Markets, networks, rivers, recovery, sport and craft — fifteen ways into Japan this Friday.
Today’s edition follows four companies listing in Tokyo, the four mobile carriers’ 28GHz study, Nippon Steel’s electric-furnace investment in Slovakia, a river still reshaping itself after the Noto earthquake, new research on blinking and executive function, Fukushima’s continuing need for outside specialists, Jōmon archaeology beneath Eniwa’s development plans and Sayama’s new business-property matching system. Sport brings the Asian Games before the ceremony, Hanshin and Yomiuri half a game apart, and Yoshitomi Shibata’s retirement. Culture turns to Kitora, Space Brothers craft and Makabe’s historic buildings, before Arcimboldo’s book-built Librarian closes the page.
The Asian Games Are Already Underway Before the Opening Ceremony
The ceremony starts at 6 p.m. September 19. The competition calendar started September 10. On the eve of the formal opening, Japan has confirmed women’s fixtures in cricket, hockey and volleyball, while soft tennis, teqball, basketball, pentathlon and football are already active.
Read the report →Friday, September 18, 2026
Four more to know today
Tokyo listings, 5G mmWave, Noto’s river, Yoshitomi Shibata
Business & Economy
Tokyo listings, shared 5G, Košice steelFour Companies, One Friday: What September 18 Reveals About Tokyo’s Listing Market
OHKEN, akippa, Techno Craft and Vertex share a September 18 listing date, but not the same route to market. Three are Standard Market IPOs; OHKEN is joining TOKYO PRO Market. Their histories explain why the distinction matters.
Japan’s Four Mobile Rivals Tackle the Same 28GHz Problem
KDDI, NTT DOCOMO, SoftBank and Rakuten Mobile are studying whether 28GHz base stations, repeaters and operating models can work more efficiently across operator boundaries. The announcement is not one shared network — it is an attempt to solve the unusually expensive physics of millimeter-wave coverage.
Nippon Steel Bets €900 Million on a Hybrid Future for Košice
Nippon Steel’s Košice operation is committing about €900 million to a 1.6-million-ton electric arc furnace and a new air-separation unit. The striking part is what will remain: existing blast furnaces, creating a hybrid steelworks rather than a clean break with the plant’s 61-year ironmaking history.
Science & Technology
Noto’s river, AMOC and glaciers, child developmentThe Earthquake Made a Waterfall — Then the River Moved It 770 Meters Upstream
The 2024 Noto earthquake lifted the Hakka River’s coast so abruptly that a waterfall-like break formed in the channel. Floods then drove it inland — 770 meters in the first year — showing how a river can remain an active part of an earthquake disaster long after the shaking ends.
When the North Atlantic Slowed, Patagonia Changed
A 17.4-meter core from 3,082 meters below the southeast Pacific and a global climate model reveal a chain linking North Atlantic overturning slowdown to Southern Hemisphere winds, rain, ocean warming, marginal ice melt and sediment discharge from ancient Patagonia.
What a Child’s Blink May Reveal — and What It Cannot
Researchers measured rule switching, spontaneous blinking and prefrontal activity in 113 young children. Higher blink rate tracked better switching and stronger right-dorsolateral prefrontal activity — a promising developmental signal, but not a dopamine test or a diagnosis.
Communities
Fukushima staffing, Eniwa archaeology, Sayama property matching
Fifteen Years On, Fukushima Reconstruction Still Needs Outside Specialists
Kanagawa is recruiting about 20 fixed-term specialists for FY2027 assignments in Fukushima — 11 civil engineers plus land, administrative, architectural, forestry and public-health staff. Fifteen years after 3/11, the shortage reflects not one unfinished project but a nuclear-disaster recovery process that begins at different times in different communities.
Before the Fighters Build in Eniwa, Archaeologists Are Reading the Ground
Archaeologists are working across the roughly 46-hectare Nishi-Shimamatsu development area that includes the planned Fighters farm relocation. A 2025 preliminary survey found Jōmon pottery and stone tools — a reminder that Eniwa’s newest development sits inside an archaeological landscape thousands of years deep.
Sayama Turns the Property Search Around
Sayama is creating a system in which a would-be café owner, workshop, office or factory tells the city what it needs; the city anonymizes those conditions and asks registered property businesses what they can offer. It is an experiment in reducing the information gap before brokerage begins.
Sports
Asian Games, Hanshin vs Yomiuri, Yoshitomi ShibataThe Asian Games Are Already Underway Before the Opening Ceremony
The ceremony starts at 6 p.m. September 19. The competition calendar started September 10. On the eve of the formal opening, Japan has confirmed women’s fixtures in cricket, hockey and volleyball, while soft tennis, teqball, basketball, pentathlon and football are already active.
Half a Game Apart: Hanshin and Yomiuri Enter a Compressed Central League Finish
Through September 15, Hanshin was at .548 and Yomiuri at .543, half a game apart. Yet Hanshin had lost seven straight and the Giants had just lost three. With 16 games left for Hanshin, 12 for Yomiuri and one final head-to-head meeting on October 1, the arithmetic is as tense as the rivalry.
Yoshitomi Shibata’s 41-Year Riding Career Ends, but Not His Life in Racing
From his first JRA ride in 1985 to 22,311 starts and 2,341 wins, Yoshitomi Shibata’s license ends September 18. His career linked the first class of the JRA Racing School with Yamanin Zephyr, King Halo, Nakayama Festa, Just a Way and an age record that lasted into his 60th year.
Culture & Craft
Kitora, Space Brothers craft, Makabe
Three Guardians at Once: Kitora Opens Suzaku, Genbu and Seiryū Together
From September 19, Kitora’s south-wall Suzaku, north-wall Genbu and east-wall Seiryū will be displayed in one viewing program. The presentation arrives at the 10th anniversary of Shijin-no-Yakata and just weeks after Kitora became part of the newly inscribed Asuka-Fujiwara World Heritage property.
Space Brothers Comes Down to Earth in Glass, Lacquer and Clay
The completed manga Space Brothers has been translated into hand-blown glass, raden and maki-e lacquer, Seto clay figures, Kyoto hand-printing and Nara kaya cloth. The strongest pieces do not merely carry character imagery — their materials are asked to behave like space.
Preserving Makabe Is Not the Same as Making People Walk Through It
Taste a local product inside the former post office, see bamboo lights at the former Kimura residence, and then walk the streets between them. Sakuragawa and Japan Post are testing whether two historic buildings can become nodes in a town-wide experience rather than isolated preservation objects.
The Man Made of Books: Arcimboldo’s 450-Year-Old Joke About Knowledge
Hair, chest, fingers and beard — all made of books. Arcimboldo’s The Librarian may be a tribute to scholarship, a jab at collectors, or both. Taken from Prague as war booty, kept in Sweden and shown in Tokyo in 2017, it still lands as a visual joke more than 450 years later.
Read the art essay →Giuseppe Arcimboldo, The Librarian, c. 1562–1566?, oil on canvas, approx. 98 × 71 cm. Skokloster Castle / Swedish Historical Museums (SHM). Media: Ola Myrin. Public Domain Mark. View image
Six selected from the September 17 edition
Interview, tax, science, surveillance, cricket and Hokusai
Before Understanding Comes the Body: Ryo Fujimoto on Energy Embodiment Theory
Ahead of the Sept. 22 SUPER DOMMUNE performance, Fujimoto speaks with Japan.co.jp about voice, vibration, body and image — and about nearly a decade of experimentation with Itti and Takuma Nakata.
Japan’s 1% Food Tax Plan Raises a ¥5 Trillion Question
The government’s plan would cut the consumption-tax rate on eligible food from 8% to 1% for two years from April 2027 while pairing it with income-linked support. The household benefit is simple; the fiscal gap is not.
A Million Beads an Hour — Then Write the Optical Code Later
University of Tokyo researchers built a common hydrogel bead with five DNA-address regions, mass-produced it above one million particles per hour and demonstrated 59,049 optical codes added in a later step.
Global Hawk Loss off Tottori Exposes the Fragility of Unmanned Surveillance
A large unmanned reconnaissance aircraft disappeared from radar off Tottori shortly after a communications-system problem. The incident tested search coordination, fishing-community safety and a surveillance fleet only three aircraft deep.
World Champion India Is Coming to Sano — Japan Cricket’s Biggest Test Yet
On Sept. 22, Japan’s men are due to face India in their first match against an ICC full member. It is an Asian Games warm-up and a test of whether a landmark fixture can bring new spectators into Japanese cricket.
Before the Great Wave, Hokusai Built His Name in Books
The Nagata Collection in Shimane opens a world of illustrated books, manuals, Hokusai Manga, early and later impressions and surviving woodblocks — and the half-century work of Iwami-born scholar Seiji Nagata.
The 15 current-news thumbnails are Japan.co.jp AI editorial illustrations inspired by Giuseppe Arcimboldo’s composite portraits; they are not documentary photographs. Today’s Art Choice is intended to use the public-domain image of The Librarian supplied by the Swedish Historical Museums. The six carryovers retain their Sept. 17 imagery; only the Ryo Fujimoto interview uses a supplied photograph.
