fight. Many would even balk at the idea of the match-up. Venice is one of the world's most beautiful cities, while Osaka, not spared U.S. bombing raids in World War II as Kyoto was, became divided by expressways and ramshackle urban development as the city spurred Japan's rapid postwar economic development. And yet, architect Tadao Ando (b. 1941) is fiercely proud of his native Osaka.
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| Jun 25 | Hibiya tent village group to disband (Japan Times) |
 The ad hoc group that set up a tent village for laidoff temporary workers in Tokyo's Hibiya Park over New Year's will disband at the end of this month, its leader said Wednesday.
Makoto Yuasa said his group has helped change public perceptions of temporary workers and their problems, and will continue to support the unemployed through consultation services.
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| Jun 25 | More prisoners serving full sentences than getting released on parole (Mainichi) |
| Of those inmates released from prison during 2008, just 50.1 percent were on parole, the lowest figure since World War II. The number of those forced to serve their full sentences, including those who die behind bars, has now risen above the number of parolees for the first time ever. |
| Jun 25 | Security cameras to be installed in 15 residential areas in Japan (AP) |
| Police will install a network of security cameras at 15 residential areas in 14 out of the country's 47 prefectures as part of nationwide crime-prevention efforts, the National Police Agency said Thursday. The 15 locations include those in such prefectural capitals as Otsu, Okayama, Hiroshima, Tokushima and Fukuoka. |
| Jun 25 | Teens admit injuring, robbing woman (Asahi) |
| Police on Wednesday rearrested two teenagers on suspicion of seriously injuring an 80-year-old woman when they snatched her purse on June 13. The two males--a 14-year-old junior high school student and an unemployed 16-year-old--have admitted to the allegations, saying they were looking for an old woman to rob, police said. |
| Jun 25 | Tokyo police arrest S. Korean man wanted in actress's suicide (AP) |
| Tokyo police arrested Wednesday a South Korean man wanted in connection with the March death of actress Jang Ja Yeon, who killed herself in her Seoul suburb home and left a note saying she had been forced to have sex with entertainment industry executives. |
| Jun 25 | Man arrested for operating dating site without permission (Mainichi) |
 A man accused of operating a matchmaking site without permission was arrested Wednesday, amid suspicions that the site served as a hotbed of child prostitution, police said. A junior high school student who was questioned over a message on the site told police that he bought sex on the site from 13- and 16-year-old girls for 40,000 to 60,000 yen.
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| Jun 25 | Different types of Japanese restaurants, Part 2 (examiner.com) |
 In Different Types of Japanese Restaurants, Part 1, we delved into a few types of Japanese dining options. What I find fascinating about Japanese restaurants is how they really make an effort to branch out into dining establishments that specialize in a certain type of food or cooking style. Previously, what was covered included restaurants that featured bento, curry dishes, pasta, ramen, shabu shabu and soba and udon noodles. Here are six more types of restaurants to add to the mix.
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