Japan Ranks 118th Again in Latest Global Gender Gap Report
In this week's news roundup we report on the 2025 Global Gender Gap Report and the State of the World Population report. Nintendo announces that it has sold a record 3.5 million
Switch 2
units in the first four days. A foreign owner of a Tokyo apartment building reverses his decision to raise the rent from
¥72,500 to ¥190,000
. Prominent voice actress
Megumi Hayashibara
sparks an online debate with her blog post. And Japan finish their World Cup qualifying campaign in style with a 6-0 hammering of Indonesia.
List of Contents:
Global Gender Gap Report 2025: Japan Remains at 118th Despite Some Progress
UN Report Says Financial Barriers, Not Choice, Driving Global Fertility Crisis
Switch 2 Smashes Nintendo's Record, Selling 3.5 Million Units in Four Days
Outrage After Foreign Landlord Nearly Triples Tokyo Apartment Rent
Evangelion Voice Actress Megumi Hayashibara Deletes 'Invasive Species' Comment on Blog
Japan Hammer Indonesia 6-0 in Final World Cup Qualifier
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Global Gender Gap Report 2025: Japan Remains at 118th Despite Some Progress
The World Economic Forum (WEF) released its
2025 Global Gender Gap Report
on Thursday. Japan ranked 118th among 148 countries, the same position as last year. It remains the lowest of the G7 nations. However, it finished with an overall gender parity score of 66.6%, showing a slight improvement on 2024's total of 66.3%. The Swiss-based think tank notes that Japan has increased parity in almost every subindex compared with last year. Most progress came in Economic Participation and Opportunity, where it scored 61.3%, up 4.5% from 12 months ago.
According to the WEF, this shift has been 'boosted by increased rates of women participating in the labour force (from 54.8% to 55.6%), higher representation of women in the senior officials, managers and legislators category (from 14.6% to 16.1%), as well as increased parity in estimated earned income (59.2%, up from 58.3%).' The Political Empowerment category, however, showed a regression, with the score dropping from 11.8% to 8.5%. Ministerial representation has fallen from 25% to 10%. Topping the 2025 Global Gender Gap Report was Iceland with a score of 92.6%. It has led the way for 16 consecutive years.
UN Report Says Financial Barriers, Not Choice, Driving Global Fertility Crisis
The
UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
presented its State of the World Population report on Tuesday. A total of 14,000 people from 14 countries were surveyed about their fertility intentions. Asked how many children they would like, most replied that they wanted two. However, one in five said they haven't had or won't be able to have their desired number of children. Just under 40% of respondents reported that financial barriers— such as the cost of raising children and expensive housing — had affected or would affect their ability to realize their desired family size.
'The world has begun an unprecedented decline in fertility rates,'
said
Doctor Natalia Kanem, the head of the UNFPA. She added, 'Fertility rates are falling in large part because many feel unable to create the families they want. And that is the real crisis.' Last week, the Japanese health ministry released data on the number of births — excluding foreign nationals — in Japan for 2024. With just 686,061 born, it was the first time in recorded history that the figure fell below the 700,000 mark. It was also the ninth consecutive year of decline.
Switch 2 Smashes Nintendo's Record, Selling 3.5 Million Units in Four Days
Nintendo
announced
on Wednesday that it had sold a record 3.5 million Switch 2 units worldwide in the first four days after the launch of the console. It was released on June 5. The astonishing figure surpasses the first month's sales of the original Switch (2.7 million units) and Sony's PlayStation 5 (3.4 million units). In May, Nintendo said that Switch 2 sales would reach 15 million during the current financial year which ends on March 31, 2026. Analysts, however, consider that to be a modest target set by the company.
Serkan Toto, founder of gaming industry consultancy Kantan Games, believes it will sell over 20 million units in the first year. He told
CNBC
, 'All signals prior to launch pointed to significant demand, and I believe we will see further records broken over the next weeks or months.' The coveted console is similar in design to its predecessor, though it has a bigger screen and larger controllers. In Japan, around 2.2 million people applied to the lottery system to buy it. Even before it went on sale, Nintendo started shipping Switch 2 branded 'Out of Stock' signs to retailers.
Outrage After Foreign Landlord Nearly Triples Tokyo Apartment Rent
The foreign owner of a seven-story apartment building in Tokyo's Itabashi ward this week reversed his decision to raise the rent from ¥72,500 to ¥190,000. The reason given for the approximately 2.5-times increase was rising costs. However, it has been suggested that the real reason was to force the residents out, so the vacated apartments could be used as short-term rentals for travelers. When
ANN News
contacted the owner, who is in China, he stated that he would withdraw the rent hike. He added that the elevator, which broke down in May, will be reopened soon.
Residents received a note about the substantial price increase in January. This led to several of them moving out. Those who remain still feel uneasy about the situation. Unknown people with suitcases have been seen entering the building. According to a website that provides information on private accommodations for tourists, a room in the condominium was being rented for ¥25,000 per night. When ANN News checked with Itabashi ward officials, it was confirmed that the notification required to be a private accommodation operator had not been submitted. The apartments will no longer be available as short-term rentals for travelers.
Evangelion Voice Actress Megumi Hayashibara Deletes 'Invasive Species' Comment on Blog
Prominent Japanese voice actress Megumi Hayashibara sparked an online debate earlier this week following her
blog post
on Sunday. The 58-year-old Tokyo native, who's most well known for her role as Rei Ayanami in
Neon Genesis Evangelion
, shared her concerns about Japan's cultural identity and political apathy. The blog, titled 'Indifference, Ignorance, and Not Knowing,' quickly went viral. The comments that drew the most attention regarded international students receiving subsidies and foreign tourists behaving badly. Referring to the latter, she used a metaphor of a Japanese crayfish being overwhelmed by an 'invasive species.'
'If we don't have regulations that are properly enforced, it could become dangerous,' she wrote. 'It will be like how Japanese crayfish were instantly devoured by invasive species. For instance, the Japanese rule of lining up to buy things could end up disappearing.' On Wednesday, Hayashibara deleted the line about the crayfish. 'Part of the way I expressed myself was deemed too extreme, so I removed it,' she wrote. 'I used it to illustrate the kind of person mentioned above, but it has hurt people who are not involved. I will learn. Thank you for letting me know.'
Takefusa Kubo | Image by Saolab Press
Japan Hammer Indonesia 6-0 in Final World Cup Qualifier
Japan finished their World Cup qualifying campaign in style on Tuesday with a comprehensive 6-0 victory over Patrick Kluivert's Indonesia. With top place in the group already assured, Hajime Moriyasu's side demonstrated an impressive display of attacking football. They led 3-0 at the break thanks to a brace from Daichi Kamada and one from captain Takefusa Kubo. Ryoya Morishita, Shuto Machino and substitute Mao Hosoya added three more in the second half. Moriyasu praised his players, but urged them to keep pushing themselves. 'The challenge for the players is to break past their limits and grow,' he
said
.
In boxing, Junto Nakatani became a unified bantamweight champion with a sixth-round technical knockout win over Ryosuke Nishida on Sunday. The two boxers, who went into the fight undefeated, engaged in a slugfest from the outset. Nakatani, though, started to take control in the fifth round, when Nishida's right eye began to swell. By the end of the sixth, he was unable to see incoming punches, so the ringside doctor decided to pull him out. Watching ringside was
Naoya Inoue
. Nakatani versus Inoue, expected to take place next year, will be the biggest fight in the history of Japan.
Related Posts
Japan Births Fall Below 700,000 for the First Time
Japan Attempts To Ban Outlandish Kirakira Baby Names
Number of Foreign Visitors to Japan Hits Yet Another Record High
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Japan Times
2 days ago
- Japan Times
The 'internet' hated Switch 2 — consumers bought it anyway
Online, gamers declared the Switch 2 "anti-consumer.' In reality, no one cared. With Nintendo charging $450 for its new device — and up to $80 for some games — influencers and TikTokers took to their accounts to warn it was too expensive. Across social media, others decried how new terms of service gave the Japanese firm the ability to remotely disable the latest machine if they detected unauthorized activity. Many games sold in physical packages were, they complained, glorified download codes. Anyone expecting the backlash to dent sales was disappointed. The Switch 2 is not only Nintendo's best-selling device ever, it has become the fastest-selling games console of all time with 3.5 million units snapped up in the first four days alone. Shares have hit record highs. For executives, it's the latest example of an increasingly pertinent lesson: While the internet has given consumers a voice, you must not confuse it for reality. Separating the signal of genuine consumer sentiment from the noise of the most terminally online is a challenge. Early feedback can often be useful: Sony Group Corp. changed the design of the original "boomerang' PlayStation 3 controller after online mockery; Nintendo itself should have responded quicker to complaints about broken original Switch controllers. But frequently, digital conversation is divorced from actual consumer behavior. Consider how, as smartphones grew larger during the 2010s, online users demanded smaller devices that could be easily used with one hand — something Steve Jobs had championed before his death. But when Apple finally responded with the iPhone Mini in 2020, those users simply didn't show up in large numbers and it was discontinued in 2023. Having coined the slogan "think different,' Apple is used to facing down fuss, from its removal of MacBook disk drives to abandoning the headphone jack. Nonetheless, in the noise there is sometimes signal — the firm ignored the iPhone 4 "Antennagate' issue for much too long and was forced into an embarrassing climbdown. Online communities are frequently too far in the weeds to represent the average consumer. On social media, advocates for preserving physical games are upset with the Switch 2's Game Key cards, which are essentially just a code to download the game from the internet. The move is good for software makers, who pay less for the memory cartridge, but in future years means Nintendo will have to keep those downloads available. Still, it's a niche issue: The average Switch 2 buyer, raised on Netflix and Spotify Technology SA, likely couldn't care less about physical ownership of most games. It's also increasingly hard to isolate genuine fan engagement from click-chasing rage-bait. Online revenue-sharing creates incentive for insincere actors to generate controversy that often matters little to the wider public. There was much ink spilled and calls for boycotts ahead of the launch of Warner Bros. Discovery's "Harry Potter" game Hogwarts Legacy, owing to author J.K. Rowling's views on gender and trans issues. None of that stopped it becoming one of the best-selling of all time. Meanwhile, right-leaning activists have led backlashes over Sony's The Last of Us Part II (decried for inclusive changes from the first game, including a lesbian protagonist and transgender character) and Ubisoft Entertainment's Assassin's Creed Shadows (due to its choice of a Black samurai hero) that have had little sales impact. Knowing who to ignore isn't just a tech issue. A growing theory among those on the political left posits that the movement's failure to stop the election of U.S. President Donald Trump could be due to ideological capture by overly active online voices on the fringes — leading politicians to focus on niche concerns of little interest to the majority of voters. Of course, online issues can end up being important. The backlash to faded social network Tumblr's decision to eliminate adult content preceded a decline in popularity that saw it sold for a fraction of the $1.1 billion it cost in 2013. The #MeToo movement emerged from testimonies shared over social media to become a worldwide phenomenon. And indeed, much of the success of the Switch itself comes from Nintendo's responding to gamers' complaints about its predecessor, the Wii U. But consumers often simply don't know what they want. Henry Ford may not have actually said that if he'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. But it's nonetheless true that users will say one thing when their revealed preferences show otherwise. Social media is acclaimed as the "global town square' where grand ideas are debated and exchanged. But in reality, it's often more like a crowded bar — where the loudest voice usually isn't the one you should pay attention to. Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas.
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Nikkei Asia
3 days ago
- Nikkei Asia
Nintendo Switch 2 launched in mobile-games-fixated Southeast Asia
A Mario Kart-themed installation at Singapore's Jewel Changi Airport on June 20, part of a promotional campaign that kicked off ahead of the official launch of the Switch 2 console in the city-state on June 26. (Photo by Tsubasa Suruga) TAMAYO MUTO, TSUBASA SURUGA, RAMON ROYANDOYAN, and WATARU SUZUKI TOKYO/SINGAPORE/MANILA/BEIJING -- Nintendo launched its Switch 2 console in Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines on Thursday, as the Japanese games giant builds on the device's successful debut in its largest markets earlier this month. Switch 2 became the fastest-selling game console in the company's history immediately after its launch in Japan, North America, Europe and Australia on June 5. The popularity of the device will now be put to the test in Southeast Asia, where smartphone and PC gaming have traditionally held sway and the console game market is relatively small.
Japan Times
4 days ago
- Japan Times
Studio Ghibli's majestic sensibility is drawing imitators
Hayao Miyazaki and his colleagues at Studio Ghibli craft pictures that are so delicately drawn and convincingly textured that it seems as if we should be able to step right into them. Think of the bustling bathhouse of "Spirited Away' or the bucolic Japanese countryside of "My Neighbor Totoro.' But as viewers, we are never able to actually enter these worlds of tender emotions, whimsical characters and, perhaps above all, vivid locations that set the imagination ablaze. Movies are made from flat 2D images; they remain tantalizingly out of reach. The most committed Ghibli fans can travel to Ghibli Park in Nagoya and Ghibli Museum in Tokyo for a tactile experience of their beloved animated films. But most of us are not making that globe-trotting journey. Enter video games, which allow players to explore immersive 3D environments and satisfy many fantasies: the sword-wielding savior, the slayer of fantastical beasts, the fleet-footed time traveler. The influence of Studio Ghibli — which turned 40 this month — can be seen throughout the industry, notably in recent additions to the Legend of Zelda franchise. Breath of the Wild (2017) and Tears of the Kingdom (2023) each offer pastoral experiences tinged with menace, similar to many Ghibli pictures; their cel-shaded graphics also evoke the studio's exquisite painterly style. In Tears of the Kingdom, Zelda's devoted knight Link moves between floating land masses that evoke those in "Castle in the Sky.' (Nintendo, which did not respond to a request for comment, does not appear to have openly acknowledged the influence.) Studio Ghibli characters like Satsuki in 'My Neighbor Totoro' busy themselves with distinctly video game undertakings: looking, exploring, hiding, delivering, flying. | Studio Ghibli Ni No Kuni, the fairy-tale role-playing game franchise, is the product of a long-standing collaboration with Ghibli. But beyond these Japanese mainstays, several Western game makers have put distinct spins on the dream of occupying a living, breathing Ghibli-esque world. Their games are crafted with a comparable kind of handmade intentionality, where action and quietude are given equal billing, where nature and technology collide in dazzling new configurations, and where the dinky details of domesticity command as much importance as a gigantic horizon oriented toward adventure. These designers and artists are mostly millennials, exposed in the 2000s to Ghibli's elegant and often melancholic style after the breakthrough success of "Spirited Away.' Gaze upon the perfect Ghibli-blue skies, powdery clouds and charming Totoro-like woodland creature companion of the puzzle-platformer Planet of Lana (2023). Or the unsparing stare and ferocious might of the white wolf in the action-adventure Neva (2024), a clear nod to the lupine goddess Moro in the dark fantasy epic "Princess Mononoke.' There is poetry and urgency in Planet of Lana and Neva, which successfully internalize Ghibli's sensibilities. To varyingly gruesome degrees, each is a meditation on humanity's growing estrangement from nature. It is more common for games to superficially crib from the studio's visual qualities, says Michael Leader, host of the "Ghibliotheque' podcast and a co-author of "An Unofficial Guide to the World of Studio Ghibli.' But the inclusion of edifying tea shops and ostensibly soothing labor reflects a misreading of its work, like the recent ChatGPT filter that could transform any image into a faux-Miyazaki movie still. "Ghibli has been flattened into a visual style, flattened into being cozy,' Leader says. "There's no violence. It's just everyday stuff.' The strongest examples of Ghibli-inspired games bristle with quintessentially Miyazaki-esque unease. These titles, like the open-world adventure Sable (2021), routinely star adolescent protagonists in locations on the brink — or even past the point — of environmental cataclysm. Their characters flit between states of childlike wonder and darker, more grown-up feelings. A deep sense of sadness seems to hang in the air; change is afoot as unlikely heroes venture out into imperfect worlds. A favorite movie of game makers is the Miyazaki picture that directly preceded Ghibli's formation in 1985: the stunning and strikingly prescient eco-fable "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind.' The hero of its title is not just a steely, flight-loving warrior. She is a biologist, nurturing toxic plants that grow wildly through the gullied landscape she calls home. The prescient eco-fable 'Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind,' directed by Hayao Miyazaki before the creation of Studio Ghibli, has inspired many game makers. | Studio Ghibli An image of Nausicaa, exhausted in her garden while grieving for the flora that causes harm to humans, served as an important visual reference for Gareth Damian Martin as they created the adventure game In Other Waters (2020), which also stars a biologist. It shows, they say, how Nausicaa's politics go beyond "saving the whales' to an unconditional affection for ecology. "I love how naive optimism, stubborn strength and debilitating grief are all contained within that image of Nausicaa,' says Damian Martin, noting how Nausicaa seems to embody a distinctly modern gamut of emotions. "Any study of ecology is now marked with a certain sadness because it reveals humanity's destructive influence.' The world of the climbing game Jusant (2023) is similarly filled with deftly illustrated environmental discord. Its setting is an arid, dusty landscape where water once flowed abundantly. During the ascent of a cloud-scraping massif, the game slowly imparts an eco-philosophy of crystalline, Ghibli-esque moral clarity. "We are part of the world: the animals, rocks, everything,' says Mathieu Beaudelin, the game's co-creative director. The game does not make a distinction between humans and nonhumans: There is simply the "living.' Jusant and "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind' offer inverted searches for meaning. Nausicaa plunges into a subterranean realm to find clean air and a thriving ecology; Jusant's androgynous alpinist (whose caped silhouette bears the influence of the Ashitaka from "Princess Mononoke') ascends upward. At one point in Jusant, the mountaineer ventures inside the towering massif, discovering a cavernous habitat whose twinkling bioluminescent blues and gauzy purples evoke the toxic jungle of Nausicaa's planet. In each instance, answers are uncovered by peeking above the clouds and below the soil — by moving through a landscape. Less dramatic but no less profound are the revelations of 10-year-old Chihiro as she takes the train at the end of "Spirited Away.' As the youngster looks out at the watery vista, the image occasionally cutting to ghostly figures disembarking, the viewer keenly senses her emotions. It is a feeling, says Kevin Griffith Sullivan, the creative director of Season: A Letter to the Future (2023), that arrives as you are growing out of childhood, "when you start to understand the vastness of the world.' Sullivan hoped to convey precisely this emotion throughout the bittersweet bicycle journey of teenager Estelle, who with a camera and audio recorder can preserve the sights and sounds of a lushly forested valley for future generations. Like Chihiro, Nausicaa and even 4-year-old Mei in "My Neighbor Totoro,' Estelle is a born observer. "Paying attention to things is a reward in itself,' Sullivan says, adding, "It causes the world to feel more coherent.' Ghibli movies are not devoid of action or suffering. Think of the head-severing, arm-eviscerating early sequence in "Princess Mononoke' or the bloodied, embalmed bodies in "Grave of the Fireflies.' Yet it is rare for starring characters to wield weapons, lest they actually solve anything with them. The game director Kevin Griffith Sullivan says the ending of 'Spirited Away' evokes a feeling that arrives as you are growing out of childhood, 'when you start to understand the vastness of the world.' | Studio Ghibli A pacifist and environmentalist, Miyazaki prefers that his characters exercise a more thoughtful, conscientious ethos. The approach is distilled in "My Neighbor Totoro' and "Kiki's Delivery Service,' whose characters busy themselves with distinctly video game undertakings: looking, exploring, hiding, delivering, flying. Caravan SandWitch (2024) is filled with similar activities, in an open-world game in miniature inspired by its makers' childhoods spent in Southern France, playing in the Provence countryside. The game aimed to eschew the "predatory posture' of blockbuster action-adventures, says creative director Emi Lefevre, namely a trend of titles casting you as a "white man in a big environment that you can conquer.' Instead, its protagonist, Sauge, scavenges electronic modules from the abandoned machines of a mining corporation, repurposing tools of extraction for the close-knit community she grew up in. Sauge returning to her home planet is the game's masterstroke, giving the exploratory action a wistful emotional flavor. She seems to exist in two time zones at once, simultaneously exploring a landscape decimated by invasive industry while excavating memories of a more innocent time. It is tempting to speculate what Miyazaki would make of these video games. (Studio Ghibli says its artists were not available to comment.) He is a vociferous critic of mass-produced entertainment, including, somewhat ironically, manga, animation and video games, which he has said "assault' young people. He is skeptical of what results when "make-believe experiences' are combined with "commercial interests.' Miyazaki's unorthodox working method — imagining, scripting and storyboarding large parts of a movie after it goes into full production — might explain the languid flow of Ghibli pictures, the way their meaning seems to unfurl alongside the discoveries of their characters. Unlike Disney movies, their emotional crescendos are not easily predicted; they arrive in unexpected bursts as part of what Sullivan calls an "undiluted transmission of feeling.' So perhaps Miyazaki would approve of the way the best Ghibli-inspired games encourage curiosity-led play, allowing players to uncover meaning at their own pace. Season: A Letter to the Future takes such an approach to an extreme, so unassuming that much of its core gameplay loop — taking photos and making field recordings — is essentially optional. The player can choose to mostly freewheel all the way to the game's elegiac end, stopping only occasionally to chat with inhabitants before pushing off on Estelle's bicycle again. Sullivan says he hoped to "let players generate meaning from their actions without the game deciding whether or not those actions were meaningful.' What makes Ghibli movies special, says Leader, the "Ghibliotheque' host, is that they feel as if "you're having this one-to-one meeting of minds with an actual person.' Not with a corporate committee, the results of an audience research group or artificial intelligence. The best Ghibli-inspired games feel the same: like expressions of their players' psyches. Within these fantasy realms, players move beyond mere escapism by embarking on imaginative, inspirational journeys of their own. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. This article originally appeared in The New York Times © 2025 The New York Times Company
