How to rev up Japanese startups

Akiko Naka, the 32-year-old chief executive leads a young team that forgoes the usual black-and-white attire of Japanese business to pad around in jeans and socks. Meeting rooms are named after characters from a famous manga comic. Yet Wantedly is a rarity. ( read original story ...)

IOC: All options on table in cost-cutting for Tokyo Games

TOKYO - All options remain on the table — including moving the rowing venue to a site hundreds of miles (kilometres) outside of Tokyo — after a working group set up to review costs of the 2020 Olympics met for the first time, a top IOC official said ... ( read original story ...)

IHG Opens Holiday Inn Osaka Namba

LONDON—InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) opened the Holiday Inn Osaka Namba. This is the fifth Holiday Inn hotel in the brand family in Japan, joining others in Sapporo, Sendai, Kanazawa and Miyazaki. The 314-room Holiday Inn Osaka Namba is located in ... ( read original story ...)

A portrait of the tattooist as a nice young man

When Hori Benny moved into his brand new business premises in 2014 near Nipponbashi in downtown Osaka, there was an unwelcoming committee waiting for him. A neighboring business owner had gathered over 1,000 signatories for a petition to get him to move ... ( read original story ...)

Halloween all the rage in Japan

Enthusiasm among young Japanese for Halloween continues to grow year by year, not only as a day to enjoy "cosplay" but as a time to spend on goodies like nobody's business. Observed in many countries as a time dedicated to remembering the dead, the ... ( read original story ...)

Temples enter matchmaking business in marriage-shy Japan

TOKYO - Traditionally seen as conductors of funerals or memorial services, some Buddhist monks in Japan are carving out a new niche as matchmakers for men and women looking for marriage partners. In a country where an increasing number of people are ... ( read original story ...)

Japan demands talks with U.K. government over Brexit strategy

“Japanese companies are not leaving, they like it here and they have been operating profitably in the U.K.,” the ambassador said. The two governments “should make certain there will be a business environment that will continue to allow them to make ... ( read original story ...)

3 Japanese Shipping Companies to Merge Container Businesses

“This is a big decision, since it will create what will be the only container-shipping company in Japan,” he said. “But with the European industry consolidating and the business becoming more of an oligopoly, we need the scale that being a single ... ( read original story ...)

Bank of Japan delays inflation goal in blow to 'Abenomics'

TOKYO: Japan's central bank on Tuesday (Nov 1) again pushed back the timeline for hitting its inflation goal, the latest policy change that has raised questions about attempts to revive the deflation-plagued economy. The Bank of Japan has for the past ... ( read original story ...)

Japanese and German cooperation on Industry 4.0

That has made Japan a more interesting place for German companies to do business. Suddenly, they're working together "Japan in some sectors makes more foreign direct investments than does China or Korea," Schürmann said from his perch in a glass-fronted ... ( read original story ...)

Capsule hotels in Japan reach out to foreign tourists

New Japan Kanko Co, which claims to have inaugurated the first ... "But we need to attract younger people as new guests to continue our business." First Cabin Inc has designed its rooms along the line of the first class cabin of a passenger airline ... ( read original story ...)