Asian Studies III (XIX), 1 (2015), pp. 1–5  
 
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Introduction 
New Insights into Japanese Society 
Nataša VISOČNIK  
The present issue of the journal Asian Studies brings us a substantial number of 
selected contributions focusing on Japan, which aim to uncover different aspects 
of Japanese society and culture. As the articles are written by experts in Japanese 
studies from different parts of the world, we can find research perspectives from 
varied traditions, which bring us diverse, comprehensive, developing, and 
systematic assemblage of theories and approaches to various topics. 
Among a variety of topics discussed in this volume, we first look into the 
world of art and popular culture in Japan. Art and especially popular culture in 
Japan are two of the most vibrant and rapidly changing fields of Japanese cultural 
activities. And especially, popular culture has a large audience among the students 
of Japanese society. In this section, a set of four papers is designed to bring the 
readers various aspects of creative art forms portraying the human world from the 
past and then to the future.  
With the first article, we go into the darkness of the night and get to know the 
scary creatures wandering around our world. Raluca Nicolae in her article 
introduces us the yō kai, the numinous creatures inhabiting the other world and 
sometimes entering our world as well. These creatures are manifestations of 
people’s feeling of fear and thus are portrayed in text and image. The author 
presents the specific type of emaki, called hyakki yag yō, where a large variety of 
yōk ai and oni come together and wander around in the night. With the second 
article, we move into the contemporary world of images, anime, which is also one 
of the most creative forms of the 21
st
 century. Tamae Prindle with her article on 
Nakamura Ryūtarō’s anime provides us an interesting study of so called 
“expository anime”, which explains the diachronic story out of a synchronic aspect 
of a certain field of science. Anime Serial Experiments, Lain unfolds the rationales, 
potentials, and effects of two types of communication systems using the 
                                                 
 Nataša VISOČNIK, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts, 
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.  
natasa.visocnik at]guest.arnes.si 

Nataša VISOČNIK: Introduction 
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perceptions of the major character, a thirteen-year old girl, Rein, as well as other 
supporting characters. The science in it does not just punctuate a diachronic 
narrative; rather, it sets the major and minor plots in motion. Experiments is 
essentially a synchronic exposé of the digital mechanism and its impact on humans.  
With the next two articles we move into the sphere of the body and its 
transformation and self-cultivation in the Japanese society. The first article by 
Violetta Brazhnikova Tsybizova explains the process of impersonating feminine 
roles by masculine performers, and therefore creating the masculine femininity 
transmitting the spirit and the state of mind in place of ordinary copies of external 
femininity signs. This is the basis of the actor’s interpretation in the Noh theatre, 
similar in the case of both male and female roles. Japanese martial arts or bud ō, 
discussed by Stephen Robert Nagy in the next contribution, are very popular icons 
found in films, comics, video games and books. In the article, the author deals 
with the way of teaching Japanese bu dō at university level and thus questions 
himself about the approach to this topic. From the personal experience of teaching 
in a university level course about budō tradition, he tries to answer many 
challenges he faces during the process of teaching.  
The second section brings forth some insights of philosophical and religious 
researchers in Japan, which are under research topics in Slovenia. Thus these 
articles are of great value, especially for the readers of Asian Studies in Slovenia. 
First two articles deal with the philosophical discourses of ethics and 
phenomenon of life and death. Hashi Hisaki’s article about the former topic is a 
discussion about principles of essential being from a comparative perspective and 
explores the views of two philosophers, Dōgen of Japan and Martin Heidegger of 
Germany. Both deal with the existence of human beings and thus the goal of this 
comparison is to fundamentally grasp the essentiality of being, life, and 
recognition (jikaku 自覚), bound to embodied cognition in our globalized world. 
The second article from this part discusses the problems Japan is facing in 
contemporary world. Kristýna Vojtíšková focuses on a phenomenon that some 
may consider as a crisis of values. However, the article does not deal with the 
value system nor search for causes for the contemporaneous crisis of values in 
Japanese society. Rather she works on the assumption that the value crisis is 
present in the contemporary Japanese society and focuses on an ethical aspect of 
this crisis, which is the relationship between the individual and the society, the 

Asian Studies III (XIX), 1 (2015), pp. 1–5 
 
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major pillar of Watsuji Tetsurō’s thought, which the author considers particularly 
topical here.  
The last article in this section by Iva Lakić Parać deals with the phenomenon 
of shamanism in Japan with an emphasis on the female role. From the historical 
perspective and the notion that the women have dealt with shamanistic practices in 
Japan since ancient times, she tries to answer two questions. First, was the 
shamanism a tool that women used in order to have a small part of their authority 
and power acknowledged? And second, have women managed to influence their 
marginal position in society and in what way? Thus this study brings us a research 
of the shamanism from a female perspective that shows the position of the women 
in the rigid patriarchal social milieu.  
The topic of next section is Japanese literature and it is especially dedicated to 
the poet, essayist and writer Takahashi Mutsuo (born in 1937, Fukuoka, Japan). 
He represents the world of contemporary Japanese poetry and has published more 
than a hundred books so far, including his anthology of poems Bara no ki, nise no 
koibitotachi ( 薔薇 の木・ にせの恋 人たち, Rose Tree, False Lovers) which drew 
the national attention in 1964. He is a rare literary person who creates by 
transcending the boundaries of literary genres––i.e. new poetry, tanka, haiku, 
essay, and even opera and nō play. Takahashi also has a profound knowledge of 
literature in all times and lands. His wide and original perspective provides us a 
fresh view different from those researchers or critics of literature. He has received 
a number of important literary prizes in Japan and his poems and other works have 
been translated into many languages. He frequently gives reading recitals around 
the world. 
The section begins with Takahashi Mutsuo’s lecture that was performed at 
March 27, 2014 on the Faculty of Arts, organised by the Department of Asian 
Studies. Our colleague Moritoki Škof Nagisa, who also helped editing this section, 
offers a prologue on his lecture to the poems created after the great earthquake in 
Tohoku of 2011, which open up new topics such as ecological catastrophes caused 
by nuclear energy, loss of the meaning of words in the contemporary era in which 
information is exchanged at a lightning speed. 
The following article by Yamasaki Kayoko gives us a deeper view in the 
world of previously mentioned poet Takahashi Mustuo. The author particularly 
focuses on analysing the tree motif in his poems, from the early stages to the 
present day. The collection of poetry inspired by the poet’s childhood, full of 

Nataša VISOČNIK: Introduction 
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tragic events such as his father’s premature death and his mother’s abandonment 
of him, is interwoven by autobiographical and mythological elements in a ringlike 
structure. However, after the year 2000 a new creative phase in his work ensues: 
the poet deals with the problems facing our world such as ecological issues, 
disintegration of the family, terrorism, etc.  
Fukuma Kenji, the author of the next contribution on Japanese literature, deals 
the so called dankai generation, a generation born during Japan’s post-war baby 
boom. As consumers of culture in a society which was becoming richer, they 
experienced a “hot season” around 1970. Sato Yasushi’s Jazzmen in Street 
Fighting and Sasaki Mikiro’s Whip of the Dead are two pioneer works born in an 
undulation of political movement in the late 60s. At a certain point in the 1970s 
the whole scene changed. People entered a state of strange happiness with 
problems unsolved.  
In the section “Asian Studies in Slovenia” we have three articles written in 
Slovene by three young Slovene researches. The section begins with Luka 
Culiberg’s research about the Japanese national language and the modern 
structural linguistic’s approach to understanding the language in the social 
contects. He focuses on the ideological overview of linguistic deliberations of 
Tokieda Motoki ( 時枝誠記 1900–1967), who attempted to justify the colonial 
language policy of Japanese Empire in Taiwan and Korea. The second article by 
Klemen Senica exposes one of the most controversial issues in Japan’s foreign 
relations with its neighbouring countries, particularly China and South Korea. The 
topic discussed is the Yasukuni Shrine and the practice of politicians, especially 
prime ministers, going to the shrine and paying respect to the soldiers who died for 
the “Japanese cause”. The author looks into this topic in a broader context of 
imperialist nostalgia, the wave of which has been coming over Japan since the turn 
of the 21
st
 century. The third article in this section is written by Saša Istenič, a 
Taiwan specialist, who analyzes Slovene media coverage of the dispute between 
Japan, China and Taiwan over the sovereignty of the Diaoyu/Diaoyutai/Senkaku 
islands, one of the most serious maritime territorial disputes in East Asia. The 
news stories on the dispute are researched by applying a combined quantitative 
and qualitative content analysis. 
Though the authors of the present collection often hold very divergent views 
regarding many aspects of Japanese culture, they all share a complex intellectual 
culture which enables them to explore the Japanese society, bringing some new 

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insights into research. We hope that the collection before you will contribute to a 
deeper understanding of old and new, traditional and contemporary issues related 
to Japan. It is our hope that this collection would induce future investigations, 
point to new aspects and questions, and open new horizons for the appreciation of 
diversity and variety of Japanese society.  
I wish all readers an enjoyable reading. 
Nataša Visočnik, Guest Editor