JAPAN TRENDS
Christmas and New Year are over, so it’s already time to look towards the next big public (and commercial) holiday: Valentine’s Day.
Regular readers will know that February 14th in Japan is a bit different, since traditionally on that day it is the women who give chocolate to the men...

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NEWS ON JAPAN
Young men and women have celebrated their "Coming of Age" day in a disaster-hit city in northeastern Japan.
About 200 new adults attended a ceremony in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, on Sunday. They were junior high school seniors when the tsunami devastated the city in March 2011...

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JAPAN TRENDS
In Japan, even the police have their own moe cute mascot characters.
The Japanese metropolitan police has a “crime deterrence measures” department. While that sounds very serious, in Japan that needn’t preclude being kawaii.
This can be seen in Tewatasanaiinu (roughly, “don’t leave i...

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JAPAN TIMES
Tokyo’s Itabashi Ward on Friday became one of the first municipalities in the nation to start issuing the My Number identification card for social security and taxation services.  To promote the new system, the central government has secured funds for issuing up to 30 million My Numbe...

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JAPAN TRENDS
Artist Asami Kiyokawa, known for her extravagant combination of embroidery and photography, and collaborations with top models and actresses, has got together with Starbucks Japan to create a special Starbucks Card that uses augmented reality.
Kiyokawa’s design is an unsurprisingly f...

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JAPAN TODAY
 TOKYO —Japan said Thursday it has detected no changes in radiation levels within its territory, following North Korea’s claimed test of a hydrogen bomb the day before.
Concern in Japan over potential radiation drifting across the sea from North Korea skyrockets whenever it conducts u...

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ROCKET NEWS
Say hello to the world’s first sakura-flavoured energy drink from Red Bull.
If you ever wanted a pick-me-up to get you through the hanami (cherry blossom viewing) party season, Red Bull’s got you covered this year with an appropriately themed beverage. Simply called “The Spring Editio...

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JAPAN TRENDS
 Nissan has created a fun film of an eight-year-old giving his mom a very nice surprise.
Hinata and his mom take a drive in a Nissan Dayz HIghway.
Mrs. Masuda thinks she is going to be appearing in a marketing video but instead gets directed to a special car park where her family pro...

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JAPAN NEWS
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the Japan Tourism Agency will establish rules for “minpaku” businesses, which offer vacant rooms at condominiums and other private homes as accommodation for tourists, as early as this autumn.
Minpaku are considered an effective way to make up...

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JAPAN TODAY
 TOKYO —Japan will send a huge cache of plutonium—enough to produce 50 nuclear bombs—to the United States as part of a deal to return the material that was used for research, reports and officials said Tuesday.
The plutonium stockpile, provided by the U.S., Britain and France decades ...

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