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This paper presents a comparative analysis of two language policies developed in the 2000s by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). The two language policies analyzed in this paper are the 'Action Plan to Cultivate Japanese with English Abilities' and 'JSL [Japanese as a Second Language] Curriculum in School Education,' developed within the same temporal and spatial frame at the turn of the millennium in Japan. Focusing on lexical labeling in language and population management, it is argued that these two policies have dealt with mutually exclusive groups of the student population, for whom different kinds of bilingualism and Japanese language are imagined. Cumulatively, these two policies represent an unequal access to bilingualism in the Japanese context, combined with the Japanese dualism that indexes national and other speaker-hood through the distinction between kokugo- and nihongo-Japanese education, which has been a key mechanism in the creation of national boundaries in modern Japan. Through this analysis, this paper identifies the particularities of the Japanese case, as well as situating it in the global trend of unequal management of bilingualism. Abbreviations: MEXT: Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan [Monbu kagaku sho]; CNL: Council of National Language [Kokugo shingi kai]; CCA: Council of Cultural Affairs [Bunka shingi kai]; CJGTC: Commission on Japan's Goals in the Twenty-First Century [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at recent isekai ('different world') anime in relation to 2018s Goblin Slayer. It argues the latter is a settler-colonialist critique of the unconscious structural violence within former's tropes and presumptions. Isekai anime provide a space where superexploitation and the redistribution of surplus value are buried within a fantasy of non-alienated, non-commodified labor, and Goblin Slayer represents the exhaustion of this fantasy and the return of the repressed unconscious of settler violence on the frontier. Using Patrick Wolfe's theorization of a neoliberal settler-colonialism, this paper argues that Japanese settler-colonialism is not a primitive form of capitalism or a historical episode shed by postcolonialism but a contemporary mode of production that coexists alongside imperialism. Through an analysis of the historiography of the Japanese Empire, this paper constructs a general theory of settler-colonialism that situates Japan at the forefront of the late capitalist world system, anime as the system's cultural representation, and otakudom as its labor regime. Finally, it asks what lies beyond the settler-colonialist critique and the space Goblin Slayer opens up against its own ideological limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptually anchored on lived religion, this paper explores the meanings and experiences of health, illness, and healing among Filipino migrant women in Japan as they intersect with their religion. Likewise, it explores the functions and limitations of religion as migrant women face physical and mental health problems caused by work, marital status, and/or dislocation. Using biographical interviews and ethnography, this paper suggests that religion serves as a material and symbolic resource for making sense of health, illness and healing. As a material resource, it offered tangible, informational, and emotional support. It can however become limiting when personalised meanings and practices of religion frame illness based on morality, promote health misinformation, and delay healing and other health-seeking behaviours. Nonetheless, healing as perceived and experienced by Filipino migrant women involves lived religion in their complex meaning making and negotiated in terms of its physiological, spiritual and emotional effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that commodities such as blinds, flooring materials, and food supplies are valuable historical sources for understanding the power of Heian and Kamakura royal women. Vases and bowls excavated from the Noto Peninsula, for example, show that Premier Royal Lady Kōkamon-in (1122–1181) played an important role during the twelfth century in starting Suzu stoneware production at her Wakayama Estate and stimulated interregional commerce. From this growing industry, she gained economic benefits and strengthened her political networks. Another contemporary female landlord, Senyōmon-in (1181–1252), implemented a due-collection plan for obtaining material objects that maintained the livelihood of her palace. Mundane items including household furnishing articles supported her economic well being while buttressing her political and cultural influence over the course of her life. By collecting various items from her estates, such as blinds, curtains, and mats, she supported her adopted children and widened her human networks. With the effective use of such material goods, she could seek political allies and align with leading courtiers who participated in decision-making meetings at court. As a whole, the above case studies show that series of innocuous data such as excavated ceramic pieces and recorded object types can be used to reveal a level of significant cultural, political, and religious influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper was to investigate the current status of read-across approaches in the Republic of Korea, Japan, and China in terms of applications and regulatory acceptance. In the Republic of Korea, over the last 6 years, approximately 8% of safety data records used for chemical registrations were based upon read-across, and a guideline published on the use of read-across results in 2017. In Japan, read-across is generally accepted for screening hazard classification of toxicological endpoints according to the Chemical Substances Control Law (CSCL). In China, read-across data, along with data from other animal alternatives are accepted as a data source for chemical registrations, but could be only considered when testing is not technically feasible. At present, read-across is not widely used for chemical registrations and regulatory acceptance of read-across may differ among countries in Asia. With consideration of the advantages and limitations of read-across, it is expected that read-across may soon gradually be employed in Asian countries. Thus, regulatory agencies need to prepare for this progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to calls for greater focus on societal (macro) and community (meso) levels of influence on hunter recruitment and retention. Based upon interviews and focus groups undertaken in two prefectures in Japan, this exploratory study identifies a range of factors that may contribute to Japan's declining hunting participation. While some of these align with those identified elsewhere (e.g. demographic trends of aging and rural depopulation), the study reveals other barriers that are deeply rooted in Japan's historic and contemporary socio-cultural practices. These include gun control, the consumption of game meat, and territorial hunting practices. Much of our knowledge about hunter recruitment and retention is based on research undertaken in Western contexts. These findings illustrate the need for a broader geographical scope in this research, and the importance of historic context in order to gain a holistic understanding of hunting and its connection with society and related ecologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more countries witness depopulation, the expansion of High-Speed Rail (HSR) to reach shrinking cities in peripheral regions is renewing the debate on the effects of this infrastructure. This is the case in Japan, a country that continues to extend its highly developed HSR network hoping to curb regional decline. This paper investigates whether HSR had a positive effect on the shrinking trajectories of connected medium and small-sized cities in peripheral regions by examining the impact of extending the Shinkansen network on five municipalities in the prefectures of Iwate and Aomori, northern Japan. Although depopulation decelerated in some of the case studies, the findings highlight that HSR did not reverse shrinkage and benefits are mainly found in increased accessibility, albeit unevenly distributed. This suggests that, rather than uniformly uplifting socio-economic outlooks, the Shinkansen contributed to reshaping the trajectories of the connected cities and reproduced core–periphery dynamics at the regional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 (3/11), Japan has witnessed a nationwide upsurge of antinuclear demonstrations as well as protests against diverse concerns. Why did this upsurge of protests occur beyond the antinuclear concerns? The exact mechanism that caused this general upsurge of protests has not been explored in detail. Given the limited number of first-time participants, this phenomenon can be fully explained only through an analysis of network-building processes among social movement organizations (SMOs). Based on the first nationwide survey of SMOs conducted in Japan by our team in February 2018, covering 308 groups, we analyzed the constellation of the SMOs' networks after 3/11, their logic of coalition building, and their network effects on mobilization. We observed that the new characteristics of the constellation of the SMOs' networks are twofold. The first feature is that the networks of various SMOs were bridged by antinuclear groups. Antinuclear organizations served as the hub of SMOs' networks, enabling the mobilization to cross different concerns. The second feature is the connections between the citizen groups and labor unions. Labor unions increase the participation during events by mobilizing their partner unions. Both new connections contributed to the general upsurge in large-scale demonstrations for various concerns after 3/11. Our paper contributes to the general discussion on the relation between coalition of SMOs and mobilization by focusing on the dyadic level of networks, and analyzing its effect for mobilization through egocentric network analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English medium instruction (EMI) is a growing phenomenon in higher education contexts across the globe, and EMI programs are expanding rapidly in Japan as part of their internationalization efforts. This paper explores the relationship between student self-beliefs and their success in an EMI course within a bilingual business program. It analyzed direct measures of content course and preparatory course performances, proficiency, and questionnaire data from 139 students completing an English-mediated International Business course at a university in Japan. These data were supplemented by interviews with seven students. Multiple linear regression analysis found L2 proficiency, preparatory course performance, and self-efficacy to predict success in the EMI course. Our qualitative findings support these results, indicating that students with stronger efficacy put forth more effort and see course activities as development opportunities. These findings highlight the need for efficacy development opportunities for students entering EMI study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines South Korea's division system which causes conflicts with Chōsen-seki Zainichi Koreans, focusing on their legal status and identification process. Chōsen-seki is an official designation given to those Koreans who have remained in Japan after liberation and have not acquired South Korean nationality (Kankoku-seki) after Japan recognized South Korea as the "sole legitimate government" on the Korean Peninsula. They are referred to as Chōsen-seki on their foreign registration cards. Chōsen-seki Zainichi Koreans do not necessarily have North Korean nationality and citizenship, but because they have chosen not to acquire South Korean nationality the ROK government considers them pro-North Korea group and routinely demands that they change their registration. This paper will first examine the historical process of division that surrounds the nationality of Zainichi Koreans, and then discuss the problem of exclusive administrative procedure of issuing passport in the postcolonial divided nation. The third section and below will show the point of conflict between the identification of Zainichi Koreans and the divided system, based on some samples of oral interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I demonstrate how long-term multigenerational minorities and Japanese residents engage in the current socio-political discourse of "multicultural coexistence" society (tabunkakyōsei shakai), which had not previously been integral to the vocabulary of national rhetoric in Japan until the 2000s. I argue that the lack of clear definition and goals of multicultural coexistence by the current Japanese government generates obstacles in the attempt to build a multicultural society. While local municipalities' programs, such as multilingual services and lifestyle support, are certainly needed, long-term foreign residents with linguistic and cultural competence are suspicious of the concept of multicultural coexistence due to their own embodied marginalized positions. Taking a local municipality's intercultural event as a point of reference, this paper explores how long-term minority residents perceive their positions at the crossroads of seemingly paradoxical forces of multicultural trends and an ongoing national identity founded upon ethnic homogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses notions of health in alcohol use among new Japanese immigrants in a Japanese pub in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. Japanese-style pubs are a space mediating sociability and subjective health through alcohol consumption, a symbol of good health. In the context of the pub, Japanese immigrants form strong intragroup bonds reinforcing a therapeutic narrative; the sensory experience created through social drinking offers a method of resolving stress, validating affect, and positively shaping well-being. However, positive health outcomes are stratified by social position, gender, and cultural capital, leading to negative health experiences for staff and the marginalization of problems. Therapeutic potential is embedded in a commercial space and regularly available to affluent clients. Health becomes a plural, contradictory concept tied to the body, biomedicine, and economy. This paper contributes towards broader understandings of the intricacies of substance use and the production of health knowledge and lacunae within transcultural contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of 'gig work' has been accompanied by an official discourse which highlights the benefits for 'gig workers', especially as arises from the more autonomous nature of this particular type of employment. In contrast, this paper draws upon the cultural political economy approach to argue that the move towards gig work is more accurately conceptualised as an attempt to legitimate the further flexibilisation of labour markets within advanced industrial democracies, seeking to construct economic imaginaries that are best described as a form of 'fictitious freedom'. In drawing on the cultural political economy approach, the paper explores the interaction between the structural, discursive and technological selectivities which have generated these outcomes. This is done through a discussion of the case of Japan, which is selected as a key case that highlights the tensions and pressures leading to the introduction of gig work in this way across the advanced industrial democracies. The article shows how gig work sees new digital technologies used in an attempt to increase productivity and thereby further growth, locking gig workers into low-skilled and low-paid super-fragmented tasks, whilst at the same time heralding the benefits that gig work can provide for a range of contemporary problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides both lawyers and cinema experts with some insights about the depiction of law and criminal justice in films in Japan. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest of the Japanese movie industry towards 'courtrooms drama', i.e., films set in tribunals and having lawyers, judges, and prosecutors as main characters: a small 'Golden Age' of law as depicted in Japanese cinema. This paper (co-written by a comparative lawyer and a film studies specialist) will address this phenomenon from two perspectives: one from a legal studies and popular culture framework, analyzing how such movies reflect – and at the same time shape – the 'legal imagination' in Japan. The other, from film studies, focuses on technical, directorial aspects, to emphasize how authors intend to depict the law and its actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coalescing in the 1980s, visual kei is currently a Japanese music subculture known for flamboyant theatrics, a woman-dominated fanbase, and its performers' non-normative, often playfully queer gender expressions, which defy heteronormative binaries and hegemonic conceptions of gender and sexuality. This article illuminates the queer facets of visual kei through an in-depth investigation focusing on two forms of binary-destabilizing expression: onnagata/josō and "gender free" or gender-bending. The first involves complete adoption of feminine-coded clothing by self-identified male performers, the second a disregard or even intentional disruption of gendered boundaries. Combining ethnographic fieldwork data with close analysis of social media discourse, this paper explores the "queer lives" of visual kei performers through their personae. This double-pronged approach is necessary as these queer expressions are created and reiterated through both the "live" concert performance and the appearance of "lives" created through social media. In creating these "lives," performers often employ casual, fluid utilization of queer expression which destabilizes normative gender and sexuality narratives while not necessarily explicitly invoking any queer identity. Through elucidating these multifaceted, ambiguous yet queer performances, this paper aims to help complicate current discourse on queer lives in Japan and wider scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Data mining from published papers can generate large experimental datasets that have been overlooked in computational materials informatics. We developed an open web system Starrydata2 to accelerate a comprehensive digitization of data of materials from as-reported plot images in published papers, without sample selection based on performance. By plotting results obtained from our dataset on experimental thermoelectric properties of 434 samples of rock-salt-type (PbTe-type) thermoelectric materials, we revealed differences in electronic structure of parent compounds PbTe, PbSe, PbS, and SnTe from just experimental data. We observed that the calculated Seebeck coefficients were fairly consistent with experimental data for n-type PbTe but not for p-type PbTe, indicating possible modifications in its valence-band electronic structure. We evaluated the electron relaxation time τel from 207 reported samples of n-type PbTe by combining calculations and experimental data. We found that τel is not a constant but varies by at least two orders of magnitude. Achieving long τel was suggested to be critical in increasing the thermoelectric figure of merit ZT. Reproduced with permission from Thermoelectrics Society of Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis paper contributes to the conceptual and empirical development of 'preparedness pedagogy'. Preparedness involves learning, thus disaster risk reduction (DRR) should be discussed more in the field of education, particularly its sub-discipline of public pedagogy. Disaster risk reduction education should have an element of a pedagogy in the interest of publicness, which is an experimental pedagogy in which citizens act in togetherness to develop their own preparedness. The paper pays attention to the two phrases utilised in the recent DRR discourse – 'integrated' DRR and 'participation by all' – and examines the case of Japan, applying whole-system thinking. It is suggested that 'the mesosystem' of the DRR system yields relationships and learning, and thus enables collaboration, change and 'participation by all'. Preparedness pedagogy has a role to play in this. The mesosystem functions as the confluence between state-led and community-based DRR to truly integrate the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper tells a story about the design, development and impact of a post-graduate Masters-level module aimed at (1) enabling groups of teachers within schools to develop innovative approaches to teaching and learning on the basis of their own Lesson Studies and (2) creating a school network of excellence for Lesson Study in the area as a context for building a cumulative evidence-base, which focuses on identifying and resolving enduring problems of teaching and learning in schools. The first part of the paper outlines the curriculum for the module and sets the innovative conceptual framework that underpins its design. This framework is innovative because it connects and unifies a number of distinct pedagogical perspectives. It links the methodology of Japanese Lesson Study with Stenhouse's idea of 'the teacher as a researcher' and his 'process model' of curriculum development as an alternative to the globally dominant 'objectives model'. Then in turn, the framework incorporates Marton and Booth's pedagogical theory of 'variation'. The paper argues that linking and fusing Lesson Study methodology with this wider context of pedagogical ideas unambiguously renders teacher research as learning study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how origami has been implemented, practised, and developed in the early childhood education of Japan over the past 140 years. Historically speaking, paper-folding has been part of Japanese symbolic art, craft culture, and religious ceremonial artefacts since paper and paper-folding techniques were first imported from China during the seventh century. By the eighteenth century, paper-folding provided a form of mass entertainment in Japanese society. During the 1870s, paper-folding was dramatically transformed into a pedagogical tool within Japanese kindergartens after Friedrich Froebel's (1782–1852) kindergarten system and its curriculum was transferred to Japan from the West. "Papier-Falten" (paper-folding) comprised an element of Froebel's Occupations – which was a series of handiwork activities – in his kindergarten curriculum, whereby various folding techniques and models were derived from European traditional paper-folding and introduced into a Japanese kindergarten curriculum that was associated with the concept of Froebel's kindergarten. Particularly seen in early childhood education in Japan, what we now call origami developed as a new form of paper-folding. This gradually emerged through the marriage of Western (German) and Eastern (Japanese) paper-folding cultures. The study highlights the benefits and uniqueness of cultural transmission and transformation when developing origami in early childhood education in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political trust has long been presented as a key social determinant of pandemic resilience in public health by facilitating public cooperation with government instructions. During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, countries where citizens had relatively low levels of trust in government tended to see higher numbers of infections and deaths. Yet Japan's public health response to COVID-19 complicates a straightforward relationship between political trust and successful pandemic response, presenting something of a paradox. Trust in government, very low by international comparison, was compounded by a lack of state authority to enforce its public health recommendations. Nevertheless, it appears that initially, most people followed government advice, particularly politicians' calls for jishuku ('self-restraint'). This paper explores the Japanese government's response to COVID-19 and places the concept of jishuku in historical context, arguing that it represents a complex dynamic that includes expectations about the solidaristic behavior of imagined fellow citizens, stigmatization and social coercion, and government appeals to ethnonationalist identity that together may have helped overcome low trust in government. 'Compliance' itself is complicated in this picture, with compliance with individual measures dependent on the dynamic tension between a variety of different factors beyond political trust alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the writing on labor market flexibilization focuses on non-regular employment, this ethnography of precarious work explores one overlooked aspect, the experiences of increasingly precarious young regular workers. These jobs take the form of standard employment, but workers are often subjected to even more precarious and exploitative working conditions than non-regular workers. Drawing on the case of Japan, a seemingly unlikely place to observe such a development, this article has three aims. First, it clarifies the underlying mechanisms of labor exploitation in precarious regular employment. Second, it illustrates these mechanisms at work by examining the experiences of young workers. Third, it explores the potential of such young workers to disrupt these mechanisms through an individualistic form of collective action. The paper illuminates that, in the context of labor market flexibilization, inequality of security exists not only between standard and non-standard employment but also within standard employment arrangements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1968, Japan's own "season of politics" was full of strikes, protests, and university closures. Much of the exigence behind students' revolutionary fervor revolved around a "self-revolution in everydayness," as activists sought to criticize capitalist consumerism and imperialism, and aimed to transform their own depoliticized consciousness. The films of the Art Theater Guild (ATG) reflect these desires. This paper argues that the films produced by ATG are a deeply political film cycle united by a "house style" which serves to destabilize and dehabituate our perception, and echoes the student protesters in their desire for a self-revolution of everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tarō is one of many small fishing communities on the northeastern coast of Iwate Prefecture which was decimated by Japan's catastrophic tsunami on 11 March 2011. Historically, in most parts of the world, including Japan, post-disaster sightseeing has often been portrayed as a form of Dark Tourism emphasizing death, loss and devastation. However, in Tarō, community-led tourism post-2011 has become the catalyst for a positive, fortifying, identity-building economic development strategy infused by hope for the future referred to locally as Bōsai (Disaster Prevention) Tourism. Using an ethnographic approach, this paper argues that, unlike many post-disaster tourism sites, Bōsai Tourism in Tarō builds around place-based practices and traditional community knowledge to provide a positive, satisfying touristic experience for visitors, and gives local residents unprecedented yet tangible social, economic, and political goals to strive for as they embrace the future, designed to transform local tragedy into a local triumph. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper provides information on juvenile stages of seven intertidal oribatid mite species from the East Asian region. Larva and nymphs of the fortuyniid species Fortuynia churaumi, F. shibai, F. rotunda and Alismobates reticulatus are described and details about juvenile morphology of the selenoribatid species, Arotrobates granulatus, Indopacifica taiyo and I. tyida are given. Juveniles of the genus Arotrobates are reported for the first time and strong ventral femoral carinae are supposed to be diagnostic characters. Basically, the conservative morphology of immature stages could be confirmed in every studied taxon and its importance for phylogenetic considerations is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss how a legal amendment in Japan's Nationality law, in force since 2009 and celebrated as a victory for children's rights, soon opened new opportunities for labour brokers to send Japanese-Filipino offspring and their Filipina mothers to work in Japanese care-giving facilities and in factories. While the processes of recruitment, selection, training and placement resemble those commonly followed by commercial migrant brokers in the Philippines, Japanese descendants and their Filipina parent travel to Japan on family-related visas enabling their brokers to skirt some of the regulations set by the Philippine state. The recent cross-border mobility of Japanese-Filipinos and their mothers to Japan shows that migration infrastructure is a patchwork stitched from regulatory loopholes and opportunities, commercial responses, humanitarian counter-dynamics, and individual plans and desires. I address how migration infrastructure is interrelated with the perpetuation of socio-economic inequality and the moral economy of migration, as (would-be) migrants' limited recourse to legal instruments and cross-border mobility creates a dependence on intermediaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to provide a fuller picture of the organized abortions on Japanese female repatriates that took place within the repatriate medical relief under occupation of the GHQ. It also analyzes how the government carried out illegal abortions prior to the de facto legalization of abortion by the Eugenic Protection Law of 1948. This article suggests that the government justified abortions for societal reasons, such as rape, or for eugenic reasons, which were illegal at the time, by broadening the interpretation of caring for the mother's health and treating societal and eugenic reasons as medical reasons. In so doing, the paper examines the issues of historical continuity and discontinuity in Japan's modern history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom (UK) and Japan have conducted unprecedented military exercises as each other's closest security partners in Asia and Europe, respectively. Despite publicly avowed closeness, these military exercises were not predicated on formal alliance commitments or deterrence of common adversaries underpinned by shared threat perceptions. Addressing this puzzle, a hitherto-overlooked perspective of mutual strategic reassurance for trusted partners is proposed here. This paper derives hypotheses from existing – but relatively under-developed – literatures on military exercises and reassurances that locate the drivers of reassurance in the needs and weaknesses of the other. What stems from this starting premise is an importance placed on high-level diplomacy and adjusting military deployments to allay each other's strategic concerns. These hypotheses are tested by presenting original interview data supplemented with discourse analysis of both primary and secondary sources. The findings suggest that effusive diplomatic language vowing politico-strategic support for each other, reinforced by ground-breaking military exercises mutually reassured UK concerns about retaining post-Brexit global standing and Japan's apprehension over its dire geo-strategic context. While not quite deterrence or alliance, these military exercises enabled the UK and Japan to transform their predominantly trade-based relationship into a more defence-oriented one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an intellectual biography of the Japanese social and political theorist Fujita Shōzō focusing on his later work. The centrepiece of his scholarly contributions is an analysis of the Tennō system (Tennōsei) and a diagnosis of postwar Japan's totalitarianism from his distinctive socio-pathological perspective. Through a discussion on his philosophy of 'experience' (keiken) and theory of 'totalitarianism' (zentaishugi), I outline his social critique of Japan's high-speed growth (kōdo seichō) in terms of the transformation from his optimistic state of 'hope' (kibō) to his pessimistic state of 'despair' (zetsubō). I argue that Fujita criticised kōdo seichō to restore 'experience' by preventing Japan rationalising without reason and by leading the country to be open to diverse people and objects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The turn of the nineteenth century saw an increasing encroachment of Russian explorations into and around isolationist Japan, culminating with the capture and imprisonment of Russian naval captain Vasily Golovnin in 1811. These Russian attempts to "open" Japan were a threat to the established contact between Japan and Europe through the Dutch base in Dejima at Nagasaki, which gave the Dutch a monopoly on relations and the transfer of knowledge between Japan and Europe. However, Russia's imperial designs in the North Pacific and the Napoleonic wars, which reduced Dutch power, threatened this monopoly, offering new perspectives on Japan and throwing political relations with the Japanese Shogunate (Bakufu) into turmoil. This paper compares Dutch and Russian approaches to contact with Japan at the turn of the nineteenth century and examines how actions such as Golovnin's imprisonment foreshadowed an end for Japanese isolationism and the Dutch monopoly on contact with the Shogunate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes how SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) rights and same-sex partnership are framed and discussed at the macro-level of state discourse as well as the micro-level of individual negotiation of partnership in Japan. Drawing on but reformulating Puar's concept of homonationalism, we found that the Japanese state projects a progressive national identity that consists ironically in denying full citizenship to sexual and gender minorities. It invokes an alleged history of tolerance in Japan to frame its 'unique' and 'superior' approach to SOGI rights. It is an approach inextricably bound to the heteronormative institution of marriage and family as a system of ruling. Arguments in favour of same-sex marriage reproduce the same narrative of tolerance, while naturalizing marriage and removing it from its sociolegal context and biologizing sexual orientation. Individuals contemplating or registering partnerships likewise reinforce the sanctity of marriage, even without embracing it. We suggest that a thorough discussion of marriage in its legal framework and historical context is necessary to develop the critical potential of same-sex partnership. We also advocate exploring intra-Asian influences in future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Akìwowo's vision and scholarship were very much impacted by his historical context. Most of his work was conducted after independence when the issue of development was upmost in the minds of Nigerian academics. Born in 1922, he was an elder among the post-independence scholars who sought to help move the new nation forward. This paper focuses on the distinct ideas Akìwowo brought to this endeavour. It was the area in which I had the most discussions with him and in which I collaborated on a publication. I focus on (1) the context within which his ideas developed, (2) his perspective on indigenous sociologies and (3) his output. Akìwowo's concerns in the 1970s are still with us as is clear from Burawoy's Presidential address at the International Sociological Association meetings in Japan, 2014, and the ongoing work of sociologists and social scientists from other regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japanese popular culture has become a major global phenomenon, with thousands of manga, anime, and video game titles translated and localized every year in dozens of countries. However, despite the international success of Japanese pop culture, fandom in Japan remains insular and socially marginal. Japanese society generally regards otaku and fujoshi as undersocialized, immature, and even dangerous. This paper examines the collision of these two fan cultures as depicted in Kio Shimoku's manga Genshiken. A somewhat self-deprecating love letter to otaku and fujoshi, the text depicts a university otaku circle that is eventually joined by an American exchange student, Susanna Hopkins. Through the inclusion of this exchange student the text expresses anxieties about the exportation and repatriation of Japanese subculture. Sue only expresses herself in quotes from subcultural texts, suggesting that the process of exportation transmogrifies Japanese subculture to the point where it is no longer legible to Japanese fans. This subculture, dehistoricized and decontextualized from the social and cultural strata of Japanese fandom, is made illegible in its home country, revealing deep uneasiness about the spread of Japanese subcultural fandoms that have escaped Japanese cultural authority and invites scrutiny to insular fandom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the socio-economic problems facing the construction industry in Japan are presented, including the COVID19 pandemic, an aging population, aging infrastructure, and severe natural disasters, and a project to tackle the problem is introduced. This project, called 'Collaborative robots for adaptation of diverse environments and innovation of infrastructure construction,' is a sub-project of the Moonshot project organized by the Cabinet Office in Japan. The key approach to proceeding with this project is an 'open design' for robotics. Based on this approach, three aspects of the research plans are introduced: (1) robots that flexibly adapt to the environment, (2) Many-modal AI for environment evaluation, and (3) Physical AI and dynamic collaboration of multi-robots. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With climate change, many cultural landscapes will be lost or permanently altered. One approach to managing this is through international designation, through UNESCO, and the focus that it provides. National designations such as National Park status also offer a set of strategies for managing and adapting. This paper explores landscape designations in Japan and the UK focusing on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It is suggested that the UK's dualistic governmental structures for landscapes prioritise some attributes over others. This is examined through the recent inscription of the Lake District as a World Heritage Property and counterpointed through looking at the recent Landscape Review also known as the Glover Report. A case study on a Japanese approach to landscape designation is explored to suggest alternative approaches. Both country's relationship with international designation is discussed. Methodologies and theoretical approaches are examined with the conclusion that landscape change and loss are dealt with in Japan differently and arguably more effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With Japan's thrust towards a more balanced energy mix, it has been undergoing what can be termed as an energy transition. While the Fukushima Disaster has played a crucial role in this transition, the Paris Agreement has further acted as an impetus for the same. However, since 2012 Japan was under the political leadership of Shinzo Abe, who today is the longest-serving Prime Minister of Japan until Yoshihide Suga took over the prime ministership recently. Under Abe's guidance, Japan's energy policy has been a mixed bag with a few hits and some major misses. Now, as Japan welcomes its new Prime Minister Suga, it falls upon him to lead Japan on a path of just transition. One which balances its energy and economic goals and pays heed to the necessity of building a climate-friendly sustainable model. This paper maps and evaluates the Abe administration's broad energy policy measures and attempts to foresee the changes Suga administration can introduce to the ongoing energy transition of Japan. It also highlights the areas within the energy sector, which might require the focus of PM Suga to enable Japan to take advantage of the opportunity of making Japan a part of global green leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how material-based and identity-based concerns influence views on immigration in Japan. Our analysis, based on in-depth interviews with 28 local residents and public and policy opinion leaders conducted in 2015 in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, found widespread opposition to immigration with the exception of the immigration of care workers. General opposition to immigration stemmed from identity-based concerns, while openness to and support for the immigration of care workers was related to material-based concerns. Our findings suggest that while the identities approach to understanding anti-immigration sentiment has explanatory power in Japan, material-based concerns can, when sufficiently strong, override identity-based concerns in a phenomenon we call 'pragmatic divergence'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the Japanese television show franchise Terrace House, six people live in a large home together and cameras record their interactions, with the key addition of a group of comedians and television personalities who watch the show together and comment on it. In its ongoing discussions of which housemates and behaviors are the most 'manly', Terrace House offers a window into contemporary debates about masculinities in Japan. In examining in-show incidents and commentary related to the housemates' sexuality, aggression, passivity, maturity, and attitudes toward money and labor, we begin to see how certain norms surrounding masculinities in Japan are shifting (and how some remain static). Focusing on the 2017–2019 iteration of the show, 'Opening New Doors', this paper examines how the interactions of Terrace House's young housemates, the reactions of the show's (mostly older) commentators, the responses of fans, and the show's editing and structural choices reveal conflicting ideas about what it means to be 'manly' (as well as to be a responsible adult) in contemporary Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Paul Natorp is better known as a key figure of Neo-Kantian epistemology than as a great educationist. This paper discusses the affinity for Natorp's theory of education in Japan in the first decades of the twentieth century. It presents an overview of Natorp's educational way of thinking and analyses the interest of Japanese educationists in the educational thought encapsulated in the conception of Natorp's educational theory, which he called Sozialpädagogik. Addressing the debate around Natorp's Sozialpädagogik within the Japanese national community of scholars, key points of the inception of the theory in Japan are examined, central scholars involved are identified, and the impact of Natorp's conception on the Japanese philosophy of education and educational practice is considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the complexities, contingencies and tensions involved in the creation of a new, 'scientific' assessment in what we call Prefecture A in Japan. We start with a thick, granular description of the complicated and ongoing narrative of a new policy emergence. This descriptive account serves as a precursor to our application of an Actor Network Theory (ANT) approach, particularly the concepts of assemblage and assembling, while at the same time eschewing its depoliticising effect of a flat ontology. Our account details that much work and strategising went into achieving the new assessment but also into holding it in place. This included, strategising inside and across the Prefecture, with the National Ministry, with edu-businesses that had psychometric expertise, with politicians and the board of education and with the OECD and the Director of its Education and Skills Directorate. The analysis illustrates the complex, multi-directional and topological cartographies of power that now work in contemporary education policy processes. As such, we suggest a way to transcend the binary of methodological nationalism and methodological globalism evident in much policy sociology in education work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By extending the late Osamu Kanamori's notion of science fiction (sci-fi) as it "re-articulate[s] various issues that bioethical studies had formally discussed," this paper provides a cultural analysis of Japanese sci-fi stories from the 1990s with reference to the exchange of body parts. By focusing on the time when organ transplantation from brain-dead donors was part of many intensive debates, this paper pays particular attention to the fictional representations of humanity, which feature body-part exchanges between the living and the dead, in genres ranging from Noh 能dramas to manga 漫画. In this paper I shed light on two issues: (1) how sci-fi representations described the matter of humanity vis-à-vis exchanging parts of the body, and (2) in what ways and on what terms bioethical discourses relating to Japanese organ transplant medicine from brain-dead donors were rearticulated through these sci-fi narratives. I also argue that such rearticulated values were inscribed in the process of constructing the bioethical code of practice in transplant medicine and deathbed care that took place during the late 1990s. By doing so, this paper confirms the role that sci-fi plays in bioethical imaginations, as Kanamori has pointed out and as can also be seen in East Asian societies like Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In table tennis, many different approaches to scientific founded match analysis have been developed since the first ones in the 1960s. The aim of this paper is to give a review on some of the most acknowledged methods of match analysis in table tennis. The first chapter presents a historical overview of match analysis from all over the world. The second part reviews different approaches to match analysis in more detail, using the performance analysis classification of theoretical and practical performance analysis. The review includes the most actual theoretical performance analysis techniques in table tennis: performance indices, simulative approaches, momentum analysis, footwork analysis, and finally an approach which uses top expert knowledge for a comprehensive technical-tactical analysis. In the section of practical performance analysis, the paper presents two “best practice” examples describing performance analysis procedures of the two most successful countries of the last Olympics: China and Japan. The paper ends with a summary on the impact of the different approaches and gives an outlook on promising new developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the intergenerational transmission of educational attainment using microdata for Japan. By exploiting unique information on whether children have ever given up schooling for financial reasons and, if they have, which level of schooling they have forgone, it assesses the role of borrowing constraints in determining intergenerational educational mobility in a more direct manner than previous attempts. Despite a steady increase in the level of educational attainment, the regression results indicate the absence of an increase in intergenerational educational mobility in postwar Japan. Moreover, while borrowing constraints used to play a significant role in lowering intergenerational educational mobility, they no longer seem to matter for the youngest cohort examined in this paper. Instead, our analysis shows that the relative importance of adolescent academic ability for children's educational attainment has increased in recent years, thereby underlining the increasing importance of earlier investments in children's human capital for their subsequent academic advancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the development of the hensachi system in Japanese education from the 1960s when it first appeared as a de facto measure for scholastic achievement. Unlike absolute scoring systems (such as A-level grades) hensachi gave an indication of the probability of getting a place on a particular course at a particular school or university rather than telling applicants where the bar was set in order to have a chance of being offered a place. Private companies quickly saw the opportunity to collate the huge amounts of data needed to obtain accurate hensachi bell curve distributions and began operating practice exams (mogi shiken) in schools across Japan. From the mid-1970s onwards, hensachi increasingly became seen as the source of many educational ‘evils’ in Japan and there were many attempts to ban its use. It was blamed for cramming, examination hell, and a focus on educational scores rather than learning. The system was also being used by teachers and schools to short cut the real examination system. The final section of the paper explores why, despite these concerns, repeated predictions of the demise of hensachi have proved to be premature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a detailed analysis of the Tokyo Metropolitan Emissions Trading Scheme (Tokyo ETS), Japan’s first emissions trading scheme with mandatory cap initiated by the government of Tokyo. Unlike trading schemes in other countries, the Tokyo ETS covers indirect emissions from the commercial sector. It is well known that a variety of market barriers impede full realization of energy efficiency opportunities, especially in the commercial sector. Experiences with the Tokyo ETS should therefore provide important lessons for the design of climate change mitigation policies, especially when targeting the commercial sector. The emissions from covered entities have been drastically reduced from those at the scheme’s outset, with an average 14% reduction as of the end of the first commitment period of five years (2010-2014) compared with 2009 levels. This paper shows that the Tokyo ETS alone did not cause these reductions; there were other drivers. Among them, the energy savings triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 were crucial. The contribution of credit trading, in contrast, was limited since most of the covered entities reduced emissions by themselves. Through an investigation of official reports, an assessment of the emissions data from the covered entities compared to those of uncovered entities and in-depth interviews with firms covered by the scheme, this paper confirms that the main drivers of emissions reductions by covered entities were separate from the ETS. In fact, the advisory aspect of the scheme seems to be much more important in encouraging energy-saving actions. Key policy insights Most of the observed emission reductions were not caused by the Tokyo ETS alone. An advisory instrument was crucial to the effectiveness of the Tokyo ETS. The experience of the Tokyo ETS suggests that making full use of the advantages of emissions trading is difficult in the case of the commercial sector. Price signals have not provided a stimulus to climate change mitigation actions, which implies that establishing a cap to yield effective carbon prices poses a challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan is abandoning its once unidirectional foreign security policy towards the USA, two notable examples of which are its increasingly comprehensive and substantial security relations with the Philippines and Vietnam. Putting these burgeoning Japanese security partnerships front and center, this paper asks the following questions: What are the characteristics of Japan's maturing security partnerships with the Philippines and Vietnam? What factors have driven and enabled their recent emergence? What promotes and constrains their future development? What do these maturing Japanese non-US security partnerships reveal about Japan's direction as a security actor in and beyond East Asia? The paper finds that these two Japanese security bilaterals, which have six basic characteristics in common, are fundamentally driven by the contemporary shift in the balance of power and the strategic challenge that China's emerging maritime power and ambitions present Japan. It moreover argues that the substantiation of these security partnerships have been pursued under American auspices and further invited by Japanese nationalism and security legislative reforms. Notwithstanding these encouraging factors, however, domestic and geo-strategic constraints and counter incentives lead this paper to expect further substantiation, but limited military significance in the future of these security partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'comfort women' system of the 1930s and 1940s, in which girls and women were coerced to serve as sex slaves for the Imperial Army of Japan, was one of the most systematic and institutionalized forms of violence against female bodies in contemporary world history. In spite of the unparalleled scale and systematic nature of the violence against thousands of women, the world knew little about this system until the 1980s when former 'comfort women' began to speak out. Geographic scholarship remains virtually nonexistent on the geographies of the displacement and violence experienced by these women and girls enslaved across Japan's war fronts in Asia-Pacific regions. By calling our collective attention to this gross and gendered violence, this paper situates Japan's 'comfort women' system in broader spatial and temporal contexts to illustrate the historical and ongoing subjugation of and violence against women, their bodies and sexuality. Using a feminist geopolitical framework, we problematize the nationalist and geopolitical framing of the legacy of 'comfort women' and memorial sites that are dedicated to them. Rather, we center our analysis on the embodied, intimate and lived sites of violence experienced by the women and girls under the 'comfort women' system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Japanese grape wine production has been promoted as cultural heritage, through the collaboration of local official and private actors. In 2018, Japan's wine making was designated as a national cultural heritage through a governmental program called "Japan Heritage," highlighting the history associated with wine production in a specific area in Yamanashi Prefecture, a long-standing wine-making region in Japan. In this creation of heritage, historical narratives of wine production have been rediscovered and invented. Essentially, this heritagization strategy is not preserving wine culture but creating one, developing touristic resources and stimulating local economy. The politics of making wine heritage in Japan reveals a national governance of food culture with the goal of making Japan a global tourism destination and promoting rural development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-regional free trade agreements (FTAs) have flourished in East Asia since the late 1990s. Japan and Korea were at the forefront of this trend. Nevertheless, most policymakers' preferences orbited around region-oriented FTAs out of reluctance to make a sudden policy shift away from their conventional emphasis on World Trade Organization-based multilateral negotiations. The trend continued in Japan throughout the 2000s. In contrast, Korea took a sharp turn toward a cross-regional strategy in 2003. By the mid-2010s, this had created a significant gap in the two countries' overall FTA partner choices. What caused policymakers' ideas in the two countries to diverge from their initial focus on region-oriented FTAs? This paper focuses on the conditions that enabled policymakers' ideas to explain the divergence by developing the contextual‒dynamic framework of FTA policies. At the dynamic level, individuals are more likely to emerge with new ideas when their expertise comes from outside the decision-making body, accompanied by their social qualities and power. Contextual conditions should also be met: the trade policy environment should reciprocate agent-level qualities to create a supportive atmosphere for policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades Japanese criminal syndicates, collectively known as the yakuza, enjoyed a highly visible and semi-legal status that positioned them in a grey area. Accordingly, also much of the yakuza's business lies in a grey zone: night-entertainment, different forms of gambling, front companies and (fake) social movements. However, following the introduction of new stricter regulations, the yakuza are struggling to keep operating in the legal and semi-legal areas of their business, and have been pushed to explore new modi operandi, using (semi)legal actors and loopholes. Based on fieldwork conducted in Japan with current and ex-yakuza members, this paper analyses the yakuza's response to the reduced opportunities to engage in legal activities. It is argued that this determined an increased involvement with predatory crimes for low-ranking members, while the decreased power in controlling markets allowed for the emergence of novel forms of crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China and Japan have engaged in fierce competition over infrastructure lending in East Asia, particularly since the 2010s. Under the intense focus on the geopolitical roots of this competition, the political-economic effects of this competitive statecraft on the smaller Asian countries are less discussed. At first glance, lending competition seems to benefit borrowing countries through access to more financial resources. This paper argues, however, that competitive statecraft leads to an 'easy money' conundrum where overeager creditor countries, in pursuit of geostrategic goals, perpetuate political opportunism in borrowing countries. To support this claim, we examine China–Japan competition over two high-speed rail projects in Indonesia and Malaysia. Our process tracing analysis explains how push factors (easy money from China and Japan) and pull factors (the host government's desire to exploit easy money for political gain) interacted to advance two troubled projects at the cost of borrowing countries' fiscal discipline and government accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]