Reflecting on 2025 in Japan: A Year that Raises Both Hopes and Concerns

Editorial

16:00 JST, December 21, 2025

The World Expo was held in Osaka for the first time in 55 years. Japan also saw its first female prime minister take office. While these events offered hope for the country’s future, there were also incidents that threatened people’s lives, such as bear attacks and a road collapse.

The opening of the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo topped the list of this year’s top 10 domestic news events selected by Yomiuri Shimbun readers. The Expo was held from April to October and saw 158 countries and regions participate. The visitor count came to 25.57 million people.

The Expo appears to have been a valuable opportunity for people to experience future technologies and diverse cultures firsthand. Many people gathered together and held vibrant exchanges, and these results must be put to good use in the future.

The third-ranked news topic was Sanae Takaichi’s victory in the Liberal Democratic Party presidential election and her inauguration as the nation’s first female prime minister. This can be described as a watershed moment in politics. It is hoped that Takaichi’s premiership and the Expo serve as turning points that help break through Japan’s sense of stagnation.

From abroad, there came uplifting news concerning the achievements of Japanese people. Shimon Sakaguchi, a specially appointed professor at the University of Osaka, and Susumu Kitagawa, a distinguished professor at Kyoto University, won Nobel prizes, a story that placed eighth in this year’s ranking. Their remarkable accomplishments, which were achieved despite adversity and because they stayed true to their convictions, are laudable.

In Major League Baseball’s World Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers, a team that includes three Japanese players, clinched their first back-to-back championship; this ranked fifth in this year’s news. Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a complete game and made two consecutive appearances in the series, showcasing his outstanding pitching performance. Such accomplishments made him deserving of the Most Valuable Player title that he was awarded for the series.

Shohei Ohtani, who returned as a two-way player, was named MVP in the National League, winning the third consecutive and fourth overall MVP award of his MLB career.

Sixth in the news rankings was the death of Shigeo Nagashima, who served as the lifetime honorary manager of the Yomiuri Giants. During Japan’s rapid economic growth period in the Showa era (1926-1989), his spirited play captivated many people. May the soul of “Mr. Pro Baseball” rest in peace.

There have also been many incidents that have made people realize how the times and society are changing.

In second place was a spate of bear attacks on people. There were a record 230 bear attack victims in 21 prefectures from April to November. Many of the incidents took place in residential areas, largely because areas, called satoyama, that are meant to separate human settlements from bear habitats have deteriorated due to population decline.

Threats to people’s lives are growing, even in out-of-sight places. Ranking seventh was an incident in Yashio, Saitama Prefecture, in which a truck fell into a collapsed prefectural road and the driver died. The cave-in is believed to have been caused by a broken sewer pipe. There is no time to waste in taking measures against aging infrastructure.

A symbol of persistent inflation seems to be soaring rice prices, a topic that ranked fourth. The government’s rice policy has fallen into disarray. The distribution of rice vouchers is not sufficient, even as a stopgap measure. Efforts must be made to strengthen the rice production base from a long-term perspective.

 (From The Yomiuri Shimbun, Dec. 21, 2025)