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Sazae-san

Sazae-san was first published in Hasegawa's local paper, the Fukunichi Shimbun, on April 22, 1946. When the Asahi Shimbun  wished to have Hasegawa draw the comic strip for their paper, she moved to Tokyo in 1949 with the explanation that the main characters had moved from Kyūshū to Tokyo as well. The comic dealt with contemporary situations in Tokyo until Hasegawa retired and ended the comic on February 21, 1974. As one of Japan's longest running and oldest comic strips and animations, the series is known to nearly every Japanese person, young and old.

The comic was very topical. In the beginning, Sazae was more interested in being herself than dressing up in kimono and makeup to attract her future husband. Hasegawa was forward-thinking in that, in her words, the Isono/Fuguta clan would embody the image of the modern Japanese family after World War II.

Sazae was a very "liberated" woman, and many of the early plotlines revolved around Sazae bossing around her husband, to the consternation of her neighbors, who believed that a man should be the head of his household. Later, Sazae became a feminist and was involved in many comical situations regarding her affiliation with her local women's lib group.

Despite the topical nature of the comic, the core of the stories revolved around the large family dynamic, and were presented in a lighthearted, easy fashion. In fact, the final comic, in 1974, revolved around Sazae's happiness that an egg she cracked for her husband's breakfast produced a double yolk, with Katsuo remarking about the happiness the "little things" in life can bring.

Today, the popular Sazae-san anime is frequently taken as nostalgia for traditional Japanese society (since it lacks modern marvels such as video games and otaku culture), even though it was leftist to the point of controversy when it originally ran in Japanese newspapers.

Twitter archive at Library of Congress could help redefine history's scope

When the Library of Congress announced this month that it had recently acquired Twitter's entire archive of public tweets, the snarkosphere quickly broke out the popular refrain "Nobody cares that you just watched 'Lost.' " Television tweets are always the shorthand by which naysayers express how idiotic they find Twitter, the microblogging site on which millions of users share their thoughts and activities in 140 characters or fewer.

"If tweets are in, how about craigslist.org postings?" one poster wrote on the library's blog in response to the announcement. Because "all of that information is just as culturally vacant."

The purview of historians has always been the tangible: letters, journals, official documents.

The purview of Twitter, on the other hand, is the ephemeral: random spewings that some argue represent the degeneration of society. Would a Founding Father ever have tweeted his crush on Evangeline Lilly?

But on the other hand, says Michael Beschloss, historian and author of "Presidential Courage," "What historian today wouldn't give his right arm to have the adult Madison's contemporaneous Twitters about the secret debates inside the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia?"

The 21st-century equivalent might already be happening: When Kitty Kelley was researching her new Oprah Winfrey bio, Kelley's assistant spotted a tweet from Winfrey about attending a gala and hugging Whoopi Goldberg. The throwaway shout-out was significant to Kelley, who knew that there had been tension between the women and viewed the tweet as a subtle olive branch. "If you believe that God is in the details -- and all biographers do," Kelley says, "then Twitter will be a godsend!"

Although the library's acquisition might seem to be a capitulation to frivolity and short attention spans, historians say, it's actually about how digital archives such as this are shaping the future of history. 

Japan's child population drops to record low for 29th year in row

The number of children under the age of 15 in Japan is estimated to have dropped 190,000 from a year earlier to 16.94 million as of April 1, marking a record low for the 29th straight year, according to a government report released Tuesday.

The report by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, released a day ahead of the Children's Day national holiday in Japan, showed that children comprised 13.3 percent of the population, declining for the 36th consecutive year and remaining at the lowest level worldwide.

By gender, the number of boys aged 14 or younger stood at 8.68 million while girls totaled 8.26 million. By age group, the number of children aged 12-14 was the largest with 3.56 million.

The number of children aged 0-2 came to 3.25 million, topping those aged 3-5 as Japan saw a temporary recovery in the number of childbirths after 2005, when the lowest figure in the postwar period was marked.

But the downtrend in Japan's birthrate is expected to return with the number of childbirths likely to mark a fall in 2009, according to estimates by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

By area, Okinawa Prefecture had the greatest share of children at 17.7 percent, while Akita Prefecture had the lowest share at 11.2 percent. Tokyo, meanwhile, was the only prefecture which saw its percentage rise from a year earlier.

Japan remained at the lowest level in terms of percentage of children among the 26 countries with a population of over 40 million, listed in the U.N. demographic yearbook.

The country was behind Germany, where children accounted for 13.6 percent of the population. Ethiopia topped the list with the proportion at 45.0 percent.