News On Japan

The Japanese film Pale Moon directed by Daihachi Yoshida grabbed two awards at the 27th Tokyo International Film Festival. (NHK)

Six men and women were bitten by a wild boar in Akiruno and Fussa cities in Tokyo on Friday morning. (Japan Today)

A court in Sapporo on Friday sentenced a 27-year-old man to seven years in prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old girl and confining her at his apartment. (Japan Today)

Many of the Chinese fishing boats that poach scarce coral, dubbed "jewelry coral," in waters around the Ogasawara Islands in Tokyo cast off from Xiapu County in Fujian Province, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. (The Japan News)

International visitors to Japan spent 1.46 trillion yen ($13.2 billion) in the first nine months of 2014, up 40% on the year and surpassing the 2013 figure of 1.41 trillion yen. (Nikkei)

Tokyo's Shibuya scramble crossing was the scene of a massive gathering of Halloween revelers on Friday night. Police had their hands full trying to control the crowds. (Japan Today)

New industry minister Yoichi Miyazawa on Saturday visited the disaster-struck Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant for the first time since replacing Yuko Obuchi, who resigned in late October over a funding scandal. (Kyodo)

The carcasses of 40 dogs have been found in a river in Sakura, Tochigi Prefecture, police said Saturday. (Japan Today)

Officials in Japan have put the finishing touches to a track that will carry Shinkansen bullet trains between the main island of Honshu and Hokkaido prefecture in the north. (NHK)

One guy, one not-super-fast-or-important guy has sort of spanked the elite running establishments of Japan, and the US of A. That guy is Japanese government clerk Yuki Kawauchi, pronounced Kow wah OO chee. He'll be part of the elite men's field in Sunday's NYC Marathon. (deadspin.com)

Once regarded as a geek-only niche market, Japanese animation movies have shot to worldwide success thanks in large part to Oscar winner Hayao Miyazaki's whimsical tales of fantasy. (gulfnews.com)

Traumatized by the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and encouraged by the highest rates for renewable energy in the world, Japan has been undergoing a green boom. (denverpost.com)

In Athens, many of the 2004 stadia now stand abandoned and overgrown. Beijing's hugely expensive 2008 "Bird's Nest" may have become a tourist attraction, but has been rarely used for anything else. (BBC)

NHK has found that Japanese prisons have a record vacancy rate of about 25 percent for full-time positions for doctors. (NHK)

Approaching its 100th anniversary in December, the red brick building of JR Tokyo Station in the Marunouchi business district is a symbol of the capital that continues to defy the high-rises around it with its classical architecture and stately appearance. (Japan Times)

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda does not need to convince Japanese people like Kazue Shibata that deflation brings problems, but getting them to believe that higher prices will make things better is proving to be a harder sell. (Reuters)

Shuji Nakamura, one of the three Japan-born scientists awarded this year's Nobel Prize in Physics, said Monday he wants to rebuild ties with former employer Nichia Corp., despite launching a lawsuit against the chemical maker over patent rights to his groundbreaking blue light-emitting diode technology. (Kyodo)

People in the ancient capital of Nara have been marking Culture Day by watching one of Japan's oldest performance arts. (NHK)

Limited availability is pushing up rents for existing offices in Tokyo and Osaka, lifting a corresponding Tokyo index to its first second-half gain on the year since 2012. (Nikkei)

With less than a month until the end of the current Diet session, the government may be forced to give up on passing legislation promoting casino resorts in light of other legislative priorities. (Nikkei)

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