Weather and Money, Again

Welcome to the second edition of Rough Edges Japan! The main trends of the past weeks remain unchanged - weather and money. Of course, we can't ignore the Osaka Expo!

Summer Continues to Punish

The weather continues its unrelenting assault as temperatures maintain danger zones, especially in Fukuoka and Kumamoto, and the rain in Kyushu has claimed several casualties and swept away others who are missing. A river dining platform in Kyoto was likely taken by the increased flow of water stemming from recent heavy rain.

In this heat, it's important to stay hydrated, bring shade with you where possible, and do everything you can to prevent heat stroke! Keep an eye on the alerts and please schedule outings and activities with breaks from the heat in mind.

Nikkei Finds Footing Despite Difficulties

The Nikkei index saw a 7-day rally come to an end on Thursday just a couple of days after hitting an all time high.

On the other side of the proverbial coin, public companies in Japan posted an average of 11.7% lower profits for this year's Q1 (April to June) compared to last year. Housing loan balances last year increased for the 15th consecutive year to 227 trillion yen, and corporate bankruptcies in July were the highest of the year at 961 cases, citing reasons of inflation and labor costs.

For us individual consumers, the average rice price went down a whole 7 yen, the first drop in 3 weeks. Which is nice, but man, it sure doesn't feel like a whole lot with wages and inflation being what they are.

Panic at the Expo and Collaboration Frenzy

The Osaka Expo has finally broken even, but in the devastating heat of this summer, not all is going according to plan. A small city's worth of visitors were left stranded overnight by a transit power outage.

Meanwhile, the McDonald's Happy Meal Pokemon card promotion went about as well as could be expected - scalpers purchased them en masse only for the cards, discarding the attached food, and the promotion had to be canceled the same day it started. Come on, Ronald! An over 80 year old company can't repurpose the New Year lucky bag system to beat scalpers?