Japanese Minister of Defense Itsunori Onodera and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel sure are getting along well.

The two met with reporters at The Pentagon on Friday afternoon as part of Onodera’s current visit to the U.S. and spent the first five minutes of their 25-minute briefing talking about Onodera’s trip to Hagel’s home state of Nebraska and his alma-mater, the University of Nebraska. Hagel then spoke of a pair of waterproof headphones he had received from Onodera at a previous meeting (Sony, as Onodera later mentioned) and gave him a University of Nebraska tennis shirt.

It was enough to make the Wall Street Journal remark on More >