The book is a collection of papers from the Proceedings of the 5th Italy-Japan Symposium 'Recent Achievements and Perspectives in Nuclear Physics', held in Naples as part of the framework of the INFN-RIKEN Research Collaboration Program. The meeting was devoted to recent achievements and new challenges in the different fields of nuclear physics, with the aim to promote new collaborations between the two communities and thereby enhance the development of nuclear physics in the two countries. Particularly interesting are the topics dedicated to radioactive beams and innovative instrumentation: the prospects for future accelerators and experimental setups as well as novel future research directions. These projects are of key importance for the future of heavy ion nuclear physics.