Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2013

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.

MILESTONES

• Renowned anthropologist Masao Yamaguchi, a leader of the “new academism” movement and the author of the delightfully named treatise A Psychological History of Losers, died in a Tokyo hospital at age 81.
• Akira Watanabe became the first shogi player in 17 years to win the prestigious Osho championship before his 30th birthday.
• Officials at Tama Zoo welcomed a pair of young elephants from Sri Lanka as a gift commemorating 60 years of bilateral ties.
• Executives at Honda say the latest model of their Odyssey minivan is the first vehicle of its kind to offer a built-in… vacuum cleaner.

ALL 3/11, ALL THE TIME

• Officials at the communications ministry say about 700,000 people in areas hit hardest by the March 11 disaster have lost their jobs or have been forced to take a leave of absence. That figure represents an astounding 27.8 percent of the workforce in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures.
• Authorities at the environment ministry announced that just over half of the 16.3 million tons of tsunami debris in those prefectures has now been removed.
• The MPD filed charges against four engineers for professional negligence over the collapse of a parking-lot ramp at the Costco in Machida during the quake. Two people died and five others were injured in the incident.
• Officials at Google reached an agreement with seven Japanese cities and prefectures, including Chiba and Kawasaki, to provide evacuation information to residents in the event of an earthquake or other major disaster.

SAY WHAT?!?

• A 25-year-old Yokohama man who got into a quarrel with a stranger on a street wound up being beaten to death by a passerby who had been filming the argument with his cellphone camera.
• A mountain climber from Saitama who went missing for five days in Sumatra was discovered alive at the bottom of a 300-foot ravine.
• A research team led by a professor at the University of Tokyo warned that reef-building corals may completely die out by the end of the century due to acidification of seawater caused by carbon dioxide emissions.
• ANA and JAL passenger flights were forced to divert to a nearby US military airbase after an Air Self-Defense Force F-15 fighter jet got a flat tire while landing at Naha Airport.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST

• An F.C. Barcelona-sanctioned soccer camp is opening this month in Katsushika-ku—the birthplace of Captain Tsubasa creator Yoichi Takahashi.
• Tsukimino station in Kanagawa will test a new-style safety barrier that uses long, thick wires that “rise and fall with trains’ arrival and departure.”
• Officials at EgyptAir have cancelled operations of the airline’s Cairo-Tokyo route, citing “major economic losses and lack of support from both governments.”
• After a six-month delay due to diplomatic tensions, Japanese and Chinese manga lovers finally staged a joint exposition in Nanjing.

Compiled from reports by AP, Japan Today, The Japan Times, Jiji, The Tokyo Reporter, Japan Probe, The Mainichi, Daily Yomiuri, AFP, Reuters and Kyodo