3.29: King of a Mole Hill

Show Notes

This week, we review and analyze Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ (機動戦士ガンダムΖΖ) episode 31 - "Blue Corps, Part 2” (青の部隊 (後)) discuss our first impressions, and provide commentary and research on religion in postwar Japan and the history of Islam in Japan.

- Books and articles:

Basabe, Fernando M., et al. Japanese Youth Confronts Religion: A Sociological Survey. Sophia University. Tokyo, Rutland, Vt: Charles E. Tuttle, 1968. 

Roemer, Michael. “Religious Affiliation in Contemporary Japan: Untangling the Enigma.” Review of Religious Research, vol. 50, no. 3, 2009, pp. 298–320. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25593743. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.

Asia in the Making of Europe: Volume I, the Century of Discovery, by Donald F. Lach, University of Chicago Press, 1994, pp. 505–518. Accessed here.

Bodde, Derk. “Japan and the Muslims of China.” Far Eastern Survey, vol. 15, no. 20, 1946, pp. 311–313. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3021860. Accessed 23 Mar. 2021.

Symonds, Shannon Reed. “A History of Japanese Religion: from Ancient Times to Present.” The College at Brockport: State University of New York, History at Digital Commons @Brockport, 2005. Accessed here.

- General pages on religion in Japan from Britannica and Nippon.com.

- Wikipedia pages for Japan Sinks (日本沈没) and Prophecies of Nostradamus (ノストラダムスの大予言) (popular apocalyptic fiction from 1970s).

- General page on Islam in Japan.

- About Ibn Khordadbeh, 9th century Persian geographer.

- Wikipedia page for the Black Dragon Society (黒竜会/kokuryūkai).

- Pages about Umar Mita, the Japanese Muslim whose 1972 translation of the Qur'an I mention in the podcast. Both pages include background information on Islam in Japan.

- Article from the Asia-Pacific Journal - Japan Focus about local mosques and the day-to-day lives of Muslims in Japan.

- Wikipedia pages for Kawauchi Kōhan (川内 康範) (and for his 1960 series, Messenger of Allah / アラーの使者), Dewi Sukarno, and Muhammad Hussain Inoki (aka Antonio Inoki / アントニオ猪木).

Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced within Lenapehoking, the ancestral and unceded homeland of the Lenape, or Delaware, people. Before European settlers forced them to move west, the Lenape lived in New York City, New Jersey, and portions of New York State, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Lenapehoking is still the homeland of the Lenape diaspora, which includes communities living in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario.

You can learn more about Lenapehoking, the Lenape people, and ongoing efforts to honor the relationship between the land and indigenous peoples by visiting the websites of the Delaware Tribe and the Manhattan-based Lenape Center. Listeners in the Americas and Oceania can learn more about the indigenous people of your area at https://native-land.ca/. We would like to thank The Lenape Center for guiding us in creating this living land acknowledgment.

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The intro music is WASP by Misha Dioxin, and the outro is Long Way Home by Spinning Ratio, both licensed under Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 licenses. The recap music for Season 3 is New York City (instrumental) by spinningmerkaba, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.. All music used in the podcast has been edited to fit the text.

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