The Spider Lily: Japan’s Fiery Flower of Autumn

 At this time of year, the vibrant red blossoms of the spider lily, known in Japan as higanbana (彼岸花), brighten the landscape. You often see them massed along rice paddy embankments, riverbanks, and around cemeteries—always in the same places, year after year. This is no coincidence of nature: these flowers have a long history of being deliberately planted by human hands.

Like bananas, the spider lily is a triploid plant—its chromosomes occur in three sets rather than the usual two. Because of this, normal meiosis cannot take place, and the plant produces no seeds. Instead, it reproduces by dividing its underground bulbs. As a result, every cluster of spider lilies in a given area is essentially a colony of near-identical clones.

Their frequent presence around rice fields and cemeteries is not merely aesthetic. The bulbs contain toxins that repel moles, mice, and other pests. Long ago, villagers planted them as a natural safeguard, protecting the rice harvest and, in burial grounds, preventing animals from disturbing the soil.

The name higanbana means “flower of the equinox,” as they bloom precisely around the autumn equinox. Yet across Japan, the flower is known by more than a thousand other names. One of the most famous, manjushage (曼珠沙華), comes from a Buddhist scripture in Sanskrit meaning “the red flower that blooms in heaven.” Others, such as shibitobana (死人花) “corpse flower,” reflect its association with cemeteries and death. The sheer number of these names reveals a cultural ambivalence: the flower inspires awe for its beauty, yet also unease for its ghostly associations.

My sister dislikes spider lilies, finding them poisonous and unsettling. I, however, feel a quiet joy whenever I see them in bloom—it is then that I know autumn has arrived. And above all, I love their appearance. Botanically, they form a radiant umbel: from the top of a straight green stalk, slender stems spread outward in all directions, each tipped with a crimson blossom. The six petals curl back dramatically, while long, delicate stamens and pistils extend gracefully into the air, arching like threads of fire. Together they encircle the stalk in a crown of flames—an ephemeral blaze that burns only for a brief moment each year.

Moon Viewing: Two Beloved Autumn Moons in Japanese Culture

 The night of the 十五夜 (Jugoya), known as the Harvest Moon or the Mid-Autumn Moon, falls on the 15th day of the eighth month in the old lunar calendar (October 6 in 2025). Its origins trace back to the “Mid-Autumn Festival” brought from China during the Heian period. In Japan, however, the timing coincides with the rice harvest season, so moon-viewing gradually became associated with giving thanks for the harvest and praying for abundance. Because taro is traditionally offered to the moon, this evening is also called the “Potato Moon” (芋名月). Steamed taro, moon-shaped dumplings, and pampas grass are set out as offerings—an image that continues to be cherished even today.

In contrast, the 十三夜 (Jusanya), or “Later Moon,” falls on the 13th day of the ninth lunar month (November 2 in 2025). Unlike the Jūgoya, this is a custom born in Japan, also during the Heian period, and it spread among the nobility as a companion to the Mid-Autumn celebration. The moon on this night is not perfectly full but slightly waning, and the Japanese of the time found beauty precisely in this “unfinished form.” They cherished the subtle, lingering beauty that contrasted with the perfect circle of the Harvest Moon—an appreciation that would later blossom into the aesthetics of wabi and sabi. Because chestnuts and beans are typically offered, this night is also affectionately called the “Chestnut Moon” (栗名月) or the “Bean Moon” (豆名月).

In Japan, people often say they can see a rabbit pounding rice cakes in the patterns of the moon.

Tradition holds that celebrating only one of these occasions—either the 15th night or the 13th night—was considered inauspicious, a practice called “片月見 (katatsukimi),” or one-sided moon viewing. Yet today, many people have never even heard of the Jusanya, and most are content simply to enjoy the Harvest Moon. Personally, I prefer not to worry about superstition, but simply to admire the moon’s beauty as it is.

Who Kicked the Deer in the Shadow of Neoliberalism?

 The Liberal Democratic Party will hold its leadership election on October 4 to choose Prime Minister Ishiba’s successor. Since the leader of the ruling party is normally chosen as prime minister in parliament, a new cabinet will almost certainly be formed soon after. Yet the darker shadow looming over Japanese politics today is not policy debate itself, but the rise of exclusionary rhetoric. A female candidate in the race illustrated this with her now-infamous "Nara deer" story. Citing the 万葉集(Manyosyu), she declared: "There are people who actually kick these deer, people who strike them to frighten them. If tourists from abroad come here only to harm what the Japanese people hold dear, surely something has gone too far."

However, when The Tokyo Shimbun fact-checked the matter with Nara Prefecture and relevant authorities, no evidence was found that the individual in the circulated video was foreign, nor were there any official records of deer being kicked or beaten by tourists. The recent rule changes to protect the animals were not prompted by repeated assaults, but by the need to supplement existing cultural property laws with preventive and educational measures. And in fact, the rare cases that resulted in convictions for killing or harming deer involved Japanese offenders, not foreigners. In short, this was not a matter of genuine evidence, but an instance where exclusionary sentiment was politically mobilized.

How should we understand such episodes? Wendy Brown’s In the Ruins of Neoliberalism offers a compelling lens. She argues that neoliberalism is not just an economic program—it has eroded the very language through which we speak of society. Even as inequality has widened, the conceptual ground for naming it social injustice has weakened. Everything is reframed as “individual responsibility” or “market outcome”. As the ideals of public good and equality have hollowed out, what has risen in their place are exclusive identities—tradition, family, nation—as the supposed glue of community. Into this vacuum, Brown suggests, populism and xenophobia inevitably flow.

Japan has followed a similar trajectory. Just as Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the US advanced deregulation and privatization in the 1980s, Japan under Prime Minister Nakasone (1982–87) declared the “settlement of postwar politics” and pursued administrative reform and privatization. The era of the so-called “all middle class” disintegrated, and individuals were thrust into competition under the banner of self-responsibility. In this process, social solidarity and public welfare were steadily subordinated to market efficiency and the preservation of traditional values.

The result was that even as inequality deepened, the language to describe it as a “structural problem” fell away. Discontent, stripped of a social vocabulary, was redirected not toward markets or policies, but toward “outsiders”. In this sense, neoliberalism’s dismantling of “society” and its hollowing out of the ideals of equality and solidarity prepared the fertile ground for xenophobia. That the image of “a foreigner kicking a deer” can retain political power despite being untrue is possible only because this ground already exists.

Seen in this light, the rise of exclusionary politics in Japan is not merely the product of opportunistic politicians. It is the long-term consequence of a society reshaped by neoliberal logic since the 1980s. When liberalization and competition are promoted while the language of democracy and social justice retreats, the vacuum is filled by the emotional politics of an imagined foreign threat.

This is why merely denouncing xenophobia will never be enough. What we need is to restore a language of “society” itself—to recover ways of speaking that do not reduce inequality and discrimination to individual failings, but instead rebuild solidarity and public responsibility as the basis of living together. That challenge, more than any sound bite or scapegoat, is the task now placed before Japanese democracy.

School or Training Camp? Japan’s “Black School Rules”

 In Japanese schools, there are many so-called “black school rules”—unreasonable regulations imposed not for the sake of learning or safety, but to enforce uniformity and control.

For example, only straight black hair is officially permitted. If your natural hair isn’t pitch black or happens to be wavy, you are required to submit a “natural hair certificate” to prove that you haven’t dyed or permed it.

The rules don’t stop there. Underwear must be plain white or beige. Only one small charm is allowed on your school bag. Makeup is strictly forbidden, and even sunscreen counts as “cosmetics” and is therefore banned. Drinking water in class was once considered “disrespectful” to teachers and prohibited. And tying your hair back in a ponytail was outlawed for the bizarre reason that “boys might be aroused by seeing the nape of your neck.”

When I was in junior high school, I struggled because my natural hair was slightly lighter and loosely wavy. Several teachers would interrogate me with questions like, “Did you dye your hair?” or “Did you get a perm?” In winter my curls were manageable, but during Japan’s humid rainy season they always intensified. Even if I straightened my hair in the morning, by midday my bangs would already start curling again. I was constantly anxious, afraid that teachers might scold me at any moment.

The philosophy of my junior high school was to enforce absolute homogeneity: everyone should have the same hairstyle, wear the same clothes, and do the same things at the same time. Even the slightest deviation was punished. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. I felt so suffocated that one summer vacation I rebelled by bleaching my hair blonde and spending days hanging around in smoky arcades.

At that time, Japanese TV often aired footage of North Korea’s mass games—thousands of people performing synchronized gymnastics and dances. My classmates found those scenes surreal and a little strange, but I couldn’t help feeling uneasy. After all, weren’t we ourselves receiving a similar kind of uniform education, albeit to a lesser degree?

Fortunately, the high school I later attended—about the equivalent of a 3.7–3.9 GPA level school in the U.S.—had much looser rules. Nobody cared if my hair was a shade of dark brown. Looking back, it wasn’t my high school that was unusual, but rather my junior high that was extreme. The sense of release was exhilarating, as if the sky had suddenly opened up wide above me.

I used to love stopping by the convenience store on my way home from school.

Since the beginning of Japan’s Reiwa era (which started in 2019), school regulations have gradually been reviewed, and campaigns like “Let’s Abolish Black School Rules” have gained traction. As someone who was a student during the Heisei era, I can only feel envious. Yet even now, many of these bizarre rules remain stubbornly entrenched across Japan.

The Last Songs of Summer

Since last week, the cicadas known as Tsukutsukuboshi have begun to sing—their call is one of the season’s unmistakable markers that summer is drawing to a close. Though the heat still lingers at a sweltering 35°C (95°F), their voices remind us that the end of summer is near.

The Tsukutsukuboshi are found mainly in Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku, but they are rarely seen in Hokkaido or Okinawa. Their cry is unlike any other, so distinct that it’s worth listening to at least once.

 ↑ The call of the Tsukutsukuboshi

As the western sky glows crimson, giving way to deepening indigo, the sound of Higurashi cicadas rises from the thickets. True to their name—literally “sunset cicadas”—they sing most often as dusk descends. Around this same hour, it’s common to see a small flock of crows cawing as they make their way back to roost.

This, too, is part of the beauty of the Ehime countryside.

↑ The call of the Higurashi