The road to building peace between the Palestinians and Israelis remains fraught with obstacles, but on June 6 the Palestinian Authority came under the leadership of a new prime minister, Dr. Rami Hamdallah. Just a few days later, on June 11, he met the chairman of the Nippon Foundation, Sasakawa Yōhei, who was visiting Palestine during a trip to the Middle East.  

During his discussion with Sasakawa, Prime Minister Hamdallah noted that “good relations now exist” between the cabinet he leads and the executive branch, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas. The discussion touched on a number of topics, including the current conditions for Palestinians. The prime minister noted that, despite the negative economic impact of the global financial crisis, the Palestinians are taking concrete steps to prepare for a transition from the current United Nations “observer state” status to that of an independent nation, such as fostering their tourism and agriculture industries.  

He also shared the view of the Palestinian leaders that a two-state vision is the way forward toward peace. Hamdallah said that the Palestinian government emphasizes the importance of making Jerusalem the capital of a Palestinian state and of securing the release of all political prisoners.

The new prime minister expressed his appreciation to Sasakawa for the roughly $1.2 billion in aid that the Palestinian Authority has received from the Japanese government since 1993. He also noted the importance of investing in the human resources of Palestine, since it lacks natural resources. Hamdallah expressed his hopes regarding future bilateral cooperation in the area of education, particularly higher education and training, and for the development of academic exchanges.

Sasakawa, for his part, asked how the Palestinian Authority views its relationship with the Islamist political organization Hamas, which currently wields effective control over Gaza. In response, the prime minister said that “the Gaza Strip is one part of our nation,” expressing his wish that Japan will also support this position. He added: “Our hope is that a general election will be held this year. In August, all the parties involved will gather in Cairo to discuss this matter. That meeting is of vital importance and we hope to make progress there. An election is an important moment for all of the people to express their will. We think that there is no reason for Hamas to oppose the election, which is an important step in the peace process.”

(Originally written in Japanese; photograph courtesy of the Nippon Foundation.)

Muslims account for around a quarter of the world’s population today. In Japan, however, they are thought to make up less than one percent of the total population. Shimoyama Shigeru, who works at the country’s largest mosque in Tokyo, is a Japanese convert to Islam. We spoke to Shimoyama to find out more about the Muslim faith in Japan and his own life as a believer.

Tokyo Camii, one of the most beautiful mosques in East Asia. (Photo on the right courtesy of Tokyo Camii.)

INTERVIEWER Why do you think Islam has remained so remote from Japanese mainstream culture in the past?

SHIMOYAMA SHIGERU Since the Meiji Restoration in 1868, modern Japan has modeled itself on countries like Germany, Britain, and France. These countries provided the models for Japan’s modern system of legislature and commercial law. A side-effect of this has been that non-European values, including those of Islamic cultures, have tended to be overlooked.

Also, I think Japan inherited a somewhat biased European view of Islam, and this has exacerbated this tendency. For instance, a lot of people in Japan became familiar with the expression “Either the Koran or the sword,” and this has gotten in the way of a proper understanding of Islam. Particularly after 9/11, the impact of media coverage has made Islam seem an intimidating and “scary” religion to a lot of people.

A Koran used at Tokyo Camii.

Equality Before God

Shimoyama Shigeru during his year-long trip to Africa. (Photo courtesy of Shimoyama Shigeru.)

INTERVIEWER Apparently about five Japanese people enter the Islamic faith every month. But during our visits, we’ve seen very few Japanese worshipers. What made you decide to become a Muslim when the religion is so unfamiliar to most people in Japan?

SHIMOYAMA When I was a university student, I took a trip on a rubber raft down the Nile, staying in villages along the way. Everywhere I stopped, people were sure to provide me with a place to spend the night, even though I barely spoke a word of their language. The Africans I met were Muslims, and their hospitality made a deep impression on me. I was surprised to learn later that their kindness came from Islamic teachings.

That experience was the starting point for the person I am today. To be honest, I never had much belief in God until I became a Muslim. But once I joined the Muslim community and started to worship alongside other Muslims of all races, side by side as brothers, I realized what a wonderful thing this belief is.

A view of the “bird nests” built onto the exterior walls of Tokyo Camii, symbolizing that all living creatures are part of God’s creation.

The reason we worship in lines alongside each other goes to the heart of the spirit of Islam, which says that all believers are equal before God. There is also the belief in justice, or birru; this is the idea that you should always think about the needs of others first. This belief frees you from an egotistical way of thinking. These Islamic ideas have become deeply engraved in my heart.

A hexagonal pattern at Tokyo Camii that conveys the concept of “infinity” and “perfection.”

Islam places a strong emphasis on correct behavior and the virtues of charity. During the Ottoman Empire, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, a system based on the Islamic idea of giving wealth back to society was set up to direct surplus resources toward social needs rather than economic activities. This was handled by a charitable organization called waqf—a precursor to today’s NGOs and NPOs. The funds raised were used to build hospitals, schools (called madrasas), and other facilities for the weaker members of society. The areas around mosques attracted madrasas, hospitals, bazaars, and simple eating houses that provided free meals to poor people. Charitable donations from sultans, government officials, and regular citizens were used to bridge the gap between rich and poor.

Making Guests Feel at Home

INTERVIEWER You have said that for tourists from Southeast Asia—particularly Indonesia and Malaysia—Tokyo Camii has become a major sightseeing spot, ranking alongside Kyoto, Mount Fuji, and Tokyo Disneyland.

SHIMOYAMA That’s right. I think we’ll see more and more tourists from Southeast Asia visiting Japan in the future. The only thing holding the numbers back at the moment is a lack of restaurants serving halal food in Japan and hotels with prayer facilities. Japan prides itself on its hospitality to travelers, but I think there’s some room for improvement when it comes to considering the needs of Muslims.

“Human Contact” Is Key

INTERVIEWER As Japan’s ties with Muslim countries grow closer, what can Japanese people do to understand Islam better?

SHIMOYAMAEverything begins with personal interaction—human contact. It’s through human contact that we make new discoveries.

This was certainly true in my own case. It was my personal relationship with an Iraqi student at the University of Tokyo that gave me the decisive push I needed when I was thinking of immersing myself in Islam. He certainly never told me to become a Muslim. But I think I was drawn to his personal charm, and I realized that his kindness and brotherly love was intricately bound up with his faith as a Muslim.

Friday prayers at Tokyo Camii attract a large congregation of worshipers. (Photo courtesy of Tokyo Camii.)

Islam is essentially a way of life—it is present in every aspect of the daily life of a devout Muslim. I hope that people will become interested in Islam through seeing its influence in aspects of everyday life, and that personal contact with Muslims will help them to understand Islam better. Of course, some people simply visit the mosque to appreciate it as a work of art. But the realization of how beautiful a mosque might also be the starting point of someone’s journey to Islam.

What’s a good way to initiate that “human contact” I was talking about? Well, when you meet a Muslim, you should reach your hand out and say: Assalamu Alaikum, “peace be upon you.” This simple greeting will make them feel at ease. I just said these words a few minutes ago to a mother and child visiting from Kashmir, and I could tell right away from the friendly smile they gave me that they were happy to be welcomed by this familiar greeting so far from home.

INTERVIEWER Lastly, do you have any message for readers in Japan and around the world?

SHIMOYAMA I was lucky to experience aspects of Africa that most Japanese people don’t have a chance to encounter, so I hope I can make a positive contribution. I want to do whatever I can to clear up some of the misunderstandings Japanese people have about Islam and convey a correct understanding of the religion to as many people as possible.

(Translated from an interview in Japanese, with assistance from Tokyo Camii and Turkish Culture Center. Photographs by Kodera Kei.)

International marriages involving Japanese citizens have been on the rise since the 1980s. The number of Japanese women marrying non-Japanese men overseas has soared since the collapse of the 1980s bubble economy, and so have accusations of international parental child abduction against Japanese mothers. Since around 2005, Japan has been under mounting pressure to sign the treaty from those Western countries where Japanese women are most apt to emigrate and marry.

Drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law in 1980, the Hague Abduction Convention mandates procedures for the return of any child wrongfully removed by a parent from one member country to another. Although the convention has 89 signatories as of April 2013, Asia is scantily represented among the contracting states. So far, only Hong Kong and Macau, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Thailand have joined.

Officials in the United States have long seen ratification by Japan and India—Asia’s top “offenders” when it comes to parental child abduction—as vital to further progress on the international abduction issue, as I learned when I took part in a project concerning the Hague Abduction Convention offered in the summer of 2012 under the US Department of State’s International Visitor Internship Program. Now that Japan’s ratification is assured, we must move quickly to build a domestic legal and procedural framework to ensure effective implementation of the treaty, which will apply to Japanese couples living abroad as well as international couples.

The FBI’s Most Wanted Japanese Women

To address the problem of parental abduction by Japanese women, we first need to understand its causes. Why would Japanese women “kidnap” their own children?

To begin with, a Japanese woman may not realize that she is guilty of abduction if she takes her child back to Japan without the father’s consent. Japanese family law differs from family law in the West, where divorced couples are typically granted joint custody on the assumption that society can best serve children’s interests by protecting their relationship with both parents. In Japan, when a couple divorces, the law grants sole custody to one of the parents, most often the mother. This is why the website of the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco warns that it is a federal crime for a parent to take his or her child away from the other parent without the latter’s consent.

Divorces are relatively common in the United States, and lawyers typically guide the parties through the process. This can lead to bitter court battles, and all too frequently a desperate or angry parent vanishes with the children. While family law differs from state to state, parental kidnapping is a federal crime and is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Among the “most” wanted lists on the FBI’s website is a Parental Kidnappings page that includes the names and photos of several Japanese women, accompanied by details of their alleged crimes and photos of their child “victims.”

In Japan, by contrast, 90% of all divorces are settled consensually out of court by filing a notification of divorce. Of the remaining 10%, the vast majority are settled by mediation in a family court. Divorces requiring a court verdict are very rare. The mother receives sole custody of the children about 80% of the time, a practice that took hold from the mid-1960s on. A woman raised in a society where mothers receive custody as a matter of course may think it only natural to take her child home with her when her marriage goes bad.

Tough Options for a Double Minority

A second factor behind the relatively high incidence of international abductions by Japanese women is doubtless the challenges they face in negotiating an acceptable divorce settlement. In the United States and other countries, custody issues and other terms are usually negotiated by divorce lawyers. But finding and paying a reputable and reliable divorce attorney cannot be easy for an economically and socially disadvantaged outsider.

Coming from a culture where gender inequality is deeply ingrained to one in which married women are generally expected to have their own careers, Asian women married to American men may not regard themselves as vulnerable or disadvantaged. However, very few of them are able to find good, steady jobs while they are married. If her marriage falls apart, the woman faces the daunting prospect of making her own way in a foreign society, burdened with the double disadvantage of her gender and ethnicity.

Another probable factor behind this behavior is the failure of many Japanese women to build a strong social network in their adopted society.

Most young and middle-aged Japanese women today were brought up in suburban nuclear families, in which the bond between the children and the mother is particularly close. Coming from such a context, a Japanese woman may find nothing particularly disturbing at the outset about her social isolation as a foreign mother left to cope alone with a young child. She is also that much more likely to view her child as her own “property.”

The ability of immigrant women to build ties with the larger community varies greatly according to their individual personality and skills.

Unable to Ask for Help

Another problem is the fact that the Japanese are brought up to view domestic quarrels as “dirty laundry” that should never be exposed to the gaze of outsiders. The average Japanese woman would rarely seek assistance or counseling at a local government or nonprofit agency.

This could turn into a major issue after ratification of the Hague Abduction Convention, which requires evidence in the form of police reports, counseling sessions, and medical records to support claims of domestic abuse or violence. The website of the Japanese consulate in San Francisco urges anyone in such a situation to notify the police immediately and provides other contact information for victims of domestic violence. But the authorities must recognize that, particularly in Los Angeles and other major metropolitan areas where jails and prisons are over capacity, first offenders do not stay in custody for long, and women who report their husbands risk further abuse in retaliation. Language is another issue. Advocates for Japanese victims of domestic violence strongly advise women who have problems communicating in English to secure interpreting services when dealing with the police or other public agencies. Unfortunately, women with this sort of linguistic handicap rarely know how to seek help or support from the advocates and agencies that are there to assist them.

In the preceding, I have outlined the most likely factors motivating Japanese women who remove their children from their country of residence without the father’s consent. Unfortunately, at this point it is difficult to provide any scientific data concerning cases involving Japanese women. Doubtless there will be instances in which a mother has no other recourse than to flee with her child to guarantee the latter’s safety. In those cases, it is essential that she leave evidence of domestic violence with a neighbor, a social service agency, a health care facility, or the police.

Problems on the Other Side

Marital conflicts between Japanese women and their non-Japanese husbands are surely exacerbated in many cases by the fact that the husband has rarely if ever visited the country where his wife was born and raised.

Just as Japanese women tend to assume that the rules of Japanese society prevail everywhere, Western men tend to view the norms of their own society as universal. In the United States, for example, a child born on American soil is regarded as an American. As a result, if a Japanese mother takes her child home with her to Japan, she is treated as having abducted an American citizen, as suggested by the ABC News headline “Abducted to Japan: Hundreds of American Children Taken” (February 16, 2011).

During the aforementioned International Visitor Leadership Program in which I took part, I had the opportunity to meet with several “left behind” American fathers whose children had been taken to Japan. Most spoke very limited Japanese, and several had never even been to Japan. All denied committing any act of violence against their wives. But their quickness to blame Japan unilaterally and their unwillingness to see the Japanese side of the issue attest to the limited nature of their contact with Japanese society and their Japanese in-laws.

Woefully Unprepared

Japan’s ratification of the Hague Abduction Convention is now a certainty, but at this point Japan is woefully ill-equipped to implement the treaty.

In the United States, where child abduction occurs relatively often, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was established in 1998 for the express purpose of locating such children. The NCMEC is a nonprofit organization that currently provides data on more than 300,000 missing children, as well as information on child sexual exploitation. It also operates a 24-hour hotline and a cyber-tipline through which ordinary citizens can report suspected illegal activity and sightings of missing children. Information originating from US sources is passed on to competent state and local police authorities. The NCMEC also provides access to its database for investigations by the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service, and the US Postal Inspection Service. In a country with as many immigrants as the United States, a good number of these incidents inevitably involve the transport of children across national borders. To address such cases, the NCMEC has established an international arm, the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children. Both the NCMEC and the ICMEC have arrangements with Amtrak, Greyhound, and American Airlines to have missing children who are located transported home at no cost.

On request from a Japanese court, the ICMEC will provide information on a child illegally taken to the United States from Japan. But which organization in Japan can play the corresponding role of providing information on a child illegally taken to Japan, and how would one go about providing it to authorities in a foreign country?

According to a related bill outlining the domestic procedures for returning children to their country of residence, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be the central authority in charge of locating children who have been taken to Japan. Family courts in Tokyo and Osaka will generally handle the cases and make decisions regarding the children’s return. Communication and coordination among national and prefectural agencies will be essential to the process, but many worry that cases will be bounced from department to department and get lost in the Japanese bureaucracy. Under the Hague Abduction Convention, a left-behind parent has just one year to commence proceedings for the child’s return, and courts are required to “act expeditiously.” When I asked one of the family courts about the issue of timely action, I was told that they could not comment because there were no cases to use as a reference.

Visiting the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office in 2012 as part of the International Visitor Leadership Program. California Deputy Attorney General Elaine Tumonis is shown seated front and center, with the author standing behind her.

During the IVLP program, California Deputy Attorney General Elaine Tumonis gave up part of her summer vacation to talk with participants at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office. We also had an opportunity to meet with a family law judge for the Los Angeles Superior Court. We learned that the District Attorney’s office has a child abduction section staffed with investigators, paralegals, and others specializing in such cases. A federal judge explained to us the importance of the international judicial conferences that facilitate information sharing among family law judges in the Hague Convention’s contracting states. One wonders how Japan’s family court judges will acquire comparable expertise and build international partnerships given the frequency of transfers within the Japanese judicial system.

Although the related bill stipulates that Japan can refuse to return a child when there is a risk of spousal abuse, one wonders how a parent is to prove such a danger. What role will attorneys and family court probation officers play? Will the women be forced to bear the costs of mediation, including interpreting services? These are just a few of the questions attending Japan’s ratification of the Hague Abduction Convention. The government and the courts owe it to the people to provide answers.

(Originally written in Japanese on May 2, 2013.)

“I grew up with an early love of Japanese pop culture, via television. I was a suburban Pennsylvania kid in the mid- to late 1960s, and our local TV station imported a lot of the Japanese kids shows. I just absolutely loved them. Of course, the major one was Astro Boy. At the time, I didn’t know it was by Tezuka Osamu; I just loved it. It was sort of like Pinocchio for the Atomic Age. The design of everything was so great. But my very favorite was Kuwata Jirō’s 8th Man, a black-and-white cartoon that was totally ripped off years later for the Robocop movies. I loved the sensibility, the design, the eccentricity of these shows, and I definitely feel that these had an influence on my later work.”

This early interest in Japanese culture was renewed when Chip Kidd visited the country for the first time in June 2001 to see Tokyo with his own eyes. He has been back multiple times since.

Chip Kidd speaks to Nippon.com during the Tokyo International Literary Festival.

“I live in New York City, but Tokyo seems like New York times a million—in a really good way! It’s hard to explain, but there’s something really appealing about the textures and the color and the certain kind of urbanity of the city. There’s an interesting contrast between too many things and not enough space—but all ordered correctly so that it somehow works, if that makes sense. And then there’s the opposite of that, a kind of elegant minimalism within a dizzier milieu. That to me is a very Japanese sensibility.

“The first time I came to Tokyo, I was fascinated by the antiquarian bookshops in Jinbōchō, and I collected a lot of Japanese ephemera from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. A lot of this stuff has been really useful to me in the Japanese-themed books I have designed since.”

Designing Tezuka Osamu’s Buddha for Vertical

About 10 years ago, Kidd was approached by a New York publishing start-up called Vertical. Their mission was to introduce previously unpublished Japanese authors to the US market; they wanted Kidd to be their art editor.

The multi-layered design for Kitakata Kenzō’s novel “Ashes.”

“There were several things that appealed to me about the offer. The idea of figuring out the look of an entire collection of books was really interesting.” Another factor that made this commission different was that most of the authors, although well known in Japan, were totally new to the American market: crime don Kitakata Kenzō (Ashes, The Cage), romance and “women’s lit” writer Ekuni Kaori (Twinkle Twinkle), and horror novelist Suzuki Kōji (Ring) among them. “With most of these authors, honestly, nobody in the US had ever heard of them, so I knew the covers had to work extra-hard to make people want to own these books.” Kidd’s approach was to come up with cover designs that would work on more than one level.

“Twinkle Twinkle” by Ekuni Kaori, one of Kidd’s designs for Vertical. Two faces peep out through openings cut into the dust jacket.

Ashes, by Kitakata Kenzō is one example. “It’s the story of an aging member of the yakuza,” Kidd explains. “He’s feeling the pressure of encroaching retirement and spends a lot of time in bars getting drunk and smashing things up. For the design, I wanted to play with the idea of layers. The first, outer, jacket is in black and white, sort of like a cocktail napkin that someone has written on with a marker and then spilt a drink on. Under that is a mosaic of vintage Japanese matchbooks, mostly from bars, which I think are incredibly beautiful. This is one of the things I picked up on my trawls through Jinbōchō. And then, when you peel the layers away, you finally get down to him—to a picture of this character. It was an interesting opportunity for me as a designer to have the book jacket be part of the narrative, part of the story of the character. And it was exciting to work with materials like this on what we call basically trade fiction. I mean, this is not a limited-edition art book, it’s just being sold as a regular novel. But the people at Vertical were great at letting me do all these things.”

“When you line the books up, you see the evolution from a young boy to an old man.”

Another reason Kidd was eager to work with Vertical was that the company had plans to publish the work of manga genius Tezuka Osamu: “It was a privilege and an education for me. I thought I knew Tezuka’s work, but it turned out I only knew about a third of it. He was incredibly prolific. The really wonderful thing they let me do was to design his eight-volume series on the life of the Buddha. For me, the most exciting part was to make them into a set, so that when you line the books up on your bookshelf, you see the evolution of the life of the Buddha from a young boy to an old man. On the cover of the last one, he’s being lifted up to the next world. It was a tremendous honor for me to be able to design these books; they’re absolutely wonderful, great for all ages, and I absolutely loved working on them.”

Unearthing the Japanese Bat-Manga

This burgeoning relationship with Japan enabled Kidd to forge a connection with another of his great inspirations: Kuwata Jirō, whose cartoons he had loved as a child. Kidd is a big-time Batman fan. When he learned that original Batman comics had been published in Japan in the 1960s—and that they had been written and drawn by his childhood hero Kuwata Jirō—he knew he had to find out more.

“Bat-Manga,” Kidd’s anthology of original Batman comics by Kuwata Jirō

“I was amazed and thrilled, because I loved 8th Man so much. The idea that someone was bringing that sensibility to Batman in Japan was incredible. Kuwata was a child prodigy who started drawing manga when he was 13. But by this stage he was in the prime of his career. He did it for about a year. The stories appeared in a weekly comic, and then disappeared. They were never collected, and never translated.” Kidd began trawling the Internet for traces of these long-forgotten comics.

“It was piecemeal. The only way to find them was through vintage manga dealers in Japan, which took a long time.” Over a period of several years, Kidd and a friend collected enough material to make a book, which was published in 2008 as Bat-Manga!: The Secret History of Batman in Japan.

“For me, it was like being a Beatles fan and finding out that the Beatles recorded an album in Japan and then shelved it, and then someone discovers it years later. The whole project was a real labor of love—these are now some of my favorite Batman comics of all.”

Murakami Haruki and the Future of Book Design

And what of Kidd’s collaboration with his most famous client, the mega-selling Murakami Haruki? “He’s been remarkably easy to work with. It’s almost presumptuous of me to say that. I don’t really work with him. I design the covers, get them approved in-house, and at some point they get shown to him and he says, ‘Thank you very much.’ It’s about the most ideal case for a book designer.”

Chip Kidd discusses his jacket designs for Murakami Haruki’s novels during a talk at Waseda University.

With digital publishing claiming a bigger share of the market every year, what does the future hold for books like those Kidd produces, objects of art in their own right? “One of the main things I wanted to do with Vertical’s books was to make them into beautiful objects. That’s what I always try to do with a book cover: I want it to be something you want to hold in your hand, something you want to own. As you read the book, you develop a kind of relationship with the cover that can change meaning as you read through the book.”

Despite the tumultuous changes in the publishing world in recent years, Kidd says he remains optimistic. “Reading is a theater of the mind. My job is to figure out what the books look like. You could say it’s a very superficial thing. But at the same time, I don’t know an author anywhere who does not want their book depicted with some kind of visual look that is particular and hopefully unique. Whether it’s an icon on the screen or a book on a shelf or table, authors want their work to be visually depicted in a way that will make people want to read it. And I can’t see that ever changing.”

With his unique Japan-inflected design sensibility, Chip Kidd has done more than most to ensure that whatever changes engulf the publishing world in the years to come, there will always be a place for the book as a work of art—an object to take down from the shelf and cherish.

(Original English article by Paul Warham. Photographs by Ōkubo Keizō and Kodera Kei. With thanks to the Nippon Foundation.)

The art of manicure and nail design in Japan has taken off in recent years. Along with generating many new nail salons, this fashion trend has even resulted in the new English(-like) word nailist—a term used to describe the manicurists and nail technicians. Not surprisingly, the term was coined and has been popularized by an organization called the the Japan Nailist Association.

(Left) The Japan Nailist Association organizes a nail expo every November to coincide with “Nail Month.” In November 2012, the two-day 17th Tokyo Nail Expo, held at Tokyo Big Site, attracted 54,000 visitors. (Right) One of the its highlights was a “natiful” contest (a term that combines “nail” and “beautiful”), where models are judged for their overall appearance, including hair, makeup, dress, and of course nails. (Photo courtesy of the Japan Nailist Association.)

Kinoshita Mihori could rightfully be called the “founder” of the Japanese nailist movement for her role within the Japan Nailist Association since its inception and her work on the frontlines of the industry. Kinoshita popularized in Japan the style of sculptured nails, which originated in the United States in the 1980s, and she has also has created an original Japanese nail-care system.

An Eye and Hand for Detail

Tonomura Masako, a nailist at Yumi Kinoshita Make-up & Nail Atelier, placed second in the 2012 Tokyo Nail Expo’s “natiful” contest for professionals. She says that the defining characteristic of nail services in Japan comes down to the hospitality afforded customers and the ambience of the salon space.

Tonomura’s entry in the “naitiful” contest, which took her over a month to prepare, incorporated an East-meets-West style, incorporating such traditional Japanese elements as peonies and paper fans.

Kinoshita is one member of the Japan Nailist Association who has helped set up the system for training nail artists. She has also made full use of the Japanese eye for detail and talent for executing intricate processes. Today, Japan’s nail professionals are considered to be some of the best in the world, and the country is in the midst of a boom in nail art. Kinoshita notes that a growing number of women of all ages enjoy doing their nails, and that the nail industry has grown even during the recession. She thinks that this popularity stems from the fact that, ”women can look down at their nails and derive a deep sense of satisfaction in this preeminent example of beauty for its own sake. Another great thing about the art, Kinoshita explains, is the “calming and soothing benefits of having your nails done.”

According to data compiled by the Japan Nailist Association, industry sales in 2011 reached ¥208.5 billion, marking a twofold increase over just six years. The number of nail salons, meanwhile, rose to 19,500, also doubling over a five-year span. At present, around 60,000 people every year take the skills test administered by the Japan Nailist Examination Center, which is now the ticket to finding employment at a nail salon. In Japan, there are roughly 300 schools that offer courses on nail art and around 30,000 nail artists. Clearly, given these figures, nail art is here to stay.

Gel Nails Meet the Needs of Today’s Busy Women

The origins of nail art can be traced to the artificial nails popularized by Hollywood actresses in the 1970s. In the 1980s the first nail salon opened in Japan, where nail began to head in a new direction.

Kinoshita describes the history of nail art in Japan. “Gel nails are the predominant type of coating used in Japanese nail salons today. The gel, in its semi-liquid state, is applied to the nail and hardened with an ultraviolet light or light-emitting diodes. Gel nails are pliable and less likely to crack or get scratched.” Since 2007, they have been the most popular offering for a variety of reasons, as Kinoshita explains:

“Gel nails caught on quickly because they dry in no time and suit women’s busy schedules. They were popular among both working women and full-time homemakers alike, because the gel can strengthen nails that tend to crack as people get older. Gel nails enhance the health of the nails and offer more possibilities for decorations and a wider range of designs and colors.”

A design by Nadine (left) and Hokuri (middle) featuring gel nails with a bright color base. (Right) Toenail creations from Tóut Soleil.

The Sparkling Nail Designs of Japan

How do Japanese nail trends compare with those in the United States and Europe?

According to Kinoshita, “Europeans go for a healthful looking beauty, so basic styles are popular there; the most common technique used is to apply a coat to the base nail. In New York, career-minded women lean toward simple styles, such as single color designs and French nails with a white stripe.”

This contrasts with the Japanese style. “In Japan,” Kinoshita explains, ”women often have their nails painted gradations of a base color or have their nails colored with a single tone and decorated with rhinestones or glitter. And many women redo their nails regularly. This is what people mean when they refer to the Japanese style, which is catching on in Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam.”

Women often visit a nail salon for the first time around the time they get married. Nails done in a pink or white base with pearl or flowered “bridal tips” are particularly popular. (Photo courtesy of Innocent) (Right) Nails are also decorated with rhinestones, studs, and glitter. (Photo courtesy of esNAIL)

Do-It-Yourself Nail Art

Goods line the shelves of at the stalls of Nail Expo.

Some Japanese women prefer to do their own nails rather than go to a nail salon. A range of products are available for these women, including nail-care goods and shaping tools, application devices for soft gels, nail polish, and decorations like glitter and rhinestones.

A Sha-Nail Pro sheet of butterflies. The sheets are intended for professional nail artists but can also be purchased by individuals in Japan. (Photo courtesy of Props Co.)

Nail stickers, which can be applied directly to nails, are ideal for people unable to create intricate designs themselves. Sha-Nail Pro decals, marketed by Props Co., are high-quality, super-thin stickers that are only 80 microns thick. The stickers come in sheets with detailed photos of a particular pattern, such as butterflies or flowers. Complex designs can be created by cutting and layering them.

Nail design in Japan reflects the country’s orientation toward technological innovation, manual dexterity, and customized services. And now these fashionable, eye-catching designs are spreading to other parts of the world.

Photos of nail art courtesy of (from left) Takata Masumi (Office Glowbiz Style), Nadine, and La Couronne.

(Originally written in Japanese by Ushijima Bifue. Bammer photograph by Kawamoto Seiya. Editorial supervision provided by Kinoshita Mihori, president, Yumi Kinoshita Make-Up & Nail Atelier.)

Photographs courtesy of

La Couronne (nail salon), Shinjuku location
Odakyu Department Store, Sixth Floor
1-1-3, Nishi Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo
03-5323-4339

esNAIL, Shibuya (main location)
A2 Building, Sixth Floor
28-3, Udagawa-chō, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
03-5456-7120

Nadine (nail salon)
Barbizon23
5-6-24, Minami Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo
03-6418-4705

Hokuri (nail salon)
4-12-16, Ogikubo, Suginami-ku, Tokyo
03-6383-5770

Tóut Soleil, Daikanyama location
Daikanyama Station Building, second floor
19-4, Daikanyama-chō, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
03-5428-1901

Innocent
Jyukaan, Room 2
3-8-7, Kita Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo
03-3400-0437

In March 2013, high courts and branches thereof around the country issued 16 rulings on cases concerning the major disparities in the value of votes cast in different districts in last December’s House of Representatives election. Though the content and precise wording of the rulings differed, all 16 declared the apportionment of seats in the latest election for the lower house to be in violation of the Constitution. The courts seemed to be raising doubts about whether the legislators elected in December are “duly elected representatives in the National Diet,” as written in the preamble to the Constitution.

“One person, one vote” is a basic principle of democratic government, but here in Japan failure to observe this principle has been the subject of lawsuits for almost half a century now. The website (Japanese only) of a group called Hitori Ippyō Jitsugen Kokumin Kaigi (National Council for Realization of “One Person, One Vote”) has a headline in the form of a question: “How much is your vote actually worth?” By entering information on where they live, users can immediately determine the value of their votes. For example, a vote cast in my own electoral district, Tokyo’s 18th, is worth only 0.49 votes by comparison with one cast in Kōchi Prefecture’s 3rd district, the lower house district with the fewest people (or in other words, the most valuable votes). This amounts to a disparity of 2.04:1. The least valuable votes are those cast in Chiba Prefecture’s 3rd district, each of which is worth only 0.41 votes in Kōchi’s 3rd, for a disparity of 2.43:1.

How did this state of affairs arise?

Population Shifts Not Properly Reflected

The high-speed growth of the Japanese economy in the 1960s was accompanied by a major shift of population from rural areas to the big cities. This led to large discrepancies in the numbers of people in the electoral districts that had been drawn on the basis of the country’s population distribution shortly after World War II. But the Diet failed to address this problem, and so the disparities persisted.

A legal trainee, angered at this situation, challenged the results of the 1962 House of Councillors (upper house) election, in which the disparity in vote value was 4.09:1, charging that this violated the guarantee of equality under the law in Article 14 of the Constitution: “All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.” On February 5, 1964, the Supreme Court rejected this suit, ruling that this disparity did not violate the Constitution and declaring that seat apportionment was a matter of legislative policy to be determined by the Diet. Similar suits were filed after subsequent elections, but judicial panels continued to rule that the issue was one for the legislative branch to handle. And the disparities continued to widen.

The situation changed in 1976. On April 14 that year, the Supreme Court ruled that the disparity of 4.99:1 in the 1972 lower house election was in violation of the Constitution. The evening edition of the Asahi Shimbun carried a headline declaring, “Malapportionment Unconstitutional, Equality of Vote Value Affirmed: Declaration Shakes Political Structure.” The court made it clear that the Constitution’s guarantee of equality under the law applied not just to the right to vote but also to the value of the votes cast.

This ruling was a historic first for the Supreme Court, which up to then had shown excessive deference toward the executive and legislative branches. Even though it declared the existing electoral system to be unconstitutional, however, the court did not rule the election results invalid; instead it used the “circumstantial ruling” (jijō hanketsu) procedure by which a court allows an administrative act to stand in consideration of the public harm that would result from overturning it.

After this case, though the Supreme Court did not indicate a clear criterion, legal experts took the view that the constitutional limit was a disparity of about 3:1 for lower house elections and 6:1 for upper house elections. But some constitutional scholars took the position that any disparity over 2:1 was unconstitutional, and some high courts issued rulings to that effect. Their logic was that the principle of one person, one vote meant that it was impermissible for one person to have two votes, and thus a 2:1 disparity was the limit.

The First Set of Election-Nullifying Rulings

Among the recent set of rulings concerning the December 2012 lower house election, two courts have declared the election itself invalid instead of applying the “circumstantial ruling” procedure. This is a noteworthy development.

The first such ruling was handed down by the Hiroshima High Court on March 25. The court declared the results of the election in the 1st and 2nd districts of Hiroshima invalid. The ruling may be summarized as follows: (1) The Diet has a constitutional duty to correct situations that violate the equality of the value of votes and distortions in democratic procedures and to reform the legal provisions concerning electoral districts. (2) The present provisions concerning electoral districts are in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution. (3) The restraint on voting rights and distortion of democratic procedures is grave, and the status quo cannot be permitted under the Constitution; rather than a circumstantial ruling that would declare the election unconstitutional but leave the results valid, the decision is that the election is invalid. (4) The effectiveness of this ruling is to be suspended for a certain period, but during this period the Diet should revise the current system, with the election results to become invalid a year after the start of redistricting work.

The Hiroshima ruling was the top story in most newspapers the following morning. And the judicial drama continued. On that same morning, the Okayama branch of the Hiroshima High Court issued a ruling nullifying the results of the election in the 2nd district of Okayama Prefecture. In this case the ruling was effective immediately. The evening editions of newspapers that day carried headlines like “Election-Nullifying Rulings Continue.” It was the first time in history that Japan’s newspapers carried top stories in both their morning and evening editions on the same day with headlines containing the terms “unconstitutional” and “election nullified.”

The Okayama branch offered the following reasons for its ruling that the election results were invalid, effective immediately: (1) The districting was in violation of the constitutional requirement that votes be of equal value. (2) According to Article 99, “The Emperor or the Regent as well as Ministers of State, members of the Diet, judges, and all other public officials have the obligation to respect and uphold this Constitution,” Diet members must follow the letter of the Constitution; their failure to correct the malapportionment is inexcusable and represents grave contempt of the judicial branch. (3) The equal value of votes is the most important criterion, and the political confusion from nullifying the election cannot be said to be more serious than the harm from accepting the violation of this criterion. (4) Since the confusion likely to occur as a result of nullifying the election is not that great, the “circumstantial ruling” procedure will not be adopted.

If the decision immediately nullifying the election result becomes final, the Diet member elected from the district in question will lose his or her seat. But the court decided that the harm from the inequality of vote value was greater than the harm from depriving the member of the seat and calling a new election. In other words, the court placed greater emphasis on realization of the values set forth in the Constitution than on political considerations.

How Will the Supreme Court Rule?

The rulings from Hiroshima and Okayama have been submitted on appeal to the Supreme Court, which is expected to reach decisions on them this autumn. It is almost certain that the top court will rule the disparities in the value of votes unconstitutional, but it is not known whether it will nullify the election results. One possibility is that it will issue a ruling that will take effect at some point in the future, like the one issued by the Hiroshima High Court.

The Supreme Court already issued one ruling that took the Diet to task. On March 23, 2011, the court called for the elimination at the earliest possible date of the “one extra seat” system whereby 47 out of the 300 single-seat constituencies for the lower house are allotted on a one-seat-per-prefecture basis regardless of the prefectures’ populations (a ruling that the Diet has yet to act on). In view of this, the court can be expected to be harsh on the Diet in its ruling later this year.

The Supreme Court has also ruled that the 5.0:1 disparity in the value of votes for the upper house represents a “state of unconstitutionality.” In a judgment issued on October 17, 2012, the court declared: “In order to allow the popular will to be reflected more appropriately, rather than simply increasing or decreasing the numbers of seats in particular districts . . . the aforesaid state of inequality giving rise to the problem of unconstitutionality needs to be eliminated as quickly as possible by taking legislative action to revise the mechanism of the current electoral system itself.”

This decision, in which the majority of the current Supreme Court justices were involved, tackles a matter of the sort that the court previously tended to evade through declarations that the issues involved “specialized technical matters” of the legislative branch. And the opinions expressed by individual justices included suggestions for “a change from electoral district units to broad regions” (Justice Sakurai Ryūko) and “electoral districts in blocks transcending the framework of prefectures” (Justice Kanetsuki Seishi).

Inasmuch as the current Supreme Court has already offered concrete ideas like these concerning the proper shape of the electoral system, it seems unlikely that it will issue a ruling that labels the disparities in the latest election unconstitutional but declares the election itself valid.

A Fundamental Overhaul to Better Reflect the Popular Will

In my view, the current electoral system for the lower house, which provides for a combination of single-member districts and seats assigned in blocks by proportional representation, is skewed in favor of the former, with single-seat constituencies accounting for 300 out of the total of 480 seats. The design of the system and the concrete details are determined by legislation, as per Article 47 of the Constitution: “Electoral districts, method of voting and other matters pertaining to the method of election of members of both Houses shall be fixed by law.” But reflecting the popular will is the top priority for the electoral system under the Constitution. The government is currently moving to tweak the system with legislation reducing the number of single-member districts by five, taking one seat away from five prefectures that now have three. Instead of this sort of stopgap approach, the Diet should undertake a fundamental overhaul of the electoral system with a focus on making it reflect the popular will.

 (Originally written in Japanese on April 23, 2013.)

This applies no less to one’s native language than to foreign tongues. My first language is Persian, and while I have no trouble reading books and magazines or conversing in Persian, the minute I start reading poetry the words suddenly become unintelligible, and I find myself deeply discouraged over my inability to grasp the meaning of words written in my own mother tongue. 

In addition to being in constant transition, languages have multiple faces. Japanese has the literary language of the classics and the modern slang of Japanese schoolgirls; the four-character aphorisms originating in classical Chinese and a host of loan words and neologisms derived from English; the honorific forms of polite speech and the wordplay of the office punster. Each is a rich and dynamic idiom in its own right, and fully mastering any of them is a huge challenge.

This is why I cannot claim to have mastered Japanese. I did, however, learn to accurately communicate my thoughts and ideas to others using Japanese as my third language. Here I would like to write about what helped me the most.

The World of TV Subtitles

Television played a huge role in teaching me verbal communication. What proved most useful to me were neither dramas, documentaries, nor news broadcasts but Japanese comedy-variety shows, with their continuous stream of informal banter among the comedians and other personalities, often competing in a quiz or other competitive format.

The Japanese variety show has a number of unique features, not least of which is the fascinating comic interaction between the traditional tsukkomi and boke, or “straight man” and “funny man,” characters. Still, the most interesting aspect of these programs from my viewpoint was their use of graphic subtitles to display what the performers or contestants were saying on screen. Having always thought of screen subtitles as something used only in foreign-language films, I was fascinated by the dynamic, creative use of Japanese captions in variety shows. Words popped up out of nowhere, changing color and shape, sliding crookedly down the screen, dissolving, even exploding into fragments. At the beginning, I enjoyed these subtitles as one might appreciate some interesting new art form, but somewhere along the way I realized what an impact they were having on me.

I noticed first that the colors, forms, and movement of the captions corresponded to different reactions and moods: amusement, disappointment, laughter, the humorous misunderstanding of the boke, the annoyed retorts from the tsukkomi, and so forth. With the help of these cues, variety shows gave me insight into distinctively Japanese reactions and displays of emotion that were foreign to my culture.

At this point my brain was still unable to comprehend Japanese properly. First my eyes reacted, noting the visual changes in the captions. Next my ears recorded the sounds, noting the speaker’s tone of voice. Eventually, my brain was able to put all these cues together so that I understood what circumstances gave rise to certain words. 

The captions can also serve to clarify the meaning of the spoken words in large part because they are written in kanji. Japanese has a great many homophones that can be hard to distinguish from one another by sound alone. But the written language uses ideographs that have their own assigned meaning and clearly distinguish one homophone from another. Over time I was able to memorize a great deal of Japanese vocabulary from variety shows by seeing the kanji in the captions first, then matching the kanji with the reactions of those who were on the show. I learned countless words and idioms this way, including quite a few inappropriate expressions that made me sound like an entertainer or announcer. Thanks to frequent corrections by my Japanese friends and acquaintances, my understanding of Japanese common sense gradually caught up with my vocabulary expansion.

Kanji actually make everything easier once you know them. Reading is faster because you can grasp the meaning visually instead of reading letter by letter. This is why you can drive past a Japanese supermarket and instantly acquire all the information you need from the banners flying outside, advertising half-price specials on milk or rice or eggs. And since visual memory is so much stronger than auditory memory, it makes sense that the variety shows’ kanji captions served as a highly effective aid for my language learning.

The Spell of Manga

Television played a major role in teaching me how to express myself and to understand what others were saying in Japanese. But when it came to reading and writing, my most important aid and encouragement came from manga.

With their unique blend of pictures, words, and imagination, manga create a special world that is almost irresistible in its appeal. They are also a powerful learning tool. Even as a small child I adored comics, just as I loved the animated programs on TV. The comics I read were not museum-quality Japanese manga, with their fine drawing, vivid evocation of movement, and varied, creative layout. For the most part they were European comic books, characterized by simple drawings but engaging storytelling. They were an integral part of my childhood reading experience, which included reading the entire series of the Adventures of Tintin, by the Belgian cartoonist Georges Remi, and Asterix, the French series written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo. 

This affection blossomed into a love affair after I arrived as a student in Japan, the manga capital of the world. Many were the times that I wandered into a manga coffee shop to browse and ended up staying eight hours to finish an entire series. With their skilful storytelling technique, their dynamic, closely observed art, and their playful spirit (including the use of comical caricatures interspersed with more realistic drawing), Japanese manga quickly ensnared me in their spell.

While it was captions in Japanese variety shows that illuminated the path to effective verbal communication, manga acted as the muse that drew me into the world of Japanese fiction. All in all, the process of learning Japanese has been an exciting and fun experience, filled with new discoveries brought to me by some unusual teachers.

(Originally written in Japanese on May 7, 2013. Top photograph of a man between shelves of manga by Aflo.)