Fire swept through an animation studio in Japan on Thursday, killing at least 33 people and injuring scores more, with the cause suspected to have been arson after a man was seen shouting 'die' as he doused the building with petrol. Japan's prime minister, Shinzo Abe, tweeted that the fire in Kyoto was 'too appalling for words' and offered condolences to the victims. Police have taken a 41-year-old man into custody
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$32m stolen from Tokyo cryptocurrency exchange in latest hack
Bitpoint suspends services after apparent theft of virtual monies including bitcoin
A cryptocurrency exchange in Tokyo has halted services after it lost $32m (£25m) in the latest apparent hack on volatile virtual monies.
Remixpoint, which runs the Bitpoint Japan exchange, discovered that about ¥3.5bn in various digital currencies had gone missing from under its management.
Continue reading...Japan’s famous Nara deer dying from eating plastic bags
Tourists warned not to feed the animals after plastic waste found in stomachs of several dead deer
Authorities in Japan’s ancient capital Nara are warning visitors not to feed the city’s wild deer – a major tourist attraction – after several of the animals died after swallowing plastic bags.
Large amounts of plastic waste were found in the stomachs of nine of 14 deer to have died since March, according to a local wildlife conservation group.
Continue reading...Lifting the lid on Japan’s poo museum – in pictures
Japan’s culture of cute has embraced poo, which gets a pop twist at the Unko Museum in Yokohama, near Tokyo. Visitors can play a poo-themed video game and pose on a variety of WCs. All the twisty ice-cream and cupcake shapes on display are artificial, and come in a variety of colours and sizes
Continue reading...World leaders gather at G20 summit – in pictures
Leaders from G20 countries gather in Osaka, Japan, to discuss economic and geopolitical issues and the climate crisis
Continue reading...Paws for effect: Japanese zoo stages unusual ‘lion’ escape drill
Staff member in a lion costume helps zoo practise for the event of an escape, as real lions appear unimpressed
For one terrifying moment it looks like the lion is about to get the upper hand against its human nemeses.
The animal faces down its would-be captors – armed with a net and long poles - and, without warning, knocks one of them to the ground with its powerful paws. “Are you alright?” another zookeeper asks the prone victim.
Continue reading...The year of Akira: how does 2019 Neo-Tokyo compare with today’s city?
From architecture to highways and the Olympic stadium, how does reality shape up against Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 animated dystopia?
It’s 2019 and Tokyo is a sprawling megalopolis preparing for the 2020 Olympics. The city is crowded, fraying at the edges. The young are aimless and underemployed, obsessed with cars and clothes. Cynical new religious movements are on the rise. Motorcycle gangs race at night on the expressways. There is a worrying trend of militarism after years of peace. The government is showing signs of corruption. And everyone seems terrifyingly eager to ignore the lessons of a recent nuclear catastrophe.
The real city of Tokyo and the imagined Neo-Tokyo of the 1988 anime film Akira are nearly indistinguishable. 2019 is the “year of Akira”: the date the apocalyptic science fiction film was set, a couple of decades after a mysterious nuclear-esque disaster had wiped out the original city.
Continue reading...Schoolgirls for sale: why Tokyo struggles to stop the ‘JK business’
The persistent practice of paying underage girls for sex-related services, known in Japan as the ‘JK’ business, has seen charities step in where police have come up short
On a humid Wednesday night the streets of Kabukicho, Tokyo’s most famous red light district, hum with people. Some are tourists, here to gawp and take selfies, but others are customers. Adverts for clubs flash and sing and girls dressed as maids hold signs offering deals for local bars.
In a grubby shopfront a perky cartoon featuring a cute Mr Men-style creature offers part-time work. The ad, which has an alarmingly catchy jingle, doesn’t specify what the work is, but it doesn’t need to: the answer is all around us on the brightly lit billboards advertising the charms of male and female bar hosts.
Continue reading...The Tokyo neighbourhood where people come to disappear
For hundreds of years people have come to Sanya in search of labouring jobs, shelter and a sense of belonging – but the area is changing fast, and its residents are struggling to adapt
At first sight, Sanya looks much like any other Tokyo suburb: well-appointed homes, supermarkets and fast-food restaurants. In the distance, soaring above the rooftops and mesh of overhead power lines is the unmistakable shape of the Tokyo Skytree.
But its proximity to the ultra-modern landmark is deceptive. Older men in well-worn tracksuits, baseball caps and plastic slippers clutch cans of early-afternoon chu-hi alcopops, and dozens of no-frills hostels advertise rooms with easily the lowest rates in the city – clues to Sanya’s status as a Tokyo neighbourhood like no other, but one that is struggling to adapt to irresistible change.
Continue reading...Game of thrones: commuter sells seat on crowded Tokyo train
Novel wheeze to profit from packed trains latest in long line of creative ways to deal with Tokyo’s long commutes
Every morning, millions of Tokyoites cram into overcrowded trains across the world’s largest city. Most must stand, often squeezed uncomfortably together. So, earlier this month, one enterprising commuter came up with a novel wheeze to profit from the situation.
His morning journey ran from the suburb of Chiba into central Tokyo – a long trip for which he was almost always guaranteed to get a seat. So he put that seat up for auction – for 2,000 yen (£14.50). He named the car, and the time of the train, and asked buyers to show him proof of payment on their mobile phone.
Continue reading...Has Tokyo reached ‘peak city’?
You could argue that the world’s biggest city has hit a sweet spot: a flatlining population, pervasive transit and little gentrification. But is ‘peak city’ even possible – and where does Tokyo go from here?
Tokyo is often described as crowded, mushrooming, figuratively bursting at the seams. Except, in many ways, it’s not.
Unlike many megacities, the world’s largest metropolitan area has largely stopped growing, either in land or population. Where Mumbai, Lagos or São Paulo continually sprout new informal neighbourhoods that are constantly outstripping the ability of the city to catch up, Tokyo’s urban planning and services more or less seamlessly encompass the central wards and the neighbouring cities of Kawasaki, Yokohama, Chiba and Saitama that form its unbroken metropolitan area.
Continue reading...A city built on water: the hidden rivers under Tokyo’s concrete and neon
More than 100 rivers and canals flow beneath Tokyo, but from the ground it’s hard to notice them. Why has the city turned its back on water?
Of the near-endless flow of people over the busy Shibuya scramble crossing every day, few realise that beneath their feet is something else flowing, unseen and unnoticed: the crossing of two ancient rivers, the Uda and the Onden.
Beneath all the concrete and neon, Tokyo is a city built on water. It is the reason the Japanese capital’s 37 million citizens are here at all. From fishing village to seat of political power, canny water management was a key driver of the city’s extraordinary growth.
Continue reading...‘There are almost no women in power’: Tokyo’s female workers demand change
Japan has a 27.5% gender pay gap and ranks just 110th in the world for gender equality – but social change is slowly happening
Last week, after Yumi Ishikawa’s petition against being forced to wear high heels at work went viral around the world, responses ranged from solidarity – with some cheering Ishikawa and denouncing “modern footbinding” – to surprised disappointment. In 2019, in a liberal democracy such as Japan, could the issue of women’s rights still be stuck on stilettos?
But the global spotlight on the hashtag #KuToo (a pun on a word for shoes and a word for pain) may have obscured what’s really happening in Japan. “It’s so trivial,” says one senior female publishing executive, who wished to remain anonymous. After all, on the streets of Tokyo, there is a growing movement for real change for women, not merely more comfortable footwear.
Continue reading...Carlos Ghosn’s former home: inside Tokyo’s notorious detention centre
Short tour allowed inside Japanese prison accused of keeping suspects in conditions designed to ‘break’ them for confessions
The forbidding outline of Tokyo detention centre is impossible to miss, even on a dark, wet afternoon in early June. The X-shaped building dominates the skyline of the unfashionable Kosuge neighbourhood in the city’s north-east.
Aside from brief eruptions of media interest when a high-profile killer is led to the gallows, for much of the time there is little public scrutiny of its occupants – more than 1,600 inmates and about 800 staff.
Continue reading...Senior staff: Tokyo’s oldest workers – in pictures
These bartenders, sushi chefs and sweetshop owners are still working in their 80s and 90s, running family businesses and maintaining traditional crafts as the city changes around them
Continue reading...これは”もしも”の話じゃない－100年に一度の震災に備える東京
Xデーと呼ばれる日－世界で最も過密な都市の直下で大地震が起きれば、第二次世界大戦以来の甚大な被害が予想される。先端技術は東京を救えるか。
東京都港区。毎日午後5時になると、区内のスピーカーから童謡「夕焼け小焼け」のやさしいメロディーが鳴り渡る。人口3700万人を抱えるこの巨大都市では学校や公園など至る所にこうしたスピーカーが設置され、その数は数百台にものぼる。
毎日鳴るこのメロディーには、夜の訪れを知らせる以上の意味がある。人類史上最悪となりうる自然災害から東京都民を守るためのシステムをテストしているのだ。その災害とは、地球上最も過密な都市を直撃する地震だ。
Continue reading...‘This is not a “what if” story’: Tokyo braces for the earthquake of a century
They call it X Day – a major earthquake striking the heart of the world’s most populous city in the most calamitous event since the second world war. Can hi-tech solutions save Tokyo?
Every day, at 5pm, the gentle melody of the children’s song Yuyake Koyake chimes across the Minato area of Tokyo from a loudspeaker – one of hundreds dotted across schools and parks throughout this megacity of 37 million people.
The daily jingle does more than signify the arrival of evening. It is a test for the system that is designed to save Tokyoites from what would be one of the worst natural disasters in recorded human history: an earthquake striking the centre of the most populous city on Earth.
Continue reading...Unbuilt Tokyo: ‘depthscrapers’ and a million-person pyramid
Had the creators of the underground skyscraper had their way, the Japanese capital might have looked very different indeed
Protected by cylindrical walls of reinforced concrete, the steel and glass “depthscrapers” extend hundreds of metres underground. Only a single floor of each inverted 35-storey skyscraper is visible at ground level.
Giant mirrors mounted directly above the central wells reflect sunlight to the apartments below. Prismatic glass ensures even light throughout the day, while fresh, conditioned air is pumped down from the surface.
Continue reading...東京の転換点：日本の首都はついに開かれるのか
日本が移民を受け入れ、その首都がオリンピックの開催準備を進める2019年は、世界最大のメガロポリスが真のグローバル都市になる年かもしれない
暖かい5月の夜、東京・歌舞伎町にある思い出横丁の狭い路地では、背もたれのない椅子に腰かけた旅行者たちが、英語で書かれた焼き鳥のメニューを熱心に眺めている。また、ある者たちは、燃えるようなド派手な「ロボットレストラン」へと押し寄せ、ネオンの光輝く洞窟のようなホールでアニマトロニックなキャラクターたちのダンスを楽しんでいる。そうかと思えば、この街を舞台にしたSF映画に登場したネメシス、「ゴジラ」の前で自撮りにいそしむ人たちもいる。隣町の渋谷の路上では、マリオやルイジといったマリオカートのキャラクターを真似たと思しきコスチュームを着て、ゴーカートの隊列を走らせている。（先週、任天堂は「マリカー」に対する著作権侵害の裁判で二度目の勝訴を得た。）
何十年にもわたり、訪れる者に対して閉鎖的な都市として有名であった日本の首都が、ついに外の世界へと開かれようとしている。昨年、観光客数は記録的な水準にまで増加した。特に中国からの観光客数の伸びが顕著だが、他の欧米諸国からの観光客も同様である。来年の夏には、東京はオリンピックとパラリンピックでその門戸を大きく開放する。日本は、制限的なことで有名であった入国管理法令を緩和したが、この動きは確実に東京の姿を一変させるだろう。東京には、既にコワーキングスペースや本格的なカフェ、海外ブランドのブティックをはじめとして、「グローバル」都市を彩る要素が点在している。
Continue reading...Dioramas of death: cleaner recreates rooms where people died alone
Miyu Kojima creates miniature scenes based on Tokyo apartments her company has cleaned after solitary deaths
Warning: this article contains images some people may find distressing
It was at a trade show for the funeral industry that Miyu Kojima had what might seem at first like a macabre idea.
Kojima, 27, works for To-Do Company, a cleaning firm that specialises in the apartments of the recently deceased. Many of their jobs involve kodokushi (“solitary deaths”), where people die alone and are not found for days, a phenomenon that has recently gripped the Japanese imagination.
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