Reception of the revisionist historical manga in Japan: a case study of university students

Abstract

Since the emergence of the so-called ‘liberal historiography’ in the mid 1990s, historical revisionism in Japan has been one of the most hotly debated academic topics in Japanese studies. While the majority of the current scholarship focuses on the structure of the revisionist texts and the individuals behind them, the case study presented in this paper seeks to explore the way young readers in Japan actually receive the revisionist texts, with a particular focus on the revisionist manga. Building on Stuart Hall's conceptualization of the relationship between media producers and the audience, this paper analyzes the results of a survey conducted among students of two Japanese universities. Its main argument can be divided into two parts. In terms of empirical findings it shows that in general the respondents engage in critical reading of those narratives that contradict the dominant discourse. Drawing on these findings the paper argues that academic scrutiny of a certain cultural product needs to take into account the broader discourse when speculating on its possible effects on the reader.