The new issue of Contemporary Japan includes six original research articles plus our book review section, covering topics ranging from religion and politics to education, women’s empowerment, elderly workers, and Takarazuka fans. The research articles include “faith talk” in Japanese political rhetoric (Ernils Larsson), the “afterlife” of prime ministers, particularly Satō Eisaku (Taro Tsuda), an ethnographic study of a Korean international school (Kunisuke Hirano), literacy movements and female empowerment among Buraku (Chiara Fusari), elderly reemployment (Kazue Haga), and a spatial analysis of Takarazuka fandom (Zuzanna Baraniak-Hirata). Our book review section includes a monograph on the history of the Japanese destroyer Yukikaze (reviewed by Samuel P. Porter) and a handbook on postwar Japan (reviewed by Florian Coulmas).