Japan's children hit a record low while its toy market hit a record. Toys R Us Japan, dubbed a "black ship" in 1991, filed for court rehabilitation owing about ¥13.2 billion; Don Quijote's parent is set to take over.
Kanazawa University and AIST report the first vertical diamond MOSFET with an inversion-layer channel. Diamond transistors that switch off this way existed by 2016; what is new is building one vertically.
NEC plans several hundred laser-linked satellites, the Yomiuri reports. Japan's Kirari made a two-way laser link in 2005, but Starlink now has about 11,100. Why Japan still wants its own.
Extinct in Japan's wild in 1971, the Oriental stork now numbers 728, and only 49 were released. Most hatched in the wild, fed by low-pesticide paddies that cost farmers work and yield. Now they nest on power poles.
Mizuno's Hyperwarp 96 weighs about 96 grams (size 27.0 cm) despite a thick sole and carbon plate. We compare it with Adidas's 97-gram Evo 3 and ask what one gram, and a 100 km lifespan, really mean.
Minoru Kiuchi, Japan's economy minister and long seen as a reflationist, says Abenomics-style reflation is over. The BOJ was already at 1.25%. Yet Japan still hasn't declared deflation over.
Japan's gene-edited GABA tomato opened its field. It wasn't the first gene-edited food sold (US soybean oil, 2019), but the first CRISPR food shoppers could buy. How Japan's rules compare with the EU's.
Meta's 7,000 km US-France cable Petal targets 1 petabit per second in 2029, built by NEC and Sumitomo. Labs reach 19 cores, so why two? Repeater power.
Japan says ¥8.2 trillion in self-driving investment will yield ¥187.3 trillion in economic effects, about 23 to 1. The government's own footnotes show what that number measures and which assumption drives it.
Japan made 'mottainai' a global word, yet its restaurants often refuse to box up leftovers. A 2024 government guideline shows why: legally, you are meant to eat it on the premises.
Japan had 2,730 sento left at the end of fiscal 2024. Under a 1946 ordinance, prefectures still cap their prices, and Tokyo calculates its cap like a utility rate. It rose to 600 yen in August 2026.