Portrait of a Weapon Inventor as a Young Man: Hayao Miyazaki's Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises)

Trailer for Hayo Miyazaki's Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises).  Based on the manga of the same name; in turn based on a short story by Tatsuo Hori, a prewar proletarian writer, poet and translator who died in 1953. Kaze Tachinu is a fictionalised biography of Jiro Horikoshi, chief designer of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, a long-range warplane used in bombing raids and kamikaze attacks during the Pacific War.

Interesting timing on the release of this film. Miyazaki's films invoke nostalgia for traditional Japanese community, family, and rural life; and contain anti-war and environmentalist themes.  In May of this year, Toshio Suzuki,  producer at Ghibli, the studio which produces Miyazaki's films, unequivocally pronounced his support for the Japanese Peace Constitution in an interview with Tokyo Shimbun (English translation at Anime News Network):

Suzuki spoke his support for the clause, saying, ”We should be proclaiming Article 9, which has brought peace to Japan, to the rest of the world.” He added, “I doubt most people outside of Japan even know that we have Article 9. After all, we have a self-defense force. They probably know about that. That's why we have to spread the word about the clause to the world. This peace that Japan has wouldn't have been possible without it."

Suzuki came to know the future Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki after Suzuki co-founded the magazine Animage for the publisher Tokuma Shoten. Miyazaki serialized his Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind manga in Animage, and Suzuki participated in the production of Miyazaki's film version in 1984. When Ghibli separated from Tokuma Shoten in 2005, Suzuki was appointed to head the studio. Suzuki stepped down as the head of Ghibli in 2008, but he has remained an active producer on all of its films.

(July 21 update: Detailed analysis by Matthew Penney just published at The Asia-Pacific Journal on Hayao Miyazaki, war, peace, and Article 9; cites the filmmaker's belief that Article 9 should remain the cornerstone of Japanese foreign policy; and cites Studio Ghibli director (and Miyazaki collaborator Isao Takahata: “We sacrificed the people of Okinawa and became collaborators in [America’s wars].” )

(July 24 update: More background at Mainichi with a link to a Ghibli pamphlet outlining both the studio's and Miyazaki's support of Article 9.)

Fireflies

Have to share this magical photo of fireflies 

taken by KJ's amazing web designer, Rick Elizaga!

For more of KJ, visit  Kyotojournal.org

Green Action: MOX (mixed plutonium uranium) Fuel Shipment Arrives in Japan with No End-Use Determined

Via Kyoto-based Green Action: 

 27 June 2013, Takahama Town, Fukui Prefecture, Japan-- A shipment of MOX (mixed plutonium and uranium oxide) fuel arrived at Kepco’s Takahama nuclear power plant today located in Fukui Prefecture facing the Japan Sea.

Today’s shipment violates the Japan Atomic Energy Commission's determination, issued in 2003, requiring utilities to specify the end-use of MOX fuel before it is imported.

Kepco has not been given permission to restart its Takahama nuclear power plant. On top of that, the Japanese Nuclear Regulation Authority
(NRA) has not even established post-Fukushima accident regulatory standards for MOX fuel and its use.

According to the IAEA, unirradiated MOX fuel is direct-use nuclear weapons material. This shipment adds yet another 900kg (approx.) to the already 960kg of unused plutonium in MOX fuel located at 5 nuclear
power plants in Japan.

As of today, over 70 nations have opposed MOX fuel shipments and past shipments of separated plutonium. Japan, the UK, and France have neglected to undertake an environmental impact assessment on Japanese nuclear shipments. Furthermore, no compensation plan exists for damages in the event of an accident, and emergency planning is grossly inadequate.

Many Japanese prefectures are also on the shipment route. Citizens of local governments which face the Japan Sea have petitioned Kepco and the Japanese government for information on emergency planning and compensation for damages in the event of such an accident.

On 26 June, the Joint Action for Nuclear Free Korea composed of 78 groups including the nationwide Korean Federation of Environmental Movement (KFEM) issued a statement opposing the MOX shipment.

“Crucial quality control data for the MOX fuel has not been released by the French fuel fabricator Areva SA. Not even Kepco, its client, has been given details on the kind of impurities in the fuel and other important data that could affect the fuel safety. The French nuclear authority's remit does not include checking the quality of foreign fuel. Therefore, only Areva is privy to that information” stated Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of Green Action.

----------
References:
12, April 2013
Joint letter to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry regarding MOX fuel
shipment to Japan
http://www.greenaction-japan.org/internal/130412_MOX_US_State_Letter.pdf
5 March 2013
Letters sent to countries potentially on the route of the MOX fuel
shipment
http://www.greenaction-japan.org/internal/130305_Letter_en_route_MOX.pdf

Kyoto Journal is Back, with New Digital Issue

Via our friends and colleagues at KJ:

Kyoto Journal is Back, with New Digital Issue

With release of our 77th issue, the long-established all-volunteer-based Kyoto Journal is back in production!

Our transition from print to digital publication (and a total rebuild of our website) has been a challenging and time-consuming process. This issue puts KJ finally back on track as a quarterly melding of wide-ranging “insights from Asia,” noted for long-shelf-life content and distinctive design (now iPad-friendly too!)

Based in Kyoto, KJ’s network of contributors extends far afield: the 22 articles in this issue of over 200 pages take readers beyond the ancient capital to Hiroshima, Tokyo and Fukushima, to Korea, China, Nepal, Tibet, India, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines, delving into film and fiction, poetry, “off-the-beaten-track” travels, craft and calligraphy, architectural and archaeological investigations, yoga, post-disaster initiatives, and an informative reviews section.

Featured articles include:

• “Strong Children,” on a post-quake Tohoku support project, by Geoff Read

• “Engineering the Japanese Islands,” an interview with environmental historian Brett Walker, by Winifred Bird

• “Contested Terrain: Development, Identity and the Destruction of an Ancient City in Afghanistan,” a first-hand report by Isaac Blacksin

• “Between Darkness and Light: Reflections on Hindu India,” by Vinayak Bharne

• “Okamoto Taro; Nuclear Proliferation, and the “Myth of Tomorrow,” by Donald C. Wood and Akiko Takahashi“

• Tsa’lam: the Nomadic Route of Salt,” a yak-trail traced by expeditioner Jeff Fuchs

• Illuminating profiles of contemporary filmmakers Amar Kanwar, Koreeda Hirokazu, and Asoka Handagama

KJ was highly fortunate to have been supported by Heian Bunka Center from 1986 – 2010. The magazine is now a fully independent non-profit. Our next concern is to expand our subscriber base. Bandwidth and monthly charges for digital publication webtools aren’t cheap; we need to cover ongoing production expenses, hoping also to produce occasional specially-themed publications in print. Without a sponsor, we now depend on our readers — the KJ community — for vital support.

KJ is not a business. Neither staff nor contributors receive any payment.  We believe that KJ fulfils an important role as a place for non-mainstream material that digs deeper into the fertile soil of Asian experience. With the new potential of our website and digital format, we are eager to see KJ’s ongoing evolution, and to welcome new readers and subscribers.

Downloads of individual issues cost 1,200 yen (US$12.50). A full year’s subscription (4 issues) is an affordable 4,000 yen (about US$42). Check out our sampler of 77, and please sign up (or take out a gift subscription!), to help us keep on producing KJ.

We also have a newsletter – please sign up on our homepage and receive a full-length download of a classic issue, KJ 73, for free.



Visit the KJ website for more: http://kyotojournal.org/

Power of Okinawa: Irei no Hi 2013

Via The Power of Okinawa's great blog on Okinawan music and culture:

 

Today is Irei no hi – the day when the end of the Battle of Okinawa is commemorated throughout the Ryukyu Islands. As usual the biggest ceremony was held at lunchtime at Okinawa Peace Memorial Park in Mabuni, Itoman and I was there along with many others. It always seems to be a scorching hot day on the 23rd June and this was no exception as people gathered in the park under a blazing sun and in a temperature hovering around 32 degrees...

Masaharu Kina, the Speaker of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, made the most pertinent speech in which he noted that there are now 241,227 names on the Cornerstone of Peace (where the names of all those killed in the fighting are inscribed) following the addition of another 62 names this year. He also pointed out that this is a day when all Japanese should think about war even though Irei no hi is still a designated public holiday in Okinawa only. He went on:

"One of the lessons we learned from the sacrifices of countless irreplaceable lives during the war is that a people with no voice will perish. In light of our past being trifled with by national policies, and the currently unchanged situation of Okinawa, the people of Okinawa have held numerous rallies to demand the reduction and realignment of the U.S. military bases and alleviation of our burden. We have voiced our requests.

“Prompted by countless unreasonable actions against Okinawa, we, the people of Okinawa, are about to reach the limit of our patience. The non-partisan petition handed to Prime Minister Abe this January reflects our earnest collective will not to tolerate any more base burdens and to live peaceful lives.

“Under the circumstances we are here with solemnity on this day, which marks the anniversary of the end of the Battle of Okinawa. This is the day to inscribe indelibly into our hearts that such a miserable war should never happen again and to hope for a peaceful bright future.”

Women's Active Museum on War & Peace: "Military Does Not Protect Women: Okinawa, Japan’s Military Comfort Stations & Sexual Violence by the US Military"

Last 2 weeks  at the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Tokyo....

10th Special Exhibition

"Military Does Not Protect Women: Okinawa, Japan’s Military Comfort Stations and Sexual Violence by the US Military"

[ June 23, 2012 - June 30, 2013 ]

“Is it really possible to live in peace next to a military committed to exercising violence that trains night and day in ways to kill people?

This is the fundamental question posed by a woman in Okinawa who has been the victim of sexual violence by American soldiers.

As the Asia-Pacific War drew to a close, the lives of countless inhabitants were sacrificed in a 3-month land battle on Okinawa, which Japan viewed as a “barrier” protecting the mainland. Japanese troops deployed to Okinawa built comfort stations wherever they were stationed, over 145 in all, and turned women from Okinawa, Korea, Taiwan and the Japanese mainland into “comfort women.” After Japan’s defeat, rapes by US soldiers followed. Today, more than 40 years since the return of Okinawa to Japan, there is no end to the on-going incidents of sexual violence. The struggle of women continues.

The military deprived women of their lives and deprived the islands of peace. This exhibition conveys the reality of military as a repressive state apparatus of violence, focusing on the sexual violence of the Japanese military until 1945 and of the long-standing US military in Okinawa. It questions the responsibility of Japan for keeping Okinawa as militarized islands during and after the war.

Main Contents of the Exhibition:

• Okinawan History—from the Ryukyu Kingdom to assimilation policy under Japan rule

• Deployment of Japanese troops to Okinawa and the establishment of comfort stations

• A map of comfort stations throughout Okinawa

• The true face of the Okinawan War: civilian suffering, mobilization of school children and ‘mass suicides’

• Women who were in the Headquarters Shelter of Japan’s 32nd Army

• Women from Okinawa, Kyushu and Korea who were made ‘comfort women’

• Comfort stations on the islands of Tokashiki, Zamami and Miyako

• The American Occupation and sexual violence

• Women taking action against military sexual violence of the present and past

SUPPORT OKINAWA GOVERNOR NAKAIMA: Postcard Campaign to Save Henoko, Oura Bay and Takae

Via our colleagues at Okinawa Outreach:  SUPPORT GOVERNOR NAKAIMA: Postcard Campaign to Save Henoko, Oura Bay and Takae (eco-village in Yanbaru, northern Okinawa's subtropical rainforest)

"SUPPORT THE GOVERNOR: POSTCARD CAMPAIGN TO SAVE HENOKO & OURA BAY" is an ongoing grassroots campaign whereby Okinawans are sending postcards to Governor Nakaima to demonstrate their support for his goal to save Henoko & Oura Bay. This beautiful and beloved eco-region situated in a quiet part of northern Okinawa's coastline is a thriving biodiverse habitat of Okinawa's critically endangered dugongs and other unique (including newly discovered) marine wildlife. It is adjacent to the subtropical rainforest of Yanbaru .

Now is the final stage of Okinawa’s struggle for Henoko & Oura Bay. the US and Japanese governments are pushing forward their plan to construct a massive US military base there with force. Last March, Okinawa Defense Bureau (Japan Defense Ministry office in Okinawa) submitted to Okinawa prefecture their application for reclamation of the sea off Henoko, while all 41 municipalities in Okinawa and the Governor oppose the plan.

The Abe administration is now putting strong pressure on the Governor, so we should support him.

To express our support, we encourage you to write the Governor a postcard.

Please write him: “We support you ! “ “No More Bases ! ” “Save Henoko!” “Save Okinawa Dugong” “Stay strong”

The address is:
Govenor Hirokazu Nakaima
Secretariat Division
Okinawa Prefecture
Izumizaki, Naha
Okinawa, Japan
ZIP CODE 900-8570

If you write him, please take picture and send to okinawaor [at mark]gmail.com. We will upload it on this blog.

http://postcardcampaignsavehenoko.blogspot.jp/p/blog-page_2.html

Sketches of Myahk explores indigenous Japanese roots - still alive in northern Japan & Okinawa

Sketches of MYAHK Trailer

スケッチ・オブ・ミャーク 宮古島スペシャル

Koichi Onishi's documentary film, Sketches of Myahk, is a fascinating exploration of Japan's obscured indigenous heritage still extant in northern Japan and  Okinawa:

"I think Aomori connections with ancient Japan are much like those of Miyakojima," said Onishi, adding that he intends to shoot his next film in Aomori Prefecture.

Miyako is pronounced "Myahk" by locals. Two types of songs have been handed down through generations: "Aagu" folk songs that differ in style from traditional verses of the main Okinawa island and "kamiuta" sacred songs...

"Aomori (Prefecture) is home to the Sannai-Maruyama archaeological site and many other ruins from the prehistoric Jomon period (14,000 B.C. to 300 B.C.). Psychics closely related to folk beliefs like 'itako' shamans are still very much alive in our everyday lives," Onishi said. "(Aomori and) Miyakojima share a common bond in the way they retain traces of ancient Japan."

More about this beautiful film at Asahi.

Background: DNA research has confirmed that Ainu and Okinawans are direct descendants of Japan's first people, the Jomon, who entered what is now known as the Japanese archipelago through the area now known as Sakhalin, original home (along with the Kuriles, Hokkaido, and northern Tohoku)  to Ainu. Therefore Ainu and Okinawan cultures give us a sense of the richness of indigenous Japanese (Jomon)  culture.

Geneticists have also confirmed that mainland Japanese have descended from intermarriage of Jomon and later immigrants from Asia who brought rice and metal culture to Japan during the Yayoi period which lasted from around 300 BCE to 300. The later-comers entered the archipelago through Kyushu. New findings show that cultural exchanges went in multiple directions, with Asian mainlanders adopting Jomon culture as well as the other way around.

Earth Focus: "Fracking Hell: The Untold Story"

"Fracking Hell: The Untold Story"

Is fracking the US for LNG (liquified natural gas) the answer to Japan's energy needs?

This original investigative report by Earth Focus and UK's Ecologist Film Unit looks at ecological and human costs of fracking in the Marcellus Shale in rural Pennsylvania.

How many eco-regions and communities  (in Japan, the United States, and worldwide) will be degraded, contaminated, even destroyed, before we move from nuclear and dirty fossil fuel energy to clean and renewable energy?

Via Link TV (http://www.linktv.org/earthfocus):

Marcellus Shale contains enough natural gas to supply all US gas needs for 14 years. But as gas drilling takes place, using a process called hydraulic fracturing or "fracking," toxic chemicals and methane gas seep into drinking water. Now experts fear that unacceptable levels of radioactive Radium 226 in gas development waste.

Fracking chemicals are linked to bone, liver and breast cancers, gastrointestinal, circulatory, respiratory, developmental as well as brain and nervous system disorders. Such chemicals are present in frack waste and may find their way into drinking water and air.

Waste from Pennsylvania gas wells -- waste that may also contain unacceptable levels of radium -- is routinely dumped across state lines into landfills in New York, Ohio and West Virginia. New York does not require testing waste for radioactivity prior to dumping or treatment. So drill cuttings from Pennsylvania have been dumped in New York's Chemung and other counties and liquid waste is shipped to treatment plants in Auburn and Watertown New York. How radioactive is this waste? Experts are calling are for testing to find out.

New York State may have been the first state in the nation to put a temporary hold on fracking pending a safety review, but it allows other states to dump toxic frack waste within its boundaries.

With a gas production boom underway in the Marcellus Shale and plans for some 400,000 wells in the coming decades, the cumulative impact of dumping potential lethal waste without adequate oversight is a catastrophe waiting to happen. And now U.S. companies are exporting fracking to Europe [and LNG (liquified natural gas) to Japan].

Is fracking the US for LNG (liquified natural gas) the answer to Japan's energy needs?

Trailer for "Gasland", Josh Fox's documentary film that details the 

fracking industry's ecological impact on rural America

The largest natural gas drilling boom in American history is drastically impacting the natural landscape and small town culture of the rural United States. The Halliburton-developed drilling technology of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has let loose a drive to exploit American shale gas deposits, the so-called "Saudia Arabia of natural gas" now increasingly marketed for export to keep prices (and profits) high.  The cost: earthquakes and hazardous water contamination.

Fracking involves injecting massive amounts of water mixed with toxic chemicals (including benzene and lead) at high pressure into the ground to fracture shale rock, thereby releasing natural gas. The toxic chemicals and methane seep into nearby drinking water, contaminating it and making it combustible. In Pennsylvania and Appalachia, radioactive Radium 226 is released during fracturing; creating radioactive fracking waste (too radioactive) for hazardous waste dumps).

Fracking chemicals are linked to bone, liver and breast cancers; gastrointestinal, circulatory, respiratory, developmental as well as brain and nervous system disorders.

Via Gasland: 

"But is fracking safe? When filmmaker Josh Fox is asked to lease his land for drilling, he embarks on a cross-country odyssey uncovering a trail of secrets, lies and contamination. A recently drilled nearby Pennsylvania town reports that residents are able to light their drinking water on fire. This is just one of the many absurd and astonishing revelations of a new country called GASLAND. Part verite travelogue, part expose, part mystery, part bluegrass banjo meltdown, part showdown."

Moreover, is fracking the US for LNG (liquified natural gas) the answer for Japan's energy needs and a path to a "nuclear-free" Japan? And at what cost to rural communities and family farmers throughout the US?

Via Texas Sharon, a website run by rural Texans negatively impacted by fracking:

We get the impacts, Japan gets the gas: Japan buys into shale gas boom:

This explains why so many Japanese news stations have been in the Eagle Ford Shale recently. Most of the stations did not want to learn about impacts or talk to people who are suffering. They wanted happy stories for happy Japanese people who will happily cook their noodles and warm their buns using Texas gas. Only one group is interested in the impacts.

On Friday, while Texans were too busy being happy about the weekend, Obama approved another permit to export our domestic fracked gas...

This contract is for 20 years to export up to 1.4 billion cubic feet per day. Two of Japan’s largest utilities have contracts to buy LNG from the Texas facility for 20 years.

A massive infrastructure buildout and, with the rapid decline rates of fracked shale gas wells, lots more drilling will be required to meet the demands of this contract.

Texans get the impacts to air, water and land, Japan gets the gas, the Fracking Mafia gets the profit.

The Sierra Club on the TPP, Japan, and fracking:

Japan -- the world’s largest importer of liquefied natural gas – is seeking to import the dirty fuel from the United States. Exporting natural gas would raise domestic energy prices, harm the middle class and U.S. manufacturing, and significantly increase the practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That means we’ll be paying the price here, with more fracking in our backyards, near our schools, and next to our hospitals – only to help a handful of big gas companies profit by shipping natural gas overseas.