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Japan Subculture Research Center

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Contemporary Culture

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  • “The name is Bond. Japan Bond.” Abe returns as Agent .007 in “Yenwrecker”

“The name is Bond. Japan Bond.” Abe returns as Agent .007 in “Yenwrecker”

"The name is Bond. Japan Bond." Shinzo Abe returns as the economic death-dealing agent .007 in a new action thriller that has all the economists shaking. Will he be able…

Coffee & Cigarettes Together At Last : Speak Lark, Drink up

Any hard-boiled journalist or cop will tell you that coffee and cigarettes go well together. So I guess it was a stroke of marketing genius for Philip Morris to team…

The Town of Living Buddha Statues (仏像のまち) High School, Buddhist Iconography, Magic &Teen Love

It's the story of Sorato, a high school student who's deceased father was a sculptor of Buddhist images (仏師/busshi)and seems to have passed his unusual talent on to poor Sorato-kun.…

Three Lessons I Learned On The Police Beat: For My High School

I wanted to share with the students the things in life I wish I'd learned when I was younger. 継続は力 (Keizoku wa Chikara). Persistence is power. Sometimes, the only difference…

Deadly cult, Aum Shinrikyo, has criminal case finally closed After 17 years

This week Japanese police has finally put an end to a 17 years criminal investigation into a series of Aum Shinrikyo cult incidents. On Monday, September 24th,  Tokyo prosecutors indicted the last…

Exorcism Gets Everybody Killed; Female Faith Healer Gets The Gallows

The faith-healer and self-professed exorcist, Sachiko Eto, her daughter and another accomplice had beaten their victims to death, using thick drumsticks designed for the Japanese 太鼓 (Taiko) and other blunt…

Yakuza Comix: An Illustrated Guide To The Front Company フロント企業図解

To give you an idea of the scale of organized crime front companies in Japan, in Tokyo alone, there were over 1,000 at the end of 2010. And those are…

Yasukuni Shrine: The Nation’s Pacifying Shrine That Angers Other Nations

Yasukuni Shrine. 靖国神社. 靖 (Yasu) means "peaceful" "国" (Kuni) means "Nation". "神社" (Jinja) means "Shrine." The Shrine of The Peaceful Nation. And it's true, Japan is now a peaceful nation,…

Japan’s PM Hears The Anti-Nuclear Protestors But Is He Really Listening?

it’s hard to ignore more than 20,000 anti-nuclear protesters at your front door. A tattooed female artist and a soft-spoken white collar worker have joined with thousands of others to…

Japanese Police Women To Go Up To 10% Of Force….by 2023.

The National Police Agency 2012 Edition of the annual White Paper on Crime hit bookstores last week with details of Japan’s shocking plan to raise the number of women in…