Against Japanism
by Against Japanism
This podcast seeks to challenge the commonly held assumptions about Japan as harmonious, homogeneous, and traditional by recasting its history as a history of conflict and change, as the history of class struggles, from anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and intersectional perspectives.
Episodes
-
Remembering Kazuo Ishikawa and the Sayama Incident w/ Miho Kim
Miho Kim joins the show to discuss the life of Kazuo Ishikawa, the Japanese criminal (in)justice system, and the Buraku Liberation Movement. Kazuo was a man of the outcaste Buraku origin who was falsely accused of murdering a female high school student in 1963 when he was 24, a case known as the...
-
Happyend w/ Neo Sora
This episode contains spoilers of Happyend. Neo Sora joins the show to discuss filmmaking and radical politics. Neo is a Japanese-American filmmaker and Palestine solidarity activist based in Tokyo. His latest film Happyend was premiered at last year's Venice International Film Festive and…
more -
Attack on Titan: An Imperialist Propaganda w/ Kazuma Hashimoto
This episode contains spoilers of the Attack on Titan series. Kazuma Hashimoto returns to the show to discuss Attack on Titan, a popular manga and anime series created by Hajime Isayama. This is the first installment of a mini-series on art and politics, where we will critically analyze the role…
more -
Vietnamese Migrant Workers and the Legacy of "Technical Internship" Program w/ Le Phuong Anh
Maya and Kota sit down with Le Phuong Anh to talk about the struggle of Vietnamese migrant workers and international students in Japan. Anh is a PhD student at the graduate school of Asia Pacific Studies at Waseda University, whose research interest is in Migration Studies and international…
more -
Multipolarity or Anti-Imperialism? w/ Politics in Command
Kota sits down with J from Politics in Command to discuss "multipolarity," a discourse which sees the existence of multiple superpowers as a positive development from the unipolar world dominated by the United States. We ask whether the politics of multipolarity is genuinely anti-imperialist or...
-
Danchi, Social Reproduction, and the Politics of Urban Development w/ Marxist Disco
Felix a.k.a. Marxist Disco joins the show to discuss the wave of urban redevelopment happening in Japan right now. There are more than 200 buildings planned just in the Tokyo area including Japan’s tallest skyscraper on record, despite the chronic recession and stagnant growth rate the country…
more -
The Takarazuka Revue and Capitalist Urban Development w/ The BeruBara Tag Boom
Alex from the BeruBara Tag Boom joins the show to discuss the history and politics of an all-women musical theater based in Western Japan known as the Takarazuka Revue. We discuss the class politics of the Takarazuka Revue, particularly its ties to an Osaka-based private railway corporation…
more -
The History of Japanese Fascism: Part 1 w/ The Minyan
Kota sits down with Talia and Prez from the Minyan to answer the question: Was pre-WWII Japan fascist? This is the first installment of a multi-part series on the origins, political economy, and culture of Japanese fascism. Outro: Warszawianka in Japanese (ワルシャワ労働者の歌） Support the show
-
The People vs. G7 w/ Migrante Japan
Roger Raymundo, a member of Migrante Japan and co-host of Radyo Migrante re-joins the show to discuss the imperialist agenda of the upcoming G7 summit in Hiroshima, how it affects the workers, peasants, and migrants from the Global South, and other related topics such as the US-led militarization...
-
Caste Oppression and the Buraku Liberation Movement w/ Buraku Stories
Niki from Buraku Stories joins the show to discuss the history of the struggle of a discriminated outcaste people in Japan known as Burakumin. The term “Burakumin” originated in the early twentieth century, “Buraku” meaning “village” or “hamlet,” and “min” meaning people. However, the oppression...
-
Nikkei Organizing w/ Miya Sommers, J Town Action & Solidarity, and Nikkei Uprising
Kota joins an online forum “Nikkei Organizing: A Community Discussion on Organizing Strategy and Developing Revolutionary Movements” held via Zoom on November 13, 2022. The event was hosted and moderated by Miya Sommers from Nikkei Resisters as part of her Master’s thesis project, and joined by...
-
Anti-Obituary: Abe Shinzo w/ Deprogramming Imperialism
Alisa and Hye Sung from Deprogramming Imperialism join the show to discuss Abe's legacy and his ties to the Unification Church, and review everything that's transpired since his assassination by Yamagami Tetsuya in July before the unpopular state funeral this Tuesday on September 27, 2022. We...
-
The Anti-Vietnam War Movement and the Red Army Faction w/ Alex Finn Macartney
Alex Finn Marcartney joins Kota to talk about the history of the anti-Vietnam War movement in Japan and the legacy of the Red Army Faction or the Sekigun-ha, the mother organization of the Japanese Red Army and the United Red Army we previously discussed in this podcast. In this episode, we...
-
Mlitant Labour Unionism and State Repression in Kansai w/ David McNeil
David McNeil joins Kota to discuss militant labour unionism and state repression in the Kansai region of southwestern Japan. We specifically discuss the struggle of truck drivers who work for small-to-medium ready-mix concrete companies, and whose job is to take dry concrete, water it, and…
more -
The History of Revolutionary Feminism and Women's Liberation Movement in Japan w/ Setsu Shigematsu
Setsu Shigematsu joins Kota to discuss the history of revolutionary feminism and women's liberation movement in Japan. We first discuss the history of feminists in pre-WWII Japan such as Kanno Sugako & Kaneko Fumiko who critiqued the family system and its link with the emperor system, as well as...
-
Revolution Goes East: The Impact of the Russian Revolution in Japan w/ Tatiana Linkhoeva
Tatiana Linkhoeva joins the show to discuss her book Revolution Goes East: Imperial Japan and Soviet Communism. Some members of the Japanese ruling class reacted to the Russian Revolution with skepticism and hostility, culminating in the Siberian Expedition. Others saw opportunities in…
more -
On Intermediary Exploitation w/ Ken Kawashima [Patreon Preview]
In this preview of a patron-exclusive episode, Ken Kawashima discusses intermediary exploitation (中間搾取, chūkan sakushu) as a form of capitalist exploitation that indirectly exploits the labour power of workers through various intermediaries such as sub-contractors, labour brokers, and temp…
more -
The History of Filipino Migration to Japan w/ Migrante Japan
Kota is joined by Roger Raymundo of Migrante Japan, a regional chapter of Migrante International, a global alliance of grassroots migrant organizations of overseas Filipinos and their families. We begin our conversation with Roger’s own story of migration from the Philippines to Japan, and how…
more -
The Proletarian Gamble: Uno Kōzō's Theory of Crisis & Korean Workers in Interwar Japan w/ Ken Kawashima
Kota is joined by Ken Kawashima, author of The Proletarian Gamble: Korean Workers in Interwar Japan and translator of Theory of Crisis by Japanese Marxist economist Uno Kōzō. We begin the interview by discussing Uno’s methodology in analyzing capitalism called Sandankairon, or three-steps theory....
-
Ghost in the Machine: The Emperor System & Anti-Revolutionary Thought Policing in Interwar Japan w/ Max Ward
Kota sits down with Max Ward to discuss his book about the Japanese state’s effort to suppress revolutionary movements and ideologically convert their participants through the Peace Preservation Law in the 1920s & 30s. We begin our interview by discussing the elusive concept of “Kokutai”…
more -
Solidarity with the Palestinian Resistance w/ May Shigenobu
Kota sits down with a Palestinian-Japanese journalist Shigenobu May to talk about Palestine. May is the daughter of Shigenobu Fusako, a former member of the Japanese Red Army and a political prisoner in Japan. She is currently based in Lebanon, and since Lebanon is a country underdeveloped by...
-
Women in the Japanese New Left w/ Chelsea Szendi Schieder
Kota is joined by Chelsea Szendi Schieder to discuss her latest book Coed Revolution: The Female Student in the Japanese New Left. Women in the Japanese New Left played a vital role in building up the militant student movement against Japan’s new capitalist education system and its complicity…
more -
The History of Marxism in Japan w/ Gavin Walker - Part 2
Against Japanism presents Part 2 of an interview with Dr. Gavin Walker about the history of Marxism in Japan, focusing on the postwar period starting in the late 1940s. First, we discuss the reason behind the Japanese Communist Party’s re-emergence as a mass party in the immediate postwar period....
-
The History of Marxism in Japan w/ Gavin Walker - Part 1
In this two part series, Kota sits down with Gavin Walker to discuss the history of Marxism in Japan. Instead of simply narrating the facts of this history chronologically, we focus on particular theoretical and political questions that animated the Japanese communist movement before and after…
more -
A Fundraising Appeal from Pato-chan
This mini-episode features a message from Pat (also known as Pato-chan), a trans woman from the Philippines and a former migrant detainee living in Japan, who is raising funds to support herself during her "provisional release" (Karihoumen in Japanese) which prohibits her from working and…
more -
Translating the Japanese Ideology: The Anti-Fascist Philosophy of Tosaka Jun w/ Robert Stolz - Part 2
In the second part of an interview with Robert Stolz, we continue our conversation about the affinity between fascism and liberalism, as well as the difference between idealist and materialist philosophies theorized by Tosaka Jun in his book The Japanese Ideology from 1935. According to Tosaka,...
-
Translating the Japanese Ideology: The Anti-Fascist Philosophy of Tosaka Jun w/ Robert Stolz - Part 1
In this two part series, Kota is joined by Robert Stolz to discuss the anti-fascist philosophy of Tosaka Jun, a Marxist philosopher and cultural critic active during the 1930s. Tosaka is often associated with the Kyoto School, a group of academics who studied together at Kyoto Imperial…
more -
Orientalism and Reactionary Ideologies in Video Games w/ Kazuma Hashimoto and Andrew Kiya
Kota is joined by Kazuma Hashimoto and Andrew Kiya to discuss the Ghost of Tsushima, its fetishization of the samurai through a misinterpretation of Kurosawa Akira's films, Cyberpunk 2077, how Orientalism and the idealization of Japan in these games (re-packaged and exported abroad through the...
-
Introduction to the Against Japanism Podcast
Warm and militant greetings! I'm your host Kota and welcome to the Against Japanism Podcast: Destabilizing Japanese History from the Left! In this introductory episode, I discuss the goals of this podcast and the principles behind it, and preview the upcoming episodes that I have already recorded...
About this show
This podcast seeks to challenge the commonly held assumptions about Japan as harmonious, homogeneous, and traditional by recasting its history as a history of conflict and change, as the history of class struggles, from anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and intersectional perspectives.
Hosted by
Against Japanism