Tatsuya Ichihashi was finally arrested at a ferry port in Osaka. An alert traveler at the port contacted authorities to tell them a person matching Ichihashi’s description was preparing to take a ferry bound for Okinawa. When police arrived on the scene, he admitted who he was without a struggle. Ichihashi had been on the…
The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs has begun broadcasting Japanese network tv stations over the internet using P2P (Peer to Peer) technology. As many newzjapan readers know, the Japanese government has gradually been making an effort to be more of a presence on the internet, including uploading useful videos to YouTube. KeyholeTV is another step…
Many years ago in Japan (old-timer ex-pats will remember it well) when Mr. Bean was very popular in Japan, and wanna-be tough guys in Japan would mutter “Mr. Bean” under their breath when they passed a non-Japanese person and felt a wave of insecurity. Students would call ALT’s (AET’s? I don’t remember what they call…
I’m not going to explain the obvious ones like and but I’ll go down a little list of some that I think people might find interesting or useful… refers to the Japanese version of the expression “see no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil” good for “sorry” or “pretty please” (although it looks like…
It seems that a Japanese husband and wife, supposedly for the sake of being non-sexist and fair, have decided on prices for various things the wife does around the house. The man is a 48 year old company employee married to a 42 year old woman. They claim that since the husband has started paying…
A recent study by the Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare has shown marriages in which the couple is already expecting are currently 26.8% and seem to be on the rise. Some wedding planning companies are saying that number may be as high as 40%. There is a movement to rename the shotgun weddings…
As the iPhone went to Softbank (owned by Yahoo Japan), I was wondering if the Google Android phone would ever come to Japan. Well, the Google Android Phone Japan Version is here, and it went to Docomo. Other Docomo phones have gradually been increasing its compatibility with Google products such as YouTube and Google Maps…
I’m sure a lot of the people who read this blog are familiar with the work of the Japanese scholar Takeo Doi. His writings were a very important part of some of my undergraduate research and I brought the English versions of his books with me when I moved to Japan. I’m happy to be…
A former truck driver who was promoted to a low level management position at the Sagawa Express package delivery company committed suicide recently. His wife is accusing Sagawa of bullying and power harassment which resulted in his suicide. After being promoted, the 42 year old man began working from before 6am until after 10:30pm every…
I thought my next update about this case would be some months down the line, however even at this early date the case has been settled. The victim has agreed to an undisclosed financial settlement with the six men sh accused of rape. The settlement seems to imply that the six Kyoto University of Education…
In a previous post I wrote about six Kyoto University of Education students who raped a girl at a party in February. The university never reported the incident to police until June. There were some pretty outrageous moral violations by the school, such things as refusing to report the incident to authorities, and the fact…
By now, I assume that the big gang rape incident at prestigious Kyoto University (link goes to news story in Japanese) is international news, and I would not like to go into the details of the incident. However, of interest to students of the media and society in Japan are the reasons that Kyoto University…