The Tokyo Sky Tree, set to open on May 22, has been completely booked by groups seeking to visit the tower during the first month of its opening, while individual tickets are yet to be made available.
Requests can be made to visit the tower up to six months in advance, but only 2,654 of the 27,122 groups that had requested to tour the Sky Tree during the first month of its opening have been able to secure tickets.
Up to 4,000 people can visit the tower each day in groups of 25 people or more. (Yomiuri)
Sky Tree booked for 1st month
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Solar power from external walls / New material allows for more efficient energy production
Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp. plans to sell a new type of external building material that generates power from sunlight beginning in fiscal 2013, it has been learned.
Unlike conventional solar panels, whose installation sites are limited to roofs and other specific places, the new material can be used for walls of buildings and other structures in sunny locations.
The new material will likely boost the spread of renewable energy. If the material is used for skyscraper walls, just one or two buildings could produce electricity equal to that generated at a large-scale solar power plant, according to experts. (Yomiuri)
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New fissures open in Japan
Hideo Sato, 47, and his family escaped to this snowy city 200 kilometers from the radiation emitting Fuksuhima power plant that was struck by the earthquake-driven tsunami on March 11.
"We were forced to move from our house in Okuma-machi barely eight kilometers from the damaged nuclear plant. We wanted to protect our children from radiation, but now we are at the mercy of the government," he said.
Nine months after the disaster, Sato, a former employee at a car sales company, lives on a US$1,500 monthly unemployment dole. His wife is occupied with looking after their three children and cannot take up a job.
Sato's plight is shared by tens of thousands of people from the tsunami-battered coastline of northeastern Tohoku, that was home to factories producing automobile components and semiconductors for export. The World Bank estimated the economic cost of Tohoku to be $235 billion, making it the most expensive natural disaster in history. (Asia Times)
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How I became a J-pop fangirl
Every form of geeky fandom can be a slippery slope of obsession.
The franchises and worldly outlooks that inspire devotion by so many are riddled with gently linked, coincidentally tangential fandoms. As a fan, it's easy to fall down a rabbit hole and wind up with a brand new passion. For example, a Doctor Who fan may suddenly be drawn to Steampunk. A board game fan may be drawn helplessly into the mystique of Cthulhu.
And a fan of anime may one day experience a great surge of joy while dancing around the house, listening to The Pillows. This is how it happens -- how you become a J-pop fangirl.
My transformation from a typical anime fan to a J-pop fangirl came in several phases. I started watching anime seriously when I was about 15, but for some reason I never thought about the music outside the show I was watching. (CNN)
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Soy may not protect against stomach cancer
Estrogen-like compounds that come with a soy-rich diet are sometimes linked to a reduced risk of cancer, but new research from Japan suggests that protection doesn't extend to stomach cancer.
In a study that tried to tease apart the effects of isoflavones -- also known as phytoestrogens -- found in soy, and other nutrients, like salt, Japanese researchers found no difference in gastric cancer risk between people who consumed a lot of isoflavones and those who consumed the least.
Azusa Hara and her colleagues from the National Cancer Center in Tokyo examined data on about 85,000 people in an existing Japanese study. (Reuters)
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Japan PM vows to bring rebirth of Fukushima
Japan's prime minister pledged Wednesday in his traditional new year's press conference to bring "rebirth" to the area around the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said authorities would work to decontaminate the region from radioactive fallout, while ensuring compensation and health checks for those affected by the disaster.
"These three pillars will bring the rebirth of Fukushima," he said. Noda gave no timeframe, and government officials have said it may be years or even decades before many of the 100,000 residents displaced by the disaster can return.
The nuclear crisis, the worst since Chernobyl in 1986, was triggered by damage from an earthquake and tsunami in March. It spewed radiation into the surrounding soil, water and forests. A 20-kilometer (12-mile) region around the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant plus some adjacent areas remain off-limits. (AP)
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Baseball: Ichiro felt 'mental stress' last year
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A nuclear-free town fades away in Japan
In the mid-1990s, the small seaside community of Maki was a rare exception in Japan, rejecting a nuclear-power plant offered to keep the town afloat, while similar villages embraced reactors as an economic development tool. As Japan now halts nuclear development, Maki's fate underscores the struggle that dozens of other rural towns could suddenly face without those jobs or subsidies.
A few years after turning down the reactors, the village of Maki in northwestern Japan disappeared in a merger of several municipalities, all with shrinking populations and tax bases, creating a bitterness that lasts to this day-even post-Fukushima-about the choice not taken.
Local officials say many residents have put the once-divisive nuclear-plant debate behind them and have accepted a more modest destiny as a slowly, steadily declining agricultural economy. "GDP in this whole region has been drifting lower for years," said Toshiyuki Saitou, the local ward chief who works in the former town hall. (Wall Street Journal)
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Hiroshima peace park cenotaph found vandalized
The cenotaph for atomic bomb victims at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park was found defaced with what appears to be golden paint in the early hours of Wednesday, police said.
Paint was sprayed over part of the cenotaph's inscription, which reads, "Let all souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil," the police said.
A security guard rushed to the cenotaph shortly before 1 a.m. after someone entered the site, setting off an alarm, police said.
According to a local security company, passersby saw a man with gray hair approach the cenotaph and use something resembling a spray can. (Japan Times)
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Toyo University wins ekiden in record time
Proving its depth, Toyo University won the annual Tokyo-Hakone collegiate ekiden road relay for the third time in four years with a stunning record time on Tuesday.
Toyo completed the 217.9-km round trip between Tokyo's Otemachi business district and the spa resort of Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture in 10 hours, 51 minutes, 36 seconds, more than 8 minutes faster than the previous record of 10:59:51 set by Waseda University a year ago. Komazawa University finished second in 11:00:38. Meiji University came in third in 11:02:50 and Waseda was fourth 20 seconds farther back. (Japan Times)
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Nikkei climbs 1.2 percent, eyes 75-day moving average
Japan's leading share average rose to a three-week closing high on Wednesday after better-than-expected economic data from the United States and China, although strategists said the rally could stall if the euro holds below 100 yen.
The data eased concerns over the health of the global economy, boosting Japanese automakers and financials.
Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) advanced 3.1 percent and Nissan Motor Co (7201.T) gained 1 percent, while battered Nomura Holdings (8604.T) topped the blue-chip Topix Core 30 .TOPXC list as the biggest percentage gainer, adding 6.9 percent. (Reuters)
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China and Japan find common ground
As with all important occasions, it does not matter so much who was there, but who was missing. On December 28, among thousands of North Korean mourners parading past the body of the deceased Dear Leader Kim Jong-il to bid a final farewell, what stood out was the absence of top dignitaries from neighboring countries and those concerned about the future of Pyongyang.
Significantly, in the same hours, on Christmas Day and Boxing Day in Beijing, China and Japan, North Korea's two most important neighbors, signed an important monetary agreement.
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao along with Chinese President Hu Jintao put aside their bitter disputes over the maritime border of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands and the surrounding gas fields, and they launched a major monetary framework agreement.
(Asia Times)
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Japanese automakers say goodbye to disaster-filled 2011
The big Japanese automakers are happy to see 2011 in their rear-view mirrors.
The Detroit auto companies posted a double-digit sales increase for the year, but the big Japanese brands -- especially Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. -- were hamstrung by a series of natural disasters.
First, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March hit, and then, later in the year, flooding closed parts suppliers in Thailand, disrupting their global auto manufacturing and leaving them with too few cars for the American market.
Toyota saw its sales fall 6.7% to 1.6 million vehicles last year. Its sales in December grew by just a few hundred vehicles to 178,131 compared with the same month a year earlier.
Honda's annual sales fell 6.8% to 1.1 vehicles. Its December sales fell 19% to 105,230 vehicles. (Los Angeles Times)
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Fukushima schools kick off semester
Public elementary and junior high schools in the city of Fukushima kicked off a new semester Wednesday, one week earlier than normal amid the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant crisis.
Those schools had extended summer vacation by one week last year as schools and local governments took measures to cope with radiation fallout from the crippled plant. To catch up, they instead shortened the winter vacation by one week. (Japan Times)
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New Yamanote Line station eyed
East Japan Railway Co. may build the first new station on the Yamanote Line since 1971, sources said Wednesday, adding the site would be between Shinagawa and Tamachi stations.
JR East is looking to start building the 30th station on the Tokyo commuter loop line in fiscal 2014 as part of its redevelopment of 50 to 75 percent of a 20-hectare rail yard located between the two stations in Minato Ward, the sources said.
A committee set up by JR East and other parties is currently examining the project, and it would take 10 years to complete the new station and surrounding facilities, a JR East official said. (Japan Times)
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Anti-whalers find Japanese harpoon ship
Anti-whaling activists claimed a small victory in their Antarctic campaign Wednesday with the discovery of a Japanese harpoon ship, as one of their boats limped back to Australia badly damaged.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said its Bob Barker vessel found the Japanese harpoon ship Yushin Maru 3 some 200 nautical miles north of the French Antarctic base Dumont d'Urville.
"The Bob Barker has been out at sea for about four weeks and this is the first whaling ship we've come across," second mate Vincent Burke told AFP from the area, which he said was thick with ice.
Burke said his vessel had been searching for the Japanese factory ship the Nisshin Maru in the hope of preventing it from processing any whale meat when it came across the harpoon boat. (Japan Today)
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New party Kizuna launched by 9 DPJ defectors
Nine Lower House lawmakers who announced last week that they were leaving the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, on Wednesday launched a new party called Kizuna.
The party, headed by Akira Uchiyama from Chiba Prefecture, filed their application with the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The nine DPJ defectors said they left the DPJ because of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's decision to hike the consumption tax and resume the Yamba dam project.
Uchiyama said the DPJ has broken key pledges in its 2009 election manifesto and is moving in a different direction to what voters expected of the DPJ. (Japan Today)
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Woman's body found beside Route 428 in Kobe
Police said Wednesday that a woman's body was found lying beside a national highway in Kobe.
Police said they received a report from a driver traveling along Route 428 in Kobe at around 11:40 a.m. on Tuesday, saying that there was a woman lying beside the road, TV Asahi reported. Police rushed to the scene to discover the body of a woman lying face up beneath the guard rail.
Police, who have identified the woman from her possessions, said she was 37 and lived around six kilometers from where she was found. They have not yet released her name. According to police, she was wearing a red jumper and her clothes were in disarray.
(Japan Today)
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Japan tuna sale smashes record
A bluefin tuna has been sold for three quarters of a million dollars in Tokyo - a price almost double last year's record sale.
The bluefin tuna, prized for making the finest sushi, fetched 56.49m yen ($736,000) at Tsukiji fish market's first auction of the year.
The winning bidder was Kiyoshi Kimura, owner of a sushi restaurant chain.
Globally, there is great concern over the species and fishing quotas.
The 269kg (593lb) tuna also set a record for price by weight, market official Yutaka Hasegawa said. The total price translates to 210,000 yen ($2,737) per kilogram.
The tuna was caught off Oma, in Aomori prefecture, north of the coast that was struck by the devastating tsunami last year. (BBC)
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Battle of the brushes in Japan
From small children to octogenarians, thousands came together in Tokyo Thursday for a new year's battle of the brushes in an annual national calligraphy contest.
In what has long been a ritual for the start of the year, people all across Japan write down their resolutions and hopes, or good luck characters, using a traditional horse-hair brush and ink made of charcoal.
This year's contestants brushing their welcome to the Year of the Dragon included children from Fukushima prefecture, which is still struggling with the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years, set off by last year's massive earthquake and tsunami.
"I wasn't sure if I would be able to write well, but I did better than I thought so I think it's good," said Natsumi Yazawa, a 14-year-old from Fukushima who traveled hundreds of kilometers to take part. (Reuters)
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