Stories about Japan from June, 2009
Bahrain: Comparing Government Efficiency In Bahrain And Japan
Bahraini blogger Yagoob is studying in Japan, and he compares the experience of receiving financial aid from the Bahraini and Japanese governments: “Nagoya is a city with a population of 2.2 million people, four times more people than Bahrain, and yet they are sure of every single piece of information...
Japan: Shiso-flavored Pepsi
Pepsi Shiso (Japanese for perilla or beefsteak plant) went on sale a couple of days ago – Curzon loved it while Darg thought it was nasty.
ISS: Photos and a Poem from Koichi Wakata
Astronaut Koichi Wakata on the International Space Station posted some photographs, including one of Sarychev Volcano while it was erupting (Also part of NASA's Image of the Day Gallery), and a tanka poem: “My home planet enwrapped / The blue light of the atmosphere shines”.
Japan: News Digest from Tokyo Art Beat Blog
William Andrews has posted this week's News Digest at the Tokyo Art Beat Blog. The series is a good mix of local and international art news stories.
Japan: Moonwalker, Jacko's video game
Esu-kei remembers [ja] the popular video game Moonwalker featuring the animated version of Michael Jackson. The object of the action game by Sega is to score points destroying the bad guys with moondust and choreographic kicks. When the enemies are all beaten, the children are safe.
Japan: News in Japanese for Iran Election Protests
“You can't get really the details of the Iran election protests from the Japanese newspapers and TV stations, but the situation is updated by the minute on Twitter.” – Hiroto Kobayashi set up iranelection, a Digg-style news aggregator specifically for this topic, where users are submitting links to content in...
Japan: Chinese Translation of 2channel
Takeshi Yamaya links to 2ch Kan Riben (2ch看日本), a blog that posts Chinese translations of interesting threads from the Japanese Internet forum 2channel. He appreciates the thoughtful observations made by their commenters.
Russia-Poland: History revisionism at large again
The Beatroot comments on a current dispute between Russia and Poland about a Russian state TV-documentary, claiming that Nazi Germany, Poland, and Japan were preparing to invade the Soviet Union during the early stages of World War II.
Japan: On How to Perceive the Japanese Web (Part One)
Reporter Yuka Okada from the Japanese tech news site ITmedia brandished her well-regarded interviewing skills for a one-on-one session with Mochio Umeda. The result was “The Japanese web is ‘disappointing': An interview with Mr. Mochio Umeda” Part One and Part Two [ja]. In reaction, the Japanese blogosphere had to give...
Japan: Iran from a Japanese viewpoint
Gompagompagompa tells about his last trip in Iran, before the elections. The blogger describes Iranians as an extremely kind and hospitable people and explains how he decided to write this post to let Japanese people know that “Iran” is not equal to “terrorism”.
Japan: ‘1Q84′, the new bestseller by Haruki Murakami
“In your sky how many moons are floating?”. This the catch phrase of 1Q84 [ja], Ichi Kew Hachi Yon, (Q in Japanese reads the same as 9), the new 2 volume work by the bestselling writer Haruki Murakami, that in less than two weeks has already sold more than 960.000...
Japan: Mobile social network
Serkan Toto from Asiajin blogs about a fastest growing (2 millions in three months) mobile social network in Japan.
Japan: HBS on Japanese Anime Industry
Matt Alt links to a Harvard Business School working paper (pdf) on the state of the Japanese anime industry: “If Japan wants to bank on its ‘Gross National Cool’, it will have to overcome the inertia of system that has essentially reduced its most talented architects to the level of...
Japan: Copyright Law amendment
Fumi Yamazaki from What's happening in Japan right now blogs about the amendment of copyright law in Japan. Now downloading illegal contents will be illegal…
Taiwan: Japan meeting highlights China threat
An exchange between Hsiao Bi-Khim (蕭美琴),the DPP's director of international affairs, and Wu Shumin (武樹民), the Chinese Consulate-General in Fukuoka, at a meeting in Fukuoka, Japan highlighted the tensions that exist between Taiwan and China. Bi-Khim described the incident on her blog (zh). The Far-Eastern Sweet Potato says that the...
Japan: Why highly educated women want to be housewives?
Mari Kanazawa wondered why highly educated women in their 20s want to quit their jobs and become housewives.
Japan: Raining tadpoles
Pink Tentacle quoted and translated a story from Sankei about tadpoles falling with the rain to Japan's Ishikawa prefecture.
Japan: Social translation tool
Masaru IKEDA from Asiajin introduced some social translation tools that are designed to fill up the gap between human profession and computer’s imperfectness.
Japan: Sex crime victims and the lay judge system
Absentia wrote a post [en] about the repercussions that the new lay judge system might have on the sex crime victims. According to the blogger, “there is a possibiliy that people slander the victims on the internet, and even make another sexual assault on them, using the leaked information.” In...
Japan: Wrongfully convicted man released with new DNA tests
Having serving 17 and a half years of a life sentence for the alleged abduction and murder of a four year old girl, Toshikazu Sugaya was released from prison after new DNA test results proved his innocence. Japan Video News links to an NHK news video with English v.o. Tokyo...
Japan: The curtain rises on the lay judge system
May 21st marked the first day in the introduction of the lay judge system in Japan, saiban'in seido (裁判員制度) in Japanese. The first trials in which the new system is to be applied will start in July and six citizens will be called upon to examine and judge criminal cases...
About our Japan coverage
Nevin Thompson is our Japan editor. Email him story ideas or volunteer to write.
