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January 04, 2025
 

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COMMENTARY

Japan

World
Japan
Then-economy minister Yasutoshi Nishimura marks the opening of the carbon credit market at the Tokyo Stock Exchange in October 2023. The GX League, which includes the emissions trading system, already covers over half of Japan’s emissions.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Japan poised to lead in a brighter carbon market era
The patchy, voluntary nature of carbon markets around the world is finally changing after world leaders agreed to a new system for trading emissions reductions across borders.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Anime, M&A and the expo: What to watch for in Japan’s 2025
No doubt 2025 has more surprises in store for Japan after an unusually intense 12 months.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Japan’s 2024 word of the year has no rizz
Some critics wondered why the word of the year award was, essentially, functioning as advertising for a TV show that is still available on streaming.
An advertisement in Tokyo's Kabukicho, Japan's largest red-light district. The country is home to a thriving adult entertainment industry and has recently seen a boom in sex tourism fueled by the weak yen and availability of red-light services.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 30, 2024
From geisha to oshikatsu, toxic tropes fuel sex industry
By Waka Konohana
It isn't only the foreign gaze that produces stereotypes of Japanese women as submissive and promiscuous. Local laws and cultural norms play just as important a role.
U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira share a laugh ahead of talks in Tokyo in June 1979.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 30, 2024
Jimmy Carter's surprising connection to Japan: his Christian faith
By Robert D. Eldridge
The former U.S. president, who died Sunday, bonded with his counterpart, Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira, over their shared faith.
Bashar Assad's fall offers a chance to rebuild Syria, but the history of Middle East stabilization is littered with failure, making the coming months crucial.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 26, 2024
Rebuilding Syria after the ouster of the dictator Assad
By Charles A. Kupchan and Sinan Ulgen
Hope must be tempered by caution. Across the Middle East, the removal of strongmen has generally produced violent chaos.
Film festivals around the world are giving space to AI-generated cinematic experiences, with Venice and Cannes among the heavy hitters with sections dedicated to "immersive" works, including those made using virtual and augmented reality.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 23, 2024
Asia’s film industry should balance AI with human creativity
By Andrijana Cvetkovikj
AI is revolutionizing cinema. Japan and Asia as a whole are well-positioned to harness technology to empower storytelling while retaining film's essentially human nature.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party, casts his vote during an impeachment vote against South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol at the National Assembly in Seoul Dec.14.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 22, 2024
A race to the Blue House or the jail house
By Edo Naito
Since the end of martial law in 1987, there have been eight democratically elected presidents — and all but two of those have either been impeached or imprisoned.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.'s factory (left) in Kikuyo, Kumamoto Prefecture, on Feb. 23, the day before it was officially opened
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 22, 2024
Chip cities rise in Japan’s fields of dreams
By Gearoid Reidy
Injections of cash are transforming once-sleepy areas, lifting stagnant house prices and triggering construction booms.
Greenpeace activists protest next to a fake whale's tail in front of the Japanese Embassy in Berlin in 2010. The real motivation behind Japan's whaling may lie in asserting its maritime sovereignty, as the country defends its exclusive economic zone amid territorial disputes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 19, 2024
For Japan, whaling is intertwined with maritime sovereignty
By Maxime Polleri
While Japan has an undeniable culture surrounding seafood, the current generation of people do not show much interest in whale meat.

Japanese chip industry poised for a comeback
An attendee looks at a prototype of a 2-nanometer gate-all-around wafer produced by Rapidus and International Business Machines Corp. at the Semicon Japan exhibition in Tokyo in December.
The real-life violence that inspired South Korea's 'Squid Game'
Riot police march in front of the main building of Ssangyong Motor in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, on Aug. 6, 2009.
Three people found dead in Kobe home
Two people who were found Thursday in their relative's home in the city of Kobe had sustained wounds like they had been beaten.
Start the new year with a fresh approach to teaching Japanese
Incorporating modern technologies into your Japanese classes might be a way to connect with younger students.
Safety board to further analyze JAL jet collision at Haneda
The Japan Transport Safety Board, which last month released an interim report on a deadly collision between a Japan Airlines passenger plane and a Japan Coast Guard aircraft at Haneda Airport a year ago, plans to a final report outlining measures to prevent a recurrence.
Traveling for sake's sake: The emergence of brewery tourism in Japan
Tonoike Sake Brewery has been gearing their brewery toward tourism since the late 1980s, attempting to lure tourists to the town of Mashiko.
Guitarist Marty Friedman goes to bat for J-pop in new autobiography
One of the themes in American guitarist Marty Friedman’s autobiography “Dreaming Japanese” is that while he has become a star in his own right in Japan, he still feels that he doesn’t “belong.”
Sumo’s brotherhood gets latest inductee
Chugo Saito at Isenoumi stable on Friday. Saito has joined his older brother, Seigo, at the stable.
A year after a deadly earthquake, Noto Peninsula still faces long road to recovery
Photos taken from the same place but at different times in the Noto Peninsula towns of Wajima (left) and Suzu illustrate the progress made following the devastating earthquake that hit these areas of Ishikawa Prefecture on Jan. 1, 2024.
Japan’s go-slow approach to selling high-speed rail globally
At 60, the shinkansen has been mostly stuck in Japan, with only one system ever sold overseas.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

A man offers prayers at Hebikubo Shrine in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward. The shrine is one of several across the country dedicated to the snake.
Shed your skin and reinvent yourself in the Year of the Snake
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high
Challenging spirit and teamwork keep ANA flying high

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