How many of you have been following the attempted suicide of Hiroshi Nozaki (野崎浩) on April 6. I’m guessing not that many of you, because for some reason it’s not really receiving that much air time on Japanese TV. Nozaki’s suicide is particularly controversial because after calling an ambulance he gave instructions to the doctor to search in a coin locker at the Hamamatsucho Station (浜松町駅) next to the World Trade Center Building. Inside the locker was a suitcase filled with 10 chopped up body parts of a 22 year old Filipina.

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Have you ever noticed Tokyo taxis with these three stars atop? They are a type of certification of the level of the driver inside the taxi – they are designated “master taxi drivers” (優良タクシードライバー).

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Last Friday (26th October 2007), Nova filed for bankruptcy and court protection from creditors, and also temporarily closed all of its 1000+ English conversation schools. It is hard to imagine any other event which could cause as much disrupt the the “Eigoken” foreign population in Japan, short of war or Government meltdown.

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Starting November 20, 2007, all foreign nationals landing in Japan will be required to submit to fingerprinting and having their picture taken. Yokoso! Smile! You’re a terrorist suspect!

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Kyoto is famous in Japan for many things, in the past for classic temples like Kinkakuji and Kiyomizu-dera and for being the capital of Japan from 794 until the Meiji Restoration in 1868. It is well-known more recently for things such as the Kyoto Protocol and Kyoto University. This week, Kyoto University became the first University in Japan to introduce a so-called “University Environment Tax”, to attempt to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases within the University.

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I thought I’d seen everything when I read the headline in today’s paper that Nestle was going to bail out Yubari city from its bankruptcy.

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As you may have noticed, we were down for the last 4 or 5 days. Some malicious person decided that hacking stippy would be a novel idea. Well, I was away for a week, and did not have access, and therefore not a chance to restore from backups until now, but this is the first [...]

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Japan has been injected right into the biofuel debate, and has recently started trialling the bio-based “green” diesel and petrol in 55 “gasoline stands” around Tokyo. What does biogas mean for Japan? Will Japan be importing corn from the US rather than crude from the Middle East?

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This article is a rare (for stippy) direct quote from another article on Yahoo but we thought that is is interesting for our readers also, as we have written quite extensively on the Yakuza and their recent dramas in Japan, and given a locals insight surrounding some of ongoings of the Yamaguchi-gumi and Sumiyoshikai in [...]

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JAL to finally join OneWorld from Today, 1st April 2007 Today, Japan Airlines officially becomes a member of the OneWorld alliance. Perhaps you remember the joy and expectation that you felt back on Oct 25, 2005 when JAL announced this for the first time (official release). Or if you haven’t been in Japan for two [...]

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