Tag: Random Japan

FINDINGS

Japanese researchers have discovered that people with diabetes are 1.2 times more likely to develop cancer than non-diabetics.

The internal affairs ministry says the number of workers aged 60 or over has hit a record high for the sixth straight year. The figure stands at 11.92 million.

A museum in Meguro-ku has put on display 10 notebooks containing the schoolboy scribblings of acclaimed writer Osamu Dazai (1909-1948).

Meanwhile, a trove of nine unpublished drawings by famed manga-ka Osamu Tezuka was discovered by Space Battleship Yamato illustrator Leiji Matsumoto.

PUBLIC ENEMIES

The Consumer Affairs Agency upbraided Coca-Cola Japan for using the word tokuhou (“news flash”) in ads for a new fiber drink. The agency said consumers might confuse the term with tokuho, a word used to describe healthy food.

The MPD received 14,104 entries in a contest to name a new type of bank scam where fraudsters pretend to be the victim’s son over the phone. The official name is now “Kaasan, tasukete sagi,” or “Mom, help me scam.”

The newest hire at the justice ministry’s clerical department is… a juvenile delinquent on probation. Officials hope to foster understanding about criminal rehabilitation.

The MPD has asked NTT Docomo to be more careful with cellphone-rental companies, some of which are apparently fronts for crime groups.

HEAVY METAL

he SDF installed a Patriot anti-missile battery at its headquarters in downtown Tokyo, aka the most densely populated place on Earth.

A customs officer at Fukuoka Airport busted a pair of Japanese men for attempting to smuggle 8kg of gold from Thailand.

A “natural history study group” made up of citizens dedicated to the Izu islands say that the endangered black-footed albatross is making a comeback on an uninhabited island near Hachijojima.

Meanwhile, a strong earthquake ruined a popular rock-climbing cliff on Miyakejima that was hailed as sparking interest in free-climbing on the island.

THE WAGES OF SIN

Who says crime doesn’t pay? Officials at the NPA estimate that about 70 percent of websites providing “illegal or harmful content” are also receiving advertising revenue.

A Saitama man was handed a suspended sentence for defrauding 15 people out of ¥11 million, which he said would be used for “developing and selling items to be used in a virtual city on the internet.”

Officials in Kamakura are combining three local beaches-including the popular Yuigahama-into a single entity and selling the naming rights for a cool million yen.

Meanwhile, authorities in Akita are looking for someone to “assume control” of a hot-spring hotel complex in the resort town of Yuzawa-for free.

HOLY CRAP

A team of Japanese researchers has used an MRI to “successfully decode dreams by measuring brain activity during sleep.” It’s the first time scientists anywhere have been able to “read dreams.”

A cinema in Nagoya is planning to go “4-D” by allowing moviegoers to “experience wind, sprays of water, scents, light, fog and even soap bubbles.” We’re particularly excited about the bubbles.

After objections from the municipal labor union, officials in Nara ditched a plan to keep tabs on city workers via an ID authentication system “based on blood vein configuration.”

A letter carrier in Chiba who was arrested for stealing 2,100 pieces of mail said she did it because of “stress over her work.”

TAKE COVER!

The government says if a major quake were to strike the Nankai Trough, it would cause ¥17 trillion in damage-more than 10 times the cost of the 3/11 disasters.

Officials at the defense ministry are in hot water for free-speech violations after asking applicants to provide info about their spouses’ nationality and whether they had undergone “treatment for alcohol, drugs or psychological disorders.”

The Japanese government lodged a complaint with authorities in France after a French company sold “a device to facilitate landing by ship-based helicopters” to China.

Meanwhile, a 35-year-old Japanese expat living in Singapore died while rock climbing in the Batu Caves outside Kuala Lumpur.

STRANGE BUT TRUE

A Japanese man who traveled to Malaysia to marry a woman he met over the internet was rescued by police after being kidnapped by three Nigerians at the airport.

Officials in Hyogo suspended a prefectural employee for three months for “stuffing his backpack full of food at an all-you-can-eat buffet and trying to take it home.”

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s decision ordering a deadbeat mom to pay ¥50,000 to her ex-husband for “each time she denied him access to their daughter.”

Police in Kawasaki arrested a 19-year-old man for murdering his mother after finding “a head, a left arm and other body parts” in the apartment the two shared.

MILESTONES

A blind Japanese acupuncturist who lives in San Diego is attempting to become the first sightless man to sail across the Pacific Ocean.

A research team led by scientists at the University of Tokyo say they may have found “a clue for developing drugs to kill multidrug-resistant bacteria.”

Researchers at the National Cancer Center recommend consuming 20 grams of saturated fatty acid daily to ward off strokes and heart attacks. That’s equivalent to “200 grams of milk a day and 150 grams of meat every other day.”

Headline of the Week: “Cat and Bird Corpses Left on Store Escalator Again” (via Mainichi Japan)

NICE WORK, FELLAS

A high school baseball coach in Chiba was suspended for breaking one of his players’ arms after the kid missed a fly ball in practice.

It was later revealed that the same coach had “hit another first-year [player] in the face with a bat, knocking out his front teeth and splitting his lip.”

The NPA said it dealt with a record number of cases of child pornography in 2012. Officials said that underage smut “is spreading via the internet.” Gee, ya think?

A Tokyo-based bicycle importer was ordered to pay ¥189 million in damages to a man who was paralyzed in an accident involving his Italian-brand Bianchi bike.

POLICE BLOTTER

Cops in Toshima-ku arrested four operators of a brothel called the Otsuka Cosplay Academy for employing a 14-year-old girl as a sex worker.

Authorities in Hachioji believe that a serial arsonist is setting fire to local vending machines in an effort to “steal change.”

A 35-year-old lieutenant commander in the Maritime Self-Defense Force was arrested for “touching a 20-year-old female college student’s lower body” on the Keikyu line.

An Osaka woman was busted for getting her 6-year-old daughter addicted to sleeping pills. The woman told officials that she wanted the girl to go to bed at the same time she did.

HUH?

Osaka’s last remaining streetcar company introduced a tram line whose color scheme is meant to evoke “traditional Japanese aesthetic philosophy.”

Lawmakers have enacted measures to combat a fraud scheme known as oshigai, which involves bullying unsuspecting people into selling “precious metal jewelry and other items for unreasonably low prices.”

Police in Fukuoka say an employee at a work center for people with mental disabilities put a disabled man in a chair, placed a cardboard target above his head, and “threw an awl from about three meters away like he was playing darts.”

Headline of the Week: “Researchers Find Chemical in Male Mouse Urine that Attracts Females” (via Mainichi Japan)

YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK

According to financial disclosure statements, deputy prime minister Taro Aso is the proud owner of houses in Shibuya and Karuizawa; 360,398 shares of stock in 16 companies; and eight golf club memberships.

The government’s Council for Ainu Policy Promotion says it hopes to conduct Japan’s first-ever census of indigenous peoples.

Officials at the newly launched Nuclear Regulation Authority say they’ll digitize and publish online 900,000 pages of documents pertaining to the Fukushima disaster.

The NPA announced a plan to force “malicious cyclists”-i.e., those who have been busted for more than one traffic violation-to attend lectures on safe cycling.

A Cabinet Office survey has found that a plurality of Japanese “oppose revising the Civil Code to allow married couples to use separate surnames.”