New reading: issue of Spectator about historical itinerants and drifters in Japan.
William Andrews
@william-andrews.bsky.social
Working on: sociocultural history, radicalism, theatre, countercultures, New Left, memory, anti-Olympics, urbanism. Book on Adachi Masao out September 1. PhD on 1960s Japan in progress. https://www.williamandrewswriter.com
Okamoto Kozo, the last surviving member of the group of Japanese who attacked Lod Airport in 1972, has died at the age of 78. He was released from prison in the 1980s. He later received asylum in Lebanon and lived under the protection of the PFLP. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...
Kozo Okamoto, Japanese militant who took part in a 1972 Tel Aviv airport attack, dies in Beirut
Kozo Okamoto, a Japanese militant involved in a deadly attack on Tel Aviv’s airport over 50 years ago, has died in Beirut at 78
washingtonpost.com
International Association of Art Critics Japan has issued a statement opposing the Flag Desecration Bill out of fear that works of art that use the Japanese national flag might be subject to punishment under the new law. (Pictured: Yanagi Yukinori's World Flag Ant Farm.) critique.aicajapan.com/18358
it's here Adachi Masao, Pink Auteur, Red Outlaw and Japan's Cinema of Revolution by @william-andrews.bsky.social Awai Books
Tokyo High Court orders compensation over the death of left-wing activist Hoshino Fumiaki in prison throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2026/06/27/t...
Tokyo High Court orders compensation over death of left-wing activist Hoshino Fumiaki in prison
On 26 June, the Tokyo High Court handed down a ruling in an appeal filed by three bereaved family members seeking damages from the state over the death of left-wing activist Hoshino Fumiaki in 2019…
throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com
Born into an elite Japanese family, the photographer Akihiko Okamura (1929-85) was an unlikely candidate to become one of the most perceptive chroniclers of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. aeon.co/videos/a-jap...
Lost memoir of Hiroshima survivor found after decades in US archive. Written in 1947, Kiyoshi Tanimoto's account of the horrors of the atomic bomb attack will be published in August and is being made into a film. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...
Lost memoir of Hiroshima survivor found after decades in US archive
Written in 1947, Kiyoshi Tanimoto’s account of the horrors of the atomic bomb attack will be published in August and is being made into a film
theguardian.com
It gives me great pleasure to share the release of my decade-in-the-writing critical biography of filmmaker/activist Adachi Masao. Pink Auteur, Red Outlaw: Adachi Masao and Japan’s Cinema of Revolution is out September 1 via Awai Books. awaimedia.com/WilliamAndre...
Photographs as Action: The All-Japan Students’ Photo Association and the Making of Eco-Critical Photography in Japan, 1960s–2020s www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Photographic documentation by Matsumoto Michiko of the 1970s Women's Lib movement in Japan www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Koji Wakamatsu Tribute: Sex, Violence, Revolution and the Cinema of Eternal Rebellion asianmoviepulse.com/2026/05/koji...
Koji Wakamatsu Tribute: Sex, Violence, Revolution and the Cinema of Eternal Rebellion
A tribute to Koji Wakamatsu, one of Japanese cinema’s most uncompromising voices, whose work transformed pinku, exploitation, political cinema, and low-budget filmmaking into a radical language of sex...
asianmoviepulse.com
Seibu Kōdō and Punk in Kyoto: "This unit of Modern Kyoto Research looks at one of the city's more minor but nonetheless vibrant scenes: punk music in Kyoto." www.modernkyotoresearch.org/seibu-k%C5%8...
Silent, empty landscapes: Recent photographic practices about Sanrizuka and the Narita Airport protest movement throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com/2026/05/12/r...
Silent, empty landscapes: Recent photographic practices about Sanrizuka and the Narita Airport protest movement
This year has seen the publication of Wakayama Tadataka’s photo book Threshold from Akaaka, the latest in a growing corpus of photographic practices that engage with the legacy of the Narita …
throwoutyourbooks.wordpress.com
Japan sees large protest in support of pacifist constitution as PM Takaichi pushes revisions www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...
Japan sees largest protest in support of pacifist constitution as PM Takaichi pushes revisions
Japanese leader Sanae Takaichi has called for discussions to revise the constitution, saying it should ‘reflect the demands of the times’
theguardian.com
I was sorry to hear the sad news that Juliet Winters Carpenter, a great Japanese-English translator, has passed away. I saw a number of people post about this on Facebook this morning, and have also received an email via the SWET mailing list.
The Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo has published a "documentation book" about last year's (under-promoted but very popular) exhibition of war art from the museum collection. (Full disclosure: I translated one of the curator essays.) www.momat.go.jp/wp-content/u...
momat.go.jp
"We must transform Tokyo into a political metropolis rather than a tourist attraction." A conversation with a student activist at the University of Tokyo about tuition protests, solidarity with Palestine, and Toyama Koichi. heatwavemag.info/magazine/iss...
Yasuda Redux | Heatwave
A conversation with Tatsuki Kihira, a Japanese comrade active in organizing the 2024 tuition protests, about their approaches to composition and escalation, the movement’s vertical and horizontal conn...
heatwavemag.info
‘Stop sucking up to America’: Japan’s youth rises up to protect pacifist constitution www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...
‘Stop sucking up to America’: Japan’s youth rises up to protect pacifist constitution
Protests are growing against moves to change Japan’s ‘supreme law’, a document written by the US that is now being challenged by Iran war
theguardian.com
The legendary student-run Yoshida Dormitory at Kyoto University will host GENIUS LOCI, a site-specific promenade theatre performance for three days from March 27. stage.corich.jp/stage/434675
‘I considered starting over as a farmer’: Masao Adachi on political cinema, revolution and Japan today www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...
‘I considered starting over as a farmer’: Masao Adachi on political cinema, revolution and Japan today
The director and ex-Japanese Red Army militant discusses his new film Escape, about the anarchist fugitive Satoshi Kirishima, the frustrations of radical film-making and progressive politics
theguardian.com
‘People ought to know’: Blue Boy Trial brings Japan’s trans history up to date www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...
‘People ought to know’: Blue Boy Trial brings Japan’s trans history up to date
Kasho Iizuka’s feature casts trans actors to revisit a notorious 1965 trial that made gender reassignment illegal for more than 30 years. He explains why the history remains unfinished
theguardian.com
screening Adachi's Revolution +1 now (Feb 17th) is a hilariously political choice... natalie.mu/eiga/news/65...
山上徹也裁判は何だったのか、「REVOLUTION＋1」特別上映会＆トークライブ開催 - 映画ナタリー
安倍晋三元首相の銃撃犯である山上徹也をモデルに描いた映画「REVOLUTION＋1」の特別上映会およびトークライブ「安倍元首相銃撃犯・山上徹也裁判は何だったのか」が、2月17日に東京・新宿歌舞伎町のロフトプラスワンにて開催される。
natalie.mu
New reading: books by Craig Mod and Tom Feiling
New edited volume focuses on the student movement at Kyoto University in the late 1960s. Contributors include some big names like Ukai Satoshi, Fujihara Tatsushi, Ueno Chizuko, Fuke Takahiro. www.seidosha.co.jp/book/index.p...
Finally in my hands - with chapters on such interesting thinkers as Kakehashi Akihide, Yoshinori Takaaki, Tokoro Mitsuko, Kuroda Kan'ichi, and a contribution by yours truly on Hiromatsu Wataru. @Enojp_org
An interview with Sakai Takashi about the snack dance (zigzag demonstration), a famous feature of Japanese protests, especially among the New Left during the Long Sixties. Sakai published a book about the subject last year. note.com/jinminshinbu...
【2026新年特集・下】 酒井隆史さんに聞く！ ジグザグデモ盛衰史から見える、日本社会の閉塞感打破の一手｜人民新聞
前の仲間の肩を掴み、道いっぱいに広がり、一匹の蛇となって右へ左へうねっていく。60年安保を前後してその最盛期を迎えた「ジグザグデモ」は、民衆の自発性、そして示威行動としての華やかさから民衆に支持された。しかし体制権力と、何よりも自身の統制力の低下を恐れた運動内指導部によって、蛇は退治された。これらの大衆運動の歴史を掘り起こすことで、前号で特集した「極中道」現象や、今の日本の社会運動の課題と打開策が...
note.com
Harumasa Abe on the decline of the New Left in Japan, arguing that the United Red Army incident and uchigeba in-fighting embody a "maximal tension" between two dynamics: centralization and fragmentation. illwill.com/uchigeba
Fragmentation, Centralization, and Civil War in the Japanese Ultra-Left • Ill Will
Harumasa Abe on revolutionary organization and internecine violence in 1960s and ’70s Japan.
illwill.com
闇市と都市―Black Markets and the Reimagining of Tokyo On view through February 23, the exhibition examines Tokyo’s legacy of informality at the Takashimaya department store in Nihonbashi. —> www.takashimaya.co.jp/shiryokan/to...
