Like Mothra, Huffington Post Swoops into Tokyo; Launches Japanese Edition

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Partnering with Asahi Shimbun, Japan's second largest newspaper with more than seven million daily readers, AOL-owned news aggregator The Huffington Post this week launched a Japanese edition.

According to a post by the independent media publishing company journalism.co.uk, HuffPo also last week announced plans to debut an edition in Germany in a joint effort with Tomorrow Focus AG. HuffPo debuted its U.K. version in July 2011 (see "TUOL" post 6/22/11), the same year Canada's HuffPO went online (see "TUOL" post 5/26/11). Other European editions are online in France in collaboration with Le Monde (see "TUOL" post 1/23/12); Italy, in partnership with GruppoExpresso; and Spain in partnership with El Pais.

Shigeki Matsuura will be at the helm of Huffington Post Japan. The editor-in-chief previously helped to launch the online edition of Wired in Japan and political blogging site BLOGOS. Asahi Shimbun's digital division director hopes HuffPo will draw a younger demographic than the print edition, and aspires to reach 50 million monthly visitors, according to the journalism.co.uk post.

As HuffPo's plan for world domination moves apace, soon online visitors on every continent will be able to glimpse side boob photos of Miley Cyrus.