Menu
Search
 
October 13, 2025
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access

COMMENTARY

Japan

World
Japan
A screen outside a Tokyo securities firm shows the Nikkei 225 Stock Average on Oct. 6. As Japan's financial markets reacted to Sanae Takaichi's Liberal Democratic Party presidential win, much of the media's focus was on the falling yen, downplaying the surge in equities to record highs.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sanae Takaichi gets 'the Abe treatment'
Given that she is frequently labeled a "Shinzo Abe protege," the media coverage of her so far reminds me of how they reported on Abe himself throughout his second term.
COMMENTARY / Japan
The 'Takaichi trade' isn’t Abenomics 2.0, and that’s OK
Party leader Takaichi has been left with one of the poorest positions imaginable. The LDP is a minority in both houses of parliament.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Global war and the cognitive traps leaders don’t see
Even a cursory scan of today’s major military powers suggests that their leaders and policy elites are dangerously overconfident.
Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female prime minister if appointed, will have her work cut out for her and face key diplomatic challenges with the U.S., China and South Korea, as well as persistent economic and demographic issues.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 8, 2025
Will Takaichi become the prime minister Japan needs?
By Stephen R. Nagy
An admirer of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Takaichi is an adherent to Shinzo Abe’s pragmatic yet conservative vision.
Only a country with absolute indispensability in critical goods — like China — can withstand Donald Trump and America’s tariff onslaught.
COMMENTARY / Japan / Geoeconomic Briefing
Oct 7, 2025
Trump weaponizes American trade policy
By Kazuto Suzuki
The U.S. may have an indispensable domestic market for some trading partners, but China has indispensable goods and America cannot easily substitute for them.
Sanae Takaichi celebrates in Tokyo on Saturday with Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba after winning the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 7, 2025
From radical to Rihanna: Myths about the new LDP leader
By Gearoid Reidy
When Shinzo Abe returned as LDP leader in 2012, there was a similar flood of coverage attempting to cast him as a radical conservative.
The Fukushima Hydrogen Energy Research Field and an adjoining solar power farm in the town of Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, in March 2021. Japan's forward-looking reforms are embedding climate risk management into the core of corporate decision-making.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 6, 2025
Japan’s blueprint for climate finance sets global standard
By Mary Schapiro
While no country has all the answers, Japan is demonstrating what sustained, organized action on mobilizing finance for the clean energy transition looks like in practice.
Sanae Takaichi, newly elected leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, speaks during a news conference at the party's headquarters in Tokyo on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 6, 2025
Four questions that determine Takaichi’s success
By Edo Naito
From breaking with Komeito to revisiting the U.S. trade deal, new Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi has the potential to shake up Japanese politics.
Newly elected Liberal Democratic Party leader Sanae Takaichi is applauded after winning the party's leadership election in Tokyo on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 5, 2025
Will Sanae Takaichi be Japan’s Thatcher — or its Truss?
By Gearoid Reidy
Takaichi is comfortably the most conservative choice the party could have made, if not the most right-leaning leader in recent history.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi (left), former economic security minister Sanae Takaichi (center) and agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi arrive at a news conference for the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election at the party's headquarters in Tokyo on Sept. 23. The three are the front-runners ahead of Saturday's vote.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 2, 2025
No matter who wins the LDP presidential race, prospects for change are dismal
By Kuni Miyake
The key for the LDP is whether the once-proud party can win back its traditional supporters who have abandoned it in recent elections and shifted to opposition parties.

University of Tokyo lands its highest spot ever in global higher education ranking
The University of Tokyo in Tokyo's Bunkyo Ward
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.
After ruling bloc breakup, CDP and Komeito eye unified PM candidate
Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan leader Yoshihiko Noda speaks to reporters at the Diet in Tokyo on Friday.
As the Osaka Expo comes to a close, what will its legacy be?
After a run-up marked by apathy, organizers soon found they had the opposite problem as crowd control became a concern.
Why Japan's coalition collapsed — and what's next
Liberal Democratic Party President Sanae Takaichi enters party headquarters in Tokyo on Thursday.
Ghost of Yotei’s bloodstained fun sidesteps Ainu identity
Ghost of Yotei, the follow-up to 2020's smash hit Ghost of Tsushima, is a violent, vengeful and engaging romp through 17th-century Hokkaido that fails to stick the landing on its most sensitive cultural material.
‘Takaichi trade’ starts unwinding as political calculus upended by Komeito exit
Less than a week ago, Sanae Takaichi seemed set to become Japan's first female prime minister.
‘Save the Ring’ calls intensify as Osaka Expo’s end nears
Visitors lounge on the grassy hill on the top of the Grand Ring during the 2025 Osaka Expo in the city of Osaka in May.
A Japanese comedian walks into an Aussie bar … and stays there
Takashi “Waka” Wakasugi stopped by the Tokyo Comedy Bar in Shibuya Ward last month following his stint at Edinburgh Festival Fringe performing his show “Comedy Samurai.”
Chemistry Nobel winner Kitagawa says downtime helped him think up new material
Susumu Kitagawa speaks to reporters at Kyoto University on Wednesday after receiving the news that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry the same day.

Podcast

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

Longform

Growing families are being priced out of Tokyo’s condo market, forced to choose between downtown convenience and suburban space.
Is living in central Tokyo still affordable?
By Alex K.T. Martin

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.
We are pleased to announce the winners of the 6th annual Sustainable Japan Award.

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER