Why the punishment fits the ‘crime’ for Japan’s smoking gymnast
Japan’s Olympics have got off to the worst possible start. The captain of their women’s gymnastics team Shoko Miyata has…
Should the BBC be mocking Ronaldo’s tears?
Portugal squeezed through to the Euros quarter finals last night after a penalty shoot-out victory against plucky Slovenia. Or perhaps…
Why does Japan want to build a 300-mile conveyor belt?
In a move that sounds like something out of the new Francis Ford Coppola film Megalopolis, the Japanese government has announced…
King Charles has much in common with Japan’s Anglophile Emperor
The Japanese Emperor is in London today for a state visit, the first by the occupant of the chrysanthemum throne…
Why Japan is unlikely to legalise same-sex marriage
Thailand has just passed a ‘landmark’ marriage equality bill, which will pave the way for the recognition of same-sex unions…
Will Gary Lineker be able to keep his election thoughts quiet during the Euros?
It is hard to imagine the European football championship, which kicked off last night, was a big factor in Rishi…
Can a government dating app solve Japan’s birth crisis?
The Tokyo metropolitan government has announced that it will soon be in the online matchmaking business. It is launching a…
What’s behind the boom in Japanese fiction?
‘There are two things that I can simply not tolerate: feminists and margarine’. This is a quote from the novel Butter by…
How to quit like the Japanese
Tokyo For many, the idea of quitting a job they hate, of walking into their boss’s office and telling him…
Will this stop players mobbing the referee?
The European football governing body Uefa has informed competing nations at this summer’s Euros that only team captains will be…
Why are the yakuza stealing Pokemon cards?
A high-ranking member of the yakuza (Japanese mafia) has been arrested in Tokyo for selling stolen Pokemon cards. Keita Saito was…
Why do the Japanese suck at English?
Tokyo, Japan “Shhh! Now on face to respectable great eels life.” How’s that for the first line of an article?…
Japan won’t forgive Joe Biden for his xenophobia gaffe
Joe Biden just threw a particularly nasty insult the way of Japan, a close ally of the United States, at…
Scrapping replays could be the beginning of the end for the FA Cup
Is time running out for the oldest knock-out tournament of them all? The FA cup‘s obituary has been written a…
It’s time for Ronaldo to retire
All good things must come to an end, and that surely now ought to include the footballing career of Cristiano…
The curiously quiet reaction to Oppenheimer in Japan
Finally, eight months after its US premiere and a month after it triumphed at the Oscars, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has…
Japan is no country for young men
Another week, another fun fact about Japan’s declining birthrate and ageing population to startle and amuse us. Japan has now…
Football is in enough trouble without a ‘regulator’
Unlike David Cameron – who famously got in a muddle about which team he supported – Rishi Sunak is a…
Tokyo’s toilets aren’t that great
What is the world’s best city in which to be caught short? You can imagine a lively discussion on this…
Liverpool fans should stop booing the national anthem
Liverpool fans, a significant number at least, booed the national anthem at the Carabao Cup final at Wembley yesterday. It wasn’t the…
Why are Japan’s trains so much better than ours?
With six more months of train strikes recently announced it is getting hard to imagine a punctual, anxiety-free railway journey…
Who cancelled Miss Japan?
Karolina Shiino, a 26-year-old naturalised Japanese woman originally from Ukraine, has been obliged to give up her Miss Japan title…
Not everyone will miss Jurgen Klopp
So, farewell then Jurgen Klopp. What memories you will leave us. You were exuberant, passionate and unorthodox. You ran up…
Why no one in Japan is talking about the Fujitsu Post Office scandal
‘They are a national disgrace.’ That was the response of a Japanese friend when I asked for her opinion on…
Is Japan finally embracing immigration?
Japan has long been known for its steadfast refusal to submit to the allure of large-scale immigration, as a country…
