When a new Japanese cabinet is formed or reshuffled, the media use the phrase nyūkaku tekireiki, the right age for entering the cabinet.
The encyclopedia Imidas gives that age in election wins. It says that in LDP cabinets, first-time ministers were often members of the House of Representatives with five or six wins, or members of the House of Councillors with three. It notes that the Koizumi cabinet broke with this custom.
In Japan’s central ministries, the year a career official entered the ministry still matters. Normally, only one member of each entry year becomes administrative vice-minister, the top post in the ministry. The magazine Gendai Business explains that the other members of that year leave the ministry before this happens.
On December 24, 2016, Fujii Sōta played his first game as a professional shogi player, against Katō Hifumi. He was fourteen years and two months old, a second-year junior high school student. He broke the record for the youngest professional, which had stood for 62 years.
On October 11, 2023, at twenty-one, he completed the set of all eight major titles, the first player in history to hold them all. It had taken him seven years as a professional.
In kendo, the higher grades require years of training after the grade before. Under the rules of the All Japan Kendo Federation, a candidate for seventh dan must have trained for at least six years after receiving sixth dan. A candidate for eighth dan must have trained for at least ten years after seventh dan and be at least 46 years old.
A Japanese university lecture page puts the pass rate of the eighth-dan examination at one percent or less.
A rakugo storyteller’s career passes through the ranks of zenza, futatsume and shin’uchi. One guide to rakugo says that the zenza stage usually lasts four or five years. Another says that the step from futatsume to shin’uchi takes about ten years.
The first guide puts the whole path from entering the profession to becoming shin’uchi at ten to fifteen years, depending on talent and effort.
Japan’s official wage survey for 2025 shows pay rising with age. For men, monthly wages peak at ages 55 to 59, at 445,600 yen. That is 181.4 percent of the wage at ages 20 to 24.
By length of service, wages for all workers are highest among those with 30 years or more at the same employer, at 444,200 yen.
Senpai (先輩): a person who entered the same school or workplace earlier. Also a person above oneself in age, position or experience.
Kōhai (後輩): the opposite of senpai.
Tameguchi (ため口): a younger person speaking to an older person as an equal.
At Muji, the retailer run by Ryohin Keikaku, everyone is called by name with san. This applies to men and women, to subordinates and to superiors alike.
Business magazines report that more and more companies ask employees to address superiors with san instead of their job titles, regardless of position, age or year of entry.
The most senior person is shown to the kamiza, the seat of honor. In a meeting room with chairs on both sides of a central table, it is the seat farthest from the door.
The order applies in a taxi too. The seat of honor is directly behind the driver, followed by the seat behind the front passenger and then the middle of the back seat.
Meshitaki sannen, nigiri hachinen: three years cooking the rice, eight years shaping the nigiri. The saying describes the long apprenticeship of a sushi chef.
On October 29, 2015, the entrepreneur Horie Takafumi attacked it on Twitter: “Sushi restaurants that are any good today don’t do such leisurely training. Sense matters more.” The news site J-CAST reported on the dispute that followed.