It’s mid-September and still feels like mid-August in Tokyo. It is meant to cool down soon but this summer has been a little long, with the sticky temperatures dragging on into the supposed start of the autumn. Usually, things stay pretty hot through September and even October, but the humidity leaves the stage. Not so…

Just when you thought it was safe to walk by a drain in a skirt, the drain pervert is back! If you live in Kobe, be sure to check the drains before walking over them. Police in the West Japan city have arrested the 36-year-old Yasuomi Hirai for setting up a phone in a roadside…

A 43-year-old man has been arrested at a hot spring facility in the Mie city of Kuwana for entering the women-only bathing area. The man, who is described in media reports as unemployed, is from Kasugai in Aichi. According to police, the man is suspected of sneaking into the women’s baths at around 8:30 pm…

The cops are meant to be the ones protecting us and taking down the bad guys, right? Not always, it seems. Yesterday, Japanese media reported on a female police officer who has been arrested for impersonating a man in a “romance fraud” to get money. The 25-year-old Yurina Otani is a cop in Osaka but…

Japan has begun a trial roll-out of the morning-after pill, finally bringing availability of emergency contraception in line with most other industrialized nations. To the chagrin of condom manufacturers (of whom Japan has some of the best in the world), a lot — if not most — sex in Japan is unprotected, resulting in a…

They say that YouTubers and other social media content creators are the new celebrity elites of our day, and that seems to extend to their romantic escapades. A list has emerged apparently showing the sexual conquests of the macho male YouTuber Purotan, who has 2.1 million subscribers to his channel. The list features 127 women….

We recently wrote about TV announcer Kasumi Mori’s continued forays into modeling, including a sexy photo shoot for the magazine Anan. We ended by musing that it was high time that the 28-year-old put out her first photo book, following in the wake of the example set by former announcer Minami Tanaka, who made a…

A survey has found that 46% of unmarried Japanese men in their twenties have never dated a member of the opposite sex. The figure is a record high, representing a significant increase from 34.2% in the last survey two years ago. The survey by Recruit Bridal Research Institute found a slight drop in the numbers…

The New Year period in Japan is traditionally a time when celebrities announce marriages. Despite being overshadowed by tragic events in Noto and Haneda, this year proved to be business as usual in that respect: the actress Aya Hirano announced her marriage, and gravure idol Tomomi Morisaki confirmed her long-rumored coupling with baseball player Shota…

Japan’s Noto Peninsula was hit by a huge earthquake on New Year’s Day, causing massive damage to roads and buildings, and triggering a tsunami. Over a hundred have died, with many more still missing, and Ishikawa and surrounding prefectures have suffered almost immeasurable levels of destruction to property and infrastructure. As locals subsist in evacuation…