The Japanese government is considering presenting former Yomiuri Giants manager Shigeo Nagashima and former New York Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui with the People's Honor Award for their contributions to pro baseball, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Monday. (Kyodo)

An estimated 840,000 new recruits nationwide marked their first day of work Monday at the start of Japan's new fiscal year, after surviving a difficult job-hunting season amid severe economic conditions. (Kyodo)

Japanese business sentiment improved in the first three months of 2013, a central bank survey showed, after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's aggressive monetary and fiscal policy prescriptions helped to weaken the yen and bolster share prices. (Reuters)

Asian stocks fell, with Japan's Topix Index falling the most since March 2011, after a survey of sentiment among the country's largest manufacturers missed estimates and an official gauge of China's factory output expanded at a slower-than-expected pace. (Bloomberg)

As pundits continue to discuss the impact of Japan’s possible entry into the tariff-eliminating Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), Shukan Taishu (Mar. 25) takes a look at the domestic porn industry. (Tokyo Reporter)

The Bank of Japan is considering introducing a new monetary easing scheme, centering on the idea of integrating its two longer-dated bond-buying programs into one, in an attempt to achieve its newly adopted inflation target of 2 percent, sources familiar with the plan said Sunday. (Kyodo)

Japan's land and infrastructure ministry said Friday it will substantially raise pay rates for workers in public projects in fiscal 2013 to cope with construction labor shortages after the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. (Jiji Press)

The grand vision for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) outlined by President Obama at the APEC Summit in 2011 has moved a little closer to realisation, in scope at least, with announcement by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that Japan would join in the negotiations. (East Asia Forum)

People dressed as zombies wander through the streets of Tokyo on Easter Sunday for a parade of the undead. (guardian.co.uk)

Japanese comic strip football superhero Captain Tsubasa, who has inspired stars such as Lionel Messi and Fernando Torres, has returned from a storybook stint in Spain to save his "birthplace". (Global Post)

A computer programmed to play "shogi," also known as Japanese chess, defeated an active professional player in a public match for the first time ever Saturday. (Japan Times)

President Ma Ying-jeou on Saturday commissioned a 2,000-ton frigate to join a coast guard fleet patrolling waters near a cluster of Japanese-administered islands in the East China Sea, a move that could increase tensions in the contested area. (Kyodo)

Police have found a man's mummified body at a home in Ashiya, and arrested the man's wife and eldest son Sunday on suspicion of abandoning the body. (Yomiuri)

Two men have died and one woman is in a coma after they were found stabbed in a house in Futtsu, Chiba Prefecture, early Sunday, police said. (Yomiuri)

On March 16, the platforms for the Tokyu Toyoko Line at Shibuya Station moved from the chijō nikai (地上二階, second floor) to the chika gokai (地下五階, fifth basement floor) to connect the Toyoko Line with the Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line. (Japan Times)

The no-go zone designation was lifted Monday for the town of Namie near the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant. (Jiji Press)