Japan, like some other countries, is struggling with the issue of human organ donation, but another solution is being pursued by university researchers here whose sheep, named “Saru”, may hold the key to the future of organ transplants.

Saru, which means “monkey” in Japanese, is part sheep and part monkey. 

Saru is not the only sheep in the barn to be genetically engineered, as others have been designed to produce partial human blood. However, Saru is a bit different.

If one reaches down on Saru’s shaved side, there’s a lump that feels a bit out of place.

It’s then that the leader of the team who created Saru, Professor Yutaka Hanazono, who has been working with sheep for over 10 years, leans in to explain.

The lump is monkey tissues, which have grown inside the sheep. Hanazono’s team has managed to take stem cells and implant them into monkey embryos, then used the sheep’s body to help grow the cells as if they were Saru’s own.

Using stem cells has many advantages but also a few disadavantages, chief among them being the inability to control what the stem cells become.

“If you put embryonic stem cells directly into an embryo, it creates a very wide variety of different tissues. So at the moment we are not yet able to make just a liver or just a nerve cell,” Hanazono told me.

If that can be overcome, the cells produced will be genetically identical to the patient’s cells.

“If we can create a sheep that has the patient’s tissues or cells, it would help solve the severe donor shortage problem. If you then transplant those cells or tissues, as it’s technically the patient’s own tissues, there is no immune system rejection. This is our eventual goal.”

Human stem cell research, especially involving embryonic stem cells, has been quite controversial, but this method manages to avoid much of that by using adult stem cells. Normal cells are taken from adult donors and then coerced into becoming stem cells, then used to create the donor’s tissues in the animal. Since the cells grown are genetically identical to the original donors, they can be used without any risk of the body rejecting them.

Organ transplants from humans are extremely rare in Japan, and even in the U.S. over 100,000 are on waiting lists and may die before receiving needed organs. 

Much still needs to be done at Utsunomiya and Jichi Medical University. In building up to creating human tissues and organs, experiments will first be done with mice, then pigs and sheep, and finally monkeys before scientists make the jump to humans.

I admit there was some personal interest when I volunteered to cover the praying/speed-dating event at a shrine in Tokyo recently. I wanted to see what a matchmaking event at a shrine involves and who would attend.

I did not expect, though, that I would actually get involved.

A group of 14 women and 14 men gathered at Imado shrine in Tokyo, which honours Japan’s indigenous Shinto gods of marriage. The participants varied in age and occupation, but had one common goal — finding a good marriage partner.

“We said it’s up to the gods now. If we go on as we have, we probably won’t ever meet anyone,” Rie Suzuki, a 40-year-old attending with her friend told me.

The event, which combines praying with speed-dating, is aimed at marriage and the economic stability it could provide, as singles actively seek a partner through “konkatsu,” or spouse-hunting.

Such activities range from dating websites to participating in events like “grass-mowing for singles”. Imado Shrine’s two-hour, $65 event, is also on the list of some marriage-hunters.

“This is a shrine known for marriage and many men and women seeking a good match come here,” said Tomoe Ichino, a 32-year-old priest at the shrine.

She and her sister Kana run the matchmaking event for which over 1,000 registered.

“I would see a woman buying a good luck charm, then a man doing the same thing 10 minutes later. Then I started to think that maybe they could have ended up together if they had met. So, we’re trying to coordinate a time when they can meet.”

At the event, participants, mainly in their 30s and 40s, solemnly pray to the gods by clapping their hands and bowing their heads. They then move to a room where men and women sit across from each other, chatting as priests watch with stopwatches to make sure they switch partners every four minutes.

Women tend to be more interested in “konkatsu”, but some men are also keen to take part in matchmaking activities.

“I am just going back and forth between my office and house, and there is no chance to meet anyone,” said Shinichi Kanno, a 37-year-old working for a medical equipment company.

“Guys are also doing “konkatsu” these days. I have many unmarried friends and I want to tell them about this event.”

Increased economic clout of women and changing social attitudes toward marriage, no longer seen as de rigeur for either gender, have kept an increasing number of Japanese in their 20s and 30s single. Government statistics show nearly two-thirds of women under 34 are unmarried, while some 3,800 firms in Japan offer match-making services.

Priests at Imado Shrine don’t know of any couples tieing the knot after meeting at their 18 match-making sessions so far, but say at least eight couples began dating and even more became friends.

And me? I ended up getting asked to dinner by one wife-hunter, although I declined as I went there for work. Still, I hope the gods answer his prayers and bring him a very good match.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Kiyoshi Ota

For the crowd waiting for Prime Minister Taro Aso to show up for a campaign speech in Ome on the western edge of Tokyo, it was a bit like watching the warm-up acts before the main attraction.

Aso picked ruling party candidate Akinobu Nomura’s home district of Ome  to kick off a campaign for the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly election, the results of which are likely to affect the unpopular 68-year-old premier’s chances of keeping his own job ahead of a nationwide poll expected next month.

With the PM’s cavalcade stuck in traffic, Nomura and his other backers had to amuse the crowd for more than an hour under cloudy skies. The local man filled some of the time by inviting photographers to snap him shaking hands with his wife, who had earlier shyly delivered a speech, for what he said was the first time ever. Then he took to listing up his contributions to the local community.

Nomura  also went out of his way to assure listeners that he really appreciated Aso’s personal appearance — really! He’d been flooded with calls from reporters asking if he wouldn’t have preferred that Aso stay away, he said, before enjoining the media to report his next words faithfully: “I welcome Prime Minister Aso’s coming here from the bottom of my heart.” 

When a smiling, waving Aso finally showed up to the obvious relief of Nomura and others standing atop a green and white campaign truck, he first acknowledged that Ome was a long way from central Tokyo, where he spends most of his time. ”It really is far, isn’t it?” Aso said. ”But this feels better than being under a kind of house arrest in the prime minister’s official residence,” he added, prompting chuckles from some supporters.

Aso then launched into a speech touting the long-ruling LDP’s efforts to boost Japan’s sagging economy, attacking the opposition Democratic Party for inexperience, irresponsible promises and a funding scandal, and pleading with voters to stick with those they know rather than risk something new.

The LDP is lagging behind the Democrats in opinion polls ahead of the national vote, which must be held by October, and a poor showing for the party in the Tokyo election on July 12 could fuel moves inside the party to dump Aso before the general election.

“No one is perfect … It’s impossible to expect a human being to be 100 percent perfect. Human beings have good points and bad points. But if you ask who is better, isn’t it the person with experience?” Aso said.

Pitching his argument to the many women in the crowd, Aso added: ”If you think about yourself and your husband, lots of things have occurred in the past. But your husband has a 10- or 20-year record of achievements. It’s not so easy to change your name, and I don’t think one should change it.”

Some long-time supporters in the crowd, though, told me they were leaning towards that very change. “I have been an LDP supporter, but I feel that I can’t back them now. They’re too arrogant,” said retiree Masao Ida, who at 68 is the same age as Aso himself. “I want to see what comes from change,” Ida added.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Yuriko Nakao

The shelves of Japanese convenience stores are filled with neatly packed “bento” box meals. But ever wonder where they go when they reach their “sell-by” date? You should, because Japan chucks away a staggering 19 million tonnes of food a year – more than three times the amount of world food aid at 6 million tonnes.

The issue of food thrown away at “kombini”, or convenience store, recently grabbed the headlines here. Strict health laws mean many unsold items must be thrown out at the end of the day, and it’s each franchise store — not the store chain itself – that bears the cost of this waste. In all, about 70 percent of the leftovers from the food industry are recycled into animal feed and fertilizers, and much of the rest quietly rots in land-fill.  

To minimise their losses from all this waste, some Seven-Eleven Japan stores have been trying to cut prices on items nearing the end of their shelf-life, apparently against the company’s wishes. It sounds like a common-sense solution, but it has lifted the lid on quite a scandal in the kombini world, which has so far largely avoided cut-throat price competition as shoppers allow for the price gaps compared with supermarkets in return for the convenient locations and longer operating hours of the stores. 

And what was the result of the discount attempt? Japan’s anti-monopoly watchdog said Seven-Eleven had illegally pressured its franchise stores not to cut the prices of bento box meals and other food by implying it would cut its contracts with stores not complying. The Fair Trade Commission also ordered Japan’s largest convenience store chain, a unit of listed Seven & I Holdings, to halt such practices.

The FTC order could mean price battles will grow between different chains and even among different franchises within the same chain. Such concerns sent shares of convenience stores tumbling earlier this week. Seven-Eleven said it may appeal the FTC’s findings, but a day later it said it would pay for 15 percent of the cost of wasted food from its franchise stores.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Stringer

Daisuke Matsuzaka’s second trip to the disabled list this season is making some forget the Japanese pitcher’s heroics and wonder if he has been worth the investment of his Boston Red Sox team.

The “Dice-K” sweepstakes dominated Japanese baseball in late 2006, as the Boston Red Sox pursued the rights to negotiate with Matsuzaka — who’s now sitting – by commiting over $51 million to his then team, the Seibu Lions, and another $52 million to the pitcher and agent Scott Boras to sign.

After winning the inaugural World Baseball Classic tournament MVP in 2006 with an arm that had dropped jaws since high school, Matsuzaka was more than just the best pitcher available in the country or arguably the world at that time.

He was Boston’s marketing passport to baseball-mad Japan and its talent pool, as well as a poke in the eye for the rival New York Yankees who were outbid and had to settle for pitcher Kei Igawa, who’s spent most of his career in the minors at a total cost of about $46 million in contract and posting fee.

Dice-K’s first year was rather underwhelming, but the Sox won their second World Series in three years and he pitched well in the post-season.  Not surprisingly, Boston raised its hand to begin the 2008 MLB season in Japan, with Matsuzaka and teammate Hideki Okajima helping “Red Sox Nation” literally to try to annex the archipelago.

I asked General Manager Theo Epstein in Tokyo then about the money paid to Seibu and whether the total investment in Matsuzaka had been worth it.  Clearly indicating that the bar would be higher in 2008, Epstein said he was happy with Dice-K’s big game efforts, adding that the signing was far better than Barry Zito’s $126 million deal with the San Francisco Giants, the largest pitcher’s contract ever and now widely seen as a disaster. 

But griping by media and Red Sox faithful started with gusto in Dice-K’s second year, despite an 18-3 record. After a second WBC tournament MVP in 2009 — or because of it as he basically skipped Boston spring training and ended with a tired arm, fan and team concern has reached fever pitch with a dismal effort so far this season and now a second trip to the disabled list.

Is Dice-K done? Almost certainly not, as too much money and player pride are at stake, but some reports on Japanese pitchers statistics show the third year for exports to MLB as usually when the wheels start to come off the cart, or at least the shoulder problems begin.

The brutal training and playing regimen in high school, followed by overuse in Japanese pro baseball, lead to breakdown and shorter careers, the numbers seem to say.

Have the returns for the Red Sox and MLB on and off the field matched the outlay?

In the regular season, Matsuzaka produced on average 16 wins yearly until this season, while sparking a Japanese following for Boston that arguably exceeds the Yankees or Ichiro Suzuki’s Seattle Mariners. Unscientific sampling of MLB broadcasts in Japan seems to show more Boston content than other teams, with the Beantown club now home to three local players.

Jim Small, head of MLB International in Japan, told me on Monday it’s hard to ascribe a specific number for Matsuzaka’s financial impact, or for any player, but Dice-K certainly had made the Red Sox more popular among his countrymen, while helping to secure three advertising deals for MLB, and indirectly Boston, because of his prominence and success.

At home, major Japanese sports dailies reported Matsuzaka’s DL trip rather deep in the newspapers, not indicative that the hero’s travails were a blow to national status or even career-threatening. But based on manager Terry Francona’s comments, it may be mid-July at the earliest before fans on either side of the Pacific see Dice-K play again.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Adam Hunger

What goes up must at some point come down.

The world of sports is full of examples of bright lights who shone briefly before crashing back down to earth.

Tennis burnout used to grind teenage sensations into the dust with alarming regularity, with even all-time greats such as Bjorn Borg stressed into premature retirement, albeit the Swede was 26 when he made his shock decision to quit.

Every sport has them, prodigious talents who flew too close to the sun, destroying their chances of joining the pantheon of mega-greats.

Japanese sports fans are hoping teenage golfer Ryo Ishikawa does not join the growing list, just two months after making his major debut at April’s U.S. Masters.

The 17-year-old has struggled since his fame has soared beyond the confines of Japan, while his face continues to be splashed across commercials for everything from chocolate bars to language schools and celebrities trip over themselves to be photographed next to the Boy Wonder with the ultra-bright smile.

“Adult” celebrity Mika Kano, one half of Japan’s Kano Sisters, famous for their risqué photo books and unfeasibly large breasts, was the latest, begging several questions of the schoolboy, not least, “Don’t you have homework to do?”

Ishikawa’s golf swing is a thing of beauty and he should be a national treasure. As it stands, his handlers need to make sure they don’t make a boob job of his future.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

What are the odds, but on the morning after a few Seibu shareholders asked the transport firm to offer male-only rail cars to avoid the stress of possible train groping allegations, I mistakenly walked into the women-only car in Shibuya during the crowded rush hour.

Whoops, I suddenly realized - no blue suits and ties, discarded racing newspapers and pornographic manga, or slumped-over passengers letting neighbours support their weight, and it smelled decidedly better. Something was dreadfully wrong.

In that millisecond it takes to sense your toe in boiling bath water, I implemented immediate retreat operations, trying to moonwalk out of the carriage without creating an international incident.

I had seen Masayuki Suo’s movie “I Just Didn’t Do It” and interviewed the director, who researched cases of false groping accusations, and I knew Japan’s legal system wasn’t where I wanted to take my chances with “innocent until proven guilty”, particularly in a car where I was already persona non grata.

While Yojiro Takita, the Japanese director who won the Academy Award for best foreign film earlier this year, may have made a pre-Oscar franchise of adult movies involving molesters on trains, public opinion on this serious issue is loud and clear: Rail travel in Japan is horrific enough without roaming hands. 

But do men really need a safety zone from these potential streetcars of framed desire, as the concerned Seibu parties contend?

I’ll let the court of public opinion decide, but in that brief embarrassing moment not a single female passenger said a word, pointed a stern finger or even launched a kick, allowing me to exit with a modicum of grace and minimum of opprobrium. The conductor also appeared to grant an uncustomary few extra seconds to enable me to pack myself into the overflowing car next door, bound for glory with a full load of humanity.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Kiyoshi Ota

Katsuyoshi Fujii may inadvertently make legal history in Japan. His trial for the fatal stabbing of an elderly neighbour in Tokyo looks set to be the first heard under a new system whereby members of the public join judges in deciding criminal cases.

But far from wanting a say in how justice is done,  most Japanese are either wary of or downright opposed to the idea of becoming “lay judges” to discuss and hand down verdicts and sentences — including the death penalty.

Opinion polls show almost half those eligible would prefer not to take part, while many more are worried.

Experts point out that there is no tradition of public participation in the justice system in Japan. 

 Some critics say the culture of “leaving it to those above”, means the six members of the public on the panel will feel obliged to bow to the views of the three professional judges.

Fujii can at least expect to get a quick verdict. Four court sessions have been scheduled on consecutive days, in contrast to the old system, where courts convened once every few weeks and trials dragged on for years.

Whether Japan’s prosecutors maintain their almost 100 percent conviction rate remains to be seen.

Some say lay people will take a more sceptical view of police evidence and are likely to acquit more defendants, while others say they could be swayed to convict by the presence of victims’ families in Japan’s criminal courts.

Japan’s police are often accused of squeezing confessions out of suspects under duress, and the media have recently been all over the story of a man released from prison after 17 years, after DNA evidence in his case was found not to match up.

Though partial video-taping of questioning has been introduced since then, critics say more changes are needed to make the system fairer.

“In fact, if you don’t prove your innocence, you won’t be acquitted,” law professor Setsuo Miyazawa of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo said of the Japanese justice system.

 ”I used to think that could be righted by the participation of ordinary members of the public,” he added. “But if lay judges see other ordinary people like themselves questioning someone as if they were guilty, it will have a major effect.”

Photo credit: REUTERS/Michael Caronna

Wedding venue hired? Check. Wedding dress hired? Check. Guests hired? Check.

June’s the big wedding month here in Japan, but even in these tough economic times, instead of opting for a small event, some couples are renting fake family, friends and colleagues to plump up the guest list.

Many in Japan see weddings as a formal event that must be attended by lots of family members, friends and co-workers. At the party, bosses often give speeches, colleagues or friends stage performances, and families formally greet other guests.

But what if you’ve got no one to do that for you?

“We’ll attend the wedding as your friend instead of your friend,” Hiroshi Mizutani, who heads Office Agents, a company in Tokyo that rents out guests, told me.

“Suddenly, a guest might not be able to make it. Or maybe you are concerned about the gap in the number of guests you have compared to your partner. Or, there are many temp workers these days and you may be uncomfortable inviting your boss.”

For  around $200 you can have a hired guest attend your nuptials. Add another $50 and they’ll sing or dance. Tip in another $100 and they’ll even make a suitable speech, perhaps pretending to be your boss.

At one memorable wedding, all 30 of the family, friends and coworkers of the groom were fakes from Mizutani’s company. It was the second marriage for the groom, who wanted to avoid inviting the same guests from the first time around.

The firm gets about 100 wedding requests per year and has some 1,000 fakes available for various occasions, including funerals and training seminars. You can hire a stand-in lover to introduce to your family and false secretaries for those that want to look important.

The key qualification for the fakes is that they do not stand out.

“What’s important is that these are normal people… normal as in they are cheery and clean and look like they have regular jobs,” Mizutani said.

Sometimes not even the marriage partner is aware.

“People are proud and they don’t want to tell their partner that they do not have many friends,” Mizutani said. “The environment is so that people don’t have anyone to invite. It may be that they are lonely and it may also be that the way people work are changing.”

I’m not sure what happens, though, if you meet the same fake at multiple events.

In these hard times, you know a car is important when the maker hires Robert de Niro to promote it.

That honour goes to Subaru’s new flagship Legacy touring wagon, which went on sale in Japan today. Fuji Heavy Industries (which owns the Subaru brand) even put out a press release last week just to say the two-time Oscar winner would appear in its TV commercials in Japan.

“It’s the first time he’s appearing in a commercial for a Japanese company – ever,” a Fuji Heavy spokesman told me proudly the other day. He guessed that Hollywood actors are “twice, three times, or four times more expensive” to hire than a local celebrity.

It is well-known that international movie and rock stars get lucrative work moonlighting in Japanese TV commercials - witness the famous gadzillion-dollar Mitsubishi Electric VCR commercials in the late 80s starring Madonna. This tradition was even parodied in the film “Lost in Translation”, in which Bill Murray plays a Hollywood has-been actor filming a whiskey commercial in Tokyo.

A sampling from my late-night YouTube-ing yesterday offered the following roster, for cars alone:

- Paul Newman: Nissan Skyline, for its 25th anniversary (1982)
- Harrison Ford: Honda Legend (1993)
- Dennis Hopper: Toyota Celica (1994)
- Anthony Hopkins: Honda Avancier (“Let’s have a thrilling time,” a la Hannibal Lecter)
- Ewan McGregor: Toyota Alphard (recently)
- Jean Reno: also, Toyota Alphard, and separately, Honda Orthia
- Rowan Atkinson: Oddly, as Mr Bean (who drives a Mini) promoting a Nissan Tino
- George Clooney: Honda Odyssey, Toyota Mark II

Subaru had a bunch: Kyle McLaughlin in an Impreza commercial in 1992 and Antonio Banderas for the Forester. Ads for the past four versions of the Legacy have been graced by Bruce Willis (1st), Rod Stewart and Mel Gibson (2nd), Kevin Costner and J-Lo (3rd) and Bruce Willis again (4th).

Leonardo DiCaprio, known for his private endorsement of the second-generation Toyota Prius, was all over the place, selling Honda’s Civic in 1995, Suzuki’s WagonR in 1999 and Toyota’s “Hybrid Synergy Drive” system more recently.

A memorable one for me when I was growing up was Michael J. Fox in a series of ads for Honda’s Integra sports car as the Marty McFly character in the 80s classic “Back to the Future”, complete with Huey Lewis & the News’ “Power of Love” playing in the back.

And while we’re in the 80s, then-teenage heart-throb Rob Lowe had the unfortunate one-liner, “Hip-conscious!” in a 15-second clip for Suzuki’s Cultus hatchback.

The 80s were obviously a good decade for Japanese carmakers, as the economy worked its way into a bubble. Maybe it’s just me, but the car commercials these days seem fairly low-budget. Toyota, for its most important car launch this year – the all-new Prius — has TV actor Matthew Bomer playing Clark Kent/Superman in a commercial. And Honda’s rival Insight car? The Peanuts. No offense, Charlie Brown.

Photo credit: REUTERS/Ran Kim, Subaru