Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on February 2013

OUCH!

• A Fukuoka man in his 30s was hospitalized after being bitten by a redback spider while removing a can of coffee from a vending machine.
• A special-ed teacher in Aichi was reprimanded for handcuffing a ten-year-old autistic student who wouldn’t follow her instructions.
• A worker at a nursing home in western Tokyo is in hot water after taking a photo of a female resident and sending it to colleagues in an email that compared the woman to a cartoon character.
• Headline of the Week: “80 Percent Approve of Being Cared for by Robots: Survey” (via Mainichi Japan)

CAPITAL GAINS LOSSES

• Last year marked the first time since recordkeeping began in 1956 that more deaths than births occurred in Tokyo. The situation led one official to comment, perhaps unnecessarily, that, “The number of deaths tends to increase as aging progresses.”
• Thanks to an influx of new residents, though, the population of Tokyo actually grew in 2012. There are now 13,222,760 people living in the city.
• In other news from the capital, TMG officials say they’re planning to erect “tsunami evacuation towers” on the Izu and Ogasawara islands.
• The third highest-ranking official at the Consumer Affairs Agency and his wife leapt to their deaths from a condo in an unidentified area of the city.

WHAT’S THE JAPANESE FOR “NEOCON”?

• The LDP and its ruling partners plan to submit a bill to Diet authorizing the SDF to use force in overseas missions.
• The justice ministry will ask the Diet to approve its request to raise the maximum prison sentence for crimes committed by juveniles from the current 15 years to 20 years.
• Japan’s new national police chief, Tsuyoshi Yoneda, said his priorities are “cybercrime, terrorism and measures against crime syndicates.”
• Three workers at a Tokyo-based export company were arrested for violating the government’s sanctions against Iran by conducting business with the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line.

HISTORY LESSONS

• Scholars say a 6th-century sword unearthed in Fukuoka has a gold inlay of kanji characters—just the fourth such relic ever discovered. It’s believed the finding will offer “an important clue to the metalworking technique in the Tumulus period.”
• The Tokyo Board of Ed announced that, for the upcoming academic year, 49,000 high schoolers will be given revised history textbooks with this claim: “Japan annexed the Senkaku Islands in 1895, and it established ownership of the Takeshima Islands by the mid-17th century at the latest.”
• Researchers at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science have found that “hunger activates a protein inside the brain that enhances memory performance.”
• The LDP has introduced a bill that regards internet slander of schoolkids as bullying.

MOVIN’ ON UP

• Toyota regained its position as the world’s top automaker in 2012, outselling second-place GM by about a half million vehicles.
• Meanwhile, Nissan announced that it sold 4.94 million cars last year—a record for the company.
• Users of travel website Trivago ranked Tokyo hotels as the fourth-best in the world. Hotels in London placed dead last, in the 100th spot.
• The health ministry says the number of people on welfare has hit a record high for six consecutive months.

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