#Abe no Yoshimasa

[coolmika745]

Shonen Onmyoji Chapter 11 Summary

The chapter began with Masahiro having a dream that Seimei left his five year old self at Kifune Shrine [1]. When Masahiro woke up he noticed Mokkun sleeping on his lap and bonked him on the head.

Masahiro's parents, Yoshimasa and Tsuyuki came into the room to check on him. Tsuyuki can't see Mokkun and the other Twelve Divine Generals though. Mokkun complained to Yoshimasa about Masahiro being unreasonable.

Masahiro went to another subject on how his 'taunki' grandpa tied him to a tree and left him by himself at Kifune. Mokkun was aware of this incident because he was the one watching Masahiro in secret his in humanoid form.

Seimei entered the room and greeted his son, daughter-in-law and grandson. Masahiro told everyone he was leaving. Yoshimasa asked his son where he was going as today was his abstinence [2]. Seimei wondered dramatically how Masahiro could have forgotten that. Masahiro got annoyed and walked out of the room. Seimei's son and daughter-in-law were side eyeing him and Seimei told them that Masahiro was not good at thinking and that he used to be that way too.

The next day Masahiro was undergoning soms onmyoji training and was greeted by the Minister of the Left, Fujiwara no Yukinari. Yukinari went to check up on Masahiro to see how he was doing and Mokkun took advantage of the situation that Yukinari couldn't see him by standing on his shoulder and patting his head.

Yukinari asked Masahiro if Seimei was there as he was thinking of holding a requiem ceremony before reconstruction begin, but Masahiro told Yukinari that his grandfather was not there at the moment.

After Yukinari left Masahiro. Masahiro is put off by what Mokkun did to Yukinari because he couldn't see him. Meanwhile Masahiro overheard some men talking about a oni woman hammering nails every night.

When Masahiro revealed himself they recognized him as Seimei's grandson, which annoyed him, but told them that everything will be fine. He then talked to Mokkun and said that he was going to prepare to head to Kifune Shrine.

Seiryu [3] the Wood General was watching Masahiro and Mokkun and when Masahiro noticed him Mokkun told him to let him be because Seiryu hate hims and he also hates Seiryu

The scene shift where Keiko is talking to the Chinese Yao (妖) [4] about getting revenge on Akiko and the yao was pleased that Keiko would help him bring Akiko to him.

The chapter ended with Masahiro visiting Akiko and she informed him that she really needed his help to save Keiko.

[1]

[2]

[3] I also want to add that Seiryu is the Japanese Name of Azure Dragon whose Chinese name is Qinglong.

[4]

[frenchbulletin]

Le Premier ministre japonais s'engage à renforcer la sécurité du G7 après l'attentat à la bombe artisanale

Le secrétaire d’État Antony Blinken avec le ministre japonais des Affaires étrangères Yoshimasa Hayashi à Karuizawa.KIM KYUNG-HOON / PISCINEEFE Asie Un fumigène contre le Premier ministre japonais « impopulaire » Neuf mois après que l’ancien Premier ministre populaire Shinzo Abe a été abattu lors d’un rassemblement électoral, Japon est de nouveau ébranlé par l’attentat de samedi dernier contre…

[coolmika745]

What is Seimei relationship to Abe no Takako as they have the same surname? Are they from the same Clan?

It seems like the Onmyoji 2023 Anime have some plots that are similar to what I read in these summaries of this manga, which could mean they could be in the novel too.

According to Wikipedia, Takuzu is Seimei's wife so is she in her teens and so is Seimei is in his 20s? It is not out of the ordinary, but it might turn some my followers off.

I do understand them giving Seimei's sons more attention, but why did the author included Abe no Yoshimasa, but not Abe no Yoshihira?

Onmyouji Vol 9

The volumes are getting increasingly thicker. This volume contains three stories.

In the first, “Uri Sennin,” Hiromasa tells Seimei about an odd experience he had:  he was traveling when an old man asked some men transporting melons if he could have some. They refused, but the old man took the melon seeds, planted them, and turned them into melon plants, which everyone ate. But then the men figured out that those were the melons they were carrying.

Keep reading

[hsylog]

[japoninfos]

Rencontre Tôkyô-Pyongyang | Akihito en fonction jusqu'au bout | Tarô Kôno pour la coopération au Moyen Orient

Rencontre Tôkyô-Pyongyang | Akihito en fonction jusqu’au bout | Tarô Kôno pour la coopération au Moyen Orient

Dans la revue de presse du mardi 1 mai, nous allons aborder : les réserves du gouvernement Abe sur une éventuelle rencontre avec Kim Jong-un, la volonté de l’empereur de remplir intégralement ses fonctions jusqu’à son abdication, une rencontre pour la paix au Moyen-Orient présidée par le ministre des Affaires étrangères japonais et des kimonoà l’effigie des pays participants aux Jeux Olympiques…

[demifiendrsa]

Kingdom season 3 teaser PV. Season 3 will premiere in April 2020.

Cast

Masakazu Morita as Shin (Xin)

Jun Fukuyama as Ei Sei (Yin Zheng)

Rie Kugimiya as Karyō Ten (He Liao Diao)

Shirō Saitō as Hyou Ko (Biao Gong)

Taiten Kusunoki as Mōbu (Meng Wu)

Akio Kato as Tō (Teng)

Kentarō Itō as Kanki (Huan Yi)

Kenyuu Horiuchi as Ōsen (Wang Jian)

Yoshimasa Hosoya as Ōhon (Wang Ben)

Hirofumi Nojima as Mōten (Meng Tian)

Toshiyuki Morikawa as Ri Boku (Li Mu)

Yūya Uchida as Shun Shin Kun (Lord Chunshen)

Atsuko Tanaka as Ka Rin (Wa Lin)

Miō Tanaka as Kan Mei (Han Ming)

Daisuke Namikawa as Go Hou Mei (Wu Feng Ming)

Tatsuhisa Suzuki as Kou Yoku (Xiang Yi)

Yūto Uemura as Haku Rei (Bai Li)

Staff

Director: Kenichi Imaizumi

Series Composition: Noboru Takagi

Character Design: Hisashi Abe

Animation Production: Studio Signpost

[fieryanmitsu]

A snippet of my writing playlist

Tag Game: Song Title URL

Rules: List song titles that start with the letters of your URL.

I saw this on @otonymous’ blog last week and wanted to play by listing songs that I like listening to as I work and write!! But, also, since I’m absolute weeb trash, I’m going to use songs that are sung by seiyuu (to shamelessly promote them). A lot of seiyuu have singing careers where they release songs under their own name, but these songs are sung as their “characters”. So the list is composed of either character songs or songs released as the band or idol group that the seiyuu voice! The seiyuu’s names are indicated as CVs in the song list.

As a bonus, I’ve also included links to the official PV of the songs (and also a Spotify link if they’re available)! So please do check out the songs themselves!! If you liked any of the songs or have any questions about them, I’d love to hear! :D

“FIERY ANMITSU”

F - “FRIEND” by SOARA  (CVs: Toshiyuki Toyonaga, Yuuki Ono, Makoto Furukawa, Chiharu Sawashiro & Taishi Murata)

I - “In the meantime” (song starts at 5:06 - also on Spotify)  by TRIGGER  (CV: Souma Saito, Wataru Hatano & Takuya Sato)

E - “EGOISTIC” (song starts at 0:43) by Natsuki Shinomiya, Ranmaru Kurosaki & Eiichi Otori (from STARISH, QUARTET NIGHT & HEAVENS) (CVs: Kisho Taniyama, Tatsuhisa Suzuki & Hikaru Midorikawa) 

R - “Rainy Day” by Arata Uduki & Aoi Satsuki (from Six Gravity) (CVs: Yoshimasa Hosoya & KENN)

Y - “Yokohama Walker” (also on Spotify) by MAD TRIGGER CREW (CVs: Shintarou Asanuma, Wataru Komada & Shinichirou Kamio)

A - “Angel’s Ladder” by QUELL (CVs: Shunsuke Takeuchi, Koutarou Nishiyama, Shugo Nakamura & Sho Nogami)

N - “NIGHT DREAM” by Masato Hijirikawa, Tokiya Ichinose, Cecil Aijima, Ai Mikaze & Camus (from STARISH & QUARTET NIGHT) (CVs: Kenichi Suzumura, Mamoru Miyano, Kousuke Toriumi, Shouta Aoi & Tomoaki Maeno)

M - “Mr. AFFECTiON” (also on Spotify) by IDOLiSH7 (CVs: Kensho Ono, Toshiki Masuda, Atsushi Abe, KENN, Yuusuke Shirai, Takuya Eguchi & Tsubasa Yonaga)

I - “I AM A BARTENDER”  by SolidS (CVs: Takuya Eguchi, Soma Saito, Natsuki Hanae & Yuuichirou Umehara)

T - “Toki no Suna” by Akatsuki and Suzuran (characters from Kakuriyo no Yadomeshi anime) (CVs: Yuuma Uchida & Maaya Uchida)

S - “STAR SAIL” by Growth (CVs: Shunichi Toki, Junta Terashima, Daiki Yamashita & Yoshitaka Yamaya)

U - “UNMASK” (song starts at 1:45 - also on Spotify) by Guy & Tsumugi Tsukioka (from A3! the mobile game) (CV: Satoshi Hino & Atsushi Tamaru)

This was quite challenging in a really fun way, since I was restricted to using the letters of my  but I was trying to incorporate as many different seiyuu as I possibly could. In the end there was overlap for two seiyuu (KENN and Egu), but overall I think I did pretty well!

Tagging @animaniachan and @currywaifu if you’d like to play - no pressure!! If anyone else wants to play, please tag me! I’d love to see your results~

[semitranslatedseiyuublog]

Kaiki is back with a new video! “Sugita's visit at the doctor, Nobu imitations, Virus Smith, about a drunk Sumipe and more”

I’m just going to be putting stuff for context below. There’s a 9/10 chance this is about to be flagged because of what Sugita said with his dirty jokes. 

In this video, he imitates: 

Showtaro Morikubo

Nobuhiko Okamoto

Yoshimasa Hosoya

Director Noriyuki Abe

Shiori Izawa

There’s probably more

At 1:43, he makes a pun. 

Prepuce means the foreskin meaning the skin on the p*nis. Yes, I actually had to think and search a little to remember.

At 3:55 (or around that), Koutarou Nishiyama talks about being the same age as Naobao. 

Here are the people mentioned and their ages: 

Yuuichirou Umehara - March 8, 1991 (age 28 years) 

Saori Hayami - May 29, 1991 (age 27 years) 

Natsuki Hanae - June 26, 1991 (age 27 years) 

Koutarou Nishiyama - October 11, 1991 (age 27 years) 

Nao Touyama - March 11, 1992 (age 27 years) 

Aoi Yuuki - March 27, 1992 (age 27 years) 

The cutoff date for Japanese schools (from what I gather) is April 1st since school starts in April. This basically means that your child has to be six years of age when entering school. It's not like America where it cuts off on January 1st. Because of that, Koutarou, Nao, Hanae, Yuuki, and Saori would be in one year, and Umehara would be in a class above. 

 This applies for Sugita and Nakamura who are both born in 1980. 

Nakamura - February 20, 1980 (age 39 years) 

Sugita - October 11, 1980 (age 38 years)

I can’t imagine Akira Ishida laughing like that. He’s such a stoic and calm guy.

At 6:58, they talk about Shuuhei Hisagi which is a character from Bleach. Yuu Kobayashi plays the kid version while Katsuyuki Konishi plays the adult version. The director he’s talking about is Noriyuki Abe who directs and does storyboard. 

At 7:57 they talk about Shiori Izawa (Pochi) who’s a fellow voice actress who was born Feb 1, 1987. She usually does background characters and such in series like Durarara, Aho Girl (with Sugita), Fairy Tail, etc. 

Yes, Sugita and Yasumoto went drinking with Rina Hidaka and Sumire Uesaka.

Haruhi Suzumiya came out in Spring 2006.

Kaito would’ve been in his last year of grade school or something like that since he was born October 13, 1993. He would’ve been 12 years old. 

Inori Minase would’ve been 10 since she was born December 10, 1995.

Sayaka Harada would’ve been 8 since she was born December 27, 1997.

Sugita didn’t like dancing that dance.

I would’ve been 4. 

I don’t know how the heck Jackson ended up in someone else’s house. 

[natsthinkitythinkthinkthonk]

Seiyuu That Write Music and Play Instruments!

Almost everything in this post is from this Reddit thread. I enlisted the help of the Reddit community, and I was so impressed! They’re very thorough and contributed a lot of what makes this list! I will try to find examples and sources if the information didn’t come with it.

Check out the Reddit Thread HERE!

Thanks to all the people who contributed to this list!

I might be making edits as we find new information! Feel free to contribute to this list too!

Seiyuu That Write Music!

Okamoto Nobuhiko He helps write lyrics for his solo music. There’s a post on Tumblr where he talks about it [here].

Kakihara Tetsuya

Irino Miyu

Miyano Mamoru 

Suzuki Tatsuhisa He often writes for his band Oldcodex.

Toyonaga Toshiyuki

Saito Soma  It’s mentioned in Seiyuu Digest that he does write his own music.

Ito Kento It’s mentioned in Seiyuu Digest that he started writing music in 2009.

Nana Mizuki She writes a lot of her music

Minako Kotobuki She wrote all the new songs on her latest album

Maaya Sakamoto She often collaborates with other composers like Yoko Kanno, but she’s also known for writing lyrics. She talks a lot about her life and involvement with music in an interview. [source]

Saori Hayami  Wrote “Jewelry” which was used for the ending of the new Cardcaptor Sakura which you can listen to [here].

Aoi Shouta Here’s a song he wrote [video].

Hosoya Yoshimasa He wrote the lyrics to few of his character songs for Shiraishi Kuranosuke from TeniPuri. [source]

Midorikawa Hikaru  For E.M.U. (Entertainment Music Unit) [source]

Ishikawa Hideo For E.M.U. (Entertainment Music Unit) [source]

Ryotaro Okiayu For E.M.U. (Entertainment Music Unit) [source] 

Nobutoshi Canna For E.M.U. (Entertainment Music Unit) [source]

Daisuke Sakaguchi For E.M.U. (Entertainment Music Unit) [source]

Seiyuus that play instruments

Yamadera Kouichi - guitar (he played it on Twitter with a weird face filter

Ono Kensho - guitar (he learned it in high school)

Hosoya Yoshimasa - guitar

Saito Soma - guitar They say a lot about his musical abilities in his Seiyuu Digest article.

Terashima Takuma - guitar

Hatano Wataru - guitar

Suzuki Tatsuhisa - guitar + piano

Morikubo Shoutaro - guitar

Suzumura Kenichi - guitar + piano

Umehara Yuichiro - guitar + piano

Miyano Mamoru - guitar + harmonica + harp

Irino Miyu - guitar + piano + drums [thanks @datenshi-luci for your contribution!]

Toyonaga Toshiyuki - guitar + drums

Maeno Tomoaki - flute

Kimura Ryohei - piano + keyboard

Aoi Shouta - flute + piano

Kakihara Tetsuya - piano + keyboard

KENN - piano + keyboard

Kaji Yuki -  Electone/Electric organ [interview source] If you just want to know what an electone sounds like, here’s a video. (Yeah, that’s all one instrument. It’s an OP instrument, to say the least)

Miyuki Sawashiro - piano [source]

Chiharu Sawashiro - guitar [source]

Nana Mizuki - piano + harp She’s friends with the famous harpist Agematsu Mika and they performed together in some of Mizuki's concerts. [source]

Maaya Sakamoto - guitar [source]

Minori Chihara - guitar [source]

Matsui Eriko - trumpet

Atsushi Abe - piano

Tadokoro Azusa - guitar

Uchida Yuuma - piano

Tachibana Rika - piano

Gotou Yuuko - guitar

Komatsu Mikako - guitar

Inoue Marina - piano

Kawasumi Ayako - piano It's also how she got into the seiyuu industry

Serizawa Yuu - piano

Matsuoka Yoshitsugu - guitar + tuba

Aida Rikako - piano She does some songs for Love Live! Sunshine!! live performances

Otsuka Sae - trombone + piano + guitar [source] Takanashi Rie - guitar 

Touyama Nao - piano + electone Here’s a video of her performing while singing and playing the piano [here].

Nishi Asuka - flute + trumpet

Yasumoto Hiroki - tuba (high school)

Nakamura Yuuichi - Euphonium (high school)

Ito Kento - guitar + drums + piano + bass + synths It’s talked about in his Seiyuu Digest article

Tarusuke Shingaki - guitar It’s talked about in his Seiyuu Digest article

According to Midorikawa Hikaru’s Seiyuu Digest article, he was part of the group called E.M.U. (Entertainment Music Unit) which consisted of some veteran seiyuu. They formed in 1995 and disbanded in 2000.

Midorikawa Hikaru - bass

Ishikawa Hideo - drums

Ryotaro Okiayu - guitar

Nobutoshi Canna - lead guitar

Daisuke Sakaguchi - keys

All the seiyuu of “Hibike Euphonium” were instructed to learn their character’s designated instrument for a seiyuu event. [source]

Tomoyo Kurosawa - Euphonium

Ayaka Asai - Tuba

Moe Toyota - Contrabass

Chika Anzai - Trumpet

All the seiyuu of “K-On” learned their character’s designated instrument. ~This is a video of them learning~

Yoko Hikasa - electric bass [source]

Satomi Sato - drums [source]

Aki Toyosaki - guitar [source]

Minako Kotobuki - keyboard + guitar [source] (Technically she doesn’t play the guitar for K-On but knows it nonetheless)

The members of Poppin' Party and Roselia from BanG Dream! play their respective instruments:

[PoPiPa]

Aimi - guitar

Otsuka Sae - guitar

Nishimoto Rimi - bass

Ohashi Ayaka - drums

Itou Ayasa - keyboard

[Roselia]

Kudou Haruka - guitar

Endou Yurika, Nakashima Yuki - bass

Sakuragawa Megu - drums

Akesaka Satomi - keyboard

A lot of the Your Lie in April cast actually know how to play the piano (this is where Kaji also says that he plays the electone) [video source]

Hanae Natsuki - piano + guitar

Taneda Risa - piano

Sakura Ayane - piano

Hayami Saori - piano

[coolmika745]

Shonen Onmyoji Manga

There is a new Shonen Onmyoji Manga on Comic-Walker by Sorakura Shikiji and Itou Natsuo.

It is based on the light novel with the same name written by Mitsuru Yuuki and illustrated by Sakura Asagi that was first released in 2001. This is not to be confused with the other Shonen Onmyoji Manga written by Hinako Seta in 2005. There was an anime series that aired from October 3, 2006 to March 13, 2007.

Here is a translation of the synopsis:

Times are peaceful. 13-year-old Masahiro is the grandson of the rare Onmyoji, Abe no Seimei. In order to surpass his grandfather, Masahiro, who is still half a man, spends his days training hard while being teased by his partner, the mononoke Mokkun. In the midst of this, there is a commotion that the Imperial Palace is on fire, and Masahiro and Mokkun start their own investigation, but there is a strange shadow lurking behind the scenes... Can the poor Onmyoji save the capital!?

Masahiro is the son of Seimei's son, Abe no Yoshimasa [1] and Mokkun is also called Guren but his real name is Toda, which is the Japanese's name for Tengshe (騰蛇) from Chinese Mythology [2]. I also think the Chinese Equivalent to a mononoke (物の怪) is a wuguai (物怪). Anyway, Masahiro also has a love interest named Fujiwara no Akiko.

[1] More information of Abe no Yoshimasa can be found on this page.

[2] More information about Tengshe can be found on this page.

More information on Shonen Onmyoji in general can be found on this page.

Here is a link to the character list:

Note that chapter 4 is places there temporarily and will be taken down on 06/01/2023

[ioterri]

Missile commander sto

Tatsumi, the analyst, Japan’s response to Beijing is likely to follow the same playbook as with Pyongyang: diplomatic protests and more vigilance. The missile incident is in some ways a familiar routine for Japan, which has seen 10 North Korean ballistic missiles land in its economic zone since 2016. Speaking to reporters, Japan’s defense minister, Nobuo Kishi, called the incident “a grave issue that concerns our national security and the safety of the people.”Įarlier on Thursday, before the missiles were fired, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, had told reporters that Beijing did not recognize Japan’s economic zone, where the missiles landed.Ĭhina also called off a meeting between its foreign minister, Wang Yi, and his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi, after the Group of 7 industrialized nations issued a statement expressing concern about Beijing’s “threatening actions” around Taiwan. Shortly after the missiles landed, Tokyo issued a formal protest to China and called on it to immediately stop its military exercises near Taiwan, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. In an opinion article in April in The Los Angeles Times, he called for the United States to clarify its policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward the island, arguing that it is “fostering instability in the Indo-Pacific region, by encouraging China to underestimate American resolve.” In other words, a crisis for the U.S.-Japan alliance.” In December, during remarks to a Taiwanese policy organization, Shinzo Abe, the former prime minister, who was assassinated last month, warned that a “Taiwan crisis would be a Japan crisis. Preparing for such an event, military planners have increased coordination with American forces and moved more troops and missile batteries to islands in southern Japan, which could be on the front lines of a clash. In its most recent white paper, Japan’s Defense Ministry cautioned that the country should have “a sense of crisis” over the possibility of a U.S.-China confrontation. military bases on nearby Okinawa and has had a contentious territorial dispute with Beijing over the Senkaku Islands. Policymakers fear that any military confrontation over the island would inevitably draw in Japan, which hosts U.S. It is one of Japan’s largest trade partners, is a major source of advanced computer chips and lies astride a narrow strait through which virtually all of Japan’s energy resources are shipped. Taiwan, only 68 miles from a Japanese military base on Yonaguni Island, in Okinawa prefecture, lies at the center of Tokyo’s security concerns. Some analysts have argued that if Beijing’s intent was to intimidate Japan, the missile shots might have the opposite effect on Japan’s leaders. Worried about the Chinese threat to the island, the United States and others are trying to expand their piece of the island’s crucial semiconductor industry. Microchips: Taiwan is the biggest producer of the world’s most advanced microchips.and other foreign military vessels, raising concerns in Washington that the country might be turning away from engagement with the United States in favor of closer ties with China. Solomon Islands: The Pacific nation suspended visits by U.S.But critics argue that Washington needs to deploy stronger military and economic strategies. Reassuring Allies: Against a backdrop of rising tensions with China, the Biden administration has renewed its commitment to its Asian allies.Taiwan : Visits to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a delegation including Indiana’s governor have exacerbated tensions between the United States, which is seeking to deepen its ties with the self-governing island, and China, which claims Taiwan as its own.Today, U.S.-China contacts are scarce, and Beijing and Moscow are moving closer together. China: Even at their worst moments during the Cold War, the Americans and the Soviets kept talking.Read More on the Relations Between Asia and the U.S.

[dailynews9]

Sri Lankan Prez: Will Back India On Permanent UNSC Seat Bid

Sri Lankan Prez: Will Back India On Permanent UNSC Seat Bid

Colombo : Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Tuesday said his government will back the bids of India and Japan for permanent member status at the UN security council . Wickreme singhe is current lyin Japan to attend the state funeral of the former Japan PM Shinzo Abe . During a meeting with Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Tues day , Wickreme singhe ” appreciated the…

[znewstech]

Sri Lanka to back bids of India and Japan for permanent member status at UNSC: President Wickremesinghe - Times of India

Sri Lanka to back bids of India and Japan for permanent member status at UNSC: President Wickremesinghe – Times of India

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Tuesday said his government will back the bids of India and Japan for permanent member status at the UN Security Council. President Wickremesinghe is currently in Japan to attend the state funeral of the former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. During a meeting with Japanese foreign minister Yoshimasa Hayashi on Tuesday, Wickremesinghe…

[hsylog]

[dermontag]

Japan verurteilt Ukraine-Krieg Russland bricht Verhandlungen um Kurilen ab 21.03.2022, 20:43 Uhr Japan und Russland haben noch immer keinen Friedensvertrag zur Beilegung der Feindseligkeiten im Zweiten Weltkrieg geschlossen. Im Mittelpunkt des Streits stehen kleine Inseln im Kurilen-Archipel. Wegen Tokios Verurteilung des Krieges gegen die Ukraine beendet Moskau die Gespräche nun. Die russische Regierung hat angekündigt, dass sie die Friedensverhandlungen mit Japan zur formellen Beilegung eines bis zum Zweiten Weltkrieg zurückreichenden Streits nicht mehr weiterverfolgt. Als Begründung führte das Außenministerium in Moskau die "offen feindselige Haltung" an, die Japan mit Blick auf den russischen Militäreinsatz in der Ukraine eingenommen habe. Russland und Japan haben nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg bis heute keinen Friedensvertrag geschlossen. Japan wolle den Interessen Moskaus mit seiner Haltung zum russischen Militäreinsatz im Nachbarland "Schaden zufügen", erklärte das russische Außenministerium. Es sei der russischen Seite daher nicht möglich, die Gespräche fortzusetzen. Russland und Japan hatten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg wegen eines Territorialkonflikts kein Friedensabkommen abgeschlossen. Die Aufkündigung der Friedensgespräche durch Russland erfolgte zwei Tage, nachdem Japans Ministerpräsident Fumio Kishida bei einem Besuch in Neu Delhi versucht hatte, Indiens Regierung zu einer Verurteilung des russischen Militäreinsatzes in der Ukraine zu bewegen. Die Regierung in Tokio hatte sich zuvor den westlichen Sanktionen gegen Russland angeschlossen. Mehr zum Thema Bei dem Streit zwischen Russland und Japan geht es um vier kleine Inseln im Kurilen-Archipel. Die sowjetische Armee hatte die Inseln in den letzten Tagen des Zweiten Weltkrieges eingenommen. Japan verlangt die Rückgabe der Inseln. Erst vor gut zwei Wochen hatte Japans Regierung seine Gebietsansprüche erneuert. Außenminister Yoshimasa Hayashi bezeichnete die vier umstrittenen Inseln als "festen Bestandteil" Japans, wie die japanische Tageszeitung "Sankei Shimbun" berichtete. Zuvor hatte auch Ministerpräsident Fumio Kishida diese Formulierung benutzt.

[newstfionline]

Are Japan’s Part-Time Employees Working Themselves to Death?

By Joshua Hunt, The Atlantic, Aug. 7, 2018

On a sunny morning in June, a middle-aged lawyer named Yoshimasa Obayashi heard his telephone ring once, and nearly ring again, before he rushed to snatch the phone’s receiver from its cradle. It was an unexpected call, from an unknown caller, who confessed that he feared he was working himself to death. In Japan, this sentiment can be expressed using a single word: Karoshi, or “death from overwork,” refers to fatalities from heart attacks, suicides, and other health issues resulting from the stress and fatigue of long hours spent on the job.

In 1988, at the height of Japan’s economic “bubble years,” a group of doctors and labor lawyers launched Japan’s first telephone hotlines dedicated to curbing karoshi. They published their office telephone numbers in pamphlets, and later online, as a means of offering free consultations to at-risk workers, who typically called the volunteer doctors, and bereaved family members, who usually reached out to lawyers like Obayashi for help with compensation claims.

During the summer of 2000, corporate bankruptcies drove hundreds of run-down salarymen to call the hotline each day. By that time, Japan’s government acknowledged just 100 to 200 karoshi cases each year, though Hiroshi Kawahito, a lawyer at the National Defense Counsel for Victims of Karoshi, told me he doesn’t believe that number. He says that given the level of secrecy on the part of employers and what he considers to have been an overly narrow government definition of karoshi at the time--which, for example, didn’t count someone as having worked to death unless they logged more than 100 hours of overtime in the month before dying--the actual number of victims might have been as high as 10,000 cases annually. (The government now uses a lower threshold of hours.)

Press reports about the karoshi epidemic helped push millions of young workers--many of them college graduates who had been offered jobs with major companies--to opt out of Japan’s deadly corporate culture, instead choosing freelance or part-time careers that allowed for a more relaxed lifestyle. It seemed like a prophylactic, of sorts, against karoshi, and indeed, until around 2008, Japan’s karoshi hotlines were used almost exclusively by full-time, salaried workers. (It was considered a shocking outlier, for example, when a young restaurant worker killed herself that year after working more than 140 hours of overtime in a single month.)

These days, though, Obayashi feels that part-time workers are increasingly at risk of karoshi. In recent years, firms have been eschewing full-time workers in favor of more flexible arrangements with recruits who work for lower wages, with less job security, which leaves them vulnerable to abuses like unpaid overtime and has forced many to take extra jobs. Since 2015, Japan’s number of workers with two or more jobs has grown by roughly 30 percent. “Today’s generation of part-time workers can’t afford to be so carefree,” Obayashi told me.

The Japanese government, which now considers people to be at risk of karoshi if they regularly work 60 hours a week or more, does not publish statistics on the working hours of part-timers with multiple jobs. In July, hoping for a clearer picture, I visited Asami Ito, a community manager at Lancers, which builds software platforms that match freelance workers with companies. According to Lancers research, some 4.5 million full-time workers in Japan have second jobs, where they work, on average, between six and 14 additional hours each week, on top of any overtime hours they clock at their primary job; a small number of them work up to 30 or 40 hours per week at their second jobs. “We’re recruiting many more ‘parallel workers,’” Ito told me, using a Lancers nickname for people with side jobs on top of full-time jobs. Ito said Lancers’s research suggests most of Japan’s workforce will be freelancers by 2027.

The fact that people are working multiple part-time jobs just to earn a living wage is surprising, given that Japan’s low birth rates have left the labor market as tight as it has been in forty years, with almost 1.6 jobs for every applicant. In the food-service industry, workers are in such short supply that McDonald’s recently resorted to an expensive advertising campaign aimed at recruiting housewives and retirees to help out with its busiest shifts. Convenience-store chains have hired more foreign workers, while small and mid-sized manufacturing companies have increasingly turned to automation. But the one recruitment strategy that hasn’t really taken hold is increasing wages.

An explanation lies partly in Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s signature fiscal policy, known as “Abenomics,” which relies in part on using monetary policies to weaken the yen so as to make exports cheaper for foreigners--which has increased profits for Japan’s manufacturers. In theory, higher corporate profits should have led to higher wages and an increase in consumer spending. Instead, Japan’s corporations have chosen to sit on the piles of cash they’ve earned from Abe’s fiscal policy. Each spring, over the past six years of Abenomics, the leaders of Japan’s major industries have ceded remarkably little ground to unions during the annual wage negotiations known as shunto. Workers have responded by saving what little cash they have, rather than spending it. And while a weaker yen has helped corporations increase exports, it has also made importing products and materials more expensive, which contributes to weakened buying power for Japan’s increasingly cash-strapped households. Overall, workers are spending an average of 11 percent more time to earn the same salary they were bringing home about 20 years ago, and some are working unpaid overtime on top of that. Even the most promising gains leave room for pessimism: In June, government data showed that inflation-adjusted wages rose at a pace not seen since 1997, but that was mostly due to large one-off summer bonuses

In recent years, there have been several high-profile cases of karoshi. In 2013, a 31-year-old journalist working for Japan’s national broadcaster died of heart failure after working 159 overtime hours in a single month, prompting lawmakers to pass legislation aimed at creating greater awareness of the dangers of karoshi. In 2015, a 24-year-old rookie employee at Japan’s largest advertising firm, Dentsu, took her own life under similar circumstances.

The fact that karoshi risk has spread outside Japan’s “lifetime employment” system appears to be related, in part, to a series of legislative changes. A karoshi-prevention measure set to go into effect next year will restrict overtime to 45 hours during normal months, though it allows for up to 100 overtime hours during busier months. Many workers who have come to rely on overtime wages have simply responded by taking on second jobs, according to Lancers data. That development has been helped by a separate recent decision, meant to improve labor mobility, in which Japan’s Ministry of Labor canceled a law that had prevented workers from taking a second job without the approval of their primary employer.

Jun Kobayashi, who has three service-industry jobs that keep him on his feet for as many as 70 hours most weeks, is a reluctant sort of pioneer in the new class of Japanese workers. When I met him on a damp, humid afternoon near the end of June, he barely had time for the subway ride between the job he’d worked that morning and the one he’d work that night. As we hurtled through the spiderweb of tunnels that sprawl out beneath central Tokyo, I asked Kobayashi whether his bosses forced him to work as many hours as he did. “It’s true that they really rely on me,” he said. “But if I didn’t work so many hours I wouldn’t be able to get by.”