Hokkaido City Drills for Bear Encounters

Spanish soccer powerhouse Real Madrid held its first official soccer school in Hokkaido in August, bringing about 90 young players from across Japan to Urakawa, a town of roughly 11,000 people in the Hidaka region, with organizers now considering opening a permanent residential academy there as early as 2028.

Mahjong is shedding its long-standing image as a smoke-filled gambling pastime for adults and emerging as a "brain sport" enjoyed by university students and children, with cleaner venues, professional competition and regulatory changes helping broaden its appeal.

The University of Tokyo is expected to post a 4.4 billion yen deficit for fiscal 2026, marking its first two consecutive years in the red since becoming a national university corporation in 2004, as inflation, rising personnel costs and long-standing structural constraints place growing pressure on its finances.

A 72-year-old emeritus professor at Kagawa University lost more than 9 million yen and even sold his apartment after becoming the victim of a romance scam in which a woman calling herself "Aiko" gradually gained his trust before introducing an investment scheme.

Eighty-one years after the end of World War II, a newly donated book and the testimony of a man who moved to Manchuria as a child are preserving the history of a Japanese settlement known as Hamamatsu Village, whose residents fled advancing Soviet forces after years spent pursuing the promise of a more prosperous life.

Libraries across Japan are evolving far beyond traditional places for reading and study, adding everything from 3D printers and children's play areas to health-check equipment, music studios and towering bookshelves as they seek to become new centers for their communities.

A proposal to allow children to decide whether to view graphic photographs and other harrowing materials at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum has sparked debate as the city marks the 81st anniversary of the atomic bombing.

Children with freshly shaved heads walked slowly through the corridors of Higashi Honganji in Kyoto as they took part in a Buddhist ordination ceremony marking their formal entry into the priesthood.