MIE, Japan (Reuters) - Japan's akoya pearl industry, which began in the 1890s when Kokichi Mikimoto created the world's first cultured pearls, is facing collapse due to plunging sales and stiff ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. If it weren’t for Kokichi Mikimoto, we might be living in a world without pearls. As a young man growing up in a seaside Japanese ...

Japan's akoya oysters have been preëminent among cultured pearls ever since Kokichi Mikimoto first established the industry in the early part of this century. But since 1994, something has been ...

Off the coast of Japan’s verdant Saikai National Park, the Kujukushima Islands lie scattered amid a sprawling network of narrow inlets. Their name literally translates as “99 islands,” though there ...