Twentythree

Japan’s foreign resident population surges past four million for the first time in history.

Though it’s been 2026 for a while now, the Japanese business/administrative year starts in spring, so this is the time of year when many organizations start putting out their annual reports and statistical analyses. That includes the Japanese government’s Immigration Services Agency, which in a report to the prime minister’s cabinet says that Japan has reached a new record high in its number of foreign residents.

For the first time in history, Japan’s foreign population numbers over 4 million people, and it didn’t just barely rise past that figure, either. As of the end of 2025, there were approximately 4.13 million foreign nationals living in Japan, with roughly 370,000 of them added over the course of last year. The foreign resident demographic has grown by more than a million members in just the past three years, and is 50 percent larger than it was a mere five years ago.

● Foreign-resident population in Japan (by end of year)
2021: 2.76 million
2022: 3.07 million
2023: 3.41 million
2024: 3.76 million
2025: 4.13 million

Proportionally, the rate of growth has actually slowed slightly, but the numerical increase in foreign residents continues to grow.

● Increase in foreign resident population
2022: 310,000 people (11.2 percent increase in total foreign population)
2023: 340,000 people (11.1 percent increase in total foreign population)
2022: 350,000 people (10.3 percent increase in total foreign population)
2022: 370,000 people (9.8 percent increase in total foreign population)

It’s still too early to confidently say exactly how large an impact the surge in foreign residents is going to have on Japanese society. All else equal, an increase in foreign nationals coinciding with a decrease in the ethnically Japanese population would point to a likely acceleration of the internationalization of the country’s culture. However, the above statistics reflect foreigners in Japan on anything longer than the standard three-month tourist visa, and aren’t limited to permanent, or even particularly long-term, foreign residents. Included in the figures are foreign residents who’re attending school or otherwise participating in educational programs in Japan. Thanks to the yen’s recent weakness versus foreign currencies, financing such ventures using home country savings has become a much more viable option in recent years. The exchange rate becomes less attractive, though, for foreign nationals working in Japan and being paid in devalued yen, who could perhaps be earning much higher salaries elsewhere, which could end up making living in Japan less attractive as they progress farther into their careers.

Shifting back to the present, though, the statistics show that people in Japan are now much more likely to have neighbors, classmates, or coworkers from other parts of the world, and brings Japan that much farther into the global community.

Source: Sankei Shimbun via Itai News
Top image: Pakutaso
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Shhh…don’t let anyone know we told you about this secret cheap eat destination loved by locals.

It’s often said that a good breakfast can be hard to find outside of hotels in Tokyo, but hungry early risers who live in the city often have some hidden gems up their sleeves. One of the tricks to finding an early-morning meal is to locate a good 24-hour establishment, and while that might mean a nearby convenience store to overseas tourists, locals often prefer to stop by a casual eatery called Komachi Shokudo.

Written as “食堂” in Japanese, shokudo combines the kanji for “food” (食) and “hall” (堂), but rather than having connotations of a posh food hall in Western terms, the vibe is more like a casual diner or cafeteria, where staple Japanese meals are served in a no-fuss setting. It’s like eating at a home away from home, where you can enjoy classic comfort food that tastes like it was made by a Japanese mother, and that’s exactly what Komachi Shokudo prides itself on, describing its meals as “ofukuro no aji” or “Taste of mother’s cooking“.

With dishes stored in refrigerated displays, you’re free to choose whatever’s available, similar to how you might pluck food out of the fridge at home. Simply grab a tray when you enter the store and pop whatever dishes you like onto it, essentially creating your own set meal.

If you keep to Japan’s traditional “rice, soup and a side” mindset, you can easily create a well-balanced meal, and for heartier appetites you can add even more sides to your tray.

▼ This is a good guideline for a fantastic breakfast at a Komachi Shokudo.

With a standard menu of over 60 items, plus additional seasonal menu items throughout the year, Komachi says there are a million possible combinations for a set meal at their shokudos, so you could eat at your local branch every day and never get bored.

▼ While you’ll need to heat up the refrigerated meals yourself with the onsite microwaves, staff serve up hot rice and soup when you pay at the register.

Sometimes, you’ll even find cheap all-you-can-eat breakfast deals, like this recent one-hour offer for 990 yen (US$6.28) at the Okachimachi branch, which proved to be so popular it ended before its scheduled end-date of 30 April this year.

They do have other all-you-can-eat-and drink deals, though, like this 90-minute offer for 3,840 yen, which is available for parties of two or more.

▼ Children under five eat for free and children under 12 are half-price (non-alcoholic beverages for the younguns, of course).

Even without an all-you-can-eat deal, you’ll get great value for money as the dishes are all very reasonably priced.

With only six stores in Japan, all in Tokyo, Komachi Shokudo is a secret gem of an eatery that you’ll want to keep an eye out for. There are other types of shokudos all around Japan, though, so next time you’re looking for a breakfast option during your Tokyo stay and can’t face another egg sando in the morning, look for a shokudo, which will introduce you to classic Japanese meals with a home-cooked flair.

Restaurant information
Okachimachi Komachi Shokudo / 御徒町小町食堂
Address: Tokyo-to, Taito-ku, Taito 3-15-1
東京都台東区台東3-15-1
Open 24 hours (breakfast buffet is from 6:00-10:00 a.m. until 30 April. May close earlier)
Irregular holidays
Website

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New version of Vocaloid software is arriving with a new Miku design.

As a virtual idol, Hatsune Miku doesn’t age. However, that doesn’t mean she looks the same as she did when she made her debut 19 years ago, or even the same as she did last month, as the Vocaloid’s visuals have just been redesigned.

Miku’s makeover comes in preparation for the upcoming launch of Hatsune Miku V6, the newest version of her associated Vocaloid voicebank software package. Illustrator LAM was tapped for the official artwork and package portrait, and deftly hits both the targets for a visual redesign, in that it’s still instantly recognizable as being the same character, but with enough subtle changes to give a fresh and distinct feeling to the new version.

▼ The V6 Miku design

Compared to the preceding Hatsune Miku V4X design (there was no V5 version, in case you were wondering), the V6 Miku has thicker, more voluminous twintails in a bolder color that hang in unified cascades. Her hair accessories have gone from square to angularly heart-shaped, and her shirt is back to the gray color not seen since her V2 design in 2007, but now with a contrasting white collar. Her sleeves/arm covers now flare at the wrists and have a more prominent control panel motif, and the aqua accent color in her skirt has been moved from the hem to alternating pleats, with a similarly shaded belt for extra contrast. The virtual idol’s footwear has also switched from sneakers to heeled boots. Arguably the biggest change, though, is Miku’s eyes, which in the new design have sharper lines, longer eyelashes, larger pupils, and a greater sense of depth, giving her a more pensively yearning air.

▼ V4X Miku

▼ And while we’re taking a trip down memory lane, here’s the V4X predecessor, V3 Miku, who debuted in 2013.

▼ The V6 Miku design sheet

Of course, there’s more to Hatsune Miku V6 than just a new look, as developer Crypton Future Media promising better sound too, with new parameters and optimization for even more natural-sounding vocal performances. The company is especially proud of the improvements to Miku’s English singing capabilities, which should help continue to expand her overseas fanbase.

▼ A demonstration of the V6 Miku singing American songwriter Crusher’s “Like a Shooting Star”

▼ How the performance looks through the Vocaloid user interface

Hatsune Miku V6 releases on April 14, with pre-orders open now through the Sonicwire online store here.

Source: PR Times, Sonicwire
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times, Sonicwire (1, 2)
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Viral tweet claims have shoppers wondering if they’re paying premium-filling prices for almost-plain onigiri.

Consumers in Japan have gotten a lot more cautious with their convenience store rice ball purchases these days. Once a go-to impulse buy for when you’re feeling too hungry to wait for your next full meal but not ready to have that meal just yet, convenience store rice balls, or onigiri, as they’re called in Japanese, have rapidly risen in price, now costing double, and sometimes triple, what they did just a few years ago.

So in this climate, where it’s no longer a given that convenience store rice balls will be a good value for money, the Japanese Internet sighed in disappointment when it saw the tweet from Twitter user Shingeki no Gourmet below showing 7-Eleven Japan’s onigiri filled with sujiko (salted salmon roe). Well, it was supposed to be filled with sujiko, but the photos showed hardly any filling at all.

「手巻おにぎり 熟成すじこ醤油漬け（246円）」
セブンイレブンの定番商品。
出汁醤油に漬け込んで熟成させた、旨味とコクのあるすじこを中具にした、パリッとした海苔を巻いて食べるコンビニおにぎりです。
残念ながら、具材のすじこがほとんど入っていませんでした。 pic.twitter.com/QstIPhWKdv

— 進撃のグルメ＠コンビニ新商品とチェーン店の新メニュー＠SHINGEKI (@rekishichosadan) March 5, 2026

Making the situation more suspicious is that this wouldn’t be the first time for 7-Eleven to be selling something that’s not as generous a portion as it seems. There was the whole “paper tiger sandwich” thing from a few years back, plus the deceptive coloring on the cups of its banana and strawberry milk beverages.

At 246 yen (US$1.60) each, 7-Eleven’s sujiko onigiri aren’t exactly cheap to begin with, and that price would become really egregious for an almost entirely plain onigiri. So to get a better handle on what’s going on, we decided to conduct our own investigation, and purchased 10 sujiko onigiri to see if 7-Eleven really is skimping on their fillings so badly.

To get a broader sample size, we didn’t source them all from the same store, either. Instead, we hit up four different 7-Eleven branches in our vicinity, getting two or three at each of them. Once we had them assembled at SoraNews24 HQ, instead of popping them into our mouths like we usually would, we opened each rice ball up to take a look inside and see if it contained what we felt was a reasonable amount of salmon roe.

Here’s what we found:

● Rice ball #1: a reasonable amount of salmon roe

● Rice ball #2: a reasonable amount of salmon roe

● Rice ball #3: a reasonable amount of salmon roe

● Rice ball #4: a smaller amount of salmon roe

● Rice ball #5: an extra-large amount of salmon roe

● Rice ball #6: a reasonable amount of salmon roe

● Rice ball #7: a reasonable amount of salmon roe

● Rice ball #8: a reasonable amount of salmon roe

● Rice ball #9: an extra-large amount of salmon roe

● Rice ball #10: a smaller amount of salmon roe

So out of 10 onigiri, the majority of them, six, contained what we feel is an acceptably large amount of salmon roe, and certainly more than Shingeki no Gourmet got in the rice ball shown in the tweet. And with an even split among our remaining four rice balls of two with a smaller-than-expected amount of sujiko and two with extra-large portions, things balanced out for us overall.

That said, it is unusual for there to be this much variance with a store-brand offering from one of Japan’s major convenience store chains, given their reputation for excellent and consistent quality control. Maybe the sticky texture of the salted salmon roe makes it difficult to dole out in exactly even portions while the rice balls are being made, but regardless of the reason, it looks like there’s a bit of luck involved in just how much filling you’ll get with 7-Eleven’s sujiko onigiri.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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That’s not supposed to be there…

If you happened to be passing through Osaka’s Tsurunocho neighborhood on Wednesday morning and saw the large steel column shown in the video below, you might think the city was adding a new support pillar to the elevated road overhead. Hmmm…but it needs to be a little longer to reach the roadway, doesn’t it?

However, the issue isn’t that the cylinder is too short. It’s actually the exact length it’s supposed to be. No, the problem is that it’s in the wrong place, and the place it’s supposed to be is underground.

In fact, the cylinder, which is actually a pipe, initially was underground, but sometime during the early morning hours mysteriously rose up out of the ground to a height of roughly 13 meters (42.7 feet) above the surface of the street. It didn’t come up from a preexisting hole, either, as close-ups show that it burst through the pavement, surreally making the asphalt look like torn construction paper in the process.

The pipe is part of a public waterworks construction project. The city is in the process of installing an auxiliary pipe to collect excess rainwater, so as to prevent flooding if the capacity of existing drainage that channels into the sewer system is exceeded during severe storms. The pipe that burst up through the street is meant to connect the main and auxiliary pipes.

With the connecting pipe having a total length of 27 meters (or, as cultured civil engineers would measure it, 1.4 Unicorn Gundams),  if it continued rising it could have struck the underside of the road above, and so traffic was shut down as fire crews filled the pipe with water, causing it to sink back into the depths where it belonged. If the time-lapse video of the process shown above was too quick for your tastes, there’s also a six-and-a-half-hour version for hard-core pipe construction enthusiasts.

The reason why the pipe rose up is still unknown, and the Osaka municipal government is conducting an investigation into the matter. In the meantime, despite Osaka being very close to the city of Kyoto and Nintendo’s headquarters, please refrain from jumping Super Mario-style into any giant pipes you may come across in the city.

Source: TBS News Dig, Livedoor News/MBS via Jin
Top image ©SoraNews24
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Players should get power-ups each time they pass one, too.

Last autumn saw the 40th Anniversary of everyone’s favorite plumber who was transported into a world of mushrooms and turtles. Yes, Super Mario Bros. was a game so ahead of its time that it took Hollywood decades to figure out how to make a decent movie adaptation of it.

And over the years, Mario has dabbled in just about every recreational pursuit known to man, from go-karting and golf to tennis and officiating boxing matches. You can count baseball among that long list of hobbies, and now Mario will be taking those talents to the real world at several Nippon Professional Baseball games this year.

Nintendo will be sponsoring games held at the home fields belonging to each of the 12 teams in NPB from 29 April to 21 June. As with other sports stadium takeovers by pop culture franchises, you can expect ballparks to be all decked out in Super Mario and Nintendo decorations.

The centerpiece of these decorations are official question-block bases that will be used in each of the special games. In doing so, this will be the first time in history that all 12 teams will use originally designed bases in official games.

The players won’t get to hog all the fun either. At each game, a lottery will be held for parents and children in attendance to be able to run the question-block bases at a special event after the games.

Also, each game will see Mario himself throw the ceremonial first pitch, and you can expect lots of limited-edition merchandise to be sold in the stadiums as well, the details of which will be unveiled at a later date.

▼ The Chiba Lotte Marines even have caps with Ms on them. It’s a match made in heaven.

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Here are the dates and locations for each special game, so clear your calendar when the Mario Bros. crew roll into your local stadium. 

29 April
Chiba Lotte Marines at ZOZO Marine Stadium

6 May
Yokohama DeNA BayStars at Yokohama Stadium

9 May
Hanshin Tigers at Koshien Stadium

15 May
Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles at Rakuten Mobile Saikyo Park Miyagi

31 May
Saitama Seibu Lions at Belluna Dome

7 June
Hiroshima Toyo Carp at Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium Hiroshima

14 June
Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters at Escon Field Hokkaido

20 June
Orix Buffaloes at Kyocera Dome Osaka

21 June
Tokyo Yakult Swallows at Meiji Jingu Baseball Stadium

8 August
Yomiuri Giants at Tokyo Dome

11 August
Chunichi Dragons at Vantelin Dome Nagoya

16 August
Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks at Mizuho PayPay Dome Fukuoka

Between this and the limited-edition Yoshi Bobbleheads coming to Dodger Stadium, all this talk about Nintendo and baseball reminds me of the time I kidnapped my emotionally withdrawn brother to prevent him from being institutionalized, only to learn he was amazing at baseball. We traveled across the country, hustling at pickup baseball games in order to attend the Baseball Armageddon tournament, but our hopes were dashed by the snobby Lucas Barton when he stole my brother’s home run just past the fence. That kid had one hell of a glove, let me tell you.

Source, images: Nintendo
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There’s no question that this is a case where the celebrity endorser really is a fan of the product.

There’s often quite a bit of suspension of disbelief that goes into celebrity endorsements. It’s hard to imagine, for example, Tommy Lee Jones whipping out a SoftBank cell phone when he needs to call his agent, or Leonardo DiCaprio hopping into a for-poor-people Suzuki to drive to his next A-lister party in Beverly Hills, but the Hollywood stars have indeed appeared in ads for those products in Japan.

However, Heinz Japan appears to have done its homework in approaching their newest pitchman, or perhaps we should say their newest pitch-mon, as they’re getting the nod of approval from none other than Pikachu.

ピカチュウ…？
近日中の発表をお楽しみに！ pic.twitter.com/b9poOFfrzp

— ハインツ (@HeinzJapan) March 2, 2026

When it comes to things to put in his tummy, the face of the Pokémon franchise has a long-established love of ketchup. He even made his character song debut singing from atop a giant ketchup bottle. So with Heinz being the world’s biggest ketchup maker, it’s a natural fit for them to collaborate with the world’s cutest ketchup fan, and in the process create the world’s cutest ketchup bottles.

On sale as of this month is a series of Pikachu-label Heinz bottles, oriented not only so that the contents will flow to the bottom, but that you’ll be able to admire Pikachu during your meal. There are three different designs, each evoking a different mood, and with ketchup being a staple condiment in many households, picking up the complete set feels like a pretty guilt-free plan for fans, especially at the price of 390 yen (US$2.50) per bottle.

For those wanting even more Pikachu cuteness in their home (and really, who doesn’t?), Heinz Japan will also be giving away special Pikachu Cheek Plates. The illustration on these Pikachu-shaped melamine resin dishes, measuring 20 centimeters (7.9 inches) across, have black circles for Pikachu’s ordinarily rosy cheeks, so that you can add the circles of color yourself with squirts of ketchup.

450 plates will be given away, with winners selected randomly from Twitter users who retweet the upcoming present campaign tweet from the official Heinz Japan account sometime between March 16 and 22. And if you’re looking for something special to use your Pikachu ketchup on, might we suggest a DIY Pikachu burger?

Related: Heinz Japan official Twitter account
Source, images: PR Times
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