Free Republic

While the government hopes it can curb the falling birthrate by offering families more financial assistance, one expert says it's the lack of sex, not income, that lies at the root of the country's population problem. Kunio Kitamura, executive director of the Japan Family Planning Association Inc., an entity under the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, said the real problem is the growing number of "sexless" couples. A survey conducted last year of 936 people, aged 16 to 49, conducted by JFPA and Jichi Medical University in Tochigi Prefecture shows that 31 percent were "sexless" -- which the Japan...

Dozens of grown men from their 30s to 60s crowd around the tatami mat room in Kagetsuen, a Shizuoka Prefecture ryokan inn, and begin playing with their train sets. More than 90 percent of the inn's guests are adults who enjoy playing with toy trains. These mature train setters have not only kept the inn afloat as others around it have fallen into oblivion, they've helped it grow in a prime example of the otaku business that's now booming throughout Japan, according to AERA (7/18). "Thanks to trimming down our target market, we could stay in business," Eiji Misu, Kagetsuen's...