Japan’s public TV broadcaster is to resume live sumo broadcasts, after canceling coverage of July’s Nagoya tournament over a betting scandal that hit the country’s ancient sport.

NHK officials said Thursday the station will televise the Sept. 12-26 Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament as usual.

NHK did not air live broadcasts of the Nagoya tournament, saying that the betting scandal generated viewer disgust. It was the first time since 1953 that live broadcasts weren’t shown on NHK.

Read the rest of the story: NHK to resume live broadcasts of sumo.

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Each year in early September, Japan opens season on dolphins, and today marks the start of the season in Taiji, a now notorious place for slaughtering cetaceans thanks to the Oscar-winning documentary The Cove. And of course, activist Ric O’Barry is on the move. He delivered a petition to the US Embassy in Tokyo signed by 1.7 million people from 155 countries demanding an end to the hunt. The embassy wasn’t his first destination — the Japanese fisheries agency was. But death threats from a group known for violence kinda put a damper on that.

As reported by the AP, "The Japanese government allows a hunt of about 20,000 dolphins a year, and argues that killing them — and also whales — is no different from raising cows or pigs for slaughter. Most Japanese have never eaten dolphin meat and, even in Taiji, it is not consumed regularly.

Read the rest of the story: Taiji Opens Season on Dolphins Today.

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Japan’s public pension fund, the world’s largest, will sell about 4 trillion yen ($48 billion) in assets this fiscal year to fund rising payouts as the nation’s population ages.

That follows asset sales of 720 billion yen, all in Japanese bonds, in the fiscal year ended in March, Takahiro Mitani, president of the Government Pension Investment Fund, said in an interview in Tokyo yesterday.

“Insurance premiums rise little by little every year, but it isn’t catching up with the increase in payouts,” said Mitani, a former executive director at the Bank of Japan.

Read the rest of the story: Japan Public Pension Fund to Sell $48 Billion as Nation Ages.

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Turn on the TV in Japan and you’re bound to see someone slicing up a tuna on a cooking show while commentators ooh and aah. It’s no wonder, then, that during the current heat wave frying Tokyo, people are heading north for chills and eye candy in the form of giant fish popsicles.

The Kori no Suizokukan (Ice Aquarium) in Kesennuma, northeastern Japan, packs about 450 specimens of marine life frozen in large columns of ice bathed in blue light. Some 80 species, including saury, octopuses, crabs, and skipjack, are preserved in lifelike poses. They seem to be swimming in ice.

Read the rest of the story: Marine life frozen in time at Japan’s Ice Aquarium.

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I can’t think of another museum that embodies the spirit of Japanese innovation quite as well as Miraikan: The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation.

Created by Japan’s Science and Technology Agency — and led by astronaut Mamoru Mohri — the futuristic glass building is packed with permanent exhibits and fun hands-on gadgets that explain the science behind technology and its application to daily life. Visitors can build a robot, meet the humanoid ASIMO, "drive" a virtual reality horse, brush up on nano-technology, peek inside the body or take in a show in the Dome Theatre.

Most fascinating of all is the giant Geo-Cosmos — representing planet Earth — that floats over a six-storey atrium. The 6.5-metre sphere is made of 3,715 panels lit by nearly 1 million LED lights, which display daily conditions on Earth. The images are gathered from observation stations and satellites, and show real time planetary conditions such as weather, sea temperatures and carbon monoxide concentrations, as well as simulations of global warming.

Read the rest of the story: Japan beyond the Ginza.

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One recent sweltering summer’s day, a tour bus from Tokyo pulled up at a sun-kissed beach at Atami, a Pacific coast resort southwest of the metropolis, and disgorged more than a dozen excited, iPhone-clutching young men.

The determined youngsters, paying scant attention to the bikini-clad girls frolicking on the sand, instead headed straight for a bronze statue that depicts Kanichi and Omiya, a couple from an old love story set in Atami.

The focus of the men’s attention—and of their smartphone cameras—was a tiny black and white square, a two-dimensional barcode that, thanks to "augmented reality" (AR) software, brought to life the object of their desire.

"Look, it’s like I’m in a snapshot with her," said Shu Watanabe, 23, as he showed off his iPhone display, featuring himself next to the image of a doe-eyed cartoon character named Rinko, a smiling high school girl.

Read the rest of the story: Japan resort a hot spot for men with virtual girlfriends.

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A company employee in Nagano Prefecture calculated the value of pi to five trillion digits this month using a self-made personal computer, beating the record set by a French engineer who calculated it to about 2.7 trillion digits late last year.

To calculate the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, to an undetermined number of digits, Shigeru Kondo, a 55- year-old resident of Iida, assembled a computer with 32 terabytes of hard-drive capacity and used an application made by Alexander Yee, a 22-year-old student at a U.S. graduate school.

After Kondo repeated tests via e-mail, he began the computation on May 4, and the work lasted 90 days and about seven hours until it was completed on Aug. 3, including verifications, following difficulties including a power outage. He plans to apply for the Guinness Book of Records.

Read the rest of the story: Man in Nagano computes value of pi to 5 tril. digits.

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Former Juventus and AC Milan coach Alberto Zaccheroni was appointed to lead Japan’s national football team on Monday.

The Japan Football Association has made Zaccheroni the first Italian and the sixth foreigner to coach Japan.

The 57-year-old Zaccheroni takes over from Takeshi Okada, who stepped down after taking Japan to the round of 16 at the World Cup in South Africa.

Japan plays Paraguay and Guatemala at home on Sept. 4 and 7, with more friendlies against Argentina and South Korea scheduled in October.

Rad the rest of the story: Alberto Zaccheroni hired as Japan national soccer team coach.

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Japan is known as the biggest consumer of tuna. Be it raw for sushi or sashimi or fried, broiled or canned, tuna is an important element of the food culture.

But concerns are growing because tuna is disappearing, and this is putting Japan in a difficult diplomatic position.

How much tuna does Japan consume annually, and how does the rest of the world feel? Following are basic questions and answers:

How many types of tuna are there?

Read the rest of the story: Does Japan’s affair with tuna mean loving it to extinction?.

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A show of outlandish sculptures by a cult Japanese artist in the historic Chateau of Versailles near Paris has enraged traditionalists who say it dishonours France’s past.

From September 14 to December 12, visitors to Versailles will see eye-grabbing multicoloured statues in silver, fibreglass and metal by Takashi Murakami alongside the chateau’s ornate murals and chandeliers.

"The Chateau de Versailles is one of the greatest symbols of Western history," Murakami said in a statement on the museum’s website.

"The Versailles of my imagination… has become a kind of completely separate and unreal world," he added. "That is what I have tried to depict in this exhibition."

Versailles enthusiasts however branded it an outrage to their beloved museum in the posh Paris suburb.

"Murakami and company have no business in the Chateau of Versailles!" reads a message on the website Versailles Mon Amour, dedicated to a petition which it says has gained more than 3,500 signatures.

Read the rest of the story: Japan pop artist’s Versailles show sparks protests.

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