The compact disc (CD) was co-invented by Philips and Sony in the 1980s and has since replaced vinyl records as the primary means of music storage.

Astro Boy, created by Osamu Tezuka in 1963, is considered the first modern anime and helped to popularize the genre both in Japan and around the world.

The Japanese language is written using three scripts: kanji (Chinese characters), hiragana, and katakana (both phonetic scripts).