The third of February is Setsubun which celebrates the Japanese new year.

BBC: Clive Stuart-Smith column

The yen has depreciated about 20 percent since the new Japanese government took office at the end of last year.

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Still, the upbeat domestic sales figures for the first month of the new business year are likely to fan optimism that Japanese car makers will continue to regain sales momentum after the disruptions caused by last year's Asian natural disasters, which also included flooding in Thailand.

WSJ: Japanese Auto Sales Climb 92%

Exactly a year ago this column considered the reform prospects under new Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Meanwhile, Hikari has put money into at least four Japanese Internet companies that have already created new billionaires, following market listings this year.

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Only 106, 000 cars among the 1.5 million new vehicles the Japanese carmaker sold in the U.S. last year were bought by drivers 25 and under, says J.

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For his work, Masuoka says, he was awarded a few hundred dollars from Toshiba and only after a Japanese newspaper gave his new type of memory an award of invention of the year in 1988.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Meanwhile, there has been a sharp decline in the Japanese yen, which has dipped almost 20% against the US dollar since November last year, triggered by an aggressive monetary policy stance by the new Japanese government.

BBC: South Korea economic growth hits two-year high

Japanese stocks have been marked up heavily this year after the Bank of Japan announced a new aggressive monetary policy to get the country out of its near two-decade stagnation.

NPR: Japan's Nikkei Outperforms To Reach 5-Year High

Koshikijima no Toshidon, which occurs every New Year's Eve on Shimo-Koshiki Island in the southwestern part of the Japanese Archipelago, is one such ''raiho''-''shin, '' or visiting deity.

UNESCO: Culture

For more on what has really happened to the Japanese economy in the last two decades, here is an article I wrote for the New York Times Sunday Review last year.

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Arch-rival Samsung has its own LTE ambitions and recently introduced an Android-based LTE phone with U.S. carrier MetroPCS. But Park says LTE will drive sales for LG this year and next through its continuing Verizon partnership and new deals to supply equipment to South Korean and Japanese carriers who are starting their own LTE deployments.

FORBES: LG Targets One Million Tablets, 30 Million Smartphones In Comeback