Archive

_2020-05-22
The enduring unpopularity of IR developments among the Japanese public, as well as the much weaker position of the Shinzo Abe government in comparison to earlier phases, means that local elections may still prove decisive as to whether or not bids will...

_2019-05-08
Sasebo Mayor Norio Tomonaga used the occasion of the launch of his fourth term on Tuesday to pledge his proactive efforts to gain an IR license at the Huis Ten Bosch theme park.

_2019-04-26
If at the beginning of this year one were to sketch out the dream scenario for IR development in Japan, the actual results of April’s Unified Local Elections would greatly resemble that picture, with pro-IR politicians and parties winning almost every...

_2019-04-25
In the wake of the elections last Sunday, the political forces within the Tomakomai City Council that support Mayor Hirofumi Iwakura and the city’s IR bid have strengthened their hand.

_2019-04-24
Hard Rock Japan’s Tomakomai office has now opened—shortly after the election of Governor Naomichi Suzuki and a conservative prefectural assembly has kept the city’s IR hopes very much alive.

_2019-04-23
Sasebo Mayor Norio Tomonaga cruised to an easy electoral win over his single opponent, gathering 78.2 percent of the vote, and thus ensuring continuity in the city’s plan to make an IR bid at the Huis Ten Bosch theme park.

_2019-04-08
The prospect that the Nihondaira plateau in the center of Shizuoka city might become host to an IR bid has been eliminated about six weeks after it wa

_2019-04-07
The Ichiro Matsui and Hirofumi Yoshimura leadership team has been retained by the voters of Osaka, though they have now switched offices—Yoshimura w

_2019-03-21
Thursday marked the official beginning of gubernatorial elections in 11 of Japan’s 47 prefectures, some of which involving local IR development as k

_2019-02-21
As anticipated, the issue of an IR bid is becoming one of the top points of contention in the Hokkaido gubernatorial race. To stress the vital  impor

_2019-01-29
Naomichi Suzuki, the 37-year-old mayor of Yubari city, has stepped forward as the ruling party’s presumptive candidate for governor of Hokkaido prefecture. With his candidacy will lay the prospects for the Tomakomai IR development project to go forward.

_2019-01-03
Every local government IR bid in the nation remains dependent upon conservative, or the right wing forces remaining in power in all major executive an