“Truth and Limitations: Japanese Media and Disasters”

Today I got my copy of Mithani, F., and Kirsch, G., (eds.), 2022, Handbook of Japanese Media and Popular Culture in Transition… I have a chapter in this book… Japan has a long history of disaster narratives, and this chapter considers five (Kuraimāzu Hai (Climber’s High) (2005), Kuraimāzu Hai (Climber’s High) (2008), One-no-Kanata-ni (Inseparable Souls:…

Splitting Atomic Symbolism: Words, Images, and Sounds of a Nuclear World

Last week, I attended the “Hiroshima – Nagasaki – Fukushima – Articulations of the Nuclear. The Case of Japan” Conference at the University of Cologne. It was a fabulous conference and I will do a further post about it. In this post I will say a bit about my presentation. It is planned that a…

“Japan Sinks – People of Hope” – Japan Gets That Sinking Feeling… yet again.

I have previously written a post about the two movie versions of Nihon Chinbotsu (日本沈没) known as ‘Japan Sinks‘ in English. I had studied the two versions discussed in that post for my article about disaster movies. After that I came across an animated version of the story on Netflix (see “Japan Sinks 2020” –…

“Japanese Disaster Narratives of the Early Twenty-First Century: Continuity and Change” available now

While Japan has had a long history of disaster movies, there was a period during the late twentieth century, at a time when the genre had regained popularity in Hollywood, that few were being made. However, from the start of the twenty-first century there has been a new wave of disaster movies. Building upon my…

“The Divide” – A Disaster Movie at Its Worst

As noted in my work on disaster narratives – for example see  “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?” – there is no ‘Disaster’ genre per se. This means that when I have been doing my studies, as well as new movies that would fit with in my studies coming out still, I sometimes come…

Splitting Atomic Symbolism: Differing Words, Images, and Sounds of a Nuclear World

All being well, in May (2022), I will be giving a paper on “Splitting Atomic Symbolism: Differing Words, Images, and Sounds of a Nuclear World” at the “Hiroshima – Nagasaki – Fukushima – Articulations of the Nuclear. The Case of Japan” Conference at the University of Cologne. While the concern back in 2021, when I…

“Special Bulletin” – A Special TV Movie that Needs a Remake

As well as re-watching Mission of the Shark: The Saga of the U.S.S. Indianapolis (as I discussed in “Anyway we delivered the bomb” – Telling the Story of the Sinking of the USS Indianapolis), I have also re-watched another TV movie, “Special Bulletin” recently. I have already done one post about “Special Bulletin“, so won’t…

“Fukushima 50” – Thoughtful and Thought-Provoking Adaptation of Events of 3/11

Although I have now written about all of the movies that I included in my article “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?“, there are still new movies coming out (even during COVID-19) and amongst these there are disaster movies. One of these is Fukushima 50 (directed by Setsuro Wakamatsu), which I watched this week. In…

My Top Movies and TV Shows

This post provides a list of my favourite movies/TV programmes. It is based on the ratings that I have given them on IMDb. Given that IMDb hasn’t been around as long as I have, I suspect that there are many titles that I have forgotten to add – they may get added in due course….

My Top Disaster Movies

For my article “Disaster Narratives by Design: Is Japan Different?” I studied 38 English-language disaster movies from 1978 to 2018 and a further 22 Japanese-language disaster movies. Since the article was published, I have seen a few more disaster movies. All of these I have written separate blog posts about. What I haven’t done until…

Book Review: “The World Set Free” by HG Wells

As I have written about before (and will be a part of a new book that I am working on, as well as in my next novel), one of my interests relates to the imagery of ‘the mushroom cloud‘, atomic weapons, including issues relating to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the…

Remembering 9/11

Today (11 September 2021) is the twentieth anniversary of the ‘9/11’ attacks. As with another recent post (All Accidents are Human Error), I have been inspired to write this post thanks to listening to the Take To The Sky Podcast. They have done a couple of podcasts recently in relation to 9/11 (on top of…