The issue of the large U.S. military presence in Okinawa is divisive, deeply rooted and, frankly, one I have never completely understood. Anti-base protests have been going on for decades, and while locals elsewhere in the developed world may have been unhappy with the ...
Should Japanese liberals support revising Article 9?
Rather than leave the interpretation of Article 9 to each administration, perhaps it should be revised so government policies could be placed under the potential constraints of judicial review.
'Embracing Defeat' breaks down remorse and resistance in postwar Japan
"Embracing Defeat," the title of John Dower's landmark study of how Japan reformed and rebuilt during the U.S. Occupation, raises an interesting question: What about remorse and responsibility? It's a timely question as 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the end of a war ...
Fukushima disaster colors A-bomb anniversaries
Over the past three years, the atomic bombing anniversaries in August have increasingly become a time to ask new questions. How did the only country to experience nuclear bombings come to embrace nuclear power, a decision that ultimately led to the ongoing crisis at the ...
Hague jars with Japan's family law, a zero-sum game with only one outcome
A Japanese lawyer told me: "To Westerners, marriage means 1+1=2. But in Japan it equals 1." This made perfect sense to me, but perhaps I should explain.
Japan's Constitution: never amended but all too often undermined
If Japan's unwritten constitution is already so flexible, why are Abe and his party so bent on amending the written one?
Loved abroad, hated at home: The art of Japanese tattooing
The perception gap between international views of irezumi and those of Japanese people dates back more than 150 years, to when foreigners first laid eyes on Japanese tattoos. Since that time, however, Japanese tattooists have influenced their foreign counterparts in remarkable ways — and ...
A Nagoya University professor is working on a book about the life of the late U.S. Brig. Gen. Bonner Fellers, who played a major role in absolving Emperor Hirohito (known posthumously as Emperor Showa) of responsibility for Japan’s wartime aggression across Asia. The movie "Emperor," ...
SOFA: an unequal treaty that trumps the Constitution?
The prime minister's dogged focus on amending the American-tainted Constitution might reflect an uncomfortable unspoken truth — that it may be easier to change the Constitution than revise another document of potentially greater importance: the Status of Forces Agreement between Japan and the United ...
