Atelier Muji and the Institute for Art Anthropology at Tama Art University staged a Winter Solstice Festival at the Yūrakuchō branch of Muji from December 2011 through February 2012. The event invited contemplation of the meaning of the winter from a number of conceptual angles.
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The Geisai festival has been a fixture of the Japanese art calendar for 10 years. The event, organized by art world celebrity Murakami Takashi, is known as a hotbed of undiscovered and rising artists, and is nearly legendary for a vibrancy and immediacy unrivaled in the Japanese art world. What makes Geisai so special?
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Japan’s energy policies are being revised in the wake of the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami that struck the northeast of the country and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Nuclear power is currently second only to thermal power as Japan’s main source of electricity, but that is expected to change in the future. Here we take a look at data indicating changes in Japan’s electrical power supply over the past 60 years.
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There is a tendency for historians to study Japan within the limited regional context of East Asia—China, Korea, and Japan. Sugiyama Kiyohiko illustrates how a broader, Eurasian perspective can shed new light on Japanese historical trends in the medieval and early modern periods.
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Inspired by a traditional gateway at a Shinto shrine in Osaka nearly 40 years ago, the self-locking Hard Lock Nut has become an international success, offering improved safety and reduced costs by producing a nut that never comes loose.
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In a world that runs on integrated circuits, metal plating has assumed a key role in the manufacturing industries. Armed with state-of-the-art plating technology and a can-do attitude, a little company named Mitsuya has left its imprint on manufactured goods all over the world—and beyond.
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The Sasakawa Africa Association (SAA) administers and manages Sasakawa Global 2000, a program to bring about food security in sub-Saharan Africa. It celebrated 25 years in November 2011. A symposium to mark the event took place on November 2–4 in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré and Sasakawa Yōhei, chairman of the Nippon Foundation, were among those in attendance. British journalist Paul Melly was on hand to report for Nippon.com.
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More than 20 years have passed since the Gulf War, set off by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. The first international crisis since the end of the Cold War rocked the Japanese government and brought the shortcomings of Japanese diplomacy painfully into the open. We look back on the “Gulf shock” and its lasting consequences for Japan’s foreign policy.
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When the Asian economy took off in the 1970s, Japanese diplomats turned their eyes toward the Asia-Pacific region, and when the Cold War ended, the whole world focused on it. With the tripolar relationship among China, Japan, and the United States gaining in importance, how has Japan’s Asia-Pacific policy evolved?
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Japan’s political landscape has remained in a state of turbulence since the 1990s. We are now on our eighth prime minister in this century alone. What factors have brought about this situation? Machidori Satoshi provides the first in a series of pieces by leading Japanese political scholars presenting a comprehensive overview of the nation’s politics today.
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At the symposium on “Media Reporting and Risk Management After the March 11 Disaster” held on October 22 to mark the opening of nippon.com, discussions led by panels of experts from Japan and overseas examined issues surrounding media reporting and risk management in the aftermath of March 11.
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A symposium on “Media Reporting and Risk Management After the March 11 Disaster” was held to mark the official launch of nippon.com in October 2011. In his keynote address, former Economist editor Bill Emmott discussed the difficulties of accurate reporting on risk during a major crisis.
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The national origin of the pirates and smugglers who plied the East China Sea during the medieval period has become a major bone of contention among East Asian historians. Murai Shōsuke argues that by attempting to reduce the so-called Wokou to one nationality or another we lose sight of their fundamental character and the nature of their role in East Asian history.
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The research institute RIKEN has developed the world’s first nursing care robot. This cute, cutting-edge robot, named RIBA, is capable of gently lifting up and moving care recipients, adjusting its posture to suit each person’s physique. RIBA will help Japan cope with its nursing care crisis stemming from a rapidly graying population.
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Japan’s reputation as a “technological superpower” has been largely based on the diligent manual labor and the unyielding spirit of the country’s craftsmen. The first installment in this series introducing urban workshops showcases a small metal-crafter whose products have gone to outer space.
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More than sixth months on from March 11, life in the affected areas has still to return to normal. But with the passing of time, the disaster is beginning to fade from the public eye. The figures that follow serve as a grim reminder of the sheer scale of the devastation of that day.
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