This was a year of change for me. I moved to Tokyo, started a graduate degree at Waseda University, released a book of poems, started writing a new novel, and focused less on work and more on the rest of life.
As a natural consequence, I didn’t write as many articles. Over the past few years I wrote 60+ articles annually, but this year, it was down to 50. (And it will probably be many less in 2024.) That’s intentional – and yet at the same time, the top articles on this year’s list are some of the most impactful and wide-reaching that I’ve written yet.
To run through the numbers: In 2023, I wrote 50 articles, edited 20 volumes of manga (including the hilarious new series It Takes Two Tomorrow Too), edited 2 novels, and translated 6 volumes of manga. My poetry was published in the Tokyo Poetry Journal, and I translated articles for the so-cool Subsequence Magazine. I also read a ton of novels and theory for class, but I suppose I don’t get credit for that on here?
I will add, however, that those novels I read did translate (ha-ha) into several book reviews for the Japan Times, including reviews of new translations of Ryunosuke Akutagawa and Yasunari Kawabata. My favorite book I read this year was Hit Parade of Tears by Izumi Suzuki. The best manga I read this year was Usotoki Rhetoric, volume 4. And the best film I watched this year was A Serious Man, although I did like Past Lives as well.
So juuuuust in case you missed them, I’d like to share the following articles from 2023 that I’m genuinely proud to have written. I sincerely hope you enjoy them all.
10. Guide to the 2023 academic job market – NewsRx
Among several science and technology articles that I wrote for NewsRx, my favorite was this piece about the rapidly evolving state of academia. I’m proud of this article because it is uniquely practical and should offer concrete steps for PhDs to take and advance their career.
9. How will we live without Hayao Miyazaki? – The Japan Times
In anticipation of this year’s Studio Ghibli masterpiece, The Boy and the Heron, I covered the future of Studio Ghibli ahead of Hayao Miyazaki’s planned retirement. Critics and insiders view Miyazaki as truly irreplaceable, and the iconic studio’s future as cloudy without him–but there are several up-and-coming animation directors that have delivered on big hits that I explore in this piece.
8. “Cirrocumulus Clouds” – Metropolis Magazine
I translated a mystical, charming, and beautiful story by Japanese classic children’s writer Miyazawa Kenji. Read on for a one-of-a-kind tale of premodern Tokyo.
7. Japan’s largest lake used to be a cesspool. Now it’s a vision of a sustainable future – The Japan Times
Lake Biwa – Japan’s largest lake. Smack dab in the middle of the country, and a significant historic site, the lake is one of the most precious and prized resources of Shiga prefecture and broader Japan. But this same lake fell into environmental disaster by the 1980s, and its future even today is far from secure. Read on for the tale of Lake Biwa and its shaky path towards sustainability.
6. Racial dynamics are inescapable when dating in Japan – The Japan Times
I wrote a series of articles on dating for the Japan Times this year – from the app effect on international dating in Japan, to making long term and long distance relationships work, and the trials and tribulations of divorce in a foreign country. But my favorite of the series is this exploration of the nebulous racial dynamics at play when international residents mix and match with each other as well as Japanese people. I covered the “gaijin hunter” and “yellow fever” phenomena in particular.
5. The cities at the cutting edge of biodiversity – The New Republic
From Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Kanazawa, Japan, urban centers are trying to reintroduce life into their streets: plants, birds, animals, insects. The environmental, psychological, and economic benefits of biodiversity have been proven by a bevy of studies, so in this article I focused on how specific cities have succeeded and failed in implementing the newest and surest “green” city methods.
4. Diving into the scars of disaster – The Evergreen Review
For 2023’s biggest Japanese contemporary art award, the two winners had a lot to say about natural disaster, history, politics, and human survival – so I had no choice but to write and explore two groundbreaking artists’ expansive world views: Lieko Shiga’s reconstructed universe of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami; Kota Takeuchi’s investigations of a forgotten history of balloon bombs sent to devastate the United States during World War II.
3. The Japanese firms and megabanks funding rainforest destruction – The Japan Times
I doubled down on environment-themed articles in 2023. But the single most important one was my exposee of Japanese firms and megabunks whose investments and business deals directly and indirectly contribute to rainforest destruction in the Amazon and Southeast Asia.
2. The extraordinary life of Japan’s last holocaust survivor – The Japan Times
My long-form profile of Janos Cegledy explores the unforgettable life of the only living Holocaust survivor in Japan, from the Nazi-plagued streets of Budapest in 1943 to a quiet corner of Nerima Ward in Tokyo today. It was a real pleasure to meet and interview Janos, who is an incredibly kind human with a story worth telling and remembering, especially in this historical moment of violence and war.
1. When we abandon our language to AI, we abandon our humanity – The Japan Times
I have strong takes on AI, especially when it comes to AI-made art and writing. With the advent of ChatGPT, it is more tempting than ever to let a robot write your words for you. But I argue in this article that doing so, while occasionally cutting useful corners, is a dangerous road towards abandoning human creativity and independent thought. I will leave these words with you as we venture into 2024:
When language is what defines our entire universe — when it can make us wage revolution or terror, spark civil movements and even cure souls after years of suffering — we would be arrogant, foolish and morally bankrupt to hand it over to machines.
over the offing 