It has been one of Japan’s worst-kept secrets. It has shattered lives and caused enormous international embarrassment to Japan’s reputation as a nation of laws. It has caused untold misery to countless children and families worldwide. And among all the G7 “developed” nations, it only happens like this in Japan.
North Korea has been clearly signaling an interest in improving relations with Japan, although there remain far more questions than answers.
Reform kabuki can never become actual reform until the Liberal Democratic Party is dislodged as Japan’s semi-permanent ruling party.
The Supreme Court ruled that a law requiring surgery to remove a person’s reproductive capabilities to register a gender change was unconstitutional, but it upheld a requirement, at least temporarily, for transgender people to undergo surgery that alters the physical appearance of genitals.
It was exactly a month ago today that Shinzo Abe was assassinated in Nara by 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami. As the passions of that event begin to settle, this is an opportune occasion to reconsider both the benefits and the costs of an administration which lasted longer than any other in Japanese history.
In the weeks since Nara resident Tetsuya Yamagami used a homemade gun to shoot and kill former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in front of his city’s Kintetsu Yamatosaidaiji Station, the nation and the world have been grappling with the question of why the assassination occurred.
This SNA Speakeasy features Ulv Hanssen of Soka University on the theme of “Anti-Korean Hate Books in Japan.”
With the possibility of the first “Japanese Only” Olympic Games, Japan looks likely to take the Gold Medal for Discrimination.
Dateline Tokyo, our series of short reports on major news developments in Japan, for September 2020
Dateline Tokyo, our series of short reports on major news developments in Japan, for August 2020
