ARYANA KHALILZADEH WRITES – Many people have waited decades for a sequel to the immensely popular 1986 action film Top Gun, and Hollywood delivered with a bang – and a provocative propaganda hit at China. Thirty-six years after the first Top Gun film, its sequel, Top Gun: Maverick has broken…
JARED SIVILA WRITES – Manga (Japanese graphic novels) is a globally cherished medium comprised of emotionally charged and exciting stories accompanied by charming, distinct illustrations. These works are very difficult to produce-just ask the many authors who dare to tackle the high-pressure challenge of producing their manga on an extensive…
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – It’s just possible that a favorable diplomatic wind is forming that could alter the trajectory of the storm of war raging over Ukraine, the second-largest country in Europe. Pushing this war out to sea might help clear the gathering clouds of world economic collapse.…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Hornclaw is a sixty-five-year-old woman who refers to herself as a “disease control specialist.” The so-called ‘vermin’ she spends her time exterminating for a high price are humans with a certain rodent-like disposition. Never mind her age and perceived frailty –that is how…
VIDEO FEATURE – Asia Media International’s Video Anchor Janelynne Galera offers a succinct but thorough overview of the streaming rage in the globe’s most populous country. Janelynne Galera is a junior Business Management and Leadership major at LMU.
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – In an unnamed country, a family of three settles into a creaking house at the edge of an ominous forest. The father cannot help but notice that something is quite off about this place. Are the trees coughing? No… laughing? As so many…
CLINICAL PROFESSOR TOM PLATE WRITES – The topic of nuclear war is no joking matter, but I was rather tempted to cry out “Get me rewrite!” while dipping into my old book on the nuclear arms race. So much is changing now. My published tome had been premised on the…
AIDAN SMITH-FAGAN WRITES – Tapio Tokunaga still remembers the first time he saw George Lucas’ Star Wars films. “I fell in love with it,” he tells me, recalling borrowing the DVDs as a seven-year-old in Yokohama, Japan. Tapio would go on to learn as much about the story, characters, and…
TOM PLATE WRITES – Ever since my initial meeting with Lee Kuan Yew a quarter century ago, Singapore remained in my mind as special. By the time of the brilliant founding prime minister’s passing at 91 in 2015, that assessment was not so novel and was going global; even in…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – “The sky is about to fall. Where do you go?” To be a child is to imagine a world made of glass. All your romanticized beliefs about your country and its people are contained within one fragile crystal sphere that can fracture at…
ALEC FARMER WRITES – The Cultural Revolution was a notorious period of China’s history that has been analyzed time and time again worldwide. The strict policies of Mao Zedong shattered the livelihoods of China’s citizens. Few people remain who can tell their stories of that dark and turbulent period. In the eyes of Chinese…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Society’s rejection of Takiko is not solely because of her sudden pregnancy at the tender age of twenty-one. It is Takiko’s unfettered commitment to herself and her happiness that causes her family and Japanese society to ostracize and condemn her. Takiko’s self-conviction is…
TOM PLATE WRITES – It is imperative that the government of Xi Jinping of China continue to edge away from the bleak dark shadow of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine and re-settle itself geopolitically into a better moral place. While it would be presumptuous to offer instructions on how in…
TRISTIN CLINT WRITES – China is sending Foreign Minister Wang Yi to meet with the Parliament of Nepal on March 26, and the US is sending a bipartisan delegation of Congress (twenty-five members) to Nepal in early April. These are the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal’s two key rival diplomatic…
JARED SIVILA WRITES – Driving for the average person is a menial and tedious task, but for the talented racers in the motorsport of Formula 1, driving is both a professional sport and an art form. The meticulously crafted Formula 1 Cars boast special engines, steering wheels, and car frames…
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – What would happen if your country sank into the ocean? Would you still have a claim to your “homeland”? What about the language you speak? Could it still be considered your “native language”? In Yoko Tawada’s latest release of dystopian fiction, Scattered All Over…
