If our first issue was an introduction, this second one is where we really found our footing as a publisher — not only in the writing and design, but in the thought behind every page. And that begins with the cover.
Eri Abe brings her own Japanese-Filipino heritage to the watercolor-and-collage cover, seamlessly weaving together elements from across the issue — from Boracay’s white sands and ryokans amid Japan’s autumn colors to motorcycles and major infrastructure projects.

We learned a lot putting this issue together. Filipino musicians were helping shape Japan’s jazz scene as early as the 1920s. The official logo marking 70 years of relations between the two countries brings together Japanese shimenawa rope and Filipino abaca fiber — the same fiber used to make Japanese yen banknote paper. Naturally, we had to follow that story all the way to Davao. Japan’s influence also turns up on the streets of Manila, at events like the Pokémon Run. There’s even a feature on tsukemen. I’m craving a bowl just writing this.

This issue is also about friendship. Larry Alcala and Osamu Tezuka — the creators of Siopawman and Astro Boy — shared a bond that most fans still don’t know about. And it’s about humility: the quiet kind that, in Lovell Gopez’s telling, turned a lesson learned while selling golf shoes into a Toyota dealership.

As we mark 70 years of Japan–Philippines relations, I hope you close this issue having discovered something new — about Japan, about the Philippines, and about the many surprising ways the two have shaped each other

Franz J. Fricke