Pub Date : 2023-05-04DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2023.2240240
Yi‐Jiang Zhong
Japanese responding to the music of poor Southern Whites, encouraged by the US occupation (152). The ethnographic description shows an insider view, Mitsui having lived through most of the postwar genres dealt with. The final chapter, ‘Domestic Exoticism: A Trend in the Age of “World Music”’ (Mitsui & Hosokawa, 1998) discusses World Music as an ‘Asian turn’, a cultural globalisation in which Japanese began to listen to Asian music. At the same time, Japanese started seeing Okinawan groups such as Rinken Band as exotic and interesting, and seeing mainstream Japanese folk of Itō Takio as exotic, but ‘revved up’. The concluding overview section compares ‘indigenous’ (traditional classical) music with other genres. Mitsui simplistically maintains that traditional music has not been affected by the West and has not changed. The final section of the original overview chapter was a review of publications by non-Japanese, here touched on briefly in footnotes. The overall style of writing is scholarly, but accessible. Expression is sometimes stilted, syntax often awkward, and occasionally impenetrable. It is further marred by occasional misprints. Romanization and use of hyphens are not standard. The book contributes to existing publications on Japanese popular music by dealing in detail with genres that are rarely treated in English scholarship, bringing together in one place significant research by this pioneer of popular Japanese music research. The book is further enriched by a comprehensive list of Japanese and English language entries providing an excellent resource.
{"title":"Religion, Power, and the Rise of Shinto in Early Modern Japan","authors":"Yi‐Jiang Zhong","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2023.2240240","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2023.2240240","url":null,"abstract":"Japanese responding to the music of poor Southern Whites, encouraged by the US occupation (152). The ethnographic description shows an insider view, Mitsui having lived through most of the postwar genres dealt with. The final chapter, ‘Domestic Exoticism: A Trend in the Age of “World Music”’ (Mitsui & Hosokawa, 1998) discusses World Music as an ‘Asian turn’, a cultural globalisation in which Japanese began to listen to Asian music. At the same time, Japanese started seeing Okinawan groups such as Rinken Band as exotic and interesting, and seeing mainstream Japanese folk of Itō Takio as exotic, but ‘revved up’. The concluding overview section compares ‘indigenous’ (traditional classical) music with other genres. Mitsui simplistically maintains that traditional music has not been affected by the West and has not changed. The final section of the original overview chapter was a review of publications by non-Japanese, here touched on briefly in footnotes. The overall style of writing is scholarly, but accessible. Expression is sometimes stilted, syntax often awkward, and occasionally impenetrable. It is further marred by occasional misprints. Romanization and use of hyphens are not standard. The book contributes to existing publications on Japanese popular music by dealing in detail with genres that are rarely treated in English scholarship, bringing together in one place significant research by this pioneer of popular Japanese music research. The book is further enriched by a comprehensive list of Japanese and English language entries providing an excellent resource.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"211 - 214"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42572765","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 : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2023.2189574
H. Briel
{"title":"Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan","authors":"H. Briel","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2023.2189574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2023.2189574","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"120 - 122"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46838070","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 : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2023.2199355
Andrea Pressello
ABSTRACT This article investigates the impact of the changing international environment in Asia at the turn of the 1960s on Japanese diplomacy regarding the Vietnam war and Southeast Asia. In 1968–1969, the United States announced important changes in its policy on the Vietnam problem and Asia, particularly the reduction of its military involvement in the region. Taking advantage of a US policy shift, China and the Soviet Union sought to expand their influence in Southeast Asia. Drawing on declassified diplomatic documents, this article shows that the government of Japanese Prime Minister Satō Eisaku, balancing domestic pressures and the need to preserve relations with Washington, adjusted its diplomacy in response to changes in the regional environment. While continuing efforts towards peace in Vietnam, Japan began work to shape a post-Vietnam Southeast Asian order based on peaceful coexistence between communist and non-communist countries. This was Japan’s strategy for countering the expected increase in Beijing and Moscow’s regional influence. Japan gradually acted to engage North Vietnam, a key actor to realize regional peaceful coexistence and a war settlement – which would in turn facilitate the realization of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan. This approach would be formalized in the 1977 Fukuda Doctrine.
{"title":"Japan’s Peace Diplomacy on the Vietnam War and the 1968–1969 Shift in the United States’ Asia Policy","authors":"Andrea Pressello","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2023.2199355","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2023.2199355","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article investigates the impact of the changing international environment in Asia at the turn of the 1960s on Japanese diplomacy regarding the Vietnam war and Southeast Asia. In 1968–1969, the United States announced important changes in its policy on the Vietnam problem and Asia, particularly the reduction of its military involvement in the region. Taking advantage of a US policy shift, China and the Soviet Union sought to expand their influence in Southeast Asia. Drawing on declassified diplomatic documents, this article shows that the government of Japanese Prime Minister Satō Eisaku, balancing domestic pressures and the need to preserve relations with Washington, adjusted its diplomacy in response to changes in the regional environment. While continuing efforts towards peace in Vietnam, Japan began work to shape a post-Vietnam Southeast Asian order based on peaceful coexistence between communist and non-communist countries. This was Japan’s strategy for countering the expected increase in Beijing and Moscow’s regional influence. Japan gradually acted to engage North Vietnam, a key actor to realize regional peaceful coexistence and a war settlement – which would in turn facilitate the realization of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan. This approach would be formalized in the 1977 Fukuda Doctrine.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"91 - 113"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47521533","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 : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2023.2191841
Erik R. Lofgren
schools, Chinese schools, schools for Brazilians, schools for South Americans, and International Schools. Okano states that these nonformal schools provide additional education for students who are struggling, and provide a place of belonging. They help maintain the culture and heritage language for migrant children. There have been attempts to bridge nonformal education with formal education. One example is the Rainbow Bridging Program, which connected three Latin American schools with one university, several non-profit organizations, two school boards, two Anglican youth organizations and one welfare organization. This project helped migrant children learn both Japanese and their mother language so the students could enter formal learning institutions. Even though there have been more programs and initiatives to help migrant and marginalized students, Okano points out that for various reasons such as a curriculum that is not relevant to some students are not able to take advantage of these initiatives. Even if these students are able to attend formal education schools, the curriculum is often not relevant to their concerns. I believe this book is a valuable contribution to the English literature on the present state of Japanese education. Okano demonstrates an extensive knowledge of the field and her writing is thoughtful and well argued. This book deserves to be read by anyone interested in recent developments in Japanese education.
{"title":"Haruki Murakami and His Early Work: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Running Artist","authors":"Erik R. Lofgren","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2023.2191841","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2023.2191841","url":null,"abstract":"schools, Chinese schools, schools for Brazilians, schools for South Americans, and International Schools. Okano states that these nonformal schools provide additional education for students who are struggling, and provide a place of belonging. They help maintain the culture and heritage language for migrant children. There have been attempts to bridge nonformal education with formal education. One example is the Rainbow Bridging Program, which connected three Latin American schools with one university, several non-profit organizations, two school boards, two Anglican youth organizations and one welfare organization. This project helped migrant children learn both Japanese and their mother language so the students could enter formal learning institutions. Even though there have been more programs and initiatives to help migrant and marginalized students, Okano points out that for various reasons such as a curriculum that is not relevant to some students are not able to take advantage of these initiatives. Even if these students are able to attend formal education schools, the curriculum is often not relevant to their concerns. I believe this book is a valuable contribution to the English literature on the present state of Japanese education. Okano demonstrates an extensive knowledge of the field and her writing is thoughtful and well argued. This book deserves to be read by anyone interested in recent developments in Japanese education.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"124 - 126"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47523531","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 : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2023.2187359
Rumi Sakamoto
the development of Pound’s interest in, and understanding of, nō. It successfully argues not only for the importance of nō for The Cantos, but that nō was important to Pound long after the 1917 publication of ‘Noh’ or accomplishment, a study of the classical stage of Japan. Houwen considers many examples of nō throughout The Cantos. For instance, in Canto IV, Takasago and Tamura ‘suggest the interconnection between vegetal regeneration and benevolent imperial rule’ (184), while ‘the centrality of Takasago and Tamura in the “Eleusinian” cantos in A draft of XXX Cantos demonstrates that nō remained important to Pound throughout the 1920s’ (195). Concerning The Pisan Cantos, Houwen claims, ‘Pound’s incorporation of nō in the Pisan Cantos was the culmination of a decade of profound engagement with nō in which he praised it in the highest terms’ (215). In the concluding chapter, Houwen considers nō’s significance in Rock-drill85–95 de los cantares and Thrones 96–109 de los cantares as well as in the final cantos. He demonstrates that ‘nō features prominently in the poem’s culminating paradisal vision’ (217). He also discusses Pound’s 1970 attendance at the live performance of Aoi no ue and Takasago in Rome where Pound met with nō master Minoru Umewaka’s grandson, additional evidence for Pound’s sustained interest in the form. As the previous paragraphs attest, there is much to value in Houwen’s work. His carefully-researched project is a significant contribution to Pound studies and contains many more insights and corrections to earlier scholarship than the limited space for this review allows. There is an impressive amount of context that resituates Pound’s relationship with Japan and the impact of Japan on Pound’s poetics. Houwen makes considerable use of his access to resources others did not have and of his own translations. Information overlooked, undervalued, or misinterpreted in previous studies is presented here in a more accurate light along with its significance for Pound’s poetics. Overall, there is abundant material to assist Pound scholars in reconsidering and enhancing their previous understanding of Pound and Japan.
{"title":"Resurrecting Nagasaki: Reconstruction and the Formation of Atomic Narratives","authors":"Rumi Sakamoto","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2023.2187359","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2023.2187359","url":null,"abstract":"the development of Pound’s interest in, and understanding of, nō. It successfully argues not only for the importance of nō for The Cantos, but that nō was important to Pound long after the 1917 publication of ‘Noh’ or accomplishment, a study of the classical stage of Japan. Houwen considers many examples of nō throughout The Cantos. For instance, in Canto IV, Takasago and Tamura ‘suggest the interconnection between vegetal regeneration and benevolent imperial rule’ (184), while ‘the centrality of Takasago and Tamura in the “Eleusinian” cantos in A draft of XXX Cantos demonstrates that nō remained important to Pound throughout the 1920s’ (195). Concerning The Pisan Cantos, Houwen claims, ‘Pound’s incorporation of nō in the Pisan Cantos was the culmination of a decade of profound engagement with nō in which he praised it in the highest terms’ (215). In the concluding chapter, Houwen considers nō’s significance in Rock-drill85–95 de los cantares and Thrones 96–109 de los cantares as well as in the final cantos. He demonstrates that ‘nō features prominently in the poem’s culminating paradisal vision’ (217). He also discusses Pound’s 1970 attendance at the live performance of Aoi no ue and Takasago in Rome where Pound met with nō master Minoru Umewaka’s grandson, additional evidence for Pound’s sustained interest in the form. As the previous paragraphs attest, there is much to value in Houwen’s work. His carefully-researched project is a significant contribution to Pound studies and contains many more insights and corrections to earlier scholarship than the limited space for this review allows. There is an impressive amount of context that resituates Pound’s relationship with Japan and the impact of Japan on Pound’s poetics. Houwen makes considerable use of his access to resources others did not have and of his own translations. Information overlooked, undervalued, or misinterpreted in previous studies is presented here in a more accurate light along with its significance for Pound’s poetics. Overall, there is abundant material to assist Pound scholars in reconsidering and enhancing their previous understanding of Pound and Japan.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"118 - 120"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"59627044","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 : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2023.2173161
M. Shores
Abstract From 2004 to 2017, Kamigata Rakugo Kyōkai (KRK) – the professional comic storytelling guild for the Osaka area – issued the magazine Nna aho na (That’s ridiculous). Concurrent with the tenure of one of the art’s most recognisable and progressive artists, Katsura Bunshi VI (b. 1943), as KRK chairperson, the magazine hailed Kamigata rakugo’s ‘new era’. It heralded the first dedicated rakugo hall open in Osaka in 60 years, as well as several other big-ticket enterprises. Nna aho na presented a brassy campaign of building and monument erection teamed with pageants and re-enactments of history, displays of tradition, and ritual. These served to promote Kamigata rakugo as a venerable art and one worthy of official recognition by Japan’s government. Examining the reforms that Bunshi VI orchestrated in the early twenty-first century, one sees a tension between ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ negotiated through an expedient trade-off. KRK was able to use Bunshi VI’s considerable star power to improve the art’s exposure, status, and infrastructure, while he became the face of the art, advanced his own agenda, and cemented his name in rakugo history.
{"title":"A Celebrity’s Fifteen-Year Reign and Reinvention of Kamigata Rakugo","authors":"M. Shores","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2023.2173161","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2023.2173161","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract From 2004 to 2017, Kamigata Rakugo Kyōkai (KRK) – the professional comic storytelling guild for the Osaka area – issued the magazine Nna aho na (That’s ridiculous). Concurrent with the tenure of one of the art’s most recognisable and progressive artists, Katsura Bunshi VI (b. 1943), as KRK chairperson, the magazine hailed Kamigata rakugo’s ‘new era’. It heralded the first dedicated rakugo hall open in Osaka in 60 years, as well as several other big-ticket enterprises. Nna aho na presented a brassy campaign of building and monument erection teamed with pageants and re-enactments of history, displays of tradition, and ritual. These served to promote Kamigata rakugo as a venerable art and one worthy of official recognition by Japan’s government. Examining the reforms that Bunshi VI orchestrated in the early twenty-first century, one sees a tension between ‘traditional’ and ‘new’ negotiated through an expedient trade-off. KRK was able to use Bunshi VI’s considerable star power to improve the art’s exposure, status, and infrastructure, while he became the face of the art, advanced his own agenda, and cemented his name in rakugo history.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"1 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44033842","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 : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2023.2184332
Y. Takao
Abstract Ten years after the Fukushima disaster, the nuclear safety regulation system in Japan has gradually moved from the exclusionary process of policy making, based on hierarchically organized policy, to a decentralized and open process of policy making whose competence is divided beyond the pre-given political actors. Yet policy making and implementation need to bring together multiple stakeholders to work in concert to achieve a desired outcome of nuclear safety. This article seeks to explain why the trend towards more inclusive forms of policy making may still lead to negative consequences for democratic accountability of nuclear safety. The author argues that the coordination issue becomes critical to a plurality of conflicting interests and beliefs of autonomous stakeholders. Although the decision-making plurality favours democratic interest representation, empirical evidence suggests that a poorly coordinated response by the national government to nuclear policy implementation fails to get stakeholders to work together for Japan’s nuclear safety. From a broader perspective, the lack of coordination among different stakeholders is one of the weaknesses of expanding accountability mechanisms to include more stakeholders, and results in challenges to policy coherence.
{"title":"Is Post-Fukushima Reform Making Japan Safer? From Shared Responsibility to Collective Accountability","authors":"Y. Takao","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2023.2184332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2023.2184332","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Ten years after the Fukushima disaster, the nuclear safety regulation system in Japan has gradually moved from the exclusionary process of policy making, based on hierarchically organized policy, to a decentralized and open process of policy making whose competence is divided beyond the pre-given political actors. Yet policy making and implementation need to bring together multiple stakeholders to work in concert to achieve a desired outcome of nuclear safety. This article seeks to explain why the trend towards more inclusive forms of policy making may still lead to negative consequences for democratic accountability of nuclear safety. The author argues that the coordination issue becomes critical to a plurality of conflicting interests and beliefs of autonomous stakeholders. Although the decision-making plurality favours democratic interest representation, empirical evidence suggests that a poorly coordinated response by the national government to nuclear policy implementation fails to get stakeholders to work together for Japan’s nuclear safety. From a broader perspective, the lack of coordination among different stakeholders is one of the weaknesses of expanding accountability mechanisms to include more stakeholders, and results in challenges to policy coherence.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"49 - 69"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47930112","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 : 2023-01-02DOI: 10.1080/10371397.2023.2191840
John P Miller
fan culture (189), excluding the decisive difference in their approaches, with the former firmly remaining on the positivist side of things and the latter solidly located on the critical one. This is also true for Galbraith’s well-intentioned project to undermine any western attempts to establish ‘weird’ manga as an essentializing Japanese cultural trait harkening back in an uninterrupted line to Edo culture. While this line of argument might have been tempting and true for some scholars in the past, even a cursory look at the rise of manga in post-WWII Japan clearly demonstrates that it rests as much on US comics’ culture as on Japanese history, with the most famous case being Tezuka Osamu’s Astro Boy, discussed at length in the book (see 83–86), but more in terms of sexual proclivities than technical line drawing. Thus, any attempt at essentializing Japanese culture has already failed and here Galbraith is preaching to the choir. Lastly, Galbraith correctly chastises western media (and academics) for narrowing down their view of Japanese manga and anime to sexual (tentacles!) and, in the worst case, pedophile content. Such attempts did and do exist; however, such a view is equally as erroneous as attempts to mark ancient Greek culture as overwhelmingly gay due to a few depictions on vases and mosaics. That the infamous octopi might be used in such Japanese sexually-connotated depictions should not surprise; after all, Japan consists of islands and in western cultural discourses there are Little Red Riding Hoods and wolves, simply because geosemiotics and Rule 34 (‘If it exists, there is porn of it’) would expect them. A bit more comparative research would certainly have bolstered his claims. If one digs a little deeper in psychosexual historical accounts such as German folk tales or Italian stories of the Decameron-style, many such examples come to the fore and the fact that they also exist in Japan should be no surprise. Overall, though, these are minor gripes; the book is a trove of information on otaku culture, well-argued and a milestone in deepening readers’ understanding of the multiple layers responsible for creating a thriving and important social subculture in today’s Japan.
{"title":"Review of Education and Social Justice in Japan","authors":"John P Miller","doi":"10.1080/10371397.2023.2191840","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10371397.2023.2191840","url":null,"abstract":"fan culture (189), excluding the decisive difference in their approaches, with the former firmly remaining on the positivist side of things and the latter solidly located on the critical one. This is also true for Galbraith’s well-intentioned project to undermine any western attempts to establish ‘weird’ manga as an essentializing Japanese cultural trait harkening back in an uninterrupted line to Edo culture. While this line of argument might have been tempting and true for some scholars in the past, even a cursory look at the rise of manga in post-WWII Japan clearly demonstrates that it rests as much on US comics’ culture as on Japanese history, with the most famous case being Tezuka Osamu’s Astro Boy, discussed at length in the book (see 83–86), but more in terms of sexual proclivities than technical line drawing. Thus, any attempt at essentializing Japanese culture has already failed and here Galbraith is preaching to the choir. Lastly, Galbraith correctly chastises western media (and academics) for narrowing down their view of Japanese manga and anime to sexual (tentacles!) and, in the worst case, pedophile content. Such attempts did and do exist; however, such a view is equally as erroneous as attempts to mark ancient Greek culture as overwhelmingly gay due to a few depictions on vases and mosaics. That the infamous octopi might be used in such Japanese sexually-connotated depictions should not surprise; after all, Japan consists of islands and in western cultural discourses there are Little Red Riding Hoods and wolves, simply because geosemiotics and Rule 34 (‘If it exists, there is porn of it’) would expect them. A bit more comparative research would certainly have bolstered his claims. If one digs a little deeper in psychosexual historical accounts such as German folk tales or Italian stories of the Decameron-style, many such examples come to the fore and the fact that they also exist in Japan should be no surprise. Overall, though, these are minor gripes; the book is a trove of information on otaku culture, well-argued and a milestone in deepening readers’ understanding of the multiple layers responsible for creating a thriving and important social subculture in today’s Japan.","PeriodicalId":44839,"journal":{"name":"Japanese Studies","volume":"43 1","pages":"122 - 124"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48109219","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}
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