In the year in which Misao Okawa was born in Osaka, Queen Victoria was still on the British throne.

A future where our elderly have faithful robot servants to look after them might be closer than we think, with the Govt offering researchers new cash to push the concept forward.

An increase in the number of giant squid being caught along the Sea of Japan coast is leading fisherman to fear it may be some kind of omen.

Exhausted, bloodied and burned by the Indonesian sun, five Japanese divers are recovering after being pulled from the waters off Bali.

Tokyo has elected a new governor despite a "sex strike" held by a group of women in protest against men who voted for him.

Due to their illegal status, casinos in Japan have traditionally been small, seedy, backroom-style places found in the same neighbourhoods as hostess bars or massage parlours.

A majority of voters want NZ to keep out of any conflict that could flare up in the East China Sea.

Washington and Tokyo have been drawn into an unexpected diplomatic spat over the annual slaughter of dolphins in Taiji.

Australia will be monitoring Japan's whale hunt from the air instead of the sea in a decision both the Greens and whaling protesters have called a broken election promise.

Leaders from Japan and 10 Southeast Asian countries on Saturday pledged to co-operate in ensuring freedom of navigation.

Fine sediment clay within the Japan Trench plate boundary megathrust fault, was a key factor in triggering the devastating Fukushima tsunami in March 2011, according to a new study involving Otago University researchers.

A man who lost his wife when the Canterbury Television building collapsed in the February 2011 earthquake is adding his voice to calls for the unkempt site to be tidied.

Territorial squabbles over uninhabited islands should not be one of the reasons that people are allowed to kill each other.

South Korean and Japanese flights through China's new maritime air defence zone added to the international defiance of rules Beijing says it has imposed in East China Sea but that neighbours and the US have vowed to ignore.

A volcanic eruption has raised an island in the seas to the far south of Tokyo, the Japanese coast guard and earthquake experts said.

Japan's decision to drastically scale back its target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions could hurt efforts to craft a global deal to fight climate change, delegates at UN talks said.

Japan is preparing to send as many as 1,000 troops to the storm-ravaged Philippines, and naval vessels and aircraft in what could be Tokyo's biggest postwar military deployment.

At a Let's Zep concert in Japan, Ian D. Robinson finds this Plant is live and kicking.

S Korean president Park Geun Hye said this week she is willing to hold a summit with N Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but she rejects any meeting with Japanese PM Shinzo Abe until Japan apologises for wrongdoings during its 35-year occupation of Korea.

A Christchurch couple has returned from a trip to Japan to visit the family of a student they hosted who was killed in the February 2011 earthquake.

Forget all that creaking and groaning of stressed metal as the pressure of millions of tonnes of water comes to bear. That's pure Hollywood. It's actually dead quiet.

A powerful and shallow earthquake has struck off Japan's east coast, triggering a series of small tsunamis and prompting evacuations at the Fukushima nuclear site.

Britain has struck an agreement to build a new nuclear power plant - the first such deal in the European Union since the disaster at Fukushima prompted a major rethink of the energy source's merits.