Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2010

FOREIGN INTRIGUE

• Former sumo star Asashoryu was spotted in North Korea with a delegation from his native Mongolia led by foreign affairs minister Gombojav Zandanshatar.
• Some speculated that the former bad-boy yokozuna made the trip to invite a North Korean circus to tour Mongolia, where he now operates a circus group.
• A South Korean national living in Hyogo had his application for child allowance payments rejected by the local municipal government. He was seeking nearly ¥90 million a year to cover 554 kids he claimed to have adopted in Thailand, plus one of his own.
• A 60-year-old man in Osaka died after a defibrillator used by paramedics malfunctioned.
• Stay with us here, but around 3,000 Kaiyodo figurines went on display at the Kaiyodo Figure World exhibition at the Kanmon Kaikyo Museum in Kita-Kyushu.

TALK ABOUT FAST WOMEN!

• Fukushima native Yukie Sakai, 29, has become the first female bullet-train driver for JR East, working the Tohoku shinkansen line.
• Tokyo native Wakako Tsuchida won the women’s London Marathon wheelchair race. Tsuchida’s other wheelchair wins include four victories in the Boston Marathon.
• An enterprising 18-year-old boy from Yamaguchi Prefecture was arrested for running a lucrative prostitution ring. Most of his “employees” were in the 14-17 year old range.
• Over 1,400 people showed up at a memorial in Hyogo to mark the fifth anniversary of a train derailment that killed more than 100 people and injured another 560.

Crimes of Passion

• A 28-year-old Ibaraki man was arrested after a woman was found dead near his house with a kitchen knife stuck in her chest. Police say the two “got into an argument over a relationship.”
• In Osaka Prefecture, a 29-year-old man died in a car accident while fleeing police after he had stabbed his father to death.
• A grandmother who killed her 40-year-old son ten days after he tried to commit suicide was handed a suspended three-year prison sentence by the Tokyo District Court.
• A “disturbed” 25-year-old man who pushed a woman onto the train tracks at Tokyo station last year lost an appeal of his nine-year prison sentence.
• The cops arrested one of their own recently when Fukuoka inspector Yoshinori Okada was busted with an illegally modified model handgun at his home. Several other model weapons were found at Okada’s house, leading police to think he had a “gun fixation.”

Photo by Keigo Moriyama

OPPORTUNITY ROCKS

• In an attempt to cash in on the old and decrepit from the rest of Asia, the Japanese government is mulling a “medical visa” that would allow rich folks from places like China to seek long-term medical care here.
• A 29-year-old conductor from Israel has been picked to replace Seiji Ozawa as opera director at the Saito Kinen Festival in Nagano. The 74-year-old Ozawa is recovering from treatment for esophagal cancer.
• A man who says he was drunk when he snapped a maraca off a statue of popular manga character Ryotsu Kankichi in Katsushika-ku turned himself in after seeing how much attention the incident received.
• Osaka cops, rejoice! Krispy Kreme and Mister Donut’s Cafe Andonand have ignited a doughnut war after opening their first outlets in the region.
• Ace pitcher Mika Konishi led the Hyogo Swing Smileys to victory over the Kyoto Asto Dreams 8-0 in the first game of the Girls Professional Baseball League.
• The Asto Dreams will have plenty of chances to avenge the loss, however, since these are the only two teams in the league.
• It was announced that the jersey and spikes worn by Hanshin Tigers outfielder Tomoaki Kanemoto during his record streak of 1,492 complete games will be put on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
• “The Big Unit,” 6ft 10in former MLB pitcher and future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, threw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to a Rakuten Eagles-Lotte Marines game at Tokyo Dome. It was a strike, naturally.

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…

• It was announced that Jan Jan, a “trailblazing activist media website” which shut down in late March due to financing problems, is being reincarnated as a blog.
• Three electric-powered taxis commenced a 90-day trial run on the streets of Tokyo.
• A 3D film starring Michael Jackson as a character named Captain EO will be making a return engagement at Tokyo Disneyland after a 14-year absence.
• JAXA announced that it will launch Ikaros, the world’s first satellite powered by a solar sail. It was reported that the “space yacht” would unfurl a 20m sail after leaving the Earth’s atmosphere.
• Japan’s minister in charge of the North Korean abduction issue, Hiroshi Nakai, said that students who attend Pyongyang-linked schools here are “brainwashed with classes on … the communist state’s philosophy of self-reliance and ideas that put the military first.”
• A Tokyo company called Super Faiths has come up with a machine that can turn used diapers into fuel.

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, AP and Kyodo