On August 10, 2025, Kōryō High School of Hiroshima withdrew from the national summer high school baseball tournament at Kōshien. The team had won its first game, 3 to 1. It gave up its second-round game.
In January of that year, several members of the school’s baseball club had committed violent acts against younger members. In March, the Japan High School Baseball Federation had given the school a formal warning.
In April 1962, the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers launched a magazine for the factory floor, Genba to QC. In its first issue, Ishikawa Kaoru introduced the QC circle, a small group in one workplace that carries out quality control on its own initiative.
The definition describes managing and improving the workplace continuously, with everyone taking part.
Hōrensō means spinach. It is also made of the first syllables of three workplace words: hōkoku (report), renraku (inform) and sōdan (consult).
Around 1982, Yamazaki Tomiji, president of Yamatane Securities, started a “spinach campaign” in his company. His book on it, Hōrensō ga kaisha o tsuyoku suru (Spinach Makes a Company Strong), appeared in 1986. One account says the idea came from his father.
Japanese railway workers point at a signal and call out what they see. The practice, shisa koshō, began with steam locomotive drivers of Japanese National Railways who checked signals this way.
In 1994, the Railway Technical Research Institute tested it. Without pointing or calling, the error rate was 2.38 percent. With both, it was 0.38 percent, about one sixth.
A verse attributed to the tea master Sen no Rikyū reads: Kiku sahō mamori tsukushite yaburu tomo hanaruru tote mo moto o wasuru na. Keep the rules and forms completely. Even when breaking them, even when leaving them, do not forget the root.
The verse is linked to shuhari, the stages of learning a traditional art. Shu is holding to the basics. Ha is adapting them. Ri is developing one’s own way.
A Japanese person who goes to apologize in person often brings a kashi-ori, a box of sweets. A Japanese lifestyle guide calls this a custom unique to Japan, and notes the saying that “the weight of the sweets is the weight of the feeling.”
Very expensive sweets are avoided, because they can suggest an attempt to settle the matter with things. Another guide advises keeping the gift out of sight at first and handing it over only after the apology has been accepted.
A hanseibun is a written statement in which a person reflects on misconduct and apologizes for it. Writing one is a common disciplinary practice in Japanese schools.
On November 24, 1997, the president of Yamaichi Securities, Nozawa Shōhei, faced reporters at the Tokyo Stock Exchange as the firm announced it would close. In tears, he apologized and said: Shain wa waruku arimasen kara! The employees are not to blame!
Accounts of his exact words differ. Another version has him say: “We are the ones at fault, so the employees are not to blame.”
On November 14, 2017, a Tsukuba Express train left Minami-Nagareyama Station about 20 seconds before its scheduled time. The operating company published an apology: “We deeply apologize for the great inconvenience caused to our customers.”
A shimatsusho is a written apology and reflection on a mistake, submitted promptly after trouble occurs.
A tenmatsusho is a different document. It reports the full course of events. It is generally an internal document, usually addressed to supervisors or the management department, and is submitted after the matter is resolved.