Koji Wakamatsu Tribute: Sex, Violence, Revolution and the Cinema of Eternal Rebellion asianmoviepulse.com/2026/05/koji...

Seibu Kōdō and Punk in Kyoto: "This unit of Modern Kyoto Research looks at one of the city's more minor but nonetheless vibrant scenes: punk music in Kyoto." www.modernkyotoresearch.org/seibu-k%C5%8...

Silent, empty landscapes: Recent photographic practices about Sanrizuka and the Narita Airport protest movement throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2026/05/12/r...

Japan sees large protest in support of pacifist constitution as PM Takaichi pushes revisions www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

New reading

I was sorry to hear the sad news that Juliet Winters Carpenter, a great Japanese-English translator, has passed away. I saw a number of people post about this on Facebook this morning, and have also received an email via the SWET mailing list.

The Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo has published a "documentation book" about last year's (under-promoted but very popular) exhibition of war art from the museum collection. (Full disclosure: I translated one of the curator essays.) www.momat.go.jp/wp-content/u...

A millennium of Japanese history, as told through the samurai sword aeon.co/videos/a-mil...

"We must transform Tokyo into a political metropolis rather than a tourist attraction." A conversation with a student activist at the University of Tokyo about tuition protests, solidarity with Palestine, and Toyama Koichi. heatwavemag.info/magazine/iss...

‘Stop sucking up to America’: Japan’s youth rises up to protect pacifist constitution www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

The legendary student-run Yoshida Dormitory at Kyoto University will host GENIUS LOCI, a site-specific promenade theatre performance for three days from March 27. stage.corich.jp/stage/434675

‘I considered starting over as a farmer’: Masao Adachi on political cinema, revolution and Japan today www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

‘People ought to know’: Blue Boy Trial brings Japan’s trans history up to date www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

screening Adachi's Revolution +1 now (Feb 17th) is a hilariously political choice... natalie.mu/eiga/news/65...

New reading: books by Craig Mod and Tom Feiling

New edited volume focuses on the student movement at Kyoto University in the late 1960s. Contributors include some big names like Ukai Satoshi, Fujihara Tatsushi, Ueno Chizuko, Fuke Takahiro. www.seidosha.co.jp/book/index.p...

Finally in my hands - with chapters on such interesting thinkers as Kakehashi Akihide, Yoshinori Takaaki, Tokoro Mitsuko, Kuroda Kan'ichi, and a contribution by yours truly on Hiromatsu Wataru. @Enojp_org

An interview with Sakai Takashi about the snack dance (zigzag demonstration), a famous feature of Japanese protests, especially among the New Left during the Long Sixties. Sakai published a book about the subject last year. note.com/jinminshinbu...

Harumasa Abe on the decline of the New Left in Japan, arguing that the United Red Army incident and uchigeba in-fighting embody a "maximal tension" between two dynamics: centralization and fragmentation. illwill.com/uchigeba

闇市と都市―Black Markets and the Reimagining of Tokyo On view through February 23, the exhibition examines Tokyo’s legacy of informality at the Takashimaya department store in Nihonbashi. —> www.takashimaya.co.jp/shiryokan/to...

Very pleased to receive my copy of Political Thought and Japan’s New Left Movements, newly published by Bloomsbury. I contributed a chapter on Takita Osamu. www.bloomsbury.com/uk/political...

Adachi Masao's Escape is showing at the ICA in London from Friday, and just earned a four-star review in the Guardian. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ja...

"Japan’s Saipan island"? Apparently Roy Keane can time-travel back to pre-1944 days. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/ja...

What fresh hell is this? "Required to view paper"?!

The Japanese avant-garde has long had a complicated relationship with commercialism (v. Terayama Shuji and Parco, etc.), but angura actor and butoh artist Maro Akaji fronting a winter campaign for United Arrows (with his son and daughter-in-law) was not something I expected to see any time soon.

NHK is broadcasting a two-part documentary about the Japanese Red Army. It features an interview with the group's former leader, Shigenobu Fusako – her first mainstream media appearance since her release from prison in 2022. www.web.nhk/tv/an/mikaik...

Artist Yoshinao Satoh spliced thousands of newspaper clippings and Steve Reich music into a transfixing short animation, Papers (1991). The result is "a mass-media collage that seems to anticipate the age of information overload". aeon.co/videos/japan...

Zengakuren has seemingly cemented its split from parent organization Chukaku-ha by doing what any New Left group does: publish its own newspaper. mosakusha.com?p=12411

Very pleased to receive my copy of this comprehensive look at the work of Yanagi Yukinori. It includes an interview with Yanagi surveying his career as well as new essays by Bert Winther-Tamaki, Jane Farver, and Reiko Tomii. I translated several texts in the book. blum-books.com/products/yuk...

I wrote this piece about Tamaki Yuichiro's recent rise to populist fame and how centrists are paving the way for a more anti-establishment politics (against their better judgments)

I spoke to Paul Schrader and Alan Poul about the Japan premiere of MISHIMA: A LIFE IN FOUR CHAPTERS for the JT. There will be additional screenings of the film in Tokyo this weekend, tickets for which go on sale at noon today. www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2025...

"We also inaugurate a new section in the magazine of intergenerational transmission entitled “Learning With Our Elders,” in which an activist/militant shares with us something they learn from a past mistake or failure. We are honored to begin with a text by Fusako Shigenobu."

This scene captures the quiet magic of Tokyo’s unplanned, human-scaled backstreets—where cars are welcome only as guests, weaving their way gently through pedestrians and cyclists. Streets like these remind us that vibrancy and human connection are at the heart of every truly liveable, lovable city.

YIDFF 2025 – report 5: The Future of Dialogue: Yoshida Dormitory, Kyoto University asian-docs.com/2025/11/02/y...

Someone needs to do a deep dive into recent representations of Yoshiwara. The latest example is Tales of Edo Oiran, an immersive theatre event: "a beautiful, fleeting tale of the glamorous courtesans and the lively residents of the red-light district." 1/ immersivefort.com/show/tales-o...

New reading for the autumn.

A very insightful review of Adachi Masao's most recent film, Escape: "It's a work of genuine conviction made by an artist who has lived his politics, and it's a haunting and moving film, one that insists revolution is not a historical event but a lifelong condition." icsfilm.org/festivals/ne...

While the 1970 Osaka expo attracted febrile opposition from Japanese artists, the response to the soon-to-close 2025 expo was more muted. An exhibition at Wako University revisits the 1970 anti-expo movement from the perspective of religion and the avant-garde. www.wako.ac.jp/library/news...

Tosho Shimbun is to shutter next March, bringing to a close the almost 80-year history of the newspaper, which mainly publishes book reviews and author interviews. toshoshimbun.com

In the third instalment of my Japanese Sci-fi History newsletter, I conclude my two part article on the connection between SF and The Japan World Exposition, Osaka, 1970, open.substack.com/pub/elikpwil... #worldexpo #osaka #expo70 #japanese #scifi #history

Both Paul Schrader and Mishima Yukio seem chuffed that their film is finally going to screen in Japan.

"Mishima: A life in Four Chapters", directed by Paul Schrader, will get its first screening in Japan at this year's Tokyo International Film Festival. Schrader plans to attend. That's 40 years after its release, and the 100th anniversary of Mishima's birth. www.yomiuri.co.jp/culture/cine...

The poet Tony Harrison has died. I revisited his poem V, a reflection on grave vandalism in his native Leeds, and preserved in a film shown on TV in 1987. At a time of social divisions, this critique of our vacuous yet entrenched notions of "versus" feels relevant. www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPut...

Kurdish migrants face hostility as Japan wrestles with demographic crisis: “With their allies in the media, they turned this into a public safety issue, but they made no effort to actually engage with us.” www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Gentō and mine protests' screenings in Yamagata (2019) asian-docs.com/2025/09/25/g...

The fallout over a sexual assault accusation has led to a major split in Japan's biggest student movement throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2025/09/24/z...

New must-buy for readers interested in Japan's Long Sixties, reading the period through the framework of the iconic "snake dance" protest style: Snake People: Zigzag Demonstration, or the Genealogy of Tactics by Sakai Takashi rakuhoku-pub.jp/products/37

A far-left activist and lesbian dominatrix with a traumatic past. Who says politics in Japan is dull? throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2025/09/14/c...

Tokyo 68 – a fictionalized graphic novel focusing on women in the Tokyo University struggle of 1968-1969. Rebellious Japanese students of New Left protest movements. By artist Hélène Aldeguer and historian Chelsea Szendi Schieder. Future versions in English and Japanese. @chelseaszendi.bsky.social

Occupation des universités, manifestations contre les bases militaires américaines d’où partaient les avions bombardant le Vietnam ; lutte contre la construction de l’aéroport de Narita sur une zone agricole ; naissance du mouvement de libération des femmes…