I am using the answer function as I do not have enough rep. to comment.
Take note that gold, or most of the commodities available for trading, are priced in USD. By saying yen is down because of gold is therefore a rather speculative statement in my opinion.
Why I say this is because when the price of gold moves, it should have no effect on the JPY/USD quote. I think the journalist saw that there was a rise in gold prices, as well as appreciating USD/ depreciating JPY which led him to conclude JPY has depreciated in terms of gold prices. But how strongly are the two events correlated should be up to your own research and conclusions.