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2008: Open book thread
As L+L editor I have failed miserably to organize the posting of some sort of “Best books of 2008″ list at Néojaponisme this month. Fortunately, this is the internet, so I’m going to crowd-source it...
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2008: Ono Susumu
Ōno Susumu (大野晋), Old Japanese specialist and one of Japan’s best-known linguists, passed away in a Tokyo hospital at the age of 88 on July 14 this year. Ōno made his academic name with important work...
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2008: Structural Pessimism
Doomsayers rejoiced in late 2008: Japan is officially in a recession. This Time article places part of the blame on the Japanese people’s "structural pessimism" — a catchy phrase from Shirakawa...
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2008: Kanji of the Year
The Japan Kanji Proficiency Examination Association (日本漢字能力検定協会) have announced their 2008 Kanji of the Year: 変, meaning both “strange” and “change” (and even “rebellion“). I had high hopes for this...
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2008: Change and Politics
As the kanji of the year suggested, 2008 was a year for change. Change, of course, was the message of U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama’s campaign, but in Japan, change seemed to mostly refer to the...
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2008: AKB MSSCRE
“I come to Akihabara…” / “I came to Akihabara…” Sunday, June 8, 2008. A man drives a truck into a crowd of pedestrians in Tokyo’s Akihabara district, killing three. He emerges from his vehicle and...
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2008: Girl Talk
This piece is published in collaboration with writer Nick Sylvester and his blog Riff Market. For those wanting more background on how we came to write this extremely long essay together, please read...
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2008: Lay Judge System
Candidates chosen for Japan’s new lay judge system: can imposed democracy foster real democracy? At the end of November, almost 300,000 Japanese citizens received letters informing them that they may...
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2008: Baby names
Benesse has published the results of their annual baby-name survey. Yui and Yūto are the top names for girls and boys respectively, just as last year, but since there are so many ways to spell both...
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2008: The Rise of Watanabe Atsumu
2008 was not the debut year for Watanabe Atsumu by any means. The 39 year-old actor and comedian was part of other comedy groups from 1991, notably Jarizumu, and his newer “Sekai no Nabeatsu”...
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