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.
A Japanese team tracked 563 metabolites and 107 tasters to show how hen housing changes egg flavour, in a country where 96.6 percent of laying hens are still caged and cage-free eggs cost about twice as much.
Seven in ten Japanese bookstore companies were profitable in fiscal 2025, but only 13.4% grew both sales and profit, on a 0.6% margin. What lifted the numbers, and why bookshops are multiplying in the US and Britain.
Kikkoman's third US soy sauce plant has opened in Jefferson, Wisconsin, a $560 million investment. Fifty-five years after a village voted 54 to 14 on the first one, North America now supplies two-thirds of group profit.
Japan counted 6,220 university spinouts in October 2025, more than double the 2,905 five years earlier. A gene-edited sea bream and a pigment-free coating are the way in. Each Japanese listing raises only $28 million.
A Shizuoka lab has closed the breeding loop on the douman crab. Individual boxes are standard practice in Southeast Asia; what took eight years was larval die-offs and timing the female's molt.
Sony cancelled Physint in June and Xbox picked it up in September. English-language forums blamed Sony. Japanese forums argued about deadlines, budgets, and where they would even be able to play it.
Japan lost about 1.9 million dogs in twelve years, yet its pet market grew to 12.7 billion dollars in fiscal 2025. Shipment tables show dog food going from 397 to 811 yen per kilogram.
KADOKAWA is merging five anime studios, ENGI among them, into Studio One Base in November 2026. What the deal changes for overseas viewers, and what it does not.
KADOKAWA CEO Takeshi Natsuno kept his board seat on June 24 with 59.68% support, down 30.58 points, while Oasis Management's removal bid drew 26.79%. What the split vote meant, and what the next quarter showed.