“The biggest problem in Japanese education is the idea that you can eliminate bullying by reforming the system.” That provocative statement opens an article in Shukan Gendai by the eminent Catholic novelist and conservative thinker Ayako Sono. It is provocative because the prevailing view ...

In his 1993 novel “Hanauzumi,” Junichi Watanabe pictures a prosperous farming village in Saitama. The year is 1868. The Meiji Restoration has just occurred. The shogun has been overthrown. The teenage Emperor Meiji has been conveyed from the ancient imperial capital of Kyoto and ...

Article 18 of Japan’s Constitution states, “No person shall be held in bondage of any kind. Involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, is prohibited.” And Article 97 declares, “The fundamental human rights by this Constitution guaranteed to the people of Japan are fruits ...

Here’s a surprising fact: One Japanese in a hundred lives abroad. It’s surprising because so much is made lately of Japan’s growing insularity. Young people seem less interested than ever in studying overseas, and voters last month elected a new government whose platform includes ...

Four-legged chickens In a book published last year titled “Shoku wo Kangaeru” (“Thinking about Food”), plant geneticist Yoichiro Sato describes his surprise when told by an elementary school teacher that many children nowadays draw chickens with four legs. Impossible, he thought. On second thought, ...

Commenting acidly on November’s U.S. presidential election, American columnist George Will said all it showed was “whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney has the smaller gigantic number of Americans not wanting him to be president.” Substitute the names of Prime Minister-elect Shinzo Abe and ...