Prince Hisahito

The Emperor of Japan has one child, a daughter. The younger brother has a son, 20. Japan has had empresses (and the imperial family traces itself to goddess Amaterasu), but succession, currently, is male only. This is a big problem for conservative forces in Japan. To return to Prince Hisahito, the nephew of the Emperor: a dragonfly enthusiast, in HS he co-published an article about dragonflies at the Imperial estate in Tokyo. There's been some criticism (deserved) of that, and of his first solo press conference (not so deserved), held recently. Here's a sampling of the enlightened commentariat at Japan Today.

Niigata City Photos

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Going, Going, Gone

Updated population figures for the prefecture are published the first of every month in the local paper, and those for February, 2025, continue a decades'- old pattern: decline (everywhere in Japan, in fact, except Tokyo). Since February, 2024, Niigata has seen a drop of 27,251 to current total 2.098 million. This trend, irreversible, in what was the country's most populous prefecture in the late 1800s, for reasons to do with labor-intensive rice production.

Ukraine, and Japan

This is not a political site, and I don't do politics, generally, but... if you support Trump, you are a moron. And a sociopath. Japanese avoid confrontations, that's what we're taught. Tired trope. But, PM Ishiba has indeed said he will not add accelerant to the fire by choosing sides post Oval/ Offal Office ambush. Okay. (Though Japan is a diplomatic cipher, practically speaking, and has much to lose by crossing swamp thing.) However, let's see a bit more spine from the so-called free world.