Against Japanism

Apr 07 2025 30 ep. 88 mins 390

Against Japanism Podcast artwork

This podcast seeks to challenge the commonly held assumptions about Japan as harmonious, homogeneous, and traditional by recasting its history as a history of conflict and change, as the history of class struggles, from anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, and intersectional perspectives.

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Remembering Kazuo Ishikawa and the Sayama Incident w/ Miho Kim

Apr 07 2025 85 mins

Miho Kim joins the show to discuss the life of Kazuo Ishikawa, the Japanese criminal (in)justice system, and the Buraku Liberation Movement. Kazuo was a man of the outcaste Buraku origin who was falsely accused of murdering a female high school student in 1963 when he was 24, a case known as the Sayama Incident. Following Kazuo’s arrest, the police lied to him and pressured him t

Happyend w/ Neo Sora

Feb 03 2025 104 mins

This episode contains spoilers of Happyend. Neo Sora joins the show to discuss filmmaking and radical politics. Neo is a Japanese-American filmmaker and Palestine solidarity activist based in Tokyo. His latest film Happyend was premiered at last year's Venice International Film Festive and Toronto International Film Festival, and is currently showing in theaters across Japan (The f

Attack on Titan: An Imperialist Propaganda w/ Kazuma Hashimoto

Oct 22 2024 82 mins

This episode contains spoilers of the Attack on Titan series. Kazuma Hashimoto returns to the show to discuss Attack on Titan, a popular manga and anime series created by Hajime Isayama. This is the first installment of a mini-series on art and politics, where we will critically analyze the role of art in promoting Japanese imperialism and how we can revolutionize art in service of

Vietnamese Migrant Workers and the Legacy of "Technical Internship" Program w/ Le Phuong Anh

Mar 05 2024 87 mins

Maya and Kota sit down with Le Phuong Anh to talk about the struggle of Vietnamese migrant workers and international students in Japan. Anh is a PhD student at the graduate school of Asia Pacific Studies at Waseda University, whose research interest is in Migration Studies and international student mobility, as well as Vietnamese middle skill migrant workers in Japan. She is the co

Multipolarity or Anti-Imperialism? w/ Politics in Command

Sep 13 2023 93 mins

Kota sits down with J from Politics in Command to discuss "multipolarity," a discourse which sees the existence of multiple superpowers as a positive development from the unipolar world dominated by the United States. We ask whether the politics of multipolarity is genuinely anti-imperialist or revisionist, an abandonment of revolutionary principles for reformism and class collabor

Danchi, Social Reproduction, and the Politics of Urban Development w/ Marxist Disco

Aug 23 2023 117 mins

Felix a.k.a. Marxist Disco joins the show to discuss the wave of urban redevelopment happening in Japan right now. There are more than 200 buildings planned just in the Tokyo area including Japan’s tallest skyscraper on record, despite the chronic recession and stagnant growth rate the country has been experiencing since the 1990s. To make sense of this contradiction, we critical

The Takarazuka Revue and Capitalist Urban Development w/ The BeruBara Tag Boom

Jun 28 2023 92 mins

Alex from the BeruBara Tag Boom joins the show to discuss the history and politics of an all-women musical theater based in Western Japan known as the Takarazuka Revue. We discuss the class politics of the Takarazuka Revue, particularly its ties to an Osaka-based private railway corporation called the Hankyu Corporation (now a subsidiary of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group), the devel

The History of Japanese Fascism: Part 1 w/ The Minyan

Jun 19 2023 86 mins

Kota sits down with Talia and Prez from the Minyan to answer the question: Was pre-WWII Japan fascist? This is the first installment of a multi-part series on the origins, political economy, and culture of Japanese fascism. Outro: Warszawianka in Japanese (ワルシャワ労働者の歌） Support the show

The People vs. G7 w/ Migrante Japan

May 17 2023 72 mins

Roger Raymundo, a member of Migrante Japan and co-host of Radyo Migrante re-joins the show to discuss the imperialist agenda of the upcoming G7 summit in Hiroshima, how it affects the workers, peasants, and migrants from the Global South, and other related topics such as the US-led militarization of the Asia-Pacific region and Japan's "Official Security Assistance" to the Philippin

Caste Oppression and the Buraku Liberation Movement w/ Buraku Stories

Apr 25 2023 73 mins

Niki from Buraku Stories joins the show to discuss the history of the struggle of a discriminated outcaste people in Japan known as Burakumin. The term “Burakumin” originated in the early twentieth century, “Buraku” meaning “village” or “hamlet,” and “min” meaning people. However, the oppression against the Burakumin people originates from the pre-capitalist sta