Old-fashioned love letters may be the answer, says one Japanese city whose unusual matchmaking scheme has been a surprising success. Singles in southern Japan's Miyazaki are being encouraged to put pen to paper in a low-tech search for their soulmate, part of municipal efforts to boost the low birth rate. The charm of handwritten correspondence has attracted so many young residents that organisers have decided to expand the programme to people living farther afield. Compared to online dating, "it takes longer, and inspires you to imagine the person you're in communication with," said Rie Miyata, head of a local consulting firm commissioned to run the scheme. "It's less about how good your penmanship is," she told AFP, "and more the fact that you write every single character sincerely and with care, thinking deeply about the person you're writing to." "That's what makes letters so powerful," she said.

An ancient Japanese temple has hired the help of a £700,000 (Y100 million) robot to deliver the teachings of Buddhism. The android, dubbed Kannon, is based on the traditional Buddhist deity of mercy and is designed to attract young people. The robo-deity provided its first sermon at Kyoto's Kodaiji temple, which opened in 1619, on Saturday. The android is a the result of a collaboration between the zen temple and Hiroshi Ishiguro, professor of intelligent robotics at Osaka University. Only Kannon's head, neck shoulders and hands are covered in a skin-like material made from silicone.

According to a story in The Japan Times, the school will feed the AI information about 9,000 suspected bullying cases reported by Otsu's elementary and junior high schools between 2012 and 2018. This information will include details on the students involved -- their ages, genders, absenteeism records, and academic achievements -- as well as when and where any bullying incidents took place. "Through an AI theoretical analysis of past data, we will be able to properly respond to cases without just relying on teachers' past experiences," Otsu Mayor Naomi Koshi said, according to The Japan Times. The hope is that the AI will allow school officials to identify the bullying cases that are likely to escalate in seriousness so that they can intervene and diffuse the situation before it's too late. "Bullying may start from low-level friction in relationships, but can get worse day by day," an Otsu education board official said, according to The Japan Times.

"Policies for the future" and a promise to lead the next generation were among the electoral pledges the artificially intelligent candidate, who went by the name Michihito Matsuda, said it would implement. "Artificial intelligence will change Tama City," Matsuda's campaign slogan read and the claim clearly struck a chord with many residents as the robot garnered 4,000 votes in the race. However, Matsuda finished in third place in the election, which was comfortably won by the incumbent Hiroyuki Abe, NHK reports. Matsuda was the face of the campaign but the human brains behind the operation were high powered Japanese businessmen Tetsuzo Matsumoto, the vice president of Softbank, and Norio Murakami, former Google Japan representative, Otaquest reports. Despite these tech-savvy connections a robot identical to Matsuda's is still available for purchase online and the candidate's official website was pretty poorly designed and contained apparent coding errors.