I have lived in Japan for more than 21 years, and for nearly the entire time, prices have either inched up very, very slowly, or have dropped—sometimes considerably. But in the past few months, as energy prices have skyrocketed, nearly every day we've awoken to announcements that one brand or another has raised prices by 10%, 15%, or 20%.
This just off Reuters, via the New York Times:
"Japan’s annual wholesale inflation held near a 27-year high in August, matching expectations and reinforcing views that high costs for raw materials are hurting companies as the nation heads into a recession. The 7.2 percent rise in wholesale prices from a year earlier, as measured by the corporate-goods price index, came after a revised 7.3 percent annual rise for July."
