What Makes a Good Man? Reflections from JASNA New York / September 28, 2026 by Mimi Okabe

Attending my first JASNA New York meeting brought me back to Jane Austen—and prompted new questions about masculinity, male readers, and Austen’s surprising connections to Japanese man

Manga Made “Live:” Reflections from Replaying Japan / September 2, 2026 by Mimi Okabe

What does it mean to say that manga is created “live”? Reflecting on Kazuhiko Torishima’s keynote at Replaying Japan, I explore the relationship between mangaka and editors, Shōnen Jump’s rapid reader-feedback system, media time, and the manga industry’s distinctive relationship with fan-created dōjinshi.

Walking into the World of Detective Conan: Finally Visiting Gosho Aoyama’s Hometown / August 30, 2026 by Mimi Okabe

A visit to the Gōshō Aoyama Manga Factory in Hokuei, Tottori, exploring Detective Conan tourism, Conan Street, media tourism and the global circulation of detective culture.

September 28, 2026

What Makes a Good Man? Reflections from JASNA New York

September 2, 2026

Manga Made “Live:” Reflections from Replaying Japan

August 30, 2026

Walking into the World of Detective Conan: Finally Visiting Gosho Aoyama’s Hometown

February 28, 2026

Japanese Indie Games Exhibit at The Strong

On February 27, I attended the grand opening of the Japanese Indie Games exhibit at The Strong National Museum of Play, organized in collaboration with the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies and the ars●bit project. Prior to the public opening, a special symposium convened leading scholars, developers, and studio representatives to reflect on the history and future trajectories of Japanese indie games. The exhibit discussion, led by Daichi Nakagawa (Deputy Editor of Planets and PhD candidate at Ritsumeikan University), situated contemporary indie innovation within a much longer genealogy of Japanese experimental game culture. His remarks underscored how deeply embedded indie practices are within Japan’s media ecology. The exhibition itself, curated by Lindsay Kurano, Curator of Electronic Games at The Strong, beautifully brings this history to life through a careful balance of archival materials and playable works. Officially opened on February 27, 2026, the exhibit will run for 3 years, with featured games rotating annually from nominees of the prestigious Japanese Indie Game Awards.

January 25, 2026

Starting the Year with a Girl Detective - "This Mystery is History!"

A reflective look at girl detectives in games through Layton’s Mystery Journey, exploring intuition, femininity, fashion, food, and why softness is not opposed to logic or detection.

December 24, 2025

Still Standing

It has been a very long time since I last wrote here.

Not because I had nothing to say, but because life kept happening faster than I could make sense of it.

For a while, I worried that returning to this space would feel awkward or indulgent, or like I was asking readers to feel sorry for me. That is not what this is. This is me coming back to writing because I believe stories, especially unfinished and complicated ones, are how we remind each other that we are not alone.

A lot has changed since 2024.

December 31, 2022

2022: A Year of Loss and Hard Lessons but a Bright Future Ahead! Come on 2023!!

I have a lot to reflect on at the end of 2022. All I can say for now is that, although it took a very long time, going into 2023, I learned to value my time, myself, and my safety. I’m still learning to undo my Sherlockian work ethic and be more of, shall I dare say, a Watsonian type, but I suppose that whatever life has to offer should always be enjoyed in moderation. (But I’m still a Sherlockian at heart).

October 10, 2022

Will the Real Sherlock Holmes Please Stand Up?

“It’s elementary, Watson”... or is it. Jeffrey Hatcher’s “Holmes and Watson” kept me on the tip of my toes in guessing the real identity of Sherlock Holmes for two hours. But the real mystery is much deeper and far more intricate than I had predicted (cue in dramatic, Dun! Dun! Dunn!). Hatcher’s play features not one, but three very different versions of Sherlock Holmes played by Ted Powers, Lawrence Stevenson and Jospeh Van Deen. For those who have read Sherlock Holmes’s so-called “come back” story, “The Adventure of the Empty House” (1903), you would know which of the three Sherlock Holmes is the “real” one, but Hatcher’s play tests and plays with your knowledge of what you think you know of the Sherlockian canon and its characters.

September 26, 2022

My Sherlockian Weekend Adventure!

I spent the past four days at a conference celebrating the 50th year of the Bootmakers of Toronto & The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection in downtown Toronto…

May 6, 2021

Our Mentor-morphosis! A Workshop for the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning Conference 2021

From May 3rd to May 5th, I participated in the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning Conference that brought together a diverse crowd, but all who were passionate to share their experience, knowledge and stories of what it means to be a mentor in line with this year’s conference theme, “Mentorship in Higher Education.” Click to learn more!!

March 31, 2021

Top Five Highlights of 2021 So Far!

For the past few months, I’ve been keeping busy as a bee. This month’s blog features some of the highlights of what I’ve been up to these past three months! Read about what I’ve been up to!

October 20, 2020

Work Smarter not Harder: My Tips on How to Stay Afloat in the "Publish-or-Perish-World" as a Former Ph.D. Student

Last month, I was invited to give a guest talk at the University of Alberta on how I managed to publish while I was a Ph.D. student. This talk was for a grad seminar called “Academic and Professional Writing,” which is currently being taught by Dr. Micah True in the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies.