JAPAN: Hiroshima Memorial Ceremony & more – 7th Aug 2025

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 7th of August twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

Wednesday the 6th marked the eightieth anniversary of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, and the city held a memorial ceremony in remembrance of the lives lost. Kazumi Matsui, the Hiroshima mayor, spoke about what could be done to prevent such tragedies in the future, urged nations to abandon nuclear weapons, and added that security policies shouldn’t be driven by self-interest.

Around 55,000 people and 120 nations attended the ceremony, though Russia was absent again. Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he would promote disarmament but avoided talking about the UN nuclear ban treaty, which Japan hasn’t signed.

Instead, Japan is busy signing far more unfortunate resolutions, since a municipal assembly in Tsurugashima, Saitama Prefecture, eastern Japan, decided that for the terrible crime of saying online that hating on foreigners is bad, Megumi Fukushima, an independent city councilor, had to stop using her title on social media. The city made this resolution after her posts criticizing anti-foreigner discrimination, specifically discrimination against local Kurdish residents, sparked a wave of protests.

The assembly said the resulting complaints disrupted city operations. The city also received a bomb and death threat targeting her, prompting police involvement and the cancellation of a children's council event. However, Fukushima said the resolution was a violation of free speech and refused to remove her title from her social media.

Unfortunately, free speech might be at risk elsewhere, too. The anti-immigration Sanseito party sent an email to news media outlets saying that if they want to send reporters to ask questions at one of the party’s press conferences, they will now be required to preregister. Reporters would have to submit company and personal details, and freelance reporters would need to send an image of their photo ID. Sanseito said that anyone who they considered disruptive of past news conferences wouldn’t be allowed to attend.

The move has received heavy criticism, with many saying it hurts freedom of the press, which is important to keeping society free and holding public figures, especially politicians, accountable. Quite a few also called the party’s behavior cowardly, and that it proves that they know their arguments are weak and won’t hold up to real debate or hard, honest questions.

In other news, Maekawa Shoshi, a man wrongfully convicted of murdering a teenage girl in nineteen eighty-six, was officially acquitted on Friday the 1st after a retrial found him not guilty of the crime. Maekawa, now sixty years old, served seven years in prison and consistently maintained his innocence.

The Nagoya High Court said that they found him not guilty because the police had pressured a witness into giving false testimony, plus other misconduct during the police investigation, including the use of leading questions. Prosecutors admitted that their approach was flawed, but refused to apologize or launch a special review.

Maekawa expressed relief at the final acquittal and vowed to continue advocating for reform of Japan's retrial system.

Meanwhile, on Sunday the 3rd, Shinjiro Koizumi, the agriculture minister, visited Niigata Prefecture to see firsthand how low levels of rainfall in northern and northwestern Japan these past few months are affecting rice crops in major rice-producing regions.

At Oyachi Dam, which is now at just six percent capacity, water outflows have been suspended. This really alarmed local farmers because it’s almost time for a key point in rice crop growth, and a lack of water could hurt rice production. Koizumi assured them that the ministry is responding with emergency measures like water truck deployment and said he would monitor the situation closely to protect rice yields.

In an update to a story we covered in many shows, Seven and i Holdings said on Wednesday the 6th that it plans to add 1,000 convenience stores in Japan by fiscal twenty thirty because it wants to focus only on its core Seven-Eleven business. Led by Stephen Dacus, its new CEO, the company will invest three trillion yen, which is twenty-two billion dollars, to grow and upgrade stores. It will sell off non-core businesses like its supermarket chain, hoping to raise revenue by thirteen percent.

Seven-Eleven is a popular convenience store in Japan, but many prefer chains like Family Mart or Lawson over Seven-Eleven because of their sweets or coffee. The competition is heavy, so it’s hard to tell if Seven and i’s plan will work.

In financial news, quite a few Asian stocks rose slightly on Wednesday the 6th despite muted trading following US market losses caused by a weakening US economy. Japan’s Nikkei 225 went up by 0.6 percent, with Hong Kong rising by 0.3 percent.

Last week we reported that Japan had a new record for the highest temperature in the country—but that might as well be put down as one of the shortest records in the world because on Tuesday the 5th, Isesaki in Gunma Prefecture, eastern Japan, beat that temperature by hitting almost forty-two degrees Celsius or 107 degrees Fahrenheit.

Temperatures are skyrocketing all over the country, with forty-four prefectures issuing heatstroke alerts. Weather officials are urging people to stay in air-conditioned places, drink lots of water, and take breaks to avoid getting overheated.

Speaking of heat, a fire broke out in Yokohama, near Tokyo, during a seaside festival. The blaze started on two barges, which caused fireworks to explode and took about fifteen hours to extinguish. On Wednesday the 6th, fire, police, and coast guard officials inspected the barges at a nearby pier to figure out what caused the fire. The company staff responsible for the fireworks were also present during the inspection.

Staff reportedly tried to turn off the computer system controlling the fireworks, but they couldn’t. As a result, the fireworks display continued, and the fire on the barges worsened.

Japan's native population decline is also getting worse, with a recent government report showing that it fell by over 900,000 in twenty twenty-four, bringing the total of Japanese nationals to 120 million. This marked the largest drop in population since records began in nineteen sixty-eight and the sixteenth annual decline in a row. Births were also the lowest they’ve ever been at 687,000 and deaths reached a record high of almost 1.6 million.

However, even though the native Japanese population is going down, the number of foreign residents went up to the highest they’ve ever been at nearly four million. Hokkaido in the north saw the largest rise in foreign residents, while Tokyo was the only area with a native population increase, mainly because many people moved there.

In sports news, Naomi Osaka, the famous tennis player and four-time Grand Slam champion, reached her first National Bank Open semifinal on Tuesday the 5th. This is the first title she’s going after since the twenty twenty-one Australian Open, when she took a fifteen-month break to give birth to and raise her daughter.

Next, on Thursday the 7th, she played and won against Clara Tauson. It was the first time Tauson lost a set in the tournament, shortly after dedicating her last win to her grandfather, who recently passed away.

A different kind of competition took place over the weekend in Nagoya, central Japan. It was the twenty twenty-five World Cosplay Summit, where teams from all over the world compete to find out who has the best costumes and stage performance. The summit lasted three days and featured participants from forty-one countries and regions.

On Sunday the 3rd, the US team won the championship. Dressed as characters from Fire Emblem Engage, a popular role-playing game, the team said they had prepared for the event for years and were overjoyed to win.

This marks the World Cosplay Summit’s twenty-third year, and started off with a bang, as a red carpet parade showcased characters from popular anime like Howl's Moving Castle and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

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

Did you know that we do lots of other updates? We’ve got non-country updates: The Arctic Ocean and Multilateral shows, and country updates, with a selection of nations from across the world.

Check the full list with the link in the show notes.

Mata Ne!