JAPAN: Leadership Election Candidates & more – 25th Sep 2025

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 25th of September twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

Campaigning has begun for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election to replace Shigeru Ishiba, the soon-to-be former prime minister. Five lawmakers are running, with newspaper polls indicating that Sanae Takaichi and Shinjiro Koizumi are the most popular.

Key issues include inflation, immigration, overtourism, party reform, and possible opposition alliances, as the ruling party and its partner, Komeito, no longer hold the majority. Takaichi said she would focus on security and issues like overtourism, while Koizumi talked about economic relief and cooperating with other political parties.

Among the other candidates, Takayuki Kobayashi promoted tax cuts for young families and working people, Toshimitsu Motegi said he’d focus on diplomacy and foreign policy, and Yoshimasa Hayashi said he’d strengthen the economy by helping businesses.

The vote will take place on the 4th of October.

Speaking of Japan's leadership, Shigeru Ishiba went to the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday the 23rd, even though last week government sources said that he would probably not attend. He made a speech where he said people had to come together and tolerate one another. He criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and called for an immediate halt to Israel’s operations in Gaza.

He also warned that Japan may act if the world didn’t recognize Palestine alongside Israel, and said that democracy should be free of discrimination. However, considering that Japan has not officially recognized Palestine as a state and that Ishiba soon won’t have any say in Japan’s government matters, it’s not clear if he was speaking about Japan’s actual stance or his personal hopes for what Japan would do.

In local news, with bear attacks on the rise in northern Japan, Tsuruoka City in Yamagata Prefecture became the first city to authorize shooting a bear under Japan’s revised wildlife law, which went into effect on the 1st of September.

On Saturday the 20th, locals spotted a bear near Tsuruoka Station and later found it asleep in a residential garden. After safety checks, the mayor approved firearm use, and police ordered the shooting when the bear awoke and approached. Officials noted delays due to it being a weekend and highlighted the need for better coordination with police so they could be better prepared in the future. The city plans to draft a manual based on lessons from the incident.

In other news, a fire broke out early Thursday the 25th in a Suginami Ward apartment in Tokyo. Six residents had to be hospitalized for smoke inhalation and other injuries. Police said the blaze began after midnight when a charging smartphone battery ignited. One woman said that she awoke to a loud bang and flames. Twenty-nine fire engines responded, and extinguished the fire in about two hours.

However, the question that most online users wanted the answer to was which smartphone brand and model caught fire, though police don’t know yet if the fire was because of a manufacturer defect or a freak accident.

In an update to a story from previous shows, the twenty twenty-five World Expo in Osaka has drawn over twenty million visitors as of Thursday the 18th since opening in April, with daily admissions rising to about 200,000 in September. Attendance could reach twenty-five million by closing on the 13th of October, which is above the twenty-two million needed for profit.

Speaking of profit, Nissan is looking for new ways to generate some —specifically by making advanced self-driving technology, which they plan to release in twenty twenty-seven. In a Tokyo demo, the company showed off a new model that had eleven cameras, five radars, and a special detection system using lasers as it navigated congested city streets and stopped for traffic lights, other cars, and people. This system was an upgrade from its earlier freeway-focused system.

Nissan has been losing a lot of profit since the US tariffs began and is trying different things to hopefully change that. The global self-driving vehicle market could hit two trillion dollars by twenty thirty, so there are a lot of different car and tech companies competing to come out on top.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday the 24th, Japan said that schools will be allowed to use digital-only textbooks starting in fiscal twenty thirty, beginning with public elementary schools. Local boards may choose digital, paper, or a mix of both. The Central Council for Education said this move will create even more options for learning and teaching methods, but experts said that this could put an added burden on teachers and may even hurt students’ eyesight from having too much screen time.

The reaction online was mixed. Many said the move made sense because every part of society uses computers in one way or another. However, it raised questions about how much kids would actually be able to learn if, for example, they hacked school-issued tablets to play games and not just read textbooks.

On that note about games, the Tokyo Game Show opened Thursday the 25th at Makuhari Messe in Chiba Prefecture, eastern Japan. Over 1,100 exhibitors from Japan and abroad, the highest number in the event’s history, will be showcasing consoles, software, and gaming experiences. The show will continue until Sunday the 28th.

The first two days of the event are for game industry professionals only, but over the weekend, anyone will be able to visit. Organizers expect the show to get around 250,000 visitors during the four-day run.

Major Japanese companies are showcasing new titles. Sega and Atlus unveiled a new Sonic racing game while Bandai Namco set up interactive photo spots with games like Digimon.

In science, people have recently started talking about Japan’s first large-scale floating wind farm with eight turbines that will begin operating off the Goto Islands in southern Japan from January twenty twenty-six. Offshore wind is important to Japan’s plan to boost renewables to its top power source by twenty forty and achieve carbon neutrality by twenty fifty.

The country has a lot of earthquakes and typhoons, so it’s difficult to use a power-generating method that needs to be stuck directly into the seabed. However, a floating wind farm doesn’t need to touch the seabed, so it’s much better suited to the country than other options.

However, there are still some problems, like high costs and a lack of domestic turbine production.

In more science news, a Japanese research team won this year’s Ig Nobel Prize in biology on Thursday the 18th for studying whether zebra-like stripes painted on cows reduce fly bites. Short answer? Yes, it does! The researchers said the painted cows had less than half the number of flies bothering them compared to unpainted cows.

Scientists said that the paint doesn’t last long, but it could help keep cows from getting too stressed out by bugs, and farmers wouldn’t have to use as much bug repellent.

This is the nineteenth year in a row that Japan has won Ig Nobel Prizes. This year, ten of Japan’s projects got awards in various categories, including one studying the type of pizza lizards like.

Let’s finish off with some entertainment news. Perfume, a three-woman technopop band, announced that it will go on hiatus starting in twenty twenty-six, even though by industry standards, they’re still at their peak. The band members said that they wanted to put the band in a cold sleep and preserve this moment when they’re at their brightest.

The band first formed in nineteen sixty-three99 and debuted six years later in two thousand five. The members said that they wanted to go in new personal directions but thanked fans and promised to return better than ever someday in the future.

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

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Mata Ne!