Yakult Swallows slugger Murakami Munetaka surpasses a legend, the yen falls to a 32-year low against the dollar, and a minister resigns over his connections with Unification Church. These and other leading stories from October 2022.
1
Professional wrestling legend and former House of Councillors legislator Antonio Inoki dies at the age of 79. A native of Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, he was still a teenager when he started his wrestling career in 1960 after being discovered by noted grappler Rikidōzan.
3
The government opens an extraordinary session of the Diet; addressing both houses, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio pledges to focus on reviving the economy, increasing wages, and reducing the impact of the nation’s soaring inflation by lowering household electricity bills and other measures.
Yakult Swallows batter Murakami Munetaka hits his fifty-sixth home run in the last game of the regular season to become the first Japanese player to surpass Japanese baseball legend Oh Sadaharu’s single-season milestone of 55 homers. The 22-year-old also became the youngest player ever to claim the triple crown, consisting of highest batting average, most home runs, and most runs batted in.
4
North Korea launches a ballistic missile that passes over Aomori Prefecture, triggering the J-Alert early warning system for the first time since 2017. The projectile traveled 4,600 kilometers, the farthest of any North Korean rocket to date, and landed in the Pacific Ocean beyond Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
5
The Crew Dragon launches on a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying Wakata Kōichi and three other astronauts to the International Space Station. It is the 59-year-old Wakata’s fifth trip to space, the most for a Japanese astronaut, where he will serve a 6-month mission aboard the ISS.
11
The government further eases border restrictions put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, dropping the daily cap on entries and restarting visa-free individual travel. It also launches a new nationwide subsidy program for residents providing discounts on trips to 46 prefectures, with Tokyo to be added later, in a bid to boost domestic travel.
13
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s fails to launch its Epsilon-6 rocket. JAXA staff sent a self-destruct signal shortly after liftoff from Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture when it was determined that the rocket would not be able to reach Earth’s orbit. It is the first time for the Epsilon rocket to fail.
Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Kōno Tarō announces government plans to scrap the current system of health insurance cards around autumn 2024 and use My Number cards to certify health insurance eligibility.