RISING

The number of foreign tourists to Japan reached its all-time high in 2014. Tourism is now Japan's key to economic growth. Kentaro Suda is CEO of a tra...

Hyogo Prefecture is home to a medical team that rides the helicopter to save lives in mountain communities that do not have access to advanced emergen...

With exhibitions and events both in Japan and abroad, the moving calligraphy of Shoko Kanazawa is attracting global attention that has seen her invite...

For 5 generations, the family of Kosuke Kuji has run Nanbu Bijin, a famed sake brewery in Iwate Prefecture. Yet, as domestic sake sales have stagnated...

Agriculture in Japan faces many issues including an aging and declining workforce. Hiroki Iwasa, the representative of a farming corporation, is tryin...

Mitsuru Izumo is the CEO of bio-venture firm Euglena, named after a microorganism with enormous potential as a future food and energy source. Euglena...

What kind of life awaits Japan's estimated 10 million baby boomers as more and more of them enter retirement? Mio Katagiri is the representative of Gi...

Medical tests at just 500 yen per criterion; on-the-spot results; and advice from a trained nurse: all features of the "self health check", a revoluti...

With many traditional Japanese crafts facing decline, Rika Yajima founded a brand seeking to preserve such artisanship in a novel way: offering tradit...

Japan's unique yuru-kyara costumed promotional mascots are in the midst of a boom. And the maker behind many of the movement's biggest stars is Kiguru...

Although Japan's long-established fresh fish industry is said to be worth around 3 trillion yen a year, a lack of new blood has recently brought the s...

Takako Yamada runs an online English school based in the Philippines. Licensed local instructors teach students in Japan via videotelephony, and the c...

Becoming a sushi chef once took long years as an apprentice. Makoto Fukue turned this world on its head in 2002 when he opened Tokyo Sushi Academy, Ja...

The 1989 Hollywood hit Back to the Future Part II, saw a time-travelling DeLorean return from the year 2015, fitted with a device to use trash as fuel...

Recent years have seen Japan's fisheries hit by issues like global warming, overfishing, and a lack of new blood, with overall catches down to a third...