Japan Subculture Research Center

There’s likely very few students who haven’t at least paged through one of the manga versions of the classics, like Essays in Idleness or the great Genji Monogatari, to prepare…

The talented Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times published an article recently focusing on a group of Japanese people who have been forced out of their homes and into…

The Japan Times published in last Sunday’s paper a mammoth of an interview with Jake by Mark Schreiber, stretching almost two entire pages across the Time Out section. While the…

Not the actual Yamaguchi-gumi event. (Taken by nori_n, who is not affiliated with JSRC) As posted on Japan Probe earlier this week, the Yamaguchi-gumi decided to add a little extra…

I wish I could be a little more cheerful around this time of year. I can remember a time when the Christmas season didn’t depress me much but it seems…

There was news this week of four prefectures working on additional legislative measures to stop organized crime organizations from working their way into the operations and offices of legitimate businesses.…

On an Internet message board, a concerned mother writes: Hello. My child has been attending kindergarten from March, and since then I’ve been working as a delivery health girl. I…

An article posted a few weeks ago but recently brought to my attention through Japan Probe: Tokyo Metro Police create dedicated anti-child porn unit A special Tokyo police unit to…

The Japan Times featured an interesting article by Brett Bull about nyotaimori (女体盛り), the custom of feasting on food served atop a [mostly] naked woman. Googling for images for this…

I’ve been heartened by a huge number of letters I’ve received in the last three weeks from people who read the book and were moved by it, inspired by it,…