Random Japan

Tokyo art museum to hold exhibition on the links between anime, video games, and Japanese society

Casey Baseel

Over the past quarter century, manga, anime, and video games have surpassed their former status as nice hobbies. Not only have all three become extremely lucrative industries, they’ve now been such integrated parts of popular youth culture for long enough to have had a significant influence on a large portion of Japan’s adult population, too.

With that in mind, one of Tokyo’s most prestigious art museums has announced an upcoming exhibition that examines the way comics, animation, and games have been affected by, and in turn have affected, Japanese society over the past 25 years.

The rather straightforwardly named Manga * Anime * Games from Japan exhibition will be held at the National Art Center, located in Tokyo’s Nogizaka neighborhood. For the event, the museum will be specifically looking at works created since the death in 1989 of Osamu Tezuka, the Japanese comics pioneer known as the God of Manga.

86 Average number of minutes Japanese high school students spend texting their friends on weekdays, according to a survey by Benesse Corp

25,374 Vehicles sold worldwide by Toyota Motor Corp in 2014, the most of any automaker

¥139.6 Average cost of a liter of gasoline in Japan last month—the lowest in 29 years—according to industry figures

STRANGE DAYS

• Sony president Kazuo Hirai described the cyber-attack against his company’s U.S. movie division as being so sophisticated, it’s like it came “from another dimension.”
• Meanwhile, officials with the central government unveiled a plan to enlist private-sector security experts to boost the country’s defenses against hackers.
• Archaeologists in Fukui discovered a bird fossil dating back to the Cretaceous Period, about 120 million years ago. It’s just the second fossilized bird ever found in Japan.
• Residents in Shika, Ishikawa Prefecture, made a startling discovery in the early hours of January 9: A man, believed to be North Korean, who washed ashoreaboard a 10-meter-long fishing boat.

Drugs And A  Taxi

Equals The Great Escape

0.1 Grams Of Drugs

In Japan That Equates To A Drug Cartel

The Brilliance Of Stupidity

Let's Show Elementary School Students Pictures of Decapitated Bodies 

NHK president to wait for gov't statement before deciding to air 'comfort women' programs

The president of Japan's public broadcaster NHK told a news conference on Feb. 5 that the network will have to think carefully about featuring the so-called "comfort women" issue as part of its World War II 70th anniversary programs, since the government has not yet decided on its official stance toward this matter.

During a regular news conference, NHK President Katsuto Momii said, "We will have to think carefully about whether airing programs on the comfort women issue is appropriate, since we have not yet learned the government's official stance." This suggests that NHK looks to plan special feature programs while closely following developments regarding Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's statement to be released as early as this August regarding the 70th anniversary of the war's end.