Only in Japan: Yakuza Sued
The New York Times is reporting on tensions between the Dojinkai and the civilians living in the neighborhood of their headquarters. Two features of this are wo...
Category: Popular Culture
Otakon: Desperately Seeking Academics
I hear through the grapevine that the organizers of Otakon, the huge anime/manga/pop culture convention held every in August in Baltimore, are looking for acade...
A brief rant at an easy target
So I’m grading my latest World History quiz, and one of the terms is “samurai.” Being a two semester World History sequence, I didn’t sp...
Samurai Baseball: Off Base or Safe at Home?
[A version of this piece was published on Japan Focus (April 4, 2007)] Baseball fans, lovers of a good fight, and those who are curious about how we go about un...