The Heisei era saw gradual yet far-reaching transformations in Japanese society and culture. Globalization, shifting identities, evolving family structures, and changes in education and public discourse all reshaped everyday life, while popular culture-from manga and anime to foodways and sport-emerged as a powerful medium through which Japan engaged the world. How did Japanese society balance global pressures with cultural continuity? And what do these shifts reveal about Japan’s self-understanding at the turn of the twenty-first century? This volume, the fourth and final in the Examining Heisei Japan series, brings together influential essays on themes such as symbolic identity, the role of the public intellectual, cultural transmission, and the social implications of globalization, offering a wide-ranging view of the forces that shaped the era. The insights presented here remain essential for understanding Japanese society today.
Foreword
Preface
Part I Issues of Globalization
1. Aspects of Globalization in Contemporary Japan
2. Rethinking Our Response to September 11
3. Japan in a World of Rival Empires
4. Globalization and Japanese Identity
Part II Japanese Identity
1. Portending the 21st Century
2. The Religious Identity of the Japanese
3. The Japanese World View: Three Keys to Understanding
4. A Perspective on Archetypes and the Japanese Consciousness: The Elder, Youth, Male, and Female Archetypes
Part III The Symbolic Emperor System at a Crossroads
1. A Turning Point for the System of Emperor as Symbol: Bagehot, Emperor Shōwa, and Fukuzawa’s On the Imperial Family
Part IV The Roles of Intellectuals and the Media
1. The Intellectual Community of the Shōwa Era
2. Ishibashi Tanzan: A Coherent Liberal Thinker
3. The Polarization of the Japanese Media and the Need for Middle Ground
Part V Education and Human Resource Development
1. Development of Human Resources and the Japanese Economy
2. Japanese Experience in Engineering Education: A Historical Recollection
3. Back to Basics in Elementary Schooling
Part VI Labor, Women, Youth, and the Family
1. In Search of a New Kind of Equality
2. Parasite Singles Feed on Family System
Part VII A Shift in the View of Nature
1. The Great Hanshin Earthquake and Dysfunctional Japan
2. The Limits of Urbanism
Part VIII New Possibilities in Cultural Reception and Dissemination
1. Shared Japanese Culture-Manga Will Surpass Kōrin
2. The Domestication of Chinese Foodways in Contemporary Japan: Ramen and Peking Duck
3. The Olympics: Politicized Games That Serve as a Civilizing Force
Part IX Kurosawa Akira’s “Last Will”
1. An Interview with Kurosawa Akira
Chronology of the Heisei Era
About the Supervisor, Editors, Authors