Pub Date : 2022-11-16DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2022.2143858
Gad Hai Gershoni
Abstract To counter Japan’s low birth rate, labor shortage, and economic stagnation, their government has adopted policies, such as the ‘womenomics,’ and ‘The Ikumen project,’ so that more women can join the workforce, and men can enjoy a healthier work-life balance. However, this study shows that governmental agencies employ gendered representations in public and warning signs, which contradict such policies. For instance, this study found that most public signs depict women predominantly as the caretakers of children, while men are predominantly seen as suit-wearing ‘salarymen’ who prioritize work over home. Additionally, men are almost always represented as law-breaking individuals, while women are frequently shown as helpless victims. Since such signs carry official government insignias, this study suggests conceptualizing public signs through Foucault’s ‘dividing practices,’ as signs divide society into gendered groups to create social order. Furthermore, this study argues that gendered representations in public signs possibly reflect that the government’s view regarding gendered roles in Japan has not fundamentally changed. Lastly, since the gendered representations of signs are similar to other media representations, this study argues that these representations should be viewed as part of a wider network of ‘systems of representations,’ which repeat the hegemonic gender representations in Japan.
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Pub Date : 2022-11-16DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2022.2143861
Philip A. Seaton
This slim volume on a topic of perennial interest begins with an easily-imagined scenario in the social media age: young Chinese men who had posted images online of themselves in Japanese military garb at sensitive war-related sites trigger a deluge of (mainly critical) comments on social media. At the heart of this episode lies two prominent aspects of Japan’s relations with its East Asian neighbours: the admiration for Japan that many young people have for its popular culture (the offending Japanese army uniforms had first been tried out at as cosplay at an anime convention, p. x) and the lingering animosity towards Japan’s aggression and colonial expansion of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Leo T.S. Ching, an Associate Professor of Japanese and East Asian Cultural Studies at Duke University, has produced a thought-provoking and wideranging analysis that ultimately argues: ‘Antiand pro-Japanese sentiments [... ] are symptoms of the failure of the decolonization of the Japanese empire and the reemergence of China under global capitalism’ (p. 131). This line of argument identifies the ongoing history issue and failed attempts at reconciliation in East Asia as being due to many factors over and above Japan’s unconvincing official attempts to address war and colonial responsibility. As such, it is part of a broader consensus in East Asian Studies, seen most notably in the massive recent projects led by Gi-Wook Shin and Daniel C. Sneider on reconciliation, and by Barak Kushner on deimperialization. Where Ching’s contribution is notable is in its blend of a sociological model deconstructing different forms of antiand pro-Japanese sentiment, and the close cultural readings of works from Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea that illustrate key issues underpinning those sentiments. The Acknowledgements and Introduction set out a useful theoretical framework. Key terms in Chinese are defined and explained, such as the distinctions between ‘resist-Japan’ and ‘antiJapan’ (p. 4), and parallels are drawn with antiand pro-American sentiment within Japan (p. 9–11). Ching says that ‘anti-Japanism consists of at least four distinctive but interrelated sets of attributes: (1) [... ] the ‘idea’ of Japan; (2) a set of performative acts and representations; (3) a set of emotions and sentiments; and (4) a set of temporary fixes to political, economic, and social crises’ (p. 12). In short, the internal dynamics of the countries exhibiting anti-Japanism are as much a part of the issue as any actions by Japan. Or, as Ching puts it: ‘While anti-Japanism in postwar Asia mostly takes on the form of demands for
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Pub Date : 2022-11-02DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2022.2140182
M. Tsang
In The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan, her last book before her unfortunate passing in 2020, Sari Kawana tackles an impressive breadth of materials to prove how, in the context of twentieth-century Japan, modern literature and its promotion, circulation and reception were always already a transmedial enterprise. Kawana seems most concerned with literature’s continuous influence in the twenty-first century, and through her meticulous, careful – but at the same time, creative – readings, she argues compellingly that literature does and will remain relevant even in the current era. The sense of crisis for literature’s perceived diminishing ‘use value’ is, for Kawana, too pessimistic, because the same argument had already appeared in late nineteenth-century Japan as the phenomenon of media mix became visible, and yet literature remained ‘useful’ as time went by. Although the term ‘media mix’ was coined in the 1960s, the phenomenon itself emerged much earlier, Kawana writes, even dating back to the Edo Period (124). The key to maintaining literature’s ‘value’ in twentiethcentury Japan was precisely to embrace the synergy of media mix and the creativity of adaptations of literary works. In five chapters Kawana studies a range of cross-pollinations between modern Japanese literature and different media genres in the twentieth century. She starts with the enpon boom in the 1920s, when many Japanese publishers competed to produce multi-volume literary series sold at one yen per volume. Through rampant advertising campaigns in newspapers, these mass-market series, often bearing the name of zensh u (‘complete collection’), became musthave commodities for individuals and families to own in order to participate in an emerging nationalist discourse on citizenship and modernity. But if publishers wanted to evoke an appeal of ‘modern citizen’ through marketing tactics, their customers, i.e. the readers, too have their own reading practices, as Kawana moves on to demonstrate with two book series published during the Second World War: Sh onen kurabu and Sh onen sekai. Situating in a sensitive period when censorship and ideological control loomed over the publishing industry, both series provided young readers at the time gateways to ‘timeless’ literary gems from before the war. Studying some of the memoirs and autobiographies of young readers, Kawana contends that those young minds often developed their own thoughts, responses and personal tastes amidst a time when everything they were allowed to read was approved by grown-ups. This notion of individual and creative response
{"title":"Book Review","authors":"M. Tsang","doi":"10.1080/09555803.2022.2140182","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2022.2140182","url":null,"abstract":"In The Uses of Literature in Modern Japan, her last book before her unfortunate passing in 2020, Sari Kawana tackles an impressive breadth of materials to prove how, in the context of twentieth-century Japan, modern literature and its promotion, circulation and reception were always already a transmedial enterprise. Kawana seems most concerned with literature’s continuous influence in the twenty-first century, and through her meticulous, careful – but at the same time, creative – readings, she argues compellingly that literature does and will remain relevant even in the current era. The sense of crisis for literature’s perceived diminishing ‘use value’ is, for Kawana, too pessimistic, because the same argument had already appeared in late nineteenth-century Japan as the phenomenon of media mix became visible, and yet literature remained ‘useful’ as time went by. Although the term ‘media mix’ was coined in the 1960s, the phenomenon itself emerged much earlier, Kawana writes, even dating back to the Edo Period (124). The key to maintaining literature’s ‘value’ in twentiethcentury Japan was precisely to embrace the synergy of media mix and the creativity of adaptations of literary works. In five chapters Kawana studies a range of cross-pollinations between modern Japanese literature and different media genres in the twentieth century. She starts with the enpon boom in the 1920s, when many Japanese publishers competed to produce multi-volume literary series sold at one yen per volume. Through rampant advertising campaigns in newspapers, these mass-market series, often bearing the name of zensh u (‘complete collection’), became musthave commodities for individuals and families to own in order to participate in an emerging nationalist discourse on citizenship and modernity. But if publishers wanted to evoke an appeal of ‘modern citizen’ through marketing tactics, their customers, i.e. the readers, too have their own reading practices, as Kawana moves on to demonstrate with two book series published during the Second World War: Sh onen kurabu and Sh onen sekai. Situating in a sensitive period when censorship and ideological control loomed over the publishing industry, both series provided young readers at the time gateways to ‘timeless’ literary gems from before the war. Studying some of the memoirs and autobiographies of young readers, Kawana contends that those young minds often developed their own thoughts, responses and personal tastes amidst a time when everything they were allowed to read was approved by grown-ups. This notion of individual and creative response","PeriodicalId":44495,"journal":{"name":"Japan Forum","volume":"35 1","pages":"367 - 369"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-11-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45465749","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-11-02DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2022.2130397
Noriaki Hoshino
Abstract This essay explores discussions of the Renaissance in Japan thorough the lens of one prominent Japanese Marxist intellectual/historian, Hani Gorō. During the interwar/wartime period, the Renaissance became a popular subject for Japanese intellectuals. While some tried to apply the Renaissance idea to the Japanese context to re-define the country’s national identity or historical development, others explored the importance of the European Renaissance as a worthy source for modernity. It was in this context that Hani also wrote several pieces on the Italian Renaissance and intervened in the general discussion of the Japanese Renaissance. As government oppression of Marxist intellectuals intensified in the 1930s, Hani pursued his critical intellectual activity through these works of nuanced resistance. Hani’s work during this period is distinguished by its interdisciplinary range and volume. This article examines Hani’s writings on the Italian Renaissance and related pieces on Tokugawa intellectual history. I examine Hani’s work to reveal the unique characteristics of his approach to the Renaissance, in which he focuses on the contradictions within it, and I explore the implications of his historical research for his own time.
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Pub Date : 2022-11-02DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2022.2140181
Christopher P. Hood
For many of us, we can remember exactly where we were on 11 March 2011. Whether we were in Japan or elsewhere, within minutes of the mega earthquake striking, images of what was occurring were being broadcast globally. We watched, shocked, unable to find the right words as the tsunami rolled into and over the coastline. Over the ensuing hours, we tried to learn more about what had happened, in general terms, but also, often, at a micro level to those we knew. As the day went on, so the initial disaster seemed to have peaked, and attention could largely start turning to thinking about survival and recovery. But, of course, the disaster was not over. The third element was still building to its explosive contribution to the Great East Japan Earthquake and Disaster the following day in the form of the events at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi Nuclear Power Plant. In the days, months, and years, many of us grappled to understand what had really happened during the days, weeks, and longer of the disaster. For the disaster did not even end on 12 March. Indeed, it is questionable whether it has ended even now in 2022. While disaster studies had remained an ominously under-studied area of Japanese studies prior to 2011, in the years that followed, many academic studies have been published. Without doubt, as someone who had been working on disasters prior to the events of 2011, Aldrich’s expertise and contribution to this body of literature is a useful addition in the form of this book. But this conclusion comes with caveats. Returning to the first paragraph of this review, as noted, many of us remember the events of 2011. But, for more and more students, amongst others, the memories are not so clear and there may be little or knowledge of the events. Outside Japanese Studies, the problem may be even greater. In that respect, Aldrich’s study will be extremely useful. However, I wonder whether they will even find the study. The main title of the book is ‘Black Wave’, a term which resonates so much with us who watched the images of the tsunami as it poured over walls, roads, and fields. Without that knowledge, however, it sounds more like a cultural counterpart to the ‘Korean Wave’. While the subtitle helps, beyond the Japanese Studies community, ‘3/11’ is not wellknown, so I fear that it may not reach those who would benefit from reading it. Further, the image of a crane and
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Pub Date : 2022-10-26DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2022.2130398
Mari Ishida
Abstract This article examines the Japanese wartime discourse on the construction of Greater East Asia as an instrument of racialization by looking at the writings of Ibuse Masuji, Jinbo Kōtarō, and Nakajima Kenzō; Japanese writers and literary critics who served with the military propaganda unit in Singapore under Japanese rule (1942–1945). The nonfiction writings on Japanese language education by Nakajima and Jinbo and the interethnic romance written by Ibuse each take part in multilayered modes of racialization – (in)visibilization, infantilization, re-ethnicization, and feminization. I argue that these different modes of racialization collectively provide the language and content for the narcissistic fantasy of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, thereby displacing the brutal reality of Japanese occupation.
{"title":"The fantasy of Greater East Asia: the racializing discourse of ‘peaceful construction’ and Japan’s occupation of Singapore","authors":"Mari Ishida","doi":"10.1080/09555803.2022.2130398","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2022.2130398","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article examines the Japanese wartime discourse on the construction of Greater East Asia as an instrument of racialization by looking at the writings of Ibuse Masuji, Jinbo Kōtarō, and Nakajima Kenzō; Japanese writers and literary critics who served with the military propaganda unit in Singapore under Japanese rule (1942–1945). The nonfiction writings on Japanese language education by Nakajima and Jinbo and the interethnic romance written by Ibuse each take part in multilayered modes of racialization – (in)visibilization, infantilization, re-ethnicization, and feminization. I argue that these different modes of racialization collectively provide the language and content for the narcissistic fantasy of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, thereby displacing the brutal reality of Japanese occupation.","PeriodicalId":44495,"journal":{"name":"Japan Forum","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-10-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41771123","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-27DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2022.2126876
Dorothy Finan
{"title":"Japanese High School Films","authors":"Dorothy Finan","doi":"10.1080/09555803.2022.2126876","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2022.2126876","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44495,"journal":{"name":"Japan Forum","volume":"35 1","pages":"123 - 125"},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48975405","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-14DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2021.1942137
Filippo Cervelli
{"title":"Mindless happiness: presentism, utopia and dystopian suspension of thought in Psycho-Pass","authors":"Filippo Cervelli","doi":"10.1080/09555803.2021.1942137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2021.1942137","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44495,"journal":{"name":"Japan Forum","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-09-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44832110","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-08-19DOI: 10.1080/09555803.2022.2109055
Helena Grinshpun
Abstract In recent decades, Japan has been undergoing an extensive societal change, centred mainly on family, employment, and patterns of social interaction. Later and fewer marriages lead to a growing amount of single households; the de-stabilization of employment produces new living conditions; the virtualization of communication generates new formats of interaction, often linked to the problem of alienation, especially among the younger generation. These processes have produced not only objective trends but also a subjective climate of instability, often framed by the discourse on Japan's precarity. A society that for decades has viewed itself as a homogeneous middle-class entity, Japan is still affluent but undergoing a long economic stagnation and, more importantly, increasingly experiencing itself as a fragmented society filled with social maladies. This article explores one outcome of these conditions – a new form of housing commonly referred to as the ‘share house.’ It first introduces the ‘share house’ phenomenon, then places it in the context of changes undergone by Japanese society. I suggest that the ‘share house’ represents a new institution addressing the growing need for alternative social alliances, particularly among young single adults seeking substitute modes of intimacy and belonging.
{"title":"Crafting a new home: shared living and intimacy in contemporary Japan","authors":"Helena Grinshpun","doi":"10.1080/09555803.2022.2109055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2022.2109055","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In recent decades, Japan has been undergoing an extensive societal change, centred mainly on family, employment, and patterns of social interaction. Later and fewer marriages lead to a growing amount of single households; the de-stabilization of employment produces new living conditions; the virtualization of communication generates new formats of interaction, often linked to the problem of alienation, especially among the younger generation. These processes have produced not only objective trends but also a subjective climate of instability, often framed by the discourse on Japan's precarity. A society that for decades has viewed itself as a homogeneous middle-class entity, Japan is still affluent but undergoing a long economic stagnation and, more importantly, increasingly experiencing itself as a fragmented society filled with social maladies. This article explores one outcome of these conditions – a new form of housing commonly referred to as the ‘share house.’ It first introduces the ‘share house’ phenomenon, then places it in the context of changes undergone by Japanese society. I suggest that the ‘share house’ represents a new institution addressing the growing need for alternative social alliances, particularly among young single adults seeking substitute modes of intimacy and belonging.","PeriodicalId":44495,"journal":{"name":"Japan Forum","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.6,"publicationDate":"2022-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49462857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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