News On Japan

Former Blue Comets Guitarist Tsunaki Mihara Dies at 80

TOKYO - Tsunaki Mihara, a guitarist who rose to fame in the 1960s with the Group Sounds band Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets and remained active in music for decades, died of kidney cancer at a Tokyo hospital at 9:02 a.m. on September 11. He was 80.

Mihara was born in Tokyo and became widely known as a member of the Blue Comets during the height of Japan's Group Sounds boom in the 1960s.

A private funeral was held for family members. A memorial gathering is planned for a later date.

Source: Kyodo

News On Japan
POPULAR NEWS

Typhoon No. 30 was rapidly weakening over the East China Sea at 4 p.m. on October 25 and is expected to become an extratropical cyclone by 3 a.m. on October 26, according to the latest weather forecast, although its merger with an autumn rain front could trigger prolonged heavy rainfall across western and eastern Japan, particularly along the Pacific coast and around the Izu Islands.

Typhoon No. 30 is expected to cause widespread travel disruption across western Japan on Monday, October 26, with railway suspensions, flight delays, ferry cancellations and possible expressway closures threatening the start of the working week. Forecasters are warning that heavy rainfall could affect transportation across a broad area even after the typhoon weakens into an extratropical low-pressure system early Monday.

Japanese drone manufacturer Terra Drone has delivered interceptor drones to Ukraine's Ministry of Defense for the first time, prompting Russia to threaten retaliatory measures on October 21, as Japan considers expanding domestic drone production and strengthening its coastal defenses through thousands of unmanned aircraft.

A critical security flaw discovered in PHP, a programming language used by an estimated 70% of the world's web systems, has triggered widespread disruptions across Japan since October 21, forcing banks, restaurant chains, government agencies and other businesses to suspend online services as a precaution against potential cyberattacks.

A growing wave of cyberattacks across Japan has raised concerns over the possible use of Chinese-developed artificial intelligence in hacking operations, with personal information belonging to tens of thousands of police employees potentially exposed and major companies forced to suspend online services, while cybersecurity experts warn that slow decision-making within Japanese organizations is allowing damage to spread.

MEDIA CHANNELS
         

MORE Entertainment NEWS

A long-running legal battle between two nearly identical Japanese mascots, Chiitan and Shinjo-kun, is heading to the Supreme Court after the city of Susaki in Kochi Prefecture announced on October 21 that it had appealed a ruling ordering it to pay 18.87 million yen in damages to the operator of Chiitan.

Hashimoto Rina (橋本梨菜) is a gravure model and idol. She is an original member of sherbet and a former member of SKETCH.

In today's video, we have a look at the ongoing kabuki performances at the Heisei Nakamura-za theatre, set up this time in Asakusa, Tokyo.

A major new global project centered on the popular Japanese anime franchise Naruto was announced at New York Comic Con 2026, one of the world's largest pop culture events, with plans for an entirely new anime production and a new manga series written by original creator Masashi Kishimoto.

Entertainer Tamori and two other prominent figures were named Honorary Citizens of Tokyo on October 1 in recognition of their contributions to the capital's development and the lives of its residents, with an award ceremony held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government headquarters on Tokyo Citizens' Day.

Japanese director Tomoki Misato's stop-motion animation Candy Caries has won the Grand Prize in the children's category for ages 7 and up at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in Canada, one of the world's three major animation festivals.

Makoto Usui, the composer of "Shiawase Hakoberu Yoni," a song written in the aftermath of the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that has become a symbol of hope for disaster survivors across Japan and overseas, died in July at the age of 65, leaving behind a musical legacy that his former students are determined to carry forward.

While millions of people across Japan enjoyed this year's five-day Silver Week holiday, workers at Kyoto's Toei Uzumasa Eigamura film studio theme park and a 24-hour smartphone repair service faced packed schedules, with some working late into the night to keep holidaymakers entertained and respond to emergencies.