Female hunter-trapper offers Tottori lodgers wild-meat cuisine
An enthusiastic female hunter-trapper in Tottori Prefecture has a tempting offer for people staying at her guesthouse: wild-animal cuisine. Satoko Umeno, 30, originally from Fukuoka, runs Ba-Bar, an inn converted from a 40-year-old house in a suburb of the city of Tottori. She cooks dishes using ...
Golf turns to kids, other sports to lure younger players
Japan's golf industry, which is still largely dependent on seniors and corporate outings, is changing in the face of the aging population and stiffer competition from other leisure activities. To attract younger players, some golf clubs are opening schools for children or adding facilities where ...
On Oki Islands off Shimane Prefecture, a bold wave of reform seems to be having a positive effect.
On this island, depopulation isn't the problem — inertia is
There is one thing most people don't realize about this island paradise amid the Seto Inland Sea: that despite many people wanting to move here, none of them can.
A life of lettuce has its benefits
Lettuce. Let us raise a glass to lettuce. There's a village in Nagano Prefecture called Kawakami — nothing, nowhere little place, deep in the mountains, far from the main road, population 3,960. Why does Shukan Gendai magazine devote three full pages to profiling it? There are ...
Success of 'Abenomics' hinges on immigration policy
Foreign investment funds generally shun countries with shrinking populations, and this means “Abenomics” can’t succeed unless Japan opens its door to more foreigners, an immigration expert warns.
Population panel draws line in sand
To prevent a crisis, Japan should try to keep its population at 100 million for the next 50 years by devoting more resources to child-rearing, a panel says.
Skin divers turn to tourism to stem the tide
At the Sea People restaurant in Shima, a coastal hamlet in Mie Prefecture, sea diver Machiyo Yamashita wants a piece of a tourism industry dominated by the cities that sapped her town's vitality by luring away its youth. "I want to cook and serve customers ...
Regional banks face growing pressure to merge
Regulators are increasing the pressure on regional banks to consolidate, worried that shrinking populations outside Japan's major cities will leave lenders too weak to stand on their own. After direct prodding from the head of the Financial Services Agency for the more than 100 regional ...
Nagoya: What do you think about the April sales tax increase and how will it affect you?
Denizens of the Chubu capital offer their tuppence-worth on the impending 3-percent consumption tax hike to 8 percent from the start of the fiscal year.
A private high school in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, will close for good at the end of March because the nuclear disaster has decimated enrollment, school officials said. Shoei High School, founded in 1957, will be the first in the prefecture to close its doors permanently ...
Islanders must think bigger to thrive, not just survive
As a resident, may I be so bold as to suggest that we don't need an NPO to save our island from aging and depopulation. What we need is for an NPO, or anyone, to save our island from itself!
