Category Archives: Uncategorized

Here is our January column for the Number 1 Shimbun, which is about the process of choosing the current name of the imperial reign and why the attendant calendar system is so inconvenient.

Here is our media column for the December 2022 issue of Number 1 Shimbun, which is about the media’s lack of scrutiny over the government’s push for a much larger defense budget.

Last week, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced a ¥29 trillion economic package to fight inflation, centered mainly on the energy sector, that will supposedly save every household in Japan about ¥5,000 a month on their utility and gasoline bills. As … Continue reading →

In my daily reports on this blog I reviewed movies I had seen in screenings at the festival, but I also saw other films online and in the Video Library. Here are observations of those movies. Festival section names in … Continue reading →

It rained yesterday off and on but never heavily, so while I carried around my umbrella, I never used it. Last night I had drinks with the director Shin Suwon and her producer. Though none of her films are being … Continue reading →

The big news at this year’s BIFF is that, after 2 years of limited activities due to the pandemic, the festival is back to normal. I arrived Thursday evening, the day after the official opening, and had to make my … Continue reading →

We rarely have anything positive to say about the late Shinzo Abe, but with his state funeral happening tomorrow we wanted to point out at least one good thing he did. This year marks the 50th anniversary of normalized relations … Continue reading →

Here is a link to our April media column for the Number 1 Shimbun, which is about the push in Japan for “nuclear sharing” and reopening nuclear power plants in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

For this month’s Number 1 Shimbun we wrote about the government’s bid to make the Sado gold and silver mine a UNESCO heritage site. Link to the column is here.

Ian Thomas Ash’s documentary about foreign detainees in Japan’s immigration facilities is a pointedly activist work. In interviews Ash has said that his main purpose was to make the Japanese people understand what their government is doing in their name, … Continue reading →