スウィングガールズ

Hikikomori is a dark term that describes people who stay holed up in their homes, or even just their bedrooms, isolated from everyone except their family, for many months or years. The phenomenon has captured the popular imagination with many articles appearing in the mainstream media in recent years, but, surprisingly, it isn’t well understood by psychologists.

Luckily, the days of needing to memorize phone numbers are over.

This week, Japanese railway company JR East showed off its new Alfa-X, a high-speed bullet train that is designed to achieve a top speed of 400kph, or 249mph, which would make it the fastest commercial train in the world. In day-to-day operations, the train would shuttle passengers at 360kph, or roughly 224mph.

During the week of April 22, Switch and PlayStation 4 sales were extremely close in Japan. The two were at 8,042,166 units and 8,047,754 units sold respectively. Now that the latest data from Japan (via Famitsu) has come in, we can now say that Switch has reached another major milestone.

Japan will develop its first-ever computer virus by next March as a defense measure against cyberattacks, sources have said. The Defense Ministry is considering malware that can break into a computer system, hoping such a computer virus could work as a deterrent against cyberattacks, the sources said Monday.

Twenty-five-year-old Sotaro Ito lives in a 9.46-square-meter apartment with a loft in the capital's retro-hip Koenji district...

Japan's space agency wants to create a moon base with the help of robots that can work autonomously, with little human supervision. The project, which has racked up three years of research so far, is a collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the construction company Kajima Corp., and three Japanese universities: Shibaura Institute of Technology, The University of Electro-Communications and Kyoto University.

Japan has an increasing percentage of young adults with no history of heterosexual vaginal intercourse. Public health experts at the University of Tokyo completed the most detailed analysis of national fertility survey data to date to understand trends in sexual experience over the past three decades. "Previous news reports about virginity rates among Japanese young adults were a bit sensationalist, only included never-married individuals, and did not distinguish virginity rates by age group," said Dr. Peter Ueda, an expert in epidemiology and public health and leader of the research project.

Rakuten is considered the Amazon of Japan - like Amazon they started in the 1990's and have grown to dominate their countries online retail sales to become the #1 e-commerce site in Japan and among the world's largest by sales. They've just announced their plans to launch a new cryptocurrency exchange, Rakuten Wallet, along with plans to make using and spending cryptocurrency easier for the average Japanese consumer.

Keio University in Tokyo says a baby with a birth weight of 268 grams has returned home healthy from its hospital after increasing to a weight of 3,238 grams, becoming the smallest boy in the world to have survived.

Soy sauce is one of the most important ingredients in Japanese cooking, but chances are you've never tasted the real thing.

New data shows Japanese citizens prefer whale watching to whale meat.

Have you ever eaten wasabi? If you answered “yes” to that question, you are likely mistaken. Most sushi eaters—even in Japan—are actually being served a mixture of ground horseradish and green food coloring splashed with a hint of Chinese mustard. Worldwide, experts believe that this imposter combination masquerades as wasabi about 99% of the time.

Japan’s environment minister has announced he will “in principle” oppose any new plans to build or expand coal-fired power stations, as further signs emerge of a dramatic energy pivot by Australia’s top export market for thermal coal. Guardian Australia reported in March that Japan had cancelled a large percentage of planned investments in coal-fired power, while Japanese investment vehicles were ditching coal projects and instead seeking to back large-scale renewable projects across Asia.

Scientists hope samples from Hayabusa 2 will provide clues about origins of life on Earth

Japan's space agency said an explosive dropped Friday from its Hayabusa2 spacecraft successfully blasted the surface of an asteroid for the first time to form a crater and pave the way for the collection of underground samples for possible clues to the origin of the solar system. Friday's mission was the riskiest for Hayabusa2 because it had to immediately move away so it wouldn't get hit by flying shards from the blast.

As Japan celebrates a new emperor, a dwindling band of republicans renew their demand for change. By Nopporn Wong-Anan.

Workers in Japan who want to leave their jobs — but don't want to face the stress of quitting in person — are turning to a company called Exit.

Japan has acknowledged for the first time that a worker at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, destroyed by an earthquake and tsunami more than seven years ago, died from radiation exposure. A 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck in March 2011, triggering a tsunami that killed some 18,000 people and the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years earlier.

Accepting Putin's offer would go against long-standing Japanese position on the territorial dispute.

Following Wednesday’s Media Create charts, today the firm released its weekly analysis, going more in-depth into the impressive local performance of Marvel’s Spider-Man. We learn that the game was almost sold out, selling 96.17% of the total initial shipment. Media Create estimates that a considerable number of purchasers resorted to buying the digital download version of the game on the PlayStation Store, because there were shortages at retailers.

Japan's space agency (JAXA) has made history by successfully landing two robotic explorers on the surface of an asteroid. The two small "rovers", which were despatched from the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft on Friday, will move around the 1km-wide space rock known as Ryugu. The asteroid's low gravity means they can hop across it, capturing temperatures and images of the surface.

Sleeping where I worked blurred my work-life boundaries

A rare white tiger has mauled a zookeeper to death in its enclosure at a zoo in Japan, officials say. Akira Furusho, 40, was found bleeding from the neck in the tiger's cage at the zoo in the southern city of Kagoshima. He was taken to hospital and pronounced dead. The male tiger, named Riku, was sedated with a tranquiliser before rescue workers and police arrived.

In Chichibu, Japan, there's an odd museum; perhaps the only one of its kind. It's called the Chinsekikan (which means hall of curious rocks) and it houses over 1700 rocks that resemble human faces.

It’s a good day for science and science fiction when Harold Ramis’ Multiplicity can finally be proven to be complete bullshit. And I’m …

A device which zaps your tongue with electricity sounds more like some cruel and unusual torture method than it does something folks might do for enjoyment. But you’d be wrong — at least when it comes to the electric tongue zapper created by researchers at Meiji University in Japan. They’ve been working on technology they call “unlimited electric gum,” able to electrically simulate flavor sensations when a person chews a stick of specially created “gum.”

Two typhoons followed by warm weather may have triggered Japan’s iconic trees to blossom months ahead of schedule

Under crisp blue skies, about 1,000 well-wishers turned out at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo Monday to catch a glimpse of Japan's Princess Ayako and her groom Kei Moriya on their wedding day.

Esanbe Hanakita Kojima, as the island is called, may have been eroded by wind and ice floes

Japan is full of bizarre tales about crypto zoological creatures and things that go bump in the night. Here are five of them.

Japan’s primary financial regulator has formally granted the cryptocurrency industry with a self-regulatory status by allowing an industry body to police domestic exchanges. The Financial Services Agency (FSA) on Wednesday approved the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA), a body comprised of all 16 licensed domestic cryptocurrency exchanges, to become a ‘certified fund settlement business association.’

The Japanese public is happier about the economy than at any time in nearly two decades, though few think the next generation will have it as good. People's biggest fear is automation, not foreigners, taking jobs from local workers. While 44% of respondents to a Pew Research Center survey said the current economic situation is good, 15% answered that today's children will be better off than their parents.

Yoshitaka Sakurada is responsible for ensuring the 2020 Olympic Games are not hacked.