The arrival of pollen season has once again begun to affect large parts of Japan, but new research aimed at preventing cedar pollen from dispersing is raising hopes that the future could bring relief for millions of sufferers, with scientists working on a method to wither only the male flowers of cedar trees and stop pollen at its source. (News On Japan)

February 10, marked in Japan as Left-Handed Goods Day through a play on the numbers “0,” “2,” and “10,” has drawn renewed attention to the daily inconveniences faced by left-handed people (News On Japan)

JR Tokai has decided to begin construction on the Yamanashi Prefecture station for the Linear Chuo Shinkansen on March 11, marking the start of work on the only station along the Tokyo–Nagoya section where construction had yet to begin. (News On Japan)

A 41-year-old Chinese man arrested on suspicion of crashing a Lamborghini into a police patrol car and fleeing the scene is believed to have been driving at a speed far exceeding the legal limit, investigators said. (News On Japan)

Workers dressed as ninjas are carrying out weed removal on a castle stone wall in Koka, Shiga Prefecture, a city known as the home of ninja. (News On Japan)

A large discount retailer Don Quijote has opened its first inbound-focused specialty store in the Kansai region in Kyoto City, aiming to better serve the growing number of overseas visitors. (News On Japan)

The women’s snowboard big air final was held at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, where Beijing Olympic bronze medalist Murase Kokomo, 21, of TOKIO Inkarami captured the gold medal, becoming the first Japanese woman to win gold in the event and the first in women’s snowboarding history to reach the podium at two consecutive Olympics. (News On Japan)

The average asking price for newly built small detached homes in January rose 4.7 percent from the previous month to 61.54 million yen across the Tokyo metropolitan region’s four prefectures, according to a real estate research firm, marking a new high since surveys began in April 2014 and pushing prices above 60 million yen for the first time. (News On Japan)

Tokyo Electric Power announced that it has restarted the reactor at Unit 6 of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, which had been halted shortly after its initial restart due to equipment problems. (News On Japan)

The death penalty and life imprisonment, often described as shrouded in secrecy when it comes to the details of executions, continue to provoke debate in Japan, where roughly 1,700 inmates are serving life sentences and many live with the knowledge that they were once candidates for execution. (News On Japan)

There is already a clear Asia relocation trend in 2026. Thousands of Brits and Americans are making the decision to live in some of the world’s fastest-growing economies, including China, or picking a cultural hub like Japan. (News On Japan)