· February, 2008

Stories about Japan from February, 2008

Japan: Poisoned Dumpling Blame Game

  29 February 2008

James from Japan Probe has a poll about the poisoned dumpling scandal between Japan and China. Most believe that they were contaminated in China.

East Asia: Intangible Cultural Heritage

  29 February 2008

Ampontan has a very elaborated post on debate and discussion about the registration of intangible cultural heritage at UNESCO among China, Japan and South Korea.

Japan: Evil Mickey Mouse Invasion

  26 February 2008

Edo from Pink Tentacle introduces an old propaganda animation (1934) about the future (1936) invasion of evil mickey mouse. The film is available in youtube.

Japan: Charisma Man

  25 February 2008

James from Japan Probe traces the origin of the term “Charisma Man” which is used for describing foreign man with many girlfriends.

Japan: Advertisers abandon print, move online

  21 February 2008

Japanese blogger and journalist Fujishiro Hiroyuki at Gatonews summarizes results [ja] from a report [ja] issued by Japan's largest on ad agency Dentsu on advertising sales in Japan over the year 2007. The figures indicate a shift away from newspapers and magazines and toward online media: compared to figures from...

Japan: Reactions to alleged Okinawa rape

  17 February 2008

The news last week that a U.S. Marine had allegedly raped a 14-year-old schoolgirl in Okinawa sparked various degrees of condemnation from local citizens, politicians, the government and bloggers, reigniting anger at the continued presence of American military bases in Japan's southernmost prefecture. In blogs and internet forums, however, many Japanese also criticized the alleged victim herself for being careless and "allowing" the rape to happen.

Japan: Sex and Marriage

  15 February 2008

Ping mag has an interview with Sumie Kawakami, who has spent two years interviewing Japanese women on issues related with sex and marriage.

Japan: Hand Towel Dolls

  15 February 2008

Lee from Tokyo Times posts a new manga figure called hand towel hero. Apart from this hero, there are some other cute hand towel doll pictures in his post.

Japan: Filtering going global

  15 February 2008

Blogger and social activist Sakiyama Nobuo [ja] (see earlier coverage) picks up a number of recent news stories and predicts that it may not be long before Chinese filtering policy is no longer thought of as “another country's problem” [ja]. He points to the launch of the Mobile Alliance against...

Japan: Bloggers study group

  14 February 2008

Blogger shinyai [ja] (Keiwa College Associate Professor Ichinohe Shinya) writes about an upcoming bloggers study group [ja] organized by the Agile Media Network (AMN), which will take place on February 22 from 7pm at the Pasonatech seminar room [ja] in Shibuya, Tokyo (Japan). For more details see the original announcement...

Japan: Future words of the Web Era

  13 February 2008

Japanese web visionary Umeda Mochio (see earlier translated interview) announces the upcoming release on Feb. 27th of his new book, “Five propositions for a web era: These words will open the way to the future!” (ウェブ時代 5つの定理―この言葉が未来を切り開く! [ja]), at his blog My Life between Silicon Valley and Japan [ja]. According to...