Osaka Metro Posts Record Interim Profit on Expo Boom

Find, a company that provides AI-based lost-and-found management, announced on December 12th that it has launched a new service enabling users to search for misplaced items across multiple transport operators and commercial facilities, allowing individuals to conduct a single unified search even when they are unsure where they dropped their belongings.

Eco bags became a daily necessity after Japan introduced mandatory charges for plastic shopping bags in July 2020, yet many consumers still found it surprisingly troublesome to fold them neatly, a frustration that helped propel the rise of a product that not only solves this inconvenience but has now captured the attention of both Japanese and overseas buyers, with sales of the series reaching 17 million units.

A team of workers who labor through the night for the benefit of society were followed closely as they undertook two extraordinary tasks: transporting a 50-metre wind turbine blade across narrow residential streets in Shizuoka Prefecture and carrying out behind-the-scenes maintenance at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka after the park had closed.

Condominium prices in Osaka are rising at a pace that shows no sign of slowing, with units exceeding 100 million yen becoming increasingly common as the city records the world’s fastest rate of condo price growth among major metropolitan areas.

Asahi Beer announced on December 10th that its sales in November fell by roughly 20 percent from a year earlier, marking a deeper decline than in October, as the company continues to feel the impact of a system outage caused by a cyberattack on Asahi Group Holdings in late September that forced restrictions on shipments of gift items such as year-end offerings, while a spike in orders when the company resumed taking requests in October is also believed to have contributed to the downturn.

Do you have a business idea and the desire to try yourself in entrepreneurship? Then you should consider starting a company in Azerbaijan. Why Azerbaijan?

A government–ruling party panel is preparing to expand the Nippon Individual Savings Account so that even those under 18 can regularly invest in mutual funds, with the goal of making it easier for households to allocate money for education and other expenses and thereby supporting a broader shift from savings to investment; the proposal will be written into the tax reform outline for fiscal 2026, with the revised scheme expected to begin as early as 2027, and Monex Research Institute analyst Naoko Shinoda joined the program to discuss how a child-focused NISA might be used and what it means for Japan’s ambition to become an asset-management nation.

JR East announced that it will begin operating the nation’s first cargo-only Shinkansen on March 23rd 2026, running between Morioka and Tokyo with loading and unloading carried out on dollies directly at the rail yard.