What Japan is telling
the market now

Sep 20, 2026

Waymo Gives 500,000 Rides a Week in America. In Tokyo, It Will Start With About 100 Cars — and a Taxi Company Founded Nearly 100 Years Ago

Waymo plans driverless paid rides in Tokyo in 2027 with about 100 cars. Instead of competing with drivers as it does in…

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Sep 19, 2026

The Gym With 1,962 Locations and No Trainers: How chocoZAP Quietly Beat Anytime Fitness in Japan — and Just Expanded to Malaysia

In under four years, Japan's unstaffed chocoZAP gym chain grew to more locations than Anytime Fitness has built in 15 years —…

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Sep 18, 2026

Kikkoman Just Raised Soy Sauce Prices in Japan for the First Time in 3.5 Years — So Why Does 78% of Its Revenue Come From Outside Japan?

Kikkoman raised prices on 291 products in Japan for the first time since 2023, part of a record September price-hike wave. In…

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Sep 17, 2026

Roomba Filed for Bankruptcy in America. Then Its Japan Team Grabbed 23% of the Market Anyway.

iRobot filed for Chapter 11 in December 2025 and was sold to a Chinese manufacturer. Three months later, its Japan subsidiary's self-designed…

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Sep 16, 2026

Starbucks Took Almost 29 Years to Open 2,000 Cafés in Japan. This Month It Put Its Logo on a Vending Machine — the Channel That Cost Coca-Cola’s Japanese Bottler an ¥88 Billion Write-Down.

Starbucks and Suntory are rolling out Japan's first Starbucks-only vending machines just as the channel shrinks, prices hit ¥200 a bottle and…

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Sep 13, 2026

Apple Raised the iPhone Pro’s US Price 9% This Year. In Japan It Went Up 22% — in a Country Where One in Two New Phones Is an iPhone.

The iPhone 18 Pro starts at ¥219,800 in Japan, 22% more than last year's Pro; in the US the same step was…

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Sep 12, 2026

Japan’s Biggest Sushi Chain Sells Tuna for ¥180 a Plate at Home. Next Month It Opens in Times Square at $5 — With No Tipping.

In October, Sushiro, Japan's top-selling conveyor-belt sushi chain, opens its first US restaurant in a former McDonald's at Eighth Avenue and 42nd…

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Sep 11, 2026

Japan Has a Law That Turns an Ordinary Tuesday Into a National Holiday. It Fires Next Week for the First Time in 11 Years — and Domestic Bookings Are Up 137%.

On Tuesday 22 September 2026, Japan shuts down for a national holiday that commemorates nothing. It exists only because the days on…

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Sep 10, 2026

America Turned Hydration Into a $1.5 Billion Business. Japan Invented the Non-Athlete Version in 1980 — and Only Reached Costco This Summer.

Otsuka has owned an American bottling company since 1991 and waited thirty-two years to use it for the drink it is actually…

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