The loss of a loved one is a traumatic event. If the loved one is your child, the emotions are further tested. Imagine having to cope with all of these feelings when also adding into the mix the challenges when the death happens on the other side of the planet in a country with a different language and culture. This is what one man had to face when his son died in the world's largest single plane crash. Peter Mathews lost his son Kimble, who was travelling with his fiancée Masako Nishiguchi, in the flight JL123 crash on 12 August 1985. From the time of the first phone call through his trip to Japan until his return back to the UK, Peter kept a diary and took photographs. Using these materials as a basis, this book provides an amazing insight into the events of August 1985. The book also includes details of the experiences and lessons learned by the JAL employee, Keith Haines, who was assigned to accompany the Mathews family to Japan. Their story is as relevant today as it was in 1985.

It was meant to be a chance to escape the hustle and bustle of Tōkyō. Nicola was working hard as an English teacher in Japan; she desperately needed a holiday. A long weekend with her boyfriend, Akira, and two other friends, Mai and Masashi, seemed ideal. The four of them would travel by Japan's safest form of transport, the shinkansen ('bullet train'), before boarding a ferry for the trip across to the quiet island of Sado. However, Nicola and her friends could never imagine that they would become caught up in a hijacking. Why would someone want to hijack this train? How would Nicola and her friends respond to being on a hijacked train? Would the police be able to catch those responsible? Hijacking Japan follows events in a real-time format during a dramatic day that threatens to bring the Japanese government to its knees.

This is the first book to apply the concept of ‘contents tourism’ in a global context and to establish an international and interdisciplinary framework for contents tourism research. The term ‘contents tourism’ gained official recognition in Japan when it was defined by the Japanese government in 2005, and it has been characterised as ‘travel behaviour motivated fully or partially by narratives, characters, locations, and other creative elements of popular culture forms including film, television dramas, manga, anime, novels and computer games’. The book builds on previous research from Japan and explores three main themes of contents tourism: ‘the Contentsization of Literary Worlds’, ‘Tourist Behaviours at “Sacred Sites” of Contents Tourism’ and ‘Contents Tourism as Pilgrimage’ and draws together these key themes to propose a set of policy implications for achieving successful and sustainable contents tourism in the 21st century.

A tense, powerful thriller from the bestselling author of Six Four 1985. Kazumasa Yuuki, a seasoned reporter at the North Kanto Times, runs a daily gauntlet of the power struggles and office politics that plague its newsroom. But when an air disaster of unprecedented scale occurs on the paper’s doorstep, its staff is united by an unimaginable horror and a once-in-a-lifetime scoop. 2003. Seventeen years later, Yuuki remembers the adrenaline-fueled, emotionally charged seven days that changed his and his colleagues’ lives. He does so while making good on a promise he made that fateful week—one that holds the key to its last solved mystery and represents Yuuki’s final, unconquered fear. From Hideo Yokoyama, the celebrated author of Six Four, comes Seventeen—an investigative thriller set amid the aftermath of disaster.

This open access book covers comprehensive but fundamental principles and concepts of disaster and accident prevention and mitigation, countermeasures, and recovery from disasters or accidents including treatment and care of the victims. Safety and security problems in our society involve not only engineering but also social, legal, economic, cultural, and psychological issues. The enhancement needed for societal safety includes comprehensive activities of all aspects from precaution to recovery, not only of people but also of governments. In this context, the authors, members of the Faculty of Societal Safety Science, Kansai University, conducted many discussions and concluded that the major strategy is consistent independently of the type and magnitude of disaster or accident, being also the principle of the foundation of our faculty. The topics treated in this book are rather widely distributed but are well organized sequentially to provide a clear understanding of the principles of societal safety. In the first part the fundamental concepts of safety are discussed. The second part deals with risks in the societal and natural environment. Then follows, in the third part, a description of the quantitative estimation of risk and its assessment and management. The fourth part is devoted to disaster prevention, mitigation, and recovery systems. The final, fifth part presents a future perspective of societal safety science. Thorough reading of this introductory volume of societal safety science provides a clear image of the issues. This is largely because the Japanese have suffered often from natural disasters and not only have gained much valuable information about disasters but also have accumulated a store of experience. We are still in the process of reconstruction from the Great East Japan earthquake and the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. This book is especially valuable therefore in studying the safety and security of people and their societies.

Everyday life is essential. Having lost her husband in a plane crash, a mother is encouraged by the growth of a persimmon tree, to convey the importance of life, despite the despair and hard life she and her children face.

The image of the shinkansen – or ‘bullet train’ – passing Mount Fuji is one of the most renowned images of modern Japan. Yet, despite its international reputation for speed and punctuality, little is understood about what makes it work so well and what its impact is. This is a comprehensive account of the history of the shinkansen, from its planning during the Pacific War, to its launch in 1964 and subsequent development. It goes on to analyze the reasons behind the bullet train’s success, and demonstrates how it went from being simply a high-speed rail network to attaining the status of iconic national symbol. It considers the shinkansen’s relationship with national and regional politics and economic development, its financial viability, the environmental challenges it must cope with, and the ways in which it reflects and influences important aspects of Japanese society. It concludes by considering whether the bullet train can be successful in other countries developing high-speed railways. Overall, this book provides a thorough examination of the phenomenon of the shinkansen, and its relationship with Japanese society.