Dealing with Retraction

This would be either a case of duplicate submission or self-plagiarism depending on the extent of content similarity. Also, since the English journal included some photos without permissions, this could also be a copyright breach. What makes the matter more complicated is that this seems to have come to your notice several years after being published.  You can request a withdrawal before a paper gets published; once it is published, corrective measures would mean either of the following:Corrigendum or erratumExpression of concernRetractionYour best course of action would be as follows:Write to the Japanese journal first and seek permission for reuse the photos. Write to the English journal explaining the entire situation clearly, mentioning that you just came to know of these regulations. Explain that you have retrospectively taken permission from the Japanese journal to reuse the pictures. Ask the journal editor what would be the best course of action: a self-retraction or a corrigendum citing the Japanese article.As it has been a considerable amount of time since both the papers were published, do expect that the correspondence and corrective steps may take some time (perhaps months).  Related reading:Can I reuse a figure from a past Japanese case report in a current English paper?How...

It is unfortunate that the journal has requested retraction of your paper. I would encourage you to respond positively to the journal editor’s request and offer to have your paper retracted. If you do so, the journal’s retraction notice will inform readers that the paper has been retracted by agreement among the authors and the journal editor, owing to errors in data.Although retraction in itself is not favorable and can have a negative impact on your standing as a researcher, retraction due to honest error may not severely affect your reputation and eligibility for future grants, especially if you acknowledge the errors and act in the interest of science.There are two broad reasons for retraction: (1) honest human error, for example, an error in the experimental data or statistical analysis, or (2) academic misconduct, for example data fabrication, failure to disclose conflicts of interest, lack of adherence to ethical protocols, and plagiarism. As you can expect, the latter cases, which are unfortunately increasing in incidence, are more grave than the former. Cases of misconduct not only severely compromise the value of scientific literature but also adversely affect the concerned researchers’ academic standing and career advancement prospects. Such cases are made...