Quiet and calming, Troublemakers paints an affectionate but carefully critical picture of life in contemporary Japan. Its strapline is ’embracing misfits’, and it shines a light on people who have chosen to live in unconventional ways, appreciating their individuality in a strictly ordered, hierarchical society.

 
In this issue:

• Literary scholar Fukuko Kobayashi reflects on a lifetime of radical feminism
• Genders slip under pressure from social media in Female Degeneracy, Li Kotomi’s surreal short story
• A Cambodian American woman tells the unconventional love story that brought her to Japan
• A British man encounters Kurdish workers on a Japanese building site
• And step inside Kabe to Tamago, the Tokyo neighbourhood cafe and beloved haven for misfits