Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on September 2012

BERSERK!

• A restaurant owner in Kanazawa was fined ¥300,000 for entering a local primary school, approaching a boy who had been bullying his 12-year-old daughter, and smacking the little punk in the face.
• It took eight cops in Hiroshima to subdue an American ex-Marine wielding a pair of kitchen knives and “fiercely” resisting arrest following a domestic dispute.
• An Ibaraki man was arrested for trying to kill an acquaintance with a harpoon gun. The suspect apparently got drunk at his own barbecue party and fired the weapon, which (thankfully) missed.
• An elderly Yokohama woman who strangled her 43-year-old son told police he suffered from “a disability” and “wanted to die.”

SOMETHING IN THE AIR

• The TMG’s latest survey of air quality found 26 out of 28 observation points showed unsafe levels of a pollutant called particulate matter 2.5, “believed to cause asthma and heart disease.”
• A research team led by a Kyoto University professor has discovered that the Japanese culinary herb aojiso contains a compound “that can help prevent or arrest a host of health conditions, including cancer.”
• Mobile carrier Softbank announced it has passed the 30 million subscriber milestone.
• The trouble encountered by users of Docomo’s international roaming service last month is thought to have been caused by a rise in traffic during the summer holiday season.

SCHOOL DAZE

• An elementary school teacher from Kunitachi who was arrested for secretly filming naked girls in the changing room of a local water park admitted to police that she had also made videos of female sixth-graders during an excursion to an onsen in Nikko. “I liked to look at and to touch [their] beautiful chests,” the perv was quoted as saying.
• In an unrelated story, officials with the National Police Agency say a total of 124 officers were punished in the first half of the year for “for molestation and secret photographing or videoing.”
• A 14-year-old boy in Saitama was arrested for “hitting another student and teaming up with two younger boys to pull down the students’ pants.”
• After students around the country performed particularly lousily on an aptitude test, one newspaper said the result “clearly shows science phobia is rampant among junior high school children in Japan.”

HERE & THERE

• A new nursing home in Kobe catering to elderly foreigners employs staff who speak Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese.
• Japanese and North Korean representatives of the Red Cross met in Beijing last month to discuss the retrieval of remains of Japanese who died on the Korean Peninsula during World War II. The bodies of about 21,600 Japanese are believed to be in need of repatriation.
• For the first time ever, the value of Japanese government bonds held by the Bank of Japan exceeds the value of banknotes in circulation.
• Japanese researchers say they have identified a protein that “will help [them] develop therapeutic agents that can slow the progression of ALS.”

GO FIGURE

• The internal affairs ministry said the number of births in Japan during fiscal 2011 (1,049,553) was the lowest on record, while the number of deaths (1,256,125) was the highest.
• Officials with the agriculture ministry say Japan’s food self-sufficiency rate of 38.6 percent in fiscal 2011 was the second lowest ever. The rate is calculated on a “calorific intake basis.”
• An 11-year-old giant panda gave birth to a female cub at Adventure World in Wakayama, giving the zoo the largest collection of pandas—nine—outside of China.
• The NPA says three people who provided information leading to the arrests of Aum Shinrikyo fugitives Katsuya Takahashi and Naoko Kikuchi will share a cool ¥20 million in reward money.

NUTTY NEIGHBORS

• South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who kicked up a ruckus by visiting a disputed island in the Sea of Japan last month, says Emperor Akihito must “apologize to victims of Japan’s past colonial rule” before visiting the Korean Peninsula. The only thing is, the Emperor never said he plans to travel to South Korea.
• The National Association for the Rescue of Japanese Kidnapped by North Korea says it has evidence that Shuichi Ichikawa, a Japanese citizen abducted in 1978 who, according to Pyongyang, died in 1979, was actually seen teaching Japanese to North Korean spies as late as 1996.
• Police have warned of a new twist in the so-called “ore-ore” phone scam, in which fraudsters ask for large sums of money by posing as a victim’s relative. The fake family members now make an initial call to say their phone number has changed, which “prevents the targets from contacting their real relatives and uncovering the fraud.”
• As part of its efforts to drag the Imperial Household Law into the 21st century, the government “will ask female imperial family members their opinion on establishing their own imperial family branches so they can retain their imperial status even after marriage.”

THE GAMING LIFE

• Midfielder Shinji Kagawa finished fourth in player of the year voting in Germany for the 2011-2012 season, even though he transferred from Borussia Dortmund to Manchester United in May.
• As a way of generating revenue for the 2020 Olympics—which Tokyo hasn’t even been awarded yet—lawmakers are considering a plan to “launch new sport lotteries that will add to the existing ‘Toto’ soccer lottery.”
• One year after chairman Mototaka Ikawa brought Daio Paper to its knees by “borrowing” more than ¥10 billion for gambling binges in Macao and Las Vegas, the company said it returned to profitability in the first quarter of fiscal 2012.
• Bottom Story of the Week: “Imperial Couple, Judo Medalist Enjoy Tokyo Shrine Festival” (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