Nikon posted a record net loss of 86 billion yen (about $548 million) for fiscal year 2026, dragged down by a 90.6 billion yen writedown on its German SLM Solutions metal 3D printer acquisition. As Canon attacks the lithography market and TSMC Kumamoto ramps up 3nm production, Japan's optics giant is somehow missing its country's semiconductor boom. We unpack the ASML technology gap, failed diversification bets, and the Essilor Luxottica wildcard.
Nintendo just sold 19.86 million Switch 2 units in nine months — the fastest-selling console in its history. On the same day, it announced a 10,000 yen price hike for Japan starting May 25, plus $50 increases in the US and Canada from September 1. The Japan-only model jumps 20% — the steepest relative increase. Why is Japan being hit first and hardest? The answer involves AI-driven memory chip prices, currency calculus, and an unusual moment when an export-friendly country is paying more than its overseas markets.
At a Fireblocks event in Tokyo, SMBC Group CDIO Kazuho Isowa and Mitsui & Co.'s Shinsuke Waka outlined Japan's on-chain finance strategy. January 2028 will bring simultaneous tax and financial-law reforms. ZipangCoin is going cross-border on public chains. And 95% of JPYC trades are now executed by AI. We compare Japan's cooperative model with JPMorgan's $5 billion-a-day Kinexys.
Sony Semiconductor Solutions has signed an MOU with TSMC to form a next-generation image sensor joint venture. Why is the 51% market leader pairing with Taiwan instead of going it alone? We compare it with the US CHIPS Act, EU Chips Act, and Korea's K-Chips Act, and explore the Apple-Samsung tug-of-war shaping the physical-AI era.
Sushiro, the king of Japan's revolving sushi industry with 13 consecutive years as the top earner, is finally making a real run at the US market. The Times Square flagship opens this fall — but rival Kura is already at 83 US stores and listed on NASDAQ. Inside Japan's three-way sushi war and Sushiro's last frontier.
Japan's next-gen supercomputer Fugaku NEXT bets against the cooling consensus: warming water above 30°C to cool AI servers and cutting cooling power by 20%. It may also adopt 'ZAM,' a new memory developed by SoftBank and Intel that stands DRAM chips on edge with magnetic-field coupling. Why Japan is choosing efficiency over the gigawatt-scale arms race that defines US Frontier and El Capitan.
Sony Group's FY2025 results: record $9.2B operating profit on $79.5B in sales — but net income fell 3.4% as the Honda EV joint venture imploded. PS5 cumulative sales hit 93.6M units, the memory crunch forced Sony to throttle PS5 production, and a fresh TSMC deal cements its image-sensor empire. With Crunchyroll, Demon Slayer's $750M global hit, and a $3.2B buyback, this is the IP conglomerate Disney should be watching.
The BOJ released its March 18-19 meeting minutes on May 7. The deliberation sections are anonymous, but votes and dissenting opinions are published with names attached. The 8-1 split? Hajime Takata alone dissented. We trace the 9 members behind the March meeting, the shift to a 6-3 split in April, and the rebalancing coming when Nakagawa's term ends in late June.
On May 7, 2026, the Nikkei 225 surged 3,320 yen (5.58%) to close at 62,833, setting an all-time record for the largest single-day gain in points. The previous record of 3,217 yen from August 2024 was surpassed amid optimism over a U.S.-Iran ceasefire memo and AI semiconductor buying. Yet the percentage gain doesn't even crack the historical top 20, revealing how rising index levels are reshaping what 'record' means. Trading volume hit a post-Prime-market record of 10.8 trillion yen.
Japan's Resonac (formerly Showa Denko) will switch its Kawasaki ammonia plant to 100% waste-plastic-derived hydrogen by April 2030, ending its reliance on natural gas reforming. The world's only long-running commercial gasification chemical recycling plant processes 70,000 tons of plastic waste annually to produce 120,000 tons of ammonia, with 80%+ CO2 reduction. Now backed by Japan's first CCfD-style price-gap subsidy. A circular alternative to urban mining.
Japan's vacuum equipment leader ULVAC is reshoring production of vacuum melting furnaces for rare earth magnets, with orders from US and European manufacturers projected to roughly triple. With over 70% global share in continuous vacuum furnaces, Japan's equipment dominance becomes a geopolitical asset.
