A 24-year-old man in a town in Yamaguchi Prefecture accidentally received ¥46.3 million yen in COVID relief funds due to an error by municipal staff. About 90% of the money, which the man said he used on overseas online casinos, has been recovered. He was arrested on charges of wire fraud.

The mother of a girl who went missing from a campsite in 2019 suffered a torrent of online abuse accusing her of being behind the disappearance. She nonetheless continued posting messages on the internet seeking information about her daughter’s whereabouts until the child was confirmed dead in mid May.

Experience with remote work, the erosion of Japan’s lifetime employment system, and desires for meaningful lives are contributing to a rise in workers quitting, changing jobs, or considering doing so. There are also signs of an exodus from major cities, with Tokyo’s population dropping for the first time since 1996.

Students’ extracurricular sports activities sometimes require large amounts of time and energy from parents and guardians, too. Duties include communicating with other adults via social media, distributing beverages, and taking photographs. Some sports teams unconnected with schools are targeting the exhausted-parent market by doing these tasks for a fee.

The coronavirus pandemic has worsened already high rates of loneliness in Japan, especially among those in their 20s and 30s. Previously, people were already becoming increasingly isolated, with more living alone and fewer interactions outside the home, and since COVID struck, social occasions like parties and travel have declined.

After almost 150 years, the age when Japanese citizens are deemed adults will drop from 20 to 18, as it is in most developed nations. Young people will have more rights as well as responsibilities, but will still have to wait until they turn 20 to drink, smoke, and gamble.

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Fatal accidents caused by drivers aged 75 or over, of which there were hundreds in 2020, are in the spotlight. Many are surrendering their drivers’ licenses, testing will become stricter, and new cars are required to have automatic braking. However, a major challenge is that rural areas lack other transportation options.

The pandemic has caused many, especially young people and women, to consider escaping cramped, overpriced, and overworked lifestyles in greater Tokyo and moving to rural areas. The government supports this trend, which it hopes will help close Japan’s urban-rural population and income divide.

Two death row inmates are suing the Japanese government over same-day notifications of executions. Retaining capital punishment makes Japan, like the US, an outlier among developed nations, and the practice of not informing prisoners until the day of their hanging has been a particular target of criticism.

More schools in Japan are letting female students choose either uniforms with a skirt or with pants, while proposals for unisex uniforms are also being considered. Increased options are seen as having practical benefits, as well as accommodating non-gender-conforming students or those with body image issues.

In two cases, in 2017 and 2019, an engineer and a salesperson at top automaker Toyota took their own lives due to on-the-job pressure including so-called “power harassment” by superiors. The company’s failure to rein in abusive bosses points to wider issues with Japan’s workplace culture.