Word: japanism
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...Japan's politics are pretty much a no-laugh zone, so you might excuse voters in the rural southwestern prefecture of Miyazaki for electing independent candidate Hideo Higashikokubaru?a political neophyte better known as former TV comedian Sonomanma Higashi?to be Governor in a landslide win on Jan. 21. But Higashikokubaru's win may have less to do with entertainment than with public dissatisfaction over Japanese politics, increasingly seen as corrupt and ineffective. His predecessor, also an independent, resigned amid corruption allegations, and scandals have forced two of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's top ministers to resign...
...loss is disquieting for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which is worried about keeping its seats in July's upper house elections. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan is in even worse shape: with sparse grassroots support, it wasn't even able to field a candidate in the Miyazaki election. This disgruntlement "is very serious for the parties," says Takao Toshikawa, a Tokyo-based political analyst. Abe, who needs a strong LDP showing in July to stay in office, refused to see Higashikokubaru's win as a loss for his party, instead hailing it as "the voice...
...there may be something even more basic behind its success. Tokyo is a hard town, and it can be even harder for women. Under pressure to conform and marry--which often means surrendering much of their independence--they face a daily battle against the sexism that still pervades Japan, where fewer than 10% of corporate managers are female. The butler café may be to otome what the local bar is to the old company man, a place to unwind from the pressures of the outside world--and where the only members of the opposite sex are literally at your service...
...problem is less with the U.S. - Tokyo and Washington are closer than ever - but with the rest of Asia, particularly the countries that suffered under Japanese occupation, with which no consensus over the past has been achieved. Japan's military atrocities still enrage Chinese and Koreans, including ones born long after 1945, while many Japanese dispute the scale of their abuses, and see their country as the ultimate victim. Repeated efforts to forge a common view of the war through joint history commissions have gotten nowhere, and more than 60 years after it ended, a misplaced word about...
...Clint Eastwood's movie sidesteps the minefield by focusing on a single battle in the Pacific theater. It portrays Japan's soldiers as human, flawed and tragic, and Japanese audiences have no trouble identifying with them as they fight a doomed battle under a hard-driving but caring general (played by star Ken Watanabe) whom many Japanese would probably see as the perfect boss. Letters doesn't shy away from the suicidal warrior ethos that ultimately drove Japan's military to lead the country into obliteration - witness the scene where a lieutenant orders his men to kill themselves with live...