Metropolis Japan

August 28, 2009

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2009 In the hood The most popular neighborhood in Tokyo among apartment renters is Kichijoji, according to Recruit Co, which based the ranking on search terms entered by users on its real estate website. Ikebukuro, Nakano, Nakameguro and Shibuya rounded out the top five. Critics say the Pharmaceutical Affairs […]

By Metropolis

Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on August 2009

In the hood

The most popular neighborhood in Tokyo among apartment renters is Kichijoji, according to Recruit Co, which based the ranking on search terms entered by users on its real estate website. Ikebukuro, Nakano, Nakameguro and Shibuya rounded out the top five.
Critics say the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law, which went into effect on June 1, unfairly maligns dealers of traditional Chinese medicine. The law prohibits mail-order and online sales of “drugs that carry a medium risk of side effects.”
A group of 7-Eleven store owners got together to form a union, the first such organization in Japan. Because, you know, if there’s one group that’s unfairly discriminated against, it’s convenience store owners.
The agriculture ministry set up a special panel to address the damage to crops due to this year’s wet and unusually cool summer. The weather is being blamed for the steep rise in the prices of potatoes (40 percent), tomatoes (25) and carrots (20).
In what is being described as “the most challenging match of his storybook career,” manga hero Captain Tsubasa is helping out Japan’s bid for the 2016 Olympics. The comic’s creator, Yoichi Takahashi, drew the fictional character in the middle of a flag submitted to the bid committee.

Strange but True

A 13-year-old Hyogo girl who was swept away during severe rainstorms in western Japan was rescued six kilometers away after an acquaintance who lived in that area heard her screaming for help.
A 23-year-old JR employee in Kyoto who was running late for work pressed the emergency stop button on a train to give himself a ready-made excuse for his bosses. The train stopped for five minutes, but the man was arrested for “forcible obstruction of business.”
Denmark’s ambassador to Japan staged a protest against nuclear arms at the summit of Mt. Fuji.
It was reported that the Bank of Japan is counting the number of brothels in Hokkaido in order “to better gauge demand for services.”
Headline of the Week: “More People Irked by Sound of Kids at Play” (via The Daily Yomiuri)

Photo by Kishimoto

Runner-up: “Once Groomed-to-be Pop Star Undone by Pachinko Ball Thievery” (via The Japan Times)

Yeah, that’ll help

The National Personnel Authority proposed that government workers take a pay cut of 0.22 percent “to reflect the pay cuts occurring in the private sector.”
The NPA also suggested that public employees reduce their bonuses by 0.35 months’ pay. That would actually be the biggest cut in bonuses since 1952.
A local government in Aomori granted a residence certificate to an Akita dog that has become a tourist magnet after a blogger referred to it as “ugly but cute.”
A 46-year-old police sergeant was arrested for accepting nearly ¥700,000 in bribes from the owner of a Korean massage parlor in Chiyoda-ku.
An insurance agent in Yamaguchi Prefecture stands accused of defrauding clients out of ¥100 million by forging their insurance certificates and keeping the money for himself.
A survey by an industry research group has found that 39 percent of Japanese private universities are losing money.

Whatever floats your boat

A 34-year-old Japanese woman has revived the ancient storytelling tradition of kodan to relate the tale of an OL in her late 20s desperately trying to find a husband.
A prefectural government worker in Tochigi has assembled an exhibition that “presents Nobel Prize-winning author Hermann Hesse as a boy who loved insects.”
A 38-year-old Kanagawa woman used 2,063,738 glass beads to create a six-panel folding screen depicting historical landmarks in Kamakura. Guinness World Records has certified this as a record.

Kids these days

The National Police Agency announced that the number of child prostitution cases has risen for the first time in three years.
Also, cases of child pornography rose to a record high during the first half of the year.
On the plus side, the number of minors being arrested declined nearly 2 percent.
Meanwhile, the education ministry announced that the rate of truancy among elementary and junior high school students dropped for the first time in three years.
Police charged a teenage Japanese couple with abandoning a newborn baby girl “wrapped in a towel in a basket on the back of a bicycle.” The incident occurred in February, and the infant died of hypothermia.

Plainly speaking

A member of a private panel convened to study the government’s goal of a manned moon mission by the year 2020 said that the project should be undertaken in “an overwhelmingly cheap and efficient way to demonstrate [Japan’s] strong points.”
A survey by a US university found that 61 percent of Americans think that dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was “the right thing to do.”
It is feared that a ban on bluefin tuna fishing proposed at the (deep breath) Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora will “threaten Japan’s food supply.”
The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has found that students from high-income families score higher on achievement exams than their poorer counterparts.
The construction ministry announced that it will open a daycare center at its Tokyo headquarters that can be used by neighborhood families in addition to ministry employees.
For the second year in a row, Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate increased. The nation can now supply 41 percent of its citizens’ total caloric intake on its own.
Convenience store chain 7-Eleven opened its first drugstore, at a supermarket in Chiba.
Japan’s newly deployed earthquake early-warning system came in for criticism after it failed to alert anyone about a 6.5 magnitude quake that struck Shizuoka earlier this month.
Crown Prince Naruhito is set to move back home after a yearlong renovation that made his palace more energy efficient, including adding solar panels.
Japanese home run king Sadaharu Oh was made an honorary citizen of Miyazaki, where he spent many training camps while a player.

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