Ohtani became the first major leaguer with at least 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a season, earning praise from his home country’s fans, media, and government.

Shohei Ohtani's feat of becoming the first major leaguer with at least 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a season was met with extra editions of newspapers for fans to read on their way to work.

Japan's core consumer inflation accelerated for the fourth straight month in August and tracked comfortably above the central bank's 2% target, data showed on Friday, keeping alive expectations for further interest rate hikes.

Japan’s key inflation gauge accelerated in August for a fourth consecutive month, hours before the Bank of Japan is scheduled to wrap up its latest policy decision meeting.

Japanese inflation rose slightly in August, with prices up 2.8 percent year-on-year, official data showed Friday, hours before the Bank of Japan was widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged.

China and Japan may be close to a breakthrough over Beijing’s ban on seafood imports from Japan, imposed last year in response to the release of treated radioactive water into the sea from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant,

China will revisit its ban on marine imports from Japan and work towards resuming imports following an expansion of regulatory monitoring of radioactive wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant, Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Friday.

China said Friday it would "gradually resume" importing seafood from Japan after imposing a blanket ban in August of last year over the release of water from the disabled Fukushima nuclear plant. "China will begin to adjust the relevant measures based on scientific evidence and gradually resume imports of Japanese aquatic products that meet the regulation requirements and standards,

The Bank of Japan left interest rates unchanged on Friday, after a decision to hike them in July pushed the yen sharply higher and fuelled turmoil across world markets.