On December 29, 2025, while the rest of Japan was wrapped in the calm atmosphere of the year’s end, a tragic accident occurred on Mount Fuji, the nation’s most iconic symbol.
On December 15, 2025, a major policy shift that will likely be etched into the history of Japan’s energy policy was decided at the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) headquarters in Nagatacho, Tokyo.
Japan now stands at a critical crossroads in its relationship with wild animals. In 2025, the number of people injured or killed by bears has reached an all-time high since statistics began, an unprecedented and abnormal situation.
On November 4, 2025, Japan’s Ministry of the Environment announced that the number of bear sightings nationwide in the first half of the fiscal year (April–September) had reached 20,792 cases (preliminary figure).
In the autumn of 2025, Japan was gripped by an unprecedented sense of fear. Human injuries caused by wild bears surged at the fastest rate since records began, shocking Japanese society.
On October 30, 2025, Japan’s energy policy reached a major turning point. Leading national dailies reported in unison that the government had decided to push through legal amendments to rein in the rampant development of large-scale solar power plants (“mega-solar”).
Mount Fuji is not merely Japan’s highest mountain. Revered since ancient times and a wellspring of artistic inspiration, it was inscribed on UNESCO’s World Cultural Heritage list in 2013 as “Fujisan, sacred place and source of artistic inspiration.” Drawn by its universal value and easy access from the Tokyo metropolitan area, visitors from Japan and abroad have flocked there in great numbers.
On February 7, 2025 (Japan time), the final act of a drama watched around the world came to a close at the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California. Judge John Holcomb sentenced Ippei Mizuhara (40), former interpreter for Los Angeles Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, to 4 years and 9 months in prison, followed by 3 years of supervised release, for bank fraud and filing a false tax return.
On February 7, 2025 (local time), Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and U.S. President Donald Trump held their first in-person summit meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C.
It appears that realism—a view based on the assumption that states aim to maximize their own national interests in an international community where there is no world government—has never been as useful as it is when looking at the COVID-19 responses of each country.