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April 04, 2025
 

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LIFE

Kochi and Tottori prefectures, in collaboration with major airline ANA Holdings, will begin offering airfare discounts through the introduction of a flat-rate system as early as October for individuals based in multiple locations.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 23, 2025
Japan picks model projects to promote 'dual habitation'
The land ministry has selected 26 model projects to promote a lifestyle in which people divide their time between rural and urban areas.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba (right) speaks to officials of Miyada in Nagano Prefecture on Saturday during his visit to the village.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 17, 2025
Japan to extend financial aid to more people moving out of Tokyo
The government plans to expand eligibility to include people taking up jobs in agriculture, medicine and welfare, as well as those becoming self-employed.
Kyoko Watanabe made a home for herself in Ishinomaki after moving there to participate in disaster relief efforts following 3/11, and now operates a business focused on the creative reuse of <i>akiya</i> (abandoned houses).
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 17, 2025
From abandoned houses to ‘creative communities’: An Ishinomaki entrepreneur's vision for rural Japan
Kyoko Watanabe moved to Miyagi Prefecture to help with disaster relief efforts following 3/11. She ended up building a company and a vision for revitalizing rural Japan.
According to the ministry, Japan has about 4,500 companies with annual sales of ¥10 billion or more. But many of them are concentrated in metropolitan areas.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 15, 2025
Japan to invite small businesses to declare ¥10 billion sales targets
The country has about 4,500 companies with annual sales of ¥10 billion or more, but many of them are concentrated in metropolitan areas.
In recent years, Japanese life insurers have increasingly entered contracts in which assets underwritten by reinsurance companies are invested to obtain higher returns.
BUSINESS
Mar 3, 2025
Japan’s FSA said to examine life insurers’ reinsurance risks
The Financial Services Agency is asking life insurers about the scale of the practice and the type of contracts they have in place.
Pedestrians commute through Shibuya Station in central Tokyo, an area that is almost never devoid of people.
JAPAN / Society / Longform
Mar 3, 2025
As the rest of Japan shrinks, Tokyo grows
Women and young people are leading a migratory wave that the government is struggling to halt.
The government plans to make it easier for urban workers to get side jobs in regional areas.
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 2, 2025
Government to help regional firms hire urban workers for side jobs
The subsidies are part of a program that matches corporate workers with struggling small and midsize companies in regional areas.
Kusatsu Onsen resort, a popular tourist destination in Gunma Prefecture, on Dec. 26, 2022
JAPAN / Society
Feb 25, 2025
Gunma ranks top among city dwellers eyeing countryside, survey shows
Respondents picked the prefecture for its child-friendly environment, rich natural surroundings and proximity to the Tokyo metropolitan area.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba receives fruit from tangerine farmers of Shizuoka Prefecture in Tokyo on Jan. 22. The government's new regional revitalization plan focuses on convincing younger workers to choose a career and life somewhere other than a major urban center such as Tokyo.
JAPAN / Politics
Feb 18, 2025
Can Ishiba's 'joyful Japan' policy revitalize the nation's rural regions?
The prime minister may be taking cues from the mistakes of past efforts, but ultimately, even the best rural revitalization plan is tough to realize in practice.
Fukushima University student Itsuki Yamada (right) takes part in a workshop in December in the village of Iitate, Fukushima Prefecture, together with local residents. Yamada leads a group of student volunteers that runs an internet community radio program featuring Iitate.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Feb 17, 2025
University students launch community radio show for Fukushima village
The program aims to spread word about the realities faced by Iitate's aging population, and support the village's revitalization.
A little-used section of the JR Geibi Line, which runs through the Chugoku Mountains in Okayama and Hiroshima prefectures, faces a threat of closure.
JAPAN / Regional Voices: Hiroshima
Feb 10, 2025
Underutilized Hiroshima-Okayama rail route struggles to survive
While the number of passengers has continued to decline, the Geibi Line has served as a lifeline for some residents.
Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance will acquire Banner Life Insurance in the United States as it seeks to expand its business overseas amid sluggish domestic market.
BUSINESS / Companies
Feb 9, 2025
Meiji Yasuda to acquire U.S. peer Banner Life
Japanese life insurance companies are expanding overseas for growth as the domestic market shrinks.
The day care room for younger children at a multipurpose facility on Tonaki Island, Okinawa Prefecture, has never been used since its establishment in 2019.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Okinawa
Feb 3, 2025
The harsh reality of migration outflow on Okinawa’s least populated island
Since Tonaki Island established its only day care center in 2019, not a single child has set foot inside.
Nippon Life Insurance will establish a new headquarters division in late March to manage its foreign businesses, and its overseas insurance and asset management departments will be absorbed into that organization, people familiar with the matter have said.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 27, 2025
Nippon Life to revamp overseas business operations after acquisitions
Japan’s biggest life insurer will establish a new headquarters division in late March to manage its foreign businesses, and absorb related departments into that organization.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba delivers his policy speech at the Lower House of parliament in Tokyo on Friday.
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 27, 2025
Japan's young government officials to help municipalities as side gig
The measure, part of regional revitalization efforts by Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, aims to help municipalities struggling with a lack of personnel.
Beds lie in a corridor of a hospital in Duan Yao autonomous county in Guangxi region, China, on Jan. 9.
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Jan 20, 2025
China's aging villages face yawning health care gap in a fragile economy
Far lower wages in rural China mean many qualified doctors are heading to the cities to make a living.
For some time away from Tokyo's suffocating urban sameness, Yamagata Prefecture is home to a soothing array of natural abundance.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 18, 2025
For tourists in search of seasonal sights, Yamagata makes its case
Japan’s much-lauded four seasons aren’t felt as much in Tokyo as they are in the full, rural vistas of Yamagata Prefecture.
To counter the impact of aging rural demographics, the agriculture ministry is introducing a new initiative to dispatch corporate personnel to rural areas to increase the number of people engaged with farming communities.
JAPAN / Society
Jan 13, 2025
Japan farm ministry aims to dispatch corporate workers to rural areas
The initiative aims to promote rural revitalization through corporate-sponsored training programs and employee side jobs connecting businesses with farming villages.
Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance plans to raise its starting monthly salary for university graduates joining the nonlife insurer in April 2026 to as much as ¥410,000.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 12, 2025
Tokio Marine to raise starting pay to up to ¥410,000
The insurance firm aims to secure and retain human resources amid continuing labor shortages in Japan.
Dai-ichi Life Insurance sold about ¥500 billion of Japanese government notes, mainly 20- to 40-year bonds, in the fiscal first half that ended in September.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jan 6, 2025
Dai-ichi Life takes ¥140 billion loss selling off long bonds
The insurer sold about ¥500 billion of Japanese government notes, mainly 20- to 40-year bonds, in the fiscal first half ended September.
As ‘Buy Canadian’ grows, more U.S. firms say retailers turning away products
Empty shelves with "Buy Canadian Instead" signs are seen in the American Whiskey section of the BC Liquor in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 10.
U.S. tourist arrested after bringing a handgun into Japan
Hyogo police believe the handgun a U.S. tourist inadvertently brought into Japan slipped through security procedures at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture.
Trump unveils 10% global tariff, with Japan levy set at 24%
Trump tosses a MAGA hat to the crowd during an event in which he unveiled new tariffs in the White House on Wednesday.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
Japan’s leader didn’t read the job description
Prime Minister and ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader Shigeru Ishiba is facing a political funding scandal that has damaged his reputation and sparked speculation that internal efforts to remove him are underway.
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
Nintendo to launch the Switch 2 on June 5
The controllers for the Switch 2 will attach to the console magnetically rather than sliding on rails as with the original device.
A new human trafficking trend emerges from Myanmar scam centers
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar gather at a compound inside KK Park, a fraud center on the country's border with Thailand, after a multinational crackdown in February.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
A Canadian made a weekend trip to Costco a Japanese pastime
Under the watchful eye of Ken Theriault, Costco representative director and Japan country manager, the American membership-model wholesaler has flourished in Japan.

Podcast

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

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan
By Johan Brooks

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