The American VP Kamila Harris meets with tech leaders in Japan to boost the manufacture of semi-conductors in the country ,while a new drone is being tested to deliver items to remote parts in Japan. And in the port city of Uwajima, Ehime prefecture, Kaminari serves a hearty lunch of kona-mono : Okonomiyake pancake AND a large bowl of udon.

Russia's FSB interrogate the Japanese consul in Vladivostok accusing the diplomat of engaging in espionage after obtaining classified information in exchange for money. All this as the state funeral for former PM Shinzo Abe takes place at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan Hall. It was originally built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics to showcase the martial arts. The hall was based on the 'Yumedono', or Hall of Dreams, a similar octagonal structure at Horyuji Temple in Nara, played host to Muhammad Ali and the Beatles, and still serves as a religious venue for annual remembrance.

Tamawashi won this Autumn's Grand Sumo Tournament at Ryogoku over the weekend fending off No.3 Takayasu to become the oldest winner an Emperor's Cup while almost 38 years of age. And the day before, Genki Kawamura won 'Best Director' at the 70th San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain for his directorial debut Hyakka (A Hundred Flowers) staring Masaki Suda, Mieko Harada, Masami Nagasawa, and Masatoshi Nagase,

A team of Japanese researchers are fitting cockroaches with solar cells to be sent on search and rescue missions, while never-seen-before silent footage shot by Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department of the Beatles visiting Japan in 1966 has finally released albeit in censored form.

PM Kishida announces plans to remove the limit is on daily arrivals to Japan, while also removing the need for short-term travel visa as well as individual travel. And while Police unveil a new service whereby members of the public can share image and video of an incident on-the-fly, the skateboarding photography magazine Kawa views the world through the lens of possibility, valuing places that other people simply. The magazine has just launched its fourth issue and also has a photo exhibition at Studio 35 Minutes in Araiyakushimae which runs until October 1st.

A man self-immolates near the offices of the Japanese PM protesting the upcoming state funeral for Shinzo Abe. In Ibaraki, chestnuts are being picked as Autumn draws in. And with food in mind, the difference between Otoushi, tsukidashi, and sakizuke dishes disguise the start of every meal in a Japanese restaurant. We look at their differences and the way each connect with older forms of dining.

Typhoon Nanmadol moves on leaving a dangerous turtle free to cause havoc of its own. PM Kishida heads to the U.N. General Assembly while the Digital Minister Kono Taro is tipped to be the next PM as Kida's cabinet slumps even further among a certain portion of the electorate. Escape from al of this would seem the best option. But autumn is beckoning so now may be the last time to visit one of several Citizen Forests (Tomin-no-mori) outside Tokyo, leaving the city behind for several days to experience the wild in mild weather.

Typhoon Nanmadol batters the country and cripples travel throughout the region and wider country by rail and by air. Meanwhile, the National Film Archive of Japan celebrates 90 years of Toho Studios with the second part of a two-part season of films dedicated to the studio. From Sotoji Kimura's “Ongaku kigeki: horoyoi Jinsei” (1933) to Shiro Moritani's “Aka zu-kin chan, kiwotsukete” or Take Care Little Red Riding Hood (1970) suggests how the Toho Studio might of responded in later years to the changing cultural landscape, picturing the country’s mood, its sentiment, climate, even weather, expressing a cultural, generational and environmental change.

Typhoon No.14 also known as ‘Nanmadol’ approaching the southwestern region of Kyushu made landfall yesterday, causing havoc with trains and planes throughout the region but also across Japan. This year also marks the 30th anniversary of Kyushu-native Seicho Matsumoto (1909-1992), a mystery and suspense novelist well-known for his true crime dramatizations turned into extended television dramas from the 1960s onward. Upon his death, his Tokyo residence has transplanted to Kokura in Kyushu where he grew up and installed within the Matsumoto Seicho Memorial Museum.

JR Kyushu unveiled its new sightseeing train the Futatsuboshi 4047 which will run along the Nagasaki and Omiya lines in Kyushu. The service will start next week on the 23rd and also coincide with the opening of the West Kyushu Shinkansen Line. Meanwhile, artist Kazuna Taguchi also brings her exhibition “A Quiet Sun” at Ginza Maison Hermès Le Forum to a close, bringing life to dead images while scooping up references to other works, namely the Mnemosyne Atlas by the German historian and cultural theorist Aby Warburg. In the Renzo Piano designed Hermes gallery, her small photographic works ask a lingering question: What kind of images are produced by the setting sun?

As the Nikkei stock index plunged by almost 3 percent, and the yen fell to 145 against the U.S dollar, the wrestlers Mayu Shidochi and Nonoka Ozaki both claimed titles at the World Wrestling Championships in Belgrade. Less active but no less important, putting the world to rights over food and drink is the central reason for being at Stand Botefuri, a standing bar tachinomiya found in Tokyo's Jimbocho.

Japanese government mulls removing the entry cap of 50,000 foreign tourists per day. And Wakayama Prefecture harvests 150,000 tonnes of mandarin oranges known for ripening fast in Tanabe City. Jiyu Gakuen Myonichikan in Ikebukuro designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and Arata Endo in 1921 is also only one of two examples of Wright's work in Japan to completely retain its original appearance.

A portable tea ceremony takes place on Mt. Fuji marking the end of this summer's climbing season. In Mie prefecture, Maruyama's terraced rice fields hold 'Inekari-no-tsudoi', their annual get together for the first time in three years. Meanwhile, the filmmaker Masao Adachi plans to make a film centered around Tetsuya Yamagami, the man accused of killing the ex-Prime minister Shinzo Abe and release in time for Abe's state funeral on September 27th. Like Adachi's 1969 documentary AKA Serial Killer, this latest film will lean heavily on landscape: rural, urban, visual and political.

Daily infections in Tokyo fall below 10,000 while Emperor Naruhito expresses his intention to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96 last Thursday. Prime Minister Kishida pays his condolences at the UK Embassy to Japan, while Katsuhiro Otomo expresses his love of writer Kido Okamoto (1872-1939) popular for his subtle style of introducing the 'other' into the background of Japanese literature and whose father worked as an interpreter for the Embassy's British Legation in Tokyo during the late 1800s.

As Pro-Russia Hacker group Killnet attacks Japanese infrastructure and the number of permitted visitors into the Japan on any given day increased from 20,000 to 50,000, Onsen Confidential, an art festival with a difference, does its bit to boost the cooperative power of like-mindedness at home and abroad by kicking off the event with a one-day conference in the coastal resort of Atami, Shizuoka.

An office building collapses in Yamaguchi prefecture, trapping several people and injuring others. In Tokyo, the cost of the state funeral for the late Shinzo Abe is said to have swelled by six times its original figure. All of this as the price of fish has also gone up though this is due to rising inflation and the cost of gas and electricity. The chain restaurant Kura Sushi announced it would raise its cheapest dishes by 5 yen while reduce some of its more expensive lines by 55 yen in a move to manage costs and still retain loyal customers. All this happens as some fish are coming back into season following the relentless summer — from engawa to kohada, and amaebi to ikura.

Russia withdraws from the reciprocal visa-free program for Japanese residents to the Northern Territories as a former Dentsu exec receives yet another warrant for his arrest following further claims of Olympic related bribery. Meanwhile, we briefly look at the writer Sanjugo Naoki (1891-1927) whose name lends the Naoki Prize its name and whose tomb is now found at Choshu-ji Temple, in Yokohama not far from Negishi Bay.

The 'Kitano Goryoe', a ceremony happens at the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Kyoto for the first time in 550 years. And in Shiga prefecture, Burume-no-Oka Brewery holds hop-picking sessions for its locally brewed beer. In Fukushima's Sukagawa Archive Center is holding yearly special-effects workshops with the hope of finding the next generation of SFX artists like the legendary effects artist Eiji Tsuburaya (1901-1970), the "Father of Tokusatsu" who co-created Godzilla, was responsible for Ultraman and whose hometown is also Sukagawa City.

Typhoon Hinnamnor approaches Kyushu as Russia parades its military on the Northern Territories, islands near Hokkaido which Russia claims it owns calling them the Southern Kurils. And flooding in the Aomori city of Hirosaki has also devastated apple orchards there. But change is not limited to rural Japan. In Shibuya, the club Sound Museum Vision closed its doors this past weekend and Contact between Shibuya and Ebisu will also close later this month, all because of a project to redevelopment land in and around Shibuya Station, marking not only the changing face of Shibuya but also becoming the changing face of music culture in Tokyo.

With 2,000 pears stolen from a field in Shimotsuma, Ibaraki, and Japanese food company Meiji attacked by a ransomware virus in Singapore, the contemporary artist Taro Shinoda unexpectedly passed away at the age of 58. His installations, Kare-sansui, Abstraction of Confusion and Lunar Reflections, offered reflections of a series of phenomena from an artist concerned with now humans coexist with the natural world. Roppongi Art Night 2022 also considers who these two things might come together for three days later this month.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries, hope its new robot named Nyokkey will help compensate for labor shortages in the face of Japan's declining population. Japanese marine biologists managed to reach a record depth of 9,801 metres while studying the ocean floor. And in Iwate, the independent sake brewery Kiku-zakari, founded in 1894 and rebuilt following the 2011 earthquake, was named with a renewed sense of purpose in mind, determined to press ahead no matter what happens. Its two best brands of Junmai-shu sake, “Taxi Driver” and “Ya-kyoku”, look to Scorsese and folk songs for further inspiration.

Typhoon Hinnamnor, the 11th typhoon this year, heads towards Okinawa with a band of low pressure stretching as far as Tohoku and Aomori in the north of Japan bringing the promise of heavy rain and possible flooding to the region. Meanwhile, we briefly look at the writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) whose name lends the Akutagawa Prize its name and whose tomb is now found alongside his two sons at Jigan-ji Temple, a small residential cemetery in Sugamo, Tokyo.

As the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates and the Japanese currency falls to 138JPY against the US dollar in response, a police box in the town closest to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant reopens for the first time in more than 11 years. Futaba town is also welcoming back residents despite still being declared a difficult-to-return zone. In Tokyo, cinematographer Seizo Sengen is remembered in a season a films being screened at Cinema Vera in Shibuya, having worked on classics like "Sailor Suit and Machine Gun" by Shinji Somai and “Satusjin Yugi” (The Murder Game) also by Tōru Murakawa, featuring the late and great Yutaka Matsuda.

Seven nuclear power reactors in Japan are potentially being restarted as new, next-generation power plants are also being considered to quell concerns over energy production in the country. Yet, bigger challenges exist in how best to manage waste from old power plants without the whole exercise becoming too costly. In Tokyo, there is no shortage of fiction. Both Junko Takase and Misumi Kubo, attended a press conference and prize-giving ceremony for this year's Akutagawa Prize and Naoki Prize for Japanese literature, Takase's short novel "Oishii Gohan ga Tabe-rare-masu-yo-ni” (To become able to eat delicious food) received the Akutagawa Prize and Kubo's short story collection "Yoru ni Hoshi o Hanatsu" (Releasing stars into the night sky) receiving the Naoki Prize.

In Yamanashi prefecture, Shine Muscat are being stolen from vineyards. So farmers there are looking towards drone technology and thermal imaging to thwart the perpetrator. And in Tokyo, photographer Osamu Kanemura pictures an urban landscape spinning out of control with his latest exhibition "Sold Out Artist" at Cave-Ayumi Gallery. His uses video and sound not to reproduce a single image of the city but to trick the mind into thinking the city he sees is somewhere we might recognize, even remember. A playful proposition which, to paraphrase Ralf Hütter of Kraftwerk, is all about friendship and excitement — "we play with images [and] images play with us”.