Among the advanced economies, Japan has continuously ranked at or near the top in terms of the percentage of population who continue to work beyond the retirement age. Some of these individuals actually want to work; but for most, it's a choice between continuing to toil or facing the prospect…
"It's certain that more customers have begun purchasing crime prevention goods in the wake of all the media coverage about the recent string of crimes," a spokesperson for Komeri Co Ltd, a Niigata-based of hardware store chain with 1,215 outlets nationwide told Shukan Jitsuwa (Feb 23). Sales of such items…
"A peaceful death at age 75, in an era when people barely lived to their forties: The secret of Tokugawa Ieyasu's longevity!" The cover story for President magazine (Feb 17) was devoted to first generation shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), the warlord who united Japan at the beginning of the 17th century. And who to this day remains the object…
While tradition in Japan holds that August is the time for spine-chilling tales of the supernatural, Shukan Jitsuwa (Sept 15) contradicts this formula, choosing instead to serve up types of supposedly true phenomena that may be scary in completely different ways. Take the 5-channel online bulletin board, formerly known as…
Whew talk about depressing headlines: "A great prophesy of Japan's demise. The frightening result of depopulation." Then Shukan Jitsuwa (July 14) fearlessly plows ahead with the bad news. First of all, let's look at a paper on population statistics from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare issued on…