February 2012
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Recent Trends in Organized Crime in Japan: Yakuza... →
The popular status of outlaws logically relates to the integrity of the legal system outside which they operate. Putting it simply, for villains to look bad, the police need to look good. Tamura Eitarō has shown how the chivalrous image enjoyed by nineteenth-century yakuza stemmed in part from public disgust for corruption and violence by the police squads who hunted them. A similar problem...
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January 2012
13 posts
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North Korea's Choice: Collapse or Reform →
Should Kim Jong Un succeed in establishing himself over the next few months, policymakers and analysts will express hope that he will usher in an era of reform. But as long as he wants to remain alive and in control of North Korea, he will have little choice but to continue his father’s policies. To survive, the North Korean state will have no choice but to remain what it is now — an...
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Graffiti Rat Case challenges South Korean Freedom... →
Please imagine that you spray graffiti rats on a few government posters. You get caught. Presumably, the worst that will happen is a warning or a fine before you’re released. Right?
Well, in an affront to freedom of expression in South Korea with strongly political overtones, one person faces the prospect of 10 months in prison.
On 31 October 2010, Mr. Park sprayed graffiti of a rat on 22...
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조덕배 - 나의 옛날이야기
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Theatre of War and Prospects for Peace on the... →
The South Korean version of the Yeonpyeong Incident contains at least two important inaccuracies. One is a deliberate falsehood, and the other more a matter of spin. Firstly the falsehood. It is claimed that the North Korean shelling on 23 November was a ‘surprise’. This has been reiterated so often that even liberal newspapers such as the Hankyoreh repeat it. Thus we read, in 2011, that: North...
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Kyoko Kagawa: the interview →
And which director left the most abiding impression?
The one that stands out most for me is A Story from Chikamatsu. Mizoguchi wouldn’t give us much direction on set: when we arrived he would just say, ‘Okay, go ahead, do it’ and that was it. It would be test after test after test until we finally got it right, so that was very tough. But I do feel that, by doing this, Mizoguchi taught me the...
December 2011
15 posts
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Mr. Fingers - Can You Feel It
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Ferrari at it again.. →
Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo believes the team made the right decision in leaving FOTA… Luca di Montezemolo says that Ferrari withdrew from FOTA because other members were not respecting the organization’s rules. He insists that there was no collaboration on the decision with Red Bull Racing, which pulled out of the teams’ organization at the same time. “We have left FOTA of our...
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Negotiation Can Work With North Korea →
A brief recounting of historical facts shows that for the better part of two decades, stonewalling the North has consistently produced dangerous developments. Indeed, Pyongyang began acquiring the means to enrich uranium in 1997, but only after the Clinton administration was slow to live up to its end of the Agreed Framework, the U.S.-North Korean pact freezing North Korea’s nuclear effort....
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Deep Dish - Chocolate City
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Eiga Stars :: Portraits of Japanese Divas in Fan... →
The Japanese film-going public was as movie mad as any of their counterparts in the U.S., England, or France., with a healthy film publications industry that rivaled any other. According to the 1937 Cinema Yearbook of Japan, over fifty film-specific magazines were being published every year, each categorized into various sub-groups such as “Magazines for Businesses,” “Magazines for...
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Pan-Asianism as an Ideal of Asian Identity and... →
The economic and political power of Asia, the world’s largest continent, is increasing rapidly. According to the latest projections, the gross domestic products of China and India, the world’s most populous nations, will each surpass that of the United States in the not-too-distant future. China’s economy, like Japan’s, is already larger than that of any single European country. With this...
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Le Couple - ひだまりの詩
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Puncturing the U.S. Base Myths →
As Washington continues to debate the consequences of defense cuts, one line of popular thinking is that we can save tax dollars without sacrificing security if we close down our overseas bases and bring our forces home. Why do we still have bases in Europe? Shouldn’t the Japanese just defend themselves? But while we should carefully review the proper balance of our forward-deployed military...
November 2011
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The Effect on the U.S. Economy of Changes in... →
Oh good lord, what am I reading… The quality of China’s military force is not currently up to U.S. standards. But China’s defense budget will grow with its GDP. It is important for the United States to recognize that future generations of Chinese leaders could use its larger GDP to pursue more aggressive policies.
America’s defense policy and our defense budget should therefore focus...
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Cybotron - Techno City
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The lolicon circus continues to gather steam. →
JAKARTA — An AKB48 song blares from a hall in central Jakarta, as 44 girls inside wearing colorful gym clothes and cute sport shoes follow the instructions and movements of their performance instructor.
The song, “Heavy Rotation,” is the 17th single by all-girl group AKB48, one of Japan’s most popular idol groups. The girls in the park are auditioning for JKT48, which by...