Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2013

NEWS FROM THE STICKS

• Two men from Kanazawa were arrested for public indecency after stripping naked at a local branch of the Ohsho restaurant chain and posting photos of the prank online.
• A Shizuoka man who made more than 1,000 threatening phone calls to a music producer in Tokyo said he did it because “I couldn’t find a job, so I had time on my hands.”
• High water temperatures and a shortage of animal plankton are being blamed for record-low numbers of ayu (sweetfish) being shipped from Lake Biwa in Shiga.
• Postal officials in Akita put on sale commemorative stamps marking the 90th anniversary of the birth of the legendarily faithful dog Hachiko, who was born in the town of Odate.

SCHOOL DAZE

• Authorities at the NPA say they caught 89 minors—88 of them girls—in a crackdown on “internet-mediated sex crimes.”
• A court in Kyoto court ordered the Zaitokukai anti-Korean group to pay ¥12.2 million to a local Korean elementary school over an incident “in which they used loudspeakers to disseminate hate speech.”
• The Times of London says the University of Tokyo is the top institute of higher learning in Asia, and the 23rd overall in the world.
• Headline of the Week: “Website Encourages Students to Shift From All-You-Can-Drink Parties to Nice Meals” (via Mainichi Japan)

SIC TRANSIT

• JR Shikoku is outfitting one of its diesel locomotives to look like a first-generation “0-series shinkansen.” The railway company’s president quipped that it would be the “slowest bullet train” in operation.
• Authorities at the defense ministry unveiled a prototype of an eight-wheeled armored combat vehicle that “has greater mobility than a tank and is light enough to be transported by air.”
• Officials at Toyota announced that they’ll complete the development of self-driving autos “in the mid-2010s.”
• Nikon filed a lawsuit in New York claiming that a US company called Sakar International violated its patent on “mirrorless digital camera designs.”

FINDINGS

• A research team that included Japanese scientists confirmed the existence of the Higgs boson elementary particle.
• Officials at the justice ministry say that 3 percent of female prison inmates have eating disorders.
• Psychiatrists have found that an “aggressive” form of community-based therapy is effective in preventing suicide among Japanese men.
• Authorities at the welfare ministry say that income disparity in Japan has hit a record high.

AND FINALLY…

• Leaders of the Japanese Disabled Veterans Association have decided to disband the organization because of declining membership.
• A newspaper survey found that 81 percent of Japanese don’t want “life-prolonging treatments in the terminal phase of an illness.”
• Family Mart became the third conbini chain—after 7-Eleven and Lawson—to open its 10,000th store in Japan.
• A Japanese pet food company has released a product called Nyan Nyan Nouveau, which it describes as a “wine especially for felines.”

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