Postwar Japanese Research Articles

The middle class and the media in post-war Japanese mass society theory: domination, satisfaction, connection, and construction

The inconsistency between an objective socioeconomic position and subjective sense of belonging is challenging for middle class studies. Scholars have argued that the information and images the media conveys can become a ‘reference group’ influencing people’s subjective sense of belonging to the middle class, leading to subjective-objective inconsistency. However, the media—the crucial influencing factor—was always on the periphery of class research. This article demonstrates that in today’s media-saturated world, the media plays a critical role in progressively altering social structures, cognitive underpinnings, and behavioral logic; therefore, it is a key variable in class studies. The analysis of discussions on the middle class and media in post-war Japanese mass society theory reveals that some representative viewpoints remain relevant for understanding the middle class from a media perspective. This article revisits the theories of mass society in post-war Japan, and affirms the media’s role in mediating subjective and objective middle-class identities, and constructing class belongingness. It identifies four fundamental perspectives—domination, satisfaction, connection, and construction—to investigate the relationship between media and the middle class. It also highlights the potential to analyze the middle class from a media standpoint, and issues that subsequent research should address.

Amatsuchi Kosaku: Reconsidering Postwar Japanese Art History from a Perspective of Ecology

This paper discusses Amatsuchi Kosaku, an artist collective that formed in the late 1980s and continued its unique activities until the early 2000s. Because Amatsuchi Kosaku was based in Shizuoka, it was excluded from the normative narrative of Japanese art history, which has been constructed around artists and artist collectives working in metropolises like Tokyo and Kyoto. This paper examines the “metropolitan-centrism” in the Japanese art history, and reconsiders the artistic practice of Amatsuchi Kosaku, from the perspective of “ecology,” a concept that has been the focus of much attention in recent contemporary art discourse.

Roofs and Grids in Postwar Japanese Architecture: Excision, Sublation, and Layering of the Symbolic

The role and significance of tradition in modern architectural practices was the subject of much public debate in Japan during the post–World War II period. An analysis of built work of the 1950s and 60s reveals, however, a much more complex set of responses than what these discussions might suggest. This paper uses the conceptual categories of roof and grid to uncover the radical divergences in attitude towards tradition in the works of Kenzō Tange, Seiichi Shirai, and Tōgo Murano as these architects negotiated a transition away from earlier mimetic modes of representation towards design methodologies less hampered by formal exigencies. Through the study of several buildings I show how roof and grid figure in distinct ways at the various levels of iconicity, symbolism, and ornamentation depending on the disciplinary vision of each of the three architects. The analysis reveals fundamental differences in the conception of architectural experience while at the same time underscoring a shared acknowledgment of the historical nature of culture and a shared desire to transcend the duality between modernity and tradition itself.

Women’s Quest for Home: Spatial Imaginary in Kazuo Ishiguro’s <i>A Pale View of Hills</i>

Unhomely homes have been a recurring theme in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels, and his debut novel, A Pale View of Hills (1982), is no exception. While previous research has primarily focused on themes such as displacement, alienation, and trauma in the novel, limited attention has been given to exploring the social-spatial and gendered spatial factors contributing to this sense of homelessness. This paper examines the meanings of home in A Pale View of Hills by drawing upon Blunt’s and Dowling’s concept of home as a spatial imaginary. It argues that the idea of home in the post-war Japanese discourse is actively challenged and reshaped by the female characters in Ishiguro’s novel. This dynamic process encompasses three facets: materially, it includes the destruction of homes, the Westernisation of domestic space, and gendered space and domesticity; imaginatively, it involves long-lasting trauma and repression; and relationally, it signifies the transformation of home from unhomely to a homely one. This paper aims to provide a spatialised and politicised understanding of home in A Pale View of Hills, fostering a more dynamic view of women’s identity construction.

The post-war Japanese eating model: A sociological exploration of semi-compressed food modernity

Among multiple factors that can influence people’s food security, the gender inequality factor has attracted inadequate attention in high-income countries, particularly in Japan. To analyse how and why gender inequality issue has been neglected in food policy in Japan, I propose the notion of the ‘post-war Japanese eating model’ based on the sociologies of family and food. I demonstrate how Japanese society has persisted with this eating model by examining two dominant dietary discourses, the Japanese dietary pattern and Hōshoku (deterioration of dietary practices). The former reinforced the post-war Japanese eating model, despite the prevailing agricultural and nutritional accounts. Regarding the latter discourse, Hōshoku was overestimated, resulting in enlarging the contradiction between norms (the Japanese dietary pattern) and practices. Given the increasing difficulty in performing such practice, their dietary norms need to be reconstructed through awareness of reflexive or ‘semi-compressed’ food modernity facing Japan.

Virtue ethics embedded: Aristotelianism in the post-war Japanese moral education

ABSTRACT For almost 80 years, post-war Japanese moral education has adopted a dual-process structure, which states morality is taught through two processes: one through all aspects of school education and the other through a special moral education class. The necessity and effectiveness of this structure were theorised by Eijiro Inatomi. However, it has been almost neglected that his theory is largely based on Aristotle’s theory of virtue. This paper examines Inatomi’s Aristotle-inspired theory and its significance. After reviewing the social and historical background of his theory, I argue that Inatomi successfully adopted Aristotle’s theory of virtue in three respects: human definition, intellectual virtue, and ethical virtue. Finally, I suggest that post-war Japanese moral education can be understood as a nationwide social implementation experiment on the efficacy of Aristotelian virtue ethics and that Inatomi’s notion of cosmos can serve as a conceptual device to enhance the social feasibility of Aristotle’s virtue ethics.

Law’s Logistical Media: The Installation of the File System in the Postwar Japanese Prosecutor’s Office

AbstractThis article traces the fraught history of the file system’s adoption by the Japanese Public Prosecutor’s Office (PPO) from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, when the U.S. General Headquarters (GHQ), the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, decentralized the PPO’s power and transformed it into a “democratic” judicial agency. This is also a postwar history of the introduction of Taylorism-derived scientific management to white collar office work and Weberian visions of bureaucratic rationality into government offices, as part of the democratization of public administration steered by various sections within GHQ. Among the key changes was a guarantee of the right to receive a “speedy trial.” The essay argues that, while that guarantee was meant to secure human-rights protections for the accused, the file system introduced to the PPO translated the constitutional imperative of the rights of the accused into the pursuit of efficient scientific management, in which democracy was an operationalized socio-technical achievement. This logistical channel led to the co-emergence of democracy and modern rational bureaucracy, with each evincing mutual cause and effect. American reforms invested technicality with the promise of “democracy,” but as this essay shows, senior Japanese officials envisioned it as a means to rebuild a centralized information network.

전후 일본 역사 학습지도요령의 변천과 특징

전후 일본 역사 학습지도요령의 변천과 특징

Suzuki Seijun and Postwar Japanese Cinema, by William Carroll

Suzuki Seijun and Postwar Japanese Cinema, by William Carroll

Three policy perspectives on Japanese female employment

With a detailed historical analysis of postwar Japanese female employment, this article presents three underlying policy perspectives that shape the fact that women have less chance for high-quality employment despite the rising labor force participation rate. The three assumptions of women's role in policy-making are as follows: (1) women as housewives—dependent on males, do not earn a living salary and are thus marginalized in the labor market; (2) women as individuals pursuing gender equality should be treated without discrimination in the workplace; and (3) women as key drivers for economic growth can contribute to the solution to labor shortages. The postwar history of Japanese female employment is full of interaction among these three policy perspectives. Generally, it passes through phases of the dominance of the housewife perspective, the reformation from the equality perspective and the counterattack from the housewife perspective, as well as the mainstreaming of the economic actor perspective.

Five Historiographical Trends in the Postwar Japanese Study of Joseon History

Five Historiographical Trends in the Postwar Japanese Study of Joseon History

Anomalies in Collective Victimhood in Post-War Japan: ‘Hiroshima’ As a Victimisation Symbol for the Collective National Memory of War

In the aftermath of war, people need visions that (re)unite them and overcome the psychological wounds they have incurred. The post-war Japanese needed narratives that could help them to rebuild their war-torn self-image. They subscribed to a story of Hiroshima being the first city to be demolished by an atomic bomb. Through this, Hiroshima became a national symbol, and the Japanese regarded themselves as victims of war, which effectively overrode their sense of shame and of responsibility for the war. As this process was aimed internally to serve as the backbone of post-war recovery, it did not turn the Japanese against the United States, and thus Japanese collective victimhood includes the following three anomalies: first, the absence of an enemy; second, a lack of aggressiveness; and third, the irrelevance of recovery. This article, therefore, challenges the existing theory of collective victimhood using the case of post-war Japan.

Powojenny japoński pacyfizm jako narzędzie budowania dialogu międzykulturowego

POST-WAR JAPANESE PACIFISM AS A TOOL FOR BUILDING INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE The end of World War II marked the beginning of a long and complicated process of reconstructing a collective identity for the Japanese people, a process that largely continues to this day. The best example of this is the presence of contrasting attitudes toward the events of the war. This article highlights issues related to pacifist values and their relevance to the collective identity of contemporary Japanese. With the collapse of the previous identity at the end of World War II, pacifism has become one of the key values for contemporary Japanese. Using the concept of “core values” developed by Jerzy Smolicz, this article examines postwar pacifist movements from the mid-1950s through the 21st century.

In the Mood for Kimono: Hayashi Mariko and the Weaving of Japanese Fashion into Popular Fiction

The field of postwar Japanese and international fiction has seen an expanding corpus of texts revolving around kimono. Many works, while tapping into the intricacies of sartorial traditions, contain actualized narratives of young girls and women experiencing or remembering kimono in prewar, postwar, and contemporary Japan. In these stories, the kimono—ever persisting, at times resisting—helps the protagonist to discover self-confidence and agency as they deal with loss, social expectations, family, and national history. This article focuses on Hayashi Mariko’s short story collection Stories about Kimono (Kimono o meguru monogatari, 1997) and her more recent novel The Imperial Visit to Ohara: The Story of an Obi-Making Family (Ohara gokō: Obi ni ikita kazoku no monogatari, 2014b). These two narratives work within all of these parameters and illustrate how authors can write consistently about the multiple meanings within kimono. Through analyzing how Hayashi describes kimono outfits and their implications, this article also explores how, as a literary device, the kimono connects with the concept of reality effect; emphasizes the power of the feminine gaze in Japanese literature; and reveals how the limits between fiction and reality can be broken down. When inspired by the specific mode of dress that is kimono, writers can prompt new inspirations for women to create their own stories with it, discarding the cliché of ‘yamato nadeshiko’ (lit: Japanese pink carnations, used to evoke Japanese demure, feminine beauty) to explore darker and/or more embodied experiences.

越境する在韓被爆者と日本の連帯運動

This paper examines the aspects of the border-crossing actions of Korean atomic bomb survivors in South Korea and the solidarity movements that arose in Japan around these actions, with a focus on the “illegal entry” by Son Gwi-dal and the attempt of seeking for medical treatment in Japan by Eom Bun-ryeon and Im Bok-sun in 1968. Using testimonies and writings of A-bomb suvivors, journalists' reports, documentary films, newspaper articles, and diplomatic records, the paper highlights the meaning and historical significance of their crossing-border actions and Japan's citizens' solidarity movements.
 Incident was an act of crossing a boundary drawn by the law and treaty that ignored colonial responsibility, which aimed to “resolve completely and finally” through the Korea-Japan Claims Settlement Treaty. Their atempts to cross the boundary were not only to cross the border established between Korea and Japan, but also to cross the boundary between Japanese victims in Japan and those overseas.
 In the late 1960s, some Korean atomic bomb survivors emerged as people who appealed for compensation to the Japanese Embassy in South Korea, wrote their experiences as victims, or expressed their situation and hopes in meetings, films, and books, rather than being merely objects of pity. We consider Son Gwi-dal, Eom Bun-ryeon and Im Bok-sun's stowaway as symbolic actions that mark the beginning of Korean atomic bomb survivors' emergence as agents.
 Meanwhile, their border-crossing acts greatly shocked those who were engaged in Japan's anti-nuclear power movement or civil society. Those who became interested in Korean atomic bomb survivors recognized their historical significance through their border-crossing acts and introduced their writings and meetings, published books, made and screened films, and sought solidarity with them by reflecting on the nationalistic “peace” that regarded the atomic bombing victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as sacrifices of “post-war Japanese” and positioning Korean victims of colonialism in history, thereby questioning the Korea-Japan Treaty System that disregarded colonial responsibility.

“That Day Does Not Belong to Our Generation”: Komatsu Sakyō’s Affective Futurities

Commentary that observes the frequency of the appearances of images of disaster pervades much of the discourse surrounding postwar Japanese popular culture, and especially Japanese science fiction. Against such approaches, I argue that it is more productive to read these narratives of disaster through the critical lens of the genre’s engagement with the problem of futurity. My contention then is that these narratives of disaster do not merely function as imaginative repetitions or re-enactments of past events, but also take on an anticipatory quality, affectively preparing and the ground for and pre-empting responses to future events. I examine the work of Komatsu Sakyō (1931–2011) in particular, whose writing makes for an illustrative test case for articulating the premediative dimension of disaster narratives in postwar Japanese science fiction.

Review: Climatic Media: Transpacific Experiments in Atmospheric Control, by Yuriko Furuhata

Review: <i>Climatic Media: Transpacific Experiments in Atmospheric Control</i>, by Yuriko Furuhata

New Religions in Kōshien: Religious Identity and High School Baseball

This article examines the holy ground of Kōshien, Japan’s annual high school baseball tournament, and the national festival and cultic fever that accompanies it. Some of the most successful schools that participate in Kōshien were founded by new religious groups such as Tenrikyō, PL Kyōdan, and Bentenshū. I offer some suggestions why this is the case, since none of these religions espouse either sports or competition in their formal creed. Furthermore, I consider the success of these schools in a postwar Japanese social context that has changed substantially since their establishment. The article will also touch on the most recent criticism of Japanese collectivism and how this criticism may effect baseball culture.

The Relationship between Yakyū (Baseball) and Militarism: Baseball Discourse in Japanese Shōnen (Boys’) Culture

This article analyses the popular post-war boys’ baseball manga Kyojin no Hoshi, to highlight how pre-war militaristic values were carried over into post-war Japanese sports. Militarism in pre-war Japan was underpinned by bushidō, a set of beliefs that idealised the values upheld by samurai, and which greatly influenced Japan’s pre-war physical education system. While post-war Japan achieved democratisation in many ways, the democratic transformation in sports after the war was much slower. For this reason, elements of military training that were included in sports training prior to the war continued to be emphasised in the post-war era. This article uses examples taken from Star of the Giants to highlight this phenomenon, as well as the broader connection between manga and cultural context. It also touches upon cultural representations of fathers and the male gender in post-war Japanese boys’ fiction.

Analysis of The “Growth” Discourse of Postwar Japanese Pacifist: Focus on Miyazaki Hyao’s Girl Characters

본고는 [아톰의 명제]와 전후 일본의 미숙성을 둘러싼 성장 담론을 필두로 미야자키 애니메이션 작품에 등장하는 소녀 캐릭터를 싸우는 소녀, 일하는 소녀, 보호받는 소녀 3가지의 소녀상으로 나누어 각 소녀상의 성장이 어떻게 묘사되었는지를 살펴보았다.BR 1. 미야자키가 “적과 싸운다”라는 서사 방식을 통해 주인공을 성장시키고 어려움에도 아랑곳하지 않고 용감하게 싸우는 소녀 캐릭터를 부각시켰다. 그러나 이러한 소녀상이 항상 “무언가를 지키기 위해 싸운다” 혹은 “무언가를 구하기 위해 싸운다”는 존재였다. 이러한 “폭력은 침략을 위한 것이 아니라 수호하기 위해서다”라는 논리는 전후 일본의 미숙성을 내포된 것이다.BR 2. 싸우는 소녀에서 일하는 소녀로의 변화는 미야자키가 아톰의 명제에서 탈피하려는 의도가 보인다. “일하다”를 통해 책임감이 강하고 사는 힘(生きる力)을 가진 소녀 캐릭터를 그려냈다.BR 3. 미야자키는 보호받는 소녀를 모성/부성 결여에도 불구하고 외계의 힘을 빌려 자신의 목표를 달성시키거나 자기 가치를 실현시키는 소녀상을 그려냈다. 이러한 싸우는 소녀→일하는 소녀→보호받는 소녀의 변화는 미야자키가 아톰의 명제를 돌파하고 새로운 주제를 탐색하는 과정으로 보인다.