2019/04/06

eclectic articles - Japan examples, "Atlas Obscura"

Typing a country or city into the searchbox at atlasobscura.com brings up a far-ranging collection of articles contributed by local writers.
In early April 2019 there were a few Japan examples. This sample of stories is worth a look, or might prompt readers to look for the sorts of places, events, people being documented online.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= via Atlas Obscura in Brooklyn, NY

The Beloved Japanese Novelist Who Became a Queer Manga Icon
Nobuko Yoshiya's stories of frustrated, forbidden love helped establish a genre read by millions.
by Sabrina Imbler April 04, 2019
   https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/yoshiya-nobuko-queer-manga
EXCERPT
...Yoshiya never married; instead she lived with a female partner, Chiyo Monma, for 50 years. Despite a life lived against the grain, Yoshiya became one of Japan's most beloved artists. She published feminist stories that focused on the strong emotional and romantic bonds between women—one with the notable title Danasama muyo (Husbands Are Useless). The impact of her novels is still being felt, far beyond the feminist and queer communities where she has become a particularly celebrated icon. Her writing laid the groundwork for shōjo manga, a genre of comics and graphic novels aimed toward teen girls that includes iconic titles such as Sailor Moon and Revolutionary Girl Utena—widely devoured by millions upon millions all over the world. "There is not a single woman alive who doesn't know who Yoshiya Nobuko is," declared a 1935 profile published in the magazine Hanashi.


The Haunting Beauty of the Reconsecration of Shinto Shrines
Photographer Yukihito Masuura spent more than a decade documenting rituals that connect past and present.
by Jessica Leigh Hester April 05, 2019
    https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/photographs-of-shinto-shrines-japan
EXCERPT
...Through Masuura's lens, the images feel monumental. To hear him tell it, they hold everything a viewer needs to know about the subject of his recent series: the process of reconstructing and reconsecrating Japan's Shinto shrines.
For Masuura, this old wood represents the tug of the past in the present.


Yūbari King Melon
The most expensive melon in the world is a status symbol in Japan.
    https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/yubari-king-melon
EXCERPT
... Fewer than 10,000 people remain in the sleepy former mining town of Yūbari on Japan's Hokkaido Island. A crippling financial crisis in the early 2000s drove nearly 90 percent of the town's population to seek residence elsewhere in the country. And that fiscal tragedy is crueler yet for the sad irony of the town's famous export: the Yūbari King melon, one of the most expensive fruits in the world.

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