Portal:Japan

Coordinates: 36°30′N 139°00′E / 36.5°N 139°E / 36.5; 139
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Japan (Japanese: 日本, [ɲihoɴ] , Nippon or Nihon, and formally 日本国, Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku) is an island country in East Asia. It is in the northwest Pacific Ocean and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north toward the East China Sea, Philippine Sea, and Taiwan in the south. Japan is a part of the Ring of Fire, and spans an archipelago of 14,125 islands, with the five main islands being Hokkaido, Honshu (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyushu, and Okinawa. Tokyo is the nation's capital and largest city, followed by Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Kobe, and Kyoto.

Japan has over 125 milion inhabitants and is the 11th most populous country in the world, as well as one of the most densely populated. About three-fourths of the country's terrain is mountainous, concentrating its highly urbanized population on narrow coastal plains. Japan is divided into 47 administrative prefectures and eight traditional regions. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous metropolitan area in the world. Japan has the world's highest life expectancy, though it is experiencing a population decline due to its very low birth rate.

Japan has been inhabited since the Upper Paleolithic period (30,000 BC). Between the fourth and ninth centuries, the kingdoms of Japan became unified under an emperor and the imperial court based in Heian-kyō. Beginning in the 12th century, political power was held by a series of military dictators (shōgun) and feudal lords (daimyō) and enforced by a class of warrior nobility (samurai). After a century-long period of civil war, the country was reunified in 1603 under the Tokugawa shogunate, which enacted an isolationist foreign policy. In 1854, a United States fleet forced Japan to open trade to the West, which led to the end of the shogunate and the restoration of imperial power in 1868. In the Meiji period, the Empire of Japan adopted a Western-modeled constitution and pursued a program of industrialization and modernization. Amidst a rise in militarism and overseas colonization, Japan invaded China in 1937 and entered World War II as an Axis power in 1941. After suffering defeat in the Pacific War and two atomic bombings, Japan surrendered in 1945 and came under a seven-year Allied occupation, during which it adopted a new constitution.

Under the 1947 constitution, Japan has maintained a unitary parliamentary constitutional monarchy with a bicameral legislature, the National Diet. Japan is a developed country and a great power, with one of the largest economies by nominal GDP. Japan has renounced its right to declare war, though it maintains a Self-Defense Force that ranks as one of the world's strongest militaries. A global leader in the automotive, robotics, and electronics industries, the country has made significant contributions to science and technology and is one of the world's largest exporters and importers. It is part of multiple major international and intergovernmental institutions. (Full article...)

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Curse of the Colonel refers to an urban legend regarding a reputed curse placed on the Japanese Kansai-based Hanshin Tigers baseball team by deceased KFC founder and mascot Colonel Harland Sanders. The curse was said to be placed on the team because of the Colonel's anger over treatment of one of his store-front statues. As is common with sports-related curses, the Curse of the Colonel is used to explain the Japan Championship Series drought that the Hanshin Tigers have had to endure since their first and only victory in the 1985 Japan Championship. The curse is a classic example of a scapegoat. The Hanshin Tigers are located in Kansai, the second largest metropolitan area in Japan. They are considered the eternal underdogs of Nippon Professional Baseball, in opposition to the Yomiuri Giants of Tokyo, who are considered the kings of Japanese baseball. The devoted fans flock to the stadium no matter how badly the Tigers play in the league. Comparisons are often made between the Hanshin Tigers and the Boston Red Sox, who were also said to be under a curse, the Curse of the Bambino, until they won the World Series in 2004. In 1985, much to Japanese people's surprise, the Hanshin Tigers faced the Seibu Lions and took their first and only victory in the Japan Series, largely due to star slugger Randy Bass, a gaijin (foreigner) player for the team. (Full article...)

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24 September 2023 – 2023 Formula One World Championship
In auto racing, Red Bull wins their sixth World Constructors' Championship after Max Verstappen wins the Japanese Grand Prix. (Reuters)
7 September 2023 –
Japanese pop agency Johnny & Associates publicly admits and apologizes for sexual abuses on several hundred minors committed by its late founder Johnny Kitagawa. (CNN)
6 September 2023 – Human rights in France
A schoolgirl in Lyon, France, is reportedly sent home for wearing a traditional Japanese kimono as the nation implements a controversial law banning the display of religious symbols in public schools. (Al Jazeera)
6 September 2023 – Exploration of the Moon
JAXA launches the Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) lunar lander from Tanegashima Space Center. The Japanese mission will aim to become the fifth country to perform a soft landing on the Moon. (Reuters)
5 September 2023 – Kyoto Animation arson attack
Shinji Aoba pleads guilty to arson and 36 murders for setting a fire at an animation studio in Kyoto, Japan, in July 2019. (AP)
4 September 2023 – Relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma
The Supreme Court of Japan orders Okinawa to allow the United States Armed Forces to expand its runways and military infrastructure on the island despite protests from locals opposing the American military's presence. (AP)

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Tatsuguchi soon after his induction into the Imperial Japanese Army in 1941 and his initial assignment to the First Imperial Guard Regiment in Tokyo

Paul Nobuo Tatsuguchi (辰口 信夫, Tatsuguchi Nobuo), sometimes mistakenly referred to as Nebu Tatsuguchi (August 31, 1911 – May 30, 1943), was a Japanese soldier and surgeon who served in the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) during World War II. He was killed during the Battle of Attu on Attu Island, Alaska, United States, on May 30, 1943.

A devout Seventh-day Adventist, Tatsuguchi studied medicine and was licensed as a physician in the United States (US). He returned to his native Japan to practice medicine at the Tokyo Adventist Sanitarium, where he received further medical training. In 1941, he was ordered to cease his medical practice and conscripted into the IJA as an acting medical officer, although he was given an enlisted rather than officer rank because of his American connections. In late 1942, Tatsuguchi was sent to Attu, which had been occupied by Japanese forces in June 1942. On May 11, 1943, The United States Army landed on the island, intending to retake American soil from the Japanese. (Full article...)

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Flag of Akita Prefecture
Akita Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Tōhoku Region of northern Japan. The capital is the city of Akita. Separated from the principal Japanese centres of commerce, politics, and population by several hundred kilometres and the Ou and Dewa mountain ranges to the east, Akita remained largely isolated from Japanese society until after the year 600CE. Populated principally by the Ainu people, Akita was a region of hunter-gatherers and principally nomadic tribes. The first historical record of Akita-ken dates to 658CE, when the General Abe no Hirafu conquered the native Ezo tribes at Akita city and Nushiro. Hirafu, then governor of the Koshi region, established a fort on the Mogami river, and thus began the Japanese settlement of the region. In 733, a new military settlement—later renamed Akita Castle—was built in modern-day Akita city at Takashimizu, and more permanent roads and structures were developed. The region was used as a base of operations for the Japanese empire as it drove the native Ezo people from northern Honshū. It shifted hands several times in the interim. During the Tokugawa shogunate it was appropriated to the Satake family in 1602, who ruled the region for 260 years, developing the agriculture and mining industries that are still predominant today. Throughout this period, it was classified as part of Dewa Province and remained politically quite stable. In 1871, during the Meiji Restoration, Dewa province was reshaped and the old daimyō regions (called "han") were abolished and administratively reconstructed, resulting in the modern-day borders of Akita.

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A. c. japonica forming a "bee ball" in which two giant hornets (Vespa simillima xanthoptera) are engulfed and are being heated

  • ... that when a Japanese honeybee hive is invaded by a giant hornet scout, the honeybees "bake" the hornet in a ball of about 500 bees (pictured)?
  • ...that the story of Sada Abe, a woman who cut off her dead lover's genitals and carried them around with her for days, is one of Japan's most notorious scandals?
  • ... that the Japanese novel Kanikōsen is one of the best-selling books of 2008, despite being published in 1929?

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