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Intentional Teaching Gestures are gestures that have been created as a pedagogical tool for second language teaching and learning and are used in many Japanese programs. Despite their widespread use, little is known about their impact on students' oral language production. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the effect of Intentional Teaching Gestures on students' Japanese production. This paper reports on the quality of students' oral language production from two Story Re-tell tasks, one with and one without viewing Intentional Teaching Gestures (ITG), after learning Japanese as a second language with ITG. Thematic analysis was undertaken of the Story Re-tell transcription data from 170 primary school participants. Findings identify that viewing ITG whilst doing Story Re-tell positively impacted learners' oral production. The breadth of benefits included increases in the quantity of output that students produced, the expanded informational content included in their stories, and students' increased use of a range of verbs and particles in their utterances. Viewing ITG also provided support for students' structuring of utterances, supported self correction, and led to an improvement in their overall oral performance. These benefits have wide ranging pedagogical implications for Japanese teachers and learners. [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]

The term 'sashiko' refers to a quilting stitch used to sew together layers of material. The stitch itself is a simple running stitch, with the beauty created by complex interlocking stitching patterns. In Japan there is a long-standing tradition of layering and re-stitching material to create a thicker, warmer more durable garment. This was particularly true in the poorer regions of Tohoku during the Edo and early Meiji period where the lower classes used this stitching to create and decorate garments made out of homespun hemp and other plant fibres. After first contextualising the sashiko tradition, both in terms of its Edo origins and decreasing popularity in late Meiji, this paper focuses on the contemporary rebirth of sashiko as a form of decorative embroidery, and increasingly as a pure art form. In discussing the rekindled interest in this form of stitching, in both the contemporary quilting world and in the context of the global revival of traditional handicrafts, the paper concludes with reference to the work of contemporary sashiko artists and also to the use of sashiko garments in the final film made by the great director, Akira Kurosawa, Yume. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the multifaceted construction of the Tsugaru region by its literary community in order to illuminate a fantastic theory of place. Writers who identify themselves as part of this 'regional literary establishment' [chihō bundan] have engaged in a sustained process of reflexively performing and defining their place-consciousness. Processes of localization are enacted in a wide variety of forms, particularly through the invocation of vernacular language, place-specific knowledge, and ideological discourse. This paper explores the conceptual writings of Fukushi Kōjirō (1889–1946) and the 'dialect' [hōgen] works of Takagi Kyōzō (1903–87), among others, bringing these influential and important – yet strongly marginalized – Japanese literary figures further into the purview of English-language scholarship. It analyzes Fukushi's 'regionalism' [chihō shugi], its central concept of 'spirit' [seishin, tamashii], and the related invocation of place-based practices like 'Tsugaru esprit' and 'godagu' [bullshitting]. It then places Takagi's strategic deployment of vernacular speech and localized folk knowledge within the context of that discourse in order to elucidate the active and intentional construction of Tsugaru within the local literary landscape. These writers move against the centralizing and homogenizing discourses of modernization theory, and provide a refreshing vantage for rethinking place and place-consciousness in modern Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on ninkyō eiga (the chivalry film) and especially the Abashiri Bangai-chi series to examine politics of effeminacy in the masculinist film genre. Unlike conventional ninkyō eiga in which any corporeal intimacy between the men is negated, the Abashiri Bangai-chi series is subversive in a way that it acknowledges the sexual intimacy in a male-dominated environment. Particularly, effeminate characters are employed as comic relief who sexually approach masculine yakuza only to be rejected. They appear as the abject opposite of masculinity to sustain the supremacy of patriarchy. On the other hand, intimacy between masculine men is highly exaggerated to the extent that the male body becomes a visual spectacle that exudes homoeroticism. Especially, effeminate characters are the ones that are given opportunities to adore men's bodies and fondle them for sexual pleasure. Abashiri Bangai-chi is a reactionary series that borrows the formula of ninkyō eiga to present the idealized versions of masculinity but also plays with the generic convention by amusingly exposing the erotic nature of the act of consuming masculine yakuza. [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]

The NHK morning drama Massan features a male protagonist who unrelentingly pursues his dream of making Scotch whisky with Japanese-grown ingredients. After spending two years studying whisky-making in Scotland, he returns to Japan in 1921 with his Scottish wife, Ellie. Over the course of the drama, we follow Masaharu Kameyama as he develops as a craftsman, a husband, and a father. Drawing on explicit statements made by the characters about husbands and fathers, this paper focuses on the conduct and culture of fatherhood as represented in Massan. Focused attention is given to three central male characters in the drama: merchant Kinjirō Kamoi, aspiring artisan Ei'ichirō Kamoi, and Masaharu Kameyama himself. Specific attention is given to dialog that focuses on work, work–life balance, and stereotypical roles of husbands and wives. We find that due to the presence of a foreign wife, overt communications regarding husband–wife roles and fathers' responsibilities take place. Moreover, we discover that the story of one Japanese man and his foreign bride offer a bridge from the 1920s to present-day issues surrounding men's non-performance in the domestic sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores social identity through the rituals and exchange networks of alcohol among new Japanese immigrants (shin-issei) in a Japanese-style pub (izakaya) in Honolulu. Currently, over 18,000 shin-issei live on Oahu. Compared to the larger population of Japanese-Americans (approximately 300,000), these Japanese transnationals constitute a small, overlooked diaspora limited by cultural and economic barriers. The izakaya provides a place where identity is mediated through mutual alcohol consumption in close social groups, most notably through interaction via gift exchanges and commodity purchases. The form of alcohol rituals is distinct as it is a reconfiguration of embodied practices long cultivated in Japan, traceable to indigenous religious use and modernization near the end of the nineteenth century. In contemporary Honolulu alcohol becomes an object of relational transnational identities situated in an increasingly commodified sociocultural space. [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]

Since the introduction of ballet to Japan in the early 1900s, male dancers have figured prominently, with a profile equal to that of female dancers. Despite this, the association between ballet and girls' cultures has been dominant in Japan, as in other cultures. As a consequence, ballet is often considered to be a highly 'feminine' activity, with associations as a 'queer' activity for males in contemporary culture. What does the increase in visibility of ballet in Japanese boys' culture tell us? This paper examines Japanese popular media that target boys and men as its core audience, especially the magazine Dancin', possibly the first ballet magazine in the world exclusively for boys and young men. I examine how the magazine operates in contrast to the female version to attempt to create a virtual, imagined community that might offer a sense of belonging and encouragement to otherwise isolated ballet boys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972) held a deep interest in modern spiritualism and applied his knowledge of it to his literary process in diverse ways. Spiritualism was widely employed as metaphor and narrative methodology in twentieth-century literary modernism, and Kawabata stood out among his peers for his prolific use of it. It has typically been assumed that Kawabata distanced himself from modernism after World War II, enacting a complete return to 'Japanese tradition'. Yet modernist and spiritualist connections can still be observed in his writing during that period. This paper looks at the connections between postwar Kawabata and contemporary modernism, focusing in particular on a close reading of the short story 'Mugon' [Silence] (1953). The story is framed by an episode involving a haunted tunnel and depicts a series of events as a novelist visits an elderly writer who has fallen mute due to illness. Kawabata uses stream-of-consciousness narration to present radical ideas about literary composition and the relationship between language and reality and subverts common-wisdom understandings of language and literature. I conclude that the composition of 'Mugon' demonstrates clear continuity between Kawabata's pre- and postwar writings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kōda Rohan's (1867–1947) 'Tai dokuro' (Encounter with a Skull) is often treated as a tale of karmic retribution and transcendence. In addition to drawing on Buddhist philosophy, the text is rich in allusions to classical literature and philosophy. Yet, as this paper argues, Rohan's tale is decidedly modern. His depiction of illness places his story in dialogue with modern regimes of health, gender, and class, while also drawing on traditional notions of illness and Buddhist aesthetics of decay as associated with the Kusōzu (Nine Stages of Death Scrolls). For centuries, Hansen's disease was feared as an illness that reduced sufferers to a living corpse, and the 1873 discovery of bacilli that caused the illness did little to assuage public fear – rather, the new attention to the disease increased social stigma. Rohan's 1890 piece, written before Japan's 1907 legislation calling for quarantine of sufferers in some cases, draws on modern understandings of Hansen's disease while at the same time complicating the stigma surrounding the disease. Through a close examination of 'Encounter with a Skull', I draw attention to the meaning of illness and the abject woman, as well as the play between archetype and innovation in this distinctly 'modern' text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1980s, Japanese dancers have won top prizes at some of the most demanding international dance competitions, and several have been promoted to the top ranks of major dance companies around the world. In this article, I explore the interplay between Japanese dancers and Western centers of dance, focusing on the paths and decisions dancers took as they went abroad to further their careers. As part of this movement, Japanese dancers are sometimes identified as such though their numbers have grown and they have become part of a globalized dance scene. At the same time, the paper explores the relationship between the development of a bodily habitus necessary to become a dancer and the artistry involved in communicating a message or emotion through the body. I argue that dancers understand their movement and growth as artists in relationship to their technique and artistry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Drawing on a corpus of 300 words, this paper analyses the linguistic characteristics of the special lexicon of the secret language (ingo) used by thieves in Japan between the Edo and Showa periods. A total of 189 words are illustrated to demonstrate how the secret language of thieves can be described in terms of the three strategies used to create this special lexicon: 1) semantic changes introduced into the pre-existing Japanese lexicon; 2) lexical innovations; and 3) morpho-phonological modifications of the pre-existing Japanese lexicon. Strategies used in the creation of the special lexicon are examined in order to determine how the strategies employed in thieves' ingo conform to or deviate from the strategies used in modernising the lexicon of Standard Japanese. This paper also examines how morphological processes utilised in the special lexicon o f thieves' secret language interact with Japanese phonology, and concludes that the mora is an indispensable unit for the processes o f truncation, hypocoristic formation and reduplication, while the syllable is an indispensable unit for the process of metathesis. Finally, data analysis reveals that truncation and metathesis work at a level which ignores morpheme boundaries, and operate instead at the level o f the mora and syllable respectively. [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]

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]

This paper examines the recent hit shōjo manga by Yoshinaga Fumi, Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, which creates a science fiction alternate version of Edo-period Japan ruled by a female shogun. This gender-reversed world is the outcome of the sudden outbreak of an epidemic that kills only male youths in the era of the third shogun Iemitsu. In the inner chambers of Edo Castle, which are the private space of the shogun, 3,000 beautiful men live and work. This alternative world rereads existing historical narratives and also provides a critical space for readers to examine the multiple discourses of gender and sexuality. The paper approaches this re-representation of Japanese premodern history in the genre of shōjo manga from several angles. To provide a fuller understanding of Ōoku, it shows how revisionist presentation of the Tokugawa inner chambers in a 1960s Yoshiya Nobuko novel provided a model for a subgenre of historical period drama in post-war popular culture. It also examines shōjo manga traditions of non-normative gender identities. [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]

The paper visits some thoughts of educationists in the past to consider a sustainable future for Australian Japanese language education at the coal face of high attrition and scarcity of funds. Drawing upon the concept of 'andragogy' and a sociocultural approach to learning, the paper proposes that we should shed metaphorical walls outside of and in the classrooms in order to open access to more diverse resources and encourage more intense engagement by the learners in the classroom learning community. The new learning environment is termed 'a classroom without walls'. [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]

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 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]

For several decades the ‘Korean’ resident communities in Japan have attempted to have their voices heard through a variety of written genres. Yu Miri and Yi Yang-ji have won the Akutagawa award for literary works about their lives as zainichi. Others, through their positions as public commentators or intellectuals, have critiqued Japanese society and the treatment of zainichi and other marginalised communities. In recent years there has been an emergence of Korean-Japanese feminists who are contributing to this genre of writing, bringing new and valuable insights. The aim of this paper is to provide access to this work for a wider non-Japanese literate audience. The paper demonstrates how these emergent voices use gender and feminist theoretical frameworks to contest the dominant discourse of race and ethnicity as central to the process of decolonisation in zainichi resistance. It argues that the participation of women commentators in zainichi forums has resulted in a shift from a race/ethnicity limited approach to a more multi-vocal, multi-positional reality inclusive of women's perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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 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]

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 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]

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]

This paper analyzes the significance of the emergence of media-led populism in contemporary Japan as exemplified in the so-called Koizumi phenomenon, the primary efficacy of which lies in the successful articulation and circulation of images of the popular leader, rather than the actual implementation of policies. By locating this form of politics in the immediate context of global capitalism led by advanced media technology, the paper problematizes the ways in which the national cultural space has been dehistoricized in past decades into one that merely hosts divided and alienated individuals, reduced to passive receptors of the boundless flow of information. In this media-permeated space, individuals are typically deprived of subjective status as autonomous and critical agents, and are instead constituted as objects of the omnipresent gaze of cyber-culture. What emerges in this cultural environment is a new idealist epistemology—what Julian Stallabrass calls 'hi-tech Hegelianism'—in which the dialectical distinction between appearance/image and content/meaning are transcended. Reflecting these penetrating changes at the level of subjectivity, cognitive parameters, and the ways in which national hegemony operates in this space, present Japanese society is plagued with a number of political difficulties, such as the erosion of the democratic subject and the weakening power of the law and democratic institutions under a climate of idealism that prioritizes mood and feelings over critical reason and ethics. The paper issues a warning that we may be witnessing the advent of something similar to what Hannah Arendt observed in the former USSR of the 1930s—the transformation of a democratic nation into one reconstituted by the abstract images represented by a popular leader. In the midst of advanced information technology redefining every facet of human life, a reification of phantom images of Japanese nation seems to be underway once again, eroding... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

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 article aims to give an outline of recent developments in Ishinomaki, one of the cities worst affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake in March 2011. Before the disaster, the harbor town faced depopulation, aging residents, and a lack of prospects for the young, like many other stagnant regional cities. Since March 2011, Ishinomaki has seen an influx of short-, mid-, and long-term volunteers and young ambitious individuals who have moved from urban areas to initiate their own revitalization or social business projects. Drawing on and showing the limitations of Richard Florida’s notion of the ‘Creative Class’, this paper approaches Ishinomaki’s recent reinvention and transition from production to postindustrial multi-functionality as a phenomenon that can be seen as both a renaissance movement as well as the result of the structural instability of the labor market caused by Japan’s transition into a mature postindustrial economy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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 paper considers three recent Japanese sports films for young people, Feel the Wind (2009), Oppai Volleyball (2009) and Dive!! (2008), which employ a common sports film script to explore the ways in which masculinity is constructed, expressed and evaluated through participation in sport. Through depictions of masculinities that achieve subjective agency and acceptance by peers despite a lack of competence or victory in sport, these films disrupt the established relationship between masculinity, competence and dominance, and endorse nonnormative models of masculinity. They also reflect the tensions between a desire for agency, social constraints and expectations, and the dominant ideology of masculinity. In so doing, they help to illuminate the ways in which gender is negotiated in relation to contemporary social and political conditions. [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]

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]