Japan Society

Via.

• Japan averted its “fiscal cliff” by passing a crucial bill to keep the government from running out of money by the end of November (BBC). This comes when GDP figures “indicated the most dramatic contraction since the country was hit by the earthquake and tsunami of March 2011” (CNN). With media crying recession (NYT), CNBC posited that amping global demand over domestic stimulus might be Japan’s only hope for recovery. BusinessWeek pointed out the agreement ended the budget standoff and paved the way for elections while "polls showed voter discontent with Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda at a new high." Noda indeed dissolved parliament and set elections for December 16, reported Associated Press, which noted “if Noda's center-left party loses, the economically sputtering country will get its seventh prime minister in six and a half years."

• With a third round of talks, China and Japan appeared "no closer to ending their stand-off over the tiny, uninhabited islands known to China as the Diaoyus and to Japan as the Senkakus." The Economist asked “why China seems to be fanning the flames of its row with Japan in the East China Sea” noting that "Japan and China established diplomatic relations in 1972, the leaders of both countries agreed to put the issue of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands to one side; to let future, supposedly wiser, generations deal with the problem." Reuters examined how debts and double-dealing sparked the row, and CNN said to “avert either a new cold war or a brief hot war” a possible trilateral solution is needed between Japan, China and the U.S. “based on simple principles: doing no further harm, putting aside differences, and expanding areas of mutual interest.” Examining the stand off, BBC described the islands:

Mostly rocky outcroppings which serve as a home to migratory birds and a herd of wild goats, the islands are closest to Taiwan, about 210 km (125 miles) northeast of Taipei and 1,800 km from Tokyo...The largest, Uotsurijima in Japanese, rises up like a forest-canopied mountain from the sea, with no port for landing. A little larger than New York's Central Park, the island's highest point tops the Eiffel Tower.

• The organizers of the Beijing Marathon reversed its decision and will let Japanese runners take part in the event. (Kyodo News)

• Japan and North Korea reopened stalled bilateral talks, though "Japan and North Korea do not have formal diplomatic relations. The abduction issue and concerns over North Korea's nuclear and missile programs have long strained ties." (AP)

• Nikkei Business highlighted “the one hundred people creating the next generation” in Japan featuring puts 100 people in the categories of "revolutionist," "creator," "hero," "leader," "thinker," "newcomer," and "decider."

• "Struggling to learn" is accepted in Japanese and other Eastern education systems, but is often seen as a weakness in the U.S. (NPR)

• Japan is seeing a continued decline of post-secondary enrollment of Japanese students in U.S. schools and American students into Japanese schools. (Forbes)

• Teens who survived Japan's tsunami visited a high school in hurricane-affected New Jersey, talking for the first time to an audience that "can relate to the damage that a natural disaster causes." How long did the recovery take in Japan? "It’s not finished yet,” said one student. (Daily Record)

• The New York Times looked at the role sports played to help Japanese deal with the 3/11 disasters. "Unlike in the United States, where athletes might play a different sport each season, Japanese students commit to a single sport that they practice year-round. As a result, teammates and coaches provided a support network for many athletes affected by the catastrophe. Sports also helped connect student-athletes to family members and neighbors, many of whom played sports themselves."

• The new book Strong in the Rain gives voice to the survivors of #Japan's 3/11 disaster. Japan Times calls it "a riveting story about Japan's March 11 cataclysm told uncommonly well by two veteran Japan-based journalists who share their emotions, experiences and insights while giving readers ringside seats through captivating interviews with survivors. The authors give a haunting voice to the people of Tohoku, one that will linger in your memory, as their evocative prose conveys a sense of the panic, horrors and heartbreak endured."

• More on the decline of sumo, Japan's 2,000-year-old sport "hit by a 54-year recruitment low thanks to bullying scandals, death, allegations of illegal drug use — and a strict diet regime… Just 56 boys took up the this year while twice as many wrestlers gave it up." (The Sun)

• "Japan’s Sport Council on Thursday awarded a contract to design and construct a centerpiece, billion-dollar national stadium that forms a key part of Tokyo’s bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games to lauded U.K. firm Zaha Hadid Architects. " The Wall Street Journal's image gallery includes the winning design as well as finalists.

• "Within a decade [after WWII] Tokyo was on its way to being bigger and richer than ever. And it was producing huge amounts of art, feisty and fantastic, a wave of which comes surging out at you like a blast of sound — half noise, half music…" The New York Timesreviews Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde opening this weekend at the Museum of Modern Art. Related, the Boston Globereviewed Reinventing Tokyo at the Mead Art Museum.

• The Mori Art Museum opened a retrospective of darkly disaster-evoking artist Makota Aida, noting "the frequency of natural disasters in Japan is often invoked in explaining elements of the nation's aesthetic, from lightweight wood-and-paper architecture to the ephemeral beauty of ikebana." Also, a new exhibition at the Kyoto National Museum shows "fine line" between Japanese calligraphy and art. (Japan Times)

• Artist Laurie Simmons discusses her latest muse with New York magazine: a Japanese love doll.

• "Until the 1980s, people in Japan generally strove to hide their relatives with dementia from the outside world. By and large, it fell on the spouse or the children to care for them — or the wife of a son whose parent had Alzheimer's." (Japan Times)

• The chilling history behind the abandoned Japanese island featured in the blockbuster new James Bond film Skyfall. (Verge)

• As everyone in the U.S. prepares for Thanksgiving feasts, Malaysia's The Star profiles the power of satsuma-imo (sweet potato) in Japan's culinary culture.

• A Japanese maitre d' was named Best Waiter In The World. (Business Insider)

• "It gave us the Walkman, the pocket calculator and heated toilet seats, but Japan's path to innovative greatness is littered with failures such as the TV-shaped radio and the 'walking' toaster" (AFP). Much new innovative 'greatness' from Japan dominated the news this week: Pepsi Japan's 'fat-burning' new flavor (The Week), which may be "too good to be true" (TIME); odor-absorbing underwear (Wired); and using 3-D scanners to make plastic miniature figurines of their customers (RocketNews24).

--SJ

Hashima Island, featured in Skyfall. Via.

UPDATED: 11/24/12

Noda congratulating Obama on 4 more years? AP photo via.

• President Obama ended his tour of Asia in diplomatic discussions with leaders of Japan and China (ABC), but "talk of trade was overshadowed by discussions over how to prevent violence over South China Sea territories." During the talks Obama "once again touted the U.S.-Japan alliance the 'conerstone' of regional security" (BusinessWeek).

• Japan's foreign minister Koichiro Genba answered some basic questions about Japan's stance on the island dispute in a New York Times op-ed. BBC News reported that Japan named the new ambassador to China: career diplomat Masato Kitera, 59, who will go to Beijing next month.

• Reuters analysis of Japan's upcoming elections elections:

[The] likely scenario is that the December election ushers in a period of confusing coalition politics... that will complicate policymaking in a political system already criticized as indecisive as Japan struggles with such challenges as China's rise, the role of nuclear power after last year's Fukushima crisis and the ballooning costs of a fast-ageing population. Such prospects would deepen concerns at ratings agencies over Japan's ability to deal with its high public debt, which at more than twice the size of the $5 trillion economy is the heaviest among leading industrialized nations.

• Likely conservative Prime Minister candidate Shinzo Abe says strengthening Japan's economy and the military are the top priorities for his party as the country approaches elections on December 16 (BW). Meanwhile "the veteran Japanese politician’s Facebook page is sure getting lots of attention" (Wall Street Journal).

• "In next month's general election, politicians -- nearly all of them men -- will make promises on what they will do to fix Japan's economic morass. Very few of them will even mention women." (Agence France Presse)

• Japan will spend $12.3 billion on its next economic stimulus. (BW)

• Japan's government is sending $4.7 million to Pakistan, where parts still remain underwater two months after a moonsoon caused massive flooding (Pakistan Observer). They are also sending $500K for New Jersey's hurricane recovery (New Jersey News). Two Japanese NGOs fight to get aid for war-torn Mali (Asahi).

Via.

• Despited ¥12 billion loss, a Miyagi Prefecture shipbuilder launched its first vessel built since the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami. "The ship is painted blue, green and orange, the colors used in the flags of the hardest-hit prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima." (Japan Times). On the otherside of the Pacific, a California port is building a tsunami-resistant harbor in response to 3-11 (Washington Post), and one oceanographer finds it ominous that Japan's tsunami debris is late landing in Washington State. (MyNorthwest.com)

• Just as U.S. airmen were turned over to Japanese prosecutors to decide charges for suspected assault (ABC), several more violations from armed forces personnel were reported in Japan, ranging from trespassing (AP) to indecent exposure and drunk driving (AFP).

• Though "the number of elderly criminals being caught by Japanese police has rocketed…with pensioners committing almost 50 times more assaults than two decades ago," the trend "goes against that of society at large, where the overall number of crimes in Japan fell 5.8 percent on year, to 2.14 million in 2011, its ninth straight year of decline." (Herald Sun)

• Incidences of bullying in Japan has more than doubled since last academic year, with 144,000 reported over 6 months. (NHK)

• Japan Times offers a strategy for learning Japanese, with this news:

According to the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State, which has compiled language-learning expectations for their professional staff (people who already know other languages), Japanese is one of the five most difficult languages to reach speaking and reading proficiency in, requiring 88 weeks of study (2,200 class hours).

• While Japan's ninjas head for extinction (BBC) and sumo wresting declines as the national sport (Financial Times), the country has been experiencing a massive mascot boom (Reuters).

• Hiroki Kuroda agreed to $15 million deal with the Yankees. (ABC)

• Japan's opened its first environmentally friendly highway rest stop, equipped with some 4,000 solar panels and public toilets that use only recycled water. (UPI)

• For Japan's toilet giant, "global lavatory domination remains elusive, especially among shy U.S. consumers," because, according to top brass, Americans don't like talking about bathroom business.

• Japan's HEARBO made great strides in robotic sound processing. (Endgadget)

• Astronauts from Japan, U.S. and Russia returned to earth. (MSNBC)

• Chef Elizabeth Andoh whips up a cookbook showcasing cuisine and ingredients from Japan's disaster zone. (WaPo video launches immediate when opening link.)

• Yahoo's Japan Ramen project selected nine Japan-based foreigners (including six Americans) to spread the joy of noodle making around the world. (JT)

• Scottish roots of Japanese whisky. (The Scotsman)

• Renovations on "once worthless" old Japanese homes, some from the 1600s, are yielding return of investments as high as 80%. (BW)

• Japan's public libraries are thriving. (JT)

• One new photography book looks at the physical and spiritual aesthetics of bonsai (JapanCultureNYC), another captures the "living hell passengers endure on Tokyo's trains" (News Australia).

• A major Zeshin show and multimedia retrospective of David Lynch's artwork opened in Japan. Plus, the little known art of indoor moss installations. (JT)

• Sadly the Japanese gallery Ippodo is selling off its New York inventory and closing its Chelsea space on December 31. (ArtInfo)

• Kirie, the traditional Japanese art of paper cutting, gets a contemporary spin. What appears "to be ink paintings done with a sumi-e brush… are instead layered sheets of black and white paper, painstakingly created by using nothing more than a cutter knife." (JapanCultureNYC)

• "Good design and Japan go hand in hand," said the New York Times in their review from the Design Tide Tokyo expo.

• Verge reports from the 2012 Tokyo Designers Week, taking in "skateboards made from kimonos, giant rabbit art, Kinect-powered alarm clocks, giraffe-shaped skyscrapers, and over six hundred cellphones."

• "I believe it is necessary (for designers) to value the Japanese cultural undercurrent," legendary designer Hanae Mori told Asahi in an exclusive interview.

• Variety reported the anime Evangelion 3 broke box office opening records in Japan for the year, and that the seminal WWII anime Grave of the Fireflies will be released in US for the first time as part of a touring Studio Ghibli Retrospective.

• NTV launched a YouTube page with clips from their insanely creative hand-crafted site gag amateur contest show Kasō Taishō: http://www.youtube.com/user/masqueradentv

--SJ

Island dispute sees dips in visits to Japan. Via.

• Japan will give the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration $5 million “to help with collection and disposal of marine debris from its March 2011 tsunami disaster” (BusinessWeek). Timely news as debris is expected to land in Hawaii soon, specifically on a beach where an estimated 20 tons of current-carried garbage already washes ashore every year (NBC).

• Japan put many 3/11 reconstruction projects not linked to disaster zones on hold "after criticism the spending was not directly related to recovery from the disasters" (Associated Press). With a quarter of the $148 billion reconstruction money earmarked for “unrelated projects, including subsidies for a contact lens factory in another region and research whaling,” the hold frees up only $210 million. In addition, the government plans to sell off some 56,000 homes lent cheaply to officials to raise approximately $2.1 billion for reconstruction (Bloomberg News).

• A United Nations envoy urged Japan to do more for residents and workers affected by the Fukushima nuclear crisis, citing over-emphasized optimism on radiation risks and lack of access to health check results as major recurring problems. (Associated Press)

• With elections just weeks away, Japan's ruling party promised "cool-headed and practical" diplomacy in contrast with the opposition’s hawkish rhetoric, and restated its goal of phasing out nuclear power by the 2030s (Reuters). Meanwhile, Shiga Governor Yukiko Kada formed a new political group“that aims to get Japan out of nuclear power, create more opportunities for women and promote a work-life balance that makes it easier for families to raise children” (Japan Times). Political powerhouse Ichiro Ozawa has joined.

• None of the candidates have won the hearts (or votes) of those in the tsunami-devastated region, who feel reconstruction has fallen off the political agenda (Reuters). "Many of the 159,000 people who fled their towns…are finally accepting that it may take decades, perhaps generations, before their town could be restored to anything like it was before the disaster” (New York Times).

• Japan unveiled an $11 billion economic package, "its second round of stimulus in a little more than a month" (Financial Times).

• The Senkaku/Diaoyu island dispute between Japan and China “has affected a broad cross-section of Japanese business, from cars to cosmetics. But perhaps the biggest blow has been to tourism”, with JNTO reporting Chinese tourism down in 33% from 2011. (Wall Street Journal)

• In an annual government survey, Japan's feelings for the U.S., Russia and India are up, while views on China and South Korea "sank to their lowest levels in decades".

• U.S. commanders are telling troops in Japan to “put a cork in it” (TIME) and “buddy up” (WSJ), after a number of arrests and embarrassing incidents. America’s highest-ranking military officer in Japan said “the two countries are considering such countermeasures as joint U.S.-Japanese patrols and a ‘hotline’ in Okinawa for reporting troop misbehavior to U.S. military law enforcement officials” though “he opposed reopening the status of forces agreement, an accord on the legal jurisdictions for American troops that has long been a lightning rod for anti-U.S. base activists.”

• People Power: Forbes highlights more of The Nikkei's top 100 people having the greatest influence on Japan’s future; the first Japanese-American woman senator vows to push Japan ties (Asiance Magazine); now in her 70s, Yoko Ono carves new niches in her life, from fighting world hunger to revolutionizing men's fashion (NYT); Forbes also profiles Ernie Higa, the Wendy's Japan executive re-launching and revolutionizing the brand across the pacific (when talking about the country’s decline, he notes “Japan is still alive. It’s the third-biggest economy, and you can still succeed here by finding the right niche and adapting”).

• Sea Views: Tokyo activists rallied against dolphin and whale hunts over the weekend, part of demonstrations held around the world (AFP); Japan is on a quest to make bluefin tuna more sustainable (The Atlantic); The Times meditates on ama, Japan's free diving 'sea women'.

• South China Morning Postinterviewed the authors of Strong in the Rain, the "harrowing but compassionate" collection of stories from tsunami victims. "There was a sense among many Tohoku people I met that telling their stories to journalists was grandstanding. They viewed their suffering as nothing special, compared to others," said one author.

• Language Lesson: Japan Times looks at "notable negatives" and other Japanese linguistic oddities, starting with the famous monkeys Mizaru, Kikazaru and Iwazaru (of "see/hear/speak no evil fame"). How did they get their names? "The negative verb inflexion -zaru, which happens to be a homonym for saru (monkey)."

• A look at the "sparkly names" trend in Japan favoring pop culture christenings for kids. (Kotaku)

• New book sheds light on 'grim' realities of mental healthcare in Japan. (Japan Times)

• Reuters weighs in on sumo's decline in an 'age of convenience'.

• A 'floating' high-speed train unveiled in Tokyo is set to hit tracks in 2027 and cut travel time in more than half. (Discovery)

• Food: For the sixth consecutive year, Japan was awarded the most Michelin three-star rated restaurants in the world, “though the number slipped to 14 from 16” (Reuters); with the adage sake "never fights with food", chefs outside of Japan are beginning to pair the libation with non-Japanese food (BBC); one of Japan's top airlines will offer KFC on fligths from Japan to U.S. and Europe over the winter holidays. (Business Insider); the Washington Post examined ji-biru, Japanese craft beer, one of "Japan’s least famous but most exciting gastronomic exports."

• The legacy of 007 in Japan: “James Bond made his official Japan debut in ‘You Only Live Twice’: The gentleman spy came to Tokyo and Fukuoka, saw some sumo, consorted with ninja and got intimate with two homegrown Bond girls” (Japan Times). In a plot fit for a Bond flick, Japan’s Aerospace Exploration Agency said that plans for a new solid-fuel rocket were stolen from computers (NYT).

• Tis the Season: “On a recent weekend, 88 Santa wannabes packed the school in Tokyo's fashionable Roppongi district for a crash course in how to behave as ‘Santa-san,’ as the man in red is known in Japan.”

• Japanese toymaker plans to launch one-person electric helicopter next year. (WIRED)

• No plans for the weekend? Here's how to make Gudnam out of electrical plugs. (Rocketnews24)

• Kotaku examines the tiny might of 21st Century netsuke, and unleashes Japan's terrifying melon bear.

--SJ

Beware the melon-eating bears of Japan. Via.

Kobe Luminaire commemorating victims of the 1995 earthquake. Via.

• A major tunnel collapse near Mt. Fuji saw “about 270 concrete slabs each weighing 1.4 tons fall and cause the deaths of nine people” (BusinessWeek), after which "Japanese officials ordered the immediate inspection of tunnels across the country” (WSJ). BBC recaps reports from major Japanese media, with Yomirui writing the tunnel "has been inspected every five years” and officials saying “'no problem was found with the ceiling panels' during the last inspection between September and October.”

• Campaigning kicked off this week in “nuclear crisis–hit Fukushima, where more than 100,000 people remain displaced from their homes" (AP). With with polls showing more than 40 percent of voters are undecided, the Wall Street Journal gave a rundown of the political players, and, in separate article noted "a record number of parties—12 in total—are expected to register more than 1,400 candidates to compete for the 480 seats in the lower house" with 'third force' minority parties possibly tipping support from the larger conservative LDP and democratic DPJ parties. The nationalistic impetus of some popular candidates “could give not only Asian neighbors but also Washington cause for concern” (Reuters).

• In addition to the economy, a major platform this election is energy. The ruling party wants to “end Japan’s reliance on nuclear power by the 2030s, using a combination of energy conservation, a shift to renewable energy sources and greater use of cogeneration, which captures heat emitted as a byproduct of electricity generation.” The country is also "pushing ahead with ambitious smart city plans." (Financial Times)

• A 7.3 earthquake struck northeastern Japan--an area still recovering from 2011--injuring several people and “generating small waves but no immediate reports of heavy damage.” (L.A. Times)

• “North Korea is proceeding with plans to test a long-range rocket this month in defiance of international condemnation that included Japanese warnings to shoot it down if necessary" (BW). Japan issued a shoot-down order and “called for close cooperation with the U.S., China, South Korea and Russia in preparation (WSJ). The U.S. Navy began moving ships into the western Pacific in preparation for the planned launch of a long-range rocket by North Korea (SCMP).

• The Senate unanimously amended the 2013 Defense Authorization Bill, committing the U.S. "to defend Japan should the Senkaku Islands come under attack by a third country" (Washington Times). Noting the “Chinese navy and military presence is expanding day by day” around the islands, the Globe and Mail bigs a bird’s eye view of the proverbial chess game unfolding:

The Japanese surveillance plane is an hour into its flight when it spots the first Chinese flags of the day… [the] craft are mere pawns, pushing forth in groups to test the response from the Japanese side as Beijing tries to assert its claim to a quintet of islands, and their surrounding waters, that Japan has controlled for decades. Later that day, the rooks and knights appear – China Marine Surveillance craft, sent nearly every day to police the area as if it were Beijing’s to patrol. They are cautiously matched ship for ship by boats from the Japan Coast Guard, the two sides often closing to within 100 metres of each other but never – yet – colliding.”

• U.S. Senators Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka and Representative Colleen discussed why remembering Pearl Harbor matters 71 years later. (Morning Sun)

• "Japan wants to encourage the world’s two biggest emitters [China and the U.S.] to take part in a global climate-protection system that would be agreed to before 2015 and to include both developing and industrialized nations… The nation will pursue voluntary policies rather than binding targets under the Kyoto Protocol beginning in 2013." (Bloomberg News)

• An essay debate wages over at Council on Foreign Relations: Is Japan in decline?

• "For years Yoshinori Watanabe (aka ‘Mr. Gorilla’) ran Japan’s most powerful and successful yakuza group. Jake Adelstein on his mysterious death over the weekend—and his legacy of modern and ruthless management of the crime syndicate." (Daily Beast)

• Helping to bring kabuki to contemporary audiences around the world, actor Nakamura Kanzaburo died this week at age 57. His 100-strong all-male company Heisei Nakamuraza troupe is “noted for productions that respect kabuki's centuries-old heritage yet burst with contemporary energy and humor that are evocative of the early days of kabuki theater in the 17th century.” (Japan Times)

• With the passing of jazz legend Dave Bruebeck, some pick his "Jazz Impressions of Japan" as a top album--"a kind of musical journal of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's tour of Japan"

• “Eitaro is Japan’s only male geisha who performs in the role as a female dancer. He is the master of an ‘okiya,’ a geisha house in Tokyo’s Omori port district.” The articlenotes: “In modern Japan, geisha performers have become a rarity… One hundred years ago, there were over 80,000 geisha in Japan. Today the number of working geisha is estimated to be around 1,000.” (Daily Mail)

• Fast Company posted some incredible images from MoMA's Rise of Tokyo Avant-Garde exhibition, noting "the show has an auspicious (and telling) relationship to the architecture housing it, designed by Yoshio Taniguchi, an architect who came of age in Tokyo during the same period. Taniguchi’s restrained white walls couldn’t be more different than the sometimes frightening surrealism and utopian fervor of his one-time peers." The Wall Street Journal shared highlights of some 70 Japanese films of the period screening in conjunction with the exhibition.

• Winner and runners up from this year’s annual Japanese mascot Grand Prix. “6,500,000 votes were cast to rank the 865 official mascots who entered." (RocketNews24)

• The Kobe Luminarie is under way--a 12-day light festival that commemorates victims of the Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 (BesuDesu). More images from Getty Images here.

• From bottles to boxes: how to giftwrap Japan-style. (ChopsticksNY)

--SJ

N. Korea's missel trajectory over Okinawa. Via.

• “Japan's voters go to the polls on Sunday in elections that look set to deliver a painful setback to the governing Democratic Party of Japan, only three years after it ended decades of nearly unbroken rule by the Liberal Democratic Party” (BBC). Some call it “one of the most complex and confusing general elections in the country's history” (NBC), in which “a circus-like myriad of parties spans a spectrum of views from the super-patriotic, calling for a more hawkish Japan, to those linked to the grass-roots movement demanding an end to nuclear power, a call that has grown following the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant meltdowns last year” (AP). Though “voters appear more disenchanted with all parties” (Economist), the most important issue for all seems to be “how to jolt Japan out of its 20-year economic slump” (AP).

The Washington Post explains Japan’s election process: “The election is largely local, with the country divided into 300 constituencies and voters in each district selecting their preferred candidate. The remaining 180 seats are filled proportionally, based on each party’s share of the vote. The party that controls the lower house — the more powerful of the chambers in Japanese legislature, called the Diet— then installs its party president as prime minister.”

Ahead of elections, citizens from areas ravaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami ask for leaders to “put together a faster and more robust reconstruction effort” (Kyodo News). “According to government figures more than 320,000 people remain in temporary housing across the affected region” and a recent report said “of the nearly 24,000 housing units set to be constructed in three prefectures, only roughly 13,700 will be completed by March of 2015. That's four years after the tsunami hit” (CNN).

Complicating matters for candidates, self-censorship on Twitter and other social media platforms “stems from a 1950 law that lays out—in great detail—what candidates for public office can and can't do in the official campaign period before election day” (WSJ), though ‘rad’ manga campaign posters offer a solution (Kotaku). Among the many candidates are a sprightly 94-year-old (Yahoo), a vocal environmentalist (Deutsche Welle), and ‘flamboyant’ fringe politician Shintaro Ishihara, who once opposed diplomatic ties with China in a pact signed in blood, and who “published a book at the height of Japan’s economic power that lectured his countrymen on the need to end what he considered its postwar servility to the United States” (NYT).

• Days after announcing a delay, North Korea fired a long-range rocket (TIME):

The launch, which allowed Pyongyang to test its ballistic-missile capability in defiance of U.N. restrictions, angered the U.S. and its Northeast Asian allies. The White House called the launch “a highly provocative act that threatens regional security.” South Korea Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan called the launch “a threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula and around the world,” the Yonhap News Agency reported, while Japan called it “intolerable.” The U.N. Security Council passed resolutions banning North Korea from such launches after its nuclear tests in 2006 and ’09.

Considered a 'success' by North Korea, the launch sent the missile over Okinawa into sea (Japan Times). A chronology of North Korea's missile programs (AP).

• Japan scrambled jets to intercept a Chinese military surveillance plane over the disputed islands in what the ministry is calling the “first known violation of Japanese airspace by a Chinese plane since it began keeping records about 50 years ago” (NYT). The U.S. is eager to stay out of the dispute, even as it “sends aircraft carriers to reassure its allies and develops an ‘AirSea Battle’ doctrine aimed at defeating China” (AOL):

"We don't take sides anywhere in the world on these things," said Pacific Command chief Adm. Samuel Locklear, repeating the administration's mantra in a talk to the Asia Society during his visit to Washington last week. That said, he went on, "I don't think these [conflicts] are going to go away, and we have to figure out how to get through them without miscalculation, without bringing warships and warplanes in."

• “As Japan gropes for a way to deal with its problems—a prolonged recession, a leaderless political system, the fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, and a rapidly aging population that the economy struggles to support—the photographer Shiho Fukada has been looking at the symbiotic relationship between Japan’s current political turmoil and its unemployment crisis.” (New Yorker)

• “No one knows whether it’s their great diet, good health care or just great genes, but after two decades Japanese citizens are still the healthiest people in the world, according to a decades-long study on population health published today.” (ABC)

• After pleading guilty, Okinawan authorities sentenced U.S. marine to four years in prison for molesting and assaulting a woman in August. (Kyodo)

“The U.S. Navy in Japan says it will ease one of its new behavioral restrictions Wednesday, letting sailors once again drink alcohol at home after 10 p.m…. Sailors are still prohibited from consuming alcohol outside their private residences or off-installation between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., regardless of leave or liberty status.” (Stars and Stripes)

• A 1400 year-old warrior was found still wearing his armor during an archaeological at the ‘Pompeii of Japan’. (io9)

• “How Japan's murky underworld became the patron and power broker of the ruling party that intended to clean up politics.” (Foreign Policy)

• Huffington Post will partner with Japan’s major newspaper Asahi Shimbun to launch its first effort in Asia. (AllThingsD)

• Oscar-winning Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's (Spirited Away, Ponyo) is working on his first film in five years. Based on one of Japan’s oldest novels, Taketori Monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter), the film will be released in 2013. (Telegraph)

• With artists as teachers and fans as students (and an industry that generates 400 billion yen per year domestically), manga studies become more prominent in Japanese colleges. (Yomiuri)

• Though lessons “are potentially quite thorny”, the Washington Post asks what the U.S. can learn about gun control from Japan, which had 11 gun-related murders in 2008 when America had over 12,000.

• Why the ‘Fukushima 50’—actually hundreds of workers who stayed at the crippled nuclear power plant to bring the reactors under control—remain largely unknown. (BBC)

• Scientists believe Japan's samurai caste may have been toppled by women’s makeup.

• Actor Jeremy Irons speaks out for the world's longest-serving death row prisoner, a Japanese boxer on death row for 44 years. (The Guardian)

• “Gold” chosen as 2012’s Kanji of the Year; runners up were were “ring” and “island.” (WSJ)

• “The average score of Japanese elementary school students in global achievement tests in mathematics and science last year showed a marked rise from the previous survey in 2007.” (Japan Times)

• “Ambassador Kenichiro Sasae visited the National Japanese American Memorial to Patriotism on Nov. 21, within one week of his arrival in Washington, D.C. He paid his respects to the Nisei who died in U.S. military service during World War II and to the 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated in internment camps.” (Rafu Shimpo)

• “Japan's mythological account of the world on the brink of annihilation is in a class by itself. Other stories of its kind are tragic, terrifying. Japan's is comic, even bawdy.”

• The Guardian caught up with Mariko Mori just before her exhibition Rebirth opened at the Royal Academy. ArtInfo has a slideshow.

• Tis the season: Japan’s snow monkeys head to the onsen. (Windsor Star)

--SJ

UPDATED: 12/17/12

Kenny Endo (left) rehearses with Agatsuma before the big concert.

Tonight two masters of modernizing ancient Japanese instruments while retaining their classic vitality converge on stage for the first time ever.

Kenny Endo is a legendary contemporary percussion and rhythm artist. Over his forty year career, he has taken the genre of taiko (traditional Japanese drums) to new heights, blending classical elements with global rhythms and original melodies and improvisations.

Endo warming up his skins. "Taiko" is Japanese for “fat drum” (although the drums vary in size) and usually played in a set called kumi daiko.

Hailing from Hawaii, where he has his own "Kenny Endo Day" as proclaimed by the Mayor of Honolulu, Endo originally trained as a jazz musician in California. He honed his taiko skills at the renowned San Francisco Taiko Dojo, then embarked on a decade-long odyssey through his ancestral Japan in the 80s, studying and performing with the masters of ancient techniques. He has recorded and performed around the world and has the honor of being the first non-Japanese national to have received a natori (stage name and masters degree) in hogaku hayashi (classical drumming).

Hiromitsu Agatsuma is a young and boundary busting virtuoso on the shamisen, a three-stringed banjo-like Japanese instrument performed with an aggressive style developed over centuries in northern Japan. He has been playing the instrument since he was a child, winning his first major competition at 14. After garnering much acclaim in the traditional Japanese music world, Agatsuma began infusing other instruments with beat-driven rock, attracting young and enthusiastic audiences.

Since his U.S. debut at Japan Society in 2003, Agatsuma has toured the world extensively. Like Endo, he explores traditional aspects of his instrument, while constantly experimenting with sound and incorporating diverse musical genres.

Performing together for the first time tonight at Japan Society, these two greats promise music magic, combining classical Japanese sounds with a 21st century feel.

If you cannot make it, check out this exclusive Spotify playlist or see more pictures from the historic rehearsal.

--Susan Berhane

Endo gets some shamisen tips from Agatsuma.

No amount of Photoshop can mask the ick-factor of raw shio-koji. Via.

Raw koji looks grotesque and has an odor of vaguely “sweet smelling socks”, according to the Los Angeles Times. Despite its superficial unpleasantness, the taste and usefulness surprises and delights.

What is koji exactly? It is a mold (Aspergillus oryzae, Japan’s national fungus), which is used to ferment rice to create items such as miso, sake, soy sauce, mirin, shōchū, and rice vinegar--all staples of Japanese cuisine.

These items come from kome koji (literally “rice koji”), in which the rice starches are broken down into sugar (a process known as saccharification), releasing fatty and amino acids.

Adding sea salt (shio) or soy sauce (shoyu) to the mix before alcohol begins to form creates what the LA Times calls a “miracle condiment”. Shio- and shoyu-koji are used to bring out the natural salt flavor in food without using as much salt, while keeping a hint of sweetness from the sugar within. The result is pure umami--a burst of savory, sweet deliciousness in every bite.

The health benefits of koji are numerous and the taste that accompanies it is an even bigger bonus. It can be used as a marinade for meats, fishes, and vegetables and also a total replacement for salt. Easy to make while enhancing the natural umami flavor, it’s no wonder that koji is now making its way into global pantries, especially in the United States.

While the koji demonstration and tasting at Japan Society tonight is sold out, there are many simple and delicious ways to use koji at home. Chopsticks New York has a handy instructional on how to make shio-koji, and the San Francisco Chronicle recently ran several shio-koji recipes, including Sauteed Lemon-Koji Asparagus, Grilled Koji-Marinated Hokkaido Squid With Ponzu Mayonnaise, and Koji Shira-ae With Favas and Tomatoes.

Itadakimasu!

--Susan Berhane

Helter Skelter hot, yes, but apparently this photo means nothing out of context.

With two weeks left before this year’s JAPAN CUTS film festival heats up midtown east July 11-21, there are already a handful of screenings close to selling out (spoiler alert: they probably will this weekend, so get tix now!) We asked the fest’s curator Samuel Jamier (who also co-curated the New York Asian Film Festival, which launched today), why these films are so hot.

“Of course the opening night screening of I'M FLASH! is not to be missed,” says Jamier. “Not only is it a hard, fast and fantastic gangster thriller, but festival fave director Toshiaki Toyoda will be on hand to talk about his latest UFO (Unidentified Film Objects, as I call his brand of cinema), and it is followed by one of our legendary Sapporo-sponsored after parties. The theme is bordello, and the dress is 'flashy'. Just no flashers, please.”

Helter Skelter(pictured above) is hot. “Like HOT hot,” says Jamier. “And it also contains one of the sexiest psychotic breakdowns captured on film.” The 'plastic surgery horror movie' follows a youth-obsessed, Gaga-esque pop star’s descent into hell. Apparently, a hot-hot hell.

Japan's number one box office hit of the year Rurouni Kenshin, getting its U.S. premiere screening as part of JAPAN CUTS and NYAFF, is based on manga that has sold 55 million copies and spawned several popular animated adaptations. “They couldn’t have missed if they tried,” says Jameir. “And boy didn’t they. Miss that is. It is pure manga sword-swinging bad-assery with girls in kimono. Period.”

Another near sellout is Yuichi Fukuda’s off-the-wall Hentai Kamen--a topsy-pervy twist (hentai basically means “pervert” or “perverted” in Japanese) to the superhero genre about a man who gains special powers when donning ladies underthings. The trailer alone received over 50,000 views in the first five days after it was uploaded to YouTube. When asked why, Jamier just shook his head baffled. “Because crotch jockeying action heroes is the genre we need?”

Here’s the trailer. Some might find it NSFW, but if that’s the case, you probably need to get a job somewhere with a sense of humor. Silly, earnest, epic. Enjoy!

AKB48 spreading music and hope in Japan.

While JAPAN CUTS is known for action packed, manga-inspired and genre-twisting blockbusters, especially those co-presented with NYAFF, there is another side to the festival encompassing impacting films that pull at heartstrings with their depth and far reaching soulfulness.

As the New York Times wrote in a feature about the more emotionally harder-hitting films this year:

A well-made bummer can be a beautiful thing, and while many countries have distinguished histories in the genre, none currently outdo Japan when it comes to outdo Japan when it comes to malaise and depression.

One of the more quietly devastating films in the lineup is Japan’s Tragedy. Directed by Masahiro Kobayashi and sharing the concept of the 1953 work of art, A Japanese Tragedy, the film focuses on an elderly father (played by legendary Akira Kurosawa actor Tatsuya Nakadai), who while pain stricken by the death of his wife must cope with terminal illness. His son, who suffered major losses in the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, remains lost emotionally and struggles to aid his father in recovery. Through his own affliction, the father tries to help his son one last time, deciding it best if he were allowed to die.

Shot mostly in black and white, the gravity of the themes and anguish of the characters are palpable and timely. In the tsunami that struck the northeastern Japan, some say “Japan’s elderly were hardest hit by the crisis” and even over two years later are displaced from their homes and not getting the care they need. When BAFICI first screened Japan’s Tragedy, they called the film “a profound analysis of the human condition and its unpredictable derivations” and noted that the titular tragedy is never pinpointed, stressing “the imprecision of that discomfort that afflicts Japan”. This silent yet pertinent theme is beautifully, painfully illuminated in Japan’s Tragedy.

Another powerful story is the documentary Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story. After being exposed to its language, culture, and history by her elementary school teacher, Taylor developed a love for Japan, ultimately taking part in the Japanese government’s Japan Exchange Teaching Programme (JET), which supports non-native Japanese to teach English in Japan. Tragically, Taylor is lost to the tsunami, but her life and legacy--shown through pictures, home videos, and heartwarming personal accounts within the film--offers a sense of hope that can only come by following one’s dreams.

Today the devastation from the tsunami can still be felt by the families of the 19,000 people dead or missing in Tohoku and the hundreds of thousands displaced, many still without permanent homes. Amidst slow recovery there are pleas to not forget those affected and still suffering. Live Your Dream shows us that even through loss, the memories we leave behind can never be forgotten.

For the JAPAN CUTS screening of Live Your Dream Taylor’s father and the documentary’s director will be on hand to introduce the film and take part in a Q&A it afterwards. Knowing many JET participants and hoping to apply for the program in the future, I see this film as a testament to Taylor and her family’s resilience. It’s a very moving portrayal and inspires people that despite everything one should never give up on their dreams.

Touching on similar themes, JAPAN CUTS presents the North American premiere of DOCUMENTARY OF AKB48: Show must go on. Japan’s pop music phenomenon AKB48, which boasts nearly 100 members, finds ways to give back to those in need in the months after 3/11. With some members hailing from Sendai (the largest city in the Tohoku region), the group tours the area and establishes the “A Project for Someone”, where they donate funds to the Tohoku region.

With three of JAPAN CUTS’ 24 feature films this year focusing on 3/11, it is evident the impact the devastation continues to have on Japan, from hardship to hope (related: Japan Society maintains regular updates of the recovery work funded by the Japan Earthquake Relief Fund). These films offer an opportunity to immerse oneself in the heartrending, often painful, but ultimately transforming stories that come from those experiencing and ultimately overcoming tragedy.

--Susan Berhane

Taylor Anderson and friend.

Images: (Top) DOCUMENTARY OF AKB48 No flower without rain © 2012 AKS Inc. / TOHO CO., LTD. / AKIMOTO YASUSHI, Inc. / North River Inc. / NHK Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (Bottom) Live Your Dream: The Taylor Anderson Story© 2012 Global Film Network All rights reserved.

Detail of three’s Tokyo Electric.

A piece of Japan Society’s history is being restored this summer with the return of the long-dormant artist residency program. Throughout the month of July Japan Society hosts the Japanese artist collective three, which reshapes popular and mass culture into three dimensional sculpture, installations and video.

For much of their craft, three utilizes found plastic materials, from anime and video game figurines to soy sauce containers, to create dynamic, large-scale works of art. Highlighting many of three's recent works, design site Spoon & Tamago noted the social consciousness of their art:

Hailing from Fukushima, the artists were direct victims of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear fallout. In fact, their latest work "Tokyo Electric" was created for the 2nd anniversary of the earthquake. The imposing cubic structure stands over 3 meters high and is built to the same scale of the Fukushima nuclear power plant, explains the artists. It was made from 151,503 soy sauce containers – another symbolic number that happens to represent the number of displaced citizens.

During their residency they will gather materials from around NYC to create new works of art. The public will have an opportunity to visit the group’s onsite studio and see the works in progress and meet the artists on July 27, before the final work is displayed on Japan Society’s A-Level in August and September.

Beginning in the 1950s Japan Society supported a handful of Japanese artists during their influential developmental stages, expanding American understanding of Japanese art and culture and providing an outlet for Japanese artists to hone their talent.

In 1959 one of the first such artists was Munakata Shiko, an illustrious printmaker who produced amazing, expressionistic woodblock prints. A grant from the Rockefeller Foundation allowed Japan Society to sponsor Munakata in the U.S. for six months, during which he gave four exhibitions and twenty lecture-demonstrations, according to the Society’s 1959 annual report. That same year he opened Munakata Shiko Gallery.

When the Japan Society Fellows Program was established in 1965, Kusama Yayoi became another artist supported by the Society. With a four month grant for study, exhibitions and travel, she created some of her iconic infinity series of paintings. In 2012 the Whitney presented a highly acclaimed and broad sweeping retrospective of Kusama’s work.

Japan Society’s Gallery Director, Miwako Tezuka, is passionate about the reappearance of the residency program and its continuation for years to come. “In my own experience,” she says, “any hands extended to help people learn and experience the broader world create ripple effects that can result in amazing accomplishments and lasting influence.”

--Susan Berhane

'Mike' cubicized by the artist collective 'three'.

The Japanese concept of moe (pronounced MO-EH) is a connection one has with a manga or anime character somewhere between first love, a priest’s eternal devotion and an otaku’s obsessive infatuation. A footnote from the catalogue to Little Boy, Japan Society's massive 2005 exhibition that was wall-to-wall moe, explains that it means "literally, 'bursting into bud'; a rarefied pseudo-love for certain fictional characters and their related embodiments."

Anyone suffering from a deep case of moe might not survive a visit to three’s temporary studios at Japan Society.

JapanCultureNYC described the scene in graphic detail in their recent article about the Fukushima-based artist collective:

One room of Japan Society’s gallery is an organized mess. There are plastic figurines everywhere. Miniature representations of manga, anime, and pop culture icons, five hundred are from Japan, with a small but growing collection from the US. The action figures are waiting to be assembled, photographed, meticulously categorized, unapologetically dismembered, and melted into rectangular “bits.”

When we visited the studios, the dismemberment was well underway, and you could barely make out recognizable figures [figyua in Japanese, a transliteration of "figure"] within the heaps of plastic cartoon and human shaped characters dissembled and spread all over.

But what three lacks of moe’s typical reverence, they more than make up for in obsessive, painstaking devotion. These hundreds of figurines are being melted into cubes of plastic perfection, identifiable only by familiar color schemes and the very occasional flattened body part. As the JapanCultureNYC article noted, three creates “a kind of interactivity between the sculpture and the viewers to see which characters stand out and to capture the reactions.”

This Saturday people will have a chance to meet the artists at a free open studio, and see some of the work-in-progress before 555 sculptures go on display in Japan Society A-Level in late August.

As the artists were rushing to get work done for the open studio, we had the chance to speak with them about their work and also how their first time in America has been. Shy but effortlessly cool and concentrated, the anonymous three artists that comprise three had much to say about their experience.

How did you feel before you came to New York?

It was around 3-4 months before coming to Japan Society when we were officially invited to be a part of the residency. While getting ready, we couldn’t believe we would actually be going to New York and America for the first time. We felt very honored to be a part of the program especially since there are three of us. We have heard it is quite unusual to accept more than one artist at a time. The fact that as a group we could go together really made it hard for us to believe. Our feelings were more disbelief than excitement.

Have you noticed big differences between the Japan and the U.S.?

Through the process of finding animation figures we realized there are certain differences between Japan and [the U.S.]. First of all, their form is totally different. What’s interesting about American figures is that they all have joints to allow people to bend their legs and arms to create their favorite pose. Also, the texture of the American figures are much harder than ones in Tokyo. This makes it easier to bend and position them in the ways you want.

What were some difficulties in finding figurines here?

There were so many different types of figures from the same animated series. It was difficult for us to find standard Spongebob figures for example. There are so many different versions of this one character based on different episodes and special stories. There were so many different types of Spongebobs!

Where did you find the figurines?

We went to Midtown Comics, Forbidden Planet near Union Square, another store around Union Square but we forgot the name (please forgive us). Oh we also went to Toys"R"Us! It was the first store we went to in New York. Amazing and full of toys!

Have you seen any good exhibits or discovered new artists?

We have only been to MoMA so far. We have not had much time to experience anything [besides work]. However we are very excited to do so after the residency!

What do you want people viewing your art to feel?

We want them to feel delight. We want them to have fun thinking what the cubic figure was like before. For the exhibition, we are using a minimalistic approach by getting rid of the wall text descriptions and using QR codes. [People can scan it and see the original figure on their smart phones.] There are also some American figures mixed with the Japanese, so we hope some people can also have an “AHA! I know this” type moment.

Another thing is we want Americans to take note of is the difference between Japanese and American animation. The difference in color (color compression) is quite notable between Japanese and American figures. In Japanese figures the color of skin is dominant. What this means is that most figures are likely to expose their skin more than American figures. Also the Japanese figures that we use are mostly female. Some of their clothing is also removable (and surprisingly they wear underwear). When we melt them down into cubic form, the skin tone is much more prevalent than with melted American figures.

Why do you think Japanese figurines show more flesh?

The purpose of buying figures is different for Japanese and Americans. Let’s just say that the Japanese figure industries produce with moe in mind.

Are you excited about your open studio at Japan Society on July 27th?

It’s quite rare that we "three" interact with people individually because we have been anonymous. This will be our first time to meet with people and discuss our work. We think this is a great opportunity for us to explain our working process and are very nervous but excited.

--Interview by Susan Berhane. Translation assistance by Reika Horii. Special thanks to three and the Japan Society Gallery team for their assistance.

[UPDATED 7/29/13]

Image via "Learning Japanese the Exciting Way".

Susan Berhane, a senior at Old Dominion University studying international relations, marketing and Japanese, and a summer intern for Japan Society’s Communications Department, reports from her first Japanese language class outside academia.

When I was asked to observe a Japan Society language class, I was beyond thrilled. I had known about the Society’s Language Center for some time, but because I live out of state it was impossible to attend. Fortunately through Japan Society’s YouTube page, I was able to take part in the unique language learning the Society offers through the online full lessons series and the less formal Waku Waku series.

My thrill dipped into terror however when I discovered my level of Japanese comprehension would be assessed before being placed in a class to observe.

Although I have been studying Japanese for three to four years now, my fear of speaking to adults in Japanese has not subsided. The idea that I would need to speak formal, polite language terrified me. For one thing, keigo--the use of honorific language when speaking Japanese--had not been taught to me. Also, no matter how much I know the vocabulary, grammar and tone to use, the minute I speak in front of a fluent adult, I freeze up. What if I forget a certain term? What if I use casual short form instead of the proper long form? These questions always persisted even though I was at a higher intermediate level.

The minute the evaluation began, my fears disappeared. I was immediately put at ease by Kamimura-sensei, the interim director of the Language Center. Her presence was the opposite of intimidating. She was easy to talk to and made me feel as if we had known each other for some time. She, accompanied with a Language Center instructor, asked me various questions about my Japanese course work and before I knew it I was placed in a class to observe: Level 7!

The day came for class. The classroom was small yet each individual student had a good amount of space. The tables were arranged in a large square, with the front open to the dry-erase board. As I took my seat I saw maybe 13 students of all different ethnicities and ages. I sat beside a young woman who was from Eastern Europe who looked to be no more than 25. She asked me if I was new and we immediately began a nice conversation in Japanese.

I was surprised to learn that she was learning Japanese in hopes to bring her family to Japan from their home country. Apparently her time spent in Japan was impacting enough to inspire total relocation.

There were so many interesting and varied reasons other students were taking classes at Japan Society. One student enjoyed reading Japanese literature and wanted to be able to read in the original Japanese. Another student wanted to watch anime and read manga without subtitles or translations. One even told me they were treated so kindly by a Japanese person that it made them want to be able to show their gratitude in Japanese. After they had learned to do that, they developed a fondness of the language and decided to continue learning.

The age range of the students in class went from 17 to mid 60s. The younger students all had some sort of interest in Japanese general culture and pop culture. The middle aged students were there for work or to further their careers. The older students said they were studying Japanese simply for the sake of learning.

The lesson of the day introduced Japanese honorifics, which is polite Japanese language especially used in business-level Japanese. This was my first real lesson on the subject, and I was slightly overwhelmed, but as the lesson progressed I was able to catch on easily. The instructor’s constant referral back to previous lessons helped connect things, and the pace gave enough time for total comprehension before moving on.

Partner work was vital in helping me understand what I was being taught. After each point the sensei would allow students to practice with each other. This way we were able to develop a rhythm and some form of familiarity with the topic. Afterwards, we would practice out loud, which helped us build confidence in our speaking, and also allowed the students to help each other. It was a very encouraging environment in which teachers and students helped build the confidence level of the class as a whole.

I think another part of what makes this program work so effectively is the nature of the teachers. The instructors at Japan Society are some of the best teachers I have come across while learning Japanese. They are extremely kind with a very nurturing and positive attitude. They allowed students to make mistakes, and then took great care to help them understand the mistake.

My sensei related to the students on many different levels. She taught with references to Japanese popular culture, connected the language with practical situations where it would be of use, and always smiled. Sensei was able to take a difficult subject and make you feel as if you could definitely learn it. “Patience and practice everyone” were her words that gave students constant strength and reassurance.

Though only a class of 13, my sensei was accompanied by an assistant sensei throughout the class. They were a good team, building off of each other and dividing their attention evenly between the students.

A great thing about having two teachers in the class is the ability to hear the current material being used between native speakers. The students were able to get a sense of the tone and speed a native speaker uses, thus giving them better immediate aural comprehension. It was refreshing to receive grammar, vocabulary and listening lessons at once.

Before I knew it class was coming to an end. Two hours had flown by in what felt like 45 minutes. All the students were actively engaged, the atmosphere was warm and friendly, and we left feeling a sense of accomplishment from learning something new.

When I went back and looked at my notes and paper work, we had covered a substantial amount of work. With this being my first class on keigo, the material, although difficult, didn’t seem impossible for me anymore.

As students were leaving, many spoke to both sensei not just about class but about their personal lives, exhibiting a certain familiarity and friendliness. Even though class had ended, the sensei listened attentively to each student on their struggles that week from previous lessons, or their accomplishment at their job. Words of encouragement flowed between student and teacher and any doubts or troubles disappeared. Everyone said their goodbyes and made vows to come back next week with the material learned and ready start anew. I was amazed at how confident everyone had become (including me!) after just one class.

This experience made me yearn to take more classes. I wondered if perhaps with the teaching and encouragement here, my fear of speaking to adults in Japanese would disappear altogether. The opportunity presented itself when sensei and I spoke soon after, and I was able to communicate with an ease I had never experienced before, and even use some things I had learned in class.

バイトがんばるぞ！

--Susan Berhane

Kitty in vestments. Via.

It’s been said that old age is a kind of second childhood. How about a second spring? Japanese tradition celebrates both of these ideas in the form of a kanreki, or sixtieth birthday.

The kanreki tradition stretches back to Japan’s adoption of the Chinese zodiac calendar and includes its own particular vestments for the occasion. Those lucky enough to reach 60 receive the traditional red cap, chanchanko vest, and seat cushion that mark them as having completed a full cycle of the twelve-pronged zodiac calendar. Achievements are celebrated and a lifetime’s troubles are forgotten as the celebrated individual enters a new stage of life with all the joy and possibilities of a newborn.

The red coloring of the vest and cap (available for humans and felines alike) is intended to promote a spirit of youth (the Japanese word for baby, akachan, is composed of aka, meaning “red,” and -chan, a suffix often used for children). Furthermore, many visitors to Japan can attest to the ubiquitous presence of the red-bibbed ojizosama statues, which are thought to protect the spirits of children.

In the past, reaching kanreki would have signified a person’s transition from a lifetime of gainful employment to comfortable dependence on the eldest son. In the Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology, Mary L. Dol describes the tradition:

The 60 year old man “retired” from active work and from the responsibilities of household representation and management. His successor, typically the oldest son, assumed control of the family enterprise and took care of his parents in their old age. The retiree’s wife… passed the rice paddle to her son’s wife to symbolize the transfer of responsibility for the internal management of household affairs.

In reality, many men and women continued to provide some degree of labor in the form of caring for children or carrying out household chores. Even today, a quick drive through the countryside of Japan and many other Asian nations will reveal a large number of spritely, aged individuals looking after gardens and crops.

Though some might think 60 years to be no more than middle aged in a country that boasts the world’s longest life expectancy, it’s important to remember that anything beyond 40 would have been considered long-lived a century ago. We can see this reality in the old Japanese concept of yakudoshi, or "calamitous ages," the most significant of which occurred at the age of 33 for women and 42 for men. The age of 60, on the other hand, was a positive yakudoshi signaling a return to the beginning of the zodiac calendar, and the other yakudoshi of age 70, 77, 87 and 99 would have involved some sort of celebration. One can only wonder how many Japanese men and women have gone on to reach the Dai Kanreki, a sort of kanreki-plus known in Buddhism as the Greater Kanreki.

Tonight Japan Society's Performing Arts Program launches its kanreki season featuring a spate of international cross-cultural collaborations, encompassing beloved encore performances, world and U.S. premieres, legendary performers and emerging artists. With the Program going strong after 60 years and over 600 productions, it looks like the Greater Kanreki is still very much within reach. Whether the caps and chanchanko vests will make an appearance remains to be seen.

-- Andres Oliver (additional research by Matt Jefferis)

Learning Japanese? Ii desu ne! Via.

Susan Berhane follows up her report from the intermediate Japanese classes at Japan Society's language center with a peek into the beginners' classes. An international relations student at Old Dominion University, Susan was a 2013 summer intern for the Society’s Communications Department.

Manga has been an essential part of my life since age 11. For each "A" grade I received, or good report card I brought home, my mother rewarded me with a new Sailor Moon of my choice.

Although it was another way for me to hone my reading skills, Sailor Moon meant much more to me. Beyond being part of Sailor Senshi battling the evil Negaverse, it brought a whole new world of art and literature.

Manga was the gateway to anime once I found Sailor Moon episodes on television. Japanese animation allowed my mind and imagination to go places I could have never dreamed as a child. Series like Dragon Ball Z, Ruroni Kenshin, Ranma, Sakura Card Captor, and Pokémon soon followed and fed my growing love for Japan. By the time I reached high school, I was devouring anything about Japanese history, religion, and economy. Discovering Japan's influence on industry in the U.S. paved the way to a college major in U.S.-Japanese foreign relations.

My first Japanese classes were in college. I had no prior exposure to reading and writing in the language. The courses at my university were extensive, and most students in my class had taken Japanese in high school. Needless to say, my first classes were extremely difficult, but my sensei and my classmates were all very supportive and encouraging. It was exciting to learn new alphabets, hiragana and katakana, and it became even more so when we were introduced to kanji. Learning a language like Japanese may seem intimidating, but the sense of accomplishment when being able to read or write a sentence the first time is exhilarating.

The key to learning any language is study. I repeat: study, study, study! Class time alone will not enable a person to breeze through their favorite manga or watch their favorite anime with no subtitles. Also, using class time well is vital. It is as much a time for review as a time to learn new things.

Studying Japanese requires time and dedication as well as the understanding that everyone learns at a different pace. Being in a class setting teaches you the formality that anime and manga won’t teach you. It also gives you the opportunity to practice and grow with other students who may also share your interests.

Being used to classes at a collegiate level, I was anxious when I observed the intermediate class at Japan Society, but my fears were soon allayed. When I observed a first-time beginners level class, there were many similarities, such as two sensei teaching, the use of colors to help organize and teach, and the enthusiasm and participation of the students.

The number of students was slightly fewer than the intermediate class , and I was able to ask a few why they decided to study Japanese and what their experience at Japan Society's language center was like.

Just like at the intermediate level, the reasons for studying Japanese were wide-ranging, with inroads from anime and manga, classic literature and having to know basic Japanese for their job. Everyone I talked to praised the language center and told me they were planning to take the next level.

Luis, who discovered the Society's Japanese lessons on YouTube in the process of self-teaching decided to try classes here. "The best part [of the videos] for me was watching Miyashita-sensei. I was hoping to get her but I’m just as happy with my current teacher. All the teachers are amazing at Japan Society--so attentive and caring towards students. Japan Society fit my schedule, offers good prices, and makes me feel more comfortable in learning."

Sean, a businessman who lived in Tokyo for a time and discovered the Center through Yelp, also had some trepidation at the beginning. "I was scared at first because of my own ability--or lack of--to speak and comprehend at a decent speed. But I got support from friends and took the plunge. I was already a Japan Society member and liked the other programs [as an] avid attendee, so everything just made sense. I feel very happy with my decision and feels that I've learned so much already."

Amy, a filmmaker who is working on a project with Japanese themes and actors, discovered Japan Society through the annual summer JAPAN CUTS film festival. "I took classes before, but it had been so long I was afraid I couldn't grasp the materials again and that maybe I was too old to be a student again," she said, which obviously wasn't the case. "I also already liked Japan Society and thought it to be a very cultured place. All the events I ever attended had been held in good taste and I thought they promoted Japan well."

Maggie was also persuaded by the reviews on Yelp, and decided to share her experience. "Another reason why I chose Japan Society is because it fit my schedule and had good prices. I already had some Japanese knowledge but needed to fill in some gaps. Now after being in class for a while I feel good with my decision and very satisfied with what I have learned so far. I also convinced my friend to join with me!"

Maggie brings up a good point. Studying a language can be a lot more fun if you share the experience with a friend. It's like having a built-in study buddy. Of course, as I learned from my experience, the Japan Society language center is full of friendly and helpful students, with potential study buddies aplenty. When you start classes here, be fearless and introduce yourself to everyone right away. Just be sure to do it in Japanese!

バイトがんばるぞ！

--Susan Berhane

BONUS: Too shy to ask someone out? Try it in Japanese!

LINE's Brown and Cony take on the world. Via.

Japan's economic uncertainty seems to be provoking a domestic response not unlike that seen in the U.S of late. Just as the war-weary, financially ailing American public recently made clear its unwillingness to take on another international conflict, many Japanese are responding to the current climate by turning inward.

Earlier this year, several thousand rallied in Tokyo to protest Japan’s entry into negotiations surrounding the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would bring the country into "one of the largest free trade areas in the world." In addition, Japanese companies have come under fire for insular vision, with the trade ministry’s Global Human Resource Development Committee dubbing management’s reluctance to hire foreign talent, among other shortcomings, paramount to "waiting to die."

Is Japan sounding the retreat, closing in on itself to return to the isolationist policy of centuries past?

Hardly.

The success of several Japanese companies in bringing their business, and, more importantly, their vision abroad, speaks to a continued understanding of the importance of international involvement. Most recently, LIXIL, Japan’s biggest housing material maker, with products including plumbing fixtures and toilets, secured its place in the German housing equipment market with a $4.13 billion buyout of Grohe, Europe’s premier shower and faucet maker. The move signals LIXIL’s final overseas acquisition for the time being, said LIXIL CEO Yoshiaki Fujimori at a news conference in September, and comes on the heels of two other significant acquisitions: ASD Americas Holding Corp., parent company of American toilet maker American Standard, and Italian architectural contractor Permasteelisa SpA, for a total price of over $1 billion. Fujiomori clearly intends to establish LIXIL as a household name outside of his home country, with a goal of $10.2 billion in overseas sales.

Fujimori's talk at Japan Society on October 2nd comes at a critical time in Japanese history. Already suffering from a sluggish economy that has persisted for the past two decades, Japan continues to work toward recovery from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Now, the country waits to see whether Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s aggressive plan to combat deflation will reestablish Japan’s place on the global stage—how long since the days of Made in Japan!—or whether it will prove to be nothing more than "voodoo" economics.

Any discussion of current expansion into the foreign market by Japanese business leaders must include Akira Morikawa, chief executive of popular messaging service LINE. Allowing users to send messages to each other on their smartphones with the addition of stickers like Brown the bear and Cony the rabbit, LINE is currently installed on 71% of iPhones in Japan. The bulk of the company’s revenue comes from its games, which are free to download but provide the option of in-game purchases. However, a 92 % rise in sales in the first quarter of 2013 and booming business in Japan are not enough for Morikawa, who seeks nothing less than to establish NHN Japan Corp., the company behind LINE, as the top Asian SNS (social networking service) provider.

If LINE’s success in expanding into areas ranging from the Middle East to Spain are any indication, the company could possibly pose a challenge to Facebook, which has long since lost its appeal as youth-only hangout. Then again, LINE’s 240 million users in 230 countries as of September is less than a quarter of Facebook’s whopping 1.15 billion, and the service may find its toughest rival not in the American behemoth, but in the South Korean SNS KakaoTalk. Providing users with a similar array of cute stickers, KakaoTalk even features its own bunny emoticon, the plump Molang.

Another company that is seeking to make further inroads into the global market is Japanese retailer UNIQLO (full disclosure: I am currently employed by the company). Founded by Tadashi Yanai, who has emerged as Japan’s richest man after transforming his father’s tailor shops into Asia’s biggest clothing retailer, UNIQLO has certainly found success abroad. The company currently boasts stores in fourteen countries, including over two hundred in China alone and a prominent location on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Perhaps even more surprising than Yanai’s personal success story is the fact that a Japanese retailer has emerged as such a challenger to ailing giant Gap, which has traditionally been known for basic, functional clothing. Yet, maybe it is precisely UNIQLO’s focus on high-quality constants, such as sweaters and shirts in basic colors and designs, along with its affordability that have so appealed to global consumers. The company seems to have learned this lesson for good after attempts at branching out into more fashion-oriented items in 2010 resulted in plunging sales. Since then UNIQLO has bounced back with plans to open ten new American stores this fall.

Back in 2008, the Japan Times wrote of Japan’s "recent trends toward isolationism—even xenophobia," citing an environment hostile to foreign investment. The nation’s minister of economic and fiscal policy, Hiroko Ota, worried that Japan was no longer a "first class" economy; sure enough, China surpassed it as the world’s second largest only two years later. This was followed, of course, by the devastation of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, with costs of up to $235 billion.

Five years later amid echoes of those "recent trends", companies like LIXIL, LINE, and UNIQLO stand as evidence of the persistence of a globally minded cohort, one that sees participation in the international market as a path to growth rather than an obstacle to it. What people must ask now is whether the next few months, during which Prime Minister Abe continues to press his economic reforms, will prove these companies to be the exceptions to, or the leaders of, Japan’s fortunes.

--Andres Oliver

[UPDATED 10/3/13]

Once lonely at the top, Japan's elderly can expect company. Via.

Sexagenarians arrested for shoplifting. A population hardest hit by Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami. An August ministry report stating Japanese people aged 65 or older have surpassed 30 million for the first time. Japan is clearly experiencing a crisis among its elder demographic. But what of the youth, many of whom find themselves as vulnerable as their aging counterparts?

"Recall, for inspiration, that young people made the last Japanese Spring," a 2012 Japan Times article declares, citing youth participation in the Meiji Restoration as a counterexample to all the doom and gloom surrounding Japan's young. With Prime Minster Shinzo Abe unveiling a plan Tuesday for both a ¥5 trillion stimulus package and a 5 to 8 percent rise in the consumption tax, it is the 20-somethings as much as the elderly who must wait to see the real results of Abe's great experiment.

On the one hand, the sales tax could ultimately benefit both groups by mitigating runaway social security expenditures, a problem that a raise in the minimum age for collection of benefits to 61 earlier this year has apparently been unable to curb. On the other, the tax hike comes at a time when pensions earn "close to zero interest," with no rate increase planned for at least a few years, and when companies are reluctant to implement a much-needed increase in wages. In other words, both pensioners and younger workers stand to suffer from a rise in prices without a commensurate rise in income, whether in the form of social security or wages.

While part of Abe's plan provides ¥160 million in tax breaks to companies that raise wages by 2 percent, some in New Komeito, the junior coalition partner of Abe's LDP (Liberal Democratic Party), see this as nothing more than "wishful thinking." The results of the recent Reuters Corporate Survey seem to support the party's doubts. Of 266 companies polled as to what action they will take in response to the expected tax increase, only 13 percent planned to increase wages. Given this depressing response, Abe's call for a vaguely philosophical "virtuous circle of rising jobs, profits and wages" might prove shortsighted in the long run.

Take another part of Abe's plan: ¥110 billion in tax breaks and up to ¥300,000 in cash handouts for homebuyers. How will this affect Japan's working youth? Certainly, some kind of stimulus is needed. A 2012 government white paper showed the number of homeowners in their 30s to have dropped over 10 percent between 1983 and 2008, with a dramatic drop of over 50 percent for younger individuals. At the same time, the report blamed falling income for a rise in the burden of housing loans.

A topical look at Japan's housing development statistics paints a sunny view: increases in housing starts of 31,462 units a year for the past three years; booming business for Sekisui House Ltd., the nation's second-biggest home builder. But consider the example of Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, where a fifth of apartments stand empty, and the land ministry's grim prediction that a similar fraction of all residential areas will become ghost towns by 2050. Suddenly, the housing boom starts to look much more like a housing nightmare, reminiscent of the kind of superficial newness that Murakami writes of in A Wild Sheep Chase:

"What a view! Instead of ocean, a vast expanse of reclaimed land and housing developments met my eyes. Faceless blocks of apartments, the miserable foundations of an attempt to build a neighborhood… Everything brand new, everything unnatural." (107)

Part of the problem of vacant housing stems from years of youth migration away from rural areas to cities, where they might hope to find more opportunities for work. Though young graduates have seen their fortunes improve somewhat since 2008, employment numbers still illustrate an uneven recovery. A recent report by Japan's education ministry showed 1 in 5 university grads coming into the market in the spring unable to obtain secure employment.

Nature reclaims vacant housing in Japan. Via.

Five and a half percent of those surveyed fell under the NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) designation. Though this number represents 30,770 people, only recent graduates were included in the report. If we look at an earlier study from 2009, which tallied the total number of NEETs at 640,000, we can see the grim reality: many of those unemployed graduates won't see improvement in their fortunes moving forward.

Even those who do manage to land full-time jobs face difficulties in a market with a glut of eager workers and a scarcity of positions. Recently, the term burakku kigyo (black companies) was coined to describe companies that demand as much as 100 hours of uncompensated overtime a month from their young employees. The overworked Japanese salaryman became something of a stereotype even during the golden age of bubble Japan. However, Ayako Mie of the Japan Times believes today's abuses stand apart due to the economic climate. Citing Haruki Konno of the NPO Posse, Mie writes, "exploitative companies hire new college graduates en masse, assuming most won't be able to survive the harsh conditions and will eventually resign. Then they just hire more."

With over 45 percent of college graduates employed in the service, entertainment and education industries leaving their jobs within three years, according to a 2012 health ministry report, one wonders whether the earlier 1 in 5 number for graduates without secure employment really tells the whole story.

A revolution in youth employment will require more than stimulus, such as Abe's ¥10,000 yen cash allowance for low earners. Writing on the topic of a youth-led Japanese Spring mentioned earlier, Roger Pulvers recognizes that companies themselves are "struggling to keep up not with the Joneses but with the Wangs and the Kims," illustrating the dwindling figure of the Japanese economy next to that of neighboring China and Korea.

Even inspiring efforts like that of Yujin Wakashin, who aims to establish a self-titled NEET Corporation for business-minded, iconoclastic NEETs, seem more like standouts than the start of a movement. The real rise or fall of Japan's youth will hinge not only upon the results of Abe's economic vision, but also more broadly upon a change in thinking.

Former Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda spoke at Japan Society yesterday on topics ranging from the Senkaku Islands conflict to social security reform. Prominent throughout his speech and his responses during the question and answer session was a call for Japan to become a nation that can make decisions in the present for the generations to come. His admonishment seems particularly relevant for a society and government that must decide whether to abandon its youth, and, by extension, its children of tomorrow, or to age into oblivion. The solution Noda calls for may require less of what he called the "two types of leaders: politicians and statesmen," and more of what he deems his own goal: the political reformer.

--Andres Oliver

White Hole shatters negative space and thoughts. Photo by Richard Goodbody.

When you Google Mariko Mori, you come face-to-face with images of a living doll—literally. The artist's 1994 piece Play With Me had her stationed outside a Tokyo toy store in anime-esque garb, with baby-blue pigtails and a plastic breastplate over a short, metallic dress. In another work from that year, Mori rode the subway in character as an alien visitor just arrived in Tokyo.

Today Japan Society Gallery launches Mori's first solo exhibition in New York in more than 10 years. A divergence from her work of centuries past (well, the 90s), Rebirth: Recent Work by Mariko Mori brings the focus on nature, conveying both its power and serenity.

The show “has a very urgent message about reconnecting with nature, which is not just an issue that’s being talked about by artists. It is a global concern right now,” says Dr. Miwako Tezuka, director of Japan Society Gallery, who curated the exhibition. “We’ve been experiencing such harsh weather. Everybody’s concerned about what’s going on with nature.”

Just a year ago this month, the brightest city in the world went dark for weeks when late-season Hurricane Sandy eliminated electricity from the bottom half of Manhattan. Polar bears swim for days. Mori’s home country will long feel the effects of the March 2011 tsunami.

While once Mariko Mori represented pop aesthetics and the subculture of Japan, her recent work has brought her back to basics: as in the beginning of it all.

“She’s going back to the roots," says Tezuka. "Not the cultural roots of Japan like she was doing before, but even farther back into a prehistoric period where there really were no cultural differences in the world. Where people didn’t have electricity or machines and really lived closely, intimately with nature.”

Unlike her past work, the pieces in Rebirth were born from Mori’s personal research, often from her travels to places like Egypt, Brazil, and Scotland, where so much ancient architecture still stands.

The show is full of light and shapes, a pale, shifting exhibition reminiscent of the sun rising over a young Earth again and again. Depending on one’s perspective, personal associations could range from the Book of Genesis to the opening sequence of Star Wars to whatever Terrence Malick’s been up to. Rare will be the attendee who doesn't spot Stonehenge.

The centerpiece of the show is an installation called White Hole (pictured above): the opposite of space's terrifying black holes of childhood fascination and nightmares. A domed enclosure built in the south gallery, White Hole starts as a pitch-dark space and gradually illuminates with the projection of swirling light.

Tezuka explains: “It’s based on the theory of a white hole--the antithesis of a black hole. Everything that was killed by the black hole shapes together as a renewed energy and emerges from the white hole. It’s an astrophysics theory that Mariko has been very interested in in recent years.”

Another celestial piece (though firmly fixed to the gallery floor) is Transcircle 1.1 Nine pillars made of stone and an industrial acrylic polymer synchronize with the position of the nine (yes, nine!) planets in our solar system. Their individual pastel colors pulsate at speeds reflecting the planets' orbits around the sun.

Rebirth is an ethereal picture of prehistory, astronomy, geology, ancient religion and technology, showing how they all mix in the world around us.

When asked how to sum up the show in a sentence, Tezuka said “pure” and then laughed, realizing she didn't need half a dozen more words to convey its Zen-like ambiance. “A lot of things are white”—Mori’s signature color—“and the basic concept is pure and simple: be aware of the presence of nature.”

Though the galleries proper are on the second floor, visitors will get a taste of this pure simplicity when they are greeted by Ring,hanging against the waterfall of the Society's indoor bamboo garden.

“Mariko placed it in an environment that symbolizes nature, where there’s water, earth, plants and light from above,” Tezuka says. The piece is a prototype for a large-scale version that will be hung above a Brazilian waterfall in the near future.

From sunset each evening through Sunday, Mori’s latest video work Ālaya lights up the building just above the Society’s entryway for not only gallery-goers but passersby on the busy streets outside. The title alludes to the fundamental consciousness all sentient beings share in Buddhist philosophy.

It’s worth coming in to escape the masses, as Tezuka notes: “New York life is so busy all the time. You are surrounded with noise and different crowds. Rebirth will calm you down. Instead of going to yoga, come see this exhibition!”

Rebirth: Recent Work by Mariko Moriis on view at Japan Society through January 12, 2014.

--Marisa Rindone

Mariko Mori's Ring. Photo by the author. Via.

GREE, just one cloud in Japan's perfect SNS storm.

The social media battle in Japan has all the uncertainty, the early call-ins and punditry of an electoral race.

(Cue Wolf Blitzer-like commentary:)

“I have some numbers coming in here… One second… Let’s see—yes, I’m seeing 13 million for Facebook. Just 13 million. And that’s got to be disappointing.”

“Mixi ahead with 17 million. The young demographic proving pivotal here.”

“Twitter going strong with 30 million.”

“LINE still leading with an impressive 40 million. We’re predicting LINE will take this contest.”
And that’s not even including GREE and DeNA, two other SNS (social networking services) that have enjoyed varying levels of success in Japan.

Just take a look at the headlines from recent years:

Mixi Skyrockets in Stock Market Debut (2006)

Mixi Faces Challenges as Competition Grows (2009)

In Japan, Facebook Wins the Most Users (2012)

Facebook Users in Japan Losing Interest and Heading for the Exits (2013)

Everyone trying to avoid being the “also-ran” in this metaphor.

Of course, services like LINE and Twitter provide a messaging/microblogging platform rather than a counterpart to Facebook’s and Mixi’s more fleshed-out, app-loaded social networks. However, in light of LINE CEO Akira Morikawa’s determination to establish LINE worldwide through the addition of new features, as well as the fact that many users view Facebook and Twitter as an either-or, rather than as a both-and, one can make a case for viewing these companies as being in direct competition with one another.

LINE may still far outstrip its rivals at the moment, but given the wild swings that have taken place in the social media landscape, it pays to take another look at the evolution of different services in the Japanese market. The timeline below picks up at 2006, the year that Mixi—Japan's perennial SNS powerhouse until recently—made its stock market debut.

2006

• September: Mixi debuts on the Mothers market at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Thirty year old founder Kenji Masahara becomes an instant success as the bidding price more than doubles the initial public offering price of ¥1.55 million. Combining the connectivity of Facebook (it will be another year before Facebook breaks out of the college student bubble) with the intimacy of a blogging platform, the site is invitation-only and requires a Japanese mobile mailing address.

• February: DeNA comes onto the scene with Mobage Town (now Mobage), which will eventually combine mobile games with social networking features.

2007

• Yoshikazu Tanaka, founder of GREE and Japan’s youngest billionaire, brings the company into social network gaming with the launch of Tsuri-Sta (Fishing Star). Branching out from an ad-based focus, GREE starts drawing revenue from mobile gaming.

2008

• June: Mark Zuckerberg takes the stage at Tokyo’s Ayoama Diamond Hall convention center to announce the launch of Facebook Japan. The SNS faces strong competition from Mixi, which boasts over 10 million users, including more than half of all people in their twenties.

• Twitter launches a Japanese version of its service, its first non-English release, in collaboration with Digital Garage. Digital Garage CEO Joichi Ito predicts the service will appeal to Japanese accustomed to “murmur[ing], a kind of short blogging thing.”

2009

• May: Mixi CEO Kenji Kasahara announces that the company will see its first decline in growth since going public, despite the service remaining Japan’s top SNS. Kasahara goes on to publicize his plan open Mixi’s mobile and PC platforms to third-party developers.

2010

• December: Japan’s Federal Trade Commission investigates DeNA on suspicion of blocking Gree’s access to game developers.

2011

• January: Facebook Japan’s growth stalls at 2 million users, compared to over 20 million each for Mixi, Gree, and DeNA’s Mobage Town. Some blame the low numbers on Japanese user’s reluctance to disclose personal information on the Web (most Mixi users use pseudonyms).

• March 11: On the day of the Tohoku earthquake, Tweets jump to 1.8 times the average, totaling 330 million. The microblogging service allows the public to stay informed of developments and counter government misinformation. In one instance, a group of Tokyo hackers take to Twitter to post their own Geiger counter readings.

• June: NHN Japan, a branch of the Korean NHN Corporation, launches its LINE smartphone app. Developed in the wake of the 3/11 disaster as a way for NHN employees to communicate despite toppled phone lines, LINE offers both messaging and social networking and allows users to send each other “stickers.”

• July: The recently rebranded Mobage makes its worldwide debut on the heels of Isao Moriyasu’s June appointment as president.

• August: Mixi unveils public pages for companies and individuals, including Disney Japan. As with public pages on Facebook, Mixi’s allow access without login information.

• November: Gree files a lawsuit against DeNA, claiming the company interfered with its business despite an earlier order to desist from the Federal Trade Commission.

• December 9: Japanese Twitter users rack up the highest number of tweets per second ever recorded during a broadcast of Hayao Miyazaki’s classic film, Castle in the Sky. Following a tradition begun on messaging board 2chan, users tweet “balse,” a magic spell spoken by the film’s protagonists, a whopping 25,088 times per second.

2012

• February: Data from Nielsen ranks Facebook number one for growth in unique visitors among Japan’s social networking services. The company’s success is attributed partly to its convenience as a job-hunting tool for young graduates and the popularity of 2010 film The Social Network.

• October: In a direct counter to messaging service LINE, DeNA rolls out Comm, a free messaging application with stamps and other features. Users are required to use their real name and date of birth.

2013

• January: LINE tops 100 million users only nineteen months after its debut, about a third of the time it took Facebook to reach the same number. CEO Akira Morikawa states his intention to expand into the U.S.

• April: Japan’s National Diet enacts a bill allowing political candidates to campaign online for the first time in history. The party of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe hands out iPad minis to all its candidates to encourage them to promote on social media.

• April: GREE announces its first profit decline since going public in 2008. Growing numbers of smartphone subscribers—37 percent of all contracts as of March 31—and new games from Apple and Google begin to cut into GREE’s traditional social gaming base.

• September: According to a Reuters Asian markets data dump, LINE boasts 240 million users in 230 countries.

--Andres Oliver

Sister Cisterns: Mori's Flatstone (right) mirrors a kaen-doki from 3,500–2,500 BCE.

She wears all white and a calm smile. Somewhere in her artistic wanderings, she’s traveled the universe. Seen black holes and white holes. Watched stars be born and die, spilling their insides onto the canvas of space.

Not what you’d expect from someone reaching back sixteen millennia in her art.

In her recently opened solo exhibition Rebirth, Mariko Mori combines a range of styles and beliefs: New Age spirituality, technological futurism, a little Buddhism, Shinto influences. Some will have no trouble tapping into the show’s meditative wavelength and sense of renewal. Others might get lost in the exhaust of complexity and primal energies. What no one can deny is the presence of the ancient, brought to light in 2013 from the memory of Jōmon.

Best known for their stone circles and intricate pottery, the people of Jōmon Japan lived roughly between 14,000 and 300 B.C.E. They were, as far as we can tell, the first to “[master] the technology of transforming pliable clay into hard and durable containers,” with contemporary scholarly debate centered on the practical and artistic relevance of these artifacts, according to Junko Habu's Ancient Jomon of Japan.

Mori began her study of the period with fieldwork at Jōmon archaeological sites like Ōyu, Sannai Maruyama, and Miwayama, home to several of the stone circles and spherical stones that have remained intact through the millennia. From this fieldwork, in addition to collaboration with Chief Curator at Aomori Museum of Art, Iida Takayo, came the initial exhibition, Mariko Mori Jōmon: The Fossil of Light “Transcircle” Exhibition, that prepared the way for the artist's current Rebirth.

Mori's Flatstone leads to Transcircle 1.1.

Merely viewing the separate pieces in Mori’s exhibit may puzzle some visitors. After all, a 5,000-year-old Jōmon vase and the LED-powered monoliths of Transcircle 1.1 don’t exactly seem like bedfellows. It’s only after reading more about the people of prehistoric Japan that the connection is made.

The fact that the Jōmon era is named after the cord markings adorning the pottery gives one an idea of how much these artifacts have come to represent the beliefs, lifestyles, and history of an enigmatic people. All can agree to their importance, but this is where the consensus ends. Whether the pots were used in religious ritual as an embodiment of animistic belief, or they are the tools of a society of hunter-gatherers is a matter of great debate. If the latter—and recent studies suggest the pots may have been used to store fish—it would upend the idea that clay pottery was impractical for a people constantly on the move. Then again, it takes no great effort of the imagination to see the designs as the “ripples and eddies on the surfaces of the salmon-rich river,” as Iida Takayo describes them, rather than the flames from which the pots, or kaen-doki, take their name.

Jōmon stone figurines and monoliths have proven equally difficult to explain. While some dogū, or figurines, call to mind the famous “Venus” figurines of Paleolithic Europe and Asia—both types emphasize the hips and breasts, suggesting ties to fertility—others defy classification. These oddities feature a combination of human and animal features, such as dogū with horns or a cat head. Some hold a secret inside; one figure discovered in Nagashiki, Kanagawa Prefecture, contained bone particles and teeth from a child.

Writing on the topic of dogū in 1974, Johannes Maringer traced a connection between the figurines and the Jōmon peoples’ belief in animals as “epiphanies of higher beings.” Other artifacts help us approach an idea of the Jōmon religious worldview. For example, Simon Kaner argues that the arrangement of bodies in burial grounds at Sannai Maruyama, one of the largest Jōmon settlements ever unearthed, suggests both a belief in the afterlife and a kind of ancestor worship.

While some have theorized that Jōmon peoples’ overdependence on ritual contributed to their downfall against the rice-based Yayoi civilization, Kaner contends it was these very rituals that allowed their successful assimilation. After all, he says, at the core of Jōmon religious practice is a belief in the power of the individual to transform.

By combining Jōmon art styles with modern techniques—one of Mori’s pieces, Flatstone, features an acrylic recreation of an ancient Jōmon vase at its center—Mori sets to capture the fluidity of life, death, and inspiration. Those people of millennia past are not so much an interesting historical subject as a living pulse. “My body contains genes inherited from our earliest ancestors,” Mori says in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, “and those genes can produce a strong reaction when they try to arouse that special consciousness which slumbers deep within me.”

In his essay, Kaner cites Kobayashi Tatsuo and others as setting forth the theory that the people of Jōmon Japan may have used ritual not to assimilate into the Yayoi, as he himself believes, but to resist them and the revolutionary agricultural lifestyle they represented. The idea is particularly intriguing when we consider Mori and her artistic transformation over the last decade, from pointed critic of consumerism and the super-modern to student of both prehistoric and New Age spiritualism. You almost wonder if Mori isn’t using her own ritual, her art, to mount a largely silent resistance against the strange times in which we live.

--Andres Oliver

Photos(clockwise): kaen-doki flame-ware vase, Middle Jōmon period (3,500–2,500 BCE), Earthenware, 11 5/8 inches high, 11 5/8 inches diam, collection of John C. Weber; Mariko Mori's Flatstone (2006), ceramic stones and acrylic vase; 192 x 124 x 3 ½ inches, courtesy of SCAI THE BATHHOUSE, Tokyo and Sean Kelly, New York; FOREGROUND: Flatstone, BACKGROUND: Transcircle 1.1, 2004. Stone, Corian, LED, real-time control system, 132 3/8 inches diam., each stone 43 3/8 × 22 1/4 × 13 1/2 inches, courtesy of The Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Installation photograph by Richard Goodbody.

An Osamu Tezuka-drawn crowd flees the latest trend.

Every couple of years (or even mere months) the mainstream media cycles a sensationalist Japanese trend piece usually linked to population, sex, food or fashion, highlighting Japan's "bizarre extremes", or, more underhandedly, perceived corruptions of American or Western normalcy.

Top of the recent "trends" were the perennial pop-up Herbivore Men. The rash of grass feeding fellas stole the world's heart-on from about 2006 to 2011, representing, in the words of Slate, the "nexus between two of the biggest challenges facing Japanese society: the declining birth rate and anemic consumption". They shunned corporate life (Reuters), subverted manhood (NPR), and led the way in sexless love (Guardian).

Jezebel was one of the few outlets with a more balanced take on the phenomenon. They considered it "a kind of rebellion" (pointing out that "half the point of a trend piece is to record and perhaps stir up terror at the trend's inevitable destruction of society") and a means to buck stereotype and find another way to be "manly".

Sound[s] a lot like what's happening in America. The recession and dwindling job security have made certain male roles — provider, consumer, progenitor — more difficult to step into. In Japan, men are responding by rejecting those roles. Maybe rather than trying to return to a bygone era of buying and babies, Japan and America should accept a more frugal, perhaps smaller population and new definitions of success.

But the groundwork the boys of ambivalence laid towards sexless love gave them a cameo in Japan's latest "looming national catastrophe": Celibacy Syndrome.

"Young people in Japan stopped having sex," blared the Observer headline a couple of weeks ago. "Japan's under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren't even dating, and increasing numbers can't be bothered with sex."

The 2500+ word exposé leads with commentary from a sex worker-turned-therapist and weaves in testimony from disaffected locals, as well as pretty much every alarmist birthrate/demographic data point and relationship/intimacy study from the last few years.

As usual the media pickup/reuse/recycle came immediately and with gusto. TIME précised the more shocking figures and examples--the only original contribution an East v. West platitude: "with all our millennial whining about casual hookups and online dating, we might not have it so bad". The Washington Post goes so far as to say the trend is "endangering the global economy" (hm, just like hipster beards?) The BBC dredged up Japan's dreaded virtual girlfriends, asking if perhaps the whole lack of shebang is Japan's inimitable way of dealing with global overpopulation, or (there's often an "or" in these stories) "is it just time for Japanese men to grow up, have more sex and make more babies?" In one of the strangest spins, New York magazine posits that Japan's new "national crisis" stems from romantic trips to a parasite museum.

Though spotlighting the "bizarre demographic chill [that] has stolen over the Land of the Rising Sun", Slate's reaction added a little nuance to the story, touching on the inherent singlehood bashing:

Maybe Japanese young people are pioneering a deeply satisfying lifestyle in which love and sex have receded into the background—and the trade-off makes them perfectly happy. … Rates of psychological illness in Japan and the United States are comparable: 24 percent of Japanese adults and 25 percent of American adults have suffered some sort of mental health problem. So could a collective bias against singlehood be warping the way we see celibacy syndrome? Is it really a syndrome, or just an alternate (convenient, culturally exigent) mode of being? I find the notion of an intimacy-starved society as depressing as anyone, but maybe those are my reactionary, Jane Austen–informed values talking. At the very least, Japan’s new status quo might remove some of the stigma from living alone."

In a separate article, Slate was one of the first major outlets to directly say "no, Japanese people haven’t given up on sex", showing the spin tide had turned to balance itself. Bloomberg took the second wave further, noting that much of the data for these types of stories is "cherry picked" and the result of foreign journalists "traipsing into 'exotic Japan' and getting lost in a forest of stereotypes, fuzzy data and tarted-up headlines", but then they recontextualize the population problem as stemming from Japan's "exorbitant living costs, elevated stress and diminished confidence".

Finally, a full week after the Observer article, the UK Independentnailed the bigger issue: "These stories gain traction because they support a view of east Asia which is at best patronising and at worst overtly racist…"

as if to remind us what a disturbingly odd place Japan is, an alarming Japanese news story explodes online. Western media outlets clamber over each other in their haste to cover the story, with every report of bagel heads, snail facials or ritual head shaving [see also elder crime, cat cafés, monkey waiters, 'crazy' foods and flavors (esp. Kit Kats), virtual girlfriend/boyfriends, pillow paramours, odor-eating underpants, etc. --ed.] being used as further evidence of a unique Japanese weirdness. A lack of understanding (and, sometimes, basic fact-checking) means that entire stories are lifted, often without critique, and churned into dubious clickbait. Earlier this year, widespread coverage of a supposed eyeball-licking epidemic among Japanese teens that turned out to be a hoax left more than a few editors red-faced.

More urgent problems in Japan that don't get as robust coverage as sexcapades (or lack thereof): shut-ins, tragically high suicide rates, a nuclear crisis two and a half years ongoing, flaring tensions in Southeast Asia.

Of course, there are broader (and more real) issues with Japan's population, from sex and fertility rates to demographic disparity. But while trends consistently point downward, a point only briefly touched on in the recent media maelstrom is that there is as much too much population as there is too little space.

Japan and the U.S are among the world's top 10 most populous countries, with some 320 million people in the U.S. and 128 million in Japan. In terms of pure landmass, it's well known that Japan would fit into Montana, or about 90% of California. But when comparing the difference in densities (Japan's 873 people per square mile to America's 90) to understand Japan's situation, the entire U.S. population would need to be squeezed into the states of California, Arizona and Nevada. Or, looked at another way, the U.S. would need grow nearly three hundred times to 900 million.

Given the island nation's land lack, a little population leveling may be natural. But how much, what's the precedence, are there ways to expand without zapping limited resources? These are stories that could be written with some depth (the Indepdent points out that the World Bank lists 15 countries that have fertility rates equal to or below that of Japan, including economic powerhouse Germany). And what about a non-faith based celibacy positive article or a 2500+ word exposé on the thrills and tribulations of choosing to be single?

Until then, the fear of sexlessness sells as much as sex, it seems, and we'll have to wait to see the headline:

Japanese People Have Sex, And If They Don't That's Okay Too

--Shannon Jowett

News Roundup: Japan Elections Set, Beijing Let's Japanese Marathoners Run, Tsunami Teens Visit NJ, Japan's Innovative 'Greatness'

Japan News Roundup: Obama Meets With Japan & China, Elder Crime Rise, Massive Mascot Boom

Japan News Roundup: Tsunami Debris Relief, 'Corking' U.S. Troops, Training Santa-san

Japan News Roundup: North Korea Missile Launch, Election's 'Third Force', Japan’s Only Male Geisha, Kobe Luminaire

Japan News Roundup: Elections This Weekend, N. Korea's 'Sucessful' Launch, Japanese World's Healthiest People

Taiko Vs. Shamisen: Ancient Instruments Intertwine In Performance First

Koji: Mother of Japan’s Miracle Marinade

JAPAN CUTS Cool With Hot-Hot Sellers

Choice Cuts: The Bleeding Heart And Soaring Soul Of JAPAN CUTS 2013

Revived Residency Program Sends Ripples Of 'three' In NYC

The ‘Moe’ You Know: 'three' Opens Figurine Disfiguring Studio To The Public

Learning Japanese: Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself

60 And Sitting Pretty: The 'Kanreki' Rebirth

For The Love Of Japan: Inroads To Learning Japanese

From LIXIL To LINE: Japanese Companies Look Outward Despite Uncertainty

Who Swings the Pendulum? Japan's Youth in the Pit

A Star Is Reborn: Mariko Mori Expands Through Inner And Outer Space

A Brief History of Social Media In Japan

Vessel Across Time: Mariko Mori's Jōmon Jump

Media Watch Japan: 'Celibacy Syndrome' And The Spectre of 'Herbivore Men'