J.apan.News
Automated news curation platform monitoring Japanese-language news sources to surface stories relevant to expats that rarely reach English media.
Japan News addresses a critical information gap for the 3+ million foreign residents in Japan: essential policy updates, legal changes, and practical information are published primarily in Japanese-language media and often never reach English news outlets. The platform monitors Japanese news sources directly, surfacing expat-relevant stories that would otherwise remain inaccessible to non-Japanese speakers.
The automated pipeline processes RSS feeds from Japanese-language editions of NHK, Japan Times, and Kyodo News daily. Claude AI analyzes content for relevance to foreign residents, identifying stories about visa rule changes, tax updates, healthcare policy, and housing regulations that may only appear in domestic Japanese coverage. Each story is translated, contextualized for foreign residents, and distilled into clear 600-word summaries that explain complex policy implications and practical next steps—eliminating the need to parse dense government announcements or navigate language barriers.
Built with Next.js 14 and Supabase, the platform organizes content across eight targeted categories (Immigration, Tax, Healthcare, Labor Law, Housing, Finance, Policy, Disaster Preparedness) with smart filtering and full-text search. The content generation pipeline runs autonomously via Vercel Cron, with validation layers ensuring quality and relevance. Deployed at j.apan.news (a domain hack reading as "japan.news"), the site demonstrates how AI-powered translation and curation can democratize access to essential information for international communities.