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Japan Subculture Research Center

A guide to the Japanese underworld, Japanese pop-culture, yakuza and everything dark under the sun.

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What’s really obscene in Japan? It shouldn’t be the vagina.

A vagina shaped boat. A blueprint for printing a vagina on 3D printer you have to download to see. Is it more obscene than these replicas of porn star vaginas…

From 98-Pound Weakling to Black Belt

  By Benjamin Boas Mou ikkai! Do it again! Punching someone properly is an incredibly difficult thing to do. It was not enough to simply drive my fist forward and…

Yakuza Rapper Releases Spoken Word Album: Yamazin/Collected Short Stories

Japanese rap has a bad rap.  It doesn’t rhyme, not really, it’s almost impossible to follow if you don’t understand Japanese, and most of it is crap.  Most of the…

Freedom: A Small Tokyo Bar Where Someone Knows Your Name

The tiny neighborhood bars and watering holes distributed throughout Tokyo are probably as numerous as the stars on a clear night in the Himalayas. Perversely, they’re often the kinds of…

The most obscene thing in Japan isn’t a 3D vagina model

The most obscene thing in #Japan isn't a 3D model of a vagina. It's something more insidious. http://t.co/L691cGnFJd — Jake Adelstein/中本哲史 (@jakeadelstein) December 7, 2014

Tokyo Pop: See it, believe it, breathe it. (Especially if you’re human sculpture)

"Tokyo is a place where tradition and new trends exist side by side. There are zones in the city that have specific character and others where everything is possible. From…

A Second of Satori: Sunset in Nara

Note: Now and then at JSRC, we come across a whimsical or interesting post about Japan that captures some of the quirkiness or beauty of this place. This is from @tomoshiga…

Harro Halloween Party 2014: Where to go in Tok-ee-oh (Tokyo)

Halloween is one of the biggest party events in Japan and some have estimated that Japanese people spend more on the festivities than those in America. And why not? This…

On Modern Slavery: Thoughts on Human Trafficking

[Not only do I find it personally abhorrent, but intellectually, it] is a terrible exploit of labor that robs women, men and children of their freedom and dignity. In fact,…

Japan’s Summer 2014 must-have Cool Biz items: white pants and fans all over your body

While this year's "cool biz" trend is white pants, there are other wacky items on sale to help you beat the heat in the office. Our personal favorite, however, is…