Showa Era Research Articles

Science Teacher Education in the Showa Era: A Review of the <i>Bulletin of Society of Japan Science Teaching</i> Published during the Late Showa Era

Science Teacher Education in the Showa Era: A Review of the <i>Bulletin of Society of Japan Science Teaching</i> Published during the Late Showa Era

Characteristics and changes in Japanese public administration research: statistical content analyses of article titles in Public Administration Review Quarterly (1978–2019)

The objective of this study is to understand features of Japan’s public administration research and the changes it has undergone, by using content analyses. To this end, this study quantitatively explains research trends in postwar administrative studies in Japan by statistically analyzing article titles from the Public Administration Review Quarterly over the course of nearly 40 years. Co-occurrence network and correspondence analyses revealed the changes in research interests. There was substantially more research on administrative reforms through the postwar Showa and Heisei eras. The configuration of the correspondence analysis indicates that the first dimension is concerned with administrative reforms, the second with historical events or administrative systems, and the third with evaluations and kaizen. The co-occurrence network analysis show that two extracted compound words—the United States and the United Kingdom—were very common in studies during the Showa era (1978–1988). This suggests that Japan’s public administration was influenced by the West during this period. Japan’s policies and institutions became a feature of these studies during the Heisei era (1989–2018). The results of this analysis is partially similar to the author’s previous studies on another Japanese administrative studies journal. One commonality of the results of the analysis is that the dimension related to administrative reform was found in the correspondence analysis. In this study, the first principal component was administrative reform, and Moteki’s (Hiroshima Law J 43:205–235, 2020) correspondence analysis also found “reform,” “policy evaluation” and “governance” as characteristic extracted terms in the 2000s.

A Study On Japanese Mingei’s Birth In Taisho Era And Alienation In Showa Era

Yanagi Sōetsu put forward the word "Mingei (Folk Craft)" in 1925 and jointly published the "Purport Book on the Establishment of Japan Mingei Museum" with Tomimoto Kenkichi, Kawai Kanjiro, and Hamada Shoji the following year, so as to launch Japan’s "Mingei movement". Some scholars have noticed that during World War II, Mingei was related to "life culture" with fascist ideology, and there was a historical phenomenon that Mingei served politics. This paper attempts to interpret the first-hand texts of Yanagi Sōetsu, Kunio Kishida, and Kiyoshi Miki, discuss how Mingei with a "healthy" original intention came into being, and how it gradually became a tool for Japanese fascist aggression and expansion. Mingei originated in the period of "Taisho Democracy," with a strong left-wing flavor in Japanese history. It contains a beautiful vision of making society "healthy". It has gained influence with the support of elites, and the Mingei movement has progressed well in rural and urban society. Later, Mingei gradually attracted the attention of the Showa fascist government and was absorbed by the concept of "life culture" advocated by the new system in 1940, which was alienated and became a tool for the mobilization of the Japanese fascist war.

A subaltern civil war: Precariat in-Fighting in Murakami Ryu’s Popular Hits of the Showa Era

ABSTRACT Published just a few years after the beginning of Japan’s Lost Decade, Murakami Ryu’s 1994 novel Popular Hits of the Showa Era posited that this new economic reality inflicted deep psychological wounds on individuals who were already deeply fractured. Within this text the invisible violence of post-Bubble Japan’s social order is made explicit through a low-stakes, yet hyperviolent, guerilla war undertaken by a set of ludicrous and narcissistic characters whose increasingly deadly attacks are met with public indifference. Within the consumer-capitalist social order, personal satisfaction is the paramount goal (McGowan 2004, 11–12). However, this system fosters the belief that it is necessary to be hostile and mistrustful of others (McGowan 2004, 177–179). These aspects of consumer-capitalism have warped the psyches of the characters in this novel so deeply that even extreme violence is met with apathy. The deaths of others are viewed as a threat to their ego, rather than a tragedy. Rather than coalescing into a new social order in response to lives made hollow by consumer-capitalism, individuals in this novel are instead pulled apart. Blind to the violence that is perpetrated against them by consumer capitalism, Murakami’s characters believe that their irrationality is rational (Kalekin-Fishman 2008, 537).

近代における吉祥寺のミチの形成過程に関する考察

Kichijoji has been established by the emigration with the urban renewal of Edo after the Great Fire of Meireki in1657 and planed as Shinden settlement with the similar strip-shaped allotment of land . This paper compares the land allotments and composition of Michi (streets and alleys) in detail with the typical maps (cadastral map at the beginning of the Meiji era, lot number map at the end of the Taiso era, fire insurance map revised in 1949) and seeks to comprehensively the formative process of Kichijoji and Nishikubo area from the Meiji era to the early Showa era.

Kawaii Affective Assemblages

Kawaii Affective Assemblages

일본 인삼 재배의 쇠락 원인에 관한 연구

In Japan, where ginseng did not grow naturally, ginseng seeds obtained from Joseon were sown in Nikkozan fields according to Bakufu's plan, which resulted in success of ginseng cultivation. Bakufu supplied for the domestic demand by establishing both governmental and private cultivation system for the expanded cultivation of Otane ginseng(Joseon ginseng). In addition, large quantities of white and red ginseng were exported to the Qing Dynasty, that at one time, ginseng cultivation was so prosperous that it ranked 13th among Japanese exports. However, entering the Showa era after the Meiji Restoration, ginseng cultivation began to decline, and ginseng lost its value in the Japanese agricultural industry. In this study, the causes of the decline of the Japanese ginseng industry including the influence of Joseon ginseng on the Japanese ginseng industry were investigated. The main reasons for the decline of ginseng cultivation in Japan were its modernization policy, and failure to increase the value of Japanese ginseng. At the time, price competition in Japan’s ginseng industry was intensified due to the absence of a function to control supply and demand for production. Accordingly, as ginseng was processed mainly for low-end products, it was not possible to gain an edge in price competitiveness. In addition, after the Meiji Restoration, as the market for traditional herbal medicines decreased due to the modernization policy of introducing western medicines, Japanese ginseng cultivation finally entered the path of decline.

Gradual Changes and Characteristics of Hōmonfuku from the Meiji Era to the Early Showa Era

Gradual Changes and Characteristics of Hōmonfuku from the Meiji Era to the Early Showa Era

The Development of Dairy Business in Hokkaido in the early Showa Era

The Development of Dairy Business in Hokkaido in the early Showa Era

Placemaking and pastoral park planning in Japan: the Showa case

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to critically assess how a National Government Park in Tokyo aims to commemorate the first 50 years of the Showa era (1926–1976), a time of drastic upheaval and societal change, with a naturalistic landscape.Design/methodology/approachThe author investigated the park by conducting a literature review, making observations in the park on multiple occasions, conducting a survey of and interviews with park users and compiling photographs.FindingsThe author found that the park nostalgically highlights the early 1950s as the essence of Showa Japan. These few years represent a lull between the two Showa-era upheavals of war and rapid development and urbanization, and symbolize a last flowering of Japan’s 2,000-year-old agrarian way of life. The nostalgic presentation of Japan’s rural essence presents, the author argues, a different nationalist narrative than the military-glorifying variant that has gained traction since the end of the Cold War.Social implicationsAccording to critical theorists, society and space are dialectically related and mutually constitutive. The nationalist vision of a landscape, then – including the park’s landscape – has potential to inform and help shape social beliefs and values.Originality/valueWhile Japanese nationalism is a major topic among Western academics, the literature on nationalist landscapes in Japan – with the exception of “obviously” symbolic sites, such as Yasukuni Shrine – is extremely limited. This paper helps fill the gap.

Normative Women and Patriarchal Hegemony in Ariyoshi Sawako’s Hanaoka Seishu no Tsuma (1966)

This research examines the depiction of normative women in the Edo period (1603-1868) in the novel entitled Hanaoka Seishu no Tsuma (1966) by Ariyoshi Sawako, a Japanese female writer in the post World War II Showa era. Reflecting on the novel’s normative female characters, it analyzes the silenced voices of women. It will contribute to the discussion on how the normative female figures criticizing the patriarchal hegemony that has not been revealed in the literary canon of the Edo period. This research shows how normative women characters are presented in the text as a feminine strategy to criticize this hegemony. The researchers use feminist criticism theory from Butler’s gender performativity (1990). The study concludes that although normative women characters are commonly represented as men dominating women, those can also be used to criticize the patriarchal hegemony.

家事教科書にみる家庭生活の近代化 : その2 戦後昭和期の台所変革における機能の多様化について

家事教科書にみる家庭生活の近代化 : その2 戦後昭和期の台所変革における機能の多様化について

The Detective Fiction of Oguri Mushitarō. Beyond the Orthodox and the Weird

Oguri Mushitarō (1901-1946) was a popular fiction writer whose main period of activity were the 1930s. Renowned for his idiosyncratic and often impenetrable style, labyrinthine plots and otherworldly logic, he never achieved the popularity of his contemporaries Edogawa Rampo or Yokomizo Seishi. In fact the eminent detective literature historian Itō Hideo dismisses one of Oguri's novels as “unfathomable” and “not for the casual reader”. In spite of this, in the last few decades Oguri's works have been reappraised, with his most famous novel Kokushikan satsujin jiken [the plague house murder case] (1934) placing 14th in the Shūkan Bunshun magazine’s recent poll of 100 best Japanese mystery novels.In this paper I look at the novels that feature the detective Norimizu Rintarō, compare the works of Oguri to those of other mystery writers in Japan and abroad and try to argue that Oguri’s originality lies in his unwillingness to adapt either to the honkaku (the detective novel ‘proper’) or the henkaku (the ‘unorthodox’ mystery) schools that formed the early Showa era mystery fiction literary scene.

Immersive Virtual Reality Reminiscence Reduces Anxiety in the Oldest-Old Without Causing Serious Side Effects: A Single-Center, Pilot, and Randomized Crossover Study.

Background: Dementia is one the major problems of aging societies, and, novel and effective non-drug therapies are required as interventions in the oldest-old to prevent cognitive decline.Objective: This study aims to examine the efficacy and safety of reminiscence using immersive virtual reality (iVR reminiscence) focusing on anxiety that often appears with cognitive decline. The secondary objective is to reveal the preference for VR image types for reminiscence: live-action (LA) or computer graphics (CG).Methods: This was a pilot, open-label, and randomized crossover study which was conducted on January 2020 at a single nursing home. The subjects were randomly divided into two groups (A or B) in equal numbers, and they alternately viewed two types of VR images (LA and CG) themed on the mid- to late Showa era (A.D. 1955–1980) in Japan. In group A, the CG images were viewed first, and then the LA images were viewed (CG→ LA). In group B, the images were viewed in the opposite order (LA→ CG). Before VR viewing, subjects responded to Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) Japanese version and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) Japanese version. After viewing the first and second VR, subjects responded to STAI and the numerical rating scale (NRS) for satisfaction and side effects (nausea, dizziness, headache, and tiredness).Results: Ten subjects participated in this study. The values of analyses are presented in the mean (SD). The age was 87.1 years (4.2), and the MMSE was 28.5 (1.8). The total STAI score before VR viewing was 36.1 (7.2), but it significantly decreased to 26.8 (4.9) after the first VR viewing (P = 0.0010), and further decreased to 23.4 (2.8) after the second VR viewing (P < 0.001). The NRS score for satisfaction tended to be higher after viewing LA in group A (CG→ LA) (CG vs. LA; 7.0 (2.3) vs. 8.6 (1.5), P = 0.0993), while in group B (LA→ CG), the score after CG was slightly lower than that after LA. There were no serious side effects.Conclusions: This study suggests that iVR reminiscence can reduce anxiety in the oldest-old without causing serious side effects. Furthermore, the impacts might be better with LA images.

A study on the transition of building construction and production in pre-war Showa era

A study on the transition of building construction and production in pre-war Showa era

明治〜昭和期の北海道の和人社会における毛皮利用、特にイヌ皮について--企画展「毛皮」に関する覚え書き

明治〜昭和期の北海道の和人社会における毛皮利用、特にイヌ皮について--企画展「毛皮」に関する覚え書き

昭和戦前期における「武術としての柔道」論の展開:当身技の研究に着目して

昭和戦前期における「武術としての柔道」論の展開:当身技の研究に着目して

The Shifting Appreciation of "Hamlet" in Its Japanese Novelizations: Hideo Kobayashi’s "Ophelia’s Will" and Its Revisions

Hideo Kobayashi, who is today known as one of the most prominent literary critics of the Showa era in Japan, published Ophelia’s Will in 1931 when he was still an aspiring novelist. This novella was an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, composed as a letter written by Ophelia to Hamlet before her enigmatic death in the original play. While the novel has previously been considered as a psychological novel that sought to illustrate the inner life of the Shakespearean heroine, this paper examines the process by which Kobayashi rediscovered Hamlet as a drama that foregrounds the impenetrability of the characters’ inwardness and highlighted in Ophelia’s Will his diversion from the psychological rendition of Ophelia. In so doing, the paper analyses the revisions Kobayashi continued to make to the novel even until the post-war era, especially when it was republished in 1933 and 1949. Though these revisions have rarely been discussed by the researchers, they demonstrate the essential changes made to the novel, mainly to its literary style, which corroborates Kobayashi’s shifting interest and his developing interpretation of Shakespeare’s works and Hamlet.

昭和20年代の高校社会科「人文地理」教科書にみる地理教育思想

昭和20年代の高校社会科「人文地理」教科書にみる地理教育思想

The Showa Restoration movement in transwar perspective: the case of Kageyama Masaharu, 1910–1979

This article explores the career of ethno-nationalist leader Kageyama Masaharu, who was active during the greater part of the Showa era. It argues that though the notion of ‘Showa Restoration’ is typically understood in terms of the bloody coup d’état attempts of the prewar era, the postwar career of its participants necessitates a broader understanding of the term. Kageyama is best known as a conspirator in the failed terrorist attack known as the Shimpeitai Incident of 1933, but he also played a major role in nationalist politics in the postwar era. His activities ranged from lobbying for the recuperation and repair of physical and temporal institutions related to the imperial house, such as rituals at Ise Shrine and National Establishment Day, to the nurturing of young ethno-nationalists at his Great East Institute. The ideas and platforms of Showa Restorationists like Kageyama survived the US Occupation and the Cold War era in the form of ethno-nationalist (minzokuha) activists and lobbyists.