In this paper, the author analyzes a mysterious phenomenon of voluntary seclusion that had emerged as a mental deviation in Japan in the late 20th century, having spread all over the countries of ―the golden billion‖ since that time. On the basis of numerous works by Japanese and Western sociologists, psychiatrists, ethnographers, and economists characteristic features of the social group called hikikomori are given a definition. Factors that had specific impact on its emergence as well as the connection between the mental deviations of hikikomori and historical changes in modern Japanese society with IT technology shifts at the background are scrutinized in comparison with similar processes in other developed countries of the world. The author also focuses on the methods of treatment of this ―culture-bound syndrome‖ suggested by contemporary psychiatry and the prospects of inevitable expansion of the dangerous social epidemic disease regarding dramatic growth of hikikomori among the younger generations in the first decades of the 20th century.

Political caricature is one of the most interesting historical sources for studying the formation of the image of an event or a nation. It is often in the caricature that one can trace the process of visualizing the “image of the enemy” in a particular state, which is deliberately constructed under the influence of various external and internal factors. A striking example is the Soviet political cartoon. The article is devoted to the study of the formation of the image of Japan in the political caricature of the Soviet Union on the example of the newspaper “Soviet Siberia” during the Manchurian crisis.

The author insists that, in order to form the negative image of Japan by the means of caricature, old stereotypes about Japan which had emerged during the Russo-Japanese and the Russian Civil wars were used, including mass representations of the Japanese as carriers of such traits as belligerence, cruelty, cunning, and unpredictability.

The study concludes that Japan was represented as an aggressor country, which, under the pretext of “self-defense”, invaded the neighboring state in order to seize its territories, as well as an exploiter of the masses. Eventually, this formed the reader’s image of Japan as an enemy state, conditioned a negative attitude towards the Far Eastern neighbor on the level of mass consciousness, and gave impetus to further anti-Japanese propaganda, which received special development in the USSR since 1933.

The Kenmu Regime is the military and aristocratic Japanese government in 1333–1336, headed by the supporters of sovereign Go-Daigo (後醍醐天皇, 1288–1339). The reign of Go-Daigo, full of contradictions, had a great impact on premodern Japanese culture and Japanese historical memory, and became one of the main narratives of medieval Japanese history. Academic discussions on the historical role of the Kenmu Regime began in the Edo period (1603–1868) and continue to this day. However, there are no specific Russian-language studies entirely devoted to the events of the 14th century and the Kenmu Regime in particular. In Russia, the works by European and American authors are usually used to describe this period. At the same time, many aspects of the discussion remain neglected. For example, Russian scholars have essentially ignored the last stages of the study of Go-Daigo’s reign. The purpose of this paper is to determine what we know and what we do not know about the Kenmu Regime, how we know it, and what we can do to deepen our knowledge. The author of the current article used as sources various academic and near-academic texts (notes, monographs, collective monographs and manuals, reviews and responses to reviews, background materials) in Portuguese, English, French, German, and Russian. The texts are considered in chronological order, i.e., each section reflects a certain stage in the study of the rule of GoDaigo. This work also examines the methodological and other influence of Japanese historians on nonJapanese scholars who study the Kenmu Regime and analyzes the prospects for further study of Go-Daigo’s reign from the point of view of different scholarly approaches and academic traditions.

Achieving sustainable economic development and productivity growth in Japanese companies are possible through digital transformation (DX). The implementation of digital transformation has become even more important as the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a major downturn in economic activity in the country. The transition to digital technology is revealing the traditional features of Japanese company work style, business culture, and management that are being altered by the digital transformation process. This digital transition can be a catalyst for Japanese companies to change or even abandon the work style, business culture, and management that today not only prevent companies from being competitive, but also can lead to extinction. The changes taking place so far meet resistance, but, perhaps, will soon be accepted and adapted by Japanese business.

During the Tokugawa period, Japan’s population stabilized at 31–32 million. After the Meiji revolution, it began to grow rapidly. Some people were proud and saw in the multiplication of the Japanese a sign that things were going well in the country, but, for the more realistic-minded scholars, the rapid population growth caused not delight, but most serious alarm because of future food shortages and social explosions. Malthus’s alarmist ideas were used to validate such concerns. Japanese scientists agreed with him that uncontrolled reproduction was dangerous but objected to birth control because it “contradicted human feelings.” As a solution to the problem of overpopulation, they proposed emigration, which Malthus himself considered a palliative measure. The Japanese state encouraged emigration both to the Japanese colonies (Taiwan, Korea) and to other countries (primarily to the United States and Latin America). However, this emigration was not large-scale enough and was unable to alleviate the demographic pressure within Japan. The main reason was the emotional attachment of the Japanese to their small homeland, which had not received sufficient attention before. However, the advocates of emigration themselves singled out precisely this factor and considered it a shortcoming of the national character. Despite calls from the government and supporters of emigration to sacrifice this attachment for the good of the whole country and emigrate, this attachment was never overcome. The largest resettlement campaign to emigrate to Manchuria also ended in failure. The plans of the totalitarian state and the love of the Japanese for their home were in an antagonistic relationship.

The article analyses the modern perception of Japan by Vladivostok citizens as well as their views of the current state and prospects of Russo-Japanese relations. The research is based on the materials of a survey conducted by the Public Opinion Research Laboratory of the Institute of History of the Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in May-September 2021. Obtained data correlate with the results of similar studies of previous years, which the laboratory conducted in various parts of Pacific Russia. The citizens’ perception of Japan is compared with their views of other countries that are significant for Vladivostok and Pacific Russia, namely, China, the USA, India, and the two Koreas.

The authors note that, as the Japanese factor played an important role in the history of Vladivostok, this country attracts special attention of the city’s residents. In their opinion, the high level of attractiveness of Japan in Pacific Russia and Vladivostok as well, which, over the past two decades, has been recorded by public opinion polls, is based, first of all, on the people’s interest to its unique culture, their high assessment of the substantial level of economic and technological development of Japan and the welfare of the Japanese people. However, the historical experience of Russian-Japanese relations and political contradictions between the two countries force a large part of the respondents (about a third of their total number) to believe in the existence of threats to Russia from Japan, which are naturally identified with the territorial claims of the latter. Nevertheless, the residents of Vladivostok, for the most part, show a fairly high level of trust towards Japan, positively assess the quality of modern Russian-Japanese relations and their future, and advocate for their active development.

In the course of the first post-war decades, Japanese society, while remaining class-based by nature, underwent changes that led to the formation – both in the academic community and in the mass consciousness – of ideas about its transformation into a classless society or a middle-class society. In this society, the overwhelming majority of citizens have approximately the same level of material well-being, lead approximately the same lifestyle, and share common values. The economic turmoil of the 1990s – 2000s led to the transformation of these perceptions. The issues of class structure and social inequality have returned to scientific discourse and media, and soon the thesis about the transformation of Japanese society into a divided society (kakusa shakai, or gap society) became generally accepted. Using both economic analysis and sociological tools, the author of this article tried to prove that the real state of affairs in Japanese society does not provide grounds for asserting a radical change in its character – the transformation from a middle-class society into a kakusa shakai. Contrary to the generally accepted ideas about the growth of economic inequality, the article shows that, due to the redistribution of initial incomes, the inequality in which is really increasing, in terms of income after the redistribution, the gap not only does not increase, but even decreases in trend. There are no dramatic changes in the status differentiation as well. Thus, the peculiarities of the gender and age composition of the category of “non-permanent workers” largely “extinguish” the status differences between permanent and non-permanent employment that exist in Japan. At the same time, thanks to a noticeable increase in the level of education of the Japanese, as well as an increase in the proportion of people with prestigious professions in the professional structure of the employed, in the class structure, there is a shift in favor of strata occupying higher positions. Of course, now, as before, the Japanese find themselves in different niches, their life paths largely depend on which stratum they belong to. Moreover, due to the diversification of lifestyles and preferences of people, the social structure of Japanese society has become more complex and diverse. And yet, at its core, it remains a middle-class society, as evidenced by the feelings of the Japanese themselves, reflected in opinion polls conducted by the Cabinet Office annually since the mid-1960s.

The article presents a review of the monograph by N.N. Izotova “Codes of Japanese Culture” (2021). The book provides a comprehensive culturological analysis of the cultural codes of Japan, reveals their ethnocultural specificity, their structure, methods of actualization and functioning, describes their semantic, pragmatic, poetically-figurative, conceptual and terminological features. The reviewer notes the advantages of the work, such as its authentic basis, reliance on the current realities of modern Japanese society, and a large amount of diverse information materials in Japanese and Russian.