Yahoo Japan News Comments Scraper - Extract Reader Comments in Seconds

Turn any Yahoo! News Japan article into structured comment data. Paste a pickup link or an article link and this Actor fetches reader comments (ヤフコメ) with your choice of sort order - Recommended (おすすめ順) or Newest (新着順) - along with reaction counts (empathy, insight, negative). No browser automation needed: comments are pulled directly from the same server-rendered data Yahoo! News Japan sends to real visitors, so runs are fast and cheap.

Why use this Actor?

• Sentiment and public-opinion research - pull hundreds of real reader comments per article for analysis, trend tracking, or NLP pipelines.
• Monitor reactions to breaking news - schedule this Actor on Apify to track how comment volume and sentiment evolve over time on a developing story.
• Flexible input - paste whatever link you have on hand: a /pickup/{id} link, a canonical /articles/{hash} link, or a direct /comments link. The Actor resolves it automatically.

How to use Yahoo Japan News Comments Scraper

1. Click Try for free or Start on the Apify Console.
2. Paste an Article URL - e.g. https://news.yahoo.co.jp/pickup/6589702.
3. Choose a Sort order: Recommended or Newest.
4. Set Max comments to control how many comments to fetch.
5. Run the Actor and download your results as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Output tab.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
articleUrl	string	(required)	A /pickup/{id}, /articles/{hash}, or /articles/{hash}/comments link from news.yahoo.co.jp.
sortOrder	string (enum)	recommended	recommended (おすすめ順) or newer (新着順).
maxComments	integer	50	Maximum number of comments to fetch (10 per page).
proxyConfiguration	object	{"useApifyProxy": false}	Optional Apify Proxy configuration, recommended for large runs.

See .actor/input_schema.json for the full definition.

Output

Example output item:

{
  "commentId": "85cc8387-bd69-4903-8dfd-0466148efb4b",
  "text": "高速道路の1メートルの隆起や新幹線の運休など、交通網の被害の大きさに驚いています。...",
  "userName": "cmx********",
  "postDate": "3時間前",
  "empathyCount": 246,
  "insightCount": 33,
  "negativeCount": 28,
  "permalink": "https://news.yahoo.co.jp/profile/news/comments/85cc8387-bd69-4903-8dfd-0466148efb4b",
  "profileUrl": "https://news.yahoo.co.jp/users/s3MdpciCk2JcZC1-VVktYBbnnDwDASDii4NOQIwAY7CzPZPh00"
}

You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Data fields

Field	Description
commentId	Yahoo!'s internal comment UUID.
text	Comment body text.
userName	Masked commenter handle as shown publicly (e.g. cmx********).
postDate	Relative post time as shown on the page (e.g. 3時間前).
empathyCount	Count of 共感 (empathy) reactions.
insightCount	Count of なるほど (insightful) reactions.
negativeCount	Count of うーん (negative) reactions.
permalink	Direct link to this comment.
profileUrl	Link to the commenter's public profile.

Pricing

This Actor only performs lightweight HTTP requests (no browser), so fetching 50 comments typically takes just a few seconds and runs cheaply even on the free Apify plan.

Tips

• maxComments controls how many pages are fetched (10 comments per page) - keep it reasonable for frequently scheduled runs.
• Articles with very few comments will simply return fewer items than maxComments; this is expected, not an error.

FAQ

Is this legal? Scraping publicly available web pages carries legal and Terms of Service considerations that vary by jurisdiction and use case. Review Yahoo! News Japan's own terms before relying on this data for anything beyond personal or research use, and use this Actor responsibly.

Found a bug or have a feature request? Use the Issues tab on this Actor's page. Custom scraping solutions are also available on request.

Development

python -m venv .venv
.venv/Scripts/pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
pytest tests/
apify validate-schema
apify run --input-file test-inputs/pickup-recommended.json --purge
apify run --input-file test-inputs/article-newer.json --purge

No environment variables are required; this Actor only reads publicly served HTML pages.