News archive
Past daily articles for learners.
- daily life
Japan's harvest moon is September 25 — but the real full moon comes two days later
The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan says this year's chushu no meigetsu, the harvest moon known as jugoya, falls on Friday, September 25. The astronomical full moon, however, arrives two days later at 1:49 a.m. on September 27. A two-day gap is uncommon: it last happened in 2017 and will not happen again until 2043. The dates differ because the old lunar calendar counts from the instant of the new moon, while a full moon is the instant the moon sits opposite the sun. In Tokyo the moon rises at 4:43 p.m. on the 25th, about 50 minutes before sunset, so if the sky is clear you can look for it low in the east from early evening. Many households still mark the night with pampas grass and tsukimi dango.
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Suica's penguin is retiring: JR East opens a worldwide vote on three successor designs until September 23
JR East has revealed the three candidate designs that could replace the Suica Penguin, the mascot of its transport IC card since 2001. A selection committee chaired by a broadcast writer narrowed more than twenty ideas from young creators down to three: one featuring a squirrel, one a rabbit, and one an orange creature carrying a mole. Anyone can vote once on the dedicated website until 11:59 p.m. on September 23, regardless of age, gender, occupation or nationality, so residents and visitors alike can take part. The winning design will be announced on November 18, Suica's 25th anniversary. The penguin steps down on March 31, 2027, and the new character takes over the following day.
N5N4N3N2N1 - travel
Tokyo Station's new Yaesu tower opens September 10 — 55 shops and a highway bus terminal underneath
TOFROM YAESU TOWER, a 51-storey complex about 250 metres tall on the Yaesu side of Tokyo Station, opens on Thursday, September 10. Sixty-eight shops and restaurants are planned in total, but only 55 open on the first day; the rest follow from this winter. Underneath is Bus Terminal Tokyo Yaesu, fully opened in March, and the building connects to Tokyo Station through the Yaechika underground arcade, so you can walk between them without going outside even in bad weather. Offices, an 800-seat theatre and a clinic are also in the tower. Expect heavy crowds in the first days — if you have a highway bus to catch, leave extra time.
N5N4N3N2N1 - daily life
Japan's autumn rain front stalls: heaviest rain Sept 9-10, landslide and flood warnings
Japan's autumn rain front (akisame zensen) has settled over the country and is expected to sit near Honshu from Tuesday September 8 into mid-September, bringing cloudy, rainy days from Tohoku down to Kyushu. Forecasters say the heaviest rain is likely around September 9 and 10, when a tropical depression - what is left of Typhoon No. 24 - feeds warm, humid air into the front and makes it more active. Linear rain bands are possible around Kanto and Tokai, and people are being urged to watch for landslides, flooding of low-lying ground, and rivers rising or bursting their banks. Areas that already had record rain earlier this month have loosened ground, so even an ordinary amount of rain can do damage there. Despite the wet spell the heat is not letting up: highs above 30C and muggy conditions are expected across much of central and western Japan into mid-September. Practical steps for anyone living in Japan: check the Japan Meteorological Agency's warnings and your city's hazard map before you go out, stay away from swollen rivers and steep slopes, allow extra time for train delays, and carry rain gear while still guarding against the heat.
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Japan's autumn traffic safety campaign runs Sept 21-30: reflective gear, early headlights, bicycle rules
Japan's Autumn National Traffic Safety Campaign runs for ten days, from Monday September 21 to Wednesday September 30, 2026. Organised by the Cabinet Office, the National Police Agency and other ministries, it is held every autumn because the sun sets earlier and pedestrians become harder for drivers to see between dusk and nightfall. Three nationwide priorities are set for this year: keeping pedestrians safe and encouraging them to wear reflective items; getting drivers to switch their headlights on early at dusk and stamping out drink-driving and phone use behind the wheel; and making sure riders of bicycles and of specified small motorised bicycles - the category that covers electric kickboards, or e-scooters - understand and follow the traffic rules. The final day, September 30, is designated the Day Aiming for Zero Traffic Deaths. For anyone living in Japan the practical takeaway is simple: attach a reflector or wear bright colours when you walk at night, switch on your bicycle light after dark, turn your car headlights on early, and never ride or drive after drinking or while using a phone.
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Japan's 1.06-million-yen wall ends October 1: part-timers working 20 hours a week join social insurance
From October 1, 2026 Japan removes the wage requirement that has kept many part-time workers out of company social insurance. Until now a short-time worker had to earn at least 88,000 yen a month in contracted wages - roughly 1.06 million yen a year, the so-called 1.06-million-yen wall - to join employees' health insurance and the employees' pension. Under the 2025 pension reform law that threshold disappears. From October the remaining conditions are: scheduled work of 20 or more hours a week, an employment period expected to run beyond two months, and not being a student (some night-school and correspondence students still count). For now the employer must also have 51 or more people enrolled in the employees' pension, a size threshold the government will lower in stages between October 2027 and October 2035. Premiums are split evenly between worker and employer, so take-home pay dips at first, but enrolling adds to your future pension and opens up benefits such as the sickness allowance and the maternity allowance. If you have been trimming your hours to stay under the wall, check your weekly contracted hours and your employer's size now, and ask your workplace or a pension office how October will change your pay.
N5N4N3N2N1 - travel
Hikone Castle is Japan's next World Heritage candidate, with the UNESCO decision due in 2028
On September 3 an expert panel of the Agency for Cultural Affairs chose Hikone Castle, in Hikone City, Shiga Prefecture, as Japan's candidate for the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list. The government plans to send a provisional nomination file to UNESCO by the end of September and, after cabinet approval, the formal file by February 1, 2027; an advisory body then inspects the site, and the World Heritage Committee is expected to weigh the listing in 2028. Hikone Castle has sat on Japan's tentative list since 1992, and this is the fifth push for it. Construction began in 1604 on the orders of Tokugawa Ieyasu and finished around 1622; the castle served as the seat of the Ii family, and its keep is a National Treasure, still standing alongside turrets, stone walls and the remains of the lord's residence. Nothing changes for visitors yet — the grounds are open as usual and the castle is a short walk from JR Hikone Station — but crowds are likely to grow if the listing goes through, so going early is worth considering.
N5N4N3N2N1 - daily life
Japan's first September five-day break since 2015: Sept 19-23, so do your paperwork first
Japan has a five-day run of days off this month, from Saturday September 19 to Wednesday September 23. Respect for the Aged Day falls on Monday the 21st and the Autumnal Equinox on Wednesday the 23rd; because the 22nd sits between two national holidays, the Public Holidays Act turns it into a citizens' holiday. It is the first September break this long since 2015. Plan around it: city and ward offices, Immigration Services Agency counters and banks are closed, so residence certificates and residence-status applications have to wait until the break ends. Many clinics also close, so refill regular medication beforehand. Shinkansen reserved seats and popular hotels fill up early, and some municipalities shift garbage collection or bulky-waste booking days, so check your local notice in advance.
N5N4N3N2N1 - daily life
September 9 is Japan's Emergency Day: when to call 119, and when to dial #7119 instead
September 9 is Japan's "Emergency Day", and the surrounding Sunday-to-Saturday week is Emergency Medical Week, run by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare together with the Fire and Disaster Management Agency; this year it falls on September 6-12. Preliminary agency figures show ambulances were dispatched about 7.69 million times in 2025 and carried about 6.76 million people, just below the record set the year before. The practical message for residents: if there is chest pain, trouble breathing or clouded consciousness, call 119 at once - both the call and the ambulance are free in Japan. If you genuinely cannot tell whether it is an emergency, the #7119 advice line connects you to doctors, nurses and staff with ambulance experience who listen to the symptoms and tell you whether to be seen and how to give first aid; it now runs in roughly forty areas, so check whether your own city has it. For a child's sudden illness, #8000 works in all 47 prefectures, and the free "Q-suke" app rates how urgent your symptoms look. Many fire departments can also take a 119 call in a foreign language through a three-way interpreter, so it is worth saving these numbers in your phone before you ever need them.
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JLPT applications close September 7: December 6 test, 7,500 yen for every level
Applications for this year's second Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) inside Japan opened on August 24 and close at 5 p.m. on Monday, September 7. The test is held on Sunday, December 6, and the fee is 7,500 yen (tax included) for every level from N5 to N1. Applying is online only: create a MyJLPT account first, then apply and pay by credit card, bank transfer or convenience store. Test vouchers can be viewed online from November 17 and are mailed by November 20; results appear online in late January 2027, with paper certificates sent in late February. Because applicant numbers keep rising, the organiser warns that a site may stop accepting entries before the deadline once it is full, so it is safer to apply early than to wait for the last day.
N5N4N3N2N1 - daily life
From Today, Narrow Residential Roads in Japan Are 30 km/h by Law
From September 1, 2026, the default legal speed limit on Japan's so-called living roads (生活道路) falls from 60 km/h to 30 km/h. The lower limit applies automatically to ordinary roads that have no posted speed-limit sign and no center line, lane markings, or median separating the two directions of traffic. The National Police Agency estimates that about 70 percent of ordinary roads nationwide fit that description. Roads with a posted sign still follow the sign, and roads with a center line stay at 60 km/h unless a sign says otherwise. The change targets narrow streets where pedestrians and cyclists share space with cars: once a collision happens above roughly 30 km/h, a pedestrian's risk of being killed rises sharply. Practical takeaway for anyone who drives in Japan: when you turn into a narrow street, look for a speed sign. If there is no sign and no center line, assume 30 km/h.
N5N4N3N2N1 - daily life
Japan's other hay fever season: ragweed pollen peaks in September
Hay fever in Japan is not only a spring problem. From late summer into autumn, pollen from low weeds is in the air: ragweed (butakusa), mugwort (yomogi) and Japanese hop (kanamugura). Ragweed, the most common of them, flies from around mid-August to mid-October and peaks in September; in the Kanto area it is especially heavy from late August through September. Unlike cedar pollen, which can travel tens of kilometres, ragweed grows on riverbanks, vacant lots and roadsides, and its pollen usually reaches only a few metres to a few tens of metres. Simply changing your walking or commuting route to avoid overgrown ground therefore cuts your exposure a lot. The grains are fine enough to reach the bronchi, so coughing and a scratchy throat are common and the symptoms are easily mistaken for a cold; if they last more than about two weeks, see an ENT clinic (jibika). People sensitive to ragweed may also get an itchy mouth after eating melon, watermelon or banana. Otherwise the spring routine still applies: mask and glasses outdoors, wash your face and change clothes when you get home, and dry laundry indoors.
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