There are two phone numbers to remember in a situation like this, but one is much more important.

Our Japanese-language reporter P.K. Sanjun is an adventurous guy with a wide range of interests, and if you’re out and about in Japan, you might run into him at a Pokémon tournament, nuikatsu gathering, or just seeing how far away from downtown Tokyo a person can bicycle in eight hours. However, he’s currently on break from field assignments, because he’s in the hospital recovering from a heart attack.

Dedicated correspondent that he is, though, P.K. still feels the urge to write while he’s recuperating. For the record, this isn’t something we asked him to do, but he wants to share the story of what happened, so we’ll turn things over to him now.

Seriously, I’m as surprised about this as anybody, but I had a heart attack.

I’m writing this on the morning of Tuesday, May 19, and I had the heart attack on Sunday morning. So yeah, it’s only been two days since it happened. “Should you be working right now?” is probably something a lot of you are thinking, but physically, I’m honestly feeling fine right now. Really, I’m getting antsy just sitting here in the hospital with so much time on my hands, so I figured I’d fire up my laptop and write something.

Getting down to business, on Sunday I woke up at about 7 in the morning and felt a weird pain in my chest. I can’t really remember if it was the pain that woke me up, or if I noticed it after I was awake, but either way, when I made a move to get out of bed, my chest was hurting. At first, it felt like my whole upper body had tensed itself up.

It was strange to feel that sensation over such a large area, and I remember thinking “Geez, is this what getting older feels like?” But after I got up and went to the bathroom, the pain went away…or so I thought. It was only gone for a second, but then it came back so much worse, and I started gushing cold sweat.

In a rush, I grabbed my phone and did a search for “chest pain sickness,” and the results said “There is a possibility that you are experiencing myocardial infarction [a heart attack] or aortic dissection” and “Please call 119 [the nationwide number for emergency medical services in Japan] immediately.” That’s when I realized “Uh oh…this might be something serious.”

But even still, I didn’t call 119 right away. I didn’t want to jam up the line calling for an ambulance if my condition turned out to be nothing major, and I can’t deny that at this point I was still thinking “No, I couldn’t be having a heart attack. Not me.”

So instead I dialed 7119, which is the Tokyo Fire Department’s Emergency Consultation number, thinking that I should ask them whether or not I really needed an ambulance. To be honest, my memory starts getting a little fuzzy from here, but I remember the operator asking me “Do you think you can make it to the hospital by yourself?”, but by that time the pain had gotten exponentially worse. “No, I don’t think I can,” I told her, and she said she’d send an ambulance, telling me to stay in my apartment, so I sat in my entryway and waited.

Actually, a fire engine arrived even before the ambulance, and they administered first aid to me. The ambulance rolled up right after that, though, and it seems like they did some other on-site treatment too. While that was going on, they kept asking me “Can you tell us your name and date of birth?” “Damn, quit asking the same thing over and over!” I thought, but now I can understand that they were doing that to make sure I was still able to think straight and communicate. Once they were done with the first aid, they loaded me into the ambulance and rushed me to the hospital and into the emergency room, with my consciousness starting to fade. The doctors diagnosed me as having had a heart attack, and I had to have surgery, but it’s crazy how a few hours later I felt so much better.

P.K. says he has more to say about his experience, but we’re going to let the guy get some rest now. As mentioned in his report, the number for emergency medical services in Japan, and emergency fire department response too, is 119, and the number in Tokyo for “emergency consultation” is 7119. We should also add, however, that we don’t necessarily recommend copying P.K.’s hesitancy to call for an ambulance when experiencing searing chest pains, since it really could be a matter of life and death.

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Combination of factors is dimming the shine of one of the stars of Japanese restaurant culture.

Izakaya are a unique part of Japanese food culture. Their closest analogy would be pubs, since izakaya serve a wide variety of alcoholic drinks and food meant to be paired with such beverages. Their menus are much more extensive than just basic bar munchies, though, with things such as yakitori chicken skewers, grilled onigiri rice balls, and plates of sliced sashimi being long-standing favorites. As a matter of fact, unlike with a pub, the expectation is that izakaya customers will always order some kind of food too, though there’s still a greater focus on drinks than at a regular restaurant.

However, izakaya are in a tough spot in Japan these days, and since the start of the year have been going bankrupt at a faster rate than at any time in nearly the past 40 years, according to a new study.

Data from Tokyo Shoko Research, a commerce and industry research organization, shows that between January and April of 2026, 88 izakaya have declared bankruptcy with debts of 10 million yen (US$65,000) or more. That’s 54.3 percent more than for the same period last year, and the highest number Tokyo Shoko Research has observed for the first quarter of the year since it began tracking such statistics in 1989, significantly more than the previous high of 59 in 2024.

So what’s causing the closures? A mix of factors, but one of the biggest is rising prices. Japan is experiencing by far its worst inflation in a generation, and costs for not just ingredients, but also for utilities, are hitting izakaya hard. Many are responding by reducing portion sizes, reworking recipes to make use of cheaper ingredients, or raising the prices they charge their own customers to make up the increased expenses. There are limits to how much of those tactics diners will put up with, though.

Facing rising costs for their own necessities such as rent, groceries, transportation, and home utilities, many consumers are becoming much more sensitive to the value they’re getting with the reduced amount of money they have left over for discretionary spending, and izakaya are looking a lot less appealing to many people than they used to. In particular, Tokyo Shoko Research points out that izakaya offers that include a full meal’s worth of food plus unlimited drinks for a period of time (usually 90 or 120 minutes), traditionally some of their most attractive deals, have gotten more expensive and now often cost more than 5,000 yen, a price point that many diners are balking at.

The study also highlights recent changes in dining/drinking patterns in Japan. Traditionally, izakaya have gotten much of their business from groups of coworkers coming in together, either as part of a pre-planned event such as a welcome party for new employees or an end-of-the-year celebration, or as spontaneous excursions to grab a drink after clocking out, sometimes after doing overtime and being too hungry/thirsty to wait until they can commute back home. However, those gatherings largely went away during the pandemic, and while many izakaya weathered that economic storm due to financial support from the government, the custom of coworkers going to drink together hasn’t rebounded to its previous level.

Part of that is due to more people working from home, something that was extremely rare in Japan prior to the pandemic. Many jobs now offer at least some telecommuting flexibility,  meaning fewer people in the office, and so fewer people to go grab a cold Asahi with on the way to the station at the end of the day. There’s also been a gradual increase in desire for a more even work/life balance in Japanese society. Even many in management positions are now more aware that constant overtime chips away at morale and the company’s ability to retain workers, and have come to accept that many employees feel that, when overtime does have to be done, having to go drinking with your boss afterward doesn’t make up for it, but actually makes the situation even worse.

So when you combine higher prices, freedom from the obligation to go to izakaya with coworkers, and the possibility of already being at home when you clock out from work, having a drink in the comfort of your living room, and one you purchased at the supermarket for half of what an izakaya would have charged you, becomes a very compelling alternative.

▼ Especially when stores in Japan have not just beer, but a wide variety of canned cocktails too.

Ah, but what about inbound foreign tourists? Japanese cuisine is one of the top reasons travelers from overseas come to Japan, and with the yen remaining so weak, many visitors still feel like dining out here is a bargain compared to their home countries. Tokyo Shoko Research, though, says that izakaya aren’t drawing in foreign tourists to the same extent that other restaurants in Japan are.

The report doesn’t offer any theories as to why this is, but it likely has something to do with international foodies’ passion for Japanese food being strongly focused on specific dishes, such as ramen, sushi, or curry rice. While many izakaya do have tasty food, their broader menu makes them a little less likely to hook a traveler’s attention than, for instance, a restaurant whose storefront is plastered with signage featuring photo after photo of steaming hot bowls of ramen. Ordering at izakaya is also a little trickier to navigate. There aren’t any vending machines at the entrance to purchase a meal ticket from, and it can be hard for newbies to estimate how many plates of food to order for a filling spread. There’s also the whole otoshi custom of unasked-for appetizers that you still have to pay for, but aren’t told the price of in advance, which can be an unpleasant bit of culinary culture shock.

Izakaya, like all pubs, are about more than just base sustenance. In a sense, they’re a form of entertainment, and much like certain genres of music or movies fluctuate in popularity, there’s a chance that izakaya will bounce back. For now, though, the situation isn’t very rosy, so if you see one that looks intriguing, they’d probably really appreciate it if you came in for a drink and a bite to eat.

Source: Tokyo Shoko Research via Yahoo! Japan News via Jin
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The adorable bottle is only part of what makes this a fun and convenient way to protect yourself from UV rays.

The calendar says we’re still in spring, but the thermometer shows that summer is almost here. With temperatures in Tokyo hitting 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit) last weekend, we’re closing in on the time of year when some form of sun protection is a must for many when going outside, which in turn means the time of year when many find themselves thinking “I really should put on some sunblock…but it’s a hassle, so maybe I’ll just skip it…”

Thankfully, Japan’s Biore brand of sunblock is here to give us a little extra nudge towards taking the time to apply protection with its Kids Stamp UV.

Yes, the name does reveal that this was created first and foremost with kids in mind, but the appeal of cats knows no age limits, and unlike, say, children’s medicine, Kids Stamp UV is just as effective for adults as it is for children, with an SPF50 PA+++ rating.

Right away, the cute feline-eared design for the bottle catches the cat-loving eye, and things get even better when you flip open the cap.

Instead of a single opening, Kids Stamp UV has five, arranged in the pattern of a cat’s paw pads. The bottle is also designed so that instead of squeezing out a stream of liquid, you use it like a stamp, tapping it against your skin to apply the sunblock directly…

…and when you do, you get a series of paw prints, like a little kitty has been walking across your arm, leg, or cheek.

You do still need to rub the lotion in, but while there’s some initial stickiness, it quickly fades away and the Kids Stamp UV sunblock dries nicely, leaving no significant greasiness behind.

If you have kids, a big advantage of Kids Stamp UV is how it makes the process of applying sunblock fun. Our Japanese-language reporter Ninoude Punico tried it out with her 6-year-old, and it immediately turned the regular session of “Sit still! You need this!” into a much more relaxed and happy “OK, let’s get our cat prints on before we go out.”

As a matter of fact, with how easy the sunblock is to apply because of the stamp-style top, Punico’s kid has even started using it without Mom’s help.

▼ The instructions, complete with adorable illustrations, say to apply one “stamp” every 10 centimeters (3.9 inches) or so.

Of course, Biore’s cute and clever design is just as fun and convenient for adult cat fans as it is for kids, and with Japan being the land of kawaii culture, you’re not going to get side-eyed by other adults for using it yourself either.

Being jointly developed by Biore parent company Kao and Aeon Retail, Kids Stamp UV is available at Aeon, Welcia, and Tsuruha supermarkets/drugstores, and we’ll be keeping some handy for mountain- hiking, Gundam-viewing, and other outdoor summer excursions.

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