Akane Sugimori, 28, and Ayaka Ichinose, 34, Saturday (20 December) announced that they will hold their wedding ceremony and banquet on 20 April next year.
The couple met at a gay bar in Shinjuku, Tokyo in October 2012 and started living together in the spring of last year, according to Sankei Sports newspaper.
'We hope gay people will also be able to marry in Japan, and hope our wedding can help promote this goal,' Ichinose said in a statement.
Ichinose came out as a lesbian in 2009 and Sugimori has said she 'over 90% likes women.'Christmas Eve surpasses Valentine's Day as the romantic dinner event for Japanese couples, but viewed as a socioeconomic read on Japan, the celebration highlights two major problems the country faces: low wages and low birth rates. (cnbc.com)Two Japanese actresses will tie the knot next year in the conservative country's first celebrity gay wedding. (gaystarnews.com)
A man found a body Sunday evening in the Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture, apartment of his younger, 58-year-old brother after the landlord alerted him that his sibling had failed to pay the rent. (Japan Times)
Fifty-four workers suffered food poisoning at a Nippon Ham meat-processing plant in Kawatana, Nagasaki Prefecture, company officials said Sunday. (Japan Today)
Sales of special Suica cards to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the opening of Tokyo Station were canceled soon after they began Saturday, as a large crowd of people flooded the area. (The Japan News)
Buddhist monks and believers have come together in an annual year-end event to clean up two major temples in Kyoto. (NHK)
The Niigata prefectural government started clearing a section of National Highway Route 405 in Tsunan in the prefecture on Friday, after a landslide mixed with snow blocked off about 50 meters of the road the night before. (The Japan News)
The Tokyo Metropolitan Police plan to limit pedestrian access to Shibuya's famous scramble crossing to avoid trouble from rowdy revelers on New Year's Eve. (Japan Today)
The Osaka District Court has ruled that Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto's order to check whether municipal office workers had tattoos was illegal and constituted an invasion of privacy. (Japan Today)
The Chiba Public Safety Commission has banned a 29-year-old man from Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, from riding a bicycle for 90 days, after he was found guilty of cycling under the influence of "kiken" quasi-legal drugs. (Japan Times)