Category: Japanese Studies
Between West and East: Japanese Mangas as World Literature
The following essay proposes intertextuality in Japanese mangas as a bridge between Europe and Asia, it proposes the relationship betwixt texts as an overpass between dichotomies and socio-political space borders. In this sense and in virtue of focusing on interculturality and displaying a state of the matter as broad as possible, the following work seeks …
Japanese Leadership in Combatting Chinese Organ Transplant Abuse
The G7 is meeting in Hiroshima on May 19 to 21, 2023. Japan is the president of the G7 for 2023. A Government of Japan Concept Paper sets out as a priority for the Japan G7 Presidency to “continue strengthening the global health architecture”. Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has explained that Japan presidency’s would …
Persuasive Strategies in Debates on Japan’s Constitution and Article 9: The Gulf War Case Study
This article presents a qualitative analysis of persuasive strategies used in debates on Japan’s security policy, related, in particular, to Article 9. The study examines the Japan Diet deliberations during the Gulf War, focusing on the Budget Committee of both Houses. Two hypotheses are tested: the first one suggests that threat perception arguments are more …
Masculinities in Doraemon: A Critical Discourse Analysis
This study conducts a critical discourse analysis of the masculinities of male characters in Doraemon, a famous Japanese manga series. It aims to explore the masculinities in Doraemon from three perspectives: text, process, and society. The content analysis of the male characters in terms of their appearances, characteristics, behaviors, and values reveals major masculine traits …
Japanese Characteristics as Seen in Iroha Karuta
Iroha Karuta is a card game that originated in the mid-Edo period in Japan. It is played especially in new year and contains a variety of didactic expressions and humor. Through this game, one can learn life lessons while having fun playing it. In this study, researcher will try to clarify the characteristics of the …
Shindo Jujo’s Island of Treasures: A Rebel Myth for Okinawa
In his novel Island of Treasures (Takarajima) (2017), Shindo Junjo creates a mythical world of youthful Robin-Hood heroes, the “senka agya” who raided American military bases for food and supplies, resisting both the United States occupying forces and the hegemony of the Japanese mainland authorities who collaborated with them. The non-Okinawan Shindo makes extensive use …
Punica Granatum (Zakuro in Japanese) – Basis for a Reflection on Cultural History
Punica Granatum is at least 4,000 years old, in the wild or cultivated state. Some researchers put the figure as high as 8,000. From its probable origin in Central Asia it spread to the Near East, the Mediterranean basin and North Africa. It also reached South Asia, especially India, and the Far East (China, Korea, …
Gross Domestic Product and Gross Domestic Happiness: A Review of Asian Economic Development Models
Comparative analysis of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH) is a strategic approach towards adding value to international economic modeling. This paper is an innovation in economic thought and will discuss the concept of Gross Domestic Product and gross domestic happiness. It will present and analyze Flying Geese Model (FGM) of Asian …
Invention of “Self-Mummified Buddhas” in Japan and Its Historical Significance
Self-mummification is an aesthetic practice in which a monk goes into a hole underground and remains there without food, a fast designed to end in death and allow the monk to become a Buddha. As of today, six self-mummified monks are known to exist in Dewa Sanzan or The Three Mountains of Dewa in northern …
Japan and Ukraine: Strengthening Friendship and Partnership Ties in the Era of Reiwa
Notwithstanding the fact that Japan and Ukraine are separated by a great geographic distance, the two countries have many things in common. First of all, they experienced accidents at nuclear power plants. Secondly, Japan and Ukraine are united by the issue of occupation of their territories by Russia. Thirdly, both countries share universal values such …
Popular Mexican Snacks Originated in Japan
Japanese immigrants played a prominent role in Mexican snack culture. Cacahuate japones, muegano, jamonsillo, chamoy, and habas are all snacks currently sold in Mexican markets that were invented by Japanese immigrants. In this presentation, I introduce the history of these popular Mexican snacks and sweets based on field work I conducted in Mexico City from …
Improvement of Environment for Tourists in Japan from the World Complying with ISO Standards on Translation and Interpreting Services
The purpose of this paper is to make an appropriate suggestion of environment improvement that visitors to Japan from the world can tour around Japan without feeling stressed in public transportation, accommodation facilities, historical cultural sights, restaurants and retail stores. This paper sets the following research question: How do service providers realize good communication services …
Social Project Management Method for Creating Business to Solve the Social Issues
To reclaim the future, it is necessary to solve the social issues such as poverty alleviation, democratic governance and peacebuilding, climate change and disaster risk, economic inequality from the earth. SDGs adopted by the United Nations in 2015 set 17 goals and 169 targets to be solved these environmental and social issues by 2030. To …
Paionia Retsuden (The Biographies of Pioneers): Accounts of 127 Japanese Immigrants in Mexico
Paionia Retsuden, or The Biographies of Pioneers (1975) by Kenichi Murai, outlines the personal histories of 127 Japanese immigrants to Mexico aged 70 and over, based on interviews Murai conducted between 1970 and 1975. Prior studies argue that the majority of Japanese immigrants at that time were unskilled farmers and day laborers, and that they …
Implications of the Japanese 2014 Election
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe led his conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to a landslide victory in the snap election held on December 14, 2014, winning a majority of 291 seats out of 475 in the lower house of Japan’s parliament, the Diet. This success was mainly due to the unpreparedness and general disarray of …
Positive Disciplinary Power
For decades now, academics have developed analyses for uncovering oppressive forms of power in society. These investigations often reveal conscious and unconscious prejudices lurking behind seemingly innocent and humanistic agendas. Academic research makes power structures operating in a society visible, allowing individuals to understand the ways they are subjugated so that they can resist methods …
Re-Heating’ Hope through Recognition in Japanese Late Capitalism: A Sociological Analysis of Ryo Asai’s “The Kirishima Thing”
How is invisible power exerted through recognition? By adopting Ulrich Beck’s social theory of reflexive modernisation, this paper analyses Ryo Asai’s movie, The Kirishima Thing (Kirishima-Bukatsu-Yamerutteyo). Although the movie describes daily life in a high school, the absence of the main character, Kirishima, throughout the entire film leaves it open to various interpretations. This paper …
Awakening from Dream, Back to the Pre-Modern: Satoh Makoto’s “The Dance of Angels Who Burns Their Own Wings”
Japanese playwright and stage director Satoh Makoto (shows an acute insight that human suffering is the outcome of the illusion of human redemption that has been regarded as an ultimate goal of the linear time-space of the modernity. The linear time-space has killed the existence of God by replacing the multi-layered time-space of the pre-modern …
Japan, the Global Novel and the Question of Responsibility
Recent years have seen the arrival of a number of novels, which, while they thematically touch on Japan to some degree, are best situated in a global rather than a national framework. This paper takes four of these novels—Kazuo Ishiguro’s An Artist of the Floating World (1986), David Mitchell’s Ghostwritten (1999), Murakami Haruki’s Umibe no …