There are two articles on one response to the deregulation in the SEZs today http://www.chunichi.co.jp/s/article/2014052201001506.html http://www.news24.jp/articles/2014/05/22/07251642.html Able (http://www.able.co.jp/) is tieing up with Tomareru (https://tomareru.jp/) to launch a service this autum...

Long time no show etc etc. This thread caught my eye and, since there are many FGs in the airbnb business, I thought I'd add this news item from last month: http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASFS1502Q_V10C14A4EE8000/ 安く宿泊、外国人観光客を特区誘致　政府が空きアパート活用 政府は国家戦略特区の指定地域で、アパートやマンションの空き部屋を外国人観光客向けの宿泊施設として使えるように...

GuyJean was always a witty poster on FG and one of the reasons I thought this place was a forum worth joining all those years ago. I was lucky enough to meet him through Captain Japan, and we had some good nights together. One New Years Eve lasted until midday on the 1st, with us toasting Mount Fuji...

1. Were you hit by a car?
2. Yes, but only hit slightly.
3. Mr. Ishida threw a stone at a dog.

In 2006, a Japanese girl went to America to study. She joined Facebook and met an American boy online. She returned home to Kobe but the boy, now 26, did not want to give up so easily and arrived in Japan in February. He is said to have followed her around, and accosted the girl, now 27, at home and...

[YT]m6BXvWwAa48[/YT] Reading Eagle (1967) - Man Studies Lip-Reading to Watch Japanese Television Ronald E. (Doc) Lewis speaks and hears normally but he is studying lip-reading so he can enjoy his spare time better. He wants to understand American shows on Japanese television. Lewis said one of the m...

Brian Ashcraft very kindly gave a hat tip to FG (which means Hokgwai) when writing up the story for Kotaku

Mulboyne wrote:

I used Twitpic to tweet this picture and it was deleted despite being an item on a Rakuten page

A 26 year old Korean woman has been detained by Tokyo immigration for working outside the terms of her visa. In Japan on a missionary visa sponsored by the Tokyo Christian Church of Life, she was actually working as a prostitute for a deriheru in Gunma. She says she had debts at home and decided to ...

Still, the main lesson should be "Don't ride your fucking bicycle on a road covered in ice [while probably playing a game on your cell phone and wearing earbuds]. Walk or have your parents pick you up." I assume that angle won't come into pay either. Can't blame parents for letting their kid come h...

http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/images/vbimghost/9794f4309578ae5b.jpg Source News that police had discovered a 1.5m shark carcass in Yoyogi Park soon caught the attention of Japan's netizens. Some quickly noted it was similar to one seen outside a kaiten sushi joint in Shibuya called Daidokoya. ...

[YT]jaZbIZCFV68[/YT] I think this is the same story. The boy was riding his bike and fell. This one was picked up by a few 2ch aggregators and the response was mostly sympathetic to the driver. It's not yet clear whether the driver will be prosecuted. I suppose it depends on eyewitness accounts. It'...

AP: Wynn Resorts buys out biggest stakeholder Okada, asks him to resign after payments probe Wynn Resorts Ltd. said Sunday that it forcibly bought back all the shares controlled by its biggest stakeholder Kazuo Okada and asked the Japanese tycoon to resign from the board after finding he made impro...

Two lengthy pieces about the yakuza:

21st-Century Yakuza: Recent Trends in Organized Crime in Japan

Recent Trends in Organized Crime in Japan: Yakuza vs the Police, & Foreign Crime Gangs

One point which has come out in the wake of the arrests is that the statute of limitations for the crime of falsifying accounts is five years. This means the police can only look as far back as 2006. Executives before Kikkukawa will therefore be off the hook even if evidence comes to light that a co...

Fixie rider in Fukuoka made this video:

[YThq]kr323NYRFTE[/YThq]

...and has been arrested (Japanese)

The son has been arrested again. This time for beating his wife and mother-in-law.

The mother-in-law first called the police at 4:15am. His wife then called minutes later saying "Hurry up! He's going to kill us".

Source (Japanese)

Bit of everything here.

Mike Oxlong wrote:It seem a lot of Japanese newspapers' online articles are only up for a few weeks or so.

It's getting worse. Since the Asahi relaunched their online site, many of the Japanese news articles are now only available in full if you subscribe.

Mulboyne wrote:Japan had revised its tourism target to "20 million by 2016". This has now officially been changed back to "16 million by 2016".

Sorry, got that wrong. They've split the difference and revised it down to 18 million. They are maintaining the "25 million by 2020" target.

Japan had revised its tourism target to "20 million by 2016". This has now officially been changed back to "16 million by 2016".

http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/images/vbimghost/9794f2f62ade8c25.jpg Sayaka Yoshino has just announced on her blog (Japanese) that she has married a 30 year old American. She's known him for over ten years. He was a musician in Japan when they met and she used to go to his gigs. His band had an...

I am not buying it....You just don't "bleed from an ear" if you ever fall from a 6 story building... You've misread the report. He wasn't only bleeding from his ears. That's just what the passer-by said when she called the emergency services. He had more serious injuries which the police ...

Here's my quick and dirty summary of the report Taro posted: A 23 year old American fell to his death from a building in Higashi Shinsaibashi in Osaka during the eraly hours of Saturday morning. No-one saw him fall but a passer-by found him lying on the pavement, with blood coming from his ears, ju...

During the Wellington, New Zealand, round of the international rugby sevens competition, Canada claimed some big scalps, including Kenya and France, although not enough to mount a major challenge. They have now gone out after just losing 21-19 to highly-rated South Africa. One of their key men is Na...