Metropolis

MEDIA HITS

A 5-year-old Japanese boy has become a YouTube sensation playing his version of the hit song “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz on the ukulele.

Illustration by Eparama Tuibenau
Attention-craving wide receiver Chad Ochocinco (né Chad Johnson) of the NFL’s Cincinnati Bengals, who wears jersey No. 85, is considering changing his name again next season, this time going with the Japanese version: Chad Hachi Go.
When frumpy British songstress Susan Boyle hit town to take part in NHK’s annual New Year singing competition, media reports said two Japanese men shouted out marriage proposals at Narita Airport. Get your eyes fixed, fellas.
A Canadian researcher at the Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science discovered unedited color film footage of Nagasaki taken by the crew of a US hospital ship about a month after the atomic bombing in August 1945. The film was found at the US National Archives and Records Administration in Washington DC.
Passwords for about 450 celebrity blogs hosted by the popular Ameba Blog service, including those of singer Miki Fujimoto and pro wrestler Jaguar Yokota, were leaked in a security breach.

stats

132,720 Foreign students in Japan in 2009, a record, according to the Japan Student Services Organization
79,082 Number of those students from China
828 Convenience store robberies in the first 11 months of 2009, a 52 percent increase from the previous year, according to the National Police Agency. (No, we’re not suggesting it’s linked to the previous item)
75,000 Dip in Japan’s population in 2008-2009, the biggest one-year decline since 1947, when people started tracking this type of stuff
1,069,000 Babies born in Japan in 2009, down 22,000 from 2008, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

I’M SOMEWHAT ANXIOUS, BUT THERE’S A LOT TO LOOK FORWARD TO”

—Former New York Yankees outfielder and World Series MVP Hideki Matsui on his return to Japan after signing a free-agent deal with the Los Angeles Angels

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MINISTERIAL MADNESS

A Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications survey revealed that more than 20,000 civil servants were being paid too much, according to their job ranks.
After 47 years, Japan’s Social Insurance Agency called it a day, a victim of shoddy management and pension fund scandals. Apparently, it marked the first time in 45 years that national government officials have been canned.
The ¥1,000 flat-rate highway toll on weekends and holidays will be toast in June, Transport Minister Seiji Maehara revealed.
There’s cute… and then there’s just plain stupid. Tama, the cat stationmaster of Kishi station in Wakayama, has been promoted to a corporate executive position with the local railway company.
The health ministry reported that about one out of every three hospitals is not built to fully withstand a powerful earthquake.

STARPOWER

For the first time in recorded history, Japan experienced a partial lunar eclipse on New Year’s Day.
On that same note, another partial lunar eclipse will be visible in Japan on June 26 and a total eclipse on December 21. Such a trifecta occurs about once a century.
Astronaut Soichi Noguchi made a gravity-free ceremonial coin toss aboard the International Space Station prior to the Rice Bowl, Japan’s championship football game. The Kajima Deers beat Kansai University, 19-16, on a last-second field goal.
Noguchi, by the way, earlier told reporters that he’d like to serve sushi to his fellow astronauts at the ISS.
Teenage golf sensation Ryo Ishikawa rang the final closing bell of the trading year at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Hopefully, some of Ishikawa’s good fortune will rub off on the market—the 18-year-old became the youngest money-title winner in Japanese golf history in 2009.
Ishikawa also picked up his second consecutive Japan Professional Sports Award at the Prime Minister’s office.

GONE IN 60 SECONDS

Enterprising burglars drilled a hole in the wall of a Ginza jewelry store over the New Year holidays and made off with some 200 watches worth about ¥300 million. Five suspects were subsequently apprehended in Hong Kong.
An English-speaking Asian man went into a Tiffany jewelry store in Shinjuku and tried on four rings valued at about ¥16 million before running out of the store with them. A female employee gave chase, but the thief pointed what appeared to be a gun at her and got away.
An 80-year-old man in Hokkaido died after he was hit by a car and dragged 25km.
Despite the Hokkaido man’s misfortune, the National Police Agency said that traffic deaths in 2009 declined for the ninth straight year, to 4,914.
Meanwhile, the Justice Ministry said that seven death-row inmates were executed in 2009, compared to 15 the previous year. Since the Hatoyama government came to power in September, no convicts have been put to death in Japan.
Takuo Toda of the Japan Origami Airplane Association tossed a paper plane that flew for 26.1 seconds, a world record. Toda launched another for 27.9 seconds earlier in 2009, but that one had a bit of tape on it, so it didn’t count.
Fifteen-year-old Miho Takagi will be the first junior high school speedskater to represent Japan at an Olympics after qualifying for the Vancouver Games in the women’s 1,500 meters.
After some Grinch pinched the New Year ornaments from a children’s facility in Fukushima, outraged citizens sent two replacement sets to the institution.

By the numbers

About 100,000 people turned out to pray for New Year prosperity at Tokyo’s Kanda Myoujin shrine. The shrine is home to Ebisu, the deity of commerce, who has been drawing big crowds in these recessionary times.
A survey conducted at Hosei University revealed that most college students would not marry, or even date, a smoker. Eighty percent said they themselves had never smoked.
An annual survey by the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo revealed that 46 percent of single men and women are actively looking for life partners with the help of marriage-hunting services.
Meanwhile, there has also been a spike in rikatsu, short for rikon katsudo (divorce-seeking activities), with more people going to private divorce counseling centers instead of lawyers.
According to a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, about 250,000 Japanese couples a year get divorced these days.

A RATHER SHARP TASTE

Someone stuck needles in packets of oden at four supermarkets in Chiba, prompting a product recall.
A 233kg bluefin tuna sold for ¥16.3 million at the Tsukiji fish market. Three sushi restaurants got together to buy the big fella, two from Japan and one from Hong Kong.
A thief stole a bag containing over 20 passports from a Tokyo company retained by the Embassy of India to deal with visa applications.
A study by the University of Tsukuba’s Institute of Community Medicine discovered that people from the Chubu, Hokuriku, Kinki or Chugoku regions are less likely to become alcoholics than other Japanese. Natives of these areas are more likely to have a gene mutation that affects the ability to metabolize ethanol, forcing them to stop drinking sooner than others.

Compiled from reports by The Associated Press, Kyodo, Reuters, AFP, The Japan Times, The Daily Yomiuri, The Mainichi Daily News, International Herald Tribune/The Asahi Shimbun and Japan Today.