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.’

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

Well blow me down! These fantastical, bizarre, hilarious scrolls date from the Edo period in Japan, which spanned the years 1603–1868 for those too lazy to Wikipedia it (I know because I Wikipedia’d it). Authorship for them is unknown, which leads me to believe that they were a very refined form of bathroom graffiti, like those beautiful Japanese ceramic figurines that used to appear in Playboy under the heading “Ribald Art” or something that would reveal the figure’s naughty lady parts if you turned it upside down.

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

Nestle opens a made-to-order chocolate shop called KitKat Chocolatory in Osaka, Japan.

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.

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. As the smiling couple entered the shrine, the crowd shouted their congratulations with the Japanese word "Banzai" -- meaning an auspicious wish for long life. Close family members and friends welcomed the bride and groom as they made their way to the ceremony hall.

The Japanese, meticulous in their approach to baseball, recycling and reuse, have figured out how to make good use of splintered bats.

Each spring, Japan is crowned with a fluttery wreath of pink cherry blossoms, which draw crowds of admirers and inspire many celebrations. But this year, as Laurel Wamsley reports for NPR, the country’s cherry blossoms have made an unexpected second appearance—in the middle of fall. More than 350 people reported seeing the ephemeral flowers this autumn, though it isn’t clear if or to what extent the reports overlap. According to Japanese broadcaster NHK, the blossoms have been sighted in an area stretching from Kyushu, in western Japan, to Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s main islands.

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

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.”

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 …

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.

Twenty six-year old Miyu Kojima works for a company that cleans up after kodokushi (孤独死) or lonely deaths: a Japanese phenomenon of people dying alone and remaining undiscovered for a long period of time.

Japanese authorities have arrested members of the notorious Yakuza crime ring, after they were found extorting earnings from workers at the site of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Six Yakuza members were arrested Wednesday for illegally mobilizing homeless people to work on construction, then extorting part of their $90-a-day wages, the Asahi Shimbun reported.

President Donald Trump lobbied Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to allow one of his biggest campaign donors, Sheldon Adelson, to build a casino in Japan, according to a new report by ProPublica. In February 2017, Abe met with Trump for the first time at the White House. The two discussed the possibility of a bilateral trade agreement and the United States’ mutual defense treaty with Japan. Trump described having a “very, very good bond” with the Japanese leader.

Today is the first official day of the Toyosu Market, the new fish market that is replacing the beloved Tsukiji Fish Market. The opening wasn’t exactly smooth.

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.

Japan has unveiled the design of its next-generation bullet train that will whisk passengers along the network at speeds of up to 224 mph, making it the fastest train service in the world when it goes into service. The Alfa-X, as it's known, is particularly striking for the front car's 22-meter-long nose.

Sleeping where I worked blurred my work-life boundaries