This book explores the meanings and practices of "family" in Japan, and brings together research by scholars of literature, gender studies, media and cultural studies, sociology and anthropology. The chapters examine key issues such as ageing, single households, non-heterosexual living arrangements and parenting. Employing both multi- and inter-disciplinary approaches, this book combines textual analysis of contemporary television, film, literature, manga, anime and other media with empirical and ethnographic studies of families in Japan and in transnational spaces.

Introduction Part I: Family, Companionship 1. Re-imagining the "Post-Bubble" Family in Tokyo Sonata and Hush!2. Suitably Single?: Representations of Singlehood in Contemporary Japan 3. Accommodating Japan's Ageing Sexual Minorities: The "Family of Friends" Concept in LGBTI Seniors' Residential Care Part II: Old Age, Women, Storytelling 4. The Girl-Grandmother Relation in Japanese Children's Literature 5. Girls, Old Women, and Fairytale Families in 'The Old Woman's Skin' and Howl's Moving Castle Part III: Contemporary Parenting 6. From Model to Deviant: Conflicting Representations of Parenthood in the Transnational Families in Japan and Brazil 7. The Role of Newspapers in Constructing Public Representations of "Monster Parents" Part IV: Transnational Families 8. Making "Traditional" Families in Transnational Settings: Japanese Women in Balinese-Japanese Marriages 9. Transnational Japanese Women and Family Space in Western Australia 10. Reconciling Migration and Filial Piety: Accounts of Japanese Lifestyle Migrants in Australia 11. Epilogue: The Family in Twenty-First Century Japan: Between Nation and Transnation