#japan

Brent crude fell $4.86 to $98.68 and U.S. crude dropped more than 4% to $91.83 after reports of progress toward a U.S.-Iran deal. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 2.9% to 65,158.19, its first close above 65,000.

Supertanker Idemitsu Maru, carrying 2 million barrels of Saudi crude, is set to arrive in Nagoya on May 25 — the first successful Strait of Hormuz passage since Iran's war began February 28, 2026. Japan's Middle East crude imports had collapsed 67.2% year-over-year in April as the strait was blocked.

LY Corp and Bain Capital sweetened their bid for Japanese price-comparison and restaurant-review platform Kakaku (2371.T) to ¥3,232 per share, valuing the company at approximately $4 billion and topping EQT's competing offer of ¥3,000 by 7.7%. Kakaku shares rose to ¥3,450 on the news. LY cited AI's rise as making Kakaku's data and platforms of extremely high strategic value. EQT's tender, backed by major shareholders Digital Garage and KDDI (38.1% combined), remains live.

Toyota Motor (7203.T) posted a 49% drop in fourth-quarter profit for the fiscal year ended March 2026, as U.S. tariffs inflicted severe damage on earnings despite a 1.89% year-on-year revenue increase. The result underscores the structural exposure of Japan's automakers to U.S. trade policy, with the broader sector expecting earnings downgrades as Honda and Nissan report in coming weeks.

The Bank of Japan kept the overnight call-rate target at around 0.75% in a 6-3 vote and lifted its FY2026 core CPI view to 2.5%-3.0%. The April outlook said an oil shock tied to the Middle East would slow growth in 2026 even as inflation risks skew upward.

Japan's enterprise AI market is moving past pilots and into scaled deployment. On April 24, 2026, Anthropic said NEC will deploy Claude to about 30,000 employees worldwide, become its first Japan-based global partner, and jointly build industry-specific products for finance, manufacturing, and government.

Microsoft announced a $10 billion Japan investment on April 3, 2026 spanning AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, and workforce training. The plan combines in-country GPU access, public-private security partnerships, and AI skilling for more than one million engineers and developers by 2030.

Skeleton Crew Studio is reportedly preparing legal action after much of the crowdfunding money for Shibuya Scramble Stories failed to arrive. The developer says it received only about half of the 55 million yen raised through Ubgoe.

Automaton West reports that Shibuya Scramble Stories raised 55 million yen, about $340 thousand USD, but developer Jiro Ishii’s team says it still has not received more than half of the money from platform operator Ubgoe. The dispute has turned one successful campaign into a warning about payout custody and developer liability.

This r/Games industry story is based on VGC’s March 30, 2026 report on KONAMI’s compensation changes in Japan. New graduate starting pay will rise to ¥310,000 a month, while existing employees also receive a ¥5,000 monthly base-pay increase.

OpenAI Japan on March 17, 2026 introduced the Japan Teen Safety Blueprint as a regional framework for teen use of generative AI. It combines risk-based age estimation, tighter under-18 protections, parental controls, and well-being-focused product design into one policy package.

AUTOMATON reports Japan's METI has opened IP360 startup support to individuals and unincorporated indie teams, offering up to 10 million yen at a 50% subsidy rate for new IP development, localization, and promotion aimed at overseas rollout.