Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2012

THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT

• A district court in Okayama upheld a provision in Japan’s Civil Code that bars women from remarrying for at least six months after a divorce. Japanese men face no such prohibition.
• Less than a year after junior-high-school students across the country were required to take martial arts classes, three kids have been sidelined with “cerebrospinal fluid leakage,” according to the good folks at the Japan Judo Accident Victims Association.
• Above-average sea temperatures off the coast of Hokkaido are being blamed for an influx of rare marine creatures, including a school of headfish, a white shark and “a massive leatherback turtle.”
• Meanwhile, the lack of human habitation in evacuation zones in Fukushima has resulted in the arrival of alien plant species, including “Canada goldenrod, which grows twice as tall as an average person.”

POLICE BLOTTER

• A jobless man who wounded five passersby in a knifing spree in Fukuoka told investigators, perhaps unnecessarily, that he “wanted to stab people.”
• A 35-year-old “railway enthusiast” in Aomori was arrested for stealing 221 pieces of train-related equipment, including “maintenance tools and signal flags.”
• Managers at a Japanese food shop in Moscow have admitted to falsifying the expiration dates of soy sauce and other products for a period of 15 years.
• A man wanted for a double murder in Tokushima who eluded capture more than 11 years was found to have died after a brief illness in Okayama. Police are vowing to investigate how he “was able to remain at large for such a long time.”

MILESTONES

• Researchers at Kyoto University have reported success in destroying cancer cells “by applying near-infrared light to tiny carbon nanotubes.”
• The International Fundraising Congress gave its highest award to Yoshiomi Tamai, the founder of a charity that’s helped some 90,000 orphans earn college degrees since 1967.
• Among the attendees at an event commemorating the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Japan Society in New York was Clifton Daniel, the grandson of Harry Truman.
• Officials at Tokyo Skytree unveiled a lightning-observation device that, at 497 meters, is apparently the highest such thingamajig on the planet.

THE HIGH SEAS

• The Japan Coast Guard rescued 64 Chinese sailors from a burning freighter about 150km southwest of Okinawa.
• In a surely unrelated story, applications to Japanese Coast Guard academies are at an all-time high.
• Workers completed construction of a ¥5 billion wind turbine off the coast of Chiba. The facility is the first of its kind in Japan and can crank out 2,400 kilowatts of electricity.
• A 31-year-old man from Gunma broke his spine while trying to snowboard down Mt Fuji.

INCREDIBLE SINKING JAPAN

• Japan slipped from 20th to 24th in the World Bank Group’s ranking of countries in terms of “ease of doing business.” Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand took the top three spots.
• Meanwhile, officials at the World Economic Forum placed Japan a dismal 101st in their survey of gender equality. On the plus side, the Japanese rank No. 1 terms of female “literacy rate and primary education.”
• Osaka became the first prefecture in the country to ban the possession and use of herbal drugs that have “similar effects to narcotics.”
• Bottom Story of the Week: “Japanese Monkey’s Bid for Freedom Ends in Nagoya” (via The Mainichi)

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