Dōtonbori or Dōtombori is a district in Osaka, Japan. Known as one of Osaka's principal tourist and nightlife areas, the area runs along the Dōtonbori canal from Dōtonboribashi Bridge to Nipponbashi Bridge in the Namba district of the city's Chūō ward. Historically a theater district, it is now a popular nightlife and entertainment area characterized by its eccentric atmosphere and large illuminated signboards.
Yoshimoto Kogyo Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Japanese entertainment conglomerate. It was founded in 1912, Osaka, as a traditional theatre, and has since grown to be one of the most influential companies in Japan, employing most of Japan's popular owarai (comedy) talent, producing and promoting the shows they appear in. The two main headquarters are stationed in Osaka and Tokyo.
JODX-DTV, virtual channel 8, branded as Kansai TV or Kantele (カンテレ), is the Kansai region key station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and Fuji Network System (FNS), operated by the Kansai Television Company Limited. Kansai TV is a company affiliated in Hankyu Hanshin Holdings Group of Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group.
New Ishigaki Airport,, also branded as Painushima Ishigaki Airport, is a regional airport located in the Shiraho district of Ishigaki, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The airport is located near the eastern coast of Ishigaki Island. It connects the island to major cities in Japan as well as destinations throughout Okinawa Prefecture and the Yaeyama Islands. New Ishigaki Airport was built to replace Ishigaki Airport, which with a shorter runway of only 1,500 metres (4,900 ft), could not accommodate larger jets.
The Twilight Express was a limited express sleeping car train service operated by West Japan Railway Company in Japan from 1989 until March 2015. It ran between the city of Sapporo on the northern island of Hokkaido and Osaka in south-western Honshu, a distance of approximately 1,500 km (930 mi), with the journey taking between 22 and 23 hours. From May 2015 until March 2016, the train operated as a luxury cruise train between Osaka and Shimonoseki in western Japan.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in Japan have fewer legal protections than in most other developed countries, although some developments towards stronger rights have been made in the 2020s. Same-sex sexual activity was criminalised only briefly in Japan's history between 1872 and 1881, after which a localised version of the Napoleonic Penal Code was adopted with an equal age of consent. Same-sex couples and households headed by same-sex couples are ineligible for the legal protections available to opposite-sex couples, although since 2015 some cities and prefectures, covering over 60% of the population by 2023, offer "partnership certificates" to recognise the relationships of same-sex couples and provide some legal benefits. Japan is the only country in the G7 that does not legally recognize same-sex unions nationally in any form. In March 2021 and May 2023, the Sapporo and Nagoya District Courts ruled that not recognising same-sex marriage was a violation of the Constitution respectively. While in June 2022, the Osaka District Court ruled that not recognising same-sex marriage was not a violation of the Constitution, in November 2022, the Tokyo District Court ruled that the absence of same-sex marriage legislation was an unconstitutional state of affairs but did not violate the Constitution, though the court's ruling has no immediate legal effect. In June 2023, the Fukuoka District Court ruled that the ban on same-sex marriage was constitutional. A second ruling in September 2023 concluded that same-sex relationships should not be excluded from Japan's marriage system.
The Osaka International Peace Center, also known as Peace Osaka, is a peace museum established in August 1991 based in the city of Osaka, Japan. It focuses on the destruction of the city during World War II and the broader themes of the tragedy of war and the importance of peace. It is funded by Osaka city and Osaka Prefecture.
The Yamada Line is a regional railway line in Japan operated by East Japan Railway Company. The railway line connects Morioka Station in Morioka City to Miyako Station in Miyako City, and is named after the town of Yamada in Iwate Prefecture, which the line used to serve. The railway line traverses through the Kitakami Mountains, running parallel to National Route 106 for most of its length.
The Tadami Line is a 135-kilometre (84 mi) scenic railway line in Japan operated by East Japan Railway Company. It connects Aizu-Wakamatsu Station at Aizuwakamatsu in Fukushima Prefecture with Koide Station at Uonuma in Niigata Prefecture.
Tōru Hashimoto is a Japanese TV personality, politician, and lawyer. He is a former governor of Osaka Prefecture and mayor of City of Osaka. He is a founder of Nippon Ishin no Kai and the Osaka Restoration Association. He is one of Japan's leading right-wing conservative-populist politicians.
National Route 114 is a national highway of Japan that traverses the prefecture of Fukushima in a northwest–southeast routing. It connects the prefecture's capital city, Fukushima in north-central Fukushima Prefecture to the town of Namie on the prefecture's eastern coast. It has a total length of 69.0 kilometers (42.9 mi). A section of the highway was closed following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, but it has since been reopened.
The 2009 Japan flu pandemic was an outbreak of the H1N1 and the Influenza A viruses across Japan. The World Health Organization raised the pandemic alert for influenza to level 4 in April 2009 following a worldwide outbreak of the H1N1 influenza strain. The first Japanese infections of H1N1 and Influenza A were both recorded early in May 2009. In August 2009, the government estimated that the virus strains had infected about 760,000 people. At the height of the pandemic in October 2009, it was estimated that 20% of the Japanese population had been infected and that there were on average more than 20 infected people in each Japanese medical facility. The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare reported 198 Deaths as of March 30, 2010. Japan put several measures in place to attempt to control the spread of infection including quarantining air travellers entering Japan who were suspected of having the virus and closing schools in areas of Japan with high numbers of infection. The pandemic ended in August 2010 when the World Health Organization announced that worldwide influenza infection number were back to the seasonal average before the outbreak occurred.
The Kyoto Railway Museum is a railway museum in Shimogyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The original Umekoji Steam Locomotive Museum opened in 1972, but was expanded and modernized in 2016, becoming the Kyoto Railway Museum.
The Japan Innovation Party is a conservative and right-wing populist political party in Japan. Formed as Initiatives from Osaka in October 2015 from a split in the old Japan Innovation Party, the party became the third-biggest opposition party in the National Diet following the July 2016 House of Councillors election.
Human Shadow Etched in Stone is an exhibition at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It is thought to be the shadow of a person who was sitting at the entrance of Hiroshima Branch of Sumitomo Bank when the atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima. It is also known as Human Shadow of Death or simply the Blast Shadow.
Osaka Prefectural Kaifukan High School(Japanese: 大阪府立懐風館高等学校) is a public secondary school located in Habikino, Osaka, Japan.
Typhoon Jebi, known in the Philippines as Super Typhoon Maymay, was the costliest typhoon in Japan's history in terms of insured losses. Jebi formed from a tropical disturbance south-southwest of Wake Island on August 26 and became the twenty-first named storm of the 2018 Pacific typhoon season on August 27. Amid favorable environmental conditions, Jebi quickly strengthened into a typhoon on August 29 as it headed west and rapidly intensified as it passed the Northern Mariana Islands on August 30. Jebi reached its peak intensity as a Category 5-equivalent typhoon on August 31, with 10-minute sustained winds of 195 km/h (120 mph), 1-minute sustained winds of 285 km/h (180 mph), and a minimum pressure of 915 hPa. Afterwards, Jebi began a slow weakening trend as it turned northwest, briefly passing through the Philippine Area of Responsibility on September 2. Jebi accelerated north-northeast towards Japan on September 3 as it interacted with the westerlies, and made landfalls over Shikoku and near Kobe early on September 4. Jebi quickly weakened over land and became an extratropical cyclone later that day over the Sea of Japan. Its remnants moved over the Russian Far East before dissipating on September 9.
The Kitano Museum of Art, which opened in 1968 as the first private art museum in Nagano Prefecture, is today run by a public interest incorporated foundation, in the Wakaho district, in the southeastern section of Nagano in Nagano Prefecture. The museum is located next to the Yushimatenmangu Shrine, a branch of Yushima Tenman-gū which was founded in 458 in Bunkyō in Tokyo. The entrance to the museum is through the Yushimatenmangu Shrine. The museum includes a Japanese garden by Mirei Shigemori, a notable 20th century modern landscape architect, that was completed in 1965.
Masakatsu Nishikawa was a Japanese serial killer who killed four snack bar hostesses and attempted to kill two others from 1991 to 1992 in three prefectures. An ex-criminal with a murder conviction, he was convicted of his latter crimes, sentenced to death and executed in 2017.
