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June 08, 2025
 

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BUSINESS

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Many curry shops are going bankrupt in Japan as prices of mainstay ingredients have gone up due to a rice shortage, adverse weather and a weak yen.
BUSINESS / Companies
Soaring rice prices take a bite out of Japan's beloved curry shops
A total of 13 shops with more than ¥10 million in debt filed for bankruptcy in the year ended March — a record high for a second consecutive year.
BUSINESS / Companies
Traders scouring annual meeting filings for traces of activist shareholdings
Multiple stocks jumped last week after activist investor Aya Nomura’s name appeared in annual general meeting letters, listed as a stakeholder.
BUSINESS / Companies
South Korean beauty brands bet boom in U.S. demand outlasts tariff pain
The startups are expanding their bricks-and-mortar presence in the world's biggest consumer market, confident their mass appeal will offset tariff costs.
Intermediary support is crucial for drug availability in Japan, where more than 50 therapies have been identified as needed but unavailable to patients.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 5, 2025
Itochu working to support overseas pharma firms to fill Japan's drug gaps
By Koh Yoshida and Kanoko Matsuyama
Two units of the trading house will assist with everything from early-stage consulting, regulatory advice and clinical testing support to post-launch distribution.
Toyota Industries' Nagakusa plant in Obu, Aichi Prefecture. Toyota group's tender offer to privatize Toyota Industries represents an 11.4% discount to its closing price before the plan was announced.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 5, 2025
Toyota Industries buyout hinges on squeezing minority investors
By Tsuyoshi Inajima and Kentaro Tsutsumi
In order for the buyout to work, the ¥16,300 per share tender offer will need to attract enough minority shareholders to cross a 42% threshold.
Kobayashi Pharmaceutical President Norikazu Toyoda in Osaka on May 30
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2025
Kobayashi Pharmaceutical vows never to repeat health crisis
In March 2024, the drugmaker, based in Osaka, announced that it had received a series of reports about such symptoms as kidney disease from users of its supplements.
Lawson plans to sell 1-kilogram and 2-kg bags of rice it bought from the government's stockpile at ¥360 ($2.50) and ¥700 respectively.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2025
Aging rice? Lawson prefers to call it 'vintage.'
By Jessica Speed
As convenience stores prepare to sell government stockpiled rice from older harvests to consumers, Lawson says it will offer rice balls made of "vintage rice."
Japan’s three megabanks are discussing jointly operating ATMs.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2025
Japan’s top banks consider teaming up on ATMs to cut costs
The banks are seeing whether costs can be reduced for tasks needed to run ATMs such as monitoring, security and cash transportation.
The Switch 2 is Nintendo's first new gaming console in eight years.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2025
Nintendo’s Switch 2 console is finally here
By Owen Ziegler
The long-awaited gaming console hits shelves Thursday, with booming orders and tariffs making for a complicated debut.
Japanese trading companies' shares gained following comments from Warren Buffett at the Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting that he expects his company to hold the shares for 50 years or more.
BUSINESS / Companies
Jun 4, 2025
Buffett inspires retail investors to bet on Japan trading houses
By Aya Wagatsuma and Toshiro Hasegawa
Japanese trading companies shares gained following comments from Warren Buffett that he expects his company to hold the shares for 50 years or more.

Foreign tourists with unpaid medical bills in Japan to be denied entry
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba speaks during ministerial meeting meeting on foreign residents in Japan on Friday at the Prime Minister's Office.
Japan eyes tougher rules for foreign residents and tax hike for tourists
A tax-free shop in Kyoto in April 2024. Last week, members of a Liberal Democratic Party study group drafted a proposal seeking to scrap the country's tax-free shopping system altogether.
Accidents raise concern over how Japan vets foreign drivers
Keita Ueno (right), the owner of Kiki Driving School and an instructor who supports both foreign nationals and Japanese citizens returning from abroad in getting their foreign driver’s licenses converted, is worried about the current lax system for the process.
Japan won’t wait for G7 summit for possible U.S. trade deal
Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's top negotiator in tariff talks with the U.S. speaks to reporters at the Japanese Embassy in Washington on Friday.
From ridicule to redemption: Rice crisis returns Koizumi to the spotlight
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to the media as he inspects a warehouse storing stockpiled rice in Kanagawa Prefecture on May 30.
What can Kenji Yanobe’s cosmic cats teach us about humanity?
Kenji Yanobe’s spacesuited cats are the main characters of “Ship’s Cat Island,” the inaugural exhibition at Hyper Museum Hanno in Saitama Prefecture.
From ridicule to redemption: Rice crisis returns Koizumi to the spotlight
Agriculture minister Shinjiro Koizumi speaks to the media as he inspects a warehouse storing stockpiled rice in Kanagawa Prefecture on May 30.
New Naoshima museum bets on Asia, not the West
Detail of Takashi Murakami, “Rakuchu-Rakugai-zu Byobu: Iwasa Matabei RIP” (2023-25)
Japan’s prison reform focuses on rehabilitation
Justice Minister Keisuke Suzuki speaks to reporters in Tokyo on Friday. Suzuki said preparations for the changes that will focus more on rehabilitation are being actively made at each correctional facility.
Accidents raise concern over how Japan vets foreign drivers
Keita Ueno (right), the owner of Kiki Driving School and an instructor who supports both foreign nationals and Japanese citizens returning from abroad in getting their foreign driver’s licenses converted, is worried about the current lax system for the process.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic
By Alex K.T. Martin

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