Waseda Winter SessionWaseda University

This course introduces students to Japan as a business environment and provides a comprehensive overview of Japanese management and marketing. It begins with an examination of culture and its relevance to international management, business communication, and cross-cultural collaboration. Building on this foundation, the course explores the contemporary Japanese business environment and examines how cultural values, social structures, and institutional frameworks influence corporate behavior and managerial decision-making..

This course examines strategic decision-making and innovation in Japanese firms, using case studies of leading companies to explore transformation, digitalization, and long-term strategic thinking. The fieldwork assignment requires independent observation, reflection, and preparation of a group presentation and paper.

This course is centered round an interdisciplinary area studies (specifically Japanese studies) approach to studying Japanese popular culture. It is divided into two components (Culture 1 and Culture 2). Culture 1 focuses on the theories, ideas and concepts related to Japanese popular culture. The course employs area studies perspectives in ethnography, globalization studies, historical perspectives and cultural studies to examine the subject matter. In examining the ideas of globalization, the course critically looks at the ethnography and ecology of creative production through works by Ian Condry and other scholars. In terms of mechanisms of dissemination, it then examines how globalization facilitated the popularity and proliferation of Japanese ACG (Anime Comics, Games) products. Theories like odor theory (Iwabuchi), soft power (Nye), glocalization, democratic capitalism/consumption and other scholarly ideas (e.g. gentei marketing) will be examined..

This course is centered round an interdisciplinary area studies (specifically Japanese studies) approach to studying Japanese popular culture. It is divided into two components (Culture 1 and Culture 2). Culture 2 focuses on applying ideas of Japanese popular culture on case studies. The case studies selected for this section of the course are: Godzilla (including William Tsutsui’s text) for its historical value; Doraemon (Saya Shiraishi’s work) as an iconic Showa-era product that reflects the era’s social trends, Pokémon (Anne Allison’s work) for its universalistic success in different markets) amongst others. It seeks to highlight observative trends, business strategy successes, setbacks, stakeholders involved, audience reception, discernible cultural relativity, cross-fertilization of ideas, hybridization, etc. in these case studies. Consumption and retail spaces like Akihabara and Nakano Broadway will also be examined as case studies .

Using novels and films from the period covering 1945 to the 1970s, this course will introduce students to the major historical, intellectual, and artistic currents of postwar Japan. Authors and filmmakers will include Dazai Osamu, Hayashi Fumiko, Sakaguchi Ango, Mishima Yukio, Ōe Kenzaburo, Kurosawa Akira, Ozu Yasujirō, Ichikawa Kon, Ōshima Nagisa, and Suzuki Seijun. Students are expected to read one novel each week.

This course will examine the works of the novelist Murakami Haruki and the animator Miyazaki Hayao within the context of contemporary Japanese aesthetics and history. Both Murakami and Miyazaki debuted in 1979 and their work has very much defined Japan’s cultural experience from the tail end of the Era of High Growth Economics through the Bubble Era, the Lost Decade, and into the twenty-first century. Students will be expected to read one novel a week and we will be watching one film per week (in class). Students are expected to have completed reading before each class meeting..

Please click HERE for the Course Schedule of Waseda Winter Session 2027.

Choose 2 courses out of 6 courses.

The student’s academic performance is assessed according to four different criteria: class participation, attendance, assignments and exams. Each professor, however, may prefer a different attendance policy, and in such case, students should follow the professor’s guidelines. Generally, course performance is graded on the following 100-point scale:

Grading is professor’s authority and privilege that the Winter Session office cannot interfere with.

Credit System

Students can earn 2 credits through 1 regular course. Each class is 100 minutes long and held 14 times. This means that it is necessary for students to attend each course for a total of 23.3 hours (1,400 minutes (100 minutes ×14 times)) to earn 2 credits.

Credit Transfer

Waseda University will issue an official academic transcript for the participants. One official transcript for the Waseda Winter Session will be sent around the middle of April to the email address students registered during their online application. Please note that under no circumstances can official transcripts be sent to you earlier than scheduled, as grades are not yet finalized by that time. Students who wish to transfer the Winter Session program credits are advised to consult with the appropriate academic authorities at their home institutions in advance, whether or not the home institutions are Waseda’s exchange partners. The home institution’s academic advisors decide whether a particular Waseda Winter Session course may be applied towards the major or elective requirement. Students usually refer to the uploaded syllabus on our Waseda Winter Session website to determine credit transferability to their home institution.