Japan

For many restaurants, receiving a Michelin star (or two, or three) is one of the best ways to gain world-class status in the culinary world. It is also guaranteed to attract international media attention and bring in new business.

Although it is extremely difficult to earn Michelin stars, the Japanese restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro has earned the maximum three stars every year since 2007. But things are about to change. It was recently announced that the restaurant will be left out of the 2020 Michelin Guide because it no longer accepts public reservations. Since Michelin’s aim is to introduce top-notch restaurants to the general public, Sukiyabashi Jiro no longer falls within their rating criteria.

In 2014, there were just six gun deaths in Japan (≈0.00000004% of the population), compared to 33,599 (≈1.0% of the population) in the US.

Buying a gun in Japan takes patience and perseverance. First, you need to attend an all-day class, then sit a written exam and pass a shooting-range test with a mark of at least 95%. There are also mental health and drugs tests to pass.

Afterwards, your criminal record is checked and police look for links to extremist groups. They even check your relatives and co-workers. Police have the power to deny gun licences and sweeping powers to search and seize weapons. In addition, handguns are banned outright. Only shotguns and air rifles are allowed.

Car rental companies in Japan have figured out why some customers are returning their vehicles with barely a mile on the clock. Rather than travel from point A to B, as many as one in eight “drivers” are using their rental cars to take a nap, catch up on work or even brush up their language skills, according to industry surveys.

The unusual habits came to light after Orix Auto found a number of its 230,000 registered users were not driving their rented vehicles. Other rental firms noticed similar anomalies in their customers’ mileage records and approached them hoping to get to the bottom of the mystery.

In the United Kingdom, the United States and other developed countries, abused or neglected children are often sent to live with a foster family. But that rarely happens in Japan, one of the world's wealthiest and most progressive societies. 

Close to 90 percent of Japan's troubled children are placed in state institutions. Foster care has not emerged as a viable alternative for abused children in Japan because governments have failed to properly train carers, monitor the placements, or adequately educate the public about its benefits. In addition, Japan strongly values blood ties, so welcoming a stranger’s child into a family seems unnatural to many people. Japan is also a country where speaking out about child abuse causes great shame.

LINE is the most popular social media platform in Japan followed by Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. When comparing the Monthly Active Users (MAU) of these 5 social media platforms, LINE is obviously the most dominant in the Japanese market in 2019.

LINE’s penetration rate is surprisingly high. Actually, it is higher than the smartphone penetration rate in Japan. This is because there are also many non-smartphone users who access LINE from a computer or tablet device. LINE has 80 million MAU compared to the nation’s 70 million smartphone users.

Japan and India have decided to join forces in the race to discover water on the moon, with the two countries planning to try to land an unmanned rover on the moon’s south pole as early as fiscal 2023.

Frozen water is believed to exist inside craters and other areas of the moon’s poles where sunlight does not reach. The countries plan to use the rover to excavate in such areas and discover water on the moon for the first time. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have already held meetings on the project.

Japan will be in charge of launching the rocket and developing a lunar rover, while India will develop a lander for the mission. The rover will explore an area 500 meters square to try to detect water using onboard analysis equipment.

Until recently, Japan didn’t have much of an influx of foreign tourists. Now, it does, and with that comes problems.

For much of the 20th and 21st century, foreign tourism in Japan didn’t really exist. Now, with the rise of Japan’s neighbors in Asia, the country has seen an influx of travelers like never before. In 2018, a record number of 32 million foreign tourists visited Japan, with over fifty percent from mainland China and South Korea. In comparison, less than 5 million foreign tourists visited in 2001. In 1970 there were only 854,000.

This sudden spike has caused growing pains, such as overcrowding and hotel shortages, and conflicts caused by cultural differences over things like smoking and garbage.

The Japanese have made the ordinary extraordinary, turning black metal manhole covers into well-rounded works of art. Colorful designs adorn the lids to the sewers in towns across Japan, inspiring flocks of fans, called "manholers," to engage in manhole tourism.

Hideto Yamada works for Hinode Suido, the largest manhole manufacturer in Japan. They produce about 200 a day. “I think we have changed the image of manholes," Yamada said. "People from around the world think Japanese manhole covers are cool."

There are now 6,000 different designs spread around the country. Nearly every city and town in Japan has its very own design, usually based on its claim to fame. Osaka has its castle; Kobe, its zoo. Of course, Fuji has its mountain.  

"Japanese manholes reflect the Japanese mentality," said Yamada. "Even if it costs more, we want to make something beautiful."  

Recently, the ancient art of origami has begun to merge with modern engineering. Origami principles have inspired novel ways of packaging airbags, fashioning heart stents, folding solar sails designed to propel spacecraft, and even collapsible bullet-proof shields. 

Modern research in origami began in 1970 when an astrophysicist named Koryo Miura came up with a simple but elegant fold. Known as the Miura fold, or Miura-ori, he later repurposed the fold as a way to package large, flat membranes for deploying into space. In 1995, a Japanese satellite used the fold to store its solar panels for launch and unfurl them once in orbit.