Pouring sake from a wine bottle and drinking it in a wine glass. Enjoying sake with anime characters. These are some of the unconventional drinking styles being suggested by sake breweries and retailers to attract overseas customers and young people. Now that washoku traditional Japanese cuisine has been registered as a UNESCO intangible cultural property, there is an opportunity for sake to heighten its profile overseas.

Flipping through any travel guide about Japan you will learn that Japan is a country where tipping is non-existent. Leaving your change on the table at a restaurant may result in the waiter chasing you down to give it back. But in Japan there actually is a system of tipping that exists but is tangled in a mysterious system of formality that no one really seems sure of.  In an interview with Yahoo! Japan, Nobuko Akashi of the Japan Manners & Protocol Association attempts to unravel this system so we can all know when and where it’s appropriate to tip in Japan.

Japanese women are in demand as never before. "Women have the greatest potential," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe recently told media, "and allowing them to demonstrate their full abilities is the core of our growth strategy." He must be pleased by the recent news flow. Even Japan's conservative financial companies are taking women executives more seriously.