"A peaceful death at age 75, in an era when people barely lived to their forties: The secret of Tokugawa Ieyasu's longevity!" The cover story for President magazine (Feb 17) was devoted to first generation shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), the warlord who united Japan at the beginning of the 17th century. And who to this day remains the object…
For many people in Japan, the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022 will remembered as a time when a trickle of consumer price increases became a flood, with such items as coffee, bread crumbs and electric power rates among the many to take a sharp upward spurt. The multivaried…
Jan 16, 2021
Greetings to readers in 2021, the Year of the Ox. Starting off, weekly business magazine Shukan Diamond (Jan. 9) chose to mark the year’s first regular issue with a 44-page special report on the Buddhist lay group Soka Gakkai, which in 2020 observed the 90th anniversary of its founding.
It was in 1930 that educator Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, together with Josei Toda, founded the “value-creating study society” based on the tenets of the Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist sect. Makiguchi, jailed for his pacifist beliefs, died in prison in 1944. He was succeeded by Toda, who reorganized it after the Pacific War. Under its third president, Daisaku Ikeda, the membership expanded rapidly.
Dec 31, 2020
Many of Japan’s weekly magazines typically publish double issues from the last week in December in order to give staff some time off. Such issues can easily be identified by logos, banners or trim on their covers that appear in gold, although three magazines Aera, Sunday Mainichi and Friday have abstained from the practice this year.
From looking at the magazines’ contents, you’d never have guessed what a crazy year 2020 has been. However, with many station kiosks closed due to the pandemic, I suspect that their newsstand sales and ad revenues almost certainly declined, and it’s to their credit that they’re putting up a brave front for readers. Things certainly can’t be easy.