A worker inputs data on a postcard into a computer in Tokyo's Chiyoda Ward.... Factors including raising the legally required employment rate for people with disabilities and expanding the number of subject companies had helped fuel a series of record-extending figures up to fiscal 2019.... In fiscal 2020, job numbers fell for the first time in 12 years....

TOKYO — To explain the pressure felt by women in Japanese society, the novelist Mieko Kawakami recalls a playground prank from elementary school. The boys would run around and flip up the skirts of certain girls to catch a glimpse of their underwear.... Yet it was just as shameful for the girls whose skirts didn’t get flipped.“ It meant you weren’t popular, ” said Kawakami, 43, the author of “ Breasts and Eggs, ” a best-selling novel in Japan that was published in English in April.... “ Breast

6 announced that it had mistakenly sent out postcards containing the pension records of different individuals to a total of 972, 023 residents in 45 municipalities in Aichi, Mie and Fukuoka prefectures.... Japan Pension Service says it will pay the correct amounts when it transfers pension payments scheduled for Oct.... The corporation has set up a special toll-free hotline on 0120-002-730, and will accept inquiries from Oct....

Yutaka Nakamura, 49, is a personal trainer to 23-year-old tennis star Naomi Osaka.... In this edition of his regular series, Nakamura reflects on Osaka's experience at the Tokyo Games, including her early elimination which prevented her from earning an Olympic medal and her achievement of lighting the Olympic cauldron as the last torch relay runner at the games' opening ceremony.... Naomi loves Japan, and her home country being the games' host is something special for her....

TOKYO--Skateboarding in Japan appears to be enjoying a period of unprecedented popularity, as a boost during the coronavirus pandemic has been accelerated further by the success of the country's skateboarders at the Tokyo Olympics.... But there are concerns the heightened interest may cause noise problems and traffic trouble.... Yuto Horigome smiles after the men's street skateboarding final of the Tokyo Olympics at Ariake Urban Sports Park in the capital's Koto Ward on July 25, 2021....

This photo taken in December 2019 shows a wheelchair seating area at the Japan National Stadium in Tokyo.... So, while Paralympic venues and public transportation have made strides in hardware, much remains to be done in upgrading the population's mental software.... Such measures come under the heading of" reasonable accommodations" in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which seeks to ensure that all people have equal rights, including accessibility....

TOKYO — From the shrines of Nikko and the temples of Kyoto to the castles of Matsumoto and Himeji, the Japanese are fiercely proud of the country’s centuries-old monuments of cultural heritage. Not so for a 113-year-old carousel in the nation’s capital.... “ We would always come in the summer.” Yet those visits ended some 30 years ago.... “ I really want them to find a place for it, ” she said. Nostalgia, though, is fleeting....