Via David Forbes, I found this post by John Haffner. It’s a strictly philosophical (read: Kant gets name-checked) discussion of rights and freedoms as they pertain to immigration, a summary of a panel on the subject held at Sophia University in Japan. Japan’s stance on migration is problematic to say the least: for a variety of reasons, it has always resisted granting citizenship to foreigners. Instead, it relegates them to a labyrinthine system of visas and second-class rights. However, the population of Japan is declining as the economy dies out (Roland Kelts describes that phenomenon here) and as feminism gains a stronger foothold*, leaving a rapidly aging population with a shaky tax base to support them and only temporary workers to care for them. Naturally, this has brought up discussion of immigration as a means to solve the problem.
The first obstacle, as pointed out by philosopher Mathias Risse, is that historically the right to international migration has been largely defined as a right to leave one’s own country. According to Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to leave or return to their country, and a right to movement within their country, but there is no established right to settle outside one’s country. As such, Risse pointed out, the right to move—as it exists now—is more akin to other liberty rights, such as the right to marriage, than to claim rights, such as a right to emergency medical attention. Just as people have a right to marry, but no right to demand that any given person marry, individuals now are widely recognized to have a right to leave their own country, but no right to demand to be let in somewhere else. They must first find a partner willing to accept their claim.
It’s an interesting discussion that might be of interest to anyone who enjoys learning about Japan’s position internationally or about the migration discourse in general.
*Note: I don’t want you to think that I’m blaming feminism for lower populations, because I don’t think there’s anything blameworthy with lower populations whatsoever. Our planet is over-crowded, and in all likelihood, you could probably be doing lots more to contribute to the greater well-being of your fellow humans than simply making another one. I mention feminism here because statistically, better-educated women have fewer children, and career women have children later in life. Since educational and workplace equality are goals of feminism, ones which are being accomplished in Japan, I felt clear to bring it up.
Mukokuseki (むこくせき) is a word meaning “without country of origin.” Since Koichi Iwabuchi started using it to refer to the statelessness of anime, the term has come into more common use among Western critics. Generally it refers to the way Japanese cultural products can be seen to erase national history and identity in an attempt to ingratiate themselves with a global audience.*
Or it could just mean “what happens when two shamisen-playing brothers from Hokkaido re-interpret an Italian composer who was himself re-interpreting American ones.”
*If you haven’t guessed, I take this up in my thesis. I’m not sure I entirely agree with Iwabuchi, but I also think that most of the planet is reaching for mukokuseki.
Via Just Hungry, we learn of Air Yakiniku, which is not an airline whose vessels are made solely from grilled beef, but something far, far stranger.
Seriously, Lynch and Cronenberg could not have made a creepier ad if they’d tried. Note the total blackness surrounding the characters of the commercial. Note the muted laughter of the “family,” and the Ring-like circle of the grill on the laptop. This is either a brilliant viral ad for yakiniku sauce, or a subtly terrifying campaign to encourage Japanese vegetarianism.
Either way, it speaks to a certain understanding of 21st century, first-world poverty: you may be too poor to afford meat, but you’ll always have a laptop.
Panels that generate energy from vibrations have been laid by ticket gates through which up to 80,000 passengers pass every day at Tokyo station.
In theory, the system consisting of slates, rubber sheets and ceramics can generate enough energy to power automatic ticket gates or electric billboards at the station.
In Fitting A New Suit, the main character (a Japanese man) keeps a “treadpad” inside his room and is obligated to generate energy with it as part of his living arrangement. (He’s a hikikomori.) Initially I was inspired by a story at Pink Tentacle about a very similar-sounding technology — perhaps it was an article on the proposal for this programme. Either way, let’s hope it works. The retrofitting of each major train station might take a while and annoy some passengers, but I’ve been there, and I know: harnessing that kind of foot-power could go a long way to making each station energy independent.
…By contrast, running is simply a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. I’m not good at it, but it’s something I can at least manage. Also lately I’ve been reading this book:
It was a gift from Mr. Ashby, and reading it led me to near tears on the subway one afternoon (I had to stop and put the book down before embarrassing myself utterly), because reading that first chapter is a lot like someone you respect wrapping his arms around you and say: “It’s okay if you suck. Maybe someday you won’t. But in the meantime, I love you regardless.”
I found out about Astral Project via this post at MangaBlog, and I’m glad I did. Because even if this story didn’t have call girls, cults, and free jazz beats that literally pull you outside your body, it has one very special thing going for it: it makes me feel like I’m back in Japan. Read the rest of this entry »
I just finished a new post over at FPS about the recent developments at the intersection of fandom and the law, specifically whether anime and manga featuring children in explicit situations still counts as child pornography. (In Canada, it already does.)
The argument for this definition states that even though the images are drawn and rendered rather than photographed and filmed, they still incite arousal on the part of the pedophile, and therefore encourage criminal behaviour. The argument against it states that the children are fictional and nonexistent, and that no harm is being done. Right now, this definition is being tested in Iowa. Christopher Handley faces twenty years in prison for possessing material imported from Japan that a postal inspector found objectionable. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is now serving as his special counsel.
...is a science fiction writer, grad student, おたく, and immigrant. She has lived on the outskirts of Los Angeles, Seattle, and Toronto, where she is now a member of the Cecil Street Irregulars and a contributor to both Tor.com and WorldChanging Canada. Her fiction has been published in Tesseracts, FLURB, and Nature.
I found out about 
