Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on May 2014

GET A LIFE

• The first person in Tokyo to buy a copy of Haruki Murakami’s new short story collection, Onna no Inai Otokotachi (Men Without Women), was a 32-year salaryman who stood in line for the midnight release and who was quoted as saying, “I empathize with the title, because I don’t have a girlfriend, either.”
• After assuring members of the International Olympic Committee that they would offer free transportation to spectators and athletes at the 2020 Tokyo Games, government officials now say they have no idea how they’ll be able to put the plan into action.
• In particular, they say operating subways 24 hours a day would be “difficult in terms of security” and that they can’t figure out “how to cover the cost of combining a game ticket and an IC transportation card.”
• For the first time in 32 years, the number of Japanese people of “working age”—that is, between 15 and 64—has dropped below 80 million.

ROLLING OUT THE WELCOME

• Tourism authorities say a record 1.05 million foreigners visited Japan in March.
• And the total number of visitors from overseas during the first quarter of the year was also a record, at nearly 2.9 million.
• Meanwhile, the JNTO has announced a plan to “analyze tweets by foreign tourists during their visits.”
• That comes on the heels of an initiative that sees the agency collecting and analyzing GPS data from visitors’ cell phones.

READ MY LIPS

• For the first time since the government established its cabinet system in 1885, officials have released the minutes of a meeting of top ministers.
• The authorities said, apparently with a straight face, that they disclosed the minutes “to underscore the Abe administration’s efforts toward transparency.”
• According to the welfare ministry, job seekers lodged a total of 7,783 complaints last year about work offers that “did not match their advertisements.”
• The ministry says that this “hints at the widespread problem of advertisers lying in job classifieds.” Gee, ya think?

FACELIFTS

• Officials at JR East say they’ll replace the roof over the platform of tracks Nos. 5 and 6 at Tokyo station—for the first time since the station opened 100 years ago.
• Leaders of a shopping association in Setagaya-ku have festooned a local shotengai with 82 streetlights in the shape of TV superhero Ultraman Taro.
• Authorities at the government’s newly created Healthcare and Medical Strategy Promotion group say they want to “computerize every medical service at hospitals.”
• Officials at the finance ministry say a record 28,135 counterfeit brand items were seized by customs workers last year, yet this represents only “a small portion” of the total.

FISH TALES

• A newspaper poll found that, although 37 percent of Japanese never eat whale meat, 60 percent support the country’s whaling program.
• According to seismologists at the TMG, Shinagawa would be the area of the city hardest-hit by a tsunami in the event of a major earthquake.
• Public health authorities say the March 11 quake kick-started their efforts to standardize dental procedures nationwide, believing it to be “an effective method to help quickly identify bodies of victims in major disasters.”
• Bottom Story of the Week: “Sketches by Moomin Series Creator Left on Luncheon Mat To Be Displayed” (via Mainichi Japan).

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