The Bank of Japan marked Halloween on Tuesday by announcing that Frankenstein’s monster isn’t dead yet. We refer to the Tokyo central bank’s policy in recent years of controlling longer-term interest rates, which Governor Kazuo Ueda this week put on life support without putting it in the grave.

The yield-curve-control policy since 2016 has attempted to manage the yield on 10-year Japanese government bonds (JGBs) to stimulate the economy or inflation or something. Mr. Ueda on Tuesday said that 1% is the maximum “reference point” the BOJ will impose on that yield although the target officially remains zero. This marks a loosening from the last time Mr. Ueda had to scale back on yield controls, in July, when he said 1% would be a cap. At that time, the previous cap had been 0.5%. Before that, it had been 0.25%, and before that 0.1%.