The Mascot Games: 2013 Edition

Sanomaru (right) making alliances before the win. Via.

A ramen-haired samurai beat out some 1500 competitors in this year's Yuru-Kyara Grandprix--Japan's annual mascot battle royale. It what could be a Hunger Games plot twist, the Wall Street Journal wonders how winner Sanomaru, a tribute from Sano City would do against Japan's currently reigning power player:

The popularity of yuru-kyara – literally loose characters in English – has rocketed thanks largely to the promotional activity of Kumamon, a rosy-cheeked black bear character from Kumamoto prefecture in southern Japan. Kumamon may look whimsical but his cash-generating ability is no joke: He generated ¥29 billion ($285 million) for his prefecture last year in sales of related goods."

Whatever the outcome, may the odd be forever in their favor.

--SJ

Who will win? Via and via.

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

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 Independent nailed 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 Post interviewed 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.

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

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

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

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 Times reviews Tokyo 1955-1970: A New Avant-Garde opening this weekend at the Museum of Modern Art. Related, the Boston Globe reviewed 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

Japan News Roundup: Reaction to U.S. Elections, Slimming Sumo, Crab Hat Cats

Via.

• The International Herald Tribune reported "relief and hope" spread over Asia with Obama's victory in the U.S. presidential election. The story was highlighted with the photo (above) of U.S. Ambassador to Japan John Roos celebrating with Japanese students in Tokyo. Though Obama will return to office a second term, Wall Street Journal noted "key members of his foreign policy team--including his main Japan advisors--likely won't be."

• Also in the elections, Hawaii democrat Mazie Hirono won the U.S. Senate race "to become the first Japanese-American female member of the upper chamber of Congress." (Yomiuri)

• Japan's defense minister said given China's assertive maritime maneuvers Tokyo wants to update mutual defense guidelines with the U.S. (AP). The New York Times noted "While the United States has maintained its neutrality, Chinese officials have said that Washington bears some responsibility in creating the dispute. They say the United States essentially took sides in 1972, when it returned the islands along with Okinawa to Japan without consulting China."

• The Japan and U.S. militaries began an enormous 12-day joint drill (NYT) for with some 37,000 Japanese and 10,000 American personnel. They left out one potentially contentious amphibious landing out of respect to ties with China.

• More than one hundred U.S. "soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and family members" participated in the fifth annual 24 Hour Jog-A-Thon to raise awareness and funds for the Okinawa Special Olympics. (DVIDS)

• Six people were awarded the Order of Culture, Japan's highest honor, including Nobel laureate Shinya Yamanaka, film director Yoji Yamada, law scholar Shigeru Oda, art critic Shuji Takashina, painter Toshio Matsuo, and scientist Yasuyuki Yamada. (Japan Times)

• The world's preeminent Japan scholar Donald Keene received Japanese citizenship (NYT) The New York native moved to Japan last year as a show of support after the March 11 earthquake.

• "Japan's 'Fiscal Cliff': National Crisis or Political Kabuki?" (WSJ)

• "With Japan's lackluster economic growth and seemingly relentless political turmoil, it's easy to think that Tokyo's relevance is falling with no end in sight. But Japan remains a vital part of Asia and it will be a major player in shaping the region's future." Carnegie Endowment lists why.

• Four people on Japan's nuclear safety team took money from utility companies (AP). Though the transactions were legal, some say it raises questions about neutrality. Meanwhile, TEPCO asked for more money to deal with the nuclear crisis in Fukushima (BusinessWeek).

• Japanese students visiting Pittsburgh described life after tsunami. The Pittsburg Tribune-News quoted 15 year old Yui of Hitachi, Japan, “I learned the importance of daily bonds of friendship.” Young New Orleanians crossed the Pacific to see "parts of Japan that had a lot in common with New Orleans: cities that lived through a disaster and where music made a difference." (WWLTV)

• Outgoing Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Ichiro Fujisaki reflected on his tenure (Pioneer Press), noting:

It was a very fruitful four, four and a half years. We had some difficult times; we had good days as well. One of the difficult times was the 3/11 disaster that happened in Japan -- the earthquake, tsunami, nuclear accident and that was Japan's real difficulty. But American people have worked with us as if it was really their own problem. ... They have contributed a lot to us.

• Hiroshi Oem, the Ambassador of Japan to Pakistan was among musicians that gave a concert commemorating the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Pakistan (Daily Times).

• Aljazeera's 101 East video series looked at aging Japan and asked "how the world's most elderly society can overcome its demographic crisis." It noted Japan's population "fell by a record quarter-million to 127.8 million last year" and "the demographic decline has led to a spike in social problems and kodokushi or 'lonely deaths', which is a Japanese phenomenon that came about in the 1980s."

• Abaci and after-school clubs: Great Britain looks to Japanese techniques to improve numeracy.

• "Sumo grapples with slimmer intake". (CNN)

• Now that "an estimated 2.9 million Japanese emigrants and their descendants live overseas", museums dedicated to them met to discuss top programming priorities: oral histories and minority issues. (Japan Times)

• Core77 shared highlights from DesignTide Tokyo, including a moveable movie theater inspired by the Tohoku disasters, kamidana (mini shinto god shrines), koshirae light fixtures mimicking traditional lacquered sword mountings, "Paper-Wood" products, and high-concept furniture merging graphic design with traditional Japanese craft.

• Two weeks of eating and traveling Japan in just three minutes, courtesy of CBS News. Huffington Post discussed the joys of having a personal guide when traveling Japan.

• Designer Rebecca Taylor: "Every year I travel to Tokyo… it’s like a peek into the future, a journey to another planet, an explosion of creativity… I love how you can find art everywhere in Japan." (Style.com)

• The newly renovated Tokyo Station--completed in 1914--is "one of the few significant examples of early-20th-century architecture left in Tokyo, let alone Japan." (WSJ)

• A Studio Ghibli (often called the Disney of Japan) retrospective arrived in Atlanta, giving "viewers a glimpse into Japanese culture – along with simple and entertaining stories."

• An unpublished early manga of late Astro Boy creator Osama Tezuka was apparently found in a bookstore.

• Kotaku shared images from a horrifying children's book that illustrates Jigoku, the Japanese Buddhist's incarnation of hell. They also shared an anthropomorphicized England as a Victorian anime character from Japan. (Is it just me or does the country look a little more like a zoomorphorphic trio of a dog in an elaborate Alien Queen bonnet eying a steak, and a pig and a crocodile at the dog's feet pointing towards Nova Scotia.)

• Though PetsLady is "not saying Crab Hat Cats are the latest pet trend", they featured Japan's Top 10.

• Flower-focused theme park Nabano No Sato holds its annual Winter Light Festival of Japan mid-November through March.

--SJ

Photograph by André Sato on Flickr via.

UPDATED 11/22/12.