A Japanese airline has launched a special flight service that allows passengers to fly with their dogs in the main cabin.

The old Japanese-style squat toilets that many foreigners find difficult to use are still commonly found around Japan.

Young Australian complained of a sore leg. Doctors said it was a hip issue. Days later she was dead.

Heartbreaking footage shows a mother dolphin trying desperately to save her calf from Japanese hunters who planned to sell the animals to aquariums.

US President Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin discuss coordinating on ISIS and Syria, Kremlin says.

A lion has bitten two keepers as they bathed him in an enclosure in Japan.

Trade Minister Todd McClay is starting to look at options for TPP but opponents say it is time for a major shift in thinking.

New Zealand will join Japan, Australia and Singapore in exploring the survival of the TPP without the United States.

A Japanese fortune teller brainwashed a client into prostitution and lived off her earnings.

New Zealand Police have helped a grieving Japanese family to visit the Te Urewera site where their relative died in a fire nine years

Conservation group Sea Shepherd have photographed a Japanese whaling ship with a dead whale in protected waters.

The baying of young males on the wind, and the distant, delighted squeals of young girls on the pull, told me the New Year was imminent

China's growth is slowing, but its cities still battle over tall towers and speed records.

A Japanese man engaged in an epic sulk and refused to talk to his wife for 20 years after she upset him despite still living together.

The head of Japan's largest advertising agency has said he will resign following the "death by overwork" of a young employee who put in hundreds of hours in overtime.

Toshiba Corp. plunged by the most on record as the once heralded US nuclear renaissance turns into a nightmare for the Japanese company.

Shinzo Abe's historic visit to Pearl Harbour with Obama punctuates the Obama's multi-year effort to prod Japan and its neighbours to decrease tensions.

Real-time voice translation between Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean will be tested in Tokyo taxis.

An attractive companion will send you text messages throughout the day to ask how you are, and welcome you home with a kind word in the evenings.

Worlds with the mass of Neptune are the most likely planet to form in the icy outer realms of planetary systems, scientists have found in a pioneering new study co-authored by Kiwi researchers.

If you've been to Tokyo, you know the garbage collection system is no joke. Now there's an app to help foreigners understand it.

Sony has quietly dispatched a rival game to Pokemon Go with a popular mobile game called Fate/Grand Order.

Competition in Japan's online shopping market is intensifying.

Linda Lombardi savours oodles of noodles at museums devoted to Japanese obsession.

New Zealand students are performing below the international average when it comes to maths, a new study shows.

WATCH: If you've ever dreamed of combining a heart-racing roller coaster ride with a relaxing soak in a hot spring, Japan's latest theme park idea could be right up your alley.

A Japanese amusement park billed it as not only a unique game-changing tourist attraction for Japan, but "undeniably a world-first".

The time inspection officers take to process foreign visitors at the desks at the Japanese airports was cut by 30 per cent to 40 per cent.

Scientists say it's not beyond the realms of possibility that New Zealand could have a sophisticated earthquake early warning (EEW) system - alerting people seconds before a big disaster hits.

Thanks to this research, there has never been a better excuse to eat ice cream for breakfast.