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Producing Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Literature, film, and transnational politics Japan Forum Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Lauren Constance
Published in Japan Forum (Ahead of Print, 2024)
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External ideas or traditional values? A reappraisal of Japanese ‘neoliberal’ reforms Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-12-18 Adrienne Sala, Nobuo Haruna, Gilles Campagnolo
In Japan, the so-called neoliberal-inspired transition generally refers to an ideological agenda. However, one should distinguish between neoliberal reforms carried out in accordance with a politic...
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Mixed Japanese identities and multiculturalism Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Aoife Wilkinson, David Chapman
In this article, we unpack how ideologies of ethnonationalism and multiculturalism in the Australian and Japanese contexts present tensions in self-identity and national belonging for youth of mixe...
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Japan’s digital diaspora: social capital, health, and public communication in r/japanlife Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-10-23 Rebecca K. Britt, Katharina Barkley
The present study examines the communication of members in an online community designed for both native and foreign residents living in Japan. The community serves as a platform for members to disc...
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Capitalism, Alienation, and Transgression in Contemporary Japanese Women’s Fiction Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-10-13 Rebecca L. Copeland, Nina Cornyetz
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 4, 2023)
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Alegal: Biopolitics and the Unintelligibility of Okinawan Life, Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-10-09 Andrea Boccardi
Published in Japan Forum (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Rethinking Locality in Japan Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-09-30 Jake Northey
Published in Japan Forum (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Urban Ambiguity: Modernist Descriptions in Kajii Motojirō Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Miyabi Goto
Abstract This article examines early twentieth-century Japanese writer Kajii Motojirō’s short story ‘Remon’ (‘The Lemon,’ 1925) and explores the intersection of Kajii’s descriptions and an emerging urbanscape in Kyoto. Turn-of-the-century Kyoto undertook a massive scale of urbanization, remaking itself as a resurgent imperial capital. Instead of taking note of transformations of the scenery or the
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Becoming inauthentic: capitalism, commodification, and performance in Wataya risa’s Insutōru Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-09-08 Christopher Smith
Asako, the protagonist of Wataya Risa’s 2004 novel Insutōru (Install), is a seventeen-year-old high school student who becomes fed up with the unrelieved sameness of late capitalist Japan. She is i...
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In the Mood for Kimono: Hayashi Mariko and the Weaving of Japanese Fashion into Popular Fiction Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-09-08 Lucile Druet
The field of postwar Japanese and international fiction has seen an expanding corpus of texts revolving around kimono. Many works, while tapping into the intricacies of sartorial traditions, contai...
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A silent fight to challenge the norm in Matsuda Aoko’s ‘Sutakkingu Kanō’ (2012) Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-09-08 Daniela Moro
In Matsuda Aoko’s production, conventional feminist themes – such as gender roles, women and the working environment, marriage and maternity – merge with more contemporary topics linked to gender i...
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Suzuki Izumi’s Escape from the World of Women Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-09-08 Irit Weinberg
Suzuki Izumi’s (1949–1986) short story “Onna to onna no yo no naka” (A World of Women and Women) was published in 1976, at the time when the genre of separatist feminist utopia was flourishing in t...
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Kingdom of the Sick: A History of Leprosy and Japan Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-08-21 Linda Galvane
Published in Japan Forum (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Lorraine Plourde, Tokyo Listening: Sound and Sense in a Contemporary City, Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-08-17 Luca Proietti
Published in Japan Forum (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Double truth: employment insecurity and gender inequality in Japan’s neoliberal promotion of side jobs Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-07-28 Iori Hamada
Abstract The ‘Work Style Reform’ (WSR) initiative, spearheaded by the late former Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, has advocated for the adoption of ‘fukugyō’ (‘side jobs’) as an additional source of income for workers. While this initiative is often uncritically viewed as a possible solution to insecure employment, especially for women employed in low-paying, temporary positions, this article argues that
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Parallel Modernism. Koga Harue and Avant-Garde Art in Modern Japan Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-07-12 Andrea Bourgogne
Published in Japan Forum (Ahead of Print, 2023)
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Fukushima Fiction: The Literary Landscape of Japan’s Triple Disaster Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Emily Book review
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 36, No. 1, 2024)
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Mishima, Aesthetic Terrorist: An Intellectual Portrait Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-06-30 Steven Bryan
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 36, No. 1, 2024)
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How Dark Is My Flower: Yosano Akiko and the Invention of Romantic Love Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-06-30 Elsa Chanez
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 36, No. 1, 2024)
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Japanese Culture Through Videogames Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-06-12 Dean Bowman
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 5, 2023)
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Paratopia: anime, school clubs, and the aims of education Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-06-01 Thomas Lamarre
Abstract Over the past twenty years, in the worlds of popular media revolving around manga, anime, light novels, and games, there has been an explosion of interest in extracurricular activities (bukatsu) taking place within school clubs (katsudō kurabu or katsudō sakkuru). The rise and explosion of school clubs in popular culture has occurred alongside a wave of heated debates about Japanese education
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Visual Culture of Meiji Japan: Negotiating the Transition to Modernity Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-05-29 Nicole Valentova
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 5, 2023)
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The Comic Storytelling of Western Japan: Satire and Social Mobility in Kamigata Rakugo Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-05-18 Ian McArthur
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 5, 2023)
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Throwing Ideology Away: Yoshimoto Takaaki’s Theory of Taishū and Terayama Shūji’s Film Parody of the People Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-05-08 Ferran De Vargas
Abstract Although much has been written about Yoshimoto Takaaki’s political philosophy and Terayama Shūji’s art as two of the most relevant figures in the culture of the Japanese long 1968, it has not yet been addressed how the qualitative content of their respective works displayed a similar worldview through different media to the point of generating a sort of indirect dialogue. This article aims
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COVID-19 and mandatory telework: effects on gender roles and work family conflicts among Japanese dual-career regular employees with children Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-04-27 Remy Magnier-Watanabe, Kaoruko Magnier-Watanabe
This study empirically investigates some of the consequences of mandatory telework from home brought about by the first state of emergency following the outbreak of COVID-19 in Japan. There is yet ...
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Serial Filmmaking in Japan: Introduction Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-04-09 Rayna Denison, Constantine Verevis
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 1, 2023)
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Star, Scorpion, and the Snowblood: Kaji Meiko’s multiplicities and the Japanese culture industry Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-03-21 Laura Treglia
Abstract This article revolves around recurrences that run through Japanese cinema and related media cultures from their early twentieth century through the late post-war decades. It posits a conspicuous, although not unique, compulsion to repeat that manifests itself as diffracted into different orders of ‘returns’ or ‘iterations.’ These pertain to successful narratives and motives, as well as to
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Gekijōban (theatrical version) anime as feature films in anime franchising Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-03-17 Rayna Denison
Abstract This article analyses one of the most ubiquitous but overlooked categories of Japanese cinema: gekijōban. Straddling Japanese franchising from live action to animation, gekijōban films have appeared in Japanese cinemas for decades, becoming one of the most significant facets of Japanese serial media production. This article investigates how gekijōban films have sailed beneath theoretical radar
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Between the ideal and reality: two conceptions of idealism in early Meiji Japan Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-03-10 Junichi Kasuga
This article examines the reception of idealism in Japanese philosophy during the earlier half of the Meiji period, focusing on the work of two pioneering philosophers of that time: Inoue Tetsujirō...
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Scaling up? Remaking Kurosawa’s The Three Villains of the Hidden Fortress Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-02-22 Dolores P. Martinez
Abstract What accounts for the huge success of the Star Wars franchise and conversely also for the failure of some attempts at replicating its achievement? This article argues that focusing on four concepts – making things right, scalar replication, the transcultural and transnational – can help us to understand why the 50th anniversary remake of Kurosawa Akira’s Kakushitoride no Sanakunin (The Three
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Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar Japan Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-02-19 Edwin Michielsen
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 4, 2023)
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From sequel to series: the effects of ‘Medium-Jumping’ on narrative in Umizaru (2004–2012) Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-02-19 Duncan Breeze
Abstract Serialised filmmaking methods have been generally determined to fall in two types of narratology: those that promote narrative development between instalments (‘sequel’) and those that resist development (‘series’). However, contemporary Japanese franchises have frequently unfolded across film and television, demonstrating alternative forms of storytelling that make semantic definition more
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Monsters, Animals, and other Worlds. A Collection of Short Medieval Japanese Tales Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-01-30 Pia Jolliffe
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 4, 2023)
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Tokyo Before Tokyo: Power and Magic in the Shogun’s City of Edo Japan Forum Pub Date : 2023-01-30 Rhiannon Paget
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 4, 2023)
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Book review Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-12-07 Shiori Hiraki
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 3, 2023)
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Anti-Japan: The Politics of Sentiment in Postcolonial East Asia, Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Philip Seaton
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 2, 2023)
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Japanese governmental agencies and gendered representations in public and warning signs Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Gad Hai Gershoni
To counter Japan’s low birth rate, labor shortage, and economic stagnation, their government has adopted policies, such as the ‘womenomics,’ and ‘The Ikumen project,’ so that more women can join th...
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Book Review Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-11-02 Christopher P. Hood
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 2, 2023)
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Book Review Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-11-02 Michael Tsang
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 3, 2023)
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The fantasy of Greater East Asia: the racializing discourse of ‘peaceful construction’ and Japan’s occupation of Singapore Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-10-26 Mari Ishida
This article examines the Japanese wartime discourse on the construction of Greater East Asia as an instrument of racialization by looking at the writings of Ibuse Masuji, Jinbo Kōtarō, and Nakajim...
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The Silent Cry (1967) Revisited Through Affect Theory Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-10-14 Reiko Abe Auestad
Abstract The 1994 Nobel laureate Ōe Kenzaburō, (1935–) is well-known for his moral commitment as a writer to remind us of the dark legacy of WWII and the Japanese role in it by critically reexamining history. Representative of work in this regard, The Silent Cry (Man’en gan’nen no futtobôru 1967) introduces multiple perspectives on the past both diachronically and synchronically to challenge the normative
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Japanese High School Films Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-09-27 Dorothy Finan
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 1, 2023)
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Mindless happiness: presentism, utopia and dystopian suspension of thought in Psycho-Pass Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-09-14 Filippo Cervelli
Abstract Contemporary Japanese popular culture is particularly rich in representations of utopian social imaginations that often reveal dystopian scenarios. The anime series Psycho-Pass (2012–2013), especially, is overtly aware of its everyday utopia, and of its inscription in the history of utopian/dystopian representations, in and outside Japan. In 22nd-century Japan, citizens live in a ‘perfect’
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Introduction to special issue on imagination and the real Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-08-22 William Marotti
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 34, No. 3, 2022)
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Crafting a new home: shared living and intimacy in contemporary Japan Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-08-19 Helena Grinshpun
In recent decades, Japan has been undergoing an extensive societal change, centred mainly on family, employment, and patterns of social interaction. Later and fewer marriages lead to a growing amou...
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There are no tricks in translation: wordplay and similarity in the writings of Tawada Yōko Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-07-19 Scott Mehl
Tawada Yōko publishes in both Japanese and German: while much scholarship on Tawada has examined difference in her work by focusing on topics such as migration, foreignness, and exophonic authorshi...
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Antiquarians of Nineteenth-century Japan: The Archaeology of Things in the Late Tokugawa and Early Meiji Periods Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-06-27 Timon Screech
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 35, No. 1, 2023)
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Unifying state and nation: modern myths and narratives of Japanese nationalism in times of social change Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Niklas Söderman
Kokutai (national polity) was notoriously the ideological organising principle of imperial Japanese society in the early twentieth century, but the end of WWII saw it replaced by a more nation-orie...
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Review of Averting the Great Divergence by Peter Vries Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-06-13 Steven Ivings
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 34, No. 5, 2022)
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Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise after Anpo Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-05-30 Giulia Garbagni
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 34, No. 4, 2022)
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A Bowl for a Coin: A Commodity History of Japanese Tea Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-05-25 Thomas Rowland Booth
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 34, No. 4, 2022)
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Four phases of mediatization and the significance of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of Information: 1905–1922 Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-04-25 Lieven Sommen
Abstract In August 1921, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially created the ‘Department of Information’ (Gaimushō Jōhōbu, DOI), to better perform MOFA’s propaganda and information management going forward. This was deemed necessary because the Ministry since the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) had failed to create comprehensive and coherent propaganda strategies. This article argues
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Spatiality, destruction, and the individual in Takeda Taijun’s Sekai: an exposition and critique Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-04-13 Junliang Huang
This article offers an examination of the Japanese postwar writer Takeda Taijun’s concept of destruction (metsubō) and his view of the sekai, or “world,” as a theoretical tool against Japanese impe...
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Education and Social Justice in Japan Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Dr Kara Juul
(2022). Education and Social Justice in Japan. Japan Forum: Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 275-277.
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Book Review Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-04-04 Misato Matsuoka
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 34, No. 3, 2022)
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Book Review Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-03-29 Serena Ceniccola
(2022). Book Review. Japan Forum: Vol. 34, No. 2, pp. 273-274.
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‘Let's eat Fukushima’: communicating risk and restoring ‘safe food’ after the Fukushima disaster (2011-2020) Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-03-15 Tine Walravens, Paul O’Shea, Nicolai Ahrenkiel
Abstract The Fukushima nuclear disaster posed food safety risks on an unprecedented scale in Japan. In its immediate aftermath, information on the scale and the extent of the contamination of the food chain was scarce. Facing an anxious public, the government was tasked with defining and ensuring food safety amidst uncertainty. Via three case studies spanning from 2011 to 2020, this article draws on
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Matthew M Carlson and Steven R Reed, Political Corruption and Scandals in Japan Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-03-15 Ian Neary
Published in Japan Forum (Vol. 34, No. 3, 2022)
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Mobilizing Japanese Youth: The Cold War and the Making of the Sixties Generation Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-03-14 Chelsea Szendi Schieder
(2022). Mobilizing Japanese Youth: The Cold War and the Making of the Sixties Generation. Japan Forum. Ahead of Print.
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Pandemics and citizenship: from a Kyoto hospital to the Diamond Princess Japan Forum Pub Date : 2022-03-07 John Whittier Treat
Abstract Legally, administratively and socially, citizenship adapts to the challenges of not only shifting geopolitics but to new infectious diseases that do not readily submit to the rule of nation-states. This essay looks at citizenship in Japan among other countries against the backdrop of the ongoing HIV/AIDS pandemic and the newer COVID-19, from the abject figure of the stigmatized homosexual