After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a powerful flood of foreign culture poured into Russia. Books by previously banned writers started to be published, and comic books were also being actively promoted, including Japanese manga that former Soviet citizens had not heard about before. The spread of manga (and anime) outside Japan began only in the mid-1980s, but it was already in the 1990s when its first examples were presented to the Russian audience. In 1995, the first volume of Nakazawa Keiji's “Barefoot Gen”, timed to the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was published in Russian. But a year earlier another manga had been released, the one that today can be considered the very first manga translated into Russian. Symbolically, it was Tezuka Osamu’s "Black Jack". In the postwar period, due to Tezuka Osamu’s efforts, the manga genre developed into a huge industry that was later able to compete with American comic books and the French bande dessinée . Tezuka had received medical education, and in the “Black Jack”, he combined his medical knowledge with his brilliant talent of a manga creator ( mangaka ). The main character of the book, Black Jack, became somewhat of Tezuka Osamu’s alter ego, receiving immense affection from the readers. However, unlike, for example, the American Mickey Mouse, this character was hardly known in Russia, so the first Russian language issues of Japanese comics were not in particular demand. Despite this, in the narrow circle of Russian fans of Japanese animation and manga ( otaku ), the need for such kind of cultural products was brewing. In the late 1990s, with the development of computer technologies, amateur translations of manga became widespread on the Internet, including its Russian language segment. There appeared underground publishers which produced unlicensed paper editions of manga ( piratka ). Subsequently, some of them evolved into legal companies, which lead to the appearance of the first official Russian manga publishers in the early 2000s. In this regard, it is important to trace the contents of these works and the specific features of the way they were published, as well as the experience of publishers who undertook the task of translating Asian comics into Russian.

The article illustrates lexical similarities and differences in Japanese and Chinese languages using economic terminology as an example. Similarities are particularly obvious in social sciences due to wide use of words with Chinese roots ( kango ) by Japanese authors when translating specialized Western literature during the latter half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The ability of Japanese translators to master Chinese logic of word formation made it possible to create a large amount of vocabulary that was later incorporated in the Chinese language and is currently used in both languages. As a result, many terms in Japanese and Chinese professional literature not only look similar but have the same meaning and usage. On the one hand, this makes it easier for specialists who know only one of the languages to understand texts in both languages. On the other hand, in many cases subtle differences in usage or even opposite connotations of the terms may lead to misunderstanding and grave mistakes in translation. Most differences that appeared in the process of borrowing terms result from specific features of economic environment in the recipient country. The divergence of terminology also has its roots in different social and economic environments of both countries and in the practice of phonetic borrowing, which is widespread mostly in contemporary Japanese language.

The phenomenon of political corruption in Japan during the “1955 system” manifested itself in the shady nature of most financial flows ensuring the functioning of the system of one-party rule by the LDP. This shady system of financing essentially contradicted the spirit of the Political Funds Control Law and the Public Offices Election Law. It was almost impossible for the LDP MPs to ensure the functioning of their “political machines” without acquiring extraordinarily large monetary funds, so a significant part of them had to be obtained from dubious sources. As a result, political scandals erupted in Japan from time to time (the Lockheed scandal, the Recruit scandal, the Sagawa Kyubin scandal), revealing the enormous scale of violations of these norms and restrictions by politicians, as well as their regular abuse of political funds. At the same time, legal regulation of political funds was significantly more stringent regarding political parties, as compared to other organizations involved in political activities, including LDP factions and personal political structures maintained by individual politicians. Anticorruption laws were extremely vague in content and had many loopholes making it easy to evade them. They became an effective tool against corruption only after the radical political reform of 1994. The ethno-psychological peculiarities of the Japanese people also played a certain role in the spread of political corruption. In particular, it was the public opinion’s tolerance for moderate manifestations of corruption and the willingness to forgive those responsible if they show external signs of repentance. In addition, the weakness and fragmentation of the opposition, which prevented political scandals from having large-scale and painful consequences for the LDP, was a significant factor as well. The LDP got away with a lot of things because the opposition parties did not provide the voters with a real political alternative, and because their leaders were also involved in corruption scandals.

As a result of the progressive aging of the population and the decline in the number of young workers, Japan faces the challenge of using the potential of still inactive labor resources. One of the ways to solve the problem is to increase the employment of senior citizens, especially since the state of health of most of them allows them to work for quite a long time. In Japan, a lot has been done in this direction. In particular, the laws adopted in the 2000s-2010s significantly improved the employment conditions of elderly citizens, which led to a marked increase in their level of economic activity in the past ten years. However, certain institutional restrictions that impede the further expansion of their participation in the economy of the country continue to exist. First of all, it is the teinen - the age limit on the employee’s stay in the company (60 years). Although all companies became legally obliged to extend the employment of workers even after teinen (until they reach the pension age, i.e. 65 years), in practice, after 60 years, for many workers, not only their working conditions but also their social status change. These changes affect not only the position of the cohort of the 60 to 64-year-old Japanese, but also predetermine the character of the employment of the cohort following it - citizens aged 65-69. Certain obstacles are created by the system of deductions from the pensions of working pensioners as well. In recent years, the problem of employment of elderly Japanese has acquired a special significance due to the fact that millions of people who were born during the first post-war baby boom (1947-1949) and several years later joined their ranks. They are more educated than former pensioners, have greater professional experience and high qualifications, and have a fairly high level of consumption. Expanding their participation in the economy would not only help to alleviate the increasingly acute problem of labor shortages, but would also help to sustain economic growth and reduce the burden on the social security system.

The article considers the specific features of Japan’s foreign policy course in the light of the present situation in North East Asia, which is undergoing substantial change due to the weakening of the role of the United States, the rising economic and political power of China, as well as the aggravation of a number of regional contradictions and conflicts. In these circumstances, Japanese leadership takes several steps in the military-political field, serving testament to the Japanese foreign policy course becoming increasingly active. From Japan’s point of view, the main threats to its security are, first and foremost, “the China factor” and “the threat from the DPRK”. The former is caused, to a large extent, by the exacerbating Japan-China territorial dispute around the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, which forces Japan both to upgrade its military might and to expend efforts in order to strengthen its cooperation with the United States and, potentially, other regional nations. However, the territorial dispute is but a manifestation of deeper contradictions, in this way or another affecting the entire spectrum of Japan-China relations, even though this does not prevent Japan from seeking ways to develop friendly relations with the PRC. Meanwhile, the territorial issue and the problems of historical past mar not only Japan-China, but only Japan-South Korea relations. Japan also takes measures to defend itself from “the threat from the DPRK”, which is expressed, largely, in its strict policy regarding the anti-DPRK sanctions and the resolution of the Korean missile and nuclear issues, its efforts to resolve the problem of abducted Japanese citizens, and also, in the field of military policy, in the development of a national missile defense system. At the same time, Japan’s relations with Russia in the military-political field develop largely in a good-neighborly fashion. While certain problematic issues remain, officially, Japan does not see Russia as a threat and advocates the maintenance of broad contacts between Moscow and Tokyo in this field.

The article deals with the problems of development of university science in Japan, highlights the role of university startups and ventures in the innovative development of Japan and the improvement of national competitiveness. In the age of the fourth industrial revolution, the transnationalization of business, and the shift of the focus of competition towards the innovation sphere, the scientific and technical strategy of Japan is undergoing significant changes. In the context of building the Society 5.0 - a “super smart society, where new values and services will be created through the active use of cyberspace, which will bring prosperity to the people” - what becomes prioritized are such directions of scientific-technical and innovation policy as the consolidation of efforts of business, government, and academia, a more active use of the potential of university science on the principles of “open innovation”, the commercialization of research results conducted by universities, and the development of innovative entrepreneurship in the form of startups and ventures. The national policy of support for university venture companies, which has been implemented for 20 years, is represented by three main areas: assistance in the creation of new startups, support for existing ones, strengthening their financial base. The most relevant direction of modern-day policy is the creation of the “startup ecosystem” - a mechanism in which entrepreneurs, existing companies, universities, research institutes, financial institutions, and government agencies can interact as participants in the cyclical process of company foundation, growth, maturity, and renewal. The author analyzes the organizational and legal basis of this policy, its financial instruments. The author pays special attention to the study of the Japanese practice of protection of intellectual property rights to the results of research conducted at universities and the creation of technology transfer systems at universities (TLO). The article deals with the forms of interaction between university science and business, as well as the main types of startups focused on universities, highlights the activities of universities in the field of intensification of research, commercialization of its results, including through patenting, as well as the problems of management of university science and the introduction of modern business practices in this area.

Viktor Sanovich talks about the history of his work on the translation of the “Konjaku Monogatari Shū”, recalls meetings with Nikolai Konrad, Vera Markova, and other Russian scholars, using various examples, compares different approaches to the reading and translation of Japanese classical texts, shares the experience of editing Russian editions of collections of Japanese poetry and Japanese fairy tales.

The name of Tsunoda Bun-ei (1913-2008) is not particularly well-known in the academic community of Europe and Japan. However, the contribution of this outstanding scholar, archaeologist, historian, and writer to the development of world science is beyond doubt. Tsunoda Bun-ei was a professor of universities in Osaka and Kyoto, the founder and head of the Japanese Historical Society, the author of numerous scholarly works, the editor and publisher of journals on ancient history. The Heian Museum of Ancient History and centers for the study of antiquities and ancient literature of the West were founded in Japan with his direct participation. Excavations of monuments were carried out under his leadership not only in Japan, but also abroad - in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Europe. Unfortunately, there are many gaps in the biography of B. Tsunoda. For example, the little known pages of his biography include his study trips and research in Europe in the 1940s - 1970s, the circumstances of his captivity in the USSR during the Second World War, the nuances of his visits to the Soviet Union and Russia in 1971 and 1997, as well as of his meetings with Soviet scholars. The topic of Professor Tsunoda's international contacts has hardly been studied. His extensive correspondence with colleagues outside Japan remains, for now, out of scholarly spotlight. For many years, his interest towards Eurasia connected him with famous European scholars, such as Aarne Michael Tallgren, Gero von Merhart, Ellis Minns, Franz Hančar, and others. The present article aims to shed some light on the history of the relationship of Tsunoda Bun-ei with his European and Russian counterparts, and to acquaint the academic community with fragments of letters from the personal archives of his correspondents.