Search

This paper analyses the nature of war-related reporting in Japanese newspapers through a survey of how the quality national newspapers reported the eruption of the ‘comfort women’ issue in 1991–1992. It challenges the widespread assumption about the ‘homogeneity’ of the Japanese press, which is based in critiques of press clubs, and illustrates how Japanese newspapers have developed distinct ideological positions in war-related reporting. The paper also clarifies the contested nature of Japanese war memories, some of the key features of that contestation and the pivotal role that the ‘comfort women’ and gender issues have assumed in contemporary Japanese war discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Love, sex and marriage are recurrent themes in Kurahashi Yumiko's literature, especially in her early works. In the novel Divine maiden (1965) she approached those topics from a different perspective, through the form of shōjo shōsetsu (girl's fiction): she even went so far as to define Divine maiden as 'the last shōjo shōsetsu'. The protagonist of this novel is a young girl, Miki: the story revolves around Miki's incestuous relationship with her father, as it is depicted in her three diaries, read by a male narrator. Even though incest is a recurrent theme in Kurahashi's work, it has been pointed out that the incestuous relationship between father and daughter could be considered shōjo shōsetsu's grand finale. However, not much attention has been paid to the relationship between Divine maiden and shōjo shōsetsu as a literary genre; moreover, the meaning of love, sex and marriage in the novel has been left unexplored. This paper aims to analyse the girl's sexuality depicted in Divine maiden in the context of post-war Japan's junketsu kyōiku ('purity education'); through an analysis of Miki's diaries, I will explore the way Kurahashi has parodied the concept of 'democracy' in relation to the ideal of 'pure love'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores senses of ‘Japaneseness’ among Japanese musicians today by considering the words of 32 musicians—from koto and shakuhachi masters to jazz saxophonists, rock guitarists, and classical and electronic composers-in a provincial Japanese city. Their diverse senses of cultural identity are analyzed through three metaphors through which they express themselves: Japaneseness as a fence, walling off Japanese from change and foreignness, Japaneseness as a flavor to be enjoyed by anyone in the world who so chooses, and Japaneseness as a phantasm: Japaneseness obliterated, to be created anew if enough people can be convinced of the validity of such a recreation. This paper suggests that these metaphors may be useful in explicating cultural identity across a broad range of settings beyond music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a diplomatic reflection based on a long connection with Australia and Australians and a posting to Canberra as Japanese ambassador (1998-2001). Key issues that have caused tension in the relationship and the process towards the development of mature bilateral relations are discussed. Finally, the paper argues that the bilateral relationship will continue to develop and prosper and that this is in the interests of both countries. [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]

Gender, particularly the figure of theshōjo, plays a crucial role in the creation of heroes and the development of plots in Japanese popular texts. This paper focuses onThe Cat Returns(Neko no ongaeshi) (2002, dir. Morita Hiroyuki), one of the lesser-known films produced by Studio Ghibli. A socio-political reading and gender-sensitive analysis reveals that this film offers a deep and critical commentary on the gender order in contemporary Japan. Moreover, with its teenage girl protagonist Haru, it presents an exceptional case of ashōjo-centred anime that does not fit conventional genre characteristics. Through Haru’s refusal to become a wife in the Cat Kingdom the film criticises the expectation for young women to prioritise the pursuit of romantic relationships (ren’ai), and rejects the ideal of the Japanese housewife (shufu) as an existence of dependence in a semi-feudal social gender order. This paper views Haru’s coming-of-age story through major gender theories, and interprets the plot as a critique of what Ueno Chizuko and Nobuta Sayoko (2004) called the ‘Marriage Empire’ in Japan. We argue that the anime reflects shifting ideas on gender and at the same time presents an exceptional treatment of the need for young women to confront the social changes and gender role expectations of contemporary Japanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the Pacific War, Japanese boys and girls were increasingly pulled out of secondary school to help the war effort as factory and farm workers. Their labor-service hours kept increasing until, by January 1944, many students were working year-long shifts. This paper argues that secondary students had a sense of entitlement to education that went against the grain of their patriotic duty to the state asshōkokumin, or ‘little countrymen’. Their later memoirs support the postwar view of their labor as child abuse. However, their identity as adolescents came more from their status as students than from their age; before 1945 most Japanese left school and entered the workforce at age 14. This paper brings together evidence that has not been linked previously: (a) the voices of student workers in diaries and memoirs; (b) the disaggregation of wartime labor by age; and (c) the differential treatment of students in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This short paper examines a forgotten episode in the early 1870s when a steamship flying under the flag of the Bey of Tunis unexpectedly arrived in the port of Yokohama. This steamship, the Zadkia, immediately became involved in a legal dispute regarding the debts of its owner and the status of the ship itself as a vessel from a non-Treaty Power. The Zadkia story was significant in several respects. First, it revises our understanding of when and how Japan and the Islamic lands re-established contact in the modern period. Second, it throws additional light upon the history of the treaty revision movement in Japan. Finally, it represented a new phase for native Japanese journalism when a Japanese reporter attended a European-style trial for the first time. This paper is based upon newspaper reports as well as diplomatic correspondence between London, Tokyo, Yokohama, and Tunis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the Japanese business community continues to be perceived as male dominated, the majority of students of Business Japanese in Australian universities are female. This paper examines Business Japanese textbooks from both macro (social practices) and micro (linguistic discourses) level perspectives, using critical discourse analysis as an analytical tool, to assess the adequacy of the textbooks to be used in a primarily female student community. The analysis reveals that the textbooks present a stereotypical and exaggerated version of social practices of the Japanese business community, based on idealised native-Japanese norms. Female characters in the textbooks have less access to managerial positions, and fewer opportunities to participate in business, than in reality. The analysis also highlights the invisibility of non-Japanese female characters in the textbooks. Female students using the textbooks are not provided with role models or spaces to acculturate into. These textbooks do not grant adequate learning tools for non-Japanese female students. The paper calls for textbooks which provide more diverse perspectives of the Japanese business community, where non-Japanese female students are able to construct their own social identities accompanied by relevant use of the Japanese language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is my great pleasure to present this special literature issue of Japanese Studies . The last time a similar issue was published was in December 1994 (Vol. 14, No. 3). Of course, individual literature papers have been published regularly in subsequent issues, but many of us have been feeling that it is high time for another issue entirely devoted to literary studies. This feeling was reinforced at the Asian Studies Association of Australia Fourteenth Biennial Conference, Hobart, 30 June-3 July 2002. Despite the unfortunate cancellation of Ōe Kenzaburō's keynote speech, Japanese literary studies were strongly represented at the conference. It took several months after the excitement of the ASAA conference, however, for a more concrete plan for this issue to emerge. Once it was decided to allocate the December 2003 issue for this purpose, there was no time to waste. Being a complete novice in editing, I am deeply indebted to a number of people who worked very hard to make this issue possible. I am particularly grateful to the chief editor, Judith Snodgrass, for giving me this opportunity and for guiding me through this very rewarding operation. My big thanks go to all the contributors and anonymous referees, who are based in, or travelling in, various parts of the world, not only for their intellectual contributions but also for their cooperation in enabling us to meet the extremely tight schedule. I would also like to thank the School of Languages and Comparative Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, for funding editorial assistance. Last, but by no means least, Anne Platt must be commended highly for her thorough and efficient editorial work. The six papers are arranged roughly in chronological order. The first three deal with pre-war texts, beginning with Hiroko Cockerill's study of Futabatei Shimei's translations of Russian literature, with a particular focus on the development of narrative style. This is followed by Maria Flutsch's reading of Natsume Sōseki's less frequently discussed piece Omoidasu koto nado , which contains accounts of some crucial moments in his life and in the history of the nation. Tomoko Aoyama's paper examines the lack of romance in pre-war examples of 'gastronomic literature' written by Murai Gensai, Kōda Rohan, Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, and Okamoto Kanoko. Of the group of three papers on post-war literature, Erik Lofgren's presents an interesting analysis of Ichikawa Kon's film adaptation of Ōoka Shōhei's canonical and controversial novel Nobi , while Rio Otomo offers a provocative reading of Mishima Yukio's Kinkakuji . Barbara Hartley focuses on the corporeal experience of motherhood as represented in selected texts of Tsushima Yūko, Ariyoshi Sawako, and Enchi Fumiko. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper employs previously unused archival sources to highlight some of the misconceptions and debates which surround the Japanese National Police Reserve (1950–1952), the precursor to today’s Ground Self Defense Force. The paper, which is the first on the National Police Reserve in English, examines much of the current historiography’s categorisation of the Reserve as an army, based on a very thin set of sources, and contrasts this with the content of the primary sources in an attempt to reveal the true character of the force. In doing so it also attempts to assess the relative importance of the internal and external influences behind the NPR’s creation. The article and its conclusions will be valuable in deepening the understanding of the character of the NPR and its position in the broader histories of the Occupation of Japan, Japanese security policy and Japan’s Cold War(s). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Keirin - fixed-gear bicycle racing - is one of four forms of state-sponsored sports gambling in Japan. Originally started in 1948 as a way for prefectural governments to generate income for post-war reconstruction, keirin grew to become one of the country’s most popular gambling-sports. Today there are over 2,000 registered keirin riders, who compete in five main classes. Like with other sports, becoming a keirin rider requires intensive training of the body; however, it also requires training of the mind. Would-be keirin athletes must undergo an 11-month training course before they are allowed to compete. The aim is to produce bodies that can both perform athletically and conform to the sport’s strict rules, thus contributing to its legitimacy as a form of legal gaming. Keirin’s rules and regulations are meant to structure competition in a way that creates conditions for gambling by forcing cooperation, as well as competition, among riders, thereby introducing uncertainties and enabling odds. It is said that no rider can win a race alone. In this paper I employ an assemblage-theory approach to engage with the tension between gambling and sport that is central to the keirin enterprise. I argue that within the keirin assemblage rider-athletes are called upon to labor in ways that both enable the gambling-sport project and create coherence between the at times incongruent domains of sport and gambling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan’s rise has often been conceived in terms of the ‘flying geese’ model in which Japan led a flock of emerging East Asian economies as its production networks expanded and it shed outdated technologies to the followers. Though the model implied a continuing Japanese leadership role in the East Asian region, two lost decades have undermined Japan’s claim to head the flock of ‘flying geese’ and Japan is often perceived as in decline relative to China’s rapid rise. This paper challenges such accounts to argue that Japan still has significant leadership ambitions and, potentially, the means to bring them to fruition. Understanding Japan’s leadership ambitions requires conceptualizing power in terms of discursive as well as material resources. Doing so highlights how different policymakers articulate contrasting visions of how Japan should take the lead in East Asia. These visions are of Japan as (variously) a functional leader, a conveyer of universal values, a conformist to ASEAN norms, a strategic partner and a promoter of open regionalism. Whilst most analyses have focused on Japan as a declining power, it is the spatial, temporal and ethical incompatibility of these regional visions that undermines Japan’s aspirations to lead the East Asian region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The city of Tokyo has been a space where numerous forms of sexual subcultures and their histories have been born. This paper discusses one possible way of understanding queer space in Tokyo. Examining the discourses concerning Shinjuku Ni-chōme, a queer neighbourhood in Tokyo, I argue that this queer space functions as a discursive site of containment as well as resistance to hetero-normative narratives of the metropolis. Drawing on queer theories that focus on the notion of space, in this paper I demonstrate that queer space is often marginalised by mainstream society, but at the same time it can be a critical site through which to investigate hetero-normativity. I suggest that queers themselves sometimes deploy their own delegitimised status to construct a queer counter-public space that intervenes in and disorients the linear narrative of hetero-normative views. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reports findings of a study which examined court proceedings with the presence of an interpreter in Japanese criminal courts. With the increasing awareness of language rights over the last decade and the recent introduction of the saiban-in (lay judge) system, courtroom discourse involving non-Japanese speaking background (NJSB) people is increasingly under scrutiny as an issue of language in public spaces, and improvements have been made in provision of legal interpreting. The present study focuses on partial non-use of the interpreter, an aspect of court interpreting that has been little discussed and hidden behind the published statistics and public discourses on legal interpreting in so-called 'foreigner cases'. It examines which stages of trials are interpreted and which are in Japanese only, and presents an analysis of courtroom interaction involving an NJSB defendant without interpreter mediation. Using Halliday's register framework, the paper discusses courts' decisions regarding partial non-use of interpreters and problems associated with it. While the partial use of interpreters for the highly technical legal genre indicates the courts' effort to provide fair trials for second language speakers, it is argued that a simplistic view of register overlooks the risks involved in not using an interpreter in ostensibly non-technical questioning of the defendant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers historical insights into the political philosophy, electoral strategies and commitment to 'change' politics of Kan Naoto, who in June 2010 became leader of the Democratic Party of Japan and the nation's new prime minister. The preface introduces an unpublished paper that the author wrote immediately after Kan's first electoral success in 1980, not long after the author's extensive personal interviews with the then budding political aspirant. That paper, which follows, reveals how Kan's entry into the national political system he now leads is quite atypical of Japanese politicians generally and certainly of most of his predecessor prime ministers who were supported by a powerful mix of wealth and connections, often through inheritance. Instead Kan is a 'self-made' politician, the first to reach national leadership initially through participatory democracy: electoral organizations based on citizen movements and grassroots involvement in national politics. The epilogue that follows considers the possible consequences of this style of political advancement for how Kan operates as leader of his party, the national political system, and the Japanese nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Touch, as it is conventionally conceived, appears to be lacking in everyday Japanese intimate relationships, which are accordingly commonly characterised in terms of subtle non-tactile and non-verbal forms of communication; feelings are expected to be inferred. However, it is unclear as to how such forms manifest feelings of closeness in the first place. This paper explores the embodied experience in the intimate spaces of the Japanese family. Japanese parent-child relationships help us to become acquainted with different ways of understanding bodily intimacy and touch. The paper explores the cultural meaning of touch in Japanese bodily intimacy, particularly where the child is under five years old, and presents an embodied and sensuous understanding of the touch which informs parent-child relationships as the child grows older. Certain phenomenological tools are used helping to develop the notion of a blurring of the boundaries between bodies in Japanese bodily intimacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the Japanese whaling policy and inquires into what lies behind its direction. The policy has many features and the longer Japan continues with its research whaling, the more controversial the policy becomes. Reasons put forward by the government, such as the maintenance of its culture and the utilization of the whale resource, have not convinced Western nations of its legitimacy. This paper argues that attempts to bring about a resumption of commercial whaling are less about maintaining traditions than about providing opportunities to the vested interests of the Japanese 'Whaling Iron Triangle'. This triangle is the driving force behind Japan's whaling policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will illustrate naturally occurring thanking episodes among Japanese students at a university campus in Tokyo, and compare them with the conventional Japanese thanking ritual (o-rei). This comparison illustrates the diverse and changing nature of the thanking repertoire in Japanese. The qualitative analysis of the data illustrates striking differences between o-rei rituals and expressions used by Japanese university students in thanking episodes. The students' speech repertoire contains some innovative speech formulae; yet, none of the data suggest that the students are influenced by the established communication practice of debt-credit balancing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses 'Karafuto Ainu no setsuwa'[The Tales of Karafuto-Ainu], a collection of Japanese translations of Ainu narratives by the Ainu-Japanese linguist and ethnologist Chiri Mashiho. Most of the material for Chiri's translations came from a collection of Ainu folktales, entitled 'Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Folklore' (1912), compiled by Polish scholar Bronislaw Pilsudski. The paper argues that Chiri and Pilsudski had unique life experiences that affected their views of the Ainu culture, and by reading Chiri's text against that of Pilsudski's, the author demonstrates how Chiri responded to the challenge of keeping alive the performative qualities of the oral Ainu tradition and thereby created a unique style of translation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of 'the rise of China' on the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and its implications for Japan. Japan has traditionally enjoyed a dominant position in the Bank, as it has enjoyed a dominant position in Asia. However, with the balance of power in the region tipping in China's favour, one might expect that this would be reflected in the ADB as well. This paper argues that despite the worsening Sino-Japanese relationship, the ADB has facilitated the development and maintenance of shared expectations between the two parties over the future direction of development assistance, representing an oasis of liberal institutionalism in a relationship increasingly characterised in realist terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will present a historical overview of the yakeato generation. After investigating the occurrences of yakeato themes in contemporary Japanese literature a working definition of the yakeato generation is suggested and the paper will answer the question of whether the yakeato generation is still relevant in contemporary Japanese society. This historically pivotal Japanese generation will be analysed with general references to the criticism and literature of Oda Makoto, Nosaka Akiyuki, Oe Kenzaburo and Ishihara Shintaro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nosaka Akiyuki, a writer, singer, lyricist, and former member of the House of Councillors, is now struggling with the effects of a stroke which he suffered in 2003. Nosaka early identified himself as a member of the yakeato yamiichi sedai (the generation brought up in the ruins and black markets of the post-war period). In his works Nosaka repeatedly depicts his firsthand experience of the fire bombings of major Japanese metropolitan areas during the Greater East Asian conflict. This paper examines two recent satirical works before proceeding to a discussion of Nosaka's seminal work Hotaru no haka [Grave of the Fireflies, 1967], which deserves to be remembered as 'the most celebrated literary record of the yakeato generation'. Nosaka's original story has been overshadowed by the animated film version written and directed by Takahata Isao for Studio Ghibli. This paper describes and evaluates the unparalleled narrative style of Nosaka's original story, which covers an emotional spectrum ranging from the lighthearted depiction of the happy play of childhood, to the overwhelmingly dark and sorrowful portrayal of two children (brother and sister) dying from malnutrition in the dislocated society of post-war Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the case of the zanryū koji and zanryū fujin —Japanese women and children abandoned in China through war—and their lives in both China and Japan as conditions of exile. It examines how their separation from the Japanese mainland meant that they were unable to develop the markers of Japaneseness, and the consequences of this for their return to Japan, where they continue to live in a second form of exile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the Japanese position on East Timor and highlights tension in bilateral relations between Australia and Japan on East Timor during the year 1999. The sources of tension were over leadership, appropriate policy towards indonesia and the style of diplomacy conducted by Australia. In many respects the tension over East Timor shook complacency in bilateral relations. By January 2001 tension was resolved and bilateral ties have been strengthened in the areas of security and regional cooperation. What does this episode reveal about the bilateral relationship? Quite clearly, and despite the depth of networks that have been established over the decades, there was insufficient consultation on East Timor. In pan, the extraordinary events that unfolded after the results of the ballot in East Timor were announced on 4 September 1999 and Australia's leadership role in the international Force in East Timor (INTERFET) can explain the lack of consultation. Also, a drift in relations that had been evident for several years was a significant factor. Finally, the paper argues that despite the substantial improvement in bilateral relations, policy towards Indonesia will remain a potential source of friction between the two countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the evolving Australia--Japan bilateral relationship. Key issues discussed include the `drift' and `neglect' in bilateral relations in the 1990s, the current state of the economic relationship, the proliferation of Free Trade Agreements and future directions. A central theme is the importance of bilateral ties for both countries and that shared visions such as building regional cooperation through APEC might be compromised by the proposed Free Trade Agreement between Australia and the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to clarify conflicting accounts of the fundamental elements of rape law and its interpretation in Japan. The central question is how judges in Japan understand rape and sexual violation more generally. The paper is part of a larger project that explores the process of judicial decision making in Japan and, in particular, the social context shaping those decisions. I use a qualitative analysis of 41 cases involving sexual assaults to examine the ways in which judges construct gender, sexuality and sex. My analysis draws on the legal storytelling approach to highlight a pattern in judicial decision making that results in the exclusion or disqualification of narratives of rape, and thus women's and men's experiences, that do not conform to pervasive rape stereotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which the modernist paradigm is at work in The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by focusing on its spatial demarcation--a map of the Self against the Other. The boundaries of gender in this text are firmly fixed; the Mother represents corporeality, ignorance, and profanation, while the Father represents spirituality, knowledge, and sacredness. Striving to embody the Father, the narrator is forced into the position of the brooding Son. He is unable to become a speaking subject proper, nor to slip back into the comfortable pre-symbolic domain. The paper also focuses on the narrator's gaze, which constantly splits and vacillates on different levels, being unable to obtain the unified singular perspective necessary for the constitution of the subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fieldwork is about 'being there' in the field to gather data. But what happens when researchers cannot visit the field? This article explores how Japan scholars have been dealing with the impact of COVID-19 on their research. It examines how restrictions on travel affect access to materials and engagement with fieldwork subjects, highlighting how the pandemic has created both obstructions and opportunities. The term 'fieldwork' usually involves ethnographic methods of data collection such as participant observation and interviews, but a wider interpretation encompasses visiting archives, libraries and museums. This article takes an inclusive definition of fieldwork to discover the impact of not 'being there' for scholars of Japan. Findings show that the inability to 'be there' has led more scholars to seek out material from online data repositories, archives and library collections. However, while the demand for online resources is increasing, materials are not always easily accessible to Japan scholars. The impact of travel restrictions on librarians has in turn affected the aggregation of materials, which has occasioned scholars to seek alternative methods of sourcing materials. Finally, through a case study, this article examines the methods scholars are adopting in digital ethnographic data collection to adjust to not 'being there'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores challenges and opportunities for Japanese Studies during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Korea. From March 2014 to February 2022, after receiving a US PhD, I taught Japanese history in English at an international college for Korean and international students. The pandemic's initial effect was isolation: online courses reduced interactions with students and scholars in Japan cancelled our joint research project activity in Korea. Eventually, however, there emerged solidarity peculiar to where I taught, both with my students and with the Japanese, Korean, and American researchers. In my Japanese history courses, email exchanges with individual students in lieu of class discussion often generated academically valuable yet potentially sensitive inquiries, which could have upset some Korean students if raised in the classroom. For the research, some primary materials turned out to be available online on Korean national libraries' websites. Our further research indicated the richness of sources produced in colonial Korea, including police records documenting lives of Korean workers in wartime Japan. The students' critical inquiries and collaborative research suggest vast possibilities for Japanese Studies, yet illuminate the constraints of national boundaries, reemphasized by the pandemic, in a world that we had hitherto imagined to be moving toward the global and borderless. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue of Japanese Studies provides a snapshot of the teaching and researching of Japan through the initial years of the pandemic. It records experiences and reflections by scholars of Japan in South Korea, Australia, England, and Kazakhstan grappling with the challenges and potential of online learning and digital resources in the context of academic precarity and global uncertainty. The articles reflect on pedagogy, research methods, interdisciplinary focus, and the intersections of premodern, modern, and contemporary Japan with global politics, society, health, environment, and culture. They identify key challenges facing Japanese Studies, especially the corporatisation of institutions and the undervaluing of language and contextual studies, and consider how the lessons of the pandemic can lead to a transformation of Japanese Studies that strengthens its relevance and possibilities both in and outside the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I focus on the role of YouTube as a pedagogical tool and its associated media literacy issues. In the courses I have taught since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have included short videos produced by well-known YouTube history channels alongside required readings to stimulate student engagement with historiographical issues. Students respond positively to these videos, which they also seek out themselves. However, YouTube history channels are increasingly producing polished and entertaining videos that do not clearly cite sources and gloss over historiographical inaccuracies or misrepresentations. YouTube videos on Japanese history should be selected and utilised carefully. Media literacy skills and academic readings are essential to students' ability to critically view and understand these media representations of the past. Therefore, I argue that it is important for Japanese Studies students to develop critical media literacy skills and be aware of the role and power of social media sites such as YouTube in the creation and representation of Japan and Japanese history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stigma associated with alcoholism is common in Japan, and individuals who suffer from alcoholism often feel that it is a taboo to discuss their problems with alcohol in the general public. This paper describes the way in which the self-help group called Danshukai offers a model for recovery for people suffering from alcoholism in Japan. Since 2006, the authors have been involved in various meetings and conducted conversational and semi-structured interviews with leaders and rank-and-file members of Danshukai. In Danshukai, recovery is viewed as a spiritual process offering the potential for a new life compared to models offered by medical treatment that place little emphasis on the role of spirituality in recovery. While medical models seek to reduce alcohol-related stigma by viewing it as a treatable ‘disease’, rather than a personality weakness, Danshukai encourages members to embrace their identity as a Danshukai member and to engage with a ‘way of abstinence’ that includes a lifelong commitment to Danshukai activities and helping others with similar problems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In Japan the average age of first marriage continues to rise steadily, and people are spending a greater proportion of their adult life single. This is despite the fact that the vast majority of singles express desire to marry one day. The reasons for the rise in late and non-marriage are varied and complex, but difficulty in finding an appropriate or compatible partner has emerged as one of the key issues. Against this backdrop, thekonkatsu(‘marriage-partner hunting’) industry has emerged, ostensibly to assist singles to find marriage partners. In this paper, we examinekonkatsupopular literature, online matchmaking sites and the perceptions of single women andkonkatsuworkers to consider the ways that contemporary discourses of gender and marriage are reflected, (re)produced or challenged. The ‘male-breadwinner family’ model, based on the functional roles of ‘supportive wife’ and ‘provider husband’, is increasingly both undesirable and untenable for single Japanese women and men. However, values and norms pertaining to gender and marriage as portrayed in matchmaking sites and in somekonkatsuliterature remain remarkably unchanged. In this context, single women’s ambivalence towardskonkatsumay reflect both ambivalence to marriage as a goal per se, and uneasiness with the gendered roles in marriage purveyed bykonkatsudiscourse. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper focuses on the changing definition of marriage for young women in Tokyo over the last 10 years. Based on fieldwork research conducted in Tokyo, I examine why women are delaying or refusing marriage, arguing that women’s decisions can best be understood in relation to work. I discuss how young women negotiate their conception of marriage by articulating their desires for self-realization, a career, and participation in society, within the context of a flexibilization of work and the transformation of family in contemporary Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue, including one by Takashi Inoguchi on the current debates and possible developments in Japanese foreign policy and another by Takamichi Mito on the constitutional restraints and their implications for Japanese foreign and defense policies.

This paper investigates the popularity of hula in contemporary Japanese society in order to understand how Native Hawaiian images and traditions play a role in constructing the image of a ‘paradise’ in Hawai`i. By drawing on the personal experience of the author as a participant observer in hula lessons and performance in Tokyo, it argues that aiming for the sense of cultural authenticity is integral to the Japanese practitioners’ attraction to hula. It also shows how Native Hawaiian hula teachers and performers skillfully appropriate the Japanese desire to discover an ‘authentic’ Hawai`i for their cultural as well as personal gain. Today’s Japanese discourse of ‘Hawai`i as paradise’ derives from the contemporary socio-cultural context of a Japanese society that longs for the authentic culture of the indigenous ‘other’ as well as from the shrewd use of that longing by the ‘other.’ [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the interrelationships among Japaneseness, the Western and Japanese concepts of race, and the obfuscation of racism in contemporary Japanese society. The concept of race, which was conceived in the West in the modern era, has influenced the Japanese concepts of race,jinshuandminzoku. These two concepts played a key role in constructing modern Japan’s identity by distinguishing it from its significant discursive Others: Asia and the West. Today the Japanese simply call themselvesnihonjin, or Japanese people, rarely using the termsjinshuandminzoku, and racism is generally viewed as a ‘foreign issue’ that has little relevance to Japanese society. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, it discusses how the Japanese concepts of race,jinshuandminzoku, were constructed and shaped the dominant meaning of the Japanese in different historical contexts, intertwining with Western notions of race, nation,Volk, and ethnicity. Second, it suggests that obscured racism in contemporary Japan is linked with the conceptual presence and nominal absence ofjinshuandminzokuin defining Japaneseness. Third, it explores how the contemporary modality of racism in Japan overlaps with and differs from racisms in the West. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines popular representations of Japan and China before and during the war, assesses the ideas of key figures from the press, and considers the ways in which media and policy interacted through the influence of opinion leaders. These prepared the way for the ‘soft’ peace relying on Japanese cooperation that would become the basis for a new alliance between America and Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the way the outcaste head Danzaemon, or more precisely several individuals who successively bore that title, negotiated their place in the eighteenth-century Edo status order through official genealogical pronouncements.Etaandhiningroups became closely linked together in the political imaginary in Edo from around the beginning of the eighteenth century in an extraordinary legal battle that emerged between the leaders of these groups. The head of the former group, Danzaemon Chikamura, achieved a qualified victory in this struggle through genealogical posturing, positioning himself at the apex of an increasingly well-defined Edo outcaste order. By the second half of the eighteenth century, the privileged place within the order held by the next Danzaemon came under renewed pressure from a new generation ofhinin. As a result, Danzaemon Chikasono made an attempt to rearticulate the grounds for his status through a different kind of genealogical statement. This article, using the official correspondence between Danzaemon and the Edo City Magistrate, examines the distinctive features of the genealogical imaginations of these two outcaste leaders in order to reveal the ways they negotiated their place within the Edo outcaste order. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The term ‘otaku’ is generally used in Japan to denote subcultures revolving around the consumption of popular culture, such as manga, anime and games. This paper, however, seeks to analyze ‘otaku’ as a label applied to individuals whose consumption is perceived and judged to have compromised certain values in contemporary Japan. Through analysis of interviews with a group of Japanese students, I found that the values they invoke to judge who the ‘otaku’ are, and which they construe as a form of common sense concerning consumption, correspond to the demands of advanced capitalism: consumption should be productive of capital, either leading to further production or fostering communication that is directly productive. At the same time, people are labeled as ‘otaku’ not merely for failing to produce capital through their consumption, but also for actively practicing a perversion of the capacities that are necessary to advanced capitalist Japan, most notably imagination and autonomy. ‘Otaku’ labeling thus points to capital's anxieties over capacities such as imagination, knowledge and autonomy: these capacities, while essential to a flexible and immaterial economy, could potentially become unproductive and threaten advanced capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Many recent studies have discussed the features of Japanese civil society. Some of them point out that these have been greatly affected by the legacy of the new left movements, a network of anti-Vietnam War groups, student groups, and young workers’ groups which developed toward the end of the 1960s. This article explores the formation and development of the ideas and actions of the Japanese new left movements, examining the discourse of student activists in particular. These activists were critical of the conservative consciousness – which they termed ‘everydayness’ – which was a product of the economic boom of that decade, and sought to transform it. They were willing to take confrontational direct action against armed police officers on streets and on campus in spite of the risks of arrest and injury. I analyse their activism, and the reasons leading to it. By exploring the ideas and actions of new left movements, this paper aims to historicize certain features of Japanese civil society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article presents an introduction to the May 2010 issue, highlighting the history of international diplomatic relations between Japan and Taiwan and previewing featured articles by Matthew Fraleigh, Adam Clulow, and Stephen Turnbull.

From 2004 to 2017, Kamigata Rakugo Kyōkai (KRK) – the professional comic storytelling guild for the Osaka area – issued the magazine Nna aho na (That's ridiculous). Concurrent with the tenure of one of the art's most recognisable and progressive artists, Katsura Bunshi VI (b. 1943), as KRK chairperson, the magazine hailed Kamigata rakugo's 'new era'. It heralded the first dedicated rakugo hall open in Osaka in 60 years, as well as several other big-ticket enterprises. Nna aho na presented a brassy campaign of building and monument erection teamed with pageants and re-enactments of history, displays of tradition, and ritual. These served to promote Kamigata rakugo as a venerable art and one worthy of official recognition by Japan's government. Examining the reforms that Bunshi VI orchestrated in the early twenty-first century, one sees a tension between 'traditional' and 'new' negotiated through an expedient trade-off. KRK was able to use Bunshi VI's considerable star power to improve the art's exposure, status, and infrastructure, while he became the face of the art, advanced his own agenda, and cemented his name in rakugo history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ten years after the Fukushima disaster, the nuclear safety regulation system in Japan has gradually moved from the exclusionary process of policy making, based on hierarchically organized policy, to a decentralized and open process of policy making whose competence is divided beyond the pre-given political actors. Yet policy making and implementation need to bring together multiple stakeholders to work in concert to achieve a desired outcome of nuclear safety. This article seeks to explain why the trend towards more inclusive forms of policy making may still lead to negative consequences for democratic accountability of nuclear safety. The author argues that the coordination issue becomes critical to a plurality of conflicting interests and beliefs of autonomous stakeholders. Although the decision-making plurality favours democratic interest representation, empirical evidence suggests that a poorly coordinated response by the national government to nuclear policy implementation fails to get stakeholders to work together for Japan's nuclear safety. From a broader perspective, the lack of coordination among different stakeholders is one of the weaknesses of expanding accountability mechanisms to include more stakeholders, and results in challenges to policy coherence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hard news is often assumed to be 'objective' and 'factual', with little or no trace of a 'subjective' authorial point of view. However, what is often forgotten is that journalists still choose what information to divulge, and how to communicate that information. This article explores how whaling news is presented in Japanese hard news reports, examining the types of 'voices' quoted and how these voices are presented. Analysing 176 quotations from 33 news articles published between 2014 and 2018 on news relating to controversies over Japan's whaling policy in relation to the International Whaling Commission's 2014 ban on whaling, this article found that in most cases, pro-whaling voices (43%) are quoted far more frequently than anti-whaling voices (24%). However, in news reports on Japan's resumption of whaling in 2015, pro-whaling voices became completely absent, because the Japanese journalists chose to quote foreign external voices that reject a pro-whaling point of view. Japanese journalists also incorporated emotional statements from local residents and fishermen in order to dramatise the issue and seek sympathy for those whose livelihood was threatened by the whaling ban. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games provided Japanese stakeholders opportunities to pressure policymakers to pass reforms, including measures to improve accessibility. However, the Games alone are not sufficient to explain the scope and consequences of recent accessibility reforms. We argue that researchers must also consider the impact of historical contingencies such as decades of activism for accessibility by affected parties (tōjisha), the 3/11 'triple disaster,' and Japan's 2014 ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to understand how disabled persons' organizations were able to leverage the Games to influence reforms. Drawing on government records, news media reports, and documents from disability advocacy organizations, we unpack several causal mechanisms that linked activism for accessibility to policy changes and thereby contribute to studies of minority social movements and policymaking in Japan. Our analysis of accessibility initiatives documents a 'legalistic turn' in Japanese governance, characterized by more formal rules and enforcement mechanisms. While the implementation of those initiatives was hampered by scarcity of human and material resources as well as the spread of COVID-19, they nevertheless improved accessibility for many individuals and encouraged conversations about equity and inclusion that persist into the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The switch to digital terrestrial broadcasting on 24 July 2011 marked a watershed for the broadcasting industry in Japan. Digitalisation is the single largest industry-wide event since the advent of alternative distribution technologies, satellite and cable, in the 1980s. Preparation for the switch to digital, known as chideji-ka, has put existing business arrangements under pressure and has led to a renewed focus on the future shape of the industry. There is increasing acknowledgement that change, especially in the relationship between central and local broadcasters, is inevitable. This paper summarises the position of the industry at the beginning of its digital age, arguing for a new view of broadcasting in Japan that recognises the two-tier reality behind industry rhetoric. It also summarises the major options open to the industry as it looks to redefine itself in a much-changed media environment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the midst of heightened apprehension of the climate risks to development, major donors in Africa have begun to take environmental issues seriously in their aid agenda by setting up various climate policy initiatives and programs. In keeping with the international donors' efforts, Japan has also emphasised the environmental issues in its development cooperation with Africa. The article aims to assess Japan's efforts to address sustainable as well as ‘climate-proof’ development for Africa by looking into the process of the Tokyo International Conference for African Development (TICAD). Through contextualising the TICAD environmental agenda within Japan's overall greening process since the 1990s, this chapter argues for Japan's ‘common but differentiated’ environmental approach to Africa as presented for the TICAD process. The study introduces two key ‘green’ policy concerns, namely environmental ODA and climate change. Through analysing policy documents and speeches, it brings in debates on the major trends of Japan's environmental and climate ODA to Africa to examine the meaningfulness of the agenda as presented at TICAD. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]