japanamerica

The Lingering Tragedy of Japan’s Lost Generation Mark Wang I met Hiroshi S. a few years ago at a support group in Tokyo for socially isolated Japanese. A chain-smoking 43-year-old in a puffy down vest, he was one of an estimated one million or more Japanese known as hikikomori, which roughly translates as “extreme recluses.” Typically male, between the ages of 30 and 50, jobless or underemployed, they have largely withdrawn from society after Japan’s extended economic malaise since the 1990s prevented them from getting their working lives in order. Hiroshi, who asked that his full name not be used, crashed out of Japan’s corporate job market roughly 20 years earlier and was living off his aging, unsympathetic parents in their home, where he racked up credit card debt on pop culture merchandise. He even contemplated suicide. “Japan has changed,” he told me, referring to the shrinking opportunities and hope available to his generation. He never once looked me in the eye. That was in 2017...

Letters from Tokyo, September-October 2022: Autumn is for Eating   Autumn in New York was romanticized long ago by the eponymous 1934 jazz standard, and the phrase remains classic. Everyone knows the season is romantic in climate and hue, especially in Central Park and along the Hudson, where you can actually see the leaves change color against the backdrop of the buildings. But autumn in Tokyo can be equally inviting, if not more so. For one thing, its drop in dew points can be a lifesaver for the heatstroke prone. Plus, it lasts longer. I first learned about dew points in high school from my friend Jim. The higher the dew point, the stickier you feel. Your sweat has nowhere to go so it stays on your skin and your pores can't breathe. Jim was the goalie of our soccer team but dreamed of becoming a meteorologist. Today he works for the US National Weather Service in the mountains of upstate New York. And I live in Tokyo, where I keep a close eye on dew points every time autumn roll...

 [Finally resuming my monthly "Culture Clash" column for The Japan Times.] Indie studio Tonko House's coming-of-age story portrays a multiethnic Japan Fairy tales usually move from humdrum reality to fantasy and back again, with the protagonist and the rest of the audience transformed along the way. Think Alice and the rabbit hole, Chihiro and the tunnel in “Spirited Away.” But the CG-animated limited series “Oni: Thunder God’s Tale” opens in a Japanese dream world before crossing the threshold into an urban Japan that is darker and far more dangerous. “Oni” is the latest work from indie animation studio Tonko House, with a script by veteran anime writer Mari Okada (“Macquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms”). The series uses digital techniques to mimic the tactile, slightly jerky movements of stop-motion animation, making its visuals feel intimate despite the story’s dizzying array of characters and Hollywood action-adventure scope: a four-episode, 154-minute epic that b...

[Running a little late with the updates owing to travel and, well, life.] Japan struggles to give up floppy disks and fax machines for the digital age KYODO When Kono Taro was tapped in August to lead the government’s one-year-old Digital Agency, dedicated to digitizing Japan’s bureaucracy, headlines lit up with his opening salvos. No more fax machines! Out with floppy disks! His proclamations, delivered via Twitter, elicited cheers overseas. Inside Japan, they were met with muted bemusement.  Fluent in English and dubbed a “maverick” by the global media, the former foreign affairs and defense minister Kono is Japan’s most visible and Twitter-friendly politician ever, in a country more typically known for faceless bureaucrats. (When Yoshitaka Sakurada, the 72-year-old cybersecurity minister for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games shamelessly said that he had never once used a computer, his confession was greeted by shock and embarrassment. Though he was promptly forced to resign, no one r...

I was thrilled by the feedback on my first post so I hope you enjoy my second entry. Here, I talk about how my Mom and Dad have different reactions to the anime we watch together. I’ve re-watched a decent amount of anime with my parents. Together we’ve watched Attack on Titan (3x), Jujutsu Kaisen (4x), Hunter x Hunter (3x), Death Note (2x) and The Promised Neverland (2x). For my dad, the jokes don’t land. He has strong opinions about jokes because he himself is a comedian. He thinks anime can be overwritten: Too much internal dialogue during fights (“if I do this, then that will happen”); too much internal analysis of the opponent. He gets taken aback when there are inappropriate moments. In HxH, Hisoka is always looking for a fight to entertain himself. His desire for a worthy opponent is so strong that he gets aroused when he comes across someone of similar strength.  Dad’s enjoyed Attack on Titan the most so far, interestingly enough. He’s a huge Star Wars fan, and AoT and Star ...

This August, we've resumed my monthly series, "Letters from Tokyo," with the Japan Society of Boston after a 6-month personal hiatus. Tokyo August 2022 saw record-breaking heat and Covid numbers and almost zero tourists. The city feels muted and a bit fatigued. But it's also calming and a lot less expensive than the US cities I've recently been in, and Tokyo's food, design and infrastructure remain unparalleled. Also, as you can hear for yourself in my closing video shot at the lovely Kumano Shrine in Jiyugaoka, the semi/cicadas are sizzling at full tilt. Roland Kelts' Letters from Tokyo, August 2022: Hot and Tired Town In recent years I’ve spent late-July and August elsewhere, usually at US retreats in New York and New England, abandoning Japan to escape the heat. But this year everything is different. I broke my shoulder in the spring and got sidelined for a while, albeit in a friend’s beautiful house in storybook Carmel, a town in north central Califor...

I spoke to the BBC about the Japanese government's new campaign contest to get young people to drink more alcohol (!)—and the death of pioneering fashion designer Hanae Mori. I did not try to connect the two. Audio's online here .  "Japan's young adults are a sober bunch - something authorities are hoping to change with a new campaign. The younger generation drinks less alcohol than their parents - a move that has hit taxes from beverages like sake (rice wine). So the national tax agency has stepped in with a national competition to come up with ideas to reverse the trend. The 'Sake Viva!' campaign hopes to come up with a plan to make drinking more attractive - and boost the industry. The contest asks 20 to 39-year-olds to share their business ideas to kick-start demand among their peers - whether it's for Japanese sake, shochu, whiskey, beer or wine. The group running the competition for the tax authority says new habits - partly formed during the Covid pa...