Res Japonica is a blog dedicated to Japanese international politics, with forays into culture, society, philosophy, and related paraphernalia.

Its title is derived from Res publica, which is a Latin phrase meaning ‘public affair’, or everything pertaining to the state and the public more generally. Japonica simply means ‘Japanese‘, but it can also refer to a genus of butterfly in the Lycaenidae family.

While pursuing Master’s degrees in Japanese studies and international politics, I have been writing down my thoughts, theories and observations for some time. Now I am transferring these writings to this blog while also covering more recent affairs and reporting.

This blog’s design contains an altered version of a Japonica butterfly image by H.Kohori (Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 via Wikimedia Commons).