JAPAN: A Retrial System Reform & more – 17th April 2025

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 17th of April twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

In an update to a story from previous shows, Fukuoka prosecutors are putting Masanori Hirabaru, the man who randomly stabbed two fifteen-year-olds at a McDonald’s last December, killing one, through a second psychiatric test to figure out if he’s mentally well enough to stand trial.

He just finished his first three-month psychiatric test on Monday the 14th, but prosecutors said they still weren’t sure if Hirabaru was criminally responsible.

This raised questions about how many tests they were going to put Hirabaru through, and whether prosecutors were simply going to test him until they got the answer they wanted. Considering how much this news story shocked the public when it first came out, many people want him to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, which won’t happen if the court says he’s too mentally ill to be held responsible for his crimes.

On that note about crimes, Japan is thinking of reforming its retrial system, which has long delayed justice for the wrongfully convicted, such as Iwao Hakamata, who has a Guinness World Record for his decades spent on death row. The Justice Ministry’s Legislative Council is now reviewing key issues, including limiting the number of times a prosecutor can object to a retrial and requiring the prosecution to disclose all evidence that they have. Currently, there are cases where a prosecutor does not have to disclose all the evidence to the court, even when it proves the defendant’s innocence.

A cross-party group of lawmakers working with the Japan Federation of Bar Associations is trying to push for faster reform, but others don’t want that. One official argued that since even courts can disagree with one another, the system should leave room for others to disagree as well, such as with retrial objections.

Speaking of reforms, Japan plans to raise public school teachers’ salaries starting in twenty twenty-six, marking the first major change in fifty years. However, the lack of overtime pay and fundamental workload reforms remains a significant concern.

One woman, whose husband died from overwork as a junior high school teacher, criticized the government's limited focus on the root causes of overwork. The proposed reforms include gradually increasing the teaching adjustment allowance, which is an addition to the monthly salary given instead of overtime pay, from four percent to ten percent by twenty thirty-one.

They also plan to add a chief teacher role, which would have one person act as a coordinator and advisor to young teachers. However, that might just shift the burden of overwork instead of actually reducing it since people might offer less support to one another, thinking, well, that’s the chief teacher’s job, not mine.

In other news, a mother in Kagawa Prefecture, western Japan, launched a petition after finding sexually suggestive ads on a game guide site her child visited.

Currently, Japan lacks clear guidelines for ad content on the internet. The most common type of advertising doesn’t have pre-screening, which sometimes leads to inappropriate ads on sites that are supposed to be child-friendly. This is different from traditional media such as television or radio, which are heavily regulated.

The mother’s petition to create ad regulation laws for the internet has over 100,000 supporters. A few individual companies are taking steps against inappropriate ads, but many people feel that government regulation is needed.

In an update to a story from last week’s show, the pilot of the medical helicopter that crashed off the coast of Nagasaki Prefecture, southern Japan, said that he heard a strange noise, like metal tearing, just before the aircraft began losing altitude. Recall, the helicopter crash-landed on the sea, killing three of the six people on board.

The Japan Transport Safety Board is continuing its investigation. Currently, they believe that the rotor was still spinning when the helicopter hit the water.

That’s not the only update. The police released Japanese actress Ryoko Hirosue from custody early following her assault on a nurse after a car accident in Shizuoka Prefecture, central Japan. Police were originally going to hold her until the 19th of April, but let her go because now Hirosue and the nurse are going to have an out-of-court settlement.

In politics, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Monday the 14th that Japan would work hard to negotiate with the US to reduce the tariffs currently at twenty-four percent. However, a poll by Yomiuri Shimbun, a news organization, found that seventy-five percent of respondents don’t think the tariff negotiations will work.

The poll also asked about rising prices, with ninety-two percent of people saying that they’re feeling the impact. While some ruling party members have proposed cash handouts, seventy-six percent of the public don’t think that would be effective. Ninety percent believe that Ishiba won’t be able to fix any of Japan’s current economic issues,

even though almost eighty percent of people who answered that also said they were Ishiba supporters.

In light of the tariffs, Honda Motor Company announced on Wednesday the 16th that it would move production of one of its models to the US. They hope that by making the cars on US soil, it'll lessen the impact of tariffs on the company's profits.

Seventy percent of the cars that Honda sells to the US are already being made in the US. This is a higher percentage than other Japanese car companies.

Nissan is also planning to move some of its car production to the US.

In other news, the government has started its first survey into public health insurance usage by foreign residents. All residents, including foreigners staying over three months, must have health insurance. In fiscal twenty twenty-three, almost one million foreign nationals were covered; which is about four percent of all people enrolled in public health insurance. About twelve billion yen, which is eighty-four million dollars, of medical reimbursements went to foreigners. That’s one point two percent of total reimbursements given out.

Officials said those numbers are pretty proportionate, but some lawmakers said that foreigners might come to Japan to take advantage of the medical system. They called for tighter laws to prevent potential abuse. Quite a few online said that it was absurd for politicians to accuse foreigners of abuse when there have been so many issues recently of lawmakers making slush funds or giving gift vouchers to evade taxes.

Meanwhile, the twenty twenty-five World Expo in Osaka opened on Sunday the 13th to 119,000 visitors. Since it was raining, Japan Airlines held their flying car demo flight on Monday the 14th instead of on opening day. Developed with drone technology, the vehicle flew twice, rising to about ten meters or thirty-three feet and staying airborne for seven minutes.

However, flying cars weren’t the only new tech at the Expo. Honda Motors built what they call an electric mobility device and is letting visitors ride it. It's basically a cross between a segway and a wheelchair.

As mentioned in previous shows, the Expo has had a lot of problems in its preparations, with companies pulling out and even dangerous levels of methane detected.

While most news outlets painted a fairly rosy picture of the Expo’s opening, online opinion was much more mixed. Admission was done through QR codes, but they didn’t work for everyone because of internet issues. Despite much online negativity, however, a few who visited said they had a good time.

Wrapping up this edition with entertainment news, Time, the famous US magazine, announced its annual 100 most influential people list on Wednesday the 16th. Three Japanese people were included on the list: Hiroyuki Sanada, the lead actor of the TV series Shogun; Yoshiki, a musician and philanthropist; and Yoshitomo Nara, an internationally recognized artist.

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

Did you know that the Rorshok Japan Update is just one of many? We’ve got country updates, and non-county updates, including the Arctic Update, about the area north of the Arctic Circle, the Multilateral Update, about the world’s major multilateral institutions, and the Ocean Update, about the 70% of the world covered in salt water.

To check out the full list of updates, follow the link in the show notes!

Mata Ne!