The Bank of Japan’s holdings of government bonds dropped in fiscal 2021 for the first time since Governor Haruhiko Kuroda took the helm as more short-term issues intended to finance the government’s pandemic responses reached maturity, though total assets hit a new record, its earnings report showed Friday. The BOJ owned 526.17 trillion yen ($4.1 trillion) in Japanese government bonds in the year to March, down 1.1 percent from a year ago, roughly about half of the state’s bonds outstanding. The Japanese central bank has been gobbling up government debt to keep borrowing costs at extremely low…