Episodios

  • Ted Goossen on translating Hiromi Kawakami’s “Third Love”

    Ted Goossen on translating Hiromi Kawakami’s “Third Love”
    Apr 10 2026
    Translator Ted Goossen talks about everything from first landing in Japan in 1968 to the differences between translating Haruki Murakami and Hiromi Kawakami, especially the complexities of Hiromi Kawakami’s latest book The Third Love. Amy has a deep discussion with Ted Goossen about Japan, it’s emerging culture, it’s historically strong women and how Japanese literature and its themes are changing. In addition to talking about Hiromi Kawakami’s novel The Third Love, other prominent people mentioned in this podcast episode are feminist Chizuko Ueno, translator John Bester and authors Kanzaburo Oe, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Masuji Ibuse and Mieko Kawakami. The Books on Asia website posts book reviews, podcast episodes and episode Show Notes. Subscribe to the BOA podcast from your favorite podcast service. Subscribe to the Books on Asia newsletter to receive news of the latest new book releases, reviews and podcast episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    45 m
  • Ruth Mandujano López, "Steamships Across the Pacific: Maritime Journeys between Mexico, China, and Japan, 1867–1914" (U Hong Kong Press, 2025)

    Ruth Mandujano López, "Steamships Across the Pacific: Maritime Journeys between Mexico, China, and Japan, 1867–1914" (U Hong Kong Press, 2025)
    Apr 9 2026
    How did the movement of people, goods, and ships reshape connections between Latin America and Asia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? In Steamships Across the Pacific: Maritime Journeys between Mexico, China, and Japan, 1867–1914 (U Hong Kong Press, 2025), Ruth Mandujano López examines this question through the lens of maritime travel. Focusing on Mexico’s participation in emerging steamship networks linking it to China and Japan, the book traces how these routes facilitated new forms of mobility, exchange, and encounter across the Pacific world. Steamships Across the Pacific is organized around specific voyages. Each chapter centers on a particular steamship journey and follows the people who traveled on the ships and observed the locations around them, including scientific voyages and chartered steamers filled with would-be immigrants. This structure allows Mandujano López to foreground the lived experience of transpacific travel, showing how these journeys were shaped by — and also shaped — larger processes of imperialism, mobility, and modernization. As such, this book will appeal to readers interested in global history, Pacific worlds, and the history of migration and mobility. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    1 h y 21 m
  • Marty Friedman with Jon Wiederhorn, "Dreaming Japanese" (Permuted Press, 2024)

    Marty Friedman with Jon Wiederhorn, "Dreaming Japanese" (Permuted Press, 2024)
    Apr 3 2026
    Marty Friedman is a multi-platinum recording artist and government-appointed Ambassador to Japan Heritage. He has written three books in Japanese and had long running columns in the Asahi Weekly, Nikkei Entertainment, Cyzo, Big Comic, Young Guitar, Guitar World and Burrn. The show opens with a moving tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, formerly of Black Sabbath, who passed away on July 25, 2025. Friedman then turns to the reason for writing his book, co-authored with Jon Wiederhorn. He talks about the co-writing process and describes it as “putting his musical abilities into words.” His latest solo release, Drama, he calls his best and most romantic work to date — a largely orchestral album that stretches beyond his usual style. He also reflects on the Japanese entertainment industry, the uniquely Japanese idea of heta-uma, idol music, and the role of “cuteness” in J-Pop. Producers such as Tsunku and Komuro Tetsuya play a key role in drawing out this unique appeal. J-Pop carries deeper cultural nuance than outsiders might assume. In addition, Friedman reflects on scandals, music managers ,and his first rehearsal with a J-Pop band. Read our book review of Dreaming Japanese (Permuted Press, 2024) as reviewed by Stephen Mansfield. Subscribe to the Books on Asia podcast, and the Books on Asia newsletter featuring new releases, book reviews and the latest podcast episodes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    54 m
  • Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson, "Twelve Japanese War Criminals and One Who Got Away" (U Hawaiʻi Press, 2026)

    Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson, "Twelve Japanese War Criminals and One Who Got Away" (U Hawaiʻi Press, 2026)
    Apr 1 2026
    “Japanese war crimes are notorious. During the Second World War, as Japanese forces overran Southeast Asia and the Pacific, they massacred, murdered, raped, and tortured Asians and Westerners who fell into their hands. They also mistreated hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war (POWs) and civilian internees. After the war ended in 1945, the victorious Allied powers conducted trials in which they brought Japanese perpetrators to justice, as they also did with Germans in Europe… In this provocative new book, Twelve Japanese War Criminals and One Who Got Away, published by University of Hawaiʻi Press (2026), historians Robert Cribb and Sandra Wilson analyse thirteen case studies of Japanese war crimes. They attempt to answer a crucial question with contemporary relevance, how does one become a war criminal? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    1 h
  • Peter Mauch, "Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General" (Harvard UP, 2026)

    Peter Mauch, "Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General" (Harvard UP, 2026)
    Mar 31 2026
    The military general who became Emperor Hirohito’s prime minister, Tojo Hideki is most often remembered as an iron-fisted leader who dragged Japan into World War II and—after spectacular losses—was eventually executed as a war criminal. Yet Tojo was far more than his ignominious end. In fact, as Dr. Peter Mauch argues in Tojo: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Most Controversial World War II General (Harvard University Press, 2026), he was one of the twentieth century’s most accomplished military statesmen. Over a career of some forty years, Tojo successfully launched himself into the highest echelons of political power. He was not only a tactical genius, Dr. Mauch shows, but also a savvy administrator, a fierce imperialist, and a deeply loyal advisor to the emperor. Tojo’s career took off with the notorious Kwantung Army in Manchuria, where he played a key role in escalating the Sino-Japanese War during the 1930s. As he rose through the ranks, becoming minister of war and then army chief of staff, he honed the efficiency of the Imperial Army and enhanced its influence within the emperor’s court. All the while, he deftly negotiated the fractious military rivalries that arose wherever he went. Brilliant, ambitious, and often ruthless, Tojo reached political heights that were perhaps matched only by his precipitous fall in the final months of World War II. Layered and evocative, Tojo is at once a riveting military history of Showa-era Japan and a nuanced portrait of the relentless personality at its center. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    1 h y 4 m
  • Gregory Smits, "The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present" (U Chicago Press, 2026)

    Gregory Smits, "The Ryukyu Islands: A New History from the Stone Age to the Present" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
    Mar 30 2026
    The Ryukyu Islands between Japan and Taiwan consist of around 160 islands and are home to about 1.5 million inhabitants. Across the islands' history, sea-lanes and trade patterns have connected them to the East China Sea region, giving them a unique vantage point on the region's changes and making them a useful lens through which to view and understand those transformations. In this book, Gregory Smits marshals his expertise to canvass the environmental, political, and social history of this fascinating area, emphasizing the diversity of influences from China, Japan, and Korea that have shaped it. Smits begins by tracing the islands' early history from the time of the oldest extant human remains, through massive inflows of settlers from Japan, until the emergence of a centralized state in the sixteenth century. He then traces the development of the Ryukyu Kingdom from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, examining its major cultural formations and the interplay of local and external influences driving its evolution. Finally, Smits ushers readers to the modern era, from the end of the Ryukyu Kingdom in 1879 through World War II, the era of American military control, and on to the present. He concludes with their present-day status as a tourist destination affected by ongoing geopolitical, economic, and environmental challenges. Synthesizing decades of research, this book is an indispensable, comprehensive guide to the islands' history for scholars and nonspecialists alike. Gregory Smits is professor of history and Asian Studies at Penn State University. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, Early Ryukyuan History: A New Model. Ran Zwigenberg is a professor at Pennsylvania State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    1 h y 18 m
  • Robert Whiting, "Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders who Shaped Modern Japan (Tuttle, 2024)

    Robert Whiting, "Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders who Shaped Modern Japan (Tuttle, 2024)
    Mar 27 2026
    Amy Chavez talks with Robert Whiting about his recently released book Gamblers, Fraudsters, Dreamers & Spies: The Outsiders who Shaped Modern Japan (Tuttle, 2024). Bob talks about several colorful characters who populated Tokyo in the 60s and 70s, including strong women such like Australian bar hostess Maggie, who became famous for using scissors to cut off the neckties of customers, and a female yakuza gangster who carried a revolver in her purse. And if you think Japan doesn’t have a drug problem, think again. Whiting talks about North Korean drug-smuggling and its contribution to a surging number of meth users in the country. Lastly, while most tourists to Japan can’t help but be impressed by Japanese taxi drivers who wear white gloves and offer impeccably polite service, things weren’t always so good when hailing a cab in Japan. In fact, drivers used to be rude, dirty and reportedly, the job was so loathsome that Japanese wives were embarrassed to tell people their husbands were taxi drivers! As Whiting tells us, that all changed with the MK Taxi company, started by a Korean determined to put a new face on ride hailing. Listen to our previous BOA podcast 11: Robert Whiting talks Baseball and Tokyo Junkie, or read a review of his memoir Tokyo Junkie: 60 Years of Bright Lights, Back Alleys and Baseball (Stone Bridge Press, 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    35 m
  • Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War" (Oxford UP, 2025)

    Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, "The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War" (Oxford UP, 2025)
    Mar 26 2026
    On Feb. 6, 1945, just three days after the U.S. army started to fight the Japanese in the city of Manila, General Douglas MacArthur declared that “Manila had fallen.” In truth, the battle would take another month, as U.S. forces fought their way through block after block. By the end of the battle, which featured some of the most intense urban fighting faced by the U.S. army, Manila was in ruins, the old walled city of Intramuros was flattened, and 100,000 Filipino civilians were dead.  Nicholas Evan Sarantakes writes a comprehensive history of the fighting in The Battle of Manila: Poisoned Victory in the Pacific War (Oxford UP, 2025) Nicholas Evan Sarantakes is an associate professor in the strategy and policy department at the U.S. Naval War College. He is the author of four books, including Dropping the Torch: Jimmy Carter, the Olympic Boycott, and the Cold War (Cambridge University Press: 2010) You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of The Battle of Manila. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    1 h y 11 m