Ikeda Hiroshi wrote an important opinion piece for the Tokyo Shimbun newspaper on February 26, 2016. Ikeda is a Kyoto University emeritus professor of German literature who has devoted his career to researching fascism. His numerous books include The Weimar Constitution and Hitler. Ikeda published this Tokyo Shimbun article at a tumultuous time in Japanese society: the government had shortly before pushed through state secrets and national security laws, and overridden the constitution to allow overseas military deployment. In response, mass rallies were staged outside the Diet building. In this climate, Ikeda's article is an unusual example in the Japanese press of criticism of a reigning government through direct historical comparison with a fascist regime of another country. At the request of the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Ikeda provided an original, expanded article on this theme. This article is particularly significant now that both houses of the Japanese Diet have two-thirds of their members supporting constitutional revision after the July 10 Upper House election, and Abe talks about starting debate this fall, with priority given to a emergency decree clause. CN

Kyoko Selden translated the Japanese contributions to the catalogue for the exhibit on Japan: The Shaping of Daimyo Culture, 1185-1868, held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. from October 1988 to January 1989. This expansive exhibit was the first anywhere, including Japan, to present the artistic legacy of daimyō (regional lords) from the rise of warrior rulers at the end of the Heian period in the twelfth century to the dissolution of the feudal system in 1868. Featured were portraits, calligraphy, religious sculpture, painting, armor, lacquer, ceramics, textiles, tea-ceremony utensils, and artwork related to Noh theater. The following two excerpts convey Kyoko's appreciation of art, her ability to translate classical poetry and various genres of prose across the centuries and her knowledge of Japanese history and culture.

An oblique tooth is viewed in the United States as requiring straightening, but in Japan it may be thought of as emblematic of a young woman's charm. While a slim body is a prerequisite for beauty today East and West, plump women were considered beautiful in Tang dynasty (618-907) China and Heian (794-1185) Japan. Starting from around the twelfth century in China, bound feet symbolized the attractiveness of women. But Japan, which received sundry influences from China, never adopted foot binding. Instead, shaving eyebrows and blackening teeth became markers of feminine beauty. Before modern times, neither Japanese nor Chinese paid much attention to double eyelids, but in the course of the long twentieth century, they became a standard for distinguishing beautiful from plain women. Thus criteria of beauty greatly differ by era and culture, and therein lies many riddles.

Introduction

Author Nagai Kafū (1879-1959; given name Nagai Sōkichi) is best known for his fictionalized personal travel accounts American Stories (Amerika monogatari, 1908) and French Stories (Furansu monogatari, 1915), short stories and novellas about Tokyo courtesans and low-ranking geisha, and an extensive illustrated diary, Dyspepsia House Diary (Danchōtei nichijō, 1917-59). Kafū was fascinated with Edo-period (1603-1868) culture, especially that of the chōnin, or urban commoners. He prided himself on his resemblance to Edo literati, such as poet Ōta Nanpo (also known as Shokusanjin, discussed in the selection below), who used kyōka (playful, often satirical, poetry) as an elegant form of veiled social commentary. Kafū challenged authority throughout his career, as evidenced in his professed dislike of Meiji-period (1868-1912) leaders, his opposition to the war and Japanese militarism in the 1930s and 1940s, and conflicts with censors and publishers.

Introduction

Born in Tottori Prefecture (where her last name is pronounced Osaki rather than Ozaki), Osaki Midori (1896-1971) was the fourth of seven children in a middle-class, intellectual family. Her mother was the daughter of the head priest of a Buddhist temple; her father was a teacher, who died while Osaki was a teenager. Osaki graduated from the Tottori Girls' School (Tottori Jogakko), and, at age eighteen, became an elementary school teacher. Aspiring to a literary career, she wrote poetry, essays, and fiction and sold a novel for schoolgirls (shōjo shōsetsu) to Shōjo sekai (Girls' World) magazine in 1917.

For more than three decades, Kyoko Selden was deeply involved in the Talent Education (Sainō kyōiku) movement, as a parent of three string-playing children and the translator of major books and articles on the Suzuki Method. Developed in the thirties and forties by the violinist Suzuki Shin'ichi (1898-1998), the Suzuki Method teaches children classical music as a means to enrich their lives while also enhancing their motor skills, concentration, memory, and self-discipline. Suzuki, who had studied the violin in Germany in the twenties, was one day struck by the capacity of children to master their native languages. Against the conventional wisdom that only certain people were graced with the talent to master musical instruments, Suzuki declared that anyone who could speak a language with facility had the potential to become a refined performer—whether amateur or professional—of music.

This article considers the experiences of Dutch and Indonesian women in enforced prostitution for the Japanese military during World War Two and the activism of prominent survivors and their supporters from the 1990s. It highlights how and why Japanese activists have continued to support these women and why Dutch and Indonesian women have rarely engaged in joint activism. It analyses how Dutch and Indonesian women's stories are presented together in a 2015-2016 exhibition at the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Tokyo and how women's and soldiers' testimonies are used to advocate further redress from the Japanese government and to challenge military sexual violence against women. The article assesses how a sustained focus in transnational activism on Japanese responsibility and the Japanese imperial context potentially leads to overlooking how localised forms of patriarchy and the specific context of this former Dutch colony affected women's experiences and their post war treatment.

On July 11, 2016, the organization Veterans for Peace issued a statement (see document below) observing the 162nd anniversary of the Lew Chew Compact, popularly known as a “friendship” or “amity” treaty. In reality, officials of the Ryukyu Kingdom were forced to sign it by Commodore Matthew C. Perry who commanded a squadron of battleships invading the Ryukyus in 1853 and 1854. The Compact permitted unlimited visitation and residence to Americans in Ryukyu and mandated that American criminal suspects be turned over to U.S. authorities aboard American ships. Also in 1854, Perry forced Japanese officials under threat of bombardment to sign the “Convention of Kanagawa” compelling Japan's ports to accept foreign trade and imposing a system of extraterritoriality which placed foreign residents under the jurisdiction of their respective nations' consular courts, exempting them from Japanese law. This was gunboat diplomacy much like what the United States imposed on the nations of Latin America throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Both of these “treaties” ominously foreshadowed postwar U.S. military policies toward Japan where the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) exempts Americans and their bases from key provisions of Japanese law; and, especially in Okinawa, where a disproportionate U.S. military presence remains despite overwhelming opposition expressed in elections, local government policies, and public protests.