JAPAN: Radar Lock-On & more – 11th Dec 2025

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 11th of December twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

Kicking off this edition, on Saturday the 6th, China’s jet fighters aboard the carrier Liaoning twice locked radar beams onto jets of the Japan Self-Defense Force over international waters southeast of Okinawa Prefecture, southern Japan. This marks the first time such an incident has happened between Japan and China. Japan lodged a protest with China’s ambassador on Sunday the 7th, saying it was dangerous and risked raising tensions between the two countries. Aiming a radar at an aircraft is considered a threat.

Most of the English and Japanese-speaking side of the internet supported Japan, saying that even though China did the air drills in international waters, it was very close to Japan’s territory and seemed intended to provoke Japan.

However, China said that Japan was the one provoking them. They said they were conducting air drills, and that Japan’s aircraft got too close, putting flight safety at risk.

In an update to a story from previous shows, Tokyo police submitted papers on Monday the 8th to prosecutors regarding Masayuki Hosono, the fifty-one-year-old owner of a massage parlor accused of sexually trafficking a twelve-year-old Thai girl. Police said that Hosono sexually assaulted the girl and forced her to have sex with multiple male customers, and Hosono admitted to doing it.

Tokyo Police have also gotten an arrest warrant for the girl’s mother, who left her at the massage parlor and is currently in jail in Taiwan for overstaying her visa. Taiwanese officials said they’ll send the mother to Japan or Thailand by the end of December.

That’s not the only update this week. Recall from previous shows that the government issued an order to remove the religious organization status from the Unification Church. While the church is currently appealing that decision, Tomihiro Tanaka, head of the Unification Church’s Japan branch, resigned on Tuesday the 9th, apologizing for the group’s practices in asking for donations. Masaichi Hori, a second-generation follower and former vice chairman, will take over.

His departure follows the creation of a third-party committee to handle compensation to those who felt forced into donating. The donation issue gained national attention after Shinzo Abe’s twenty twenty-two assassination, linked to the suspect’s resentment over his mother’s large donations to the church.

Meanwhile, Japan recorded almost 900 cases of driver’s license suspensions for drunk cycling between January and September, a huge jump from just two cases in the same period last year. The rise follows a November legal revision that made cycling with a certain blood alcohol level a punishable offense, which has led to more police treating drunk cyclists as potential dangers.

Suspensions now vary widely by prefecture, with Osaka in western Japan topping the list. Some local governments, such as Chiba Prefecture, in eastern Japan, are imposing stricter penalties on employees caught drunk cycling. Offenders face up to three years in prison or fines up to 500,000 yen, which is 3,000 dollars, and police are increasing year-end enforcement since many people ramp up their drinking around the holiday season.

In science news, Shimon Sakaguchi and Susumu Kitagawa, who won Nobel Prizes this year, visited the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm on Saturday the 6th. They took part in the tradition of Nobel Prize winners signing the underside of chairs instead of the registry book.

On top of that, Sakaguchi, who got his prize in medicine, and Kitagawa, who received it in chemistry, both donated items related to their work, another part of the Nobel Prize tradition. Sakaguchi gave a volume of the popular manga Cells at Work since it features the regulatory T cells similar to the ones he discovered, while Kitagawa donated samples of metal-organic frameworks used for gas storage and release.

Nobel laureates aren’t the only ones with their names in the spotlight. Forbes ranked Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi as the world’s third most powerful woman in twenty twenty-five. Forbes said that Takaichi is a hard-line conservative inspired by Margaret Thatcher, and that she’s leading the world’s fourth-largest economy amid security, defense and demographic challenges.

Online reaction was somewhat mixed. Many online are happy with her proactive approach in trying to fix the country’s economy with fuel tax cuts and a huge stimulus package. However, the ranking also raised questions about whether she deserved it, given that one of her remarks had recently caused tensions with China.

In other news, a magnitude-seven earthquake hit off the coast of Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan on Monday the 8th. Parts of Aomori experienced magnitude-six tremors that damaged buildings, including a seventy-meter or 230-foot steel tower on top of the NTT Aomori Hachinohe Building.

The Meteorological Agency warned that another, even bigger earthquake might happen, which could cause the steel tower to collapse onto nearby buildings, so authorities ordered forty-eight households to evacuate.

The tower is currently being fixed, but it will likely take about three weeks to be completely repaired. Officials also closed roads around the tower.

In financial news, the economy shrank at an annualized 2.3 percent from July to September, which was worse than earlier estimates. Experts believe this happened mainly because of US tariffs hitting exports hard and private home investments going down due to stricter building codes.

While the US lowered its tariff surcharge in September, the tariff on cars is still a challenge for many car companies.

Speaking of policy changes, Nathaniel Reed, a British teacher who has been working in education in Japan for sixteen years, wrote his thoughts on changes that need to happen in Japan’s educational system. Eleven of those years were spent as an Assistant Language Teacher or ALT, and he said that the role is often more of an afterthought, with schools shoving various duties onto ALTs but not always giving them much choice in how lessons are structured or other educational matters.

As Japan grows more diverse, Reed said the outdated ALT system needs clearer responsibilities, support, and recognition. The writer says that ALTs shine a spotlight on the gap between the desire to be culturally diverse and real inclusion, and that meaningful change in Japan’s schools begins with everyday classroom relationships.

You can check out the essay in full on the newspaper Mainichi’s website, link in the show notes!

On a lighter note, Tsuneo Ono, a seventy-six-year-old ice sculptor, became the first in his field to receive Japan’s Contemporary Master Craftsman award. Even though he used to be a chef, he started making decorative ice sculptures for fancy parties in the nineteen seventies and later became an instructor, teaching over 3,000 chefs over the years to carve ice.

Ono created works for hotels, events, and commercials. However, demand for decorative ice sculptures has gone down since Japan’s economic bubble in the nineteen nineties, but he still gets orders sometimes, like when he did a live ice carving demonstration in Tokyo’s Yoyogi Park in November. He also continues to hold monthly workshops, aiming to pass on his techniques to the next generation.

While we’re talking about awards, the Golden Globes announced on Monday the 8th the nominations for the Best Motion Picture award, and they included the newest Demon Slayer movie, which broke box office records in both Japan and the US. The winners will be announced next year on the 11th of January.

Closing this edition with sports news, Japan got placed in Group F for the twenty twenty-six FIFA World Cup alongside the Netherlands, Tunisia, and the winner of a Union of European Football Associations playoff—Ukraine, Sweden, Poland, or Albania. The tournament will take place in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Japan will open against the Netherlands on the 14th of June, then face Tunisia on the 20th, and the playoff winner on the 25th.

Coach Moriyasu describes the group as challenging, noting the Netherlands’ strong history and Tunisia’s solid defense.

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

Our new, very cool t-shirts are out now! Check them out with the link in the show notes.

Mata Ne!