Almost half of Japanese nationals feel familiar with loneliness and isolation, a government survey showed Friday. According to the Cabinet Office’s first public opinion survey on the issue, 48.4% of respondents answered they feel “familiar” or “rather familiar” with such feelings, while 49.6% chose “not familiar” or “rather do not feel it.” The remaining 2.0% did not answer.
“Black Box Diaries,” an Oscar-nominated film directed by Japanese journalist Shiori Ito documenting her experience after suffering sexual violence, was released in Japan on Friday. It was screened at overseas film festivals in 2024 and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature Film at this year’s U.S. Academy Awards. Meanwhile, lawyers, including those who helped Ito win a civil lawsuit against the former TV journalist over her sexual abuse case, had criticized the use of hotel security camera images and statements from taxi drivers without permission.
Almost half of Japanese nationals feel familiar with loneliness and isolation, a government survey showed Friday.
According to the Cabinet Office’s first public opinion survey on the issue, 48.4 pct of respondents answered they feel “familiar” or “rather familiar” with such feelings, while 49.6 pct chose “not familiar” or “rather do not feel it.” The remaining 2.0 pct did not answer.
Around 11:44 a.m., a quake with an estimated magnitude of 6.7 occurred off Aomori, logging 4 on Japan’s seismic intensity scale in 38 municipalities in five prefectures, including Hokkaido’s Hakodate, Aomori’s Hachinohe and Iwate’s Morioka. The intensity is the sixth-highest level on the 10-point scale. All the advisories were lifted at 2:05 p.m. after minor tsunami waves were observed in some municipalities, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
According to the city, the three offices, linked to welfare services firm Kizuna Holdings, reported around 200 such workers annually for fiscal 2024 and 2025 by repeatedly placing service users in regular employment as in-house staff for six months before returning them to beneficiary status. The offices received several billion yen in add-on payments based on these figures, prompting the city to launch an audit. A separate Osaka Prefecture survey of Type-A offices found an average of just 1.3 people per office who remained in regular employment for six months or longer in fiscal 2024.
Aikawa Shinseien, a remote facility in Akita Prefecture housing nearly 90 intellectually disabled people sent from Tokyo, illustrates the long-standing practice of placing disabled residents far from their home communities due to Tokyo’s high land prices and neighborhood resistance to disability facilities, with some locals claiming such facilities would “damage the image” of the area. Many residents have lived there for decades, seldom see their families, and feel trapped, one 65-year-old man, who has lived there since the facility opened, says poignantly, “I don’t want to end my life here.” As parents age and die and “out-of-Tokyo facilities” continue to fill in replacements, some question what a truly inclusive living environment for disabled people should look like.
The new block “is designed in a way that makes it easy for people with visual impairment to recognize (boundaries between roads and pavements) while making it easy for wheelchair users to get past them,” said Satoshi Hano, associate professor at Kyushu University specializing in public space design, who led the development.
Aikawa Shinseien, a remote facility in Akita Prefecture housing nearly 90 intellectually disabled people sent from Tokyo, illustrates the long-standing practice of placing disabled residents far from their home communities due to Tokyo’s high land prices and neighborhood resistance to disability facilities, with some locals claiming such facilities would “damage the image” of the area. Many residents have lived there for decades, seldom see their families, and feel trapped—one 65-year-old man, who has lived there since the facility opened, says poignantly, “I don’t want to end my life here.” As parents age and die and “out-of-Tokyo facilities” continue to fill in replacements, some question what a truly inclusive living environment for disabled people should look like.
Tomihiro Tanaka, Japan head of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, widely known as the Unification Church, resigned from the post Tuesday. “We cannot underestimate the fact that we have caused deep pain to some people,” Tanaka told a news conference held at the head office in Tokyo of the controversial religious group’s Japan branch. “I’m sorry.”
A powerful earthquake mainly struck Japan’s Tohoku northeastern region, including Aomori Prefecture, on Monday night, measuring up to upper 6, the second-highest level on the country’s seismic intensity scale. The temblor, with an estimated magnitude of 7.6, occurred at a depth of about 50 kilometers off the east coast of Aomori around 11:15 p.m.
Barrier Free Japan