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Japan’s a bit notorious for its uneven chore distribution between men and women, and Fukushima City is trying something slightly unusual to get families to share housework: turning it into a game.
The city launched a pilot project on September 18 that asks participating households to log chores in a smartphone app. Cooking, shopping, cleaning the bathtub, and other ...
Japan has endured a long-running phenomenon known as “customer harassment,” or abuse of store and municipal employees by customers and citizens. Up until now, Japanese companies had no legal obligation to protect their employees from irate customers.
That’s set to change on October 1, 2026, when a nationwide legal requirement will oblige employers across Japan, from...
Soni, a tiny village on the Nara-Mie border, has a tourism problem that doesn’t fit the usual overtourism story.
To start, the village has about 1,200 residents. Last year, roughly 380,000 people visited, most heading for the Soni Plateau (曽爾高原, Soni Kōgen), where fields of Japanese silver grass, or susuki, turn golden around sunset. On busy autumn...
More and more, Japanese-language requirements are being added to more residence statuses. As a result, people need proof of proficiency; naturally, they flock to the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) to get it.
However, this has resul...
Breakups are hard. But who has it harder: the person doing the dumping, or the one being dumped?
For some Japanese people, ending a relationship is so difficult that they’re paying breakup proxies (お別れ代行; owakare daikō) to do it for them.
The services are the latest addition to Japan’s growing proxy economy, which includes