japan is fucked up!

ilx japanophiles, are any of you knowledgeable about japanese art history especially okakura tenshin, fenollosa, meiji aesthetic nationalism, new conceptions of oriental art history and unitary asia?

or any good books on the development of asian art history, even.

if not, that's okay, too.

The Musée Guimet here just had an exhibition on Meiji art and the catalogue could be relevant: here. Nb it may be in French, I haven’t seen it. My autumn was too busy to go to the exhibition.

“On Tuesday, after a flood of eager consumers crashed the website of the electronics manufacturer Sharp, the company said that it would sell its latest line of masks via lottery.”

if you had told me in advance that Japan and Sweden would be outliers in the quality of their response to covid-19 I would have said "sure, makes sense" but I would have assumed the opposite of what actually went down.

Among other headlines you wouldn’t expect about japan

Low-tech Japan challenged in working from home amid pandemic

maybe this will finally cure them of fax machines

And hanko! Nice though they are.

https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent-family-fabricated

Thanks, good article

decided to do a (long) thread on nazis in anime/manga lol

major tw for nazi imagery, pedophilia, and antisemitism. pic.twitter.com/rhjaSTiBBT

— ube bebe race reveal party (@VlVlISM) April 20, 2021

Some of this is pretty shocking. I've seen a lot of back and forth about what Attack On Titan is really doing but I don't know.

Thanks for linking

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/08/18/drink-alcohol-japan-urges-young-people/

they should hire Viz as consultants for their national "drink more booze, kids" ad campaign

This is a bad idea

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/business/tiny-apartments-tokyo.html

The times really seems to have a handle on this theme

i lived in a tiny apartment. the bed was in a loft accessed by a ladder. the loft ceiling was too low to make love in many positions, nothing more elevated than a modified froggy style. to avoid climbing down, it was best to begin and finish in the living room / dining room / everything room.

tokyo is affordable. you don't need to live like this. it is fun for a while.