Japanese Society

2019 saw the most important and far-reaching changes to Japanese labor law in 70 years. What is being reformed and why? Will the reforms improve worker protections? This conference presentation points out contradictions in the reforms and suggests a research program to evaluate whether their outcomes will be as advertised by the architects of the reforms.

This paper explores the historical, religious, and social factors that have led to present-day discrimination of various ethnic minority groups in Japans. I will focus on how the Japanese maintain discrimination by promoting “otherness” within the socially constructed narrative of nihonjinron—true Japaneseness—as well as promoting the idea of a homogenous society. I will examine various minority groups within Japan—Brazilian-Japanese, Zainichi Korean, and Burakumin—with a majority of my focus being on the narrative of discrimination that Burkaumin receive and must negotiate in order to assimilate or accommodate into wider Japanese society.

I propose that the Japanese have historical precedence for assimilation of minority groups pre-World War 2 in order to create a homogenous Asian society equal to the colonizing efforts of the Western powers. Yet, post-World War 2 Japan has resulted in a fragmentation or “othering” of different ethnic Asians. Furthermore, the power dynamics of discrimination rely on strategies of silence, with both parties playing their respective roles in the process of “othering” and silencing. That is, minority groups in Japan, and particularly Burakumin, as agents have the power to negotiate and change their situation or, as most often is the case, play a role in the continuing discrimination of their group.

Comme les nombreuses catastrophes industrielles qui ont marqué l’histoire du Japon moderne et contemporain, la catastrophe nucléaire de mars 2011 a donné lieu à de nombreux procès. Les procès de Fukushima réunissent plusieurs milliers de plaignants à travers tout le Japon. Outre un procès pénal contre trois anciens dirigeants de Tepco, on relève une trentaine de plaintes collectives au civil contre Tepco et l’État. Ces procès posent des questions fondamentales sur l’origine de cette catastrophe et, compte tenu du problème des radiations, son devenir. Et bien que les montants d’indemnisation retenus par les juges jusqu’à présent restent faibles, ces décisions de justice revêtent pour les plaignants une importance morale et symbolique (voire des effets cathartiques), ainsi que pour le Japon contemporain, et à l’avenir pour d’autres pays qui pourraient être touchés par une catastrophe nucléaire.

2011年3月の原発事故は、近現代の日本における多くの産業災害と同様に、数多くの訴訟を引き起こした。今日、フクシマ訴訟のために、日本全国で数千人の原告が結集している。東京電力の旧経営陣3人に対する刑事訴訟に加えて、東京電力及び国に対する民事集団訴訟は約30件に上る。これらの裁判は、この災害の原因、そして放射能という問題を考慮して、その将来的な影響についても本質的な問いを投げかけている。現在まで裁判官によって言い渡された賠償金額が僅かであったとしても、これらの判決は、原告及び現代日本、そして将来的に原子力災害で被害を受ける可能性のある諸外国にとっても、倫理的そして象徴的に重要である。

Like many industrial calamities that have marked the history of modern and contemporary Japan, the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster has given rise to many lawsuits; currently, these involve several thousand plaintiffs from all over Japan. On top of a criminal case against three Tepco executives, there are more than 30 class actions pending against Tepco and the state. These lawsuits raise fundamental questions about the origin of the disaster as well as its future fallouts due to radiation exposure. While the compensation awarded by the judges so far remains low, the court decisions carry a moral and symbolic—even cathartic—importance for the plaintiffs, as well as for contemporary Japan as a whole and for other countries vulnerable to a nuclear disaster. I further argue that these mobilisations are drawn from a legacy of collective lawsuits that have marked Japan over the past 50 years.

On this paper, the researcher will be studying the causes and effects of bullying in Japan among senior high school students. Bullying is considered as one major social problem in Japan, with a total of 70, 231 bullying cases reported to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in year 2011. 1 Compared to other industrialized countries, this rate is very high. 2 One of the causes which this paper will discuss is the pressure that senior high school student receives. In Japan, senior high school students are pressured to pass the university entrance exam, because these exams are given only once a year. The effects of bullying will also be tackled on this study, but one of the major effects that this study will review is the suicide cases. The researcher will also discuss other effects of bullying like hikikomori among the others. There are many related literature and discussion regarding on this topic. But the main focus and objective of this study, is to study the causes and effects of bullying in senior high school students in Japan. The scope of this study is limited only to the senior high school students in Japan.

A paper which analyses the significance of the relationship between employment and masculinity in post-war Japanese society, examining the hegemonic masculinity of the sarariiman (salaryman), and the alternative masculinities of furītā (part-time or casual workers), male shufu (homemakers), and unemployed men.

In this essay I will discuss the shift into the moe period which came in the mid-1990’s by first examining two anime franchises: Mobile Suit Gundam (1979) and Neon Genesis Evangelion (1997). Secondly, I will observe the psychological roots of moe in fantasy. Through examining these two anime, which come from the mecha (machine) genre, I will analyze the enormity of the moe shift and how it has altered and caters to the lives of its modern otaku audience.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 3/11, one disputed issue has been the acceptance of precedent nuclear energy policies among the wider population, despite Japan being a country of high seismic risk and a nation that experienced atomic bombing on its population during World War II. This paper investigates how the transmedia constellation of the mangaesque intersecting manga, anime, pop-art, governmental educational characters and youth subcultures has been strategic in domesticating contested meanings of nuclear related issues, as well as being deeply informed itself in its ground-breaking stages (Astroboy-Tezuka Osamu, Barefoot Gen-Nakazawa Keiji, Little Boy-Murakami Takashi) by these issues, contributing ultimately to their naturalisation and hegemonic reproduction from ‘below’.

A chapter examining changes in the practices of men and notions of masculinity in contemporary Japanese society, with particular focus on the phenomenon of so-called 'herbivore boys' (草食系男子).

Originally submitted as an undergraduate dissertation to the Faculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge.

これは私の日本語の卒論です。ホラー映画を通して1980‘sから日本にある家父長制社会の存在について研究しました。

This is my Japanese thesis about the patriarchal society that came into existence during the 1980's and after. I used the genre of horror in order to explain a changing Japanese society.

This work analyze the basic objective of Japanese concept of amae. The Japanese term refers to the primary amae feeling that all children are home to her mother, a sense of dependency and desire to be loved passively. The Japanese specialist Takeo Doi defined amae as an "indulgent dependence" (dependency need) rooted in the mother-child bond. However, in Japanese society this primary experience extends beyond childhood, exercising a decisive influence on subsequent social relationships such as teacher-student relationship in education or superior-subordinate link in the working environment. In this paper, after an analysis from a psychological point of view of amae and other related concepts, I will examine from a practical point of view how the feeling of amae evolves over the life of the Japanese in Japan today.

Keywords: Amae; Doi Takeo; psychoanalysis; Japanese society.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of 3/11, one disputed issue has been the acceptance of precedent nuclear energy policies among the wider population, despite Japan being a country of high seismic risk and a nation that experienced atomic bombing on its population during World War II. This paper investigates how the transmedia constellation of the mangaesque intersecting manga, anime, pop-art, governmental educational characters and youth subcultures has been strategic in domesticating contested meanings of nuclear related issues, as well as being deeply informed itself in its ground-breaking stages (Astroboy-Tezuka Osamu, Barefoot Gen-Nakazawa Keiji, Little Boy-Murakami Takashi) by these issues, contributing ultimately to their naturalisation and hegemonic reproduction from ‘below’. 1 (Post)nuclear Japan: nation, hegemony from ‘below’ and media mix 3/11 marks a date of no return for post-war Japan, not dissimilar to 9/11 for the USA. It is a numerical symbo...

Es  bien  sabido  que  en  Japón  ha  existido  durante  largo  tiempo  una  tradición de suicidios honorables. Conforme  a  la  misma,  quitarse  la  vida  es  percibido como  una  salida  posible,  que permite al suicida preservar su honor. Dicha tradición, que suele relacionarse con el modelo de conducta de los samurai y el código bushido, cobra un interés especial en la actualidad, ante la elevada  tasa  de  suicidios  que  se  encuentra  en  Japón  (aunque  también  en  otros  países  de  la región). De hecho, Japón constituye uno de los países con la tasa de suicidios más elevada del mundo. La  presente  comunicación  se  propone  reflexionar  sobre  el  suicidio  en  Japón  desde  distintos puntosde  vista.  En  concreto,  se  ha  sugerido  en  alguna  ocasión  que  el  suicidio  en  el  mundo occidental  suele  ser  el  resultado  de  una  depresión  o  de  otra  patología  psicológica,  mientras que  en  el  mundo  oriental  es  más  frecuente  que  sea  el  resultado  de  una  decisiónlúcida  y responsable. Por otro lado, la elevada tasa de  suicidios en Japón se  ha atribuido también a la extraordinaria  tensión  y  estrés  de  la  vida  en  el  Japón  moderno,  una  tensión  causada  por  los cambios  sociales  masivos que  la  necesidad  de modernizar  la sociedad  feudal  de  la  noche  a  la mañana  habría  provocado.  Si  bien  esta  última  consideración  sobre  la  sociedad  feudal  pueda tener  algo  de  anacronismo,  sí  que  parece  digna  de  consideración  la  posibilidad  de  establecer algún vínculo entre la tensión y el estrés de la vida moderna y la tasa de suicidios en dicho país. También conviene examinar la relación con la idea del honor en la cultura japonesa.En fin, la comunicación tiene como objetivo comparar algunas ideas sobre el suicidio en Japón con el mismo fenómeno en Occidente, con el trasfondo de la lucha para prevenirlo.

Interview de Rotem Kowner au sujet de l'importation des théories scientifiques raciales occidentales au Japon au 19e siècle : esclavage et formes de discrimination antérieures au 19e siècle, intégration des idées racistes considérées comme scientifiques au cours de l'ère Meiji, sentiment de dévalorisation et de rejet de l'Occident exprimés par les Japonais, apparition de la doctrine de l'asiatisme, expression de cette idéologie durant la Première Guerre mondiale et la guerre du Pacifique, conséquences de l'adoption du modèle raciste occidental sur les relations entre le Japon et ses pays voisins, état des lieux du racisme dans le Japon contemporain.

This essay explores representations of Japanese contemporary society in a trilogy of Hollywood films spanning a period of 46 years: Sayonara (1957), Black Rain (1989), and Lost in Translation (2003). By performing a close reading of the central themes, characters, and norms presented in these works, it is clearly observable that each film locates Japan and the ideas of Japaneseness within a very particular locus and frame. From such a standpoint it is easy to see that a substantive shift has occurred over time in how Japan and the concept of Japaneseness are both depicted and interpreted by America through Hollywood, if not by Japan itself. In this trilogy, this shift has largely been influenced by perceived or relative distances between the two cultures (American and Japanese), and places the films in the loci of: acceptance, rejection, and ambivalence. Each of the three films are taken individually and in turn, annotated, read, and presented with commentary so as to establish their relative position as a singular text. Following this there follows a brief discussion where the trilogy are compared, contrasted, and examined as a collective body of work on a given theme (Japan) over a longitudinal time-frame. Finally, this essay ends with concluding remarks and comments which examine the core constructs presented in these films against a backdrop of contemporary Japanese society and notions of Japanese cultural identity.

The terrorist attack at Israel's Lod airport in May 1972 claimed the lives of 26 people and changed the civil aviation forever. Fifty years on, the lone surviving terrorist, who expected to die and become a celestial body, is a free man in Lebanon and the leader of the group is set to be released from prison.

Kunci kesuksesan penerapan kaizen dan zen yang begitu menarik dibahas dalam makalah ini mengenai Matsushita yang termasuk dalam lima puluh perusahaan besar di dunia. Produk Matsushita dengan merek seperti Panasonic, Quasar dan Technic dikenal luas di pasaran dunia. Pertumbuhan
Matsushita melesat tajam dan menduduki tempat tertinggi begitu mengagumkan. Faktor-faktor apa saja dan bagaimana perjuangan Konosuke Matsushita, pendiri Matsushita bisa membangun perusahaan menjadi perusahaan besar. Strategi apa yang diterapkan dan sejauh mana penerapan kaizen dalam perusahaan untuk mencapai hasil produk yang maksimal.

This volume builds on the international conference of the same title held at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in 2013 with the support of the Japan Foundation, which discussed the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident of 11th March 2011 in northeastern Japan. The papers bring together research in the fields of political science, international relations, sociology and anthropology to offer a multidimensional perspective on the complex issues relating to the triple disaster of 3/11 and its aftermath.