Toyota announced that one of its subsidiaries had set itself the goal of developing a "supercomputer-on-wheels" self-driving vehicle ready to demonstrate at the Tokyo Olympics one year from now.

In early 2014 the Japanese Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (JFIEA) was amended to allow easier venture-based crowdfunding for investment. Japan now has more than 50 crowdfunding platforms.

We first came across Rann shortly after he arrived in Japan, when he was helping out a media firm, and a little after that when he was appointed the CEO of an internet recruiting firm called Asia-net.

In this Take, our second-last for the year, we share a collection of observations about how to find distributors for your products even before you commit to setting up a company.

Budget airline company Skymark went into bankruptcy, marking the end of a painful 3-year process of spiraling losses (especially in the last year) due to a declining market share and expanding costs.

The average Japanese company stores (and pays for) about five times the number of documents that the average U.S. or South Korean company does. However, that is set to change in favor of digitally stored company records.

Most Japanese senior managers, no matter how entrepreneurial, are educated and conditioned to work in groups, and the idea of working alone in their Country Manager role doesn't feel to them like a "real" company.

So why is Recruit going public? The Nikkei reckons that there are rumors that Recruit wants to do some major M&As. We think we can safely rule out much of that happening in Japan.

Through our sister company Japan Inc Holdings we have been involved in market entry for foreign firms since the 1990's, and one of the most common questions we are asked is how to find partners, resellers and clients.

Although there is a massive wifi grid throughout Japan (more than 600,000 access points), the ability for international visitors to access it easily is limited.