NAGOYA Misonoza Inc., renowned for its Kabuki and other theater productions, took around 18 months to heed a police warning to sever its ties with a sokaiya corporate racketeer.
Construction continues in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture. The infrastructure projects include river embankments, bridges and roads. (Shigetaka Kodama using a drone)
ISHINOMAKI, Miyagi Prefecture This coastal city has been transformed, courtesy of a massive injection in government reconstruction spending following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster that reduced it to ruins.
But the 1.9 trillion yen ($17.9 billion) pumped in to rebuild the northeastern city facing the Pacific did little to reverse the course of decades of social change that has afflicted numerous rural communities around Japan.
Ishinomaki was mauled more than any other municipality by the magnitude-9.0 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami that struck on March 11, 2011.