Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on November 2010

FROM THE INTERNATIONAL DESK

• A kids’ book written by a 34-year-old Tokyo housewife about the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Miyazaki Prefecture has become an internet hit, being downloaded approximately 2,600 times since late September. Sounds positively uplifting.
• Kenya’s Daily Nation reported that a former ambassador to Japan was questioned by the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC) over dubious dealings regarding the purchase of land in Tokyo. Not a terribly interesting story, but we just had to get that acronym in there.
• Virgin Atlantic Airways and Mori Building City Air Services have started free helicopter shuttles from Ark Hills in Akasaka to Narita Airport for high-end travelers from Tokyo to London.
• A few weeks after getting busted in Chiba with cocaine in his pocket, Aussie pro golfer Wayne Perske was banned for the rest of the season by the Japan Golf Tour Organization.
• Perske’s problems came on the heels of Kiwi golf pro David Smail’s sex scandal, when his former Japanese girlfriend sent compromising photos and videos to the media after the married Smail tried to break up with her. Man, talk about putting it in the wrong hole!
• A female desk clerk at a hotel in Aichi held a press conference to draw light to her situation after a male guest called her to his room to “apologize” over some issue with an escort service. The horny old dude then tried to jump her, “unbuttoning her clothing and touching her lower body.”

ALMOST COMICAL

Illustration by Shane Busato

• A manga cafe in Kobe became the center of an international uproar when a Coast Guard worker uploaded video of September’s run-in with a Chinese fishing boat. The 43-year-old officer responsible for “the leak heard around the world” said he felt “no sense of guilt at all” because the public had a right to know. So there.
• Someone sent a letter to the Chinese consulate in Sapporo that “emitted smoke with what sounded like an exploding firecracker.” No injuries or damage were reported.
• A buxom bronze statuette of a policewoman from the popular manga Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koen-mae Hashutsu-jo has been restored after being damaged by vandals, and is once again titillating passersby at Kameari station on the Joban line.
• The Japan Meteorological Agency said that, for the first time since 2005, yellow sand from deserts in China was spotted blowing around western and southwestern Japan in November.
• Meanwhile, tiny particles that can cause asthma and lung cancer were detected in the air around the Goto Islands in Nagasaki. They, too, likely floated over from China.
• A stoner who misplaced a bag containing some weed and a few of his meishi went to claim the lost articles from a local police box in Fukuoka. Needless to say, when cops asked him about the joint inside, he took off… but since they had his name cards, they soon tracked him down. D’oh!

THE GLOVES ARE OFF

• For the first time ever, Japanese baseball writers deemed that nobody was worthy of a Gold Glove at first base in the Central League in 2010.
• Meanwhile, Seattle Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki added another Gold Glove to his collection. That makes ten in a row since he moved Stateside in 2001.
• Fencer Yuki Ota became the first person from Japan to win an individual medal at the World Championships when he picked up a bronze in Paris. He later won another bronze in the team event.
• British sports journalist/number-cruncher Simon Kuper said in an interview that there was a 60 percent chance Japan would have beaten Paraguay in the penalty shootout at the 2010 World Cup if the team had only won the coin toss and kicked first. Hmmm, how about if the guy kicking the ball at a target the size of a small barn scores instead of hitting the crossbar… that might have helped, too.
• Sources have revealed that a Japan terror watch list leaked on the internet via a server in Luxembourg contained bizarre file names, including “File leaked by testicle murder cop without honor” and “Photo collections, etc. 2010 sexy idol nudes.”
• A 32-year-old free spirit named Shohei Yamada wrapped up a two-and-a-half-year tour of pulling a rickshaw around Japan by marrying a woman he met along the way.

TAKING STOCK

• The Seiyu retail store chain, which is now owned by Wal-Mart, is under investigation by Japanese financial regulators over possible insider trading.
• With new anti-gang rules in place, a Tokyo bank closed down the account of a known yakuza boss that contained some ¥400 million.
• Tadashi Nakauchi, the 50-year-old son of the founder of supermarket chain Daiei, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined ¥50 million for evading ¥270 million in inheritance taxes.
• In other tax news, the president of Teikyo University got stuck with a ¥400 million bill after he failed to declare ¥1.5 billion that he inherited when his dad died.
• Tokyo’s National Center for Child Health and Development has become the second facility in Japan to successfully produce human embryonic stem cells.
• Tokyo police arrested a 27-year-old conman who swindled money from a woman after telling her he would cast her in a nonexistent TV drama.

ROCK ON!

• The Jizo Rocks, a formation on Mt. Gozaisho in Mie Prefecture that looks like two fingers holding a dice, have been attracting tourists looking for love and luck after being deemed a “power spot.”
• Suntory’s Single Malt Whiskey Yamazaki 1984 took top prize at the Supreme Champion Spirit awards in London, beating out 1,000 alcoholic competitors.
• For the first time ever, the number of babies born to moms in their late 30s in Tokyo was higher than those born to women in their late 20s.
• Also, women in their 40s in Tokyo gave birth at much higher rates than the nationwide average, statistics showed.
• Bottom Story of the Week: “Crows can Distinguish Between Male and Female Faces, Research Suggests” (via The Mainichi Daily News)

Compiled from reports by Japan Today, The Japan Times, International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun, The Daily Yomiuri, The Mainichi Daily News, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, AP, Kyodo, AFP and Reuters