Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2010

TARGETING A NEW AUDIENCE

• The Ueno Okura Theater, a bastion of adult cinema for over half a century, has ramped up its efforts to entice more women to come in and catch a pornographic film.
• Foreigners have a reason to get out and rock the vote due to a provision in the DPJ’s constitution that allows permanent foreign residents to participate in the party’s upcoming presidential election, which will decide the next prime minister.
• Reports show more survivors of cervical cancer are discovering they can still experience a healthy sex life after undergoing major cancer treatments.


Illustration by Eparama Tuibenau

• The 18m-tall Gundam statue that once stood in Odaiba has been reassembled in Shizuoka, where it was unveiled to great fanfare in the city’s Aoi Ward.
• It was reported that instead of dealing with problems in the office, some companies are increasingly hiring yamesaseya—specialists who coerce resignations out of unwanted employees by following them and taking incriminating photographs, among various other types of schemes.
• Thanks to a tie-up with the Associated Press, The Yomiuri Shimbun became the first Japanese newspaper to distribute its news photographs to international media.

BACK TO NATURE

• A 55-year-old man in Fuji-Kawaguchiko is trying to liven up the image of the infamous Aokigahara forest—a popular suicide destination where 45 corpses were found in 2009—by conducting walking tours there.
• Probably not thinking about Aokigahara in particular, the agriculture ministry is pushing “tree education” to promote an understanding of the uses of timber and forest conservation.
• Conservationists in Mie were thrilled to discover loggerhead sea turtle eggs at a beach, the first such find since 2003.
• A 61-year-old man in Oita filed a lawsuit in an attempt to receive state support after being infected with hepatitis C from tainted blood products.
• There’s been no monkeying around in Shibuya as fruit company Dole announced its banana vending machines have sold nearly 2,500 pieces of fruit in just a month.

EYES ON THE PAST

• Documents from the US National Archives revealed that thousands of Japanese soldiers were buried in mass graves by US forces following the Battle of Iwo Jima.
• A list of almost 50,000 Allied troops who died during World War II as prisoners of the Imperial Japanese Army was discovered at a temple in Kyoto.
• Hiroshima’s tireless campaign against nuclear weapons has led mayor Tadatoshi Akiba to receive one of this year’s seven Ramon Magsaysay awards, an Asian version of the Nobel Prize.
• Japan’s oldest lion, Raita, died of natural causes at a zoo in Nagano at age 23, which is over 100 in human years.
• A 100-year-old merry-go-round was one of the six machines certified as objects of Mechanical Engineering Heritage by the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• The Fukuoka High Court put a price on peace and quiet, awarding damages of ¥369 million to plaintiffs who brought suit over the noise caused by flights at a US military base in Okinawa.

LAW AND ORDER

• Try explaining this one to the wife: A Kanagawa man was arrested for hiring an underage prostitute just days after returning from his honeymoon.
• A man who went to prison for committing around 900 burglaries during the Bubble era has begun a new stint behind bars after being arrested for a string of recent thefts in Chiba and Saitama.
• In the year since the first trial involving lay judges, citizen jurists have spent, on average, over seven hours deliberating cases.
• A middle-aged man can probably afford a lot of stamps after relieving a Shinagawa post office of ¥1 million during a robbery.
• Hopefully, the kids at a Hyogo middle school didn’t learn too much from a 44-year-old teacher who was arrested for stealing a wallet from a woman’s bag as she slept on a train.
• An almost completely paralyzed 52-year-old Chiba man suffering from atrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, has helped invent a guitar that disabled people can play.
• Students at the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences in Gifu have developed the Padnote, a regular notebook that resembles an Apple iPad.

AIM HIGH

• Although it’s still a year away from completion, the Tokyo Sky Tree has already become the tallest building in Japan, surpassing the 333-meter Tokyo Tower for the distinction.
• After negotiating with local fishermen, JAXA announced that its space centers in Kagoshima will be open for year-round rocket launches next year.
• Back on Earth, a piece of the Hayabusa unmanned space probe was shown to the public for the first time at Sagamihara City Museum.
• Proving that enough people doing almost anything is some kind of record, 2,320 participants played the Japanese flute in Aomori to break the Guinness World Record for flute ensembles.
• Joining them in the record books is a goldfish scooping event, now recognized as the world’s largest, where 45,000 fish were dumped in a 63-meter long tank in Fujisawa.

Compiled from reports by Bloomberg, BBC, Japan Today, The Japan Times, International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun, The Mainichi Daily News, The Tokyo Reporter, The Daily Yomiuri, PC Magazine, AP and Kyodo