Shabby beauty: Inside Japan's oldest, defiant student dorm

The elite Kyoto University's "Yoshida Dorm" is self-governed by students, who treasure it as a bastion of free thinking away from the strict hierarchies that permeate many Japanese institutions. But the dorm has had to fight to keep its autonomy, and has been enmeshed in a decades-long battle with the university, which owns it and has at times threatened its closure, saying it's unsafe. Under the terms of a court-mediated settlement reached last year, students will by the end of March vacate the...