JAPAN: Hundreds File Lawsuit & more – 18th Dec 2025

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 18th of December twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

Kicking off with an update to a story we have been reporting in previous shows, China is still not happy with Japan, and on Tuesday the 16th, said again that it wanted Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to take back the statement made over a month ago, saying that she would consider a Chinese attack on Taiwan a threat to Japan’s security.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson criticized Japan as a whole for not retracting the statement. Tensions between the two countries are still high, and online, there’s a fairly even split between those who support Takaichi staying firm and ignoring China, and those saying she should take back the statement for the sake of diplomacy, if nothing else.

China and Japan’s spat has affected life in unexpected ways, such as Japan’s soon-to-be panda-free status. The Tokyo government and Tokyo Zoological Park Society said on Monday the 15th that they’ll be returning twin giant pandas Xiao Xiao and Lei Lei to China in late January twenty twenty-six.

The four-year-old twins are Japan’s only remaining pandas, and China is unlikely to send any more pandas to Japan because of the recent tensions. With those two gone, Japan will be without pandas for the first time since nineteen seventy-two. This is a pretty big deal because the two countries have had some ups and downs in the past fifty years, but China still lent out pandas during those times.

The twins were born in Japan in June twenty twenty-one from two pandas that China had loaned to Ueno Zoo in Tokyo. Officials returned the parents to China in September twenty twenty-four.

Speaking of panda bears, a Kyoto-based association took an annual poll asking people to choose a word or kanji to represent twenty twenty-five, and the Japanese public chose the kanji for bear (kuma in Japanese). If you’ve been listening to our latest shows, this probably didn’t come as a surprise, as lately, we have been reporting several stories about bear sightings and new measures taken to keep bears away from towns and cities. Association officials also believe that the recent goodbye to the pandas may have also influenced the vote.

The association announced the result on Friday the 12th at Kyoto’s Kiyomizu Temple during the annual calligraphy ceremony. The kanji won over 23,000 votes in a public poll with over 189,000 entries.

On a legal note, hundreds of people across Japan have filed the country’s first lawsuit seeking damages from the government over climate change, arguing the executive isn’t doing nearly enough to combat it. Basically, they say that, when it comes to environmental changes, politicians are all talk and no action.

About 450 plaintiffs say the worsening heat has harmed their health, livelihoods, and children’s daily lives. The suit seeks 1,000 yen, which is six dollars, per person —not so much to make up for damages, but more as a symbolic way to make the government take responsibility for its inaction. Plaintiffs contend Japan’s emissions targets fall short of the Paris Agreement and other international guidelines.

While there are plenty online calling this lawsuit ridiculous, there are a decent number of people who are saying this is a good way to raise public awareness and pressure the government to do more about climate change.

Japan’s environmental action might be lacking, but it’s doing good work in other areas. Jonghwi Park, an Academic Program Officer who works at the United Nations University, wrote an opinion piece in English that was published on Wednesday the 17th, saying that disability exclusion remains widespread around the world. Some schools might reject children with disabilities, leading to lifelong disadvantages in employment and income. He said that inclusive education is needed to make sure all children get access to education, with measures like accessible school facilities and trained teachers.

He said that Japan is actually a very good example of what other countries can do to make education inclusive, thanks to the country’s major investments in barrier-free schools. Park argued that inclusion is important for both human rights and improving a nation’s economy, as many countries see both social and economic benefits from including those with disabilities.

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

In an update to a story from a previous show, Tokyo police rearrested Yusuke Yoko on Monday the 15th on suspicion of stealing a car and driving it through a crosswalk in November, killing two people and injuring ten others. The main difference between his first arrest and this one is that the first arrest was just about stealing a car from a dealership. However, his rearrest includes the charges of dangerous driving that resulted in two deaths.

Sources don’t clearly say whether Yoko was released from custody between his initial arrest on the 24th of November and his rearrest, so he was probably sitting in jail during that time.

In business news, Honda Motor is considering increasing imports of US-made vehicles to Japan to help lower the US trade deficit. The company is going to do some research to figure out which models would work best for importing. Right now, they're thinking of including an SUV and a future Acura model. Honda already imports a few US-built cars for leasing, so it's not a huge leap for the company. Toyota has similar plans.

The Japanese government is also thinking of making testing requirements for US-built vehicles less strict, which will make it easier for companies to import cars.

Honda is also going to temporarily halt operations at plants in Japan and China from late December to early January because of a semiconductor shortage. Production will stop for five days at three joint-venture plants in China starting the 29th of December, and some Japanese plants will pause at the beginning of January. The shortage has already messed with production in Mexico and will probably cut Honda’s profit by at least 150 billion yen, which is about 960 million dollars, for the current fiscal year.

In more business news, some Japanese companies are using satellite imagery combined with AI to find abandoned houses amid a growing vacant-home problem. One of these companies, Startup Where Inc., looks at roof conditions to figure out which houses are likely deserted. Users can then take the address of the house and put it through a real estate registry to find the owner. One firm based in Gifu, central Japan, bought a long-abandoned house for one yen, which is less than a penny, using the service.

In twenty twenty-three, Japan had about nine million vacant homes. This satellite imagery AI tech, adapted from space technology, can also find land for parking or solar use.

Not all companies are getting good news, though. The government plans to end subsidies for large-scale ground-mounted solar power facilities as early as fiscal twenty twenty-seven, saying that there are a lot of environmental concerns about large-scale solar power operations. However, smaller rooftop solar panels can still get subsidies.

The government is doing this in hopes of softening the impact of rising renewable energy surcharges on electricity bills, and also to address increasing protests against mega-solar projects.

Meanwhile, Princess Aiko showed diplomats from sixteen countries (many of whom were ambassadors to Japan) around the Saitama Imperial Wild Duck Preserve in Koshigaya, eastern Japan. Princess Aiko greeted the guests in English and showed them the traditional practice of wild duck netting. In this sport, wild ducks are lured into a canal, caught, and then released.

Closing this edition with some sports news, Yukino Yoshida, a speed skater, won the second women’s 500-meter race at a World Cup meet in Hamar, Norway. As a result, she now meets Japan’s Winter Olympics standards and will be able to go to the twenty twenty-six Milan Cortina games.

Miho Takagi is another speed skater who earned an early qualification for the upcoming Winter Olympics. She participated in the twenty twenty-two Winter Olympics in Beijing and won gold in the 1,000- and 1,500-meter races.

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

Don’t forget to check out our new t-shirts with the link in the show notes!

Mata Ne!