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…

In my latest essay on the history of Japanese sci-fi, I chronicle how a who’s who of pioneering SF creators helped to conceive and design The Japan World Exposition, Osaka, 1970. #japanese #scifi #sf #sciencefiction #history #worldexpo #WorldExpo2025 #expo70 #osaka

So Part One is available now on a limited release. This is the story of the decision that changed the world and it stars the grandson of the man who made that decision. Clifton Truman Daniel is Harry S Truman with Sadao Ueda as Hirohito. Please share. Listeh here podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Settlement reached in lawsuit over future of Kyoto University's Yoshida Dormitory throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2025/08/29/s...

Lake of Illusions (1982), dir. Hashimoto Shinobu

These "flasher bikes" were what Japanese kids dreamed of riding in the 1970s. An arsenal of souped-up lights on the back and various other accessories like mirrors and speedometers. No one ever said late Showa was subtle.

Hear me out: Daimajin (1966) vs Galactus (Fantastic Four: First Steps, 2025)

Japanese fiction now outsells all other translated languages in the UK—and it’s not just Murakami anymore. From cats to cannibalism, @susiemesure.bsky.social explores the literary boom that began with CONVENIENCE STORE WOMAN and shows no signs of slowing down. www.prospectmagazine...

Acclaimed screenwriter Kajiwara Aki ("I Am Kirishima") has just published a memoir about her father, who was a fugitive for many years as a former member of a militant group that carried out a bombing in Tokyo in the 1970s. throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2025/07/23/d...

Japan’s Sanseito is a far-right political group that’s pretty much anti-everything — immigrants most of all. They won 15 seats in the parliamentary elections yesterday. And boy, do they want to regulate Japan’s pop culture: blog.pureinventionbook.com/p/pop-and-po...

my essay for @aeon.co on the science of alien languages and science fiction has gone live! This thing is over a year in the making. Give it a read and let us know what you think! #xenolinguistics #alien #language #scifi #philosophy #solaris

Today I learned that the exact same Boeing 727 airplane that was hijacked by Japanese "Red Army" terrorists and flown to North Korea in March 1970 was later used by rock band U2 in their 1997 "PopMart" world tour. 🤯

‘Cult of convenience’: how Tokyo’s retro shotengai arcades are falling victim to gentrification (by @justinmmccurry.bsky.social) www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Very pleased to receive a copy of the new issue of Troublemakers magazine, which includes a personal essay I wrote about different migrant experiences in Japan. Given the anti-migrant discourse ahead of Sunday’s election, it happens to be quite timely. troublemakersmag.square.site/product/trou...

Publisher Gendai Shicho will cease operations in September. It was a bastion of leftist publishing in Japan from the 1960s onwards. www.gendaishicho.co.jp

Friend of mine was just telling me about a business trip to Osaka, killing time with coworkers in a St. Marc cafe before a client meeting, and overhearing this old dude just going deep into “Yeah, but is it real anarchist?” about all sorts of stuff. My mate turns round and the dude is Adachi Masao.

Interesting news report on the growing Vietnamese population in Nishinari, Osaka. It glosses over the problematic history of the district but has lots of good interviews with locals. youtu.be/LjWo4yrxq_M?...

Political graffiti on a post box in a quiet corner of Setagaya, Tokyo. Whatever your stance on the situation in Gaza, that’s a neat way to integrate the Japanese postal mark.

New reading.

It's quite bizarre to see how Yokoo Tadanori's career has gone from progenitor of iconic Shinjuku counterculture to art doyen showcased at Gucci Ginza Gallery. "I have no time left" – or perhaps "I have no (more) time for the left"?

Death by Landscape: Masao Adachi’s AKA Serial Killer. Alexander Mooney describes the film as a "hauntological landscape documentary" [and] "spectral travelogue [that] doubles as a psycho-geographical map of a nation in transition". www.documentary.org/feature/deat...

Pioneering composer, artist and theorist Tone Yasunao has passed away, according to an announcement by Collaborative Cataloging Japan. He was 90 years old. www.anothermag.com/design-livin...

“Escape”: Director Adachi Masao on His Film About a Leftist Who Spent Decades on the Run www.nippon.com/en/japan-top...

Can’t help but compare this to the Shingo Katori (Smap) exhibitions and think the critic is on to something. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...