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Issue 73 (February 2018, Volume 13, Number 1)

Issue 73 (February 2018, Volume 13, Number 1)

Welcome to the February issue of The Japan Society Review, the first in our thirteenth volume of the publication. We enter 2018 with renewed enthusiasm, bringing you reviews of interesting books, films and other events related to Japan. In this issue, we include reviews of two academic books, one focusing on the past and the other considering the future of Japanese politics and nationalism, an anthology of short stories by writers based in Kyoto, a book which received the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation Award and a Japanese film from The Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018.

Focusing on five controversial issues, Rethinking Japan: The Politics of Contested Nationalism explores Japan’s future prospects under the political direction of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s government. From another perspective, but sharing the contentious issue of historic revisionism, 'The History Problem. The Politics of War Commemoration in East Asia', documents the forms of war commemoration ‘against the background of a shifting international landscape in East Asia, and of evolving national perceptions about World War II in Japan’.

The two fiction books reviewed in this issue show the interest of non-Japanese writers in writing about Japan. Echoes: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 2017 is a compilation of memories, fictional accounts, poems and literary extracts which draw on individual experiences of Kyoto by a group of writers currently living or remembering their time in the city. The second fiction book is My Falling Down House by Jayne Joso, which offers a wonderful exploration of human sociality and isolation through the monologues of her fascinating character.

To conclude our February issue, the review of the film Japanese Girls Never Die offers some insights on the refreshing take on girl power depicted in the narrative, ‘a story of women who cannot find their place in Japanese society regardless of their efforts to fit in’.


Contents

Contributors

Editor
Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández

Reviewers
Morgane Chinal-Dargent, Sir Hugh Cortazzi, Alice French, Dr Andrew Levidis and Harry Martin

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