Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2011

Official Oversight

• A woman in Fukuoka sued Google after she discovered that the company’s Street View service showed a photo of her underwear hanging on the veranda.
• LDP lawmaker Hiroshi Nagai found himself in hot water after ordering Prince Akishino and his wife to sit down during a ceremony marking the 120th anniversary of the opening of the Diet.
• It was reported that a fire sergeant in Hiroshima had been driving emergency vehicles for the past 14 years even though he didn’t have a driver’s license.
• The mayor of Utazu in Kagawa Prefecture was rebuffed in his plan to work for the entire year without a salary. Instead, the city council offered to halve his pay for the next two years.
• A junior high school teacher in Aomori Prefecture was in trouble with the education board after posting a list of “foolish” students in the school corridor. Then doing it again.

Mommy’s Little Boys

• A survey by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research found that a whopping 79.4 percent of Japanese men aged 20-24 still live with their parents.
• For guys aged 25-29, the figure was 64.2 percent; for 30-34-year-olds, 47.9 percent; and for men aged 35-39, 41.6 percent still live with their mommies and daddies.
• After the resort town of Shibu Onsen in Nagano “remodeled” itself to look like Yukumo Village from the videogame Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, a year-end holiday stay plan sold out in just ten minutes.
• Headline of the Week: “Saitama Geeks Freak After ‘Otaku’ Matchmaking Party Deluged by Applicants” (via Kyodo)
• Runner-up: “Lovelorn Lasses Dress their Futon for Success in Love” (via Asahi.com)

Foreign Intrigue

• In what is being described as a “rare” move, the US Congress granted permanent residence to a Japanese woman who married a US Marine by telephone in July 2008 while he was stationed in Iraq and she was in Japan. The man died in Iraq the following month.
• The Tokyo High Court overturned a lower court in the case of a British woman who was convicted of smuggling 1.4 kg of stimulants from Malaysia to Japan. The judges accepted the woman’s claim that an acquaintance had given her the bag and that she wasn’t aware that the drugs were inside.
• An 11-year-old cat that “works” as the stationmaster of Kishi station in Wakayama will make its TV debut in a commercial for Korean Air this month.
• Six noodle shops from Tokyo and Nagano got together and opened an emporium called Ramen Champion in Bangkok. There are thought to be over 130 ramen shops in the Thai capital.
• A team of Japanese chefs are opening Europe’s first sushi academy in London next February, to counteract an epidemic of “pseudo-sushi.”

Upward and onward

• For the first time in three years, the average winter bonuses offered by privately held companies rose. The payout was ¥774,654.
• It was reported that, for the first time in 23 years, the total number of crimes in Japan fell below 1.6 million in 2010. The National Police Agency says the crime rate has been falling since reaching a peak of 2.85 million in 2002.
• 2010 also saw sales at department stores increase for the first time in three years.
• The Japan Food Service Association said that sales at restaurants are rising even though the amount each customer spends is decreasing.

Public opinion

• A recent survey by Hakuhodo asked, “If your country were a person, how old would it be?” Respondents said that Japan would be in its 50s, while China was the youngest at 31.5 years old. Singapore (32.5) and India (32.7) came next.
• A newspaper poll found that Chiyonofuji, who dominated sumo in the 1980s, is the most revered yokozuna in modern history.
• Thirty-eight-year-old Kazumi Inamura made history when she was elected as the nation’s youngest ever female mayor in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture.
• An environmental action group “honored” Japan as its Fossil of the Day after policymakers decided not to back an extension of the Kyoto Protocol at last month’s COP 16 meeting in Cancun, Mexico.

This Just In

• The health ministry approved prescription sales of the emergency contraceptive known as the “morning after pill.”
• Among the speakers featured on a new CD of pre-World War II speeches from Nippon Columbia Co. are the founder of Waseda University and a fleet admiral in the Imperial Japanese Navy.
• The US Environmental Protection Agency announced that the Nissan Leaf electric car gets 99 miles per gallon—the highest-rated car for gas mileage. (The EPA takes into account the amount of fossil fuel it takes to produce electricity.)
• Consumers around the nation were bummed to discover that last summer’s record temperatures drove up prices of traditional New Year delicacies like salmon, ikura, oysters and scallops.
• Researchers at a psychiatric hospital in Gunma Prefecture have reported a link between kleptomania and eating disorders in women.

Here & There

• A 49-year-old robot researcher from Yamanashi bested 105 competitors to take the crown at the World Puzzle Championship in Paprotonia, Poland.
• Officials at Narita Airport announced that they will increase the number of berths available for private jets in a bid “to lure the world’s top decision-makers to Japan.”
• A Hokkaido man arrested for driving the wrong way on an expressway explained his actions by saying, “My pet cat died and I felt empty inside.”
• The end of an era: embattled national airline JAL removed its logo from its headquarters in Shinagawa.

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