New Books in Japanese Studies

Why was the Japanese Army so brutal before and during World War Two? This haunting question anchors a sweeping investigation into the moral universe of Imperial Japan’s soldiers, tracing their path from the twilight of the samurai age to the ashes of Manila in 1945.
Punishment: Behind Japanese Military Brutality (Hurst, 2026) by Professor Danny Orbach uncovers a world in which war was conceived not merely as combat, but also as justice. Officers and soldiers learned to navigate two rival visions of war: one restrained by the ‘foreign gaze’ of the Western world, the other rooted in older traditions that cast adversaries as ‘rebels’ and ‘bandits’ deserving exemplary punishment. However, these competing strategies were intertwined, in an interplay of mutual mitigation and brutalisation. Drawing on archival material in six languages and fieldwork conducted across Asia—from Taiwan’s indigenous highlands to Manchuria’s sorghum fields and the streets of Nanjing—Professor Orbach reveals how ambiguity, obedience, fear and ideology converged on the battlefield. Vague orders could become massacres, and the boundary between necessity and cruelty became perilously thin.
Part detective story, part moral history, Punishment illuminates how a modern state slid into devastating violence—and why that descent was neither inevitable nor easily explained.
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.

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Japan has been aging for decades. The country’s birth rate first fell below the replacement rate in 1974, long before phrases like the “demographic transition” and the “silver economy” became commonplace. Now, with many countries rich and small staring at the prospect of an aging population, what’s happening in Japan may now be a leading indicator as to what other countries may soon struggle with.
Tom Feiling, author of Alone in Japan: A Journey to the Future (Allen Lane, 2026), spent three years in Tokyo when Japan was a vibrant, thriving economy and a symbol of a possible future. Twenty-four years later, he returned to find a different country, with a shrinking workforce, changing opinions on relationships and isolation, and villages quickly running out of people.
Tom is a writer and journalist. His celebrated books include The Candy Machine: How Cocaine Took Over the World, Short Walks from Bogotá: Journeys in the New Colombia and The Island that Disappeared: Old Providence and the Making of the Western World.
You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Alone in Japan. 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.

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How are museums adapting to the digital age, and what transformations are taking place in institutions we often consider to be highly conservative? In this episode, researcher Aya Kimura shares her fascination with museums in both Japan and Lithuania, as well as insights from her research and analysis over the past several years. For those who read Japanese, more details can be found in Aya Kimura’s book Museums of the Digital Age (デジタル時代の博物館), published by Kadensha.
Aya Kimura is Associate Professor, Department of Human Sciences, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine
The episode is hosted by Linas Didvalis, an Associate Professor at Centre for Asian Studies at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania).
The Nordic Asia Podcast is a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region, brought to you by the following academic partners: Asia Centre, University of Tartu (Estonia), Asian studies, University of Helsinki (Finland), Centre for Asian Studies, Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania), Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku (Finland), Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University (Sweden) and Centre for South Asian Democracy, University of Oslo (Norway).
We aim to produce timely, topical and well-edited discussions of new research and developments about Asia.
Host: Linas Didvalis 
Find the book here

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We live in a fragile world. This much is evident as stories abound of
natural disasters that wipe out communities in an instant. How can we
survive the future on such a planet, amid intensifying climate change?
This question is particularly poignant along the Ring of Fire, a
tectonic belt in the Pacific region that routinely faces some of the
most devastating disasters in the world. Based on ethnographic research
spanning seven years, Play to Survive: Disaster Preparedness Along the Ring of Fire
(Stanford University Press, 2026) examines the work of preparedness
training in Japan and Chile, two primary nations along the Ring of Fire
that experience frequent and intense disasters. Experts from these
countries have often collaborated to create some of the most advanced
disaster preparedness systems in the world. Dr. Chika Watanabe traces
how local city officials, NGOs, and members of neighborhood and
grassroots organizations are, counterintuitively, using fun, playful
methods to teach preparation for our darkest hours.

While there
are many important studies of post-disaster response, much less is
written about the future-orientation of disaster preparedness. This book
shows how a transnational group of preparedness experts orient people
toward potential disasters in gentle and hopeful ways, focusing on
improvisation and repair. In a time of political and environmental
destabilization globally, this book offers a unique look at how playful
preparedness can reset relationships to environments, to the future, and
to each other.

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.
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John talks to Bruce Rutledge, founder of Chin Music Press, about running an independent Asia-focused press, the origins of the company in Tokyo, and the move to Seattle, where Chin Music now has a bookstore in Pike Place Market. They talk about Chin Music’s highly successful graphic novel trilogy on the Japanese American incarceration experience during World War II. The wide-ranging conversation is an honest celebration of the challenges and pleasures of independent publishing.

Chin Music Press books mentioned in the episode include:

Their very first book, an anthology called Kuhaku, published in 2005.

Goodbye Madame Butterfly: Sex, Marriage and the Modern Japanese Woman by Sumie Kawakami (2007/2010)

Japan’s Urushi Craftsmen: Can Old World Artistry Survive in the 21st Century by Bruce Rutledge (2020)

When the Waves Came by Michael Larson (2020)

WE HEREBY REFUSE : Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration by authors Frank Abe and Tamiko Nimura and illustrators Ross Ishikawa and Matt Sasaki (2021).

Fighting for America: Nisei Soldiers by Lawrence Matsuda (Author) and Matt Sasaki (Artist)

Those Who Helped Us: Assisting Japanese Americans During the War by Ken Mochizuki (Author) and Kiku Hughes (Illustrator)

Seattle Samurai: A Cartoonist’s Perspective of the Japanese American Experience by Kelly Goto (Author) and Sam Goto (Drawings)

The Books on Asia Podcast is co-produced with Plum Rain Press.

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