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2022 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 159-187
Author(s):  
Erica Kanesaka

Abstract This article explores the ties between anti-Black racist kitsch and kawaii culture through the history of the Dakko-chan doll. In what came to be called the “Dakko-chan boom” of 1960, tens of thousands of Japanese people lined up to purchase an inflatable blackface doll with a circular red mouth, grass skirt, and winking hologram eyes. Dakko means “to hug,” and Dakko-chan's astronomical popularity resulted in part from the way the doll could be worn as an accessory, attached to the body by its hugging arms. This article asks what it meant for Japan, a nation still recovering from World War II and the American occupation, to quite literally embrace American blackface in the form of an embraceable doll. Rejecting the claim that blackface loses its significance in a Japanese context, this article argues that Dakko-chan cannot be considered devoid of racist meanings. Emerging amid the political turmoil surrounding the revision of the US-Japan Security Treaty, Dakko-chan came to express a wide range of contradictory feelings about race, sex, and nation, illustrating how affective attachments to racist forms have accrued rather than dissipated through their movement into new cultural contexts.


2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keiichi Tsukinoki ◽  
Tetsuro Yamamoto ◽  
Jiro Saito ◽  
Wakako Sakaguchi ◽  
Keiichiro Iguchi ◽  
...  

While the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 has posed a threat to public health as the number of cases and COVID-19-related deaths are increasing worldwide, the incidence of the virus infection are extremely low in Japan compared with many other countries. To explore the reason for this strange phenomenon, we hypothesized the high prevalence of natural secretory IgA in saliva as mucosal IgA reacting with SARS-CoV-2, and thus surveyed the positivity for, as well as levels of, such reactive salivary IgA in a cohort of Japanese people of a wide range of age. The major findings were that 95/180 (52.78 %) of overall individuals who had not been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 were positive for salivary IgA with the levels ranging from 0.002 to 3.272 ng/ml, and that there may be a negative trend in positivity for salivary IgA according to age. These results suggest a role of mucosal IgA in host defense against SARS-CoV-2 infection.


2022 ◽  
Vol Volume 14 ◽  
pp. 61-73
Author(s):  
Yu Itoh ◽  
Masahiro Takeshima ◽  
Yoshitaka Kaneita ◽  
Naohisa Uchimura ◽  
Yuichi Inoue ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Adi Putra Surya Wardhana

This study aims to describe the propaganda of bushido ideology in the film Djagalah Tanah Djawa published during the Japanese occupation era. Japan had limited natural and human resources to face the Allies in the Pacific War. Java was seen as a region capable of meeting Japanese needs. Propaganda was needed so that the Japanese internalized the bushido ideology to the Javanese population. Some research problems are (1) the form of bushido ideology deeply held by the Japanese people; (2) the function of Japanese propaganda on Java; (3) the meaning of bushido ideology represented by the Propaganda Film Djagalah Tanah Djawa during the Japanese occupation. The research used the historical method. The research shows that bushido ideology influenced the whole outlook of life and social practices of Japanese society, especially during the Pacific War. This ideology was internalized in the propaganda film Djagalah Tanah Djawa. Its function was to attract Javanese people to be willing to take part in the Japanese program. The meaning stated that victory over the Allied occupation could only be achieved if the Javanese people made sacrifices and cooperated with Japan to realize “New Java”.’ Thus, Japan could dominate the consciousness and unconsciousness of the Javanese population.


2021 ◽  
pp. 112-147
Author(s):  
Tomoe Kumojima

Chapter 3 discusses Mary Crawford Fraser and her Japan-related literary works to highlight political affordances of literature for cross-cultural female friendship and solidarity. Fraser opened up her writing space to her Japanese friends and enabled her readers to hear their voices in her writings. It examines Fraser’s friendships with Japanese people in A Diplomatist’s Wife in Japan (1898) and analyses the influence of these friendships on her fictional works. It brings to light the existence of a long-forgotten international reading society of women in Meiji Japan. It provides real-life examples of cross-racial, international female friendship, an underdeveloped resource in recent scholarship on Victorian travelogues. It demonstrates how Fraser mobilized literature as a safe space for a woman to carry out diplomatic tasks during the tumultuous period of treaty revision and the conclusion of Anglo-Japanese Alliance and strove to redress demeaning stereotypes of Japanese women.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fumi Michihata ◽  
Chieko Nakabasami

Since the Meiji era (from 1868), in Japan, the excess acculturation towards foreign cultures cannot be stopped. Japan is a surprising food acculturation country. Recently Japan recorded the worst self- sufficiency rate, and the diet has been placing disproportionate weight on meat. Japanese people see its diet as unhealthy and try to find a way to coexist for both their traditional food culture and international one. In Italy, many families still keep eating together at home, but in Japan, families are often eating out. Now Japanese people should rediscover the value of home-made dishes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Hui Hsien Chan ◽  
Leng Leng Thang

In Japan, the term shūkatsu—referred as the planning for later life and for the afterlife—has gained popularity due to high amount of mass media exposure in recent years. This paper examines shūkatsu from the active aging framework, contending that shūkatsu is an important activity that contributes to active aging, as the process of conscientious planning encourages older Japanese people to remain active. Data for this study were obtained from qualitative interviews that were conducted with 40 older middle-class Japanese citizens residing in Nagoya. Explored through a life course perspective, the study examined how salient factors, such as personal history, experiences, roles, anxieties, life-changing events, and cultural practices, have influenced older Japanese people in their shūkatsu decision-making process. In the process of understanding how the Japanese respond to changing family relationships and sociocultural transformations, the emphasis on living a “good old age” for better social, psychological, and physical well-being strongly reflects the agency to age actively. In a super-aged Japan, shūkatsu may be a vital strategy that not only ensures a better quality of life for the older population and their children, but it also contributes to individual’s sense of usefulness and satisfaction, as they are actively involved in the planning and management of their own later and afterlife choices.


2021 ◽  
pp. 93-108
Author(s):  
Shiri Lieber-Milo

The word kawaii, meaning ‘cute and sweet’ in English, has been part of the Japanese culture for centuries. While the word and trend were historically associated with young women and children, there has recently been an attempt to expand the definition of kawaii outside of its traditional borders to other age and gender groups by creating uniquely synthesised words and trends. The newly coined term otona-kawaii [‘adult-cute’] refers to mature women who passed their teen years and continue to dress cute and behave innocent and adorable. In this paper, a focus will be taken upon the new concept of otona-kawaii, and how it is defined and evaluated by the Japanese people. Results of a recent survey conducted among 717 male and female respondents between the ages of 18 to 29, showed that many of them were in favour of the idea of behaving cute at an older age. It was also found that women were more familiar with the term otona-kawaii and had a more positive approach towards it than men. The results of the study suggest that kawaii can be extended beyond infants and may apply to other age populations, such as mature women. The aim of this study is to bridge the gap between kawaii and maturity by providing some empirical evidence and information, bringing to a deeper understanding of the concept of kawaii, contributing to the scholarship of the kawaii culture in Japan.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Toshiko Tanaka ◽  
Tsuyoshi Nihonsugi ◽  
Fumio Ohtake ◽  
Masahiko Haruno

AbstractThe most promising way to prevent the explosive spread of COVID-19 infection is to achieve herd immunity through vaccination. It is therefore important to motivate those who are less willing to be vaccinated. To address this issue, we conducted an online survey of 6232 Japanese people to investigate age- and gender-dependent differences in attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination and the underlying psychological processes. We asked participants to read one of nine different messages about COVID-19 vaccination and rate their willingness to be vaccinated. We also collected their 17 social personality trait scores and demographic information. We found that males 10–20 years old were least willing to be vaccinated. We also found that prosocial traits are the driving force for young people, but the motivation in older people also depends on risk aversion and self-interest. Furthermore, an analysis of 9 different messages demonstrated that for young people (particularly males), the message emphasizing the majority’s intention to vaccinate and scientific evidence for the safety of the vaccination had the strongest positive effect on the willingness to be vaccinated, suggesting that the “majority + scientific evidence” message nudges young people to show their prosocial nature in action.


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