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June 30, 2026
 

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Waka Ikeda

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Waka Ikeda
Waka Ikeda is a freelance journalist based in Budapest and Tokyo. Her work has appeared in Nikkei Asia, Newsweek Japan, Vogue Japan and Elle Japon, among other publications.
Japanese fans hold up their blue plastic bags before the start of the Group F match against Tunisia at the 2026 World Cup in Monterrey, Mexico, on June 20.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 28, 2026
The spotless World Cup stadium and the ‘unseen sink’
OECD data place Japanese men among the least domestically active in the developed world.
Visitors at a park in Budapest watch a traditional Japanese fencing demonstration by a classical samurai sword school during Japanese Cultural Program Day in July 2021.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jun 22, 2026
Is Cool Japan really the secret to soft-power success?
The part of Europe where Japanese culture is growing fastest is also where Japan has invested least.
Transcarpathia is a western Ukrainian region and one of the country's most ethnically diverse areas, populated by groups including Hutsuls, seen here in Yasynya, as well as Hungarians, Romanians, Slovaks and Ukrainians.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 11, 2026
Language, power and the price of entry
The same logic that protects Hungarians in Ukraine leaves Russian in the cold. Language policy, it turns out, has a foreign policy.
Protesters opposed to revising Japan’s “peace” Constitution take part in a rally in Tokyo on May 3.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 29, 2026
Goyo gakusha: Welcome to Japan’s new cancel culture
Guilt by affiliation is not scholarship. It is the abandonment of scholarship.
An experiment by a small city in Aichi Prefecture suggests that smartphone restrictions targeting only children are less effective than those targeting the entire family, as children’s screen habits closely mirror their parents.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 17, 2026
The parent problem: When smartphone rules end at the school gate
Children who exceeded two hours of daily screen time tended to have parents with similarly high usage. The relationship held across age groups.
Japan’s pacifist identity, rooted in Article 9 of the Constitution, has hardened into a reflex that avoids confronting modern security realities facing the world.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 22, 2026
Repeating Article 9 like a mantra isn’t a foreign policy
Any serious defense debate becomes, by rhetorical sleight of hand, a warning of imperial revival.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and her Canadian counterpart, Mark Carney, meet in Tokyo on March 6. Takaichi is Japan’s first female prime minister, while Canada has not had a woman serve in the post in more than three decades.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 13, 2026
Mirrors and blind spots: Japan, Canada and gender equality
Canada’s numbers do not describe a country that has solved gender inequality. They suggest one that may be coasting on a progressive reputation not fully matched by outcomes.
Sanai Takaichi and the Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide victory demonstrated that when candidates find compelling issues that affect their lives, young people show up.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Feb 10, 2026
Japan’s youth are quietly securing their nation’s future
Young voters didn’t just express opinions in polls, they showed up at voting stations in increased numbers, many for the first time.
Prime minister Sanae Takaichi and Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama attend a budget committee session in the Lower House of parliament in Tokyo on Nov. 11. Their rise to the nation’s highest offices underscores the growing prominence of women in Japanese politics.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 16, 2026
Feminism’s failures and the secret to Takaichi’s success
A movement that cannot accommodate this complexity — that insists feminists must agree on everything or be dismissed as traitors — consigns itself to irrelevance.
Documented evidence shows schools that implement smartphone-free policies see measurable improvements in academic performance and student well-being, even within a single semester.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 19, 2025
It’s time for Japan to ban smartphones in schools
Excessive screen time creates addiction comparable to substance abuse, but it is more nefarious in that it impacts people in unseen ways, unlike tobacco or alcohol.
Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, a self-made politician from a humble family, earned her way into Japan’s old-boys’ club through sheer determination, an achievement worth celebrating.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 31, 2025
Takaichi deserves better than gendered stereotypes
Takaichi’s diplomatic interactions don’t strike me as “selling her womanness” to Trump, as some have claimed.
Refugees and migrants, mostly from Syria and Afghanistan, crowd a platform at a train station in Budapest in September 2015. Hungary's focus on pro-natalist policies and minimal immigration has led to a significant improvement in its fertility rate compared to Japan.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Oct 15, 2025
Asia can learn from Europe’s immigration mistakes
The result is dangerous confusion where legitimate policy debates about labor shortages become entangled with xenophobic fears about cultural invasion.
East Asia’s fertility plunge is driven not just by financial costs but by perfectionist cultural expectations that burden parents with intense educational and social demands.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Sep 5, 2025
‘Confugenics’ and East Asia’s demographic crisis
The numbers are staggering when you dig into them. Parents in Japan covered half of higher education costs in 2024 — more than double the OECD average.
Students in South Korea sit the annual College Scholastic Ability Test. There is huge pressure on this exam, which determines young people's university choices and, in turn, their job and even marital prospects, leading to a heavy mental health burden.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 26, 2025
Entrance exam wars: A pressure cooker for South Korean youth
South Korea comes to a standstill on the day of the national university entrance exam. But so does students’ possibility to determine their future paths beyond a mere test score.
An advertisement in Tokyo's Kabukicho, Japan's largest red-light district. The country is home to a thriving adult entertainment industry and has recently seen a boom in sex tourism fueled by the weak yen and availability of red-light services.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 30, 2024
From geisha to oshikatsu, toxic tropes fuel sex industry
It isn’t only the foreign gaze that produces stereotypes of Japanese women as submissive and promiscuous. Local laws and cultural norms play just as important a role.
An archival photo depicting a CWAJ board meeting from April 6, 1966
COMMUNITY / Issues / The Foreign Element
Aug 15, 2024
From the division of war, 75 years of intercultural aid
Celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, the mission of the College Women’s Association of Japan remains straightforward yet ambitious: Women supporting women.
Hungary, which has increased its birth rate since 2010, has adopted policies that support those who want or have children, including financial incentives, housing subsidies and better work-life balance.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jul 31, 2024
Why do young people in Hungary want kids more than in Japan?
Marriage and birth rates are plummeting in Japan, while many young people in Hungary want families thanks to measures that support their choices in life and at work.
Japan’s custody system may soon change with the introduction of joint custody, though issues like a lack of protection against domestic violence and abuse must also be tackled.
COMMENTARY / Japan
May 10, 2024
Joint custody alone won’t fix Japan’s flawed system
Japan could be on the verge of adopting joint custody. While to some this is a step in the right direction, it may not be enough to protect families.
Yulia Naumenko is one of many Ukrainians living in Japan as the war in their home country stretches into its third year.
COMMUNITY
Mar 11, 2024
In war’s third year, Ukrainians in Japan still face daily trials
Two years of conflict has left Ukraine scarred and evacuees living in Japan with just as many struggles as when they arrived.
Beyond factors such as the "motherhood penalty," Japanese women struggle to advance in their careers due to the structure of the workforce, including the two-tiered clerical versus managerial track.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Mar 6, 2024
Why is it taking so long to break the glass ceiling?
Japan isn’t unique in having a thick glass ceiling, but some factors don’t apply to other countries, like the U.S., where many more managers are women.
Uruguay federation reportedly cancels charter flight after World Cup exit
Uruguay's Jose Maria Gimenez reacts after the team's loss against Spain at the 2026 FIFA World Cup on Friday.
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
India’s gig workers pay the price for exposure to New Delhi’s hazardous air
Rohit Kushwaha waits for a customer as he delivers his last parcel of the day, in New Delhi in January. His work as a delivery driver has helped pay the family’s bills, but has had a significant impact on his health.
Chinese and Russian bombers and fighter jets stage joint patrol near Japan
A Chinese Air Force H-6 bomber is seen during a joint patrol with Russian military aircraft on Saturday.
U.S. missile moves in Japan send China clear message: A new era has arrived
Soldiers conduct the first Typhon midrange capability live-fire exercise outside of the continental United States, firing an SM-6 missile in July last year in Australia's Northern Territory during Exercise Talisman Sabre.
Inside Japan’s rigid adoption system, a British family finds a way
James Benstead, his wife, Jesse, and their three children. Their adopted son is in the rear stroller.
A French ship with close ties to Japan combines arts and sciences on the high seas
Romain Troublé, the executive director of Tara Ocean Foundation, speaks to visitors aboard the Tara during a rare port call in Tokyo in April.
LGBTQ+ families are building lives Japanese lawmakers still struggle to see
Haru Ono founded Nijiiro Kazoku in 2010 after forming a same-sex stepfamily. She said the impetus for founding the organization was that she couldn’t find much reliable information out there for families such as hers in Japan.
In Kyushu’s far south, Senti.U sparks a culinary destination
Chef Yasuhiko Uchida was born in Saga Prefecture but has made his home in Kanoya, Kagoshima Prefecture, since 2012.
‘The colors speak for themselves’: How Japan’s chroma bible went global
“A Dictionary of Color Combinations” is meant to function as a quick-reference guide for artists, designers and anyone with a passing interest in aesthetics as a quantifiable pursuit.

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