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David McNeill

David McNeill

David McNeill (PhD) is a professor at the Department of English Language, Communication and Cultures at Sacred Heart University in Tokyo.

Struggle against Union Busting, Police Oppression over Fair Wage

Struggle against Union Busting, Police Oppression over Fair Wage

Someone in the Japanese government appears to have ordered an Osaka-based union to be destroyed. The Kan’nama story has triggered alarming constitutional questions – but little media attention. For nearly three years, Matsuo Seiko, 49, has kept a toothbrush and a change of clothes stuffed into a bag stored in

Japanese media remain silent over legal victory for free expression

Japanese media remain silent over legal victory for free expression

Miki Dezaki scored a legal victory for truth and for freedom of expression in a Japanese court, so why is it being ignored? In June 2019, Miki Dezaki found himself defending his hit documentary Shusenjo: The Main Battleground of the Comfort Women Issue to a room full of reporters. Dezaki

表現の自由の勝訴に沈黙する: 日本のメディア

表現の自由の勝訴に沈黙する: 日本のメディア

真実と表現の自由を問う裁判で、ドキュメンタリー映画『主戦場：慰安婦問題論争』のミキ・デザキ監督側が勝訴した。なぜ、日本のメディアはこの話題には触れずにいるのか？

My Father-in-Law, the Japanese Radical

My Father-in-Law, the Japanese Radical

Visitors to Japan’s main international hub are still greeted by a sign saying ‘Down With Narita Airport’, a giant middle finger waved by diehards from a different era. Years before we met, I learned about my Japanese father-in-law in an American newspaper. A story in the late 1990s reviewed

Don’t Look Back; an asylum story with hard lessons for Japan

Don’t Look Back; an asylum story with hard lessons for Japan

Gloria Onyekweli came to Japan just before Christmas in 2006, claiming asylum from her native Nigeria. She left her homeland after she said her fiancé, a political activist caught up in the Biafran separatist movement, was killed by the government. When she was told she was being sought by the

Fishing boats left in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake

Ten Years Later: Fukushima continues rebuilding after 3.11 disaster

Residents remember and cautiously contemplate the future as parts of the region are still off-limits after a powerful earthquake triggered calamity. Ten years ago, Sakurai Katsunobu began another working day as mayor of Minamisoma, a small coastal city in Fukushima Prefecture. By evening, 400 of his constituents would be dead,

Fukushima, 10 years on - An interview with former Prime Minister Naoto Kan

Fukushima, 10 years on - An interview with former Prime Minister Naoto Kan

Naoto Kan was prime minister of Japan during the 2011 crisis. An engineering graduate of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kan was a contemporary at the university of many future nuclear engineers, including Masao Yoshida, manager of the Fukushima Daiichi plant during the disaster. While in office, Kan broke with