JAPAN: Upper House Election Results & more – 24th July 2025

Konnichiwa from BA! This is the Rorshok Japan Update from the 24th of July twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Japan.

The results from the Upper House election are in, and it’s shaken up the political landscape. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party or LDP lost its majority, and the far-right, anti-immigration Sanseito party gained a lot of supporters.

Though the LDP no longer has the majority, Shigeru Ishiba, the Prime Minister, said he wasn’t going to resign because he needed to oversee the US tariff talks. However, an unnamed source said that he plans to step down once the tariff issue is dealt with. Ishida said that he had no such plans, but he might have trouble staying in office because opposition parties may pass a no-confidence motion to get a new prime minister.

Online users are mainly concerned about the support that the anti-immigration party is getting, saying that racism and xenophobia might be on the rise.

Xenophobia isn’t Japan’s only problem. The country faces ongoing issues with sex crimes like groping and voyeurism. A government survey found that over ten percent of young people have been molested, mainly on trains. And unfortunately, these crimes are often underreported because talking about sexual assault has been a cultural taboo in Japan for a long time.

While programs to reform sex offenders exist, access is limited and many criminals reoffend without treatment. Daitetsu Kanaya, a clinical psychologist, said that offenders needing therapy often go untreated because there aren’t enough facilities for these programs and because most of the public simply doesn’t know about them. He said psychotherapy is important to make sure that sex offenders can return to society.

At least some wrongdoers are being punished. The Defense Ministry plans to punish Akira Saito, an admiral, and other Maritime Self-Defense Force officers over conspiring with Kawasaki Heavy Industries to create an illegal slush fund, a story mentioned in previous shows. The company used fake transactions to scam 600 million yen, which is four million dollars, of taxpayer money between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty-four.

The final investigation report will be released next week. This slush fund issue follows other recent misconduct in the defense ministry, including mishandling of classified information and abuse of power, which led to the resignation of Saito’s predecessor.

On the international side of things, the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances made a fifth request to Japan for detailed information on the twenty eighteen disappearance of Tiphaine Veron, a French woman who vanished in Nikko, Tochigi Prefecture, northern Japan.

Veron disappeared a day after checking in, leaving her belongings behind. Her brother is in Japan distributing flyers to aid the search. Japanese police continue to investigate both accidental and criminal possibilities.

Many online offered their sympathies. Those who recognized the area said that it was very mountainous and can be dangerous if you lose your way. It also happens to be an area that has a lot of bear sightings every year, leading to some raising questions about whether she had been the victim of a bear attack.

Japan is also asking another country for something, but in this case, it’s asking Greenland to hand over Paul Watson, the anti-whaling activist who got in the way of a Japanese whaling ship in twenty ten.

However, on Tuesday the 22nd, Interpol said it removed Watson from its international wanted list. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary said that Japan was disappointed and that the arrest warrant and extradition request were still valid.

Japan's Coast Guard plans to keep renewing the warrant and will request Interpol to put Watson back on the wanted list.

In an update to a story from previous shows, the Tokara Islands in southwestern Japan have experienced nearly 2,200 earthquakes since the 21st of June — much higher compared to past years. The strongest so far has been magnitude six on Akusekijima Island, which hit on the 3rd of July.

The quakes are still ongoing, so the Japan Meteorological Agency said that residents in that area should stay alert and warned that another strong earthquake could hit.

That’s not the only update. Officials in Hokkaido, northern Japan, said that a brown bear killed last week was responsible for two fatal attacks—one on a deliveryman just a couple of weeks ago and another on a woman four years ago. DNA analysis matched the bear’s fur to samples from both crime scenes.

The prefectural government lifted a local alert but still said residents should remain cautious because bear attacks are still on the rise.

Meanwhile, Kansai Electric Power Co. announced plans to build a new nuclear power plant in Mihama, Fukui Prefecture, central Japan. This is the first such move by a major utility company since the twenty eleven Fukushima disaster.

The plant in Mihama will use a next-generation advanced light water reactor. The company aims to improve energy security and efficiency following a new strategy that is supported by recent government policy. Building the plant may take fifteen to twenty years and will likely cost over one trillion yen, which is seven billion dollars.

In science news, Japanese researchers say rock samples from the asteroid Ryugu, which the probe Hayabusa Two brought back to Earth, are the oldest rock samples ever found in the solar system. Even though the rocks are more like specks of sand since they’re smaller than one tenth of a millimeter, the researchers found that they had formed four and a half billion years ago, shortly after the solar system's birth—making them older than the asteroid they came from.

The findings provide new insights into what our solar system was like in its early days, from how it might have formed to what kind of materials were floating around back then.

Switching to business news, Softbank is making plans to create airships to provide telecommunications services. In other words, they’ll be kind of like flying cell towers disguised as a blimp. They are calling the airships High Altitude Platform Stations and say they will fly twenty kilometers or twelve miles above the Earth’s surface.

Softbank plans to start running the airships in twenty twenty-six, but likely won’t have full services until twenty twenty-seven or later. Each airship will be able to cover a 200-kilometer or 124-mile area, offering voice, internet, and drone communication. They said it would be especially useful in rural areas and during disasters. They’ll also be closer to us than satellites, which will help make restoring communication even faster if something should happen.

On a more somber note, news media said on Saturday the 19th that Hitomi Obara, a legendary wrestler and twenty twelve Olympic gold medalist, died at forty-four years old. Media sources have not said what the cause of death was.

Obara, an eight-time world champion, was a key figure in Japan’s women’s wrestling rise and later served as a coach and director with the Japan Wrestling Federation. She retired after her twenty twelve Olympic triumph and was added to the United World Wrestling Hall of Fame in twenty twenty-two. Obara had recently been appointed co-coach of the women’s national team in anticipation of the twenty twenty-eight Los Angeles Olympics.

Many fans online were shocked at the news of her death and wondered why the cause wasn’t disclosed. Obara had depression and an eating disorder, and some speculated that her death might have been related to being under so much pressure after her co-coach appointment.

Finally, heat got you beat? As it turns out, one place in Japan knows how to keep cool, and that’s Iide Town in Yamagata Prefecture, northeastern Japan. On Saturday the 26th, it will be hosting its Snow Egg Festival, where the festival organizers dump 500 tons of snow stored from the past winter onto the Shirakawa Dam Lakeside Park grounds and host various events. The stockpiled snow creates a fifty-centimeter- or twenty-inch-deep field of snow, enough for snow tubing, snowball games, and a snow sumo tournament for both kids and adults.

Visitors can get to the park by taking a twenty-minute taxi ride from Tenoko Station.

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

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Mata Ne!