2025 is winding down, making this the perfect time to look back and see what kind of year it was for Japan. Keep reading for my list of twelve trends from Japan in 2025 that I saw this year!
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What Kind of Year did Japan Have? 12 Japan Trends for 2025!
2025 was a roller-coaster of a year for Japan, as the country scrambled to counter Donald Trump’s ever-shifting tariff policies, balance political drama with its neighbors, manage record levels of “inbound” tourism, and navigate a rapidly shifting economy — all while trying to protect the traditional culture that’s at the core of the country’s identity. Here are some Japan-related trends I was able to observe in 2025!
A Bull Market in… Bears?
Japan suffered a record number of bear attacks in 2025, resulting in thirteen deaths and more than 220 injuries. As human areas expand and natural habitats shrink, bears are increasingly pushed into contact with people as they search for food, turning what was once a rare encounter into a growing public concern.
Japan Got its First Female Prime Minister
Japan finally got its first female PM in the form of Sanae Takaichi. She’s a chip off the old Shinzo Abe block, being pro-business and supportive of Japan’s special relationship with the US. Takaichi favors revising Japan’s 1947 constitution, which specifically forbids Japan from maintaining a military. But this makes Japan’s Self-Defense Forces technically illegal, something Japan’s right-wing politicians want to update.
2025 was Japan’s Year of Reacting to Donald Trump
Love him or hate him, Donald Trump is always in the news. The disastrous “Liberation Day” tariffs caused everyone’s stonks to take a dive, although things recovered when it became apparent the situation wouldn’t be as bad as thought. Poor Japanese politicians and company employees were running around all year, trying to manage their relationship with the US as best they could.
Japan Trends for 2025: Anime Continued to Rise
As I wrote earlier this month, anime had an amazing year, giving us 256 new series across all four anime seasons. That’s a mind-blowing 1400 hours of new animation, which would take you nearly 2 months to watch without sleeping. There were lots of breakout hits and anticipated continuing seasons of popular series, and anime continued to represent Japan’s pop culture around the world.
Japan’s Stock Market Recovered its 1989 Level
Despite the new tariffs on its products, Japan’s economy was generally strong in 2025, growing slowly with a tight unemployment rate of just 2.65%. The government raised interest rates several times, essentially betting that its economy was strong enough to withstand higher rates. Incredibly, Japan’s 10-year government bond yield crossed 2% this year, something not seen in decades.
And Japan’s stock market was on fire. Imagine investing $10,000 in the stock market and having that money worth the same amount, 30 years later (not counting dividends). That’s what happened this year, as the Nikkei average recovered the 40,000 level, which was the high right before Japan’s bubble burst back in the early 1990s.
Weaponizing Tourism and Pandas
Our modern world is a strange one. Despite the fact that almost every advanced chip in whatever device you’re reading this on comes from Taiwan — a wonderful country that has worked hard to establish itself as a prosperous democratic nation — politicians are required to pretend the country doesn’t exist.
But Japan and Taiwan are extremely close, thanks to Japan’s comparatively benevolent management of the island from 1895 to 1945. When Prime Minister Takaichi stated that Japan would come to Taiwan’s defense if China attacked, the Chinese government responded by advising tourists to avoid going to Japan, causing thousands of cancellations. As a result, the price of hotels in Kyoto has plummeted to levels that are downright reasonable again.
Japan is also losing its pandas, too, although this isn’t directly related to the current Taiwan row. When Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao are returned to China in January, Japan will have no pandas for the first time since 1972.
Japan Got Closer to South Korea
While Japan and China are having some issues, it was nice to see the relationship between Japan and South Korea improve after a few problematic years. This means I get lots of fun KPOP acts performing on Japanese TV at the big Kouhaku Red-and-White Song Battle show at the end of the year and can find lots of awesome Korean snacks and spicy noodles in Japanese supermarkets.
Let’s look at more Japan trends in 2025!
Productivity Fails to Rise in Japan
Although Japanese salarymen are famous for working long hours — although they work less than people in the U.S., Israel or Mexico — they don’t seem to get that much done. The 2024 OECD ranking for hourly productivity came out recently, and Japan ranks 28th out of 38 member nations, between Portugal and New Zealand. Unlike in the US, where steps are taken to improve the amount of useful work each employee can do, Japanese companies seem to be okay with lower levels of productivity. Oh well, maybe next year!
Japan Trends in 2025: Will Japan’s Population Fall Further in the Year of the Fire Horse?
Every January, adults who have turned twenty celebrate Coming-of-Age Day, when they officially become productive members of society. Just like clockwork, we get media reports about how much lower this year’s crop of newly minted adults is compared to past years. Japan’s population is 123 million, 5 million off its peak from 2010.
There’s something else to consider. One of Japan’s most famous superstitions is 飛縁魔 (Hinoeuma), or the “Year of the Fire Horse,” a belief that girls born in the Year of the Horse during the fire cycle (which happens every 12 years) will grow up to be strong-willed, rebellious, and bring misfortune to their families or husbands. The belief is so strong that Japanese families will often avoid having children during this year. This is what happened during the last Fire Horse year, in 1966: so many couples avoided having kids that it warped Japanese demographics visibly.
The question is, will Japan still cling to this superstition, and crash Japan’s birth rate even further? Or has the country become “modern” enough to put that kind of silliness behind it?
Anxiety About Immigration in Japan?
Every country is struggling with questions of immigration in 2025, and Japan is no different. When the minority Sanseito (“Japan First”) party picked up several seats in Japan’s Parliament, a discussion began about what policies Japan should adopt when it came to foreign workers. This discussion is being driven by a (comparative) rise in the number of foreign workers in Japan, anxiety by Japanese about how this will affect wages, and. In the end, Japan needs foreign workers for its economy to move forward, and we all know that will win out in the end.
Can AI Save Japan?
So, Japan has a falling population with super-low productivity. Maybe AI can save it? While 52% of Japanese report using generative AI to streamline some of their work — I even installed ChatGPT on the new machine used by our Luddite product buyer, Tomo, and showed him how to have discussions about Japanese literature with the chatbot — it remains to be seen how much AI will help Japan.
One thing’s for sure: Japan’s most popular image board Pixiv sure has been overrun by AI-generated images of anime girls showing their panties and a whole lot more. What do you think of that? (Image source is here.)
Thanks for reading this blog post exploring twelve trends in Japan I noticed during 2025. Do you have any questions or feedback? I’d be happy to reply in the comments. Thanks, and yoi otoshi o (“have a happy new year”) for 2026!
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