Sasaki Rintarō, who played college baseball at Stanford University before signing with the Miami Marlins, is part of a growing trend: Japanese high school baseball players bypassing the NPB and heading to US colleges in pursuit of careers in Major League Baseball. Young athletes in other sports are also going abroad to study, seeking opportunities to broaden their horizons both on and off the field.

Despite administrative efforts to cut overtime, a recent survey finds that unreduced workloads mean most schoolteachers in Japan continue to put in long shifts.

Japanese ghosts are known for holding a grudge. These phantasms tend to be portrayed in the white garments used to clothe the dead.

The director Miyazaki Hayao and other leading anime creators have a surprising number of connections to Nagano in central Japan. The prefecture’s Suwa region, steeped in prehistoric Jōmon culture, is home to one of Japan’s oldest Shintō shrines.

Bottled water topped a ranking of the sources Japanese people mainly use for drinking water, with convenience as the most popular reason for doing so.