How many anime have you watched or manga you’ve read where the female characters dote on the male protagonist? You often see women argue over who is going to care for the guy in harem and other romance stories. For example, in Oreimo Kyosuke is forced to live alone so he can focus on his…
Category: Culture
Old Proverbs about Japanese Women
World War II marks a dramatic shift in Japanese history, equal in impact to the Meiji Restoration on the culture. The proverbs I will discuss trace deep into Japan’s cultural views of women and to the Confucian influence China had on Japanese culture. Women’s roles and freedom varied across the different eras of Japan, and…
Sitting Down to Tea with Sakuraco
Tea has a long history of being a part of high-culture in England and in Japan. Sakuraco offers tea-for-two subscription boxes that combine elements of Western tea tradition with Japan’s. Sakuraco was kind enough to send me another box to review–this box themed around cherry blossoms. After all, we are in cherry-blossom season. Although Sakuraco…
What is Moxa?
If you read any Japanese literature or history, you see moxa and moxa treatments mentioned. Basho in his travel writings discusses getting a moxa treatment before he travels. But what is moxa? What did it treat? Moxa treatments, often called moxibustion, is a folk treatment used to treat cholic, arthritis, gout, cancer, gastrointestinal problems, and…
What Seppuku Represents
Anyone who knows anything about Japan has heard of seppuku or seen it in a samurai film. Seppuku was a ritualized form of suicide and a judicial sentence handed down to men and women of the samurai class. The ritual began on the battlefield with the first recorded case performed by Minamoto Tametomo after his…
The Declining Population of Japan
By 2060, Japan will have a population of 86.7 million, from today’s population of 125 million (Yamaguchi, 2022). The population will also grow older. This trend has been going on since the 1970s, when experts first began to write about the decline (Date, 2007). Why is this a problem? After all, fewer people means more…