Japan is Broken… Can It Be Fixed?
Even though Japanese culture often emphasizes conformity, it is anything but dull. Beauty is everywhere. Japan is an eclectic blend of past and future, digital and analog, Gundam and samurai. But this creativity is not only visual. It is narrative. Japan tells stories shaped by brokenness, endurance, and a longing for redemption.
You cannot talk about Japanese storytelling without talking about anime. While Japan has produced art for millennia—painting, sculpture, poetry, and even the tea ceremony itself—anime and manga occupy a distinctive place in modern culture. Emerging in the early twentieth century, anime’s influence is now global. An estimated sixty percent of animated series worldwide trace their roots to Japan.
Few storytellers embody this reach more clearly than Hayao Miyazaki. Films like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Howl’s Moving Castle are not children’s cartoons. They are deeply human narratives wrestling with loss, sacrifice, violence, and hope. That recurring theme is no accident.
Much of Japanese art is born out of pain, and Japan knows pain well.
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki left scars that still shape the nation’s collective memory. More recently, natural disasters have compounded that trauma. Japan sits along the Pacific Ring of Fire, and on March 11, 2011—often referred to simply as 3/11—a massive earthquake and tsunami devastated entire regions. Villages were erased. Nearly half a million people were displaced. The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster forced the evacuation of more than 150,000 residents. For many, that day became a symbol of fragility and loss.
Beyond natural disasters, there are quieter forms of suffering. Shame, loneliness, and isolation run deep. An estimated 1.5 million people are classified as hikikomori—individuals who withdraw almost entirely from society, sometimes for decades. Suicide remains a heavy burden. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Japan recorded more deaths from suicide in a single month than from the virus over an entire year. At the same time, birth rates continue to decline, the population is aging rapidly, and many elderly people wonder who will care for them. Japan is now the only country where adult diapers outsell infant diapers.
There are other forms of brokenness as well. Human trafficking persists, and international observers continue to raise concerns about enforcement gaps. Even recent legal reforms underscore how much change has been required.
And yet, Japan remains breathtakingly beautiful.
Perhaps beauty often grows out of trauma. And perhaps Japan’s relentless pursuit of beauty reflects a deeper search for the Creator of beauty Himself.
To understand that search more closely, I spent time with Ayaka, an artist living in Tokyo. Her work draws on traditional techniques, including pigments made by crushing oyster shells into fine powder. The process is slow and exacting. Her teacher once told her, “If you are lazy, it shows up in your color.” The more the shell is crushed, the purer the white becomes.
Ayaka described this process as spiritual. “You never paint to conquer the subject,” her teacher said. “You come under what you’re painting.” For her, the language echoed Scripture—submitting to the Word rather than mastering it.
During the creation of one piece, Ayaka experienced a deep personal betrayal. She stopped painting altogether. When she eventually returned, she washed away the layers she had painted and began again, building new shades of blue over the surface. The underlying textures remained visible. Her teacher later observed, “It’s because you washed it. It’s because of your tears that you can see what’s underneath.”
That image captures something essential about Japan.
Artist and missionary Roger Lowther reflects on this connection between beauty and brokenness in his book The Broken Leaf. He points to the tea ceremony: for flavor to emerge, the leaf must be broken. Or kintsugi, the art of repairing cracked pottery with gold, where broken vessels become more beautiful precisely because of their fractures.
These images point to a world broken by sin and people marked by suffering. But they also point toward the gospel.
As Ayaka reflected on her grief, she came to see that joy and sorrow often coexist. Rest can be found even in exhaustion. Peace can emerge not after pain is resolved, but right in the middle of it. That truth mirrors the heart of Christianity: a broken world healed by a broken Christ on a broken tree.
That is Japan’s hope.
Hard to reach does not mean impossible to reach. Through quiet friendships, shared meals, patient listening, and art shaped by tears, the gospel continues to shine. And we can pray that the beauty of Christ will once again be seen clearly in the land of the rising sun.
Even though Japanese culture can emphasize conformity, it doesn’t mean it’s boring. Beauty is everywhere. Japan is an eclectic blend of future, and past, digital, and analog, Gundam, and Samurai. But this level of creativity isn’t just about what you can see it’s about the stories they tell, stories of brokenness and stories of redemption.
Okay. So I can’t really talk about Japanese storytelling without talking about anime. Anime is not the first or only form of Japanese art, in fact, Japan has been making art for thousands of years. Paintings, sculptures, even the way they serve tea is an art form. But anime and manga are also a lot older than you might think, they go back as far as 1907. And today, it’s had a massive global impact, especially in the US. It’s estimated that 60% of animated series made today are of Japanese origin. Some of the most critically acclaimed stories today are told by Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Living Castle just to name a few of his movies. And these aren’t just kids’ cartoons. Sure, there are those as well.
The many anime series explored complex themes around pain and suffering. And as is the case with most art, a lot of Japanese art is born out of struggle, loss, and hurt. And Japan is no stranger to hurt. Just think about the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or, even more recently, Japan’s natural disasters. Japan sits on the western edge of the Ring of Fire. And on March 3, 2011, the whole country was shaken.
Chris Cuomo: 8.9 magnitude, now we know that’s a big number. It was the fifth-largest earthquake in history.
Robin Roberts: A catastrophic tsunami rising out of the Pacific, its huge waves sweeping away everything in its path. A massive wall of water that rose as high as 30 feet swallowing up parts of Japan.
The tsunami wiped out entire villages and displaced nearly half a million people from their homes. It also caused explosions at the Fukushima nuclear power plant that led to the evacuation of 150,000 people from the area. The whole disaster was so devastating Japanese people call the day 3/11. And all of this comes on top of even deeper needs. Many struggle with shame and loneliness. As many as 1.5 million people are considered hikikomori which means they isolate themselves from the pressures of the outside world.
Foreign Correspondent: Hidehiro Shinmasu is one. His bedroom has been his universe for the best part of 20 years. He’s now 40 years old. Hidehiro spends most of his day touching the world through this screen. His downward spiral began when he couldn’t live after his families and society’s expectations.
Japan’s suicide rate is high, and it grew higher during the pandemic. One pastor told me that everyone is one degree of separation away between knowing someone who has committed suicide. In October 2020 Japanese authorities reported 2,100 suicides during that month alone. Fewer people had died of COVID in Japan during the whole year. Meanwhile, the birth rate in Japan is dropping and the number of elderly people is rising. Japan is the only country in the world where adult diapers outsell infant diapers. Officials worry about how to provide social services, and many older people wonder who will care for them.
Human trafficking is also a problem. And the U.S. State Department reported that Japanese authorities continue to demonstrate a lack of political will to criminally investigate and prosecute cases of labor trafficking and child sex trafficking. Just this year Japan raised the age of consent for sexual activity to 16. Before that, the legal age of consent was 13 years old. But even with all this brokenness there’s still so much beauty in Japan. And maybe that’s partly because art is often born out of trauma. And also because a search for beauty points to a search for the Creator of beauty. To better understand this search I visited a friend, her name is Ayaka. She also lives in Tokyo and she’s an artist who sees the hand of the Creator all over Japan.
Ayaka: Crushing mineral. So this white one it’s … This is a oyster shell, you buy it like this, and you have to crush this into really, really fine powder. And then you mix it with the glue into a little dough. And they call it 100 pounds. So you literally pound it in … Down to the ground, get the air out. And my teacher was saying, “If you are lazy it shows up in your color.” So the more that you pound, the more that you crush, that you’re white actually becomes purer. You do this thing to check your heart. And she always says, “You never paint something to conquer the subject.” And she said, “Come under what you’re painting and your art will always be better.” Even those times I’m like “Oh, it’s like reading the Scripture, we want to come under the Word of God.” I just find that this process of crushing, it truly feels like a worship because contrite spirit God doesn’t despise.
So I just wanted to paint a restful scene and I started painting it. Probably two month in after this I discovered … Or my husband’s ten-year affairs. A lot of lies came to light. It was just so shocking that I couldn’t … The colors left my eyes. I can’t paint this anymore, and I actually need to stop all of it because my heart just left. So then I took a break. I came back to this piece and I actually washed off all the layers of what I had painted. And then I re-layered different type of blue over it. And I kept layering, kept laying with blue. I thought that it would just look like just a blue square, but you can actually see all the rocks through it. And then my teacher was saying, “Oh, it’s because you washed it. It’s because of your tears that you can see what’s under.” It’s almost like God sees my grief. Even though I try to cover it, cover it, it’s still there.
There’s this guy named Roger Lowther, he’s an artist and a missionary in Tokyo. His book, The Broken Leaf, describes how much brokenness and beauty are tied together in Japan. Look at the art of the tea ceremony. For the aroma and flavor of tea to come out the leaf must be broken. Look at Kintsugi pottery where craftsmen repair broken bowls using gold. You can still see the cracks but now they’re golden. And he says, “Somehow these vessels were more beautiful and more valuable for having been broken.” It all points to a world broken by sin, and people broken by sin. But it also points to the gospel.
Ayaka: I have to embrace light and dark at the same time. I have to embrace grief and joy at the same time. And that life is never that clean cut. I was like oh, in the moment of grief there can be joy. In the moment of sadness there can be rest. I actually shared with my classmates about when I was finally able to embrace my weakness and sadness. And I was vulnerable about that before the Lord, I found peace, I found rest. And maybe that’s what this Bessho Onsen is like. In the midst of the battle, not when you’re pretty. Not when you’re put together in your perfect armor, and wash off all the blood. But no, your blood shed, you’re exhausted and you just saw death, and that’s when you soak naked before the Lord and that’s when you find rest.
There’s something that Lowther said in his book that stuck with me. “A broken world is healed by a broken Christ on a broken tree.” That’s our hope. That’s Japan’s hope, that all of the brokenness will point to the beauty of being made whole again in Christ who is broken for our sin. There is hope when we remember that hard to reach doesn’t mean impossible to reach. Whether it’s sharing the gospel with a Japanese student in your old neighborhood or going all the way to the nations, we have a mission to carry out. So let’s pray that the beauty of the gospel will once again shine brightly in the land of the rising sun.
