Luciana Watanabe from Sao Paulo is a 16x Brazilian Sumô champion and a 2x world runner-up in the World Games. Luciana could be considered an unusual competitor, because in Japanese culture, women have long been banned from entering, or even touching, the wrestling ring. Luciana brings us into the world of Sumô in Brazil, which connects her as a mixed-raced Japanese-Brazilian to her Japanese roots. Sumô was introduced and practiced in Brazil when the first Japanese immigrants entered the country. Nowadays, 80% to 90% are Brazilians who practice Sumô at facilities like @Sumo_saopaulo . Luciana is challenging Sumô as one of Brazil’s first female rikishi. She will use Sumô to exchange cultures and teach Brazilians how to be warriors.

Anime is pop-culture. Dragon Ball Z has been translated to nearly 35 different languages. The wildly popular series One Piece aired more than 1000 episodes. Half of Netflix’s 200 million subscribers watch #anime. Anime is so popular that in 2021 the industry was valued at a whopping $24 billion and demand is only going up. However, the working conditions for the people who make our favorite anime does not match the industry’s wild success. Animators in Japan are overworked and underpaid, earning as little as $200 a month. It’s been so bad that in 2010, an animator working at A-1 Pictures, makers of Sword Art Online and Fairy Tail, committed suicide. He was overworked to death - claiming that he was working 600 hours a month. Japanese work culture is famous for overworking their employees to the point of death that that there is a word ‘かろうし’ (Karoshi). Reforming the industry is difficult. For now, fans can support the artists in various ways whether it’s donating directly to them, or informing themselves and others about the realities of the industry, and tweeting at / writing letters to company heads to demand they increase pay.

Huỳnh Thị Cẩm Tiên is the only African-Vietnamese to compete in a Miss Universe Vietnam Contest. During the competition, some praised her dark skin and mixed appearance, but viewers and judges also told her that she didn’t represent Vietnam because of her mixed-race identity. Despite the racist criticisms about how her skin color cannot represent Vietnam, she remained self confident during the competition and in doing so, found a way to bring Cameroonian culture and Vietnamese cultures together. When Tiên was younger, she would get tone-deaf comments from her friends about her curly hair and melanin skin. While Tiên experienced racism, her mother wanted Tiên to feel confident in her natural features by accepting herself. Her mother taught Tiên to stop seeking validation from others and to live a life that would build and prioritize her happiness. Tiên is currently a fashion designer making clothes so that people who wear her clothes can feel confident about who they are.

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake killed over 1,000 people in Afghanistan last Wednesday morning, with 1,500+ are likely to be injured. Rescue teams are still searching for others buried under the ground. Now, there’s even a threat of a cholera outbreak as people remain without shelter, food and clean water, according to the United Nations. Thousands of people were already facing a humanitarian crisis after the Taliban takeover - now, the Taliban is asking for international help. Pre-quake context: President Biden’s executive order to divert half of Afghanistan’s ($7B) aid to 9/11 victim’s families has been met with criticism: a statement by 14 U.N. independent rights experts also blamed the U.S. government for making life worse for Afghan women through blocking billions of dollars that could be used to provide desperately-needed humanitarian relief to tens of millions in the country. The Washington Post reports that the US and the Taliban are scheduled to hold talks in Qatar this week, to discuss allowing the Afghan central bank to use its frozen funds in order to deal with the crisis.

TW: sexual crimes and r*pe mentions. The Nth Room was a dark web sexual crime operation in South Korea that mainly used Telegram to sell and distribute explicit content from from 2018 to 2020. The number of confirmed victims is at least 103, including 26 minors. Predatory traffickers took advantage of victims’ financial situations and recruited them to take jobs with seemingly ‘easy’ money in exchange. Once they had obtained personal information, they blackmailed the victims, forcing them to upload sexually exploitative pictures and videos to multiple chat rooms: trapping them in sexual slavery. Meanwhile, the perpetrators were making money off anonymous chat room users who were willing to pay for their sick chance to watch and sometimes, participate. It was a team of young journalists who eventually brought the Nth Room to the public’s attention, leading to the arrests of its ringleaders: men only known as 갓갓 (“God God”) and 박사 (“Baksa”) online. In March 2020, their identities were revealed on TV across Korea, after millions of outraged people demanded justice. “Baksa” - who turned out to be 25-year-old Cho Joo Bin - thanked everyone for “putting the brakes on the life of a devil that could not be stopped.” While the case led to the arrests of over 60 dark web chat room operators and some legal revisions, there is still much work to be done to improve South Korea’s laws around digital sex crimes and prevent future Nth Rooms.

“Nail art is a form of self-expression, and it should be genderless” says Hayato Shiomi from Nail ZEROPLUS . The interior craftsman-turned-nail tech has a two-month waiting list, but he still wants more people of all genders to use nail art as a way to express who they are. Shiomi was extremely nervous about changing careers, about holding women' hands. His father was also worried about the career change, but not because he cared about the prestige of Shiomi’s job like some Asian parents. His dad was worried because the entrepreneurial life is hard. But instead of discouraging or manipulating Shiomi based on his fear, this Asian dad quietly prepared him by buying entrepreneurial books to help Shiomi start his own business. 15 years later, he’s not only surviving, he’s considered a veteran, having won many nail art awards, followers on social and clients who can’t get enough of his designs.