Toyota shared its electric vehicle and robot lineup for the 2020 Olympic Games. Things are about to get weird.

The Olympic medals are made from precious metals extracted from recycled electronics and melted down

The manager of a chain of hot spring hotels bid 1.2 million yen, or around $11,000, for 24 Ruby Roman grapes, which are prized for their juiciness, high sugar content and low acidity.

Japan has decided to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission in a bid to resume commercial whaling, government sources said Thursday. However, the country is unlikely to catch whales in the Antarctic Ocean even after its IWC pullout, as the government is mulling allowing Japan's commercial whaling only in seas near Japan as well as the country's exclusive economic zone, the sources added.

An intricate system of dams, levees and tunnels defends the Japan’s capital. Will it be able to cope with climate change?

Shrouded in mystery, the gigantic Daisen Kofun mound in Japan is thought to hold the remains of a 5th century emperor.

Tokyo, and Japan in general, has been making major strides in making the city a more LGBT-inclusive place with various programs including housing, government programs, and even marriage in certain districts. Now, the city is hoping that the city will be free of LGBT discrimination by the 2020 Olympics with a new ordinance. The city’s government introduced the piece of legislation on September 19 that includes measures to end discrimination.

Japanese people aged 70 and older account for more than 20 percent of the total population for the first time at 26.18 million, in further evidence of the country's rapidly aging society, according to government data. The data, released by the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry ahead of Monday's Respect-for-the-Aged Day holiday, showed that as of Saturday people aged 70 or above account for 20.7 percent of the population, up from 19.9 percent the previous year.

Municipalities across Japan are reaching out to the social recluses known as hikikomori to help them find their place in society without focusing solely on getting them back into the workforce. Japan has some 540,000 people aged 15 to 39 who, aside from taking care of small chores, cut themselves off from the outside world for six months or longer at a time, according to a 2016 government estimate.

One stubborn doctor pioneered a cure.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics organising committee has confirmed that 87% of the plywood panels used to build its new national stadium come from southeast Asian rainforests. But the timber cannot be traced back to its original source under the committees’s certification protocols, which have been censured by campaigners for a lack of due diligence.

The $5.6bn cost of the 70-storey W350 Project is expected to be twice that of a conventional building

The organising committee for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics and the Tokyo metropolitan government are planning to use a facial recognition system during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, sources said.

US Forces in Japan banned all personnel from consuming alcohol after a drink-driving accident on the island of Okinawa where anti-base sentiment runs high. A US Marine crashed his vehicle into a mini-truck at an intersection on Sunday, killing the other driver, 61. The 21-year-old, whose breath test showed an alcohol level three times the legal limit, was arrested and charged with negligent driving resulting in death, police said.

Encounters in Tokyo. “It seems possible to argue that American blues offers a new solution to the Japanese, an idea they maybe hadn’t encountered before, hadn’t realized could work as a balm.” By Amanda Petrusich.

U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster told his Japanese counterpart on Sunday that Washington is firmly committed to defending Japan, including with its nuclear deterrent, following North Korea’s latest nuclear test. McMaster made the assurance during a telephone call to Shotarou Taniuchi, the Director-General of the Japanese National Security Council, according to a government statement.

Japanese Emperor Akihito's oldest grandchild, Princess Mako, says she is getting married to her university classmate who won her heart with bright smiles and sincerity. Mako and her fiancé Kei Komuro told a joint news conference Sunday their relationship started when Mako sat behind him at a campus meeting five years ago at Tokyo's International Christian University, where they graduated from.

Doctors have come up with a novel idea to help Japan keep pace with its rapidly ageing population: raising the definition of senior citizen to those aged 75 years and older. A leading campaigner said the commonly accepted 65-year threshold is “terribly outdated” and needs to be lifted to take account of longer life expectancy and changing social attitudes to ageing.

Dangerous levels of chemicals in the soil and ground water mean that the market cannot open, leaving traders out of pocket and Tokyo’s governor with an intractable problem. Julian Ryall reports from the Japanese capital.