Japanese Visual Culture Research Articles

The Premise of Fidelity: Science, Visuality, and Representing the Real in Nineteenth-Century Japan by Maki Fukuoka (review)

Reviewed by: The Premise of Fidelity: Science, Visuality, and Representing the Real in Nineteenth-Century Japan by Maki Fukuoka Karen M. Fraser The Premise of Fidelity: Science, Visuality, and Representing the Real in Nineteenth-Century Japan. By Maki Fukuoka. Stanford University Press, 2012. 304pages. Hardcover $45.00. The Japanese term shashin, which in its broadest sense means “copying” or “tracing truth/reality,” has long been the standard rendition for the English “photograph, or photography.” In the conventional narrative of its early history in Japan, photography has been presented as a new Western technology that was introduced amid the opening of the country in the 1850s. Framed within a broader, dichotomous model of the West (modern, technologically advanced) versus Japan (feudal, archaic), photography was thought to offer the possibility of accurate, scientific depictions previously lacking in Japanese visual culture. This potential seems directly embedded in the word shashin itself, which notably embodies a strikingly different conceptualization from that of the English word “photograph” (meaning “light drawing”). Shashin has largely been perceived as a new visual method adopted in tandem with Japan’s modernization, with little attention given to the origins of its nomenclature or its broader contemporary associations. Maki Fukuoka upends this narrative in The Premise of Fidelity by investigating the genealogy of shashin. This compelling study explores various meanings and uses of shashin that predated and overlapped with the introduction of photography and uncovers the rich conceptual history that ultimately led to the term’s modern association with the camera. The activities of the Shōhyaku-sha, a group of scholars based in the Owari domain (present-day Aichi prefecture) and active from the 1820s through the 1870s, are the main focus of the book. Of great interest to the group was honzōgaku, the study of materia medica. The driving concern for the Shōhyaku-sha’s practicing physicians was to accurately identify plants and understand their medicinal properties in order to use them to treat patients. Developing a comprehensive knowledge of plants was no simple task, however, as it required members to synthesize three types of sources: imported Chinese materia medica; native plant specimens that often differed significantly from their Chinese counterparts; and Western botany in the form of Linnaean taxonomy (a biological classification set up by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus), which they learned about from the physician Phillip Franz von Siebold (1796–1866) in 1826. In the continual process of negotiating among these three entities to generate new knowledge and reconcile it with previously accepted information, the group engaged in a range of practices. These included the staging of public exhibitions and the use of several types of visual representation, among them an innovative pictorial technique that involved impressing plant specimens directly onto a page, thus creating a literal residue of shin (“the real”). The amorphous concept of shin lay at the core of their ultimate goal: to achieve fidelity between actual plants, the naming of those [End Page 293] plants and identification of their properties, and their visual depictions. Shashin, which Fukuoka translates as “transposition of the real” (p. 2) in this context, was central to their collective practices and “occupied a pivotal position in [their] particular epistemological discourse as a primary arena for negotiating the conceptual relationship among representations, represented objects, and names” (p. 10). Though Fukuoka is particularly concerned with the centrality of shin and shashin to the Shōhyaku-sha’s methods of generating knowledge, she deftly connects these elements with a broader range of concepts, individuals, and institutions. The links between shashin and other terms historically connected to visual representation are a recurring theme. Such terms include sha’i (transposition of will), shasei (transposition of the living spirit), shajitsu (transposition of the actual), shin’ei (shadow of the real), and shashin kyō (shashin lens, or camera obscura). The activities of the Shōhyaku-sha also intersected with the work of a number of prominent figures who engaged with the concepts of shin and shashin in complementary and contradictory ways. These figures ranged from Kaibara Ekken (1630–1714), a scholar and botanist who published his comprehensive studies on materia medica in 1709, to Shiba Kōkan (1747–1818), an eighteenth-century artist...

Hokusai's Great Waves in Nineteenth-Century Japanese Visual Culture

Katsushika Hokusai's 1831 woodcut Under the Wave off Kanagawa, popularly known as The Great Wave, occupies an iconic place in modern visual culture. Looking at the sociocultural context in which Hokusai's iterations of this motif were first produced and consumed helps to explain why this image was singled out from the Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji of which it was a part. Waves served to express a range of ideas, practices, and even materials associated with the West. Their heroic forms became critical sites for exploring Japan's shifting geopolitical circumstances, especially the country's vulnerability to foreign invasion.

Japan fashion now

A visually stunningexploration of how contemporary Japanese and visual culture are transforming the way we experience our world Scholars have long acknowledged the significance of the Japanese fashion revolution of the 1980s, when avant-garde designers Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garcons introduced a radically new conception of fashion. But what has happened in the years since then? Lavishly illustrated, Japan Fashion Nowwill be the first book to explore how Japanese has evolved in recent years. During this time, Japanese pop culture has swept the world, as young people everywhere read manga, watch anime, and play video games. Japan has had a profound impact on global culture, often via new media. With essays by Valerie Steele (Is Japan Still the Future?), Patricia Mears (Fashion Revolution), Hiroshi Narumi (Japanese Street Style), and Yuniya Kawamura (Japanese Fashion Subcultures), Japan Fashion Now explores how the world of has been transformedbycontemporary Japanese visual culture.

Tokyo cyberpunk: posthumanism in Japanese visual culture

Introduction: Posthumanism after AKIRA PART I: MACHINIC DESIRES: HANS BELLMER'S DOLLS AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL UNCANNY IN GHOST IN THE SHELL 2: INNOCENCE PART II: DESIRING MACHINES: BIOMECHANOID EROS AND OTHER TECHNO-FETISHES IN TETSUO: THE IRON MAN AND ITS PRECURSORS PART III: CONSENSUAL HALLUCINATIONS AND THE PHANTOMS OF ELECTRONIC PRESENCE IN KAIRO AND AVALON Conclusion: Software in a Body: Critical Posthumanism and Serial Experiments Lain

The Transcultural Roots of Modernism: Imagist Poetry, Japanese Visual Culture, and the Western Museum System

If the direct and massive influence of Asia on Western literature of the last century were adequately acknowledged and researched, it would be possible to see Anglo-American Modernist poetry as part of a global, rather than a merely provincial, cultural development. This article demonstrates that imagist poetry, traditionally regarded as the first authentically Modernist literary initiative to appear in English, was in fact a response to a dramatic resurgence in pan-Asian cultural awareness that had begun in Tokyo during the closing years of the nineteenth century, and which spread across Eastern Asia and the Indian Subcontinent to reach Europe a few years before the onset of the First World War. A large quantity of previously unpublished documentary evidence is presented to show that the imagist experiments of Ezra Pound, Richard Aldington, Amy Lowell, and John Gould Fletcher were indebted to an engagement with Japanese visual culture that was far deeper than has ever previously been suggested. The venues for these seminal meetings between East and West were the museums of Britain and the United States.

Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime (review)

Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime (review)

Selling Japan: Kusakabe Kimbei's Image of Japanese Women

This study analyses the representation of women in the souvenir photographs of the Japanese-run studio of Kusakabe Kimbei. Contrary to readings that stress the studio's production of exotic images of Japanese femininity, this study focuses on the local signifying systems that informed his photographic practice and work. The aim is to analyse Kimbei's photographs of Japanese women within the broader context of late-nineteenth-century visual practices in Japan, particularly with regard to popular images of geisha and courtesans that were available in advertising and other media. The present study considers the staging, photographing and marketing of Kimbei's photographs of Japanese women, three aspects of the trade crucial to the visualisation of women in Japanese visual culture. Through a consideration of these stages, this study aims to promote an alternative reading of the photographer's souvenir photographs of Japanese women.

Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime

Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in the World of Manga and Anime

Japanese visual culture: explorations in the world of manga and anime

Foreword, Frederik L. Schodt Introduction, Mark W. MacWilliams 1. Manga in Japanese History, Kinko Ito 2. Contemporary Anime in Japanese Pop Culture, Gilles Poitras 3. Characters, Themes, and Narrative Patterns in the Manga of Osamu Tezuka, Susanne Phillips 4. From Metropolis to Metoroporisu: The Changing Role of the Robot in Japanese and Western Cinema, Lee Makela 5. Opening the Closed World of Shojo Manga, Mizuki Takahashi 6. Situating the Shojo in Shojo Manga: Teenage Girls, Romance Comics, and Contemporary Japanese Culture, Deborah Shamoon 7. Intellectuals, Cartoons, and Nationalism During the Russo-Japanese War, Yulia Mikhailova 8. Framing Manga: On Narratives of the Second World War in Japanese Manga, 1957-1977, Eldad Nakar 9. Aum Shinrikyo and a Panic about Manga and Anime, Rich Gardner 10. Medieval Genealogies of Manga Horror, Raj Pandey 11. The Utopian Power to Live: What the Miyazaki Phenomenon Signifies, Hiroshi Yamanaka 12. Heart of Japaneseness: History and Nostalgia in Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away, Shiro Yoshioka 13. National History as Otaku Fantasy: Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress, Melek Ortabasi 14. Considering Manga Discourse: Location, Ambiguity, Historicity, Jaqueline Berndt Bibliography About the Contributors Index.

Shojo Manga! Girls' Comics! A Mirror of Girls' Dreams

Shojo Manga! Girls' Comics!A Mirror of Girls' Dreams Masami Toku (bio) Historically, many great comic books have existed in cultures all over the world. It may be, however, that in Japan the popularity of manga (comics) and its impact on visual popular culture and society are more significant than in any other culture. In contrast to the United States, where comic books are only for children or collectors, in Japan manga influences all of Japanese society, from preschoolers to adults. Its influence appears throughout Japan in commercials on TV, in advertisements, on billboards, and even in school textbooks.1 But Japanese manga is no longer just a phenomenon of visual pop culture in Japan. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the popularity of Japanese manga has spread worldwide through comic books, animation, and merchandise. But despite manga's popularity, not many people really understand its significance, its worldwide popularity, its appeal for children, and its difference from American comics. One of the major characteristics of manga is that it has split into boys' (shōnen) and girls' (shōjo) comics. Regardless of the subject depicted in the story, the main theme of boys' manga is how the heroes become men by protecting women, family, country, or the earth from enemies. The theme of girls' manga is how love triumphs by overcoming obstacles. These generalizations are true to a certain extent; however, [End Page 19] the theme of girls' manga has been changing in response to the changing roles of women in the still male-dominated Japanese society. A Touring Exhibition of Shojo Manga Since World War II, the role and the value of shojo manga have become significant in Japan, reflecting girls' and women's desires and dreams. In its subjects and expressions, manga reflects female aesthetics and fulfills female dreams. To explore the role of visual pop culture that impacts U.S. society through the phenomenon of manga in Japan, I created a touring exhibition in the United States to introduce manga's value and contribution to visual culture and society with a special emphasis on shojo manga. The exhibition Girls' Power! Shojo Manga! has two purposes: to examine the worldwide phenomenon of Japanese comics and to develop the media and visual literacy of teachers, students, and the community. These purposes will be accomplished through this touring exhibition and symposia on the cultural and historical backgrounds of this Japanese visual popular culture that exerts such an influence on U.S. society. The exhibition's goal is to examine the treatment of gender roles in shojo manga and to examine how shōjo mangaka (girls' manga artists) have contributed to the development of a unique style of visual expression in their narratives, a contribution seldom discussed in the world of Japanese comics. This is the first touring exhibition of girls' comics that includes a discussion of gender issues in manga. The exhibition is intended to open minds to the value of visual popular culture. More than two hundred artworks created by twenty-three renowned shōjo mangaka are introduced chronologically in three major generations over the last sixty years: the dawn of modern shojo manga (postwar-1960s), the development of modern shojo manga (1960s-1980s), and the new generation of modern shojo manga (1980s-present). The medium reflects the evolution of the social roles of Japanese girls and women during this period. The exhibition also documents how the visual composition of manga mirrors developments in Japanese aesthetics.2 [End Page 20] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Exhibition catalog of Girl Power! Shojo Manga! Image from Versailles no bara (The Rose of Versailles). [End Page 21] The Dawn of Modern Shojo Manga In general, shōjo mangaka create manga for girls and women; however, these comic artists are not always female. Most shojo manga in the 1930s and 1940s were created by male mangaka. Four of them (Tezuka Osamu, Chiba Tetsuya, Ishinomori Shōtarō, and Matsumoto Leiji) were major contributors to the development of contemporary shojo manga in this early period, although they are now well known for their hit manga and animation for boys and men.3 The most notable among them is...

Print club photography in Japan

The authors examine the popularity of a new form of photographic representation in Japan, namely Print Club, or Purikura. Print Club machines initially delivered a page of 16 postage‐stamp‐sized photographs of their patrons, but many other formats have become common. This paper describes the 1995 emergence and development of the technology, image content, decorative frames, picture uses and functions and the incorporation of Print Club into a broad range of personal, social and even business and artistic life in Japan. The authors review connections to patterns of popular culture, consumerism, gender bias, adolescent youth culture, and interpersonal communication alongside issues of individual identity and group membership. Some claim Print Club as a fad, but six years later, all indicators point to a lasting contribution to Japanese visual culture.