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…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: SCATTERED ALL OVER THE EARTH (2022) BY YOKO TAWADA – ‘THE LAND OF SUSHI’ VANISHES
MARISA TORRE WRITES – Despite the flurry of major retailers halting business in Russia, the major Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo, with its 49 stores in Russia, has no plans to follow the trend. Tadashi Yanai, the CEO of Uniqlo’s parent company, Fast Retailing, maintains an anti-war stance but described clothing…
Full Article JAPAN: IS THE COMPANY ‘FAST RETAILING’ SELLING OUT ON HUMAN RIGHTS?
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – What exactly is the ‘self,’ and how can it be defined? From modern psychology, we know that human minds can be usurped through drastic techniques such as brainwashing, manipulation, and even hypnosis. Elusive and slippery in nature, the malleable ‘self’ forms and reforms…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: MY ANNIHILATION (2022) BY FUMINORI NAKAMURA – A SADISTIC NEW THRILLER THAT QUESTIONS YOUR REALITY
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Through a vulnerable child’s eyes, parents represent stability, protection, and even eternity. What happens when eternity grows small and seemingly insignificant? Adolescents, ostensibly indestructible and infinitely hot-headed, get their first taste of personal freedom and start to detach from their nurturers. As one generation grows stronger and…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: LONGING AND OTHER STORIES (2022) BY JUN’ICHIRŌ TANIZAKI – A CLASH OF DIFFERENT GENERATIONS.
TRISTIN CLINT WRITES – The prowess of Japanese baseball players is recognized internationally, and a couple of talents have personified athletic greatness just this century. Seiya Suzuki could very well join Ichiro Suzuki and Shohei Ohtani as an unforgettable Japanese ballplayer. Shohei Ohtani famously took over Major League Baseball in…
Full Article JAPAN: YET ANOTHER SUPERSTAR PLAYER SCORES BIG FOR HIS COUNTRY
BADER ZAINAL WRITES — Like many countries around the world, Japan has suffered significant negative impacts to its tourism industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, but signs of travel restrictions easing bring hope for recovery. The beauty and mystique of Japan have long enticed visitors from international locales, with tourism soaring…
Full Article JAPAN: WILL GLOBAL TRAVELERS GET TO SEE THE CHERRY BLOSSOMS THIS YEAR?
AHMAD ALSADHAN WRITES — The World Expo, held every five years for a duration of six months, is an event that gathers nations into one venue as a way of presenting solutions to current global challenges. Expo 2020, which was postponed by the pandemic, is currently being hosted by Dubai,…
Full Article SAUDI ARABIA: WILL THIS BE THE HOST COUNTRY FOR EXPO 2030?
BRIEYA MOORBERG WRITES —The deer in Japan’s famed tourist destination, Nara Park, located in Nara Prefecture, have been dying. This year alone, 1,000 deer died after consuming plastic bags left behind by tourists. Now, to the rescue: A local Japanese entrepreneur, Hidetoshi Matsukawa, a souvenir wholesale agent who has invented…
Full Article JAPAN: TOO MANY DEER HAVE BEEN EATING THEMSELVES TO DEATH
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – “We can’t know what happens behind closed doors” is a frustrating and insidious phrase that is too often weaponized to reduce instances of sexual assault to minor misunderstandings. In Japan, if a sexual assault occurs in a space without any witnesses, the case becomes a “black…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: BLACK BOX (2021) BY SHIORI ITO – THE MEMOIR THAT SPARKED JAPAN’S #METOO MOVEMENT
LAUREN CRAVEN WRITES — In the US, we have Halloween. Then there is the Day of the Dead, which originated in Mexico. In Japan every year, the Obon festival is celebrated in most regions from the 13th to the 15th day of August. It’s an incredibly popular event in Japan,…
Full Article JAPAN: WHO NEEDS HALLOWEEN WHEN YOU HAVE OBAKE?
MILES WHITTINGHAM WRITES — Prior to the 2021 MLB season, Angels fans just wanted to see their star Shohei Ohtani stay healthy and produce what he could. But no one expected him to do what hadn’t been done in centuries. The Angels’ highly regarded two-way player has been the subject…
Full Article SHOHEI OHTANI: A ONE-TIME LONGSHOT PLAYER MAKES HISTORY
CLAIRE GUTE WRITES — Almost anyone who has seen the 2009 documentary The Cove has been struck by the graphic footage of dolphins being captured or killed in Taiji, Japan. Taiji is a small town on the east coast of the Kii Peninsula with a population of 3,500 people, as…
Full Article JAPAN: SAVE THE DOLPHINS
LAUREN CRAVEN WRITES — Kawaii, a term meaning “cute” in Japanese, has morphed into an entire culture that can be seen in the everyday experiences of Japanese natives, tourists, and even in the lives of those outside of Japan. In the 1970s and 80s, the Kawaii aesthetic started as a…
Full Article JAPAN: DOES KAWAII CULTURE INFANTILIZE WOMEN?
ANDREA PLATE WRITES — Forget about Naomi Osaka, for a moment. For all the whining-and-dining out by the press on the tennis superstar’s mental health struggles, and her difficulty facing their not-so-friendly post-game fire, she is, after all, just one international superstar. One. Forget, too, about Britney Spears, if you…
Full Article JAPAN, KOREA, AMERICA: CAN YOUNG SUPERSTARS THE WORLD OVER EVER BE HAPPY?
AIDAN SMITH-FAGAN WRITES — Japan’s Defense and Deputy Prime Ministers have both recently affirmed their government’s willingness to defend Taiwan in the event of an invasion from the Chinese mainland. Those statements also coincided with a recent report from the Financial Times detailing joint US-Japanese military exercises in the hotly…
Full Article DIRE STRAITS: JAPAN, THE U.S. AND THE FUTURE OF TAIWAN
ELLA KELLEHER WRITES (latest in her review series of new Japanese books) – How does a global war affect regular people caught in its wake of devastation? How long do those effects linger on and how should a society react to them? Shaw Kuzki’s heart-wrenching tale, Soul Lanterns (2021), aims…
Full Article BOOK REVIEW: SOUL LANTERNS (2021) BY SHAW KUZKI