Decolonising Japanese fictions

When we first put out the call for papers for a special issue on Decolonising Japanese Studies, it became immediately apparent, from the diversity and quality of the responses we received, that we would need to produce more than one issue. Our first, published in March 2025, drew together four articles from a range of disciplines, each of which utilised decolonising strategies to re-examine certain (seemingly self-evident) objects and fields of enquiry within Japanese Studies; and to engage in an important, yet often uncomfortable, questioning of how such objects and fields have come into being. Doing so enabled an understanding of the various imperial and neo-colonial agendas which have prioritised, organised and financed them; the disadvantages and injustices that their materialisation may have perpetuated in their wake; and our imbrication, as researchers and students, within the systems of knowledge and study that colonialism and neo-colonialism have produced. The March 2025 issue, while providing a springboard for continuing dialogue, alongside an openness to new voices and new ways of looking at Japan, nevertheless highlighted the urgency of the task of decolonising the field of study as we know it. In presenting this next special issue, we contend such urgency remains. This is not despite, but precisely because of, the fact that Japanese Studies as we have hitherto known it is currently under threat.