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December 22, 2024
 

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Matt Treyvaud
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 27, 2016
Demythologizing Pure Land Buddhism
The bulk of "Demythologizing Pure Land Buddhism" is a collection of essays by Rijin Yasuda (1900-1982), a Shin Buddhist thinker in the modernizing tradition of Kiyozawa Manshi (1863-1903). Yasuda "taught a conception of Amida and the Pure Land that made them existential realities in the present," as...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 20, 2016
Network of Knowledge: Western Science and the Tokugawa Information Revolution
From the 17th to the 19th century, Japan's only official window on the West was the Dutch factory in Nagasaki. The trickle of scientific and geopolitical information that came through with the merchant ships was gradually curated by enthusiasts into rangaku or "Dutch learning," arguably laying the foundation...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 16, 2016
'Strange Glow': A grounded, intelligent look at radiation
"Strange Glow" hits all the notes you'd expect from a book described as "the story of people's encounters with radiation" — from physicist Ernest Rutherford's overturning of the"plum pudding" model of the atom to the "radium girls" who were poisoned by the glow-in-the-dark radium paint they applied...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 4, 2016
'Mechademia 10: World Renewal' attempts to link 3/11 and parallel universes
Mechademia is an annual English-language academic journal on Japanese pop culture and related topics. Each issue has its own theme, and volume 10's is "World Renewal." In theory, this includes not only the branching timelines and parallel worlds of games and anime such as "Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Feb 27, 2016
A privileged perspective on WWII in 'My Shanghai, 1942-1946: A Novel'
Partly inspired by the wartime experiences of author Keiko Itoh's mother, "My Shanghai, 1942-1946" is a comfortably old-fashioned epistolary novel told entirely through diary entries. The story begins in January 1942 as London-educated protagonist Eiko Kishimoto arrives in the Shanghai International...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 20, 2016
'Japan: The Precarious Future' is a sobering summary of looming disasters
Ominous demographic trends, ineffective governance, the not-if-but-when prospect of another devastating earthquake ... the litany of topics addressed by "Japan: The Precarious Future" will already be familiar to readers of this newspaper. A collection of essays from specialists in relevant fields, the...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 13, 2016
Monstrous Bodies: The Rise of the Uncanny in Modern Japan
In the the late 19th and early 20th century, when Japan's modernization was well underway, Japanese readers acquired a taste for a certain kind of monster: the twisted almost-human, bearing a grudge and wreaking havoc on the unsuspecting and upright citizens around them. Critics have long seen a connection...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 2, 2016
New Selected Poems
In the introduction to "New Selected Poems" Shuntaro Tanikawa is described as a "poetic volcano," but a volcano, like the proverbial hedgehog, only does one big thing; Tanikawa offers something new in every book.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 26, 2015
Flipping back through the good reads of 2015
Before we turn the page on the year, here's a selection of our reviewers' favorite books.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Dec 19, 2015
The Karma Of Words
Subtitled "Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan," William R. LaFleur's book surveys an expanse of Japanese literary history ranging from the "Nihon Ryoiki" of the early ninth century to Basho's posthumous "Narrow Road to the Deep North" (1702). This is a more generous definition of "medieval"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Dec 12, 2015
Monster Of The Twentieth Century: Kotoku Shusui And Japan's First Anti-Imperialist Movement
Educated in both the Confucian classics and European liberalism by political theorist and statesman Nakae Chomin (1847-1901), Kotoku Shusui (1871-1911) came to be one of Japan's fiercest advocates of radical progressivism.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Oct 31, 2015
Unpacking philosopher Kojin Karatani's 'Origins of modern Japanese literature'
"Origins of Modern Japanese Literature" is a radical reexamination of how Japanese literature developed after the 1868 Meiji Restoration. It's made up of a series of essays by Karatani Kojin that were originally published in the late '70s, a time when new critiques of modernity were gathering steam in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Oct 17, 2015
'Little Songs of the Geisha' collected by an American anthropologist
The label kouta (which roughly translates as, "little song") has been applied to any number of popular Japanese music forms over the centuries. But these days, the word usually refers to a specific genre of shamisen music that evolved in 19th-century Edo (present-day Tokyo) from existing popular styles,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 3, 2015
The long and short of male circumcision in Japan
For most of its history the Japanese archipelago knew nothing of circumcision. Contact with missionaries and merchants from Europe did little to raise awareness of the custom, and the procedure does not seem to have been a high priority for the promoters of Western ideas and technology during the Meiji...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Sep 5, 2015
'Norito' ritual prayers show ancient Japan struggling with its spiritual identity
The norito (ritual prayers) found in the 10th-century "Engi-shiki" ("Procedures of the Engi Era") have fascinated Japanologists for over a century. In the introduction to his 1878 translation of the norito, Ernest Satow suggested that they could offer insight into "the rites practiced by the Japanese...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 5, 2015
An analysis of 'Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack'
Is the soundtrack to the original Super Mario Bros. game a musical achievement and pop-culture milestone on par with Miles Davis' Bitches Brew? Author Andrew Schartmann sets out to build exactly this case in "Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack" — part of Bloomsbury's 33 ⅓ series on classic...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Aug 29, 2015
'Jodo Shinshu' explores one of Japan's most powerful Buddhist sects
Jodo Shinshu, also known in English as "Shin Buddhism," is usually identified as the most popular denomination of Buddhism in Japan. Based on the teachings of Shinran (1173-1263), it arose as part of the "New Buddhism" of the Kamakura Period (1185-1333), which included Zen and Nichiren Buddhism as well...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Aug 22, 2015
'Murasaki Shikibu: The Tale of Genji' unlocks Japan's legendary 1,000-page novel
Dennis Washburn's new translation of "The Tale of Genji" brings the total number of English options to four and a half, but the novel remains as daunting as ever. How do you approach a 1,000-page novel from 1,000 years ago, in which most of the characters don't even have proper names? The book's insight...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 15, 2015
'Hokusai's Great Wave' continues to wash over Western culture
Before ukiyo-e artist Katsushika Hokusai died in 1849, he famously said that if only heaven had granted him five more years he could have become a true painter.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Aug 1, 2015
How 'Guri and Gura' became the most famous mice in Japan
Since their first appearance in 1963, the friendly field mice Guri and Gura have been unshakable pillars of Japanese children's literature. They're known to all and lovingly referenced in the most unexpected places — even in the heavy metal parody manga "Detroit Metal City."
Freed anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson arrives in France
U.S.-Canadian anti-whaling environmental activist Paul Watson, who was released from prison in Greenland's capital Nuuk after five months in detention, arrives with Lamya Essemlali, president of Sea Shepherd France, at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Roissy-en-France, near Paris, on Friday.
Nippon Steel alleges undue White House influence on doomed deal review
U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington on Dec. 10.
Record 78% of people in Japan feel anxious, government survey finds
The public opinion survey on people's lives, conducted by the Cabinet Office, found that 28.1% of respondents think that their standard of living is at a lower-middle level among the general public — the highest percentage to give that response in 35 years.
Police raided suspect's home to arrest him after fatal Kitakyushu stabbing
Broken window glass is seen at Masanori Hirabaru's house in Kitakyushu's Kokuraminami Ward.
Taiwan lawmakers brawl over bills that would 'damage democracy'
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party and opposition party Kuomintang brawl in parliament in Taipei on Friday.
Casual workouts, cool living, ‘complete’ food: Japan’s health trends of 2024
In 2024, efficiency trumped effort among Japan's fitness-focused aspirants.
The mighty Mekong River's growing plastic problem
A group of elephant keepers in Chiang Saen, Thailand, remove plastic waste from the Ruak River, a tributary of the Mekong River, as a pair of Asian elephants bathe behind them.
Japanese officials inspect Yokota Air Base over PFAS concerns
The Yokota Air Base in western Tokyo in September 2019. An inspection of the base by Japanese government officials on Friday came amid public pressure to investigate suspected links between the use of PFAS-containing firefighting foam by the U.S. base and contamination of soil and groundwater in western Tokyo.
Crime numbers rise in Japan for second straight year
A police officer stands in front of the residence of a man alleged to have stabbed two junior high school students in Kitakyushu.
A year of Oscar wins and a quiet push for diversity
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Evil Does Not Exist,” released in Japanese theaters in April, sharply dramatizes the clash between rural and urban values. The film won five awards at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, including the second-place Silver Lion prize.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Yasuyuki Yoshida stirs a brew in a fermentation tank at his brewery in Hakusan.
The quake that shook Noto's sake brewing tradition
By Alex K.T. Martin

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