January 10 – Eight students are injured in a hammer attack inside the Tama campus ofHosei University inMachida, Tokyo. A 22-year old South Korean national is arrested.[2]
January 13 – A magnitude 6.6 earthquake hitsMiyazaki Prefecture, injuring three people.[3]
January 22 – One person is killed while two others are injured in a knife attack outsideNagano Station.[4]
January 27 – Koichi Minato and Shuji Kanoh resign as the respective president and chair ofFuji Television amid criticism over the network's handling of a sexual abuse scandal involving television personalityMasahiro Nakai.[5]
January 28 – Asinkhole appears in a road intersection inYashio, Saitama, swallowing up a truck being driven by an elderly man whose body is recovered on May 2.[6]
February 3 – Former MPTamotsu Shiiki is sentenced to a five-year suspended prison sentence for raping an underage girl at a karaoke parlor inTokyo in August 2024.[8]
February 17 – TheTaliban conducts a diplomatic visit to Japan for the first time since taking power in Afghanistan in 2021.[9]
February 21 – The Cabinet approves a bill to allow bears spotted in urban areas to be shot at hunters' discretion following an increase in encounters and attacks on humans.[11]
March 27 – Former MPMegumi Hirose is sentenced to a suspended 2.5 year prison term for defrauding 3.5 million yen ($23,000) in public funds by claiming salary expenses for a secretary who did no work.[29]
March 31 –Gyudon chainSukiya imposes a one-week nationwide closure of its stores for cleanup after revelations of pest contamination in its food items.[30]
Shinji Aoyama resigns as executive vice president ofHonda following "an allegation of inappropriate conduct".[34]
April 8 – ActressRyōko Hirosue is arrested on suspicion of assaulting and injuring a nurse at a hospital inShimada after being transported there following a vehicular crash on theShin-Tōmei Expressway inKakegawa the previous night.[35][36]
Seven children are injured in a car-ramming attack inOsaka. The driver is arrested.[42]
TheImperial Household Agency announces the dismissal of one of its employees for stealing 3.6 million yen while working as a palace attendant from 2023 to 2025.[43]
May 7 – Two people are injured in a knife attack atTōdaimae Station inTokyo. The assailant is arrested.[44]
May 8 – Five teachers are injured in an assault by two men inside an elementary school inTachikawa, Tokyo.[45]
May 21 – Agriculture ministerTaku Etō resigns amid criticism over saying that he "never had to buy rice" and receives it from supporters instead amid high prices for the staple.[48]
June 24 – AUS Marine is convicted and sentenced to seven years' imprisonment by the Naha District Court for sexually assaulting a woman inYomitan,Okinawa Prefecture in 2024.[60]
June 27 – Serial killerTakahiro Shiraishi, who was dubbed the "Twitter killer" for luring and murdering people inZama, Kanagawa in 2017, becomes the first person to be executed by the Japanese state since 2022.[62]
July 3 –Akira Otani becomes the first person from Japan to win in the UK-basedDagger Awards for her novel "The Night of Baba Yaga", which wins the best translated crime novel category.[64]
July 6 – Two people are killed in a knife attack at a bar inHamamatsu. A suspect is arrested.[65]
July 7 – The Institute for International Business Communication nullifies the results of 803 applicants who took theTest of English for International Communication exam in Japan from 2023 to 2025 due to cheating.[66]
Taiwanese companyTiSPACE fails to complete Japan’s first foreign rocket launch after its VP01 rocket falls shortly after liftoff fromHokkaido Spaceport.[68]
Newspaper companyYomiuri Shimbun sues the US-based AI firmPerplexity for its alleged "free riding" of 120,000 articles from February to June 2025.[84]
August 9 –Ministop begins suspending sales ofonigiri and other food items in up to 1,600 stores nationwide following reports of employees tampering with expiry dates.[85]
August 12 – Three people are reported dead following heavy rainstorms inKyushu.[86]
August 13 – A ship carrying gravel collides with a yacht off the coast ofTsukumi,Ōita Prefecture, killing one person.[87]
August 14 – A climber is killed in a bear attack onMount Rausu in Hokkaido.[88]
October 5 – A passenger train with 149 passengers bound forShibuya Station collides with an out-of-service train nearKajigaya Station inKawasaki, Kanagawa on theDen-en-toshi Line, causing the latter to derail. No injuries are reported, but services on parts of the line are suspended for 25 hours, affecting about 650,000 passengers.[113]
A magnitude 6.8 earthquake hits off the coast ofIwate Prefecture, triggering a tsunami measuring up to 20 cm (7.9 in) high.[127]
14 November – China issues a travel advisory against its citizens going to Japan in response to comments by prime minister Takaichi expressing support for Japanese military intervention in a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.[128]
^"津波警報受け避難中の車が崖下に転落 運転していた58歳女性が死亡 三重・熊野市" [A 58-year-old woman driving a car falls off a cliff during evacuation after receiving a tsunami warning in Kumano City, Mie Prefecture, and dies].Abema Times (in Japanese). Livedoor. July 30, 2025. RetrievedJuly 30, 2025.
Media related to2025 in Japan at Wikimedia Commons
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