This study investigates the long-term associations between a childhood allowance (parental pocket money) and financial literacy, monetary attitudes, and time-discounting preferences in adulthood, with a specific focus on gender differences, using survey data from Japan. Gender factor analyses were conducted to identify common factors in psychological attitudes toward money. Subsequently, we estimated the relationship between childhood allowance and these factors, as well as the time-discounting preference and financial literacy by gender. Interaction terms between allowance types and gender were included to examine heterogeneous associations. Our findings reveal that regular monthly allowances are associated with good budgeting habits among males, whereas females receiving any form of allowance tend to have less negative attitudes toward money. Furthermore, the relationship between a childhood allowance and time-discounting preferences varies by gender, with females being more affected by the allowance. Additionally, the association between childhood allowance and financial literacy differs by gender and varies depending on how the allowance is received. Overall, this study underscores the importance of considering childhood financial experiences to understand financial behaviors and attitudes.

A particular fashion and lifestyle aesthetic called kankokuppo (Koreaish) has gained popularity among young Japanese women in the early 2020s, who increasingly admire what they perceive to embody the “atmosphere (fun’iki)” of South Korea. This article examines the semiotic rendering of a sensuous perception of Korea identified as “Koreaish” through aesthetically embodied practices and mediatized discourses. The analysis reveals the centrality of what I call a “soft unity”: softness that arises from ambiguated boundaries, taken up across discrete objects, practices, and social value regimes. Alongside growing calls to change Japanese society from a divisive to a borderless one, this softness is valorized as the quality of idealized sociality despite its association with highly normative femininity. The emergent “Koreaish” is emblematic of the postfeminist reformulation of the feminine ideal in neoliberal Japan, which manifests as a nexus of the demanifestation of differences and the reversion to conservative feminine values.

The article examines the boom of the “Mitsu Desu” game in 2020, which was created in the context of social distancing policies. In the game, players act as Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike, dispersing crowds to earn points. This case underscores that entertainment can help people cope with crises and can serve as an informal tool for policy implementation. The article identifies what design elements attracted people and analyzes how players interpreted in-game actions in relation to real-world situations. It also addresses the question of how conventional and new media triggered the game’s boom.

This article explores the early development of Japan’s recording industry, focusing on locally driven “minor transnational engagements” between emerging Japanese record companies and foreign recording experts. The initial phase of Japan’s recording history mirrored the pattern in most countries from the early 1900s, with major record companies organizing international recording expeditions equipped with new acoustic disc recording technology. However, it was homegrown firms in the 1910s, especially the Nipponophone Company (Nihon Chikuonki Shōkai 日本蓄音器商會), that positioned themselves as the main producers of Japanese titles and gramophones. In the second half of the 1920s, the industry evolved further with the introduction of electrical recording technology, and Japanese record companies embraced it by partnering with international labels to establish multinational ventures. With a focus on the acoustic recording era of the 1910s and early 1920s, this article investigates Nipponophone’s recruitment of foreign recording experts, who not only shared their technical knowledge but also served as strategic conduits for expanding the company’s presence across regional and international markets. Nipponophone and other domestic record companies grew through expert collaborations and secondhand emulation. Their efforts, rather than global campaigns led by the multinational major labels, played a decisive role in shaping Japan’s early recording industry.

Contention about representations of history and the purposes of History education has long surrounded Japanese History textbooks. From 2012, the ascent of powerful nationalist Prime Minister Abe Shinzō raised questions about possible political pressures on textbook content. This article analyzes recent market-leading junior high school and high school History textbooks to discover how pedagogical format and content related to controversial topics or national identity have changed since 2012. It finds that leading junior high school textbooks have largely maintained their representation of controversial topics, while developing investigative, analytic pedagogical approaches. Coverage of some aspects of ethnic and cultural diversity within Japan has increased. Following the implementation of a new curriculum from 2022, some high school textbooks for the new compulsory subject “Integrated History” facilitate a more analytic, “disciplinary” pedagogy than previously evident in compulsory high school History. Nonetheless, an “enhancing collective memory” approach to History pedagogy remains central throughout secondary education. These developments suggest that power over History education in Japan is distributed between a range of actors. The state, the market, and social pressures all influence the content of History textbooks in Japan.

Semi‐parliamentary government is a distinct executive‐legislative system that mirrors semi‐presidentialism. It exists when the legislature is divided into two equally legitimate parts, only one of which can dismiss the prime minister in a no‐confidence vote. This system has distinct advantages over pure parliamentary and presidential systems: it establishes a branch‐based separation of powers and can balance the ‘majoritarian’ and ‘proportional’ visions of democracy without concentrating executive power in a single individual. This article analyses bicameral versions of semi‐parliamentary government in Australia and Japan, and compares empirical patterns of democracy in the Australian Commonwealth as well as New South Wales to 20 advanced parliamentary and semi‐presidential systems. It discusses new semi‐parliamentary designs, some of which do not require formal bicameralism, and pays special attention to semi‐parliamentary options for democratising the European Union.

Adequate protein intake is crucial for preventing frailty and sarcopenia in older adults, but conventional dietary assessments are time-consuming. Developing a rapid screening tool for identifying those at risk of low protein intake is essential; however, no such tool exists for Asian populations. This study developed a prediction model to identify older adults in Japan at risk of low protein intake using a simple food intake questionnaire. The model was developed using data from 4,085 older adults aged ≥65 years from the 2013 and 2017 National Health and Nutrition Surveys. Protein intake was assessed using a one-day dietary record with a semi-weighted method. A multivariable logistic regression model was developed to predict low protein intake (<1.0 g/kg adjusted body weight/day), incorporating sex, age, adjusted body weight, and food intake frequency of nine food groups. Model performance was evaluated using the area under the receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve and a calibration plot, both adjusted for optimism through bootstrap resampling. Participants had a mean age of 74.1 years (standard deviation = 6.6), and 55.5% of all participants were female. The prevalence of low protein intake was 21.8%. Internal validation showed a bootstrap optimism-corrected ROC area of 0.695 and a calibration slope of 0.921. We developed a 12-item prediction model for identifying older adults at risk of low protein intake. The model provides a practical tool to identify older adults at high risk of low protein intake and is expected to be used in public health settings.

This article explores Japanese civil society through voluntary activity in the Save Article 9 movement, a citizen’s activism movement reaching over 7,000 groups in Japan initiated to counter attempts of some government leaders to change or eliminate the current constitution and Article 9–Japan’s renunciation of war and militarism clause. It traces influences on Japan’s so-called “Peace Constitution” as it developed in the postwar period, cyclical challenges to it, and cyclical responses of citizens to preserve and protect it. It discusses an Austrian born woman who grew up in Japan and through circumstances after the war became part of the constitutional drafting committee though neither Japanese nor American at that time. It discusses the emergence of the Save Article 9 movement and activities of those in it. It presents the story of one woman who was a founder of a group, the daughter of a former governor of Osaka Prefecture, whose story reflects her commitment and provides a window on her father as a prisoner in Siberian camps for five years after the war ended, as an advocate for the postwar constitution, and of “social law” as Governor of Osaka Prefecture in the 1970s. It also discusses the similar orientation of the Governors of Tokyo Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture during that decade. The article discusses how, after halting the threat to Article 9 in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Save Article 9 groups have continued to pursue a holistic vision of peace by being active in post-3.11 environmental debates, and as advocates for better relations between Japan and other Asian countries, notably Korea and China, and for greater inclusion of minorities in Japan, while remaining prepared for a re-emerging challenge to Japan’s peace constitution and its non-militarism clause Article 9.

Welfare politics can be largely assessed by the following three kinds of political prisms: bureaucratic politics, partisan politics, and social politics. Bureaucratic and partisan politics which accounted for the evolution of welfare states in East Asia are not adequate to illuminate the difference in recent welfare reforms between Korea and Japan after a significant political transition. Social politics is construed as a triangular relationship between civic advocacy groups, trade unions, and political leaders. The relative strength and weakness of civic advocacy groups in Korea and Japan, respectively, provide an analytical niche capable of explaining cross-national variations in welfare politics. The original version of the power resources model thus needs to be complemented by incorporating the role of civil society mobilisation in welfare politics. The core of new power resources in our comparative analysis is alliance-building led by non-parliamentary social forces, which cannot be easily measured by quantifiable strength of labour movements and affiliated political parties.

This study attempts to answer the question: When do civil society organizations (CSOs) function as a bridge between the informal political sphere and the formal political sphere by changing the political attitudes of their members? To answer this question, I used the Japanese General Social Survey 2003 (JGSS 2003). My main findings involve the effect of the face-to-face interactions that the CSO members have with government officials. The findings suggest that while CSO members without such interactions are no more psychologically politically engaged than non-members, the members with such interactions are. The findings have an empirical importance to those who study Japan since the country is currently undergoing CSO–government relationship reform and the number of CSOs is growing rapidly in the recent years. The study also has a theoretical importance to civil society scholars since this study attempts to unfold the mechanism in which CSOs’ positive effects on the members’ political attitudes are produced.

Although happy New Left radical may seem like an oxymoron, many veterans of the protest cycle of the late 1960s-early 1970s in Japan seem to find happiness through political participation in an alternative invisible civil society. Guided by actor-network theory and utilizing long-term participant observation data, the study finds that participants bring distinctive cultural capital to their political activism and use their specialized skills to organize events and produce material objects that explain and promote their ideas. They derive personal enjoyment and a sense of purpose from the creative activities of “making and doing” that characterize their autonomous participation in the invisible civil society, and simultaneously build networks rich in social capital. Their activities meet the criteria for experiencing well-being or happiness both through strong network relations (social capital theory), and engaging in activities with autonomous motivation (self-determination theory).

This article analyzes the relationship between subjective well-being (SWB) and participation in neighborhood associations (NHA) in Japan. While the theoretical and empirical literature suggests a strong positive correlation between participation in NHAs and SWB, recent research on Japan could not validate this result. This study shows how those diverging results can be explained by including two factors in the analysis: the voluntariness of the action as well as loneliness as a mediating variable. Using linear regression models on data from two different studies, we find that—even in the case of Japan—voluntary participation in NHAs is positively associated with SWB in two ways: directly and indirectly mediated by loneliness. This result is robust to differently sampled data and different measures of our key variables.