Support open-access publishing of critical analysis of the forces shaping the Asia-Pacific and the world. Glen S. Fukushima Matching Fund Challenge Double your impact: donate $50 and it becomes $100 if you donate by February 28, 2026. apjjf.org/fundraising-... #APJJF #openaccess

Can civic organizations play the multi-faceted role of promoting multi-ethnic nationhood at home and sovereign statehood abroad? Michiko Suzuki explores how the Manchukuo Red Cross Society was used to pursue these goals in the context of Japanese imperialism. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Support open-access publishing of critical analysis of the forces shaping the Asia-Pacific and the world. Glen S. Fukushima Matching Fund Challenge Double your impact: donate $50 and it becomes $100 if you donate by February 28, 2026. apjjf.org/fundraising-... #APJJF #openaccess

Atsushi Hagihara & Hasan Topacoglu explore culture practices and generational change in Hyogo Prefecture Okinawan Association. Using surveys and interviews, they highlight how Okinawans navigate migration challenges while preserving their heritage. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #Okinawa #APJJF

How is public interest litigation evolving in Japan? Lawrence Repeta examines CALL4, a bilingual platform highlighting public interest cases and crowdfunding litigation costs. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #Japan #Law #PublicInterest #APJJF

How does Ishimaru Shinji fit into Japan’s evolving populist landscape? In this article Jack Northey draws on the cases of Hashimoto Tōru and Koike Yuriko and identifies a “populist playbook” shaped by Japan’s neoliberal era. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #Japan #Politics #Populism #APJJF

How do we understand Japan’s wartime past through the words and silences of its emperor? David McNeill speaks with historian Ryuichi Kitano about his new book, 側近が見た昭和天皇 (The Showa Emperor as Seen by His Close Aides). #Japan #History #APJJF apjjf.org/2025/10/mcne...

Can translation become a tool for historical revisionism? In this essay, Harumi Osaki examines how sympathetic translators and editors reshaped The Ōshima Memos (1942–45), allowing for wartime ideology to persist under the guise of reinterpretation. apjjf.org/2025/10/osaki #Japan #History #APJJF

How can film confront the silences surrounding workplace harassment? In conversation with art historian Asato Ikeda, filmmaker Atsushi Funahashi discusses his 2022 film Company Retreat, reflecting on trauma and solidarity in Japan’s workplaces. apjjf.org/2025/9/ikeda #Film #Gender #Japan #APJJF

What did “compulsory education” mean for children excluded from it? In this powerful article, Gregory S. Johnson traces the history of the Kōmei School, Japan’s first public school for children with physical disabilities. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #DisabilityHistory #Japan #Education #APJJF

How did Trump change US engagement with the UN? In this interview with Mark Selden, Lawrence S. Wittner examines the historical context and what it means for US-China relations and global influence. #Trump #USPolitics #UnitedNations #USChina #ForeignPolicy #GlobalAffairs apjjf.org/2025/10/witt...

In this important article, Dorothy Finan and Kaori Suetomi examine efforts to introduce child safeguarding frameworks in Japan’s entertainment industries in the wake of the Johnny Kitagawa abuse scandal. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #Japan #ChildSafeguarding #EntertainmentIndustry #APJJF

Yoko Demelius and Yutaka Yoshida use a post-feminist lens to analyze a famous case involving a female fraudster in Japan who gained “celebrity criminal” status. Read more in Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #Japan #Postfeminism #GenderStudies #APJJF

Mi-Young Gu astutely analyzes Himizu (2012) through Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, showing how the film reveals tensions in post-3/11 Japan. Read more in Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #Himizu #SonoShion #Post311 #DisasterCinema #Heterotopia #APJJF

Kanako Kuramitsu explores the overlooked experiences of children born to Chinese mothers and Japanese fathers during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War. Read more in Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #SinoJapaneseWar #ChildrenBornOfWar #Migration #APJJF

In this timely article Robert Mizo and J. Scott Hauger show how climate change is reshaping Indo-Pacific maritime security and what this means for the Quad. Read more in Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #IndoPacific #MaritimeSecurity #ClimateChange #APJJF

In this important article, Dorothy Finan and Kaori Suetomi examine efforts to introduce child safeguarding frameworks in Japan’s entertainment industries in the wake of the Johnny Kitagawa abuse scandal. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #Japan #ChildSafeguarding #EntertainmentIndustry #APJJF

A very informative article explaining the conspiracy theories and ideologies motivating Japan's new far-right party, Sanseitō, which made substantial seat gains in last July's upper house election. Thanks to @rmarcantuoni.bsky.social & @robfahey.net for writing this.

How did Trump change US engagement with the UN? In this interview with Mark Selden, Lawrence S. Wittner examines the historical context and what it means for US-China relations and global influence. #Trump #USPolitics #UnitedNations #USChina #ForeignPolicy #GlobalAffairs apjjf.org/2025/10/witt...

How does a fringe, anti-vaccine party come to influence national politics? In this insightful article, Romeo Marcantuoni and Robert A. Fahey examine Sanseitō, a Japanese political party founded during the pandemic. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #Japan #Politics #ConspiracyTheories #APJJF

What did “compulsory education” mean for children excluded from it? In this powerful article, Gregory S. Johnson traces the history of the Kōmei School, Japan’s first public school for children with physical disabilities. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #DisabilityHistory #Japan #Education #APJJF

How can film confront the silences surrounding workplace harassment? In conversation with art historian Asato Ikeda, filmmaker Atsushi Funahashi discusses his 2022 film Company Retreat, reflecting on trauma and solidarity in Japan’s workplaces. apjjf.org/2025/9/ikeda #Film #Gender #Japan #APJJF

Can translation become a tool for historical revisionism? In this essay, Harumi Osaki examines how sympathetic translators and editors reshaped The Ōshima Memos (1942–45), allowing for wartime ideology to persist under the guise of reinterpretation. apjjf.org/2025/10/osaki #Japan #History #APJJF

How do we understand Japan’s wartime past through the words and silences of its emperor? David McNeill speaks with historian Ryuichi Kitano about his new book, 側近が見た昭和天皇 (The Showa Emperor as Seen by His Close Aides). #Japan #History #APJJF apjjf.org/2025/10/mcne...

A new essay from me synthesizing the rich body of media criticism in Japanese focused on the practice of "August journalism" (八月ジャーナリズム): the tendency for rehearsed, compressed, and hollowed-out coverage of war memory each August. apjjf.org/2025/9/fedman

ICYMI: Re-upping our special collection on the 100th Anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake, which occurred on September 1st, 1923: apjjf.org/2023/8/toc

As we remember the 80th Anniversary of the End of World War II, see our special collection of "Critical Reflections" from a number of prominent scholars of East Asian studies. Look for a second batch of essays appearing soon!

Fourteen years on from the Northeastern Japan Triple Disaster, see how scholars at Tohoku University & the National Diet Library in Japan are collaborating with the Reischauer Institute at Harvard to document and research the disaster and its aftermaths in the Japan Disaster Archive. apjjf.org/jda

More than 25 years after my first visit, I've recently published an article on the long history of the Yushukan military museum at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. The article is open access with a large number of illustrations. apjjf.org/2024/7/benesch

David McNeill and Nao Kato ask what role the media plays in public opinion toward the other in Japan-China relations. apjjf.org/2024/5/mcneill

This dialogue between Kevin Blackburn, Katharine McGregor, and Sachiyo Tsukamoto introduces the authors' recent books and highlights new research on Comfort Women from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Japan. apjjf.org/2024/5/black...

Jessica Jordan questions U.S. military understanding and practice when it comes to bases in Guam and Okinawa, arguing that changing the way recent history is represented at U.S.-controlled public sites could catalyze meaningful change in local relations. apjjf.org/2024/5/jordan

Do words matter? Can they change the way we think and act? Ulv Hanssen warns they do, with the example of the history of the use (and non-use) of the term "hypothetical enemy" in Japan from the prewar period through today. apjjf.org/2024/4/hanssen

Michael Bourdaghs explores popular music of Japan’s Cold War era, with a special focus on singing duo The Peanuts and the film Mothra, argues that Japanese culture of the Cold War must be understood as participating simultaneously in all three networks of the Cold War order apjjf.org/2024/4/bourd...

How do Indonesian Muslim professionals navigate the corporate workplace in Japan? Through in-depth interviews, Firman Budianto uncovers some of their motivations, challenges, and strategies living and working in a non-Muslim society. apjjf.org/2024/4/budia...

Can physical representations of events, like a monument, change their meaning over time and, if so, how? These are the questions that Thi Gammon and Anh Ngoc Quynh Phan explore through the Hanoi monument to John McCain's capture.

With the embers of the Johnny Kitagawa sexual assault scandal still glowing, more victims of abuse have come forward with disturbing claims about comedy-duo Downtown’s Matsumoto Hitoshi, a towering figure in Japan’s entertainment industry. One of them talks to David McNeill. apjjf.org/2024/4/mcneill

New Ongoing Series | The The Online Ecosystem of the Japanese Far Right. Investigating the ever-changing & adaptable ecosystem of multitudinous actors in the digital age linked through shared nativist/racist, anti-feminist & anti-establishment/illiberal discourses. apjjf.org/online-ecosy...

Hanno Jentzsch & Sebastian Polak-Rottmann investigate the impact of COVID-19 on regional welfare-making in Japan's rural Aso region, revealing how community institutions evolved but also reflected prior (and ongoing) experiences with challenges & resilience after disasters. apjjf.org/2024/3/jentz...

Tessa Morris-Suzuki explores the transnational history of commercial whaling in the 19th Century from the mobile viewpoint of whaleships as they crossed and recrossed the ocean, urging scholars to adopt a “liquid area” approach to transformations in the Asia-Pacific region. apjjf.org/2024/3/morri...

Barak Kushner reflects on the complex issues & discrepancies between fact & fiction around Japanese war crimes in WWII that clouded postwar justice postwar & continue to render their history open to interpretation, feeding political friction in the region. apjjf.org/2024/3/kushner

Brian Hurley revisits John Hersey’s controversial reading of "Hiroshima" at the White House in 1965 to show how the premises of cultural freedom at the heart of Cold War American liberalism stirred far more controversy in practice than their placid articulation in theory. apjjf.org/2024/2/hurley

#Special: Sara Ann Swenson & Le Hoang Anh Thu guest co-edit a collection of articles examining why food charity has become popular in urban areas in Vietnam like Ho Chi Minh City by exploring how food holds spiritual, moral significance for both donors & recipients: apjjf.org/2024/2/food-...

Gennifer Weisenfeld introduces a variety of rare Japanese wartime air defense visual materials that illustrate how "Japan’s lively mass culture blurred the boundaries between art, commerce & national propaganda." Explore the digitized image galleries here: apjjf.org/2024/2/weise...

Ji Hye Han illustrates how Japanese photographer Kuwabara Shisei's photographic representations of the US military in South Korea in the 1960s-1980s challenged common narratives and imaginaries of the global presence of the US military during the Cold War. apjjf.org/2024/2/han

Attending AAS in Seattle this weekend? Stop by the Starbucks in the Sheraton Grand Seattle lobby on Friday, March 15, 12:00-1:30 PM to chat with journal coeditor Mary M. McCarthy and president Laura Hein about ideas for submissions and exciting new developments at APJFF! @aasasianstudies.bsky.social

Colin P.A. Jones examines recent same-sex marriage litigation in Japan as a case-study showing how a particular form of lawsuit—claims for damages against the state for legislative inaction—has become a leading tool for constitutional litigation in Japan. apjjf.org/2024/2/Jones...

Brendan M. Howe offers a geopolynomic perspective of Japanese diplomacy that illustrates how alternative policy prescriptions for leadership by second-tier powers like Japan include non-traditional security minilaterals and regional international commissions. apjjf.org/2024/1/Howe....

Bruce Cumings spoke with Haeyoung Kim of the Korea Policy Institute about the current geopolitical landscape in East Asia, prospects for U.S.-Korea relations, and intellectual interventions made over the course of Cumings' career. apjjf.org/2024/1/Kim-C...

Joseph Henning details the unexpected role that William Elliot Griffis played in the controversial 1922 Ozawa v. United States case, in which the US Supreme Court ruled that Japanese immigrants were not “white persons” and therefore ineligible for naturalized citizenship. apjjf.org/2024/1/Henni...