Japanese New Year’s Kit Kats available exclusively from post offices

Nestlé Japan is known for its wide range of unusual Kit Kats, which come in a variety of unusual flavors and special local releases, but sometimes, at the end of the year, it’s the original chocolate wafer that becomes one of their most sought-after products. The Japanese tradition of giving “otoshidama” money gifts at New

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Japanese pensioner blows himself up in park, injures 3 others

A 72-year-old retired soldier blew himself up in a park in the Japanese city of Utsunomiya, killing himself and injuring three other people in an apparent suicide, state broadcaster NHK reported. A second explosion, separate from the blast that killed the former Self Defence Force member, caused a fire in a nearby parking lot, while the man’s home eight kilometres from

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Japan PM Abe sends ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine for war dead

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering to Yasukuni Shrine for war dead on Monday to mark the annual autumn festival at the shrine, which is seen in China and the two Koreas as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism. Past visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni have outraged China and South Korea

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Japanese are working themselves to death–literally

Matsuri Takahashi was just 24 years old and a graduate of prestigious Tokyo University when she leaped to her death from her company dormitory on Christmas Day last year. Tokyo Labor Bureau investigators ruled her suicide karoshi — death by overwork. The Labor Bureau announced on Oct. 7 that Takahashi had been required to work 100 hours or more of overtime per month

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