JAPAN: A New Centrist Party & more – 15th Jan 2026

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 15th of January twenty twenty-six. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

Kicking off this edition, the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (or CDPJ) and Komeito, the party that used to be partnered with the Liberal Democratic Party or LDP until Takaichi’s election late last year, agreed to form a new centrist party, aiming to challenge the current ruling party and its ally, the Japan Innovation Party.

Lower house members from both parties will join the new centrist party, while upper house members remain separate. This is a pretty important move, since this new party holds 172 seats combined, which is close to the slim majority of 233 seats held by the LDP and the Japan Innovation Party.

Online reaction has been mixed. Some look forward to having a strong opponent to the ruling party, but it’s raised quite a few questions about whether the party will work out in the long run, especially since Komeito is a lot more conservative than the CDPJ.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung met at a summit in Nara, western Japan, on Tuesday the 13th. Last year marked the sixtieth anniversary of peace between the two countries, and the two leaders used the current summit to strengthen relations.

Among other things, they agreed to do DNA testing of remains from a wartime mining disaster where 183 people, including Korean laborers kidnapped and enslaved during the Second World War, died. They also discussed regional and global issues, such as what’s going on in the US and China.

Japan’s relationship with China, on the other hand, is not looking so sunny. China is still not happy about the remarks Takaichi made in November about Taiwan, and now Japanese exports of sake and some food items to China are facing a lot of customs delays. Industry sources say the slowdown is most likely the country’s idea of getting back at Japan, with clearance times doubling at several Chinese ports and throwing in a lot more paperwork than usual about shipment routes.

This is in addition to China’s reinstated seafood ban and its discouragement of tourism to Japan.

In an update to a story from previous shows, Tokyo police arrested Phakhaphon Punsiripanya, a thirty-eight-year-old Tokyo resident from Thailand, on suspicion of working with a massage parlor in forcing a twelve-year-old girl into sexual slavery. Specifically, they think that the suspect was acting as a broker who communicated with the girl’s mother through social media to get her and her daughter work at the massage parlor.

Punsiripanya said that she used to work as a broker, but quit and doesn’t have anything to do with the parlor anymore. She also denied forcing the twelve-year-old Thai girl into sexual slavery.

Police believe that Punsiripanya may have arranged around thirty to forty people to work at the massage parlor, but have not said their ages yet. The investigation is ongoing.

On the domestic front, a wildfire broke out on Mount Ogiyama in Yamanashi Prefecture, central Japan, on Thursday the 8th. Despite helicopters continuously dumping water onto the fire, trying to contain it, it is still spreading westward toward Tokyo as of Thursday the 15th.

So far, the fire has burned 180 hectares of mountain forest. Officials have issued an evacuation order to 145 residents in Uenohara, but thankfully, the fire hasn’t hurt any people or buildings. Unfortunately, with local dry-air advisories, strong winds, and weather authorities not predicting much rain for the area, it may be a while before firefighters can fully extinguish the fire.

In health news, a research institute said recently that Japan reported 191 cases of a tick-borne virus in twenty twenty-five, which marked a record high, with fifty more people catching it compared to twenty twenty-three. The virus is the Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, and it can cause bleeding, unconsciousness, and even death.

Thirty-two prefectures recorded cases of the disease, mainly in western Japan, but this was the first time there were confirmed cases in several eastern areas. Officials warn cases typically start rising in March and said that people should do things like minimize skin exposure and use bug spray when they go outside.

Ticks aren’t the only thing to worry about outside. The newspaper Asahi Shimbun said on Saturday the 10th that car accidents involving Hokkaido deer reached a record 5,460 cases in twenty twenty-four, nearly five times the number of cases twenty years earlier. This is partly because the deer population has grown a lot, more than deer hunters can handle.

Most accidents occurred between September and December, often at dusk, when it’s hardest to see. Crashes can be severe because the deer are pretty big, and this can lead to injuries and deaths. Authorities in northern Japan, where these deer live, said that drivers should slow down near forests.

Meanwhile, Waseda University in Tokyo has taken away the enrollment of five graduate students and canceled the admission of three others after finding out they cheated on the English part of their entrance exams.

The university did this after finding out that hundreds of exam-takers, mainly Chinese nationals, were involved in a widespread scheme from May twenty twenty-three to June twenty twenty-five to cheat on the entrance exam. For the English part of the test, Waseda found that fifty-two applicants had cheated. Most of those applicants had already been rejected, but the university suspended one enrolled undergraduate.

Other universities, including the Tokyo University of Science, have taken similar measures.

For more not-so-positive school-related news, look no further than a middle school in Oita Prefecture, southern Japan. After a bullying video involving an Oita school went viral, the city government received an anonymous email on Sunday the 11th threatening a mass attack on students and teachers on Thursday the 15th.

Police are investigating the threat and are patrolling the school to ensure student safety. Classes will proceed as scheduled, but after-school activities are canceled and students will leave together.

In other news, Shihab Alfaheem, an ambassador of the United Arab Emirates (or UAE), wrote an article in English, published on Friday the 9th about how cross-cultural learning can help train the next generation of leaders. As an example, he talked about the UAE Pavilion Youth Ambassador Programme at Expo twenty twenty-five Osaka, which trained forty-six young leaders in cultural understanding and fostering future UAE-Japan ties.

Selected from over 5,400 applicants, participants underwent cultural immersion in the UAE and hands-on leadership roles in Osaka, engaging visitors in multiple languages. The program emphasized trust, responsibility, and experiential learning, earning the pavilion a Best Staff Award.

Check out the full piece with the link in the show notes!

In business news, the Agency for Cultural Affairs plans to change the copyright law to require cafes, gyms, and other commercial venues to pay royalties to performers and record labels when music is used as background sound. Currently, such fees go only to songwriters and composers. This is the same sort of policy that 142 other countries already have.

The Diet will likely look at a bill for this policy sometime this month, as the agency is still trying to hammer out details on fee levels, collection methods, and measures to make things easier for small businesses.

Closing this edition on a lighter note, the Imperial Palace held the annual Utakai Hajime New Year’s Poetry Reading on Wednesday the 14th in Tokyo. The reading featured a type of traditional poetry called tanka on the theme bright.

Poems by the Emperor, Empress, and other Imperial family members were recited alongside ten selected public submissions. Prince Hisahito participated for the first time. The Emperor’s poem was about a dawn prayer for peace, while the Empress wrote about inclusivity inspired by the Deaflympics.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

Quick question, is there a specific monopoly in Japan you think is a big problem? Let us know at info@rorshok.com

Mata Ne!