Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2010

MOVIN’ ON UP

• Who said times were tough? Google Japan is going upscale, moving to the swish Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills from Shibuya’s Cerulean Tower.
• Out of 254 nurses from Indonesia and the Philippines who took Japan’s national nursing exam, only three passed.
• It was announced that the Fujiko F. Fujio Museum will open in Kawasaki in 2011 to honor the life and times of the manga artist who gave the world Doraemon.
• Japan’s Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa were awarded the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize for their work in Japan, Europe and the US under the name SANAA.
• Don’t mess with this teacher! Chiharu Icho, a two-time Olympic medalist in women’s wrestling, is becoming a phys ed teacher at an Aomori high school.
• A Sogo department store in Hiroshima Prefecture was pondering refunding about ¥70 million to an 87-year-old woman diagnosed with dementia after an unscrupulous salesman talked her into several unnecessary purchases.

THIS ONE TAKES THE CAKE

• The Tokyo Midtown complex marked its three-year anniversary with a 6m-high strawberry cream sponge cake called “Smile Cake, Happy Cake.”
• If you like a little intrigue with your museums, a Japanese Imperial Army spy research center in Kawasaki was reopened “as a museum on spying and subversive activities.” Among the cool things on display are designs for balloon bombs that were planned for use against the US, and stuff to make biological and chemical weapons.
• It was reported that the Chinese factory worker at the center of the poisoned gyoza scandal committed the crime because he was miffed at not getting a full-time position and also because his wife was not paid a bonus. So poison your boss’s gyoza, dude!
• Which leads to our Headline of the Week, courtesy of The Asahi Shimbun: “Dumpling suspect ‘a quiet, kind child.’”
• Runner-up, also from the Asahi: “For the record: I ate soy-glazed ‘dango’” (from a story on Cabinet ministers’ Twitter messages).
• Kazuhiro Mori became the first Japanese in 17 years to win a medal at the Track Cycling World Championships when he finished third in the men’s scratch race in Copenhagen.

STICKS AND STONES

• In a rare display of petulance, Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Postal Reform Minister Shizuka Kamei dropped the mitts during a television show and sniped at each other repeatedly.
• North Korea was none too happy with Osaka Governor Toru Hashimoto after he called its state system “illegal” and compared it to the Nazi regime.
• Actress Hayden Panettiere and her boxer boyfriend Wladimir Klitschko were not exactly welcomed with open arms by the locals when they showed up in the fishing village of Taiji. The Heroes cheerleader visited to call for an end to the annual dolphin hunt and volunteered her services as a town “spokesperson,” if they would just stop killing dolphins.
• A court in Chiba handed down an 18-month prison sentence to Akira Akasaka, formerly an idol with the group Hikaru Genji, for possession and use of illegal drugs.

WRINGING THEIR NECKS

• Two US Army servicemen in Okinawa were detained for choking and trying to rob a local cabbie.
• A Saitama woman was arrested for strangling to death her bedridden 78-year-old husband “after he repeatedly asked me to kill him,” she told investigators.
• Hiroshi Nakai, Japan’s minister of state for the North Korean abduction issue, was chastised after a magazine reported that he gave his girlfriend a key to a dormitory for lawmakers.
• A 28-year-old man in Kumamoto led police on an hour-long chase that involved more than 20 cop cars and a helicopter after his wife, who was registered on a domestic violence victim list, made a call to the police station.
• Kwon Hui Ro, also known as Kim Hui Ro, who killed two gangsters in Japan in 1968 and whose case focused attention on the issue of Zainichi Koreans, died in a Busan hospital of cancer at age 81.
• In Osaka, a court ruled that an internet provider would have to reveal the name of the blogger who posted an article about a doctor accused of photographing and molesting female patients.

Illustration by Shane Busato

IT’S ABOUT TIME

• Volkswagen, Audi and BMW have hit the local market with vehicles that qualify for tax breaks in Japan due to lower emissions and better fuel economy.
• Toyota has agreed to supply the hybrid technology used in its Prius vehicles to Mazda so that it, too, can enter the world of gas-electric auto manufacturing, the two automakers revealed.
• Japan’s transport ministry is planning to test full-body scanners on passengers at Narita Airport , most likely starting in July (see Travelogue).
• It was reported that the British Embassy will give a vacation home in Nikko built by diplomat Ernest Satow in 1896 to Tochigi Prefecture free of charge.
• After beating Kim Yu Na for the gold medal at the World Figure Skating Championships, Mao Asada threw some of the credit her Korean rival’s way, saying, “Thanks to her, I’m growing as a skater.”
• It was announced that veteran ozeki Kaio, 37, would receive the Prime Minister’s Award for his contribution to sports after he competed in his 100th top-level tournament in Osaka.
• A 32-year-old sumo referee was arrested for kicking his 3-year-old son in the back after the wee fella lost his dad’s socks while playing with them.
• Fujitsu and Apple reached an agreement (read “cash payout”) allowing the latter to use the name “iPad,” which Fujitsu had registered back in 2003

THE GRIM REAPER

• A Saitama court said it had no choice but to sentence 48-year-old Takeshi Koizumi to death for killing a retired bureaucrat and his wife because he was miffed that his dog had died several decades earlier.
• Just after the statute of limitations had expired on the case, one of Japan’s top cops proclaimed that Aum Shinrikyo members were responsible for shooting a Tokyo police chief in 1995.
• Bestselling pop singer Hatsumi Shibata, who began performing at age 9 at US military bases, died of a heart attack at age 57 at her home in Shizuoka.
• A bus from a swimming school in Osaka Prefecture went up in flames after crashing into a wall, killing the driver and injuring ten passengers.

Compiled from reports by Japan Today, International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun, The Daily Yomiuri, The Japan Times, The Mainichi Daily News, The Associated Press, AFP, CNN, Reuters and Kyodo.