Chief Cabinet Secretary Edano Yukio thinks that the Kan Cabinet should play better with each other, and suggested that they could take a leaf from the national soccer team who combined to win a record fourth Asian Cup title over the weekend.

“Each player really made the most of what he had and the team’s collective strengths were built on. This cabinet also needs to follow the example and with the collective strengths we must address the crisis facing our country.”

Japan Today reported that today Ozawa Ichiro, the DPJ big-wig and several time leader, had been indicted over issues with his political funds body – for which three of his former aides had already been indicted.

I guess the DPJ will be glad that they didn’t elect Ozawa as Prime Minister when they had the chance last September….

According to Japan Today, Japan remains slightly ahead of China, to be the world’s second largest economy, based on economic figures through September this year. According to the Cabinet Office:

Japan’s GDP stood at $3,959.4 billion in the January-September period, slightly above China’s $3,946.8 billion

But who’s counting….

According to Japan Today, Japanese Rakugo storyteller Shofukutei Kakusho plans to head to Iraq to entertain the children.

‘‘I cannot get the sad faces of the children I saw on video out of my mind. I want to bring them laughter that can warm their hearts,’’

Yahoo reports that JAL gained approval from the Tokyo district court for its rehabilitation plan to cut jobs, close routes and see debt waived. Major banks and creditors had already approved the plan. This clears the way for some 350 billion yen to be injected into JAL, with a view to improving its financial position and rebuilding the business…

Japan Today has a story about reported political funds raised in 2009. Donations were down 1.9% to 19.04 billion yen for the year, a new record low for the second year in a row. Conversely, spending by political parties, groups and individuals was up more than 24% in 2009, because of the general election…

Japan Today reports that the Japanese government have changed its list of common kanji for the first time in 29 years, removing 5 characters and adding 196, to bring the total of common use characters to 2,136… Part of the reason for the added characters was the fact that the use of computers has made it easier to use some characters that were previously considered too cumbersome to write by hand due to the many strokes.

I guess there’s 196 more to learn now….

The DPJ leadership vote has just been announced, with Kan winning by more than 200 points, made up of the votes of DPJ members of the Diet and local members. Of Diet members, 206 voted for Kan, and 200 voted for Ozawa. Kan Naoto will remain Prime Minister.

Japan will know later this afternoon whether it will have yet another new Prime Minister, or the same old newish Prime Minister, After PM Kan and challenger Ozawa go head to head in a party vote. Media reports say that the vote is too close to call, with a few dozen of the more than 400 party members set to hold the key as to which man will fall across the line. Japan Today had a short review of the lead-up to the vote today.

If Kan loses the election, Japan would see its sixth prime minister in four years and the third since the DPJ swept to power one year ago

Results are expected around 3:30-4:00PM this afternoon, Japan time.

The Deseret News online has an interesting story about Bronze Star winner and WWII veteran John J. Wilpers, who is the man that supposedly stopped then Japanese Prime Minister Tojo from committing suicide after Japan surrendered. Wilpers, now 90, had never spoken about these events in detail, saying that he didn’t want the attention.

Japan Today reports that Prime Minister Kan is calling on his party to unite around the winner of next week’s Democratic Party leadership vote, where the current Prime Minister will be coming up against former leader Ozawa Ichiro.

Kan said on a street in Tokyo’s Yurakucho business district that the DPJ needs to ‘‘work together as a team’’ because party leadership ‘‘cannot be created and asserted by just one politician,’’ alluding to Ozawa’s wheeling-and-dealing style of politics.

Danny Choo has a great photo essay of Asakusa. Lots of great photos.

Bionic Bong highlights a WSJ story which claimed that Kitano (Beat) Takeshi was voted most influential person in Japan in an internet survey. The director and television personality beat out the Prime Minister, and star baseballer Ichiro, who came in at two and three.

The Japan Times reports on Prime Minister Kan’s plan to cut 80 seats from the Lower House, and 40 seats from the Upper House, as part of a cost cutting effort.