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July 04, 2026
 

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3/11

Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Apr 3, 2025
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
NHK’s new four-episode miniseries, “After the Quake,” probes the ripple effects of past major disasters across Japanese society.
Yoko Suetsugu at Haco, her gallery in New York
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Fukushima
Mar 17, 2025
Sculptor connects Fukushima to U.S. through New York gallery
Yoko Suetsugu is aiming to launch a program inviting U.S. artists to hot springs in the city of Fukushima for a creative retreat.
Kyoko Watanabe made a home for herself in Ishinomaki after moving there to participate in disaster relief efforts following 3/11, and now operates a business focused on the creative reuse of <i>akiya</i> (abandoned houses).
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Mar 17, 2025
From abandoned houses to ‘creative communities’: An Ishinomaki entrepreneur’s vision for rural Japan
Kyoko Watanabe moved to Miyagi Prefecture to help with disaster relief efforts following 3/11. She ended up building a company and a vision for revitalizing rural Japan.
Yoshihito Sasaki at Nijikko no Ie, a facility he set up in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, to provide a safe space for those suffering from severe social withdrawal
JAPAN / Society
Mar 14, 2025
Man’s grief over wife and son leads to haven for social recluses
Yoshihito Sasaki sought to fulfill his late wife’s wish of providing a safe space for those suffering from severe social withdrawal.
Protesters demonstrating in front of the Supreme Court in Tokyo on Tuesday against court rulings acquitting two former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings over the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima Prefecture.
JAPAN / Crime & Legal
Mar 12, 2025
Acquittal of two former Tepco executives finalized
Lawyers acting as prosecutors did not file an appeal against the Supreme Court’s decision last week that upheld the not-guilty verdicts against the executives.
Naohisa Hoshikawa, chief executive officer and founder of Ookuma Diamond Device, in Sapporo in February. Hoshikawa says the potential of diamond semiconductors goes beyond decommissioning work, likening them to the U.S. Apollo manned lunar landing program, which gave birth to technological innovations affecting everyday life.
JAPAN / Science & Health
Mar 12, 2025
Diamond chips could be key to decommissioning of Fukushima nuclear plant
Made with artificial diamonds, such chips are regarded as the “ultimate semiconductors” — they can withstand high levels of radiation as well as high voltages and temperatures.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who said he would do everything he could to reduce active nuclear reactors to close to zero, changed his stance once he became prime minister.
JAPAN / FOCUS
Mar 12, 2025
Government does about-face on nuclear policy 14 years after triple meltdown
The government cited the need to ensure stable electricity supplies and secure carbon-free energy sources.
Bookshelves storing disaster-related documents at the Sendai City Archives in Sendai in February
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2025
Local governments struggle to preserve records of March 2011 disaster
Fourteen years later, securing storage space has become a growing obstacle as the volume of records continues to increase.
People observe a moment of silence at 2:46 p.m. on Tuesday in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, when the Great East Japan Earthquake hit 14 years ago. Behind them is a pine tree dubbed "the miracle tree" that survived the tsunami.
JAPAN / Society
Mar 11, 2025
Japan marks 14 years since 3/11 earthquake, with over 27,000 still displaced
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he will pass down the lessons of the disaster to future generations.
A woman visits a grave in Rikuzentakata, Iwate Prefecture, on Tuesday on the 14th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Populations in the hardest hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima are sharply falling.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2025
Post-disaster Tohoku struggles with population decline
The number of people aged 20 to 39 in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefectures fell by about 20% to 30% between 2010 and 2024.
Junko Yagi, a professor at Iwate Medical University, speaks during an interview on Jan. 10 in the town of Yahaba, Iwate Prefecture.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2025
Experts urge ongoing mental health care for families in 3/11 disaster areas
“Parents and children alike are carrying heavy emotional burdens,” one expert said.
Tetsuya Tadano gazes at the school building from the hillside behind Okawa Elementary School on Feb. 7 in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2025
Former students work to turn tsunami-hit elementary school into social hub
One former student felt the school has become increasingly defined solely by the tragedy.
Fukushima Gov. Masao Uchibori says he wants the central government to clarify and accelerate the plan for disposing of soil from radiation decontamination work.
JAPAN
Mar 11, 2025
Governor urges contaminated soil be disposed of outside Fukushima by 2045
A law states all contaminated soil must be disposed of outside Fukushima by March 2045.
Aizawa Concrete employees work in the Namie factory in Fukushima Prefecture in January.
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Mar 11, 2025
14 years after 3/11 disasters, Fukushima vies to become a startup hub
Part of the goal is to attract a more permanent workforce to Fukushima to support the development of the prefecture as a whole.
Every year, there is heightened interest in commemorating the 3/11 disaster around the time of the anniversary. But memorial facilities and operators are increasingly struggling to keep their activities going all year round and as time passes.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 10, 2025
Preserving the memory of 3/11 is becoming more difficult
Despite a peak in interest around the 3/11 anniversary, disaster memorial facilities and operators are facing mounting challenges in keeping their activities going as time passes.
A town hall meeting with residents of Okuma, Fukushima Prefecture, one of the municipalities evacuated in the aftermath of the nuclear accident at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant. More dialogue is needed to foster truly participatory energy democracy in Japan.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 10, 2025
Japan needs collective public support to reach its nuclear goals
Over a decade after 3/11, Japan has the chance to foster truly participatory energy democracy by engaging its civic environmental organizations in nuclear policymaking processes.
Mayor Jin Sato attends the unveiling ceremony of the monument, which inscribes the names of 37 town officials who died while working on response to the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami, on Sunday in Minamisanriku, Miyagi Prefecture.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2025
Monument erected in Miyagi to remember officials who died in March 2011
The monument is inscribed with the words, “We will never forget that day.”
The Ukedo Elementary School Ruins in Namie, Fukushima Prefecture, in January. The Fukushima Prefectural Government offers training sessions for new prefectural government recruits to visit the school, the prefecture's sole preserved disaster-hit structure.
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2025
14 years on, prefectural governments work to pass on lessons to new hires
Many prefectural officials who were involved in front-line operations in the immediate aftermath of the massive earthquake and tsunami are retiring.
Yoshiaki Nakano (center), head of the Mebuki residents’ association, comprising residents of the Moniwa No. 2 municipal-run housing complex in Sendai’s Taihaku Ward, addresses a board meeting on Feb. 2.
JAPAN / Society / Regional Voices: Tohoku
Mar 10, 2025
Public housing residents’ associations in Sendai struggle to find leaders
Those age 65 and older account for 43.9% of the residents in such housing, 18.7 percentage points higher than the ratio of elderly in the city.
“The Place of Shells” takes place mostly in Gottingen, Germany, where both the author and the book's narrator live, while also jumping both geographically and temporally to Sendai, Japan, through memories of the 3/11 disaster and its aftermath.
CULTURE / Books
Mar 10, 2025
Grief ebbs and flows between two tragedies in ‘The Place of Shells’
Mai Ishizawa’s debut novel, which won one of the three Akutagawa Prizes awarded in 2021, is also her first to be released in English, translated by Polly Barton.
‘My dream is broken’: Japan visa rules push out foreign residents
A man orders from a kebab shop in the Okubo district in Tokyo.
Japan triples departure tax in push to combat overtourism
Tourists in Yanaka Ginza, Tokyo, on Wednesday. Japan tripled its International Tourist Tax (departure tax) to ¥3,000 from ¥1,000 on Wednesday for all travelers leaving Japan, regardless of nationality.
Japanese-language education is at a turning point
The country is gradually transforming Japanese-language education from a volunteer-driven system into a professional, government-supported network to better serve its growing foreign population. 
More facilities in Japan placing sanitary bins in men’s restrooms
A sanitary bin with an awareness sticker placed in a men&#039;s restroom in the Nagasaki Municipal Government building
Japan plans to sharply raise fees for residence permits from October
Foreign tourists walk on the path leading to the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in May.
Iran war exposed, but hasn’t changed, Japan’s reliance on imported oil
Wind turbines generate energy from strong easterly winds on the Shonai Plain in Yamagata Prefecture. Despite the oil crisis caused by conflict near the Strait of Hormuz, and concerns instability in the region could continue to impact supply and the price of imports, the administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi does not seem to be drawing on the war as a pretext to hasten progress toward Japan&#039;s renewable goals.
Six of the best: rikishi of note in each sumo division
Kazuma (right) faces off against future <i>yokozuna</i> Onosato during the All Japan Amateur Sumo Championships at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in December 2020.
Some startups see opportunity in an aging Japan
Yasmin Baba, CTO of Amilis, wins the Grand Prize at the Pitch2Tokyo Grand Final on Feb. 19.
Japan’s fertility system offers few safe paths for same-sex couples
A Tokyo Pride parade participant holds a sign that says "we want to be a married couple, not a couple."
Life inside Japan’s largest prison for women
Western-style rooms spanning the size of four tatami mats with hardwood floors, a toilet and soft mattresses on bed frames are designated for foreign nationals and those with health conditions at Tochigi Prison.

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