Now that I have been elected Governor of Tokyo, which will host the 2020 Games, I am quickly preparing myself and my team for the grueling tests of management that lie ahead of us. In particular, we must become world-class cost-control accountants, so that the Games are a success not just for the athletes, but also for the citizens of Tokyo and all Japanese. We want to take pride in our Games, and we cannot do that if we hobble future generations with debt.

Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida and his South Korean counterpart, Yun Byung-se, affirmed in Laos on Monday their intention to implement the landmark bilateral settlement on the “comfort women” forced into Japan’s military brothels during the war by setting up a foundation this week designed to help the surviving victims.

Foreign aid is a key instrument of international engagement in Japan’s foreign policy toolkit. Although Tokyo is no longer the world’s top aid donor that it once was in the 1990s, it still was the world’s number four aid donor in 2015 with close to a US$10 billion annual budget. It is not just the size of the aid budget that has changed. So has Tokyo’s thinking behind foreign aid.

Yasuo Fukuda, former Japanese Prime Minister, said that the relationship between China and Japan, as well as the status of world affairs nowadays, were different from Sun's days, but "Sun's ideals, including the one that Asian countries should cooperate together, are not outdated, and should become guidelines for Asian countries to deal with their relations."

From New York to Yokohama, an unstoppable wave of yellow monsters is infiltrating public venues, performing strange rituals and targeting young humans. Having already dominated Japan and conquered a number of overseas markets, the “Pocket Monsters” video game series, now in its 20th year, is entering a new realm: reality.

Thanks to the internet, tailor-made travel has never been easier: if you’ve dreamt of staying in a Super Mario-themed apartment, you can book one on Airbnb; if it’s a ride with a local you’re after, you can grab one on Uber. And when it comes to spending time with locals in their own homes [...] BonAppetour, the company serves as a platform that connects tourists with locals, who come together around the “home dining” concept.

The National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan Tech) and the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) jointly inaugurated an office in Taipei on Saturday, with the aim of deepening ties between them. The Tokyo Institute of Technology Engineering Office in Taiwan will be responsible for faculty and student exchange programs and business internships between the two schools, said Liao Ching-jong, president of Taiwan Tech, where the office is located.

As crowds gathered on Nov. 4, 1972, to catch a glimpse of two adorably rare creatures making their debut at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo, an orangutan named Miyo unfurled a welcome banner. A curtain was then pulled aside to reveal two anxious giant pandas — Kang Kang and Lan Lan — and Japan fell head over heels in love, both with the bears and what they represented: Sino-Japanese friendship.