This paper is a minute study about Majutsu wa sasayaku written by Japan’s most popular mystery novelist Miyuki Miyabe, and its 1980s’ background. The novel was published in 1989, at the peak of the “bubble” economy in which the nation flourished more than ever, and many girls enjoyed luxurious lifestyles dating handsome boyfriends and sometimes some of them met other men for money or fun without conscience, more freely than ever. A keen observer, Ms. Miyabe critically described such tendency, focusing on the loneliness and suffering of the unfortunate who were not popular with girls; the serious but ignored problem was to be at last dealt with in 1999 by the male literary critic Atsushi Koyano in his bestseller Motenai otoko (A Man Unpopular with Girls). Therefore, Majutsu wa sasayaku deserves a wider recognition that it is not so much an interesting mystery novel of a hypnotist-killer as a precious document about Japan in the 1980s.
The English translation of Majutsu wa sasayaku came out under the title of The Devil’s Whisper in 2007. Considering the fact that it was 18 years after the publication of the original, the release seems a bit too late. Maybe that was the reason that "198X," the very first word of the Japanese text in Prologue, was intentionally eliminated. Unless the readers of this English version know that it is the translation of the old book, they will tend to start reading it as a story of Japan in this 21st century. But of course, they will notice sooner or later that the scenes are those of the 1980s because there are neither cell phones, not to mention smartphones, nor the Internet, and the 1987 movie The Last Emperor (directed by Bernardo Bertolucci) and American actresses such as Brooke Shields and Phoebe Cates are mentioned in the novel.
In conclusion, The Devil’s Whisper would have been a much better book if it had included "198X," actually, either 1988 or 1989 according to the conversation about The Last Emperor, which was released in Japan in January, 1988. The English translator should have made it clear with both exact translations of proper nouns (like Almond Roppongi) and their explanatory notes that the novel vividly describes the so-called bubble period of Japan.

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There are many variants of Tenjin-Engi (The Origin of Tenjin), such as Kitano-Tenjin-Engi (北野天神縁起), Egara-Tenjin-Engi (荏柄天神縁起), and so on. Hosshōzan-Tenmangū-no-Engi (法性山天満宮之縁記) is one of those variants of Tenjin-Engi, enshrined in Hosshōzan-Jissōji-Temple (法性山実相寺) in Tomioka City, Gunma Prefecture, which narrates the legendary origin and history of Tenjin. A manuscript book in the possession of Jissōji-Temple is the only text of this narrative. The text was copied by hand in 1894 from the original, written in 1663. Unfortunately the original is missing.
An important characteristic of the text differentiating it from other variants is that it contains folk traditions peculiar to the area around Jissoji-Temple. Consequently it should be recognized that the text is a valuable material with which to investigate the local trend of the faith in Tenjin.
In this paper, I reprint the text and give a commentary on it.

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This paper is a complete guide to the 72 books written by Haruko Shogenji (1914-2015), one of Japan’s leading authors of children’s books. According to the trilogy of her autobiographical novels, she spent most of her childhood in the Tohoku region, and then, due to her father’s job transfer, her family moved to Kyoto, where she was bullied by her classmates, which was to turn into several novels, then they went to Korea under Japan’s colonial rule, where she felt uncomfortable, thinking it wrong to live happily in the foreign land. Experiencing the misery of World War II, Shogenji wrote, in her early career, about a girl who felt miserable with her family members staying at their relative’s home, always hungry during the war, and about a boy who lost his parents in an air raid, suffering a lot to live on his own. Some idealism after the war seems to have permeated all her works. Haruko Shogenji was good at describing the sensitive workings of children’s mind; their happiness as well as their sorrow. She wrote not only realistic fiction but also fantasy, for example, about ancient Egyptians she was very interested in.

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This is an introduction to two unique kinds of graded readers: Helbling Young Readers Fiction (2014), and e-future Graded Comic Readers’ Jack and Bella series consisting of Magic Adventures (2012) and School Adventures (2014).
The former, published in London, UK, are beautifully illustrated picture books such as The Beach (written by Rick Sampedro and illustrated by Agilulfo Russo), The Sun is Broken (written by Andrés Pi Andreu and illustrated by Catty Flores), and Henry Harris Hates Haitches (written by Maria Cleary and illustrated by Lorenzo Sabbatini), all of which are good examples of wonderful collaboration between an author and an illustrator. Although the main purpose of graded readers is to make learners accustomed to reading in English, some of these books are so artistic that they are really worth much more recognition by avid book lovers all over the world. It is such a relief to know that there is at least a "Language Learner Literature Award," which was rightly given to Maria Cleary and Lorenzo Sabbatini’s Skater Boy, the very simple but quite powerful picture book about a mysterious boy hero.
The latter, published in Seoul, Korea, is a readable series of comic books, which must be far more enjoyable among children who, whether they like it or not, have to study the international language, for Jason Wilburn and Casey Kim’s story-making is so splendid (in fact they are genius in combining the evil force of the crystal with environmental problems in "Dark’s Hearts" of Magic Adventures, and in retelling children’s classics like Peter Pan, The Wizard of Oz, and Robin Hood in "Storybook Mysteries" of School Adventures, using their own protagonists: Jack and Bella) and Jaehwan Jung’s anime-like character design is so charming that the results turn out to be another instance of successful collaboration. Therefore it is strongly recommended that both Magic and School Adventures be read as fantastic works of manga on their own, not just as tools for learning English.

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This study examines a method we constructed to analyze words used to form sentences in the English language by applying information-processing technology. In order to develop effective methods to increase students' vocabulary, we have been conducting research on introducing information-processing technology in English language education. In this study, we developed a program that deconstructs sentences in English into words using the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) of Excel as the programming language. TreeTagger, a morphological analysis tool, was used to render words in their basic form. Linking this program to our vocabulary database, which was developed in a separate study, enabled us to choose the important words based on frequency analysis. To evaluate the efficiency of this method, an experiment was conducted using a certified English textbook. The results of the experiment show that this method is effective in analyzing different parts of speech and frequency of word usage in sentences, and the analysis takes a short amount of time.

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This paper introduces the authors’ new English discussion board using TED Talks videos on the Internet, intended to establish an interdisciplinary ‘learning’ community. This updated discussion board aims at facilitating intercollegiate communication based on a Social Networking Service. It basically consists of four parts; 1) a short video taken from TED Talks, 2) scripts of the talks in English and Japanese, 3) a ‘Glossary’ for vocabulary building based on the video, and 4) a ‘Forum’ for discussion on some topics relating to the video. Students and teachers, both of whom are participants in the discussion, are to watch the video and discuss the topics in the ‘Forum’. Thus, the authors’ aim is for the participants to make up a ‘learning community’ by sharing information, exchanging their messages and enhancing their mutual understanding.
This paper also reports how practice using the discussion board was carried out at National Institute of Technology, Gunma College. As well as explaining the activity steps, it also demonstrates how the interactions between the students were developed with some examples of their comments posted in English and analyses their attitudes towards participating in the discussion.

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Teaching materials of electric circuits using manga is made. This teaching materials are expected to make learners understand stories and contents in a comparatively short time than character media. The teaching materials based on electric circuits were made to take advantage of the above merits. The made material is evaluated by questionnaire survey for the 3rd grade students of information and computer engineering and the audience of the meeting of Japanese Society of Applied Physics. Despite the inadequacy of the accomplishment, the materials got a high rating. Thus this materials seems to have gained an understanding as to the intention of making materials.

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This paper examines the courage in the 1950s of Hisaye Yamamoto, one of the most well-known Nisei writers. While other Japanese American writers mentioned atomic bombing only after 1980, Yamamoto voiced protest against the use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in "The Streaming Tears" in 1951. In this story, she criticized the low level of US public awareness concerning atomic bombing. At the time of publication, anti-Japanese sentiments had not yet been suppressed, and the US and Russia were competing in a nuclear arms race during the Cold War. Yamamoto may have fully recognized that her works would not be accepted in the US, which boasted a strong military force. However, she was intolerant of atomic bombing, which disregarded the laws of humanity. By describing the suffering of an A-bomb pilot, she protested against the use of nuclear weapons justified by the US government.

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This paper discusses the present state and future of Japanese language studies in Australia. The discussion is based on the findings from the comparison of 2004 and 2013 survey results of Japanese language studies at A High School in New South Wales Australia and of the Japanese language teachers in the Newcastle area where A High School is located. The problems caused by the lack of skillful language teachers, a lack of coordination between states in regards to syllabuses, and the frequent changes of federal government Asian language policy seem to be improving. However, Japanese education is facing many other problems such as inconsistencies in study planning and class organization, low score allocation for the university admission examination and the perception of difficulty toward learning and teaching Japanese language. It is concluded that the future of Japanese language education might not be bright unless these problems are resolved.

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Japanese junior high school students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) study the coordinating conjunctions of and, but, and so, and the subordinating conjunction of because at an early stage of English education. However, Japanese EFL college students do not acquire the knowledge of appropriate use of such conjunctions in academic contexts. They somehow excessively produce simple sentences headed by and, but, so, and because in formal writing. Thus, the main purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of these four conjunctions by Japanese EFL college freshmen and provides plausible reasons why they frequently write such simple sentences starting with them. Along with the main investigations, use of other conjunctions is also examined.

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This report describes a programming education for junior high school students in both application software and embedded systems. Themes of the software and hardware programming were "game" and "robot", respectively. We adopted a beginner’s programming environment Scratch as a common education support tool of software and hardware. Furthermore, educational robot mbot, programmable by the Scratch, is employed for the hardware programming. First, students enjoyed programming their games with the Scratch. Then, they studied how to program the robot easily with the same environment. The results of questionnaire showed that most of the students are satisfied with our education.

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From 1585 until the end of Elizabeth I’s reign, England was at war with Spain. These eighteen years of continual warfare presented one of the most severe governmental challenges facing the Elizabethan regime. Several significant parts of war effort, primarily the defence of the realm by militia, were entrusted to the lord lieutenants in the counties, who supervised the raising of money for military purposes, levied troops and oversaw the regular mustering of the county’s trained bands. Appointed by the queen and aided by the deputy lieutenants who in the main were selected among the local gentries, the office of lord lieutenants became an important bridge between the court and the localities. This article tries to show how Sir Christopher Hatton, who was one of the queen’s favorites and served as the lord lieutenant of Northamptonshire during the Armada crisis in the late 1580s, managed to prepare in his county against the Spanish invasion. The intensive research on the military administration in a county presents important clues to assess how the lord lieutenant reconciled the demands of the central government and the local society in the face of the national crisis.

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