The Japan Society Review

By Kawakami Hiromi The Nakano Thrift Shop tells the story of newly appointed shop assistant Hitomi, as she gets to know her eccentric group of customers and co-workers. The setting of the thrift shop is a treasure trove of [...] Review by Poppy Cosyns

The first thing you notice about the Keshiki series – the new collection of contemporary Japanese writing from Strangers Press – is its striking beauty. Each of the chapbooks has its own unique design, reflecting [...] Review by Eluned Gramich

By Gitte M. Hansen Through evaluation of media including anime, manga, television drama and literature, Hansen addresses three issue: normative femininity, how it is represented in Japanese culture and how self-harm and eating [...] Review by Charlotte Goff

By Murakami Haruki Murakami’s Men without Women, like its titular predecessor of Ernest Hemmingway, deals not only with isolated masculinity, but also with the delicately balanced equilibrium of heterosexual relationships. Review by Chris Corker

By Furukawa Hideo The story is a self-reflective, at times self-loathing, journey through the protagonist’s experiences of Tokyo, and the three girlfriends that characterise this journey. As is typical of Furukawa, the story [...] Review by Alice French

Directed by Marcos Centeno Martín In 2014, Marcos Centeno Martín released Ainu. Pathways to Memory, “which portrays the problems of identity and assimilation of the Ainu people in Japan and means of preserving and disseminating their [...] Review by Susan Meehan

Written and directed by Yamauchi Kenji The action starts, tentatively enough, as a well-dressed woman, not yet in middle age, spies a rather shy young man looking in at the party from the terrace. She calls him out for looking at a woman, younger than [...] Review by Roger Macy

By Arthur Stockwin and Kweku Ampiah An important new book by two senior British scholars of Japan discussing the main issues facing Japan. Their conclusion is that ‘The new Japan that is emerging…will be more controlled, less democratic [...] Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi

Edited by Rachael Hutchinson and Leith Douglas Morton The book is particularly refreshing because it does not tackle Japanese literature from an exclusively chronological perspective. Instead, the essays are grouped thematically, creating sections on space and [...] Review by Alice French

Directed by Gary Lennon A Doctor’s Sword had the potential to explore an interesting, off-beat topic – the relationship of Ireland to Japan during WorldWar II. The complexity of the subject expands when one considers the 50,000 [...] Review by Roger Macy