Contemporary Japanese Literature Research Articles

Unnatural Elements in Works of Tawada Yōko and Ogawa Yōko

A woman growing scales which must be removed using skin-care products, or a man whose body disintegrates into dust after he left an elevator where he had spent his whole life. Modern Japanese literature is full of elements that run against our everyday experience such as these and writings of female writers Tawada Yōko and Ogawa Yōko are especially inundated by disconcerting and puzzling dreamlike scenes. What meaning are they trying to convey? What function does their inclusion in the text fulfil? How do they influence structure of their worlds? These questions pose a vexing problem for anyone attempting to analyse many of the works of contemporary Japanese literature as it is not easy to find a suitable theoretical approach to answer them. In this paper through interpretation of two shorter works by both authors E.B.'s Unfulfilled Wish by Ogawa and The Bath by Tawada) using a theoretical framework based on unnatural narratology and fictional world theory I attempt to answer these questions and show the central role these elements fulfil in both world-formation and meaning-formation of the texts. I will also point out how the usage of unnatural elements places both authors firmly into the realm of the ontology-dominated postmodern literature as defined by Brian McHale.

The Complete Works of World Literature (Sekai Bungaku Zenshū, 1927–1932) by Shinchōsha publishing house in the context of the history of Japanese book

The last years of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s are known as the “era of one-yen books” in the history of Japanese book printing. One-yen books were serial subscription publications, with the price of one yen per volume. The first such publication was the Complete Works of Contemporary Japanese Literature (Kindai Nihon Bungaku Zenshū), launched by Kaizōsha publishing house in 1926. The series was very successful with at least 250,000 subscribers. The “one-yen editions race” was initiated: many publishing houses began releasing their own one-yen series as early as the following year. The most commercially successful among the one-yen books (at least 400,000 copies) was the Complete Works of World Literature (Sekai bungaku zenshū) published by the Shinchōsha publishing house in 1927–1932.The Complete Works of World Literature consists of 57 volumes in two parts (38 volumes of the first part were published in 1927–1930, and then more 19 volumes were added, composing the second part of the publication). The books of the series had a hard cover and a thought-out design and were supposed to serve not only for reading, but also for the decoration of the house and the demonstration of the owner’s status.The series represents one of the possible canons of world literature. The time frame of the presented works is from the 14th century (the first volume is Dante’s Divine comedy) to the present (the last volume contains six works, five of them written in the 1920s, while the volume was released in 1929). The series includes prose, drama, and, to a lesser extent, poetry. The volumes of the series have a fairly extensive apparatus (prefaces, comments in some volumes, portraits of authors, monthly attachments tucked into the pages of the volumes). World literature is presented as Western literature. Translations of the works of Western literature played an important role in the formation of national Japanese literature. The success of this series also demonstrated the readers’ great interest in literary translations, especially in the translations of modern literature.

Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan by Jan Bardsley

Reviewed by: Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan by Jan Bardsley Rebecca Corbett (bio) Maiko Masquerade: Crafting Geisha Girlhood in Japan. By Jan Bardsley. University of California Press, 2021. xvi, 283 pages. $85.00, cloth; $29.95, paper; $29.95, E-book. Anyone who has spent time in Kyoto in the 2000s has likely noticed the "maiko boom" which Jan Bardsley masterfully unpacks in Maiko Masquerade. The ubiquity of the maiko figure in souvenir shops, on tourism posters, in-person with domestic and international tourists playing "dress up," and even occasionally a real maiko, permeates the city and its representation. Bardsley takes an interdisciplinary cultural studies approach to examining the media and popular culture representation of the maiko in twenty-first-century Japan, her research inspired by a question posed by her students: "What kinds of geisha stories exist these days in Japan?" In the 2000s, it is not so much the geisha (or geiko, in Kyoto, used in this book) but the teenage apprentice maiko who is the figure of popular imagination. Bardsley is particularly concerned with representation of maiko in media and popular culture. Using an impressively diverse range of sources from movies, manga, light novels, visual art, and biographies to popular guides, [End Page 214] photobooks, and even tenugui (cotton hand towels), Bardsley crafts a lively and richly nuanced narrative about this "millennial maiko." Themes that emerge in Maiko Masquerade are the performance of "maiko-likeness," maiko agency, and maiko as quintessential Japanese good girl. "Maiko-likeness" (pp. 3, 31–35), or maiko rashii maiko, is a compelling through line and where the idea of masquerade, in the title, comes from—maiko-likeness being something performed. Bardsley shows how this performance is linked to the performance of femininity in millennial Japan. This is perhaps a topic that could have been further explored by bringing in historical studies of the performance of different types of femininity in Japan. Maiko agency is found in accounts that foreground becoming a maiko as a path of a girl's own choosing, "largely due to her love of kimono and dance" (p. 3). Interwoven within this narrative is a distancing of the work of maiko from sexual servitude and exploitation which, as Bardsley shows in chapter 4, characterize earlier popular narratives of the maiko in the twentieth century. One question not fully explored is whether this distancing presents a danger of erasing historical realities of exploitation and sexual servitude. The maiko, and particularly the maiko rashii maiko that she strives to be, is "especially mannered and contained" (p. 3). As the quintessential Japanese good girl, who values traditional arts and textiles, she stands in direct contrast to other figures in popular culture such as kogal (delinquent high school girls) (pp. 13–14). Each of these themes is complex and interwoven with the others; as they recur throughout the book, Bardsley draws them out at key moments for the reader. Given the range of sources and disciplinary approaches that Maiko Masquerade employs, it will be of interest to scholars in fields such as literature, cultural studies, media studies, theater and performance studies, and gender and sexuality studies. It builds upon and makes important theoretical contributions in all of these fields and should be read by anyone with an interest in millennial Japanese culture and society, whether the figure of the maiko intrigues you or not. It is particularly nice to see a book that thanks students who inspired it as the first acknowledgment. It is clear that conversations in the classroom shaped this book in ways that make it suitable for use in the classroom itself. Chapter 5 on the "Adventures of a Boy Maiko" provides a great case study for students interested in contemporary Japanese literature, culture, and gender studies, for example. Structurally the flow between chapters is excellent, each building on themes of the preceding chapters, making the book particularly enjoyable to read as the story develops and gathers pace. It begins with a discussion of the spaces the maiko occupies, with descriptions of the five hanamachi (neighborhoods) in Kyoto where maiko live and work, alongside geiko, tea-house and okiya managers, and other workers. While each hanamachi is distinct...

Correlation Analysis of Japanese Literature and Psychotherapy Effects Based on an Equation Diagnosis Algorithm.

Objective On the basis of inheriting the classical aesthetic orientation of Japanese literature, contemporary Japanese literature changes the creative methods of traditional Japanese writers, strives to transcend the national limitations of Japanese literature, and strives to capture literary materials with a “modern feel.” Combined with modern western literary techniques to express the “modern self,” and integrating popular literature with pure literature, Japanese writers created a “healing” literature that is popular all over the world. There is some value in exploring the correlation between Japanese literature and the influence of psychotherapy. Method In this paper, an equation diagnosis algorithm based on iterative learning for a class of linear discrete systems is studied, and the existing discrete iterative learning diagnostics are improved. We exchange the order of time domain and iterative domain to achieve the purpose of point-by-point equation diagnosis. On this basis, a virtual influence initial value estimation algorithm with a sliding window is proposed. The impact that has not been diagnosed is estimated and used as the initial value of the impact, so as to reduce the number of iterations and improve the efficiency of equation diagnosis. This paper takes the public and readers as different perspectives, based on the use and satisfaction theory and prospect theory, and uses interviews and questionnaires to study the communication effect of Japanese literature from the three dimensions of cognition, emotion, and behavior. The cognitive part includes the public's understanding and readers' understanding and reading; the emotional part includes the public's and readers' impressions and emotional attitudes; the behavioral part includes the public's reading situation and readers' behavior changes. Results/Discussion. In the survey of loyal readers, although readers' understanding of Japanese literature has improved compared with the general public, it is not high, and their liking and influence on behavior are slightly lower than the preset level. This paper believes that the existing problems of Japanese literature dissemination are mainly concentrated in three aspects: the market is somewhat biased, which narrows the cognitive scope of users; as a cross-cultural literary work, Japanese literature still makes readers feel that it exists; there is some sense of estrangement, which will affect their enjoyment in reading; as a niche interest, readers lack timely communication and sharing objects after reading, so it is difficult to enhance their sense of identity.

Script Choice as a Defamiliarization Technique in Kuroda Natsuko’s ab sango

ABSTRACT This article explains how writing-restricted variations in contemporary Japanese literature can be central to the author’s overall literary project, using Kuroda Natsuko’s ab sango (2012) as an example. Kuroda’s novel is written in a highly experimental style that deviates from standard Japanese writing conventions in many ways, including direction of writing, the use of Western punctuation marks, and script choice between hiragana and kanji. While many readers dismissed her style as being difficult for the sake of being difficult, this article will argue that Kuroda’s writing represents an important example of script choice being used as a defamiliarization technique – Kuroda’s unusual script choices make familiar words unfamiliar to the reader. In doing so, Kuroda defamiliarizes the Japanese language itself, revealing the arbitrariness of script choice-related rules. She also brings awareness to the fact that the Japanese writing system contains many possible ways of representing the language, beyond what is most used today. I conclude the article by comparing Kuroda’s literary aims to those of contemporary exophonic authors such as Tawada Yoko and Hideo Levy, whose works also play with the conventions of written Japanese.

Classroom Action Research on Thematic-Designed Online Learning for Contemporary Japanese Literature

This study aims to implement contemporary Japanese literature learning with thematic designs as a learning strategy for 60 students in literary study classes (Poetry, Prose, and Drama) at Darma Persada University that were conducted online during the pandemic. This study was conducted using Kurt Lewin's Classroom Action Research model consisting of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting; particularly for the observing section, the assessment was measured using two indicators based on students’ understanding of the material and satisfaction with online learning. Data was collected using questionnaires and filled out via google form. The findings of this study indicate the level of student understanding of the material, the constraints of online learning, and feedback from experts. The findings are useful for improving Japanese literature learning, to be more precisely during the online course

Shōjo Manga Elements Imported to Contemporary Japanese Literature - A Case Study of Miura Shion

The present paper discusses how various elements in shōjo manga (Japanese comics for girls) have been incorporated in works of Japanese contemporary literature. The connection between shōjo manga and literature was pointed out for the first time when the novel Kitchen by Yoshimoto Banana was published in 1987. This paper argues that this connection has developed further since then, focusing on one of the most active writers in contemporary Japanese literature, Miura Shion[1]. The paper briefly introduces the genre shōjo manga and describes its connection with the novel Kitchen before analysing a short story and an essay by Miura Shion, focusing both on their motifs and styles, to identify elements influenced by shōjo manga.

Mobility in the Work of Haruki Murakami, Focusing on Dance Dance Dance as a Narrative of Mobility

This article discusses how advanced capitalism, criticized in Haruki Murakami’s Dance Dance Dance (1988), relates to “mobility,” which defines human life as well as Murakami’s narrative strategy. Various forms of movement in Murakami’s novels have yet to be observed in previous studies, possibly due to readings of advanced capitalism and alienation being limited to the Japanese context. Applying the issue of mobility to Dance Dance Dance can be a useful tool in analyzing the universality of Murakami’s work in the contemporary world. The concept of mobility includes technological means and infrastructure for movement of individuals, people who move around, networks of people, and places. Research on mobility is interdisciplinary in its direction, and it is only in recent years, even in Europe that the idea of mobility was applied to literary studies. Along with mobility, the concept of “immobility” can also be explored. Immobility involves a person whose movement is denied or suppressed, the network that the person forms, and the place for such a network. In Dance Dance Dance, we find the starting point of mobility in Japan in the late 1980s better than any other novels by the author or by other writers in contemporary Japanese literature. Murakami might not have intended to deal with this theme. Although he opposes capitalism, the mobility he represents in his novels still works within the capitalist system. The narratorthinks he rejects advanced capitalism, yet his mobility capital in actual life is optimized for the mobility of driving, traveling, and walking. The narrator does not work, but he always has money to spend whenever he feels the need to travel to forget his loneliness. Moreover, in the adventure of “occult code/travel,” the main character always secures safety even if the people around him are in danger. This is also true for the readers: they solve mysterious cases that the protagonist cannot understand, and they are participants in the scene. The fantasy of movement in Dance Dance Dance as a mobility narrative is the basic element ofthe global attributes of Murakami’s works.

ТВОРЧЕСТВО РОМАНА КИМА: ЭТНОКУЛЬТУРНЫЕ РЕАЛИИ В СОВЕТСКОЙ БЕЛЛЕТРИСТИКЕ

The article is concerned with the works by the Soviet writer and East Asian studies scholar Roman Kim (1899–1967). He is well known as an author of spy fiction. The article follows the literary history of Roman Kim. Being a Russian-language descendant of Korean emigrants, he wrote about rivalry between international intelligence services on polycultural territories. First published works by R. Kim were non-fictional. He became a commentator of the book The Roots of the Japanese Sun by B. Pilniak and also published his analysis of the contemporary Japanese literature in the lampoon Three Houses across from the Other Two . R. Kim criticized Japanese ‘ego’-fiction of the early 20th century because literary ‘masters’ and their apprentices did not notice significant events in Japan and in the world and did not bring up social issues. Kim’s literary work demonstrates that the civic position of the characters in literature is essential for him. In the 1950s and 1960s, Roman Kim’s fiction has an intriguing plot and distinctness of a storyline. The structure of his novellas is usually built on ideological oppositions: the USA and the USSR, North and South Korea, Japan and communist China. The writer creates images of Kore and Koreans with historical retrospections and ethnocultural details. Korea in general is shown as a space of competition between the modern empires. Kim underlines ethnocultural particularity of most of the characters. The specificity of his fiction is based on the rationalistic principle, which also determines the unambiguity of the characters. Such a feature of the characters and the storyline is fairly typical of formula literature. Roman Kim also depicts spies like ghosts in his novellas. The authors of the article interpret that as reflection of the hybrid identity of Korean diaspora in the Soviet Union.

Translating Family Violence in Contemporary Japanese Literature: Dynamics of (Cruel) Affectivity in Zangyakuki by Kirino Natsuo

Translating Family Violence in Contemporary Japanese Literature: Dynamics of (Cruel) Affectivity in Zangyakuki by Kirino Natsuo

A escrita feminina japonesa: Um breve panorama das produções clássicas às contemporâneas

Quando observamos a produção literária japonesa contemporânea notamos que as publicações de mulheres têm se quantificado proporcionalmente a dos homens. Mas qual têm sido as características dessas produções? Há características em sua escrita que as distinguem dos homens? Neste trabalho, nosso objetivo é disponibilizar um panorama sucinto dessas obras de autoria feminina vertidas para o português e entender baseando-nos na produção das autoras Banana Yoshimoto e Hiromi Kawakami quais são as características dessa escrita feminina e como ela se dá no âmbito dos estudos japoneses. Tentando entender essa produção não somente como um reflexo da sociedade atual japonesa, mas também como forma de ver o homem universal em seu processo continuo de se entender.

サヤ~ソヨ及びサワ系派生オノマトペの意味変化 : 上代語～現代語における意味の分化と相関関係を中心に

The present study investigated the change in meaning and the correlation between the derivatives derived from the base of adjectives, saya, soyo, and sawa found through contemporary Japanese literature from ancient times.BR Saya, the adjectival base which had an audiovisually “sei (brisk, cleanliness)” image in KOJIKI and NIHON-SYOKI, used to be the semantic equivalent of sawa.. Sawa, however, had a stronger auditory nuance than saya. As the verb sawaku was derived from it, the adjectival base started to be used mainly as a verb.BR Soyo is also a word that principally had the same auditory nuance as sawa in MANYO-SYU. For example, in the HEIAN period, soyo was frequently used as a rhetorical device KAKEKOTOBA in WAKA, and soyo-soyo was established as a word referring to the “sound of leaves occurring due to a breeze.” This usage is distinct from saya-saya, which refers to a very weak sound that occurs regardless of wind. During the EDO period, sawaku (again, derived from the adjectival base sawa) produced an onomatopoeia depicting the noisy sound zawa-zawa. Therefore, saya-saya, depicting weak sounds, and sawa-sawa, depicting strong and noisy sounds, eventually formed a pair relationship.BR On the other hand, the adjective took on the visual image of “cleanliness” rather than the onomatopoeia. More specifically, the adjective derived from the adjectival base saya came to mean “to be upright.” The “uprightness” here also means “there is no obstacle or opacity.” The meaning “completely without worries” derived from “uprightness” is present in adjectives derived from sawa, such as sawaraka and sawayaka. After the pre-modern period, however, the representative word referring to the “uprightness,” sayaka, went out of use, and sawayaka evolved to mean “uprightness.” In other words, sayaka and sawayaka became semantically closer.

Intertwining Tongues：Bilingualism and Hybrid Texts in Contemporary Japanese Literature ―― From I am a Cat to I Become a Cat

Intertwining Tongues：Bilingualism and Hybrid Texts in Contemporary Japanese Literature ―― From I am a Cat to I Become a Cat

현대 일본의 ‘지방’ 내러티브의 가능성과 한계 : 요시다 슈이치 『악인』을 중심으로

현대 일본의 ‘지방’ 내러티브의 가능성과 한계 : 요시다 슈이치 『악인』을 중심으로

Between Jazz, Cherry Blossoms, and Baseball: Transculturality in the Publications of Murakami Haruki

Abstract In this day and age a continuous flow of ideas and culture takes place, which is part of the globalisation process. These exchanges influence the development of a transcultural literature. Murakami Haruki is not only a transcultural writer, but one of the most popular and internationally acclaimed authors of contemporary Japanese literature who has changed the literary scene in Japan since the publication of his debut novel Kaze no uta o kike (Hear the Wind Sing). Murakami has experimented with postmodern expressions and eventually developed his own writing style, which integrates elements of Western cultures into his works. This paper focuses on the author’s transcultural strategy, which is often reflected in his choice of the setting and time frame, the frequent mentioning of cultural consumer goods and linguistic features such as the utilisation of loanwords. In particular, references to music and literature play a major role in Murakami’s publications. This paper analyses how and to what extent transculturality influences the characters, their actions, and the storyline on the basis of the short story “Nemuri” (Sleep) published in 1989. In the process it is concluded that, above all, these references underpin aspects such as the search for identity, the escape into ‘another world’, and the rejection of societal norms and values.

Blade Runner w kombinacie zakrzywionej czasoprzestrzeni, czyli film Ridleya Scotta w powieści Shōno Yoriko

Blade Runner, tytuł kultowego filmu Ridleya Scotta z 1982 r., w Polsce znanego jako Łowca androidów, niczym wysłannik ponurej przyszłości pojawia się na kartach powieści „Kombinat zakrzywionej czasoprzestrzeni” (Taimu surippu konbināto, 1994), pióra współczesnej japońskiej pisarki Shōno Yoriko (ur. 1956). Co łączy te dwa utwory, należące przecież do różnych porządków narracyjnych – tak wizualnego, jak tekstowego? Co zainspirowało Shōno w Blade Runnerze i jakie są skutki tej inspiracji dla fabuły powieści? Na ile sajensfikcyjny, postapokaliptyczny świat słynnego filmu Ridleya Scotta przenika slipstreamową prozę Shōno Yoriko i kształtuje jej powieściową rzeczywistość? Oprócz odpowiedzi na te pytania, autorka niniejszego artykułu podejmuje również temat roli science fiction we współczesnej literaturze japońskiej oraz przedstawia sylwetkę i dorobek literacki Shōno Yoriko, pisarki wybitnej, lecz jak do tej pory z różnych powodów poza Japonią mało znanej.

A Report on the Taiwan Symposium of the Third Forum for East Asia and Contemporary Japanese Literature

A Report on the Taiwan Symposium of the Third Forum for East Asia and Contemporary Japanese Literature

The Problem of Suicide and Double Suicide in Contemporary Japanese Literature

This paper explores the problem of suicide and double suicide in contemporary Japanese literature. Characters from fourteen stories are under consideration, with respect to categories such as shame, guilt, and retribution. Based on stories of six popular Japanese writers (Hoshi Shinichi’s “The Overtaking”, Atōda Takashi’s “The Hair”, “The Ghost of the Office”, “The Red Dress”, “The Visitor” and “The God of Happiness”, Akagawa Jirō’s “The Double Suicide”, “Let’s Shock”, “The Dancing Man”, “The Gossip” and “The New Worker”, Miyabe Miyuki’s “Don’t Say Anything”, Otsuichi’s “Ishinome”, and Isaka Kōtarō’s “Grasshopper”) I analyse characteristic features of these “suicide” stories in the Japanese literature of the last four decades. Refs 23.

“Taiwan” Images in Contemporary Japanese Literature

“Taiwan” Images in Contemporary Japanese Literature

The European Middle Ages through the prism of Contemporary Japanese Literature: a study of Vinland Saga, Spice & Wolf and l’Éclipse

Abstract Since the past few decades, the European Middle Ages have started to become a recurrent motif in Japan. Either depicted in historical works, appearing in a roundabout way, or even implied through archetypal backgrounds and characters in Medieval Fantasy, it has become a source of inspiration for Japanese authors and screenwriters, even taking a firm root in the video game industry— Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series acting as relevant touchstones. Regarding the field of Literature at large, countless manga are based upon its settings ( Berserk , Akagami no Shirayukihime), as well as several light novels (Slayers, The Record of Lodoss War ) and “pure” literary works—among them, the Akutagawa Prize’s winner in 1998, L'Eclipse by Hirano Keiichirō. Besides offering the elation of exotic stories and re-enchanting our world, this foreign exploration of The Middle Ages creates a new approach of its realities and myths, sometimes reorganizing them to the point of syncretism with Japanese values. Thus, from folktales to civilizations features, those transcultural medieval elements affect the perception of Europe in contemporary Japan. In this article, in order to highlight the interaction between this part of the European culture and Japanese literature, I study three examples of literary works representing The European Middle Ages: the historical manga Vinland Saga (Yukimura Makoto), set during the Vikings Era and using the literary features of the Icelandic sagas; the light novel Spice & Wolf (Hasekura Isuna), a unique tale depicting the medieval merchant world; and the novel L'Eclipse (Hirano Keiichirō), portraying a young Dominican in the fifteenth century thrown into the world of alchemy and metaphysics. I argue that they are not only transcultural works, but that they also offer new perspectives on understanding how European realities and myths are being adapted in Japan.