Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1951191
Sharon Domier
burgeoning metropolises in Asia. An interesting area of discussion, for example, is women’s sexual pleasure in a ‘normal’ context that witnesses rampant sexual abuse while upholding masculinity and marriage as equally sacrosanct. Kotiswaran (2012), when describing advocacy movements in India that were helping sex workers’ struggles to be recognized as a labor force, uses a materialist argument that explores how endemic sexual violence propels vulnerable women into abandoning false morality, and embracing sex work. Charging money for sex, instead of it being extorted out of them in lieu of money, vulnerable women work in terms of a deficit model, transforming sex into an exchange currency, that accords them freedom, sexual safety, sexual pleasure, and dignity, simply by alleviating their poverty, and reducing the looming specter of constant sexual violence. While Koch discusses women’s disappointment with the employment sector in Japan, while also describing how sex turns violent; the Indian case stands in contrast, pointing to the additional variable of pleasure and safety, that influences women’s commitment to work and advocacy. It is instructive that a sexually violent society where the trafficking of women is high, in addition to a male dominated workforce, produces sex work as healing for women, who make the choice to enter, or remain within the industry. It is therefore possible in the Japanese context, that the sex work industry conceals narratives of feminine pleasure, autonomy, dignity, safety, and affluence, that both produces and subverts a masculine, gendered economy.
{"title":"Ideology and Libraries: California, Diplomacy, and Occupied Japan, 1945–1952","authors":"Sharon Domier","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2021.1951191","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.1951191","url":null,"abstract":"burgeoning metropolises in Asia. An interesting area of discussion, for example, is women’s sexual pleasure in a ‘normal’ context that witnesses rampant sexual abuse while upholding masculinity and marriage as equally sacrosanct. Kotiswaran (2012), when describing advocacy movements in India that were helping sex workers’ struggles to be recognized as a labor force, uses a materialist argument that explores how endemic sexual violence propels vulnerable women into abandoning false morality, and embracing sex work. Charging money for sex, instead of it being extorted out of them in lieu of money, vulnerable women work in terms of a deficit model, transforming sex into an exchange currency, that accords them freedom, sexual safety, sexual pleasure, and dignity, simply by alleviating their poverty, and reducing the looming specter of constant sexual violence. While Koch discusses women’s disappointment with the employment sector in Japan, while also describing how sex turns violent; the Indian case stands in contrast, pointing to the additional variable of pleasure and safety, that influences women’s commitment to work and advocacy. It is instructive that a sexually violent society where the trafficking of women is high, in addition to a male dominated workforce, produces sex work as healing for women, who make the choice to enter, or remain within the industry. It is therefore possible in the Japanese context, that the sex work industry conceals narratives of feminine pleasure, autonomy, dignity, safety, and affluence, that both produces and subverts a masculine, gendered economy.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"41 1","pages":"259 - 262"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10371397.2021.1951191","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45624115","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1957804
P. Mauch
{"title":"The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: When Total Empire Met Total War","authors":"P. Mauch","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2021.1957804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.1957804","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"41 1","pages":"267 - 269"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10371397.2021.1957804","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49304666","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1925097
Christoph Schimkowsky
ABSTRACT Illustrated posters appealing to passenger conduct – so-called ‘manner posters’ – are ubiquitous in Japanese public transport spaces. This article draws on archival research and interviews with railway and design professionals to introduce transport company-issued manner posters as a genre of public communication, and link its development to social shifts in post-war Japan. The article first examines passenger behaviours targeted by posters, discussing efficiency, comfort and safety as underlying concerns of company appeals, and analyses the textual structure of posters. This review of the genre’s defining characteristics is followed by an exploration of its history. While manner posters are frequently traced back to a 1974 poster series issued by Eidan (now Tokyo Metro), this article argues that although posters became more complex and widespread in the 1970s, their history reaches back to the Taishō era. The article explores the historical context of the genre’s development by highlighting changes in the railway and advertising sectors. I argue that it was railway companies’ increased efforts to improve the quality of public transport, along with advances of posters as an advertising medium and changes in the style of public communication, that spurred greater adoption of elaborate manner posters in the mid-1970s.
{"title":"Manner Posters: A Genre Approach","authors":"Christoph Schimkowsky","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2021.1925097","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.1925097","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Illustrated posters appealing to passenger conduct – so-called ‘manner posters’ – are ubiquitous in Japanese public transport spaces. This article draws on archival research and interviews with railway and design professionals to introduce transport company-issued manner posters as a genre of public communication, and link its development to social shifts in post-war Japan. The article first examines passenger behaviours targeted by posters, discussing efficiency, comfort and safety as underlying concerns of company appeals, and analyses the textual structure of posters. This review of the genre’s defining characteristics is followed by an exploration of its history. While manner posters are frequently traced back to a 1974 poster series issued by Eidan (now Tokyo Metro), this article argues that although posters became more complex and widespread in the 1970s, their history reaches back to the Taishō era. The article explores the historical context of the genre’s development by highlighting changes in the railway and advertising sectors. I argue that it was railway companies’ increased efforts to improve the quality of public transport, along with advances of posters as an advertising medium and changes in the style of public communication, that spurred greater adoption of elaborate manner posters in the mid-1970s.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"41 1","pages":"139 - 160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10371397.2021.1925097","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45988898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1948322
Y. Motoyama
Much debate about Japan in the past two decades has been about its lost decade or causes for its stagnation;in short, Japan has been forgotten by the world. Japan remodeled: How government and industry are reforming Japanese capitalism. The Business Reinvention of Japan: How to Make Sense of the New Japan and Why It Matters: Ulrike Schaede, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020, xiii, 261 pp. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Japanese Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
{"title":"The Business Reinvention of Japan: How to Make Sense of the New Japan and Why It Matters","authors":"Y. Motoyama","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2021.1948322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.1948322","url":null,"abstract":"Much debate about Japan in the past two decades has been about its lost decade or causes for its stagnation;in short, Japan has been forgotten by the world. Japan remodeled: How government and industry are reforming Japanese capitalism. The Business Reinvention of Japan: How to Make Sense of the New Japan and Why It Matters: Ulrike Schaede, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020, xiii, 261 pp. [Extracted from the article] Copyright of Japanese Studies is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"41 1","pages":"269 - 271"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10371397.2021.1948322","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42068127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1941824
Yusuke Mazumi
ABSTRACT A recent increase in the number of international students employed in low-skilled part-time work raises the question; are they incorporated into host labor markets after they graduate, and if so, how? This article addresses this issue by examining the case of South and Southeast Asian students in Japan. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, this article shows that labor market incorporation occurs for most SSA students and takes two different forms. First, an analysis utilizing the Japan Student Services Organization datasets on student pathways after graduation (2014–2017) revealed that the primary form is their (re)incorporation as low-skilled part-time workers. Mostly enrolled in vocational schools, these students go on to another school upon graduation, which in effect means an extension of their status as student part-timers. Second, while incorporation as full-time workers also occurs, interviews with these workers suggested that they are employed as a workforce that serves the migrant population and/or supplements shortages of native-born workers. Based on these results, this article argues that SSA students in Japan are incorporated into the host labor market as complements to the labor needs that Japan’s new demographic reality has created.
{"title":"How are Part-Time Laboring International Students Incorporated into Host Labor Markets after Graduation? The Case of South and Southeast Asians in Japan","authors":"Yusuke Mazumi","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2021.1941824","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.1941824","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A recent increase in the number of international students employed in low-skilled part-time work raises the question; are they incorporated into host labor markets after they graduate, and if so, how? This article addresses this issue by examining the case of South and Southeast Asian students in Japan. Using both quantitative and qualitative data, this article shows that labor market incorporation occurs for most SSA students and takes two different forms. First, an analysis utilizing the Japan Student Services Organization datasets on student pathways after graduation (2014–2017) revealed that the primary form is their (re)incorporation as low-skilled part-time workers. Mostly enrolled in vocational schools, these students go on to another school upon graduation, which in effect means an extension of their status as student part-timers. Second, while incorporation as full-time workers also occurs, interviews with these workers suggested that they are employed as a workforce that serves the migrant population and/or supplements shortages of native-born workers. Based on these results, this article argues that SSA students in Japan are incorporated into the host labor market as complements to the labor needs that Japan’s new demographic reality has created.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"41 1","pages":"201 - 219"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10371397.2021.1941824","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45165560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1947788
Masaki Shibata
ABSTRACT Reported speech can be defined as a form of communication by which speakers bring external voices into their own utterances. Recent studies have also found that reported speech has a persuasive function in presenting an external voice as either factual or contentious in order to support a speaker’s own arguments and refute alternative points of view. Such persuasion can be achieved by, for example, deploying factual/non-factual reporting verbs, or evaluating external sources or propositions. While the persuasive function of reported speech has been extensively studied for English, such studies are not widely available for Japanese. The present article investigates the grammatical forms of reported speech, including reporting verbs and evaluative language, to reveal how reported speech realises persuasive functions in Japanese. Seventy-four online news editorials are analysed to show that, regardless of which reporting verbs or grammatical forms are deployed, in Japanese the reported proposition cannot be construed as factual or contentious without including a negative or positive evaluation of the external voice. This result, different from what has been proposed for English, also cautions against the automatic use of an English-influenced framework for the discourse analysis of multiple languages.
{"title":"Reported Speech as Persuasion: A Discourse Analysis of Japanese Journalism","authors":"Masaki Shibata","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2021.1947788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.1947788","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Reported speech can be defined as a form of communication by which speakers bring external voices into their own utterances. Recent studies have also found that reported speech has a persuasive function in presenting an external voice as either factual or contentious in order to support a speaker’s own arguments and refute alternative points of view. Such persuasion can be achieved by, for example, deploying factual/non-factual reporting verbs, or evaluating external sources or propositions. While the persuasive function of reported speech has been extensively studied for English, such studies are not widely available for Japanese. The present article investigates the grammatical forms of reported speech, including reporting verbs and evaluative language, to reveal how reported speech realises persuasive functions in Japanese. Seventy-four online news editorials are analysed to show that, regardless of which reporting verbs or grammatical forms are deployed, in Japanese the reported proposition cannot be construed as factual or contentious without including a negative or positive evaluation of the external voice. This result, different from what has been proposed for English, also cautions against the automatic use of an English-influenced framework for the discourse analysis of multiple languages.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"41 1","pages":"221 - 239"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10371397.2021.1947788","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42525917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-14DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1914009
Till Weingärtner
ABSTRACT The current boom in popularity of rakugo can be connected to a new trend in the relationship between performer and material. The move away from a focus on norms and rules guiding the performer in his or her treatment of a set, inalterable, performance text has been observed and even labelled a paradigm change. This article analyses the case of one of the most prolific performers of contemporary rakugo, Shunpūtei Shōta, focussing on the relationship between a persona constructed and reinforced by his presence in the media and his approach to rakugo and paying close attention to examples of his presentations of the rakugo story Toki Soba (‘The “Time-Soba-Noodle” Con Game’). The article thereby engages with a wider question regarding the approach to rakugo a performer is expected to take: should rakugo be thought of as a genre of classical performing arts, koten geinō, that needs to be preserved in a set form or as a form of contemporary entertainment, where entertaining the audience is the performer’s main goal? The article will demonstrate how Shōta engages with rakugo, breaking with formerly established norms and focussing on presenting rakugo in a way that entertains and attracts different audiences to the genre.
{"title":"Whose Story Is It Anyway? Shunpūtei Shōta and the Individuality of the Performer in Contemporary Rakugo Storytelling","authors":"Till Weingärtner","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2021.1914009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2021.1914009","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The current boom in popularity of rakugo can be connected to a new trend in the relationship between performer and material. The move away from a focus on norms and rules guiding the performer in his or her treatment of a set, inalterable, performance text has been observed and even labelled a paradigm change. This article analyses the case of one of the most prolific performers of contemporary rakugo, Shunpūtei Shōta, focussing on the relationship between a persona constructed and reinforced by his presence in the media and his approach to rakugo and paying close attention to examples of his presentations of the rakugo story Toki Soba (‘The “Time-Soba-Noodle” Con Game’). The article thereby engages with a wider question regarding the approach to rakugo a performer is expected to take: should rakugo be thought of as a genre of classical performing arts, koten geinō, that needs to be preserved in a set form or as a form of contemporary entertainment, where entertaining the audience is the performer’s main goal? The article will demonstrate how Shōta engages with rakugo, breaking with formerly established norms and focussing on presenting rakugo in a way that entertains and attracts different audiences to the genre.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"41 1","pages":"161 - 179"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-04-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/10371397.2021.1914009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43471164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1897461
William J. Farge
The land we saw, the times we knew: An anthology of zuihitsu writing from early modern Japan by Gerald Groemer is a virtual encyclopedia of Japanese culture in the Edo period (1603–1868). The anthology is a collection of seven zuihitsu, a genre of literature that does not have an exact equivalent in the West. It is sometimes translated as ‘essay’, but most zuihitsu are much longer than an essay in Western literature. Groemer introduces the reader to this genre by first attempting to pin down a precise meaning of the term zuihitsu. His starting point is the description of the genre as it has been understood by scholars up to now: zuihitsu is a written ‘record of what a writer has seen, heard, felt, understood, experienced, and noted, in the order in which it comes to mind, with no guideline, no plan, and no order’ (2). He then proceeds to bring the reader into the mind of the Japanese zuihitsu writer, who thinks of his work as coming less from his own creativity and more from the writing brush itself. The ‘notion that if only the writing brush were allowed to take the lead, its traces would directly and faithfully reproduce the truth of reality rather than the predispositions and illusion of the writer’ (2). One might say that for the writer of zuihitsu, it is the intuitive mind rather than the rational mind that is the source of the content of the work. The subjects with which zuihitsu deals are not only topics on popular culture. The works are rich in references to Chinese and Classical Japanese literature and history. The copious notes that Groemer provides explain in detail the origin and meaning of the literary allusions and historical and geographical references that allow the reader to become familiar with many of the key concepts of Edo-period religion and philosophy. Unlike many strictly academic textbooks, however, this anthology is as enjoyable to read as it is scholarly and would make an excellent text for a Japanese culture or world literature class for either undergraduate or graduate students. Groemer successfully meets the goals of a successful translator, as he describes this daunting task in the preface of the book:
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Pub Date : 2021-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2021.1891873
Alexandra Hambleton
ABSTRACT With a flashy montage, viewers of television show The Bachelor Japan (2017–present) are introduced to Japan’s inaugural bachelor, 35-year-old Kubo Hirotake. Kubo is described as everything women in Japan are said to want – he is tall, handsome, sporty, highly educated, and most importantly, rich. In the program Kubo is presented with a pool of 25 potential marriage partners and charged with finding the woman of his dreams in what producers describe as the ultimate modern fairy tale, a ‘heated battle’ for the heart of the perfect man. Appearing at a time in Japan when marriage rates are at an all-time low and young people increasingly deem romantic love unimportant to their lives, the program may on initial viewing be a treatise on the importance of marriage. On closer inspection however, the politics of The Bachelor Japan reveal the dreams of contemporary Japanese women and the pressures they face surviving a society hostile to their independence. In this article I argue that The Bachelor Japan, far from following the traditional fairy tale narrative in which a woman is rescued by a handsome prince, instead shows women on a completely new path – one on which they may become princesses on their own terms.
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