Japanese Media at the Beginning of the 21st Century: Consuming the Past [1 ed.] 9781138672222, 9781315537191

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Japanese Media at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Hailed by Japanese critics as a milestone in the study of contemporary Japanese media, this book explores the contemporary ‘boom’ in Japanese media representations of the recent past. Recent years have seen the production of an unprecedented number of films, animation, manga, and television programmes representing a deeply nostalgic longing for the Japanese heyday of high economic growth in the 1960s and occasionally the 1970s known in Japan as the Shōwa 30s and 40s. Hidaka provides a comprehensive account of an under researched contemporary Japanese media phenomenon by exploring why this nostalgia has been sparked at this particular historical juncture and how that period is represented in the Japanese media today. The book accomplishes this through a detailed textual and narrative analysis of representative films and television programmes, in relation to their social and cultural context. While these nostalgic media renderings are seen by many critics as innocuous, this study demonstrates that they do not show a simple yearning for the period, but reflect a growing discontent with Japanese post-war society. In this regard, this book concludes that the current nostalgia wave is a critical reaction to the recent past as it seeks to revise historiography through a process of introspection within popular conceptions of the meta narrative of ‘nostalgia’. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of Japanese studies, Japanese media and film studies, as well as those interested in contemporary Japanese culture and society. Winner of the Japan Communication Association 2015 Outstanding Book Award. Katsuyuki Hidaka is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. He is also a research associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, from which he received his Ph.D. degree.

Routledge Contemporary Japan Series For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com

59 Examining Japan’s Lost Decades Edited by Yoichi Funabashi and Barak Kushner 60 Japanese Women in Science and Engineering History and policy change Naonori Kodate and Kashiko Kodate 61 Japan’s Border Issues Pitfalls and prospects Akihiro Iwashita 62 Japan, Russia and Territorial Dispute The northern delusion James D. J. Brown 63 Fukushima and the Arts in Japan Negotiating disaster Edited by Barbara Geilhorn and Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt 64 Social Inequality in Post-Growth Japan Transformation during economic and demographic stagnation Edited by David Chiavacci and Carola Hommerich 65 The End of Cool Japan Ethical, legal, and cultural challenges to Japanese popular culture Edited by Mark McLelland 66 Regional Administration in Japan Departure from uniformity Shunsuke Kimura 67 Japanese Media at the Beginning of the 21st Century Consuming the past Katsuyuki Hidaka

Japanese Media at the Beginning of the 21st Century Consuming the past Katsuyuki Hidaka

First published 2017 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business © 2017 Katsuyuki Hidaka The right of Katsuyuki Hidaka to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-1-138-67222-2 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-53719-1 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements Notes on Japanese names and the Romanization of Japanese words Introduction: myths about nostalgia

vii viii xi 1

The social phenomenon of Shōwa nostalgia 2 What is Shōwa nostalgia? 5 Problems with the Shōwa nostalgia as depicted by journalism 8 Nostalgia as a public threat 9 Myths about nostalgia 10 The main contents of this book 11 1

Background

14

A path to the past: what is history? 14 Paradigm shift from history to memory: the rise of memory studies 16 Previous studies on Shōwa nostalgia 21 Dilemmas and after-effects of war memories 33 The war and the past in films 39 Theoretical framework: how to approach Shōwa nostalgia 46 2

Yearning for yesterday: is modernity an unfinished project? – Always: Sunset on Third Street and Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad Tokyo Tower and its unfinished image 53 Tokyo Tower in films 58 Unfinished images and mourning 67

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Contents

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Technology and nostalgia – Project X: Challengers and Hula Girls

75

Attribution of success to individuals 80 Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard and its discontent with post-war society 93 Hula Girls: male trouble and the empowered female 106 4

Conflict between ideal self and real self – Twentieth Century Boys and Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’

122

The ideal and the real: Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ 122 The decline of symbolic consumption and the new reality 130 Ritual of self-examination: the consequences of the past moratorium in Twentieth Century Boys 134 Expo ’70 as the dark side of post-WWII Japanese society 141 Pride of the apathy generation and moratorium generation 145 Conclusions

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Critical adherence to the recent past 151 Japan Airlines and the ‘post-war’ 156 Shōwa nostalgia and the year of 1968 157 Filmography Bibliography Index

166 170 184

Figures

Cover image: Expo’70 in Osaka, courtesy of the Mainichi Newspapers 2.1–2.2 The front page of Shūkan Shōwa, 14 December 2008 (left) and Shūkan Shōwa Taimuzu, 27 November 2007 (right) 2.3 Tokyo Tower under construction in Shūkan Shōwa, 14 December 2008 2.4 Always: Sunset on Third Street, a front cover of the film’s brochure (Toho Film Company) 2.5 Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (the film’s DVD package, Vap) 2.6 Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad, from the film’s brochure (Shochiku Film Company) 3.1 Hula Girls (the film’s DVD package, Happinet Pictures) 4.1 Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ (the film’s DVD package) 4.2 First film (The Beginning of the End) of the Twentieth Century Boys trilogy (the film’s DVD package) 4.3 Expo ’70 in Osaka, courtesy of the Mainichi Newspapers

55 56 59 68 69 107 124 136 143

Acknowledgements

This book is my own translation of the greater part of my Japanese book Shōwa Nosutalujia to wa Nanika? (What Is Shōwa Nostalgia?), which was published in May 2014. Both the English and Japanese versions are based on my Ph.D. thesis, which I submitted to the University of London several years ago. This means that, thus far, I have devoted approximately ten years to tackling research on Shōwa nostalgia. I began writing my Ph.D. thesis during my time living in Oxford in 2007 and completed it in Osaka in 2011. I then wrote the Japanese version of the book by thoroughly revising my thesis while living in Kyoto and Osaka from 2011 to 2013. I subsequently revised and translated the book into English while on sabbatical in London from 2014 to 2015. During the long period of my research on Shōwa nostalgia, I was often submerged in a state of introspection, and repeatedly realized how both the positive and negative legacies of the Shōwa period have been crucial for Japanese people living at the outset of the twentyfirst century. It is not overstating the case to argue that the Japanese cannot live without ruminating on memories of the Shōwa period because they (or should I say ‘we’ to include myself ) have become deeply obsessed with this era. This book’s Japanese edition was conferred the 2015 Best Book Award by the Japan Communication Association (JCA). The book sold out quickly and was thus reprinted after only four months owing to the dozens of reviews in major newspapers and magazines, which is uncommon for academic books. The newspapers and magazines that published reviews include Yomiuri Shimbun Newspaper, Tokyo Shimbun Newspaper, Chūnichi Shimbun Newspaper, Kyoto Shimbun Newspaper, Hokkaido Shimbun Newspaper, Shinano Mainichi Shimbun Newspaper, Chiba Shimbun Newspaper, Weekly Shinchō, The Economist, The Readers Weekly, and Publishing News. I am particularly proud that one prestigious critic recommended my book as the Book of the Year in Yomiuri Shimbun Newspaper’s review page. In addition, a number of reviews written by authoritative academics have appeared in the journals of Japan’s major academic associations. The Japanese version of the book is currently widely included on university reading lists at both undergraduate and post-graduate levels in Japan. The success of the Japanese version and the subsequent publication of the English version by Routledge can be attributed to many people. First of all, I would like to thank all those who supported me during my Ph.D. student days at

Acknowledgements ix the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. I am greatly indebted to my supervisor, Isolde Standish, for her guidance on the topic of my doctoral thesis. Her book Myth and Masculinity in the Japanese Cinema: Towards a Political Reading of the ‘Tragic Hero’ (2000), analyzing post-war Japanese films from the macro perspective of Japanese modernity, inspired and motivated me to write the thesis that seeks to shed light on the present-day nostalgic films from a similar macro perspective. I am particularly grateful to her for giving me appropriate advice as well as warm encouragement for many years. In addition, I am honoured that I was given the opportunity to present papers based on the results of this study at the London workshop on the Japanese and European New Waves: Convergences and Divergences, convened by Standish at SOAS in March 2011. I also thank Laura Mulvey, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Yomota Inuhiko, and other colleagues who furnished me with very encouraging comments at the workshop. Mark Hobart deeply influenced my theoretical understanding of media and cultural studies. The profound wisdom imparted by him during his one-on-one tutorials were invaluable. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Lola Martinez for her encouraging comments on the draft. I am also grateful to her for inviting me to join the panel of Politics of Cultural Production: Memory and Representation at the 13th International Conference of the European Association for Japanese Studies (EAJS), Tallinn, Estonia, in August 2011 in order to publish the outcome of this study. I also thank Blai Guarne, Artur Lozano Méndez, and other colleagues who gave me perceptive comments at the panel. Annabelle Sreberny’s recommendations in the early stages of writing the thesis have proved to be very useful. I am grateful to her for conducting earnest oneon-one tutorials despite her busy schedule as the president of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). I would also like to extend my gratitude to two thesis examiners, Alastair Phillips and Griseldis Kirsch, for checking my thesis meticulously. The viva conducted by them was intellectually stimulating and gave me a good opportunity to gain valuable insight. I would also like to extend my thanks to a number of other people, particularly Judy Giles, Simon Sweeney, Christopher Howard, and Togo Yoshihisa, who greatly encouraged my research. Many other thanks go to those who wrote book reviews and gave me useful comments at the numerous workshops, conferences, and panels I attended. I would particularly like to thank Satō Takumi, Mōri Yoshitaka, Kainuma Hiroshi, Abe Kiyoshi, Fujii Hidetada, Inoue Toshikazu, Nakagawa Ryūsuke, and Fukuma Yoshiaki, who wrote very positive reviews of this book for major newspapers, magazines, and journals. The Japan Communication Association (JCA) organized a review workshop for my book in December 2014 in Nagoya, and more than seventy academics and research students of related fields gathered at the event. Special thanks go to Fujimaki Mitsuhiro, Fukumoto Akiko, and Miyazaki Arata who organized the event and gave me perceptive comments. The Japan Research Centre and the Centre for Film Studies at SOAS, the University of London, organized my book launch lecture in January 2015. I would like to

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thank Christopher Gerteis, the organizer, and several participants who gave me useful suggestions. I would also like to thank my colleagues at Ritsumeikan University and my old colleagues at NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), for which I worked as a TV director and producer many years before I changed careers to enter the academic field. I am most grateful to Simon Bates, Tan ShengBin, and other editorial staff at Routledge for their commitment to the book project and staying with me along the way to completion. In addition, I hope the anonymous reviewers of the book proposal who gave me positive comments will be satisfied with the outcome. Finally, I would like to give special thanks to my parents, Yoshiyuki and Toshiko, for the careful upbringing they gave me in Osaka and Tokyo in the late Shōwa period. Last but not least, my deepest gratitude goes to my wife, Yoshiko, who has supported me for many years. I also thank my son, Shōgo, for constantly reminding me where my priorities lie.

Notes on Japanese names and the Romanization of Japanese words

Japanese names appear in the modern Japanese format of family name (surname) followed by the given/first name. As regards the Romanization of Japanese words in the text, macrons indicate a long vowel. However, macrons are not inserted in words commonly used in English (e.g. Tokyo, Osaka). All translations from the original Japanese are my own unless there are explanatory notes. All titles of Japanese films have also been translated by me, unless they have been released along with English titles in foreign countries or on DVD.

Introduction Myths about nostalgia

What Connects the Two Prime Ministers Abe Shinzō and Noda Yoshihiko – The Film Always: Sunset on Third Street In the 46th Japanese general election, held on 16 December 2012, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won an overwhelming victory with 294 seats in the House, and Abe Shinzō assumed office as Japanese prime minister for the second time after his retirement in 2007. In July 2006, two months before his first period in office as prime minister, Abe published with Bungei Shunjū Ltd. his book entitled Towards a Beautiful Country as his warm-up exercise, so to speak, for the Liberal Democratic Party’s presidential election to be held immediately thereafter. Perhaps because Abe assumed office as president of the LDP and prime minister after that, this book became a bestseller that sold more than 500,000 copies. After establishing his cabinet, Abe advocated the project of ‘Building a Beautiful Country’, and established a promotion office for the project in the Cabinet Secretariat. As this shows, this ‘beautiful country’ is a favourite phrase for embodying the national image taken by the politician Abe Shinzō as his own ideal. Concerning his purpose in writing Towards a Beautiful Country, Abe has stated that ‘I wanted to convey a little to the younger generation my feeling of wanting to make this country one that can have confidence and pride in itself’ (Abe 2006: 232). In this book, such concepts as ‘an independent nation’, ‘true nationalism’, ‘strengthening of the US-Japan alliance’, and ‘rebuilding of education’, which are Abe’s ideals, are written in an accessible style. Three pages of his book are devoted to describing Abe’s reaction to Always: Sunset on Third Street, a film that was released in November 2005. This film was a big hit describing the life of people in Tokyo at the end of the 1950s. As the era of post-war rapid economic growth had begun in Japan, people were living as best they could while dreaming of an affluent life. Abe extolled this film, saying that ‘The love of family, which tends to be forgotten in this day and age, and the warm ties between people appealed to the people who watched it across generations and across eras’ (Abe 2006: 221). It is widely known that Abe loves the film Always: Sunset on Third Street. When Chinese premier Wen Jiabao visited Japan in April 2007, he told Abe during a dinner party that he had seen this film before visiting Japan. He said, ‘There are things that can be understood in China too’ as concerns the image in the film of a country running at full speed along a road from poverty toward an economic superpower. Subsequently, the conversation

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between the two leaders about this film became very animated (Asahi Shimbun, 12 April 2007). Abe’s enthusiasm for this film, which he had ‘seen twice’, was so great that it made Wen Jiabao view the film before his visit to Japan as part of the latter’s thorough diplomatic preparations for the trip. Abe himself appears to greatly love this film, because he stated his strong attachment to it even when he appeared on a news programme on Nippon Television in April 2007. The establishment of the second Abe government resulted from the crushing victory of the LDP and the major defeat of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) in the general election at the end of 2012. At that time, Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko, who took responsibility for the DPJ’s defeat by resigning from office, stated that he too greatly admired the film Always: Sunset on Third Street. He related the age and politics that were his own ideals by referring to this film from time to time in his responses to questions in the Diet and during speeches. In a speech, he joked that ‘My strike zone, from Yakushimaru Hiroko to Horikita Maki [famous actresses in this film], is very wide’, after which he plunged ahead with the statement that ‘I do not think that we can leave the bill for the future, and that tomorrow will be better than today’, thereby explaining the need to increase the consumption tax. In the Special Committee Related to the Consumption Tax in the House of Councilors in July 2012, Prime Minister Noda explained the need for this increase while recounting his own ideals with reference to this film when he said that ‘In the era of Always: Sunset on Third Street, everyone thought that tomorrow will be better than today. I want to create an era like that.’ Abe Shinzō and Noda Yoshihiko: although their relationship is one of political enemies, it is ironic that both of them cite the same film, Always: Sunset on Third Street, when they recount their respective ideals.

The social phenomenon of Shōwa nostalgia There has been a recent ‘boom’ in the number of Japanese media representing a deep, nostalgic longing for the Japanese ‘heyday’ of high economic growth of the 1960s and 1970s. As these decades correspond to the late Shōwa period, particularly the Shōwa thirties and forties, this media trend is usually referred to as ‘Shōwa nostalgia’ or ‘Shōwa thirties nostalgia’. In Japan, one era transitioned to the next upon the death of the emperor; the Shōwa period was one of the longest such eras, continuing for almost sixty-four years from the enthronement of the Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) in 1926 to his death in 1989. In contrast to the early Shōwa period, which includes the 1930s and 1940s – the decade of the Second World War – the late Shōwa period (1960s through the 1980s) is usually regarded as a happy period for the Japanese people; during this time, they enjoyed considerable economic affluence because of unprecedented and rapid economic growth. Although this kind of yearning for the late Shōwa period had existed even in the 1990s, it is generally understood that it ‘boomed’ in a rather unprecedented manner after the blockbuster success of the 2005 film Always: Sunset on Third

Myths about nostalgia

3

Street (Ōruweizu sanchōme no yūhi), a favourite of both prime ministers Abe Shinzō and Noda Yoshihiko. Interestingly, the film’s director, Yamazaki Takashi, had first rejected the production house’s offer to direct the film. In a magazine interview, Yamazaki states that he was completely uninterested in the project, as he thought that a film focusing on the Shōwa period could never attract contemporary audiences (Odagiri 2008: 16). After persistent requests from the production company, however, Yamazaki reluctantly accepted the project. This film went on to become an unexpected smash hit at the box office, with a total theatre attendance of more than two million people. As a result, more than two hundred theatres extended the film’s screening period. It is worth mentioning that this film was not only a big hit, but also received critical acclaim, winning twelve categories out of a total of thirteen nominations at the 2005 Japanese Academy Awards, including those for Best Film, Director, and Screenplay. The sequel to this film, Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (Ōruweizu zoku sanchōme no yūhi), was released in November 2007, and its audience figures far exceeded those for the previous film; in fact, in its theatrical release, the film had a viewership of nearly four million people. Thus, it can be argued that both films became nationwide hits, even among contemporary audiences of the twenty-first century. Importantly, the success of films focusing on the late Shōwa period is not limited to Always: Sunset on Third Street and its sequel, but includes numerous films made after the unexpected success of these two. For example, two other Shōwa nostalgic films, Hula Girls (Fula gāru) (2006) and Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (Tokyo tawā okan to boku to tokidoki oton) (2007), received the 2006 and 2007 Best Film awards, respectively, as well as many other awards at the Japanese Academy Awards. This indicates that Shōwa nostalgic films dominated Japan’s major film awards for three consecutive years. Although the 2006 Best Film winner, Hula Girls, is a low-key film focusing on the economic recovery of a coal-mining town in the 1960s, it attracted more than a million viewers. The 2007 Best Film winner, Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad, is also an unpretentious film about a son taking care of his cancer-afflicted mother. Nevertheless, it was a smash hit, and the novel on which it was based also went on to become a runaway bestseller, selling nearly three million copies. This boom in popularity also spread to other media focusing on the late Shōwa period. Apart from films, these nostalgic media representations are all rather analogous to each other. This decade saw the production of a number of television documentaries focusing on the glory of that particular era. The best known of these documentaries playing on themes of Shōwa nostalgia is Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai’s (Japanese Broadcasting Corporation [NHK]) Project X: Challengers (Purojekuto ekkusu: chōsensha tachi), broadcast for more than five years from March 2000 to December 2005. Almost all episodes of this programme focused on a classic success story of technological innovation, situated in the era of Japan’s post-war development. Project X: Challengers became a national programme because it was enormously popular with all generations and was selected by the National Parent-Teacher Association as ‘the most recommended television programme for children’ for four consecutive years. Similarly at NHK, Tear-Off

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Calendar Time Travel (Himekuri taimu toraberu), a special programme focusing each time on a year in the Shōwa era from 1955 onward, was broadcast once monthly from 2007. This was a somewhat maniacal programme in which entertainers and celebrities born in the year in question appeared in the studio as guests. The politics, events, culture, mores, and so forth of that year were examined over a three-hour period each time, but it broadcast segments on all years of the Shōwa era from 1955 onward by the time of its final broadcast in March 2011. The show received high marks. Moreover, remakes of legendary television dramas of the 1970s and new serial dramas copying the style of that era have also become popular. Media channels have used events such as the Osaka World Exposition held in 1970 (Expo ’70) as iconic symbols of the Japanese economic ‘golden age’. For example, the animated film Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ (Crayon Shin-chan: Arashi wo yobu Mōretsu! Otona Teikoku no Gyakushū) (2001) uses an image of Expo ’70 to represent a utopia set in the near future. According to Hara Keiichi, the film’s director, ‘EXPO ’70 reminds us of the good old days and makes us yearn for the national solidarity of that era’ (Asahi Shimbun, 4 May 2005). Moreover, Tokyo Tower, a popular national landmark built in the late 1950s, has also been used as an iconic symbol of Japan’s economic golden age in blockbuster films such as Always: Sunset on Third Street (2005) and Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (2007). These iconic events and heritage symbols are often renegotiated by media producers and sublimated into fictional and idealized narratives. In the case of magazines, several weekly magazines revisiting the Shōwa era have been published. In September 2007, the initial issue of The Weekly Shōwa Times (Shūkan Shōwa taimuzu) was published by the De Agostini Japan publishing house, and the initial issue of The Weekly Shōwa (Shūkan Shōwa) was published by the Asahi Shimbun Company in December 2008. In these magazines, a certain year of the Shōwa era is selected each week, and the representative social events, incidents, lifestyles, fashions, public entertainment, and so forth of that year are introduced. Asahi Shimbun Company’s The Weekly Shōwa is limited to the years starting in 1946, or the post-war era. It is noteworthy that weekly magazines focusing on only the Shōwa period out of the post-war era were founded by major newspaper companies two decades after the Shōwa era ended. In addition, as special feature articles casting a retrospective look at the Shōwa years appear in magazines practically every day, the output of such work is simply enormous. A ‘Shōwa revival’ has also been in evidence in the world of popular song. In 2001, the Japanese rock band Ulfuls covered There Is Tomorrow (Ashita ga arusa), the 1963 (year 38 of the Shōwa era) hit song by Sakamoto Kyū. It became a major hit at number 18 on the list for annual CD sales. This song was covered in the same year by Re: Japan, also becoming a big hit, reaching number one on the weekly charts. In 2002, Shimatani Hitomi covered The Maiden with the Flaxen Hair (Amairo no kami no otome), a song by the Village Singers in 1968 (year 43 of the Shōwa era), and it became a hit, selling 300,000 more copies than

Myths about nostalgia

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the original. In 2008, Amuro Namie, a female singer representing Japan, released 60s 70s 80s, songs that took those decades as their themes. This represented the first time she reached number one on the weekly charts in nine years and three months. Within the last decade, Japan has seen the inauguration of numerous theme parks recreating Japanese towns and shopping districts of the 1960s and the 1970s. These theme parks attract huge numbers of visitors. Most are called ‘Shōwa retro park’ or ‘Shōwa yokochō’ (Shōwa streets) because they recreate the atmosphere of the Shōwa period, especially the late Shōwa period of the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, some shopping districts in city centres promote themselves by recreating the shopping arcades of the Shōwa period. One major example is Shōwa no machi (Shōwa town), located in Bungotakada in Ōita prefecture. Constructed in 2001 by local merchants, Shōwa no machi has succeeded in attracting local shoppers and tourists from all over the country. It is truly remarkable that every day, more than 50 sightseeing buses visit this Kyushu country town with a population of only about 10,000. Furthermore, even news coverage – in the form of newspaper articles and television news programmes – sometimes utilizes images of this era to attract audiences. One representative example is the extensive newspaper coverage of North Korea’s abduction of Japanese citizens in the late 1970s. Newspapers utilize images of the abductees’ return as a device for solidifying the identity of the middle-aged audience, because this age group’s nostalgia for the era of rapid economic growth of the 1970s often conjures up images of such events (Hidaka 2006, 2007a). Thus, there is significant evidence of the rise of past-oriented media representations in Japan. What does this phenomenon actually mean? Why has the recent past of just a few decades ago become the major subject of representations by the media industry, and why do these media products command such wide popularity at the beginning of the twenty-first century? What do these media actually represent, and what kind of socio-cultural meaning underlies these narratives and representations? These are the central questions of this book.

What is Shōwa nostalgia? First, how should Shōwa nostalgic media be defined? It is crucial to arrive at such a definition at the starting point of this study. It is commonly accepted that the current boom in the popularity of nostalgic media products started after the 2005 film Always: Sunset on Third Street became a smash hit at the box office (e.g. Katagiri 2007: 77; Asaba 2008: 20; Ichikawa 2010: 8). The film’s success undoubtedly prompted film companies, television stations, and publishers to produce many more films, television programmes, books, and magazines shedding light on the late Shōwa period. However, Shōwa retro theme parks were already under construction in the 1990s (Asaba 2008: 27). In fact, NHK’s national television programme Project X: Challengers was broadcast from March 2000. According

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to Terao, publication of material on the late Shōwa period began to pick up speed from 2001 onwards (Terao 2007: 160). Therefore, this study regards the beginning of the twenty-first century as the starting point for the current boom. Many Japanese journalists and some scholars refer to this phenomenon as the ‘Shōwa thirties boom’ (Shōwa sanjū nendai būmu) or the ‘Shōwa thirties nostalgia’ (Shōwa sanjū nendai nosutarujia) because some prominent media such as Always: Sunset on Third Street focus on this period. However, this study does not rigidly label this phenomenon using these terms, because many of the nostalgic media products in this category are concerned with not only the Shōwa thirties (1955–1964), but also the late 1960s and occasionally the 1970s. Therefore, this study refers to this phenomenon as ‘Shōwa nostalgia’, defining it as a cultural phenomenon emerging around the beginning of the twenty-first century due to the immense popularity of media and cultural products. This includes films, television programmes, music, theme parks, exhibitions, magazines, and books focusing on the lives, cultures, and heritage of the late Shōwa period. On the other hand, we must not overlook that Shōwa nostalgia is very much a local phenomenon. Even though Always: Sunset on Third Street, Hula Girls, Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad, and several other films dealing with themes of nostalgia became blockbusters in the domestic market, almost all of them, except Hula Girls and Crayon Shin-chan, failed to garner worldwide recognition and were not even released in other countries. In this regard, it appears that these films form part of a historical trajectory of conventional Japanese media products promoting a sense of nostalgia, in line with other works such as jidaigeki (period dramas) and Yamada Yōji’s Tora-san series of films (the Otoko wa tsurai yo [It’s tough being a man] series). Although these films gained considerable popularity with Japanese audiences, their popularity was restricted to Japan alone. However, the current nostalgic media products are in some ways different from the jidaigeki and Tora-san series of films. In fact, even though jidaigeki is a kind of ‘nostalgic device’ (Tsutsui 2008), its target of nostalgia is a pre-modern Japan, particularly the Edo period (1603–1868). On the other hand, the current nostalgia-evoking media products target a period of merely a few decades ago, when Japan was already becoming modernized. It can be inferred that the yearning depicted by these media is rather different from that depicted by the jidaigeki dramas. In that regard, the Tora-san series of films, released in 48 instalments between 1969 and 1995, can be called the predecessors of the current nostalgic films, as they focus on the late Shōwa period. This series is indeed highly nostalgic, as its films ‘remind us of the lost human empathy of local Japanese communities’ (Satō 2006: 141). However, although both the Tora-san films and the current nostalgic films focus on the late Shōwa period, the former were mostly made during this period, while the latter are actually made several decades after. In addition, as Satō argues, the national popularity of the Tora-san films was chiefly sustained by the character of the hero, Tora-san, played by Atsumi Kiyoshi (1928–1996) (Satō 2006: 141).

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Furthermore, it is unclear why Shōwa nostalgia has come into existence at this particular historical juncture. Unfortunately, few in-depth studies have examined why the heritage of the late Shōwa period is being so frequently utilized in the Japanese media as an effective tool for attracting Japanese audiences at the beginning of the twenty-first century (Hidaka 2006). Undoubtedly, the experiences of promoting a rapid and miraculous economic growth after the Second World War are crucially important to many Japanese people, especially in juxtaposition to Japan’s serious economic stagnation since the 1990s. In addition, Japan lost its place to China as the world’s No. 2 economy in 2010. Moreover, recent times have witnessed an unprecedented, ever-widening gap in income between the rich and poor, which is a very serious phenomenon. According to Fred Davis (1979), collective nostalgia often appears after major social changes such as war, depression, and natural disasters, because people desire a sense of continuity with the time before the change happened. Furthermore, certain academics maintain that nationalism usually becomes rampant when nations are forced onto the periphery in terms of their political and economic conditions (Nairn 1981). Based on these arguments, it appears natural for numerous Japanese citizens to have a nostalgic longing for their country’s economic heyday. However, the popularity of nostalgic media products is not limited to the middle and older generations, but includes teenage youths who were not even born in the period of economic prosperity. Hence, it is difficult to thoroughly grasp the reason that people of different generations are so attracted to these media products; it is also difficult to determine how this nationwide obsession with the recent past of the 1960s and 1970s at the beginning of the twenty-first century differs from the actual national solidarity experienced at that time. What is more important is how we should consider the concern about the so-called ‘season of politics’, whose core is 1968 (year 43 of the Shōwa era), which has increased while Shōwa nostalgia has become a fad. In addition to 1968, the magnum opus by Oguma Eiji of more than 2,000 pages published in 2009; the publication of Suga Hidemi’s The Year 1968 (2006); The Cultural Theory of 1968 (2010) edited by Yomota Inuhiko and Hirasawa Gō; What Happened in Japan and the World in 1968 (2009) edited by Mainichi Newspaper Company; Mitsuhashi Toshiaki’s The All Campus Joint Struggle League in the Streets, 1968 (2010); and many other works too numerous to list here testify to the increased interest in recent years in the ‘season of politics’ centred on 1968. In January 2012 in Shibuya, Tokyo, the film festival 1968 was held, sponsored by the students of the Nihon University College of Art. While films were shown involving the years around 1968 when the storm of the student movement raged, events in which that era was considered were held. These attracted many participants, again indicating just how widespread interest is in the ‘season of politics’. In fact, although the Shōwa thirties and forties (1955 to 1974), which have been the chief subjects of Shōwa nostalgia, and the ‘season of politics’, whose major focus is 1968, overlap because both fall in the same part of the Shōwa era, there has still been no debate to date about the exact relationship between these two different phenomena.

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Problems with the Shōwa nostalgia as depicted by journalism Although the extreme popularity of Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products is a social phenomenon frequently reported by newspapers and television news programmes, their manner of reporting it is somewhat problematic. Because these media and cultural products are commonly described using words such as ‘nostalgic’ or ‘retro’, they are simply and uncritically accepted by news reporters as ‘sweet’ and ‘harmless’ consumer goods. For example, the film Always: Sunset on Third Street is usually described as a representative media product inspiring people to recall that time with fondness. As mentioned in an article in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, ‘In recent years, the Shōwa thirties are often portrayed through happy memories, as in the film Always: Sunset on Third Street’ (Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 22 June 2008, morning edition). According to an article in the Nikkei Market Journal, ‘The ward [Kōtō ward in Tokyo] aims at creating a shopping arcade full of the Shōwa retro atmosphere that was typified by the film Always: Sunset on Third Street in order to attract visits from cherry-blossom viewers’ (Nikkei Market Journal, 16 June 2009). One reason the newspaper articles credit the film with making people recall the happy memories of the Shōwa thirties is the shared presupposition that those were the ‘good old days’ for the Japanese people. In this regard, note that a subsequent 2005 Yomiuri Shimbun article describes the Shōwa thirties as the exact antithesis of the Second World War. In this year, we frequently recall two different times in the Shōwa period – one includes the good old days and the other represents a time that we do not want to recall. The former is the Shōwa thirties, which we recall with fond nostalgia, especially after the ‘Shōwa nostalgia boom’ that began around last year. In that time, people were poor but truly alive, as depicted in the film Always: Sunset on Third Street. . . . The other time is, of course, the war period of just sixty years ago. . . . What we must do in this year is to clearly draw a line between what we should inherit from the past and what we should not, and to pass this distinction down to the next generations. (Yomiuri Shimbun, 25 December 2005, Osaka’s morning edition) For this newspaper article, it is obvious that the Shōwa thirties represent the ‘good old days’ that should be inherited, and the Second World War is a horrible ‘time that we do not want to recall’ and which should not be inherited by the future generations. The film Always: Sunset on Third Street is cited as a classic example fully embodying the virtues of the Shōwa thirties. Thus, most newspaper articles are full of praise for media products idealizing the Shōwa thirties, because ‘longing for that time is simple nostalgia’ (Asahi Shimbun, 3 January 2010, Tokyo’s morning edition). Occasionally, however, a few newspaper articles do criticize this phenomenon, describing it as ‘mere nostalgia’. The Asahi Shimbun, for example, writes, ‘The Shōwa thirties must not be discussed only with sweet nostalgia’ (Asahi Shimbun,

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15 October 2006, Tokyo’s morning edition). Another article censures an exhibition displaying consumer goods of the Shōwa thirties by stating that ‘We must not merely indulge ourselves in nostalgic memories’ (Asahi Shimbun, 25 April 2006, Tokyo’s evening edition). In short, these articles criticize the phenomenon as a form of sentimental longing for the ‘good old days’. In this regard, it is quite important to note that this ‘nostalgia’ is presumed to be a ‘sweet’ and ‘harmless’ sentiment by both sides – those who regard it as a positive phenomenon and those who consider it a negative trend. In other words, both sides either praise or criticize nostalgia for its ‘sweetness’ and ‘harmlessness’.

Nostalgia as a public threat However, we must not overlook that nostalgia is a much more complicated concept with a complex historical background. In this regard, Svetlana Boym puts forward a significant argument in her book The Future of Nostalgia (2001). In her book, Boym mentions that the term ‘nostalgia’ originated not from poetry or politics, but from medical science. The term was coined by a Swiss doctor, Johannes Hofer, in his medical dissertation published in 1688, in which he defined ‘nostalgia’ as ‘the sad mood originating from the desire for return to one’s native land’ (Hofer 1688, cited in Boym 2001: 3). The ‘symptoms’ of nostalgia were widely seen among soldiers, sailors, and rural migrants emigrating to cities. According to Boym (2001: xiii), nostalgia is ‘a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed. Nostalgia is a sentiment of loss and displacement, but it is also a romance with one’s own fantasy.’ In the modern age, however, the idea of progress has become the most significant driving force behind the development of modernity, and this idea has infiltrated from the national to the individual level since the nineteenth century. In this context, nostalgia became inconvenient for the progress of modernity, as ‘[w]hat mattered in the idea of progress was improvement in the future, not reflection on the past’ (Boym 2001: 10). Therefore, nostalgia was believed to be a defiant emotion against modern progress and became ‘a public threat that revealed the contradictions of modernity and acquired a greater political importance’ (Boym 2001: 5). Boym elaborates on the enormous power of nostalgia as follows. The object of romantic nostalgia must be beyond the present space of experience, somewhere in the twilight of the past or on the island of utopia where time has happily stopped, as on an antique clock. At the same time, romantic nostalgia is not a mere antithesis to progress; it undermines both a linear conception of progress and a Hegelian dialectical teleology. The nostalgic directs his gaze not only backward but sideways, and expresses himself in elegiac poems and ironic fragments, not in philosophical or scientific treatises. Nostalgia remains unsystematic and unsynthesizable; it seduces rather than convinces. (Boym 2001: 13)

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Myths about nostalgia

Since the eighteenth century, the exacting task of exploring nostalgia passed from doctors to poets and philosophers because nostalgia did not become treatable like tuberculosis (Boym 2001: 11). In the nineteenth century, an American military doctor named Theodore Calhoun regarded nostalgia as a disgraceful disease showing ‘a lack of manliness and unprogressive attitudes’, because ‘[i]n nineteenth-century America it was believed that the main reasons for homesickness were idleness and a slow and inefficient use of time conductive to daydreaming, erotomania, and onanism’ (Boym 2001: 6). It is unfortunate that Japanese newspaper articles discussing Shōwa nostalgia are never based on an understanding of the intricate historical context of the meaning of nostalgia. In other words, the articles that offer positive coverage of Shōwa nostalgia are blind to nostalgia’s potential ‘public threat’ and regard it as a harmless phenomenon. In contrast, the articles that are critical of Shōwa nostalgia due to its ‘sweet yearning for the good old days’ only follow the ‘American-style’ contempt for nostalgia, which has been popular since the nineteenth century.

Myths about nostalgia These discussions in Japanese newspapers remind me of Roland Barthes’s conception of the myth. According to him, a myth ‘transforms history into nature. . . . What causes mythical speech to be uttered is perfectly explicit, but it is immediately frozen into something natural’ (Barthes 2000: 129). Myth makes people think of something as self-evident and take it as a matter of course. This is directly relevant to the dominant values of society, as the function of myth is to ‘make dominant cultural and historical values, attitudes, and beliefs seem entirely “natural”, “normal”, self-evident, timeless, obvious, “commonsense” – and thus objective and “true” reflections of “the way things are” ’ (Chandler 2002: 145). Barthes explains the nature of the myth as follows. Myth does not deny things, on the contrary, its function is to talk about them; simply it purifies them, it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact. If I state the fact of French imperiality without explaining it, I am very near to finding that it is natural and goes without saying: I am reassured. In passing from history to nature, myth acts economically: it abolishes the complexity of human acts, it gives them the simplicity of essences, it does away with all dialectics, with any going back beyond what is immediately visible, it organizes a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident, it establishes a blissful clarity: things appear to mean something by themselves. (Barthes 2000: 143) Therefore, nobody can deny the possibility that media coverage considering it self-evident that nostalgia is a ‘sweet’ and ‘harmless’ emotion may ‘organize

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a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth’. In that case, no one can deny the possibility that Shōwa nostalgia, as a potential ‘public threat’, may be deprived of its own possible critical power against social contradiction by newspaper correspondents. As far as Shōwa nostalgia is concerned, we can determine the possibility of double myths: the first myth projects the late Shōwa period as an ideal, happy time for the Japanese people, when they enjoyed substantial affluence due to unprecedented and rapid economic growth. The second myth is that the nostalgic media focusing on the ‘good old days’ are simply prompted to do so by a sweet yearning for that time. I understand it is rather problematic to essentialize nostalgia. In this regard, it is reasonable to conduct an open-ended analysis so the media products focusing on the late Shōwa period can be associated with other theoretical concepts and discussed in another framework. However, this social phenomenon, which adheres to the recent past, is undoubtedly related to the original meaning of nostalgia, described by Boym as a wide-ranging concept involving ‘a longing for a home that no longer exists or has never existed’. The moot question is whether the target of nostalgia in these media is ‘a home that no longer exists’ or ‘a home that never existed’. If the target is the former, it becomes necessary to explore what was actually lost; if the target is the latter, the focal issue would be what kind of imaginary home is represented in the media narratives. These issues cannot be clarified without a detailed analysis of the media products in question. If relevant preceding studies had amply answered these questions, the present book may not have been written. However, it is regrettable that almost all scholars are caught in the same trap as the newspaper journalists. Although several prior studies have dealt with Shōwa nostalgia, all of them have certain problematic elements, as discussed in the subsequent chapter. One of the most serious problems is that the previous works discuss Shōwa nostalgia without conducting a detailed analysis of their subject matter because they all consider it self-evident that those times represented the ‘good old days’ of Japan and that the media and their cultural products merely yearn for those days. It is ironic that not only journalists but also media scholars, who should carefully monitor the activities of these journalists, play a key role in reproducing the same myths. The primary objective of this book is to fully clarify the socio-cultural meanings underlying Shōwa nostalgia by conducting a thorough analysis of nostalgic representations in the relevant media products, particularly films and television programmes. This analysis must contribute to ‘demythologizing’ the myths created by journalists and scholars alike. Hence, this book may yield some rather different findings from the commonly accepted notions in the field.

The main contents of this book Chapter 1 discusses the relevant theoretical background and previous studies concerning Shōwa nostalgia. Starting from the twentieth century, conceptions of history and historiography were transfigured greatly, and concern about varied historical descriptions as narratives has increased. In addition, interest in memory

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has also increased; memory studies appeared from the 1980s, and research about memory has become an active field in various disciplines. This chapter presents the results and issues in European and American memory studies related to this monograph. A framework for considering the narrative about memory and the problems thereof at the beginning of the twenty-first century is provided. A discussion of the discourses of intellectuals and previous studies about Shōwa nostalgia as well as a close examination of the hegemonic construction of these discourses follow. There is then a discussion about the premises of argument even in intellectual discourse, which are similar to those found in journalistic discourse such as newspapers. The introduction touched upon the tendency to lapse into a simplistic, diametrically opposed narrative derived thereof. In the discourse space surrounding Shōwa nostalgia, the discussion covers the question of why the shared hegemony is observed, and that this is related to how the ‘post-war paradigm’ has been deeply rooted in the Japanese discourse space. Finally, there is an examination through representative films and discourses of the memories of the Second World War as repeatedly represented by the media in the post-war era. This offers an opportunity to delve deeper into Shōwa nostalgia in this book. Chapter 2 examines the films Always: Sunset on Third Street and Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad, which served as the basis for Shōwa nostalgia to become a social phenomenon. In the narratives of these films, Tokyo Tower, a post-war symbol in the latter half of the 1950s in the early stage of rapid economic growth, plays a key role as the mise-en-scène. Owing to that, this chapter presents a detailed analysis about how Tokyo Tower and other images of that period should be positioned and represented in the narrative of these films. There is a particular focus on cases when Tokyo Tower is represented yet is not completed or is emphasized in something other than its completed form. The author examines specifically why the situation after the tower was completed is made the backdrop, despite Japan having entered the period of rapid economic growth from around 1958 (year thirty-three of the Shōwa era), when the Tokyo Tower was completed. Chapter 3 examines the media’s narrative about the technological development and innovation that were positioned as the ‘positive’ legacies of post-war development and the ‘light’ of rapid economic growth. The first half of this chapter cites the case of the popular NHK TV programme Project X: Challengers and examines several representative broadcasts among these. About 200 episodes were broadcast between 2000 and 2005 and received high praise as a ‘national programme’. A detailed examination of the narratives of ‘national programmes’ is done mainly based on a comparison of the programme contents with the nonfiction novels serving as the inspiration for the programmes and newspaper articles at that time. The latter half of this chapter focuses on the film Hula Girls (2006). This covers technological development in the coal-mining regions, which symbolize the ‘negative’ legacies of the post-war era and ‘shadows’ of rapid economic growth. This film is based on a true story about local regeneration through building a

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large resort facility in a place where a depressed coal-mining region utilized hot spring heat and used hula dancing as an attraction. The key point is how the coal mining and hula dances are respectively positioned and represented in the narrative of this film. In addition, the focus of discussion is placed on how gender politics are seen in this representation. These are anticipated because female hula dancers are brought into a coal-mining region, where it is chiefly male workers driving the regional economy. Moreover, because there are also the historical circumstances of coal-mining regions being the subject of representation in film history, Chapter 3 also compares other representative films depicting coal mining in the past. Chapter 4 focuses on the film Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ (2001) and trilogy films of Twentieth Century Boys (2008– 2009), which describe the era around 1970 (year 45 in the Shōwa era). This represents the destination and final station of rapid economic growth and the Osaka World Expo (Japan World Exposition), a major event symbolizing those days. The focus here is placed on an examination of how the Osaka World Expo and that age are represented. What should not be overlooked is that the creators of these two works (directors, screenwriters, authors, and editors of the original works) belong to the generation born around the late 1950s, which everyone calls the ‘apathetic generation’ or ‘moratorium generation’. Thus, this chapter also examines the relationship between the positionalities and life histories of the creators of the same generation and the narrative. The conclusion draws together the preceding chapters, and then argues that Shōwa nostalgia is not just a simple rosy representation of the post-war Shōwa era, as has been related in journalism and intellectual discourse. Instead, it should be called a complex and critical engagement with the recent past aimed at retrospection, and in which love and hate, remorse, dissatisfaction, reflection on past wrongs, rebuttals, apologies, justifications, and so forth are intermingled. The conclusion then argues that a qualitative transformation can be seen in films and television dramas covering the middle and late Shōwa era, particularly after the global economic downturn beginning around 2007, and in particular the so-called ‘Lehman Brothers shock’ in 2008. The final chapter turns its attention to Climber’s High (2008), a film based on a novel by Yokoyama Hideo; The Zero Focus (2009), a film based on a novel by Matsumoto Seichō; and The Sun That Doesn’t Set (2009), a film based on a novel by Yamasaki Toyoko. It briefly considers these narratives and does so in connection with the discussion in previous chapters of why this transformation can be seen. Finally, the conclusion discusses how the subjects covered by films and television programmes in recent years have shifted from the Shōwa thirties (1955–1964) to around the Shōwa forties (1965–1974) and considers whether that might be related to people’s increased concern for the so-called ‘season of politics’ in the years around 1968.

1

Background

A path to the past: what is history? This chapter provides an in-depth review and analysis of literature that encompasses four discrete but related subject areas, before developing a theoretical framework for this study. The first section in this chapter reviews the body of literature concerning the concept of history, which is an appropriate starting point for this study. The second section expands the discussion to include collective memory, and considers how the two concepts have become related and even indistinguishable from each other, while noting that history’s emotional aspects are receiving increasing attention and are leading to media’s evocation of nostalgia for the recent past, which in turn links to Japanese people’s personal histories. The third section introduces Shōwa nostalgia, with the late Shōwa period being ‘remembered’ as an idyllic period. The fourth section considers the influence of the Second World War on Japanese intellectual thought, and how the US relationship impacted Japan’s identity after the war. The role of the war as portrayed in the media, and the influence of other cultural products – such as films – as they pertain to Shōwa nostalgia, are examined in detail. The concluding section describes and develops a new theoretical framework for understanding Shōwa nostalgia, and exposes a fundamental flaw in the scholarly work that has been conducted on this subject to date; namely, that most scholars have assumed that the end of the Second World War marked the beginning of contemporary Japan. In order to approach the past from an academic perspective, it is appropriate to start with a discussion of the concept of history, because there has long been a dichotomy between history and historiography. In addition, history and historical consciousness are major issues in the contemporary world – not only in the academic arena but also in the fields of journalism and public debate (MorrisSuzuki 2005). The concept of history was transformed radically in the twentieth century. In the nineteenth century, history was believed to be an objective science; however, numerous historians in the twentieth century argued that this notion was entirely an illusion (Collingwood 1946; Bloch 1954; Carr 1961). Hence, nineteenth-century historical literature is problematic, from the perspective of these present-day historians, because this fetishism of facts, particularly justified by the fetishism of documents, was the dominant methodology at that time (Carr 1961). E. H. Carr, criticizing modern history and many celebrated

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historians, asks a fundamental question: ‘What is history?’ Carr argues that history is not merely a set of objective facts, as was believed during the previous hundred years, but a subjective description of the time period, as written by historians. According to Carr, ‘It used to be said that facts speak for themselves. This is, of course, untrue. The facts speak only when the historian calls on them: it is he who decides to which facts to give the floor, and in what order or context’ (Carr 1961: 5). Collingwood, a celebrated philosopher and historian who worked in the same period as Carr, also denies the objectivity of history. Collingwood writes, ‘It is the historian himself who stands at the bar of judgement, and there reveals his own mind in its strength and weakness, its values and its vices’ (Collingwood 1946: 218–219). Furthermore, the resultant arbitrariness of history leads to the selection and exclusion of some historical facts. For Carr, as the historian works, ‘both the imagination and the selection and ordering of facts undergo subtle and perhaps partly unconscious changes through the reciprocal action of one or the other’ (Carr 1961: 24). Collingwood argues similarly: ‘[T]he autonomy of historical thought is seen at its simplest in the work of selection’ (Collingwood 1946: 236). In other words, it can be said that certain facts are given priority and then introduced into history, while others are either dismissed or forgotten. This argument also corresponds to the ideas held by historians from the Annales School, which emerged during the twentieth century, and became a dominant discipline of historical thought. In the words of Marc Bloch, one of the founders of the Annales School, ‘[T]he historian is necessarily led to carve out that particular area to which his tools apply; hence, to make a selection – and, obviously, not the same as that of the biologist, for example, but that which is the proper selection of the historian. . . . For, to begin with, the very idea that the past as such can be the object of science is ridiculous’ (Bloch 1954: 19). In summary, it can be stated that the major authoritative historians in the twentieth century argue for the subjectivity of the historian amid the arbitrary characteristics of history, and this is in sharp contrast with the thoughts of nineteenth-century historians. In addition, major contemporary scholars conceive of history as a construct created by people in the present day, to be utilized for present purposes (Carr 1961; Billig 1990; Hodgkin and Radstone 2006). Since historians live through a particular time period, they usually write history by utilizing the concepts that are typical of their era, such as democracy, empires, wars, and revolutions (Carr 1961). Thus, all history is ‘contemporary history’ that sheds light on the past through the eyes of the present. History inevitably becomes an account that reflects the peculiarities of the age in which the historian lives. It must be noted that historians have a future-oriented intention, because they are interested in achieving their particular aims by utilizing the past. According to Carr, When, therefore, I spoke of history in an earlier lecture as a dialogue between past and present, I should rather have called it a dialogue between the events of the past and progressively emerging future ends. The historian’s interpretation of the past, his selection of the significant and the relevant, evolves

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Background with the progressive emergence of new goals. To take the simplest of all illustrations, so long as the main goal appeared to be the organization of constitutional liberties and political rights, the historian interpreted the past in constitutional and political terms. (Carr 1961: 118)

Carr’s argument is interesting, in that it explains how history is intended not only for the present understanding of the past but also for the creation of the future. It is possible to view the past as a fruitful and limitless resource that can be used by people in the present day to create the future as they intend it to be. In other words, it could be argued that the past is a political device that opens up the future. As far as Shōwa nostalgia is concerned, it is likely that the media and cultural producers are exploiting the recent past and its memory, for the sake of building a future that will fulfil their own agendas.

Paradigm shift from history to memory: the rise of memory studies As noted earlier, exploring the concept of history is an appropriate starting point for this study of nostalgia. However, memory is another relevant starting point, because, for most people, the recent past is not only history but also a lived experience. As Bloch argues, a new event was not believed to be history (Bloch 1954: 31) in the nineteenth century because, according to Maurice Halbwachs, history was thought to ‘start only when tradition ends’ (Halbwachs [1926] 1950: 78). Therefore, it was apparently difficult for scholars in those days to identify the recent past as history. Of course, as indicated in the previous section, the concept of history underwent a complete transformation in the twentieth century. As far as Collingwood is concerned, historical knowledge is associated not only with the remote past, but also with what happened ‘five minutes ago’ (Collingwood 1946: 219). From this perspective, it would be appropriate for the present study to discuss the recent past as integral to the paradigm of history. However, the concept of memory cannot be ignored for three reasons: First, even in the present day, history is occasionally described as ‘no more than the official memory a society chooses to honour’ (Hutton 1993: 9) by major authorities. In other words, history is often conceived of as a limited arena of official record, even in the present day. Therefore, this study’s focus and scope may become narrower if we utilize only the concept of history. Second, we must not overlook the fact that historical narrative structures are fundamentally different from the past itself, as, according to Ankersmit, historians’ epistemological narratives are incommensurable with the past, because of the incongruity between the present and the past (Ankersmit 1983, 1989). Accordingly, the past ‘is not just another land, you cannot get a visa to go there’ (Hobart 2000: 213). Third, we must take into consideration the heightened interest in memory studies since the 1980s – the accumulation of facts in this academic field will be useful for this study.

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The field of memory studies has undoubtedly become common among scholars from various disciplines, and memory research is currently being undertaken in the fields of psychology, history, philosophy, cultural studies, film studies, media studies, literature, archaeology, and architecture (Radstone 2000: 1). Articles on this field of study have flooded academic journals, and many universities have begun to pay special attention to this extension in the field of education (Radstone 2000: 1). Some universities have even developed courses concerned with memory studies. However, according to James V. Wertsch, the extent of research devoted to individual memory is much greater than that devoted to collective memory (Wertsch 2002: 33–34). Thus, the heightened interest in memory research has been supported mainly by research into individual memory by psychologists, not by research into collective memory by other disciplines. Hence, certain scholars argue that the field of collective memory must be developed further by diverse disciplines. David Middleton and Derek Edwards, for example, write that, Psychology, with its tradition of theory and method derived from the experimental study of individual memory, is no longer accorded a monopoly of interest in the topic. Beyond the boundaries of psychological discourse can be found a well established and burgeoning interest in the social nature of memory. These are to be found within the writings of oral history, folklore, museum studies, historical geography, communication studies, sociology, and social theory. (Middleton and Edwards 1990: 2–3) In practice, academics from various backgrounds are now required to study collective memory. Content-based analysis from the perspective of media studies may play a significant role in this field, because, as will be discussed later, collective memory often appears in media representations. This situation also applies to Japanese academic circles. In 2007, the academic journal Philosophy (Tetsugaku), edited by philosophers and sociologists from Keio University, devoted one of its volumes to memory studies. This special edition, titled ‘Sociology of Memory’, is probably the first attempt by Japanese academics to discuss memory studies comprehensively. In the preface to this volume, which included nine academic essays on various topics, the sociologist Hama Hideo argues that even though the field of memory studies has to date been mainly sustained by psychologists, a sociological approach to memory studies would be entirely different from a psychological approach (Hama 2007). Hama, using a well-known concept discussed by Maurice Halbwachs, contends that the sociological approach, which sheds light on collective memories involving ‘remembering and commemorating the past with others’, is superior to psychology in exploring collective consciousness, since the study of psychology is usually aimed at examining the individual mind in a laboratory (Hama 2007). Thus, the possibility of freeing memory studies from the limitations of psychology is being considered not only in Western countries, but also in Japan.

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Background

As will be discussed in detail later on, however, Japanese research of memory studies is rather discursive in its approach, and tends to focus on a specific period in the past. In other words, most such studies deal with memories of the Second World War, and very few studies address the more recent past. Therefore, this study – which seeks to empirically explore how and why current Japanese films and television programmes have begun to utilize the recent, post-war Japanese past, and not the wartime years – may contribute to the development of memory studies from the perspectives of media studies and Japanese memory studies. As discussed earlier, the concept of history changed radically in the twentieth century, and this change was accompanied by a profound, corresponding change in the relationship between history and memory. In effect, the ideas of history and memory have become similar to each other. In the nineteenth century, historians rejected memory because they believed it to be a major obstacle to the objectivity and scientific approach required to write history (Misztal 2003: 100). However, since the end of the Second World War, the boundaries between memory and history have become blurred, mainly as a result of the development of memory studies (Misztal 2003: 102). Owing to findings in this field since the 1980s, which have challenged ‘history’s monopoly over the past’ (Misztal 2003: 103), the distinction between memory and history has almost disappeared. Another major reason for the near-disappearance of the distinction between history and memory is that what is meant by the word ‘official’ has become problematic. Previously, history was often regarded as an official record, while memory was believed to be unofficial or private. However, the distinction between them has become blurred in recent times. In the words of James V. Wertsch, ‘Official histories produced by the state and unofficial histories produced outside of its purview both include elements of collective remembering as well as history’ (Wertsch 2002: 20). It is worth noting that media representations of the past have significantly contributed to the disappearance of this distinction between the official and the unofficial. According to Fred Davis, Even what passes for the private and intimate in our nostalgic memory – sunsets, birthdays, family gatherings, friends, and lovers – has because of the pervasiveness of the mass media in our lives acquired a more common, familiar, and transferable quality. This has also served to blur and possibly confound what once was a fairly well-drawn interior division between the private and the public. (Davis 1979: 126) Thus, both the distinctions between history and memory, and the boundary between the official and the unofficial, have almost disappeared. Moreover, the media have played a significant role in the perpetuation of both history and memory. This is very relevant to the focus of this book, because it can be surmised that the media, which blur distinctions between history and memory as well as the

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boundaries between what is official and what is unofficial, may be pivotal in the development of hegemonic discourses on collective memory. An appreciation of the media’s significant role in creating present-day historical narratives may help us better understand the content produced by Japanese media, as well as current socio-cultural conditions in Japan. Furthermore, the abundance of Japanese media representations in the recent past may accelerate the subjectification of historical perceptions. For this reason, the contents of Japanese nostalgic media and cultural products are examined carefully in this study. Some major scholars maintain that, in the present day, the significance of memory may surpass even that of history. Such an argument is postulated by Pierre Nora. Although Nora’s argument is rather complex, he primarily advocates for the rehabilitation of memory. According to Nora, there has been a shift in the basic human stance with regard to the past, ‘from the historical to the remembered and from the remembered to the commemorative’ (Nora 1998: 626). For Nora, memory and history are different, although they have a very complicated relationship. According to him, we destroy memory as well as historical consciousness, while being obsessed with memory. The advent of globalization and mass culture have accelerated history and undermined a tradition of anchoring contemporary society in the past. Nora argues that we have to (re) construct memory, because we have lost our authentic living memory, mainly due to the acceleration of history. He writes that the realms of memory are ‘no longer alive but not yet entirely dead, like shells left on the shore when the sea of living memory has receded’ (Nora 1996: 7). According to Nora, the only thing contemporary people can accomplish by studying history is to conduct a search for a place of memory in yesterday (Misztal 2003: 106). As a result, memory becomes instrumental in both the construction and deconstruction of symbols and their implications for people in the present day. Nora emphasizes the relationship between the present and memory as follows: [Of course for the memory-history of an earlier time], the past was not yet over: it could be revived by an effort of remembrance. In a sense, the present itself was seen as a retrieved, updated past, its presentness conjured away by being grafted onto and rooted in what went before. True, in order for a sense of ‘pastness’ to exist, a thin wedge had to be inserted between yesterday and today, opening up a ‘before’ and an ‘after’. This distance was not seen as implying a radical difference, however; it was rather a gap, a hiatus, and as such called for a restoration of continuity. The two great themes of history in the modern era, progress and decadence, both reflect this cult of continuity, this certainty of knowing to whom and to what we are indebted for being what we are. From this came the important notion of ‘origins’, that secularized version of myth which gave a French society in the progress of nationalist secularization its idea of and need for the sacred. The grander France’s origins were, the more they magnified the grandeur of the French. Through the past we venerated ourselves. (Nora 1996: 12)

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These concepts have motivated numerous scholars to conduct memory studies over the previous two decades. At present, it is common for scholars to emphasize the emotional aspects of history (Morris-Suzuki 2005). Moreover, certain scholars (Middleton and Edwards 1990; Bartlett 1995; Wertsch 2002) are of the opinion that the word ‘remembering’ is more appropriate than ‘memory’, for emphasizing ‘the active processes involved’ (Wertsch 2002: 18). Nora’s argument is reminiscent of Anthony Giddens’s concept of modernity. According to Giddens, there is a separation of time and space in modernity. In pre-modern societies, time and space basically coincide because the spatial dimensions are dominated by localized activities (Giddens 1990: 18). In contrast, according to Giddens, modernity ‘increasingly tears space away from place by fostering relations between “absent” others, locationally distant from any given situations of face-to-face interaction’ (Giddens 1990: 18). Although pre-modern societies possessed an actual and close relationship with tradition in the old sense, the advent of modernity has forced people to question the continuum of tradition in their daily lives and has introduced ‘reflexivity’ into ‘the very basis of system reproduction, such that thought and action are constantly refracted back upon one another. The routinization of daily life has no intrinsic connections with the past at all’ (Giddens 1990: 38). For Giddens, the reflexive characteristic of modernity, particularly questioning the meaning of life in the routine of everyday life, is significant. He writes that, There is a fundamental sense in which reflexivity is a defining characteristic of all human action. All human beings routinely ‘keep in touch’ with the grounds of what they do as an integral element of doing it. I have called this elsewhere the ‘reflexive monitoring of action’, using the phrase to draw attention to the chronic character of the processes involved. Human action does not incorporate chains of aggregate interactions and reasons, but a consistent – and, as Erving Goffman above all has shown us, never-to-berelaxed – monitoring of behaviour and its contexts. (Giddens 1990: 36) It is particularly interesting that Giddens writes that the identities of contemporary people are narratives. According to him, activities such as keeping a daily journal and writing an autobiography are among the ‘central recommendations for sustaining an integrated sense of self’ (Giddens 1991: 76). In other words, it could be said that contemporary people cannot live without routinely confirming their personal histories, and even creating their own stories. In addition, Giddens maintains that human lives have become ‘internal referentials’, which cause difficulties for contemporary people when having close relationships not only with tradition, but also with other people of the same period. Hence, Giddens states, ‘Lacking external referents supplied by others, the lifespan again emerges as a trajectory which relates above all to the individual’s projects and plans’ (Giddens 1991: 147). These arguments may allow us to discuss Japanese media’s evocation of nostalgia for the recent past, as part of the framework of Japanese people’s

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personal histories. In one sense, it can be surmised that both Japanese media producers and citizens create their own narratives, by producing and consuming, respectively, nostalgic media products that focus on the recent past. The arguments of Nora and Giddens suggest that contemporary scholars should approach the problems of memory and nostalgia from both the macro perspective of modernity and the micro perspective of personal history. Their arguments indicate the possibility that adherence to the recent past is not a simple yearning for that time, but a search for any fundamental meaning or lesson that would be helpful for contemporary people who live in an uncertain modernity. These discussions are highly relevant to Boym’s argument, discussed in the introduction, that nostalgia was originally treated as a peculiarly modern disease of the mind, and which is a ‘historical emotion’ that is critical of the progress of modernity, because it reveals the contradictions of modernity. Meanwhile, the current precedence of commemoration over history and even memory may suggest that Shōwa nostalgia is not a simple yearning for a ‘fixed’ past reality, but a thirst for the resolution of anxiety, or for some alternative realities. This study approaches the problems of memory from a macro perspective, using relevant theoretical concepts such as modernity.

Previous studies on Shōwa nostalgia Although Shōwa nostalgia is a current phenomenon, numerous previous studies and discussions have dealt with the phenomenon. It is unfortunate, however, that most previous arguments in this field are discursive, since they do not include research disciplines in the relevant fields. The most important point here is that these earlier works tend to have similar drawbacks as the newspaper articles discussed in the introduction. It is ironic that media scholars who should ‘demythicize’ the myths created by media discourse have fallen into the very same trap as the newspaper correspondents. These studies typically highlight a few common points. First of all, most of the studies and discussions have assumed that the late Shōwa period, particularly the Shōwa thirties (1955–1964), was an ideal period, or at least a better period than the present era in Japan. Kayama Rika, a well-known psychoanalyst and author of several bestselling books, argues that the Shōwa thirties have become the target of nostalgia because ‘that period was the most vibrant of all time in Japan’ and the ‘people of that time had warm hearts’ (Kayama 2008: 24). According to Kayama, the Shōwa thirties may represent the perfect ‘retreat’ for middle-aged and elderly people who have become deeply pessimistic about the future of Japan, as they worry about grim realities such as a dwindling population, a decreasing birth rate, and a sluggish economy (Kayama 2008: 26). Similarly, the prestigious critic Kawamoto Saburō contends that ‘the Shōwa thirties was probably the only period when people were able to take some rest in the hurry-scurry of Japan’s modern era’ (Kawamoto 2008: 4); ever since the Meiji Restoration in 1868, it appears that the Japanese have incessantly and assiduously worked to catch up with and overtake Western countries. In such a scenario, Kawamoto emphasizes

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that the Shōwa thirties constituted an exceptionally peaceful period between the chaos immediately following the Second World War and the bustle of the years of spectacular economic growth in the 1970s, concluding that the Shōwa thirties had a ‘serenity that is peculiar to a warm autumn day’ (Kawamoto 2008: 7). In addition to critics such as Kayama and Kawamoto, some reputed sociologists presuppose that the Shōwa thirties constituted a favourable period in Japan’s past. For instance, Katagiri Shinji uses the sociological perspective to examine why this specific period became the target of nostalgia at the beginning of the twentyfirst century. According to Katagiri, after the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, ‘the Shōwa thirties have been re-evaluated because numerous people at that time felt happy when they dreamt of a better future, even though they were poor’ (Katagiri 2007: 80). In addition, Katagiri argues that members of the Japanese baby-boomer generation (dankai no sedai), born between 1947 and 1949, are now either middle-aged or older, and have begun to yearn for the days of their youth (Katagiri 2007: 80). Hence, Katagiri propounds an argument similar to Kayama’s. According to Davis, it may be true that the adolescent period of the late teens often becomes the target of nostalgia for middle-aged and elderly people, because ‘the transition from adolescence serves, at the mythic level at least, as the prototypical frame for nostalgia for the remainder of life. It is almost as if the depth and drama of the transition were such as to institutionalize adolescence in the personality as a more or less permanent and infinitely recoverable subject for nostalgic exercise’ (Davis 1979: 59). On the other hand, it is worth noting that Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products are consumed not only by the middle-aged and the elderly, but also by younger generations. In fact, these products are mainly popular among youth. Certain intellectuals admit their surprise at the fact that numerous young people went to theatres to see the film Always: Sunset on Third Street (Katagiri 2007; Asaba 2008). This reveals an inherent flaw in the assumption that the ongoing boom in Shōwa nostalgia is merely the babyboomer generation’s yearning for that time. However, it is significant to note that the fundamental premise – that the Shōwa thirties were the ‘good old days’ of Japan – leads to another premise, which is that the nostalgic media and cultural products emerging in recent times are simply expressions of admiration. These double premises have resulted in an excessive beautification of the Shōwa thirties. A typical example of this phenomenon is mentioned in the 2008 book, In Search of the Principle of the Shōwa Thirties (Shōwa sanjū nendai shugi), by the critic Asaba Michiaki. This four-hundred-page book is probably the first literary examination of ongoing nostalgia. Asaba shares the common view that life in the Shōwa thirties was better than it is in the present day, and argues that society at that time was ‘the ideal work-sharing society’, maintained by the cooperative labour of people who were predominantly full of human kindness (ninjō) and energy (genki) (Asaba 2008). The virtues of human kindness and energy prevalent at that time are, according to Asaba, accurately represented in major nostalgic films such as Always: Sunset on Third Street and Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’. At the same

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time, Asaba asserts that this peculiar cooperative system that had been sustained by human bonds at that time broke down during the subsequent period of high economic growth. Asaba appreciates the current growth in Shōwa nostalgia, but is concerned that it may be a temporary phenomenon. To maintain the resurgence of appreciation for the Shōwa thirties, he recommends that Shōwa nostalgia be upgraded to an ideology, namely, ‘the principle of the Shōwa thirties’. According to Asaba, this ideology would be a kind of ‘ism’, aimed at reconstructing Japan’s ‘good old’ cooperative social system in the future (Asaba 2008). Asaba concludes as follows: When ordinary citizens, irrespective of age or sex, begin to vaguely share an ideal social image, intellectuals are able to construct a future model of society by verbalizing and logically defining it. Intellectuals are required to engage in such a mission. This book is a clue to how to do that. . . . What will happen if the principles of the Shōwa thirties were actually established? Most probably, an agricultural village society would return. The agrarian society would maintain cutting-edge technology and high productivity even when faced with a worldwide food crisis, resource crisis, and environmental crisis. . . . It seems appropriate to set ourselves the goal of realizing ‘the new Shōwa thirties’ in around 2050. (Asaba 2008: 386) Asaba’s argument is understandable, because it associates a certain sort of discontent with present-day Japan. As will be discussed in detail in subsequent chapters, the present study also contends that Shōwa nostalgia embodies deep criticism of post-war society in Japan. Nevertheless, some points of Asaba’s argument appear unreasonable. First of all, his argument that the Shōwa thirties were characterized by cooperative socialism is dubious. This era did not necessarily have a smoothly running agricultural village society; the concentration of population in urban areas led to severe depopulation in the rural areas. Nevertheless, Asaba presupposes a pastoral society, and regards nostalgic media as evincing the actual realities of that time. It is self-evident to Asaba that these media representations accurately reflect previous realities. However, it appears that he merely exploits Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products for the sake of disseminating his ideas about a cooperative social system, particularly because his arguments are not supported by a detailed analysis of these media products. It is easily possible for the nostalgic media industry’s commercialism to take advantage of Asaba’s uncritical praise of the Shōwa thirties and his blind acceptance of these nostalgic media and cultural products. Although Asaba’s definition of a ‘principle of the Shōwa thirties’ may be a somewhat extreme case, there is a general, widely shared admiration of the Shōwa thirties, and a belief that nostalgic media self-evidently praise that time. Terao Kumiko is one of the few academics conducting a detailed content-based analysis of Shōwa nostalgic media. Terao states that her research is motivated by her exploration of the present-day social conditions in Japan: ‘[I]n the present day,

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the past in itself does not exist but appears only in the reconstructed representations in various forms. The reconstruction [of the past in nostalgic media] reflects social relationships, values, and interests of the present day’ (Terao 2007: 158). Terao conducts a quantitative analysis of a vast number of newspaper articles on the Shōwa thirties published between 1985 and 2005. According to Terao, although there has been no change in the total number of newspaper articles referring to the Shōwa thirties in these two decades, the ratio of articles discussing ‘private issues’ to those addressing ‘public issues’ has increased considerably (Terao 2007: 171). In other words, Terao’s quantitative analysis reveals that there has been a marked increase in the number of articles referring to people’s daily lives and their consciousness at that time, along with a corresponding decrease in the number of articles dealing with public issues such as politics and the economy. Terao’s findings are important and pertinent to the present study; nevertheless, it is regrettable that she does not carry out any further research based on this quantitative analysis. For example, we do not know why the ratio of private issues to public issues in newspaper articles has changed, or what it actually means, because Terao does not perform further quantitative or qualitative analysis of the data in an additional study. Nevertheless, in the conclusion of her essay, Terao ‘conjectures’ (Terao 2007: 173) as to why the newspapers are tending to increase their coverage of the private lives of people in the Shōwa thirties. It can be argued that the current free-floating anxiety, severe economic climate, and uncertain social circumstances make contemporary people yearn for the Shōwa thirties as the people at that time were able to anticipate the constant economic growth and [hold on to] their dreams even if they were poor. In addition, the poor interpersonal relations in the present day may lead to a longing for the Shōwa thirties as an age of deep humanity. At any rate, [in the newspaper articles] we can find a ‘stereotypically nostalgic narrative’, which overlooks the problems and contradictions at that time and depicts this age positively in order to provide comfort. In other words, Shōwa nostalgic media have achieved enormous popularity not least because they focus on the ‘private lives’, which could give people pleasure and comfort. (Terao 2007: 174) It is ironic that Terao’s conclusion, which is derived from her speculations, simply reiterates other arguments presupposing that representations in the Shōwa nostalgic media yearn for the Shōwa thirties ‘as an age of deep humanity’. It is unclear as to why she does not conduct further research on the data, using either the quantitative or the qualitative approach, despite making a valuable discovery in regard to the changing ratio of articles addressing private issues and those addressing public issues. Her explanation that ‘they focus on the “private lives”, which could give people pleasure and comfort’ suggests that she does not think further investigation is necessary, probably because she never doubts the prevailing belief that the Shōwa thirties were a favourable period of time, during which people’s private lives were full of happiness. In fact, Terao may be under

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the impression that the quantitative results of her study have confirmed this common belief. As will be shown in later chapters of this book, films and television programmes that portray themes of Shōwa nostalgia often illuminate the private issues of that period. However, it may be too simplistic to suppose that this adherence to private issues reflects a simple yearning for that time. It was probably necessary for Terao to explore the question carefully of why the newspaper articles preferred private issues to public issues when portraying nostalgia, before forming opinions on the matter. In this case, the stereotype is not in the newspaper articles but is contained in her speculations, as such, because the repeated representations of the private sphere in Shōwa nostalgic media are not simply pleasant reminiscences of that period but rather are a form of criticism of postwar society, as will be clarified by later chapters of this study. Another media scholar, Asaoka Takahiro, is one of the most enthusiastic academics carrying out an empirical analysis of Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products. Asaoka’s subject of research includes museum exhibitions of Shōwa cultural and consumer goods, special events at department stores that commemorate that time, and current publications focusing on the Shōwa thirties (Asaoka 2004, 2005, 2010). Asaoka’s approach is primarily based on conducting extensive interviews with the producers, curators, and editors of these exhibitions and publications, as well as audience studies (analyzing questionnaires filled out by exhibition visitors). Based on his interviews with the producers, Asaoka identifies three major factors that have enhanced the enormous popularity of Shōwa nostalgic cultural products. First, people from the baby-boomer generation, according to Asaoka, have begun to feel ‘nostalgia for their experiences of their childhood’ (Asaoka 2005: 42). This observation offers nothing new. Second, Asaoka opines that the producers and editors have rediscovered the value of the Shōwa thirties culture because it has commercial value and attracts numerous people. According to Asaoka, these producers are extraordinarily enthusiastic about collecting and preserving this culture and enlightening the general public about it because they ‘find a particular meaning in doing them. These producers actually burn with a sense of “mission” ’ (Asaoka 2005: 43). However, Asaoka does not explain why these producers are so endowed with this ‘sense of mission’. For Asaoka, the excellence of the Shōwa thirties may be self-evident, as this feeling is widely shared. Third, it is quite easy for the producers and curators to ‘exhibit symbolic objects which involve rich and positive images of the Shōwa thirties’ (Asaoka 2005: 43), because furniture and electric appliances from that time are readily available for exhibition displays, while goods from the Meiji period (1868–1912) and the pre-war era are not. Nevertheless, I believe that it is essential to carefully assess whether these producers actually display goods from the Shōwa thirties merely for such physical reasons. Although they employ quantitative analyses and interview approaches, Asaoka and Terao offer predictable arguments. This may, to some extent, reflect their lack of having conducted detailed qualitative analyses of nostalgic media and cultural products. It is not clear why neither of them has conducted further research, particularly using thorough qualitative analysis. They may simply have accepted

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the premise that cultural products express admiration for the time they depict. However, it is hard to deny that, like the media industry, both Asaoka and Terao have inadvertently participated in reinforcing the myth that nostalgia is merely sweet and harmless. In all events, it is necessary to note the extent to which Japanese media scholars share the preconceived notion that nostalgia-evoking media and cultural products show high regard for the Shōwa thirties. Surprisingly, certain intellectuals who claim that this time was not as good as others believe it was, also share this presupposition. Fuse Katsuhiko is one of the very few intellectuals who views this era in a negative light. After analyzing vast numbers of Asahi Shimbun newspaper articles from the thirty-third year of Shōwa (1958), Fuse concludes that that time was a most distressing period, even though it is currently in the spotlight for numerous people and media (Fuse 2006, 2008). According to Fuse, presentday representations embellish descriptions of life at that time, when the future was actually very uncertain, and vast numbers of people suffered due to poverty. Hence, Fuse argues that it is incorrect to idealize that time. Newspaper articles at that time were full of anxiety and a sense of despair. The words of the leaders in various fields were deeply pessimistic. There were no arguments for the advent of the high-economic-growth era. In short, that time seemed very much like the present day in Japan. The present time is also believed to be riddled with uncertainty and uneasiness. Contemporary Japan faces an aging population combined with a dwindling birth rate, the collapse of the current pension system, an increasing number of youths with pent-up discontent, widening economic disparities, and an increase in crime. . . . Do you really want to go back to that time? Do you want to return to the developing age by abandoning the affluence, convenience, and comforts that have been acquired in the present-day mature society? In fact, Japan at present is much more comfortable to live in than [it was at] that time. There are no past ages that never felt uneasy about the future. . . . Nobody should stop you from yearning for that time. However, it is wrong to view the present situation in a negative light while you admire that time. It goes without saying that the present day is better than that time. (Fuse 2008: 15) Thus, Fuse, whose argument is considerably different from the arguments made by other intellectuals, suggests that living conditions in the Shōwa thirties may have been less favourable than those in the present day. Fuse, however, believes that media and cultural products that promote a sense of Shōwa nostalgia glorify that time, despite the certainty that that time was worse than the present day. Fuse’s cautionary remarks are basically rooted in his recognition that nostalgic media and cultural products, as well as contemporary intellectuals, express admiration for that time period. His interpretation of nostalgic media is similar to the interpretations of the other intellectuals discussed in this section, although his perception is contrary to theirs. In the essay cited above, Fuse discusses the film

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Always: Sunset on Third Street and remarks, ‘[I]t is possible to enjoy glamorized memories only in a film screen frame’ (Fuse 2008: 15), because, according to Fuse, the reality is entirely different. Consequently, Fuse criticizes intellectuals’ dominant discourse as well as nostalgic media and cultural products, because both glorify the Shōwa thirties. This complicates the situation, because most intellectuals seem to believe that these nostalgic cultural products self-evidently express admiration for that time. However, based on the arguments of Carr, Collingwood, and Bloch, a historical narrative is subjectively reconstructed in the interests of the people in the present. The notion that representations of Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products can be identified with the past reality is fallacious, because these products do not necessarily represent the past – rather, they reflect the present. As will be discussed in the following section, some post-war war-retrospective films even romanticize the disastrous experiences associated with the Second World War for the sake of nation building. Therefore, romanticizing the past is not always limited to depictions of the ‘good old days’. There are a variety of possible reasons that could explain why these nostalgic media adhere to the late Shōwa period. Indeed, as is widely assumed, these cultural products may reflect an admiration for that time period. However, the existing literature has yet to fully explore the different possibilities underlying these nostalgic representations. I believe it is well worth examining whether or not this prevailing notion is true; the accumulation of memory studies has clarified that memories are subjectively reconstructed by cultural producers, and representations of specific events in the past change over time. In addition, as discussed in the previous section, some academics argue that it is more appropriate to use the words ‘remembering’ and ‘commemorating’ than ‘memory’ in this context, because active processes have become more important with the development of modernity. As part of this process, this study will also have to examine what is being commemorated by the media products promoting the sense of Shōwa nostalgia, and why. It may be easy to conclude that most Japanese living today, suffering from the recession and depressed by numerous social contradictions, seek a hint of resolution to their problems in their past experiences and memories. The media and cultural products that play on the themes of Shōwa nostalgia may reflect their current plight. This study will employ empirical analysis to examine these social contradictions and people’s circumstances. A key outcome of this analysis will be to substantiate why these products are associated with a specific period, such as the Shōwa thirties, and to examine how they depict the era by evaluating tangible data. Neither of these issues has been approached empirically; the latter aspect, particularly, remains almost entirely unresolved. This study, based on an understanding of relevant field and memory studies, attaches great importance to a detailed, content-based analysis of films and television programmes, because of the various representational means available to them when depicting the past. Memories, according to Hodgkin and Radstone, are always in conflict over meanings as ‘the past is not fixed, but is subject to change: both narratives of events and the meanings given to them are in a

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constant state of transformation’ (Hodgkin and Radstone 2006: 23). Memories of the recent past first acquire particular meanings, or even new meanings, when they are represented in the media, because ‘museums, films, and other such media are places not only for memory but [also for] intervention’ (Hodgkin and Radstone 2006: 174). Therefore, it is quite possible that the process of producing Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products adds non-stereotypical, unknown, or new meanings to the past. Furthermore, there is also the possibility that these nostalgic representations exhibit a ‘historical emotion’ that threatens the progress of modernity. No one can claim that it is self-evident that these products merely display a yearning for the Shōwa thirties. Hodgkin and Radstone, repeatedly emphasizing contests over the meaning of the past, argue that the manner in which the media represent the past has become more important than what actually happened in the past. Our understanding of the past has strategic, political, and ethical consequences. Contests over the meaning of the past are also contests over the meaning of the present and over ways of taking the past forward. . . . The focus of contestation, then, is very often not conflicting accounts of what actually happened in the past so much as the question of who or what is entitled to speak for that past in the present. The attempt to resolve meaning in the present is thus often a matter of conflicts over representation: where a memorial should be sited, what artefacts a museum should include, whose views should be sought in television interviews. In these debates the content is often over how truth can best be conveyed, rather than what actually happened. (Hodgkin and Radstone 2006: 1) Thus, there may be rather fierce contests over the meanings of the past when the past is depicted in media products, and even more so in the products that focus on the ‘recent’ past, because most media and cultural producers have personal images of that time, reflecting their individual life courses thus far. As discussed in this section, most intellectuals believe that it is self-evident that the Shōwa thirties were Japan’s heyday, although it must be noted that these intellectuals belong to the Japanese elite, mostly hailing from Tokyo and other urban areas. In other words, they may have been liberally raised, in privileged families, in urban areas in the Shōwa thirties. On the other hand, the families and educational backgrounds of the media and popular culture producers who create the Shōwa nostalgic cultural products may be different from those of the intellectuals. In fact, the backgrounds of the creators of these products are very diverse. For example, Yamazaki Takashi, who directed Always: Sunset on Third Street and its sequel, set in the Tokyo of the late 1950s, was born in 1964 and spent his childhood in Nagano, coming to Tokyo only after he graduated from high school. Yamazaki states that he was not really familiar with the Shōwa thirties and Tokyo of that time (Odagiri 2008: 16). Sang-il Lee, director of the 2006 blockbuster film Hula Girls, is Korean-Japanese; he was born in 1974 and

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grew up in Yokohama. Urasawa Naoki, a prestigious manga artist best known for his manga Twentieth Century Boys and its film adaptation, states that he abhors the social trend of yearning for the Shōwa thirties, and that his motivation for drawing Twentieth Century Boys was to resist the social climate, even though his manga is widely accepted as a representative Shōwa nostalgic-media product (Mori 2008: 24). At this point, it is important to note the possibility that contests over the meanings of the past may involve not only a yearning for the past, but also a kind of criticism of past events or experiences. Collingwood’s concepts are relevant, in that he argues that the past is ‘re-enacted’ by the historian in his own mind, and that this ‘re-enactment’ is closely related to criticism of the past (Collingwood 1946). While Collingwood’s argument has some points in common with Carr’s – for instance, both maintain the subjectivity of the historical narrative – the former particularly stresses that the process of writing historical narratives involves critical thinking. The history of thought, and therefore all history, is the re-enactment of past thought in the historian’s own mind. This re-enactment is only accomplished, in the case of Plato and Caesar respectively, so far as the historian brings to bear on the problem all the powers of his own mind and all his knowledge of philosophy and politics. It is not a passive surrender to the spell of another’s mind; it is a labour of active and therefore critical thinking. The historian not only re-enacts past thought, he re-enacts it in the context of his own knowledge and therefore, in re-enacting it, criticizes it, forms his own judgement of its value, corrects whatever errors he can discern in it. This criticism of the thought whose history he traces is not something secondary to tracing the history of it. It is an indispensable condition of the historical knowledge itself. Nothing could be a completer error concerning the history of thought than to suppose that the historian as such merely ascertains ‘what so-and-so thought’, leaving it to someone else to decide ‘whether it was true’. All thinking is critical thinking; the thought which re-enacts past thoughts, therefore, criticizes them in re-enacting them. (Collingwood 1946: 215–216) From a considerably different point of view, Hayden White, a historian in the tradition of literary criticism, argues that a narrative, as a form, is a ‘metacode, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted’ (White 1981: 2). After investigating the development of historical narratives from medieval times, White states that all historical narratives provide an ethical solution of the past events. If every fully realized story, however we define that familiar but conceptually elusive entity, is a kind of allegory, points to a moral, or endows events, whether real or imaginary, with a significance that they do not possess as a mere sequence, then it seems possible to conclude that every historical

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Background narrative has as its latent or manifest purpose the desire to moralize the events of which it treats. Where there is ambiguity or ambivalence regarding the status of the legal system, which is the form in which the subject encounters most immediately the social system in which he is enjoined to achieve a full humanity, the ground on which any closure of a story one might wish to tell about a past, whether it be a public or a private past, is lacking. And this suggests that narrativity, certainly in factual storytelling and probably in fictional storytelling as well, is intimately related to, if not a function of, the impulse to moralize reality, that is, to identify it with the social system that is the source of any morality that we can imagine. (White 1981: 13–14)

It is understood that the moralization of past events cannot be accomplished without a deeply critical interpretation of those events. Hence, we cannot dismiss the possibility that Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products involve some criticism of the Shōwa thirties, even if a positive image of that time is often presented by contemporary intellectuals. In this study, it is necessary to discuss Shōwa nostalgia from the macro perspective of modernity, because these critical aspects, which are found in a historical narrative, as maintained by Collingwood and White, are closely related to the problems of modernity. Furthermore, as I have mentioned earlier, we must not overlook the fact that nostalgia can also be seen as a ‘public threat that reveal[s] the contradictions of modernity and acquire[s] a greater political importance’ (Boym 2001: 5). Most of the drawbacks of the previous studies on Shōwa nostalgia appear to stem from the absence of a macro perspective. According to Huyssen, the current revival of memory has double-barrelled meanings; like Nora, he thinks that contemporary society is obsessed with memory, even though it is ‘terminally ill with amnesia’ (Huyssen 1995: 1) at the same time. This contradictory situation may not be irrelevant to the fact that while modernists at the beginning of the twentieth century ‘defined themselves by disavowing nostalgia for the past, at the end of the twentieth century reflection on nostalgia might bring us to redefine critical modernity and its temporal ambivalence and cultural contradictions’ (Boym 2001: 31). Since the early 1970s, according to Huyssen, there has been a re-evaluation and resurgence of memory, as people not only wish to escape from modernity’s faith in progress, but are also critical of informational hyperspace in a postmodern world (Huyssen 1995). Indeed, I would argue that our obsessions with memory function as a reaction formation against the accelerating technical processes that are transforming our Lebenswelt (lifeworld) [sic] in quite distinct ways. Memory is no longer primarily a vital and energizing antidote to capitalist reification via the commodity form, a rejection of the iron cage homogeneity of an earlier culture industry and its consumer markets. It rather represents the attempt to slow down information processing, to resist the dissolution of time in the synchronicity of the archive, to recover a mode of contemplation outside

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the universe of simulation and fast-speed information and cable networks, to claim some anchoring space in a world of puzzling and often threatening heterogeneity, non-synchronicity, and information overload. (Huyssen 1995: 7) Huyssen’s views, in addition to those of Nora, Giddens, and Boym, have inspired me to approach Shōwa nostalgia using modernity as a theoretical framework. Huyssen attaches particular importance to the role of contemporary museums, by stating that the residues of ancestral cultures and local traditions that are displayed in museums can resist the accelerated speed of modernization (Huyssen 1995: 28). In this manner, heritage sites and media representations become truly significant as memory devices, to remember and commemorate the past. It is worth noting that 95 per cent of the world’s museums were established after the end of the Second World War (Lowenthal 1994: 3–8). On the contrary, Radstone argues that ‘Huyssen’s account of memory as an alternative utopia to modernity’s dominant discourses is also open to challenge’ (Radstone 2000: 4). For Radstone, modernity inherently involves contradiction, ambivalence, and catastrophe, rather than the rationality and progress described by Huyssen (Radstone 2000: 4). In place of stressing modern memory’s utopian challenge to modernity’s objectivity and reason, I have offered pointers to an alternative account that might complexify that monochrome conception of modernity while positing an ambivalent valuation of memory in nineteenth-century culture. What I am suggesting, in short, is that we might understand modern memory as neither modernity’s utopian nor its feared other, but rather as the site within which modernity’s equivocations found their most pressing expression. (Radstone 2000: 5) Thus, the concepts of modernity posited by Huyssen and Radstone, respectively, are quite different from each other. However, it is their commonalities, not their differences, that are crucial for the present study; both argue that modernity is a key concept closely related to memory and the heightened interest in it. Furthermore, Huyssen emphasizes the need for accurately understanding what museum displays actually mean: ‘What needs to be captured and theorized today is precisely the ways in which museum and exhibition culture in the broadest sense provides a terrain that can offer multiple narratives of meaning at a time when the metanarratives of modernity, including those inscribed into the universal survey museum itself, have lost their persuasiveness’ (Huyssen 1995: 34). Hence, I would argue that it is vital to conduct a detailed analysis of these nostalgic products, without entertaining any preconceived notions about them. The two world wars in the twentieth century, particularly the Second World War, have had an enormous impact on memory research in both Western countries and Japan. According to Radstone, the two world wars underlie the crisis of memory in the nineteenth century and the memory boom in the late twentieth

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century (Radstone 2000). Radstone attributes the re-evaluation of memory to the Holocaust, which created a decisive discontinuity of history, while also transforming the meaning of memory, because ‘this long-drawn-out terror [the Holocaust] has been sited at the far edge of the contemporary memory boom, emphasizing memory’s relation not to history, community, tradition, the past, reflection, and authenticity, but to fantasy, subjectivity, invention, the present, representation, and fabrication’ (Radstone 2000: 6). Without doubt, memories of the Second World War and the Holocaust are crucial, and, in practice, works dealing with memories of the Holocaust and traumas related to the war account for much of the major research concerned with memory studies. No one can deny that these memories are incomparable and crucial, not only for the people concerned, but also for all human beings. However, the role of recent memories would be overlooked if memory research only focused on old memories. The problems of the Second World War have cast a dark shadow on Japanese post-war society. Ironically, it appears that the weaknesses of previous studies of Shōwa nostalgia stem partially from the special or even ‘privileged’ position accorded to war memories by post-war Japanese intellectuals. Asaoka, for instance, criticizes the popularity of these cultural products on the grounds that the nostalgic longing for the Shōwa thirties makes people forget the tragic memories of the Second World War. In the conclusion of his research paper, Asaoka cautions his readers against the dangerous nature of the ongoing nostalgic boom; in his view, since media and cultural producers stereotypically beautify the Shōwa thirties, while overlooking the tragic memories of the Second World War, this may push the ‘real’ history of the Shōwa period (1926–1989) into oblivion. In the present age of uncertainty about the future, the Shōwa thirties are accepted as a resource providing a mythified narrative image. In short, this particular age is smuggled (mitsu yunyū) into the current media narratives concerned with Shōwa while other inconvenient ages are excluded. . . . That the Shōwa times were the ‘good old days’ has certainly become a dominant idea, involving a particularly positive image although they included the exceptionally dark pre-war and war-time periods. Such biased conception may be quite common. As far as the problem of historical awareness is concerned, it is possible to prove that a particular focus on certain facts eliminates others. Therefore, we cannot deny that even the grim reality of the Pacific War, which erupted in the Shōwa period, may be easily overlooked when people reminisce about the Shōwa era. It is likely that the cruel lessons of the war further fade with the passage of time as the stronger images that surpass the war reality and attract people are emphasized [by the media producers]. . . . It is understandable to a degree that the popularity of the Shōwa thirties has risen in an age that is stalled with no way out. On the other hand, it is necessary to pay continuous attention to the discourses that may lead to the oblivion of history and falsification of historical perception. (Asaoka 2010: 38–39)

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As stated above, it is true that historical narratives often select and exclude certain facts about the past. As mentioned in the previous sections, history is basically created by people in the present day, to satisfy their present interests. It is, however, important to determine whether there are any direct relationships between the stress on the Shōwa thirties and attempts to forget the war, as Asaoka argues. It requires a drastic logical leap to state that the popularity of cultural products focusing on the Shōwa thirties has brought about the ‘oblivion of history and falsification of historical perception’, especially since Asaoka does not demonstrate this cause-and-effect relationship with supporting analysis. A detailed, content-based analysis using the qualitative approach to examine what is selected or excluded by the producers would clarify whether or not these cultural products really express admiration for the Shōwa thirties. Without a thorough investigation, Asaoka’s discursive argument appears unreasonable, in terms of associating these cultural products with the ‘falsification of historical perception’. Although his argument may be seen as a kind of overreaction, it is also true that there is a deep-seated belief among Japanese intellectuals, whenever they attempt to discuss post-war history, that their discussion should begin by giving top priority to the memories and experiences associated with the war. The war has certainly occupied a very special position in the Japanese academic sphere, and war memories are commonly taken into consideration when conducting memory research. Therefore, there are some specific and complicated elements in the Japanese consciousness with regard to the problems of memory, and it appears necessary for this study to review the manner in which post-war Japanese intellectuals have discussed the war and the recent past. The following sections briefly outline their major arguments.

Dilemmas and after-effects of war memories There are several reasons that the heightened interest in Shōwa nostalgia has not been fully investigated and, in fact, has often been misunderstood by Japanese intellectuals. As discussed in the previous section, this situation is partially due to their attitude to the Second World War. The experiences of the war appear to have prompted a ‘silent assumption’ among these intellectuals that they should regard the war as the default starting point for their arguments with regard to post-war society. This attitude might have prompted them to pay less attention to the specific problems of the recent past, such as the Shōwa thirties. The previous section discussed how most intellectuals assume that the Shōwa thirties were the heyday for the Japanese. This belief may have stemmed from a simple comparison of the wartime and post-war eras. However, is it not to be expected that the postwar period will be better than the exceptionally horrific wartime period? Japanese intellectuals commonly construct their narratives on the premise that the Second World War and its end was the starting point of contemporary Japan. This common assumption unifies the underlying discrepancies and conflicting points in these narratives, even when the arguments are completely unsupported, not least of all because they commonly presuppose that all social contradictions in

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contemporary Japan are a result of the war. Regarding the end of the war as the common starting point for the history of contemporary Japan ironically reduces the Japanese to an ahistorical existence, by eliminating their past and their history before the war. It appears that problems in these intellectuals’ narratives are related to nationalistic issues, since nationalism is used to suture the social conflicts and contradictions of contemporary Japan together. Michael Billig is unique in his delineation of the routine characteristics of nationalism; his argument, critical of classical theories in this field, does not deal with the nationalism of ‘others’, but instead highlights its place in ‘our’ contemporary daily lives. Billig severely criticizes established theories, because they tend to restrict nationalism to ‘exotic and passionate exemplars’ (Billig 1995: 8), and, as a result, ‘ “our” daily nationalism slips from attention’ (Billig 1995: 8), as if the flags on the filling-station forecourts do not exist (Billig 1995: 44). However, for Billig, this daily nationalism, which he defines as ‘banal nationalism’, is extremely important: There is, however, no readily available term to describe the collection of ideological habits (including habits of practice and belief ) which reproduce established nations as nations. It is as if the term ‘nationalism’ only comes in small sizes and bright colours. . . . For this reason, the term banal nationalism is introduced to cover the ideological habits which enable the established nations of the West to be reproduced. It is argued that these habits are not removed from everyday life, as some observers have supposed. Daily, the nation is indicated, or ‘flagged’, in the lives of its citizenry. Nationalism, far from being an intermittent mood in established nations, is the endemic condition. (Billig 1995: 6) The argument that ‘banal nationalism is introduced to cover the ideological habits which enable the established nations of the West to be reproduced’ is particularly relevant to the present study. In fact, when words such as ‘the end of the war (shūsen)’ and ‘post-war Japan (sengo nihon)’ are ‘flagged’ daily by media coverage and the narratives of intellectuals, they represent a kind of ‘banal nationalism’ in contemporary Japan. What is most significant here is that the banal nationalism that results from the routine use of these words in discussions, among Japanese intellectuals and newspaper correspondents alike, may encourage the myth that all post-war social problems have their roots in the war period; this banal nationalism may transform history into nature, by giving people ‘a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact’ (Barthes 2000: 143). This commonly presupposed starting point is so powerful that it ironically sutures the antagonisms and conflicts embedded in each of these arguments together, even if they are completely contradictory. The Japanese intellectuals’ narratives attempt to fix Japanese identity by severing it from their own long past and history before the Second World War. Even if these narratives are mutually antagonistic, these intellectuals appear to be unaware of the fact that the war’s end figures as the

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common starting for all of their arguments. This fact seems to be associated with their misunderstanding of Shōwa nostalgia, and the representative arguments of the major post-war intellectuals are discussed next. The mainstream discussion of post-war Japan has been shaped by the so-called post-war intellectuals (sengoha chishikijin). These scholars, who were born either before or during the Second World War, have discussed the issue extensively in the context of the post-war recovery, which mainly occurred in the 1950s and 1960s. The most celebrated among these intellectuals are Maruyama Masao, Takeuchi Yoshimi, Etō Jun, and Yoshimoto Takaaki, whose arguments regarding the construction of their ideal post-war Japan have been developed and published in major journals. Oguma argues that the post-war intellectuals’ discourse on post-war Japan is based on ‘a community of the people who share the nightmare of the war’ (Oguma 2002: 795). These scholars have commonly discussed what post-war Japanese society should learn from the experiences of the Second World War, dealing with significant topical issues such as Japan–US security arrangements, and student movements. Their arguments have gained great popularity, particularly among educated people and university students. Oguma suggests that the harmony that was achieved between democracy and patriotism in the 1950s resulted mainly from extensive discourse among the post-war intellectuals and the widespread popularity of the discourse (Oguma 2002). The view of contemporary Japanese society as developed by the post-war intellectuals at that time, however, is somewhat problematic, mainly because their fundamental starting point is always a direct reference to the lessons learnt from the Second World War. Since these scholars belong to the generations born before or during the Second World War, this limits the contents of their arguments. More precisely, according to Oguma, these intellectuals often identify nationalism (the root of all evils) with the war itself, and hence, their arguments tend to be selfquestioning (Oguma 2002). It was common for post-war intellectuals to question their wartime responsibilities, because such self-questioning was believed to be ‘an appropriate post-war response to strengthen the ties of solidarity among people by sharing each other’s pain’ (Oguma 2002: 801). Although the golden age of these intellectuals’ discussions ended with the close of the 1950s, criticisms of the war and reflections on their own insufficient resistance to the war were positions commonly taken by intellectuals immediately after the war. Although this is hardly surprising, it should be noted, because even then there were alternative ways of approaching the post-war era, as will be discussed later. Post-war Japanese society has also been closely linked to Japan’s special relationship with the United States. This is confirmed by the fact that since the 1950s, numerous Japanese governments have accepted the Japan–US security arrangement, despite its controversial nature. Many people – including academic intellectuals and journalists – have also debated the merits of emphasizing the importance of Japan’s relationship with the United States; nevertheless, it is evident that the American presence has had a huge impact on people in post-war Japan. This impact has positioned the United States as a sort of model nation for the Japanese people (Abe 2001: 72–73). According to sociologist Abe Kiyoshi,

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post-war Japanese society attempts to emulate American democracy in its political dimension, American capitalism in its economic dimension, and American liberalism in its cultural dimension (Abe 2001: 72–73). This sensibility led to the rise of a nationalism that was ‘vying with the United States’ and wanted to ‘catch up with the United States and get ahead of the United States’ (Suzuki 2003: 50). ‘Vying with the United States’ was particularly conspicuous between the mid1960s and the end of the 1980s (Suzuki 2003: 48–53). During this period Japan achieved high economic growth and secured its position as the world’s second largest economic giant. Through economic competition with the United States, the Japanese people, who wished to be on an equal footing with the citizens of the United States, felt an increased sense of national unity. After the war, Japanese society maintained a close relationship with the war itself. The post-war intellectuals who had experienced the war came to regard the end of the war as a tipping point for self-searching. At the same time, their sense of nationalism – that resulted from ‘vying with the United States’ – was also based on war experiences, sustained by a keen sense of rivalry with the United States, a country that had been their enemy during the war. The fact that the Japanese remained completely bound by the war experiences even after the war ended may have been due to an inevitable current of history. It should be noted that most current intellectual discussions concerning contemporary Japanese society are still centred on memories of the Second World War. In this regard, there is little difference between the time just after the war and the present day. A typical example of this is the fierce debate between the critic Katō Norihiro and the philosopher Takahashi Tetsuya in the late 1990s. In his (1995) essay A Discussion of the Post-war Period (Haisengoron), which was published by the prestigious monthly magazine The Gunzō, Katō argued that the post-war Japanese have suffered from ‘schizothymia, a Jekyll and Hyde personality’ (Katō 1995: 272) since the war ended, because of their concurrent identities as aggressors and victims of nuclear bombing during the war. Katō suggested that the Japanese should establish a truly integrated identity by resolving this particular contradiction. To create this new national identity, he said, the three million Japanese people who lost their lives on the battlefront should be mourned: ‘It is necessary for us to accept the death in action as meaningless, bow our head to their absurd ends, and develop a particular way to mourn for these dead who died without meaning. It is never too late to do these things’ (Katō 1995: 279). In contrast, Takahashi severely criticized Katō in his book A Discussion of War Responsibility (Sengo sekininron), referring to Katō’s argument as not only nationalistic but also self-deluding and self-centred (Takahashi 1999). Katō’s ideas, according to Takahashi, would merely create a closed mourning community that might lead to a sense of national favouritism, and obscure Japanese responsibilities as they related to the war. Takahashi emphasized that it was unforgivable to establish ‘our Japanese’ national identity before mourning for the Asian victims of the war (Takahashi 1999). Numerous other intellectuals have participated in the heated debate between Katō and Takahashi, and, as a result, it became one of the most intense academic controversies to emerge over the last two decades.

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At first glance, the arguments of both Katō and Takahashi appear to be in opposition. However, with regard to the present study, their commonality is much more important than are their differences. They both argue that the Japanese must establish a new national identity, and, for that purpose, they agree that widespread regret concerning the war is the most significant sentiment among a myriad of other issues. Both Katō and Takahashi believe that only war experiences, and the self-questioning associated with those experiences, can form the basis for a Japanese identity in the twenty-first century. This reasoning is similar to that adopted by intellectuals writing just after the war. This particular attachment of intellectuals to the war may have led certain researchers who were studying Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products to infer that the popularity of these retro products sends war histories and memories into oblivion. A typical example of this is Asaoka’s argument, as mentioned in the earlier sections. However, their criticisms of media and cultural products that play upon themes of Shōwa nostalgia would become irrelevant if these products revealed the shortcomings of that time. Furthermore, the common idea that the Shōwa thirties were the ‘good old days’ is mainly promoted by intellectuals who regard the end of the war as marking the beginning of contemporary Japan. As already mentioned, however, it is to be expected that the post-war era was bound to have been much better than life during the war. As well as considering the end of the war as Japanese society’s starting point, it is common for Japanese intellectuals to develop their arguments by dividing the post-war eras into several periods, each of which is associated with different characteristics. Two leading scholars who typically utilize this type of classification are Ōsawa Masachi and Kitada Akihiro, both celebrated sociologists. With regard to national identity, Ōsawa divides the post-war era into three time periods: the first period, beginning just after the Second World War and ending in the 1960s, is ‘the idealistic age’; the second period, from the 1970s to the 1980s, is ‘the fictional age’ (kyokō); and the third period, from the 1990s to the present, is ‘the age of impossibility’ (Ōsawa 2008). The presence of the United States is significant for this time classification. Ōsawa argues that the ‘ideals’ in ‘the idealistic age’ represent the values that were considered ideal by the Japanese people, who primarily aimed at adopting American values (Ōsawa 2008). However, according to Ōsawa, ‘the idealistic age’ ended in the 1970s, and by then the Japanese people had begun to experience a ‘lack of ideals’; ironically, one reason for this was that most of these ideals had been realized by the 1970s, particularly through the high economic growth that characterized those years. ‘The idealistic age’ was followed by ‘the fictional age’ in the 1970s; for Ōsawa, ‘fiction’, based on a ‘lack of ideals’, represents the artificiality and deception generated by the development of a consumer society. Ōsawa argues that ‘the fictional age’ continued until the mid-1990s; it was then transformed into ‘the age of impossibility’, which Ōsawa characterizes as being an age in which it is difficult for people to experience ‘reality’, because they have lost touch with it (Ōsawa 2008: 165–167). Ōsawa’s explanation may appear complex and somewhat peculiar, but his basic points are widely accepted by contemporary Japanese intellectuals.

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On the other hand, Kitada Akihiro divides post-war Japan into four periods, based on transitions between consumer identities (Kitada 2005). Although his first three periods are similar to those defined by Ōsawa, the fourth period, the present day, is somewhat different. Kitada is of the opinion that present-day Japan is in ‘the age of cynicism based on romanticism’. According to Kitada, since the 1990s, Japanese youth have achieved a kind of integration of their emotional (Kitada uses the word ‘romantic’ [romanchikku], but the word ‘emotional’ appears to represent his intended meaning more clearly) ties and their customary cynicism toward consumption, which has then been transformed into a specific kind of cynicism. This new mental attitude is basically detached and objective, because youth are highly conscious of the fact that they are merely enjoying emotional ties for fun, according to Kitada. He cites the increasing popularity of Internet forums and blogs (web logs) among Japanese youth as typical examples of this phenomenon, and argues that youth are always detached, even when absorbed in reading and writing on these Internet forums and blogs. Admittedly, both Ōsawa and Kitada’s arguments are suggestive. Nevertheless, they appear to be somewhat short-sighted, since they have been developed by regarding the end of the war as the starting point for contemporary Japan. Unfortunately, this makes their arguments too simplistic, relying on only one criterion in their discussion of Japanese identities. For example, the criterion for Ōsawa is ‘the ideal’, while for Kitada it is consumption. Consequently, their arguments do not enable us to associate the post-war realities with pre-war history. In contrast, certain scholars argue that Japanese society has retained continuity in its nation building and national image from pre-war times to the postwar period. The American historian John W. Dower maintains that the essence of Japan’s pre-war model of the nation did not change, not even after the war (Dower 1999). As far as Dower is concerned, the end of the war did not represent a historical discontinuity, but rather a natural continuity with the pre-war period. Although Dower criticizes the myth prevailing among the Japanese that the ‘Yamato spirit’ has never changed, he at the same time denies any discontinuity between the pre-war and post-war periods. In his 1999 book Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, Dower argues that Japan was a distinct nation-state based upon a ‘hybrid Japanese–American model’ from the late 1920s to 1989, when the Shōwa Emperor died, because Japan’s post-war model of the nation had already been defined and prescribed by Japan’s close relationship with the United States during and before the war (Dower 1999: 558). Dower’s national model has much in common with the ‘vying with the United States’ type of nationalism characteristic of the post-war period. In addition, he deals with twentieth-century Japan on the same basis as the period of the Shōwa Emperor’s reign. Nevertheless, Dower’s argument deserves attention, as it demonstrates that Japan’s model of the nation has its roots in the 1920s, and was ‘forged in war’. Furthermore, Dower takes notice of the fact that numerous words used as catchphrases during the post-war nation-building period were originally exploited in war propaganda, and cites examples such as ‘brightness’ (akarusa),

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‘newness’ (atarashisa), ‘culture’ (bunka), ‘cooperate’ (kyōryoku suru), and ‘give your all’ (gambaru). According to him, ‘Language – vague, emotional, evocative discourse of the most formulaic sort – proved to be a bridge on which people could move from the militarist past toward a more peaceful future, while still retaining a sense of familiarity, consistency, even integrity of a sort’ (Dower 1999: 174). These catchphrases ‘were like valises, waiting to be emptied of their old contents and filled with something new’ (Dower 1999: 177). Since Dower, as a historian, empirically discusses twentieth-century Japan in detail, his argument is not necessarily developed from a theoretical perspective using macro concepts such as modernity. However, it deserves attention, because the continuity Dower mentions between Japan’s pre-war and post-war periods appears to be a kind of blind spot for Japanese intellectuals, who commonly base their arguments on their self-doubts with regard to the war. From this, we can surmise that it is not possible to identify the historical continuity between Japan’s pre-war and post-war periods unless we pay particular attention to the ‘banal’ popular culture like these catchphrases. On the other hand, it appears that Japanese post-war intellectuals have concentrated almost all their efforts on serious and rigid aspects such as self-questioning with regard to the war and subsequent Japan–US relations.

The war and the past in films This section briefly discusses how Japanese media and cultural products have depicted the past and its memories since the end of the Second World War. The discussion will focus mainly on films, chiefly because films – particularly those belonging to the war-retrospective genre – tend to have a longer tradition of relevant critical essays and reviews than any other media, although the manner in which these discussions are constructed is rather discursive. First of all, post-war films draw heavily on war experiences and memories, by carefully selecting and revising past events, in order to appeal to post-war audiences. It must be noted that the majority of these films do not necessarily criticize the war in a straightforward manner, but rather attempt to search for some meaning in the war, and occasionally even attempt to justify the experiences of the war. The San Francisco Peace Treaty that was signed in 1951 restored sovereignty to Japan, and, as a result, the censorship of Japanese media by the General Headquarters of the USled occupation was abolished. This sea change prompted Japanese film producers to redefine the war on their own terms. In the words of Yomota Inuhiko, a wellknown film theorist, A stereotypical narrative that considered everything related to the war, which was based on militarism, as evil, was abandoned. Instead, films that look back sentimentally on the war experiences appeared in quick succession. . . . These films were accepted not only as mere works but also as social events. They have commonly observed features that re-identify the Japanese as war victims. . . . Since the logic that only Japanese deaths deserve mourning

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It can be said that the war experiences, which were recognized as crucial reference points in post-war films, were justified and utilized by filmmakers. Few academic studies, however, examine why post-war Japanese films adhere to the ‘beautification’ of the war, or conduct a detailed analysis of the manner in which these films represent the experiences of the war. The arguments of Isolde Standish are exceptional and important in this regard (Standish 2000, 2006). Standish discusses the genealogy of masculinity represented in the Japanese films made immediately after the end of the Second World War until the 1970s. She argues that the kamikaze films of the 1950s, which depict kamikaze pilots from the Second World War, represent kamikaze as a significant symbol for revitalizing post-war Japanese society (Standish 2000). She analyzes mainstream kamikaze films such as Beyond the Clouds (Kumo nagaruru hateni) (1953) and The Sacrifice of the Human Torpedoes (Ningen gyorai kaiten) (1955) in detail, and concludes that these films best exemplify the manner in which Japanese kamikaze films attempt to redefine Japan’s defeat, while using the kamikaze as symbols of ‘the spirit of post-war regeneration’ (Standish 2000: 94). According to Standish, who focuses on the changing characteristics of kokutai – a Japanese concept pertaining to the structure of the state – these two films can be viewed as ‘a nexus where wartime ideologies of the kokutai are renegotiated and emerge as their postwar variant nihonjinron [discussion of Japanese identity]’ (Standish 2000: 95). According to Standish (2000), the war-retrospective films exploit the male solidarity evident in the wartime era, with the objective of criticizing post-war Japan’s Westernization (p. 117). It is ironic that cruel suicide attacks conducted during the war are sometimes romanticized by filmmakers as a means of criticizing the prosperous post-war years. In addition, according to Standish, Japan’s responsibility for the war has been glossed over by film producers, whose depiction of ‘tragic heroes’ in warretrospective films seemed largely to represent the Japanese people’s justifications for the war. These films offered spectators both an avenue of exculpation from a foreignimposed sense of guilt and, relatedly, formed part of a discourse which developed as a backlash against the criminalization of Japan through her wartime leaders. . . . [I]t is my conclusion that mainstream war-retro films, cast within the ‘tragic hero’ narrative form, recount the past and, in so doing, re-position the spectator for the future. (Standish 2000: 193–194) Thus, it can be stated that certain popular Japanese genre films in the post-war period beautify and utilize memories of the Second World War to revitalize postwar Japanese society. This media agenda is important for the purpose of this

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study, because it serves as a precedent, in the sense that certain war-retrospective Japanese films exploit both the recent past and memory. Although Satō Tadao, like Standish, acknowledges that post-war films emphasize Japanese male camaraderie, he is more critical of mainstream Japanese films. Satō (1970) discusses the problems of major film directors’ ideological reversals (tenkō), noting that many pre-war film directors who made propaganda films during the war instigated the remarkable development of the ‘democratic film’ (minshushugi eiga) following the war. In fact, many eminent directors such as Kurosawa Akira, Kinoshita Keisuke, and Imai Tadashi made a large number of propaganda films during the war period, before they directed acclaimed films in the post-war period. These films have been praised by both critics and audiences for espousing democracy and freedom, while censuring the cruelties that occurred during the war and the contradictory elements inherent in the war. However, it is worth noting that Satō criticizes most of Kurosawa’s, Kinoshita’s, and Imai’s films, arguing that their representations are often stereotypical and their criticisms of the war are too soft; he does, however, rate certain ‘exceptional’ films highly, such as Kurosawa’s 1955 film titled I Live in Fear (Ikimono no kiroku), Kinoshita’s 1953 film titled A Japanese Tragedy (Nihon no higeki), and Imai’s 1958 film titled Hand Drum in the Night (Yoru no tsuzumi). According to Satō, it is surprising that both their propaganda and post-war films commonly emphasize the ‘beautiful ties of solidarity among people’, even though the films’ premises are totally different: the former arouse warlike sentiments, while the latter express admiration for precious peace. While these directors made fairly good propaganda films, they were also able to make fine democratic films after the war. It appears that there was a core to their thoughts that did not change between wartime and the post-war period. This core is probably a trust in a solidarity based on communities. These talented directors did not intend to make cheap propaganda films that simply inflame people with animosity toward enemy countries, but rather aimed to beautifully portray comradeship in battlefield and family bonds. . . . In this regard, their post-war films have much in common with the pre-war films. These shed light on people suffering due to social ills, bearing their pain by helping, encouraging, and loving each other. This observation applies to Morning for the Ōsone Family (Ōsone ke no ashita), One Wonderful Sunday (Subarashiki nichiyōbi), and Until We Meet Again (Mata auhi made). To put it in the strongest terms, the anti-war films are basically the same as the wartime propaganda films; these films merely changed setting, from the route to victory to the age of defeat. (Satō 1970: 259–260) Satō’s argument corresponds to Dower’s observation that numerous words used as catchphrases for post-war nation building were first exploited in wartime propaganda.

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Although Satō’s criticisms of the representative ‘democratic films’ may be rather extreme, other intellectuals express similar opinions. According to Fukuma Yoshiaki (2006), two representative 1950s anti-war films – Kinoshita Keisuke’s Twenty-Four Eyes (Nijū-shi no hitomi) (1954) and Ichikawa Kon’s The Burmese Harp (Biruma no tategoto) (1956) – almost entirely ignored the actual cruelties of the war, which included atrocious behaviour by Japanese soldiers and a massive number of Asian victims. Positive images of the war-era Japanese people in these films gave post-war audiences a certain comfort, and elevated these films to the status of national cinemas at that time (Fukuma 2006). Fukuma criticizes TwentyFour Eyes, which depicts the wartime lives of a young female elementary school teacher and her twelve students in the provinces, as follows: One of the reasons why Twenty-Four Eyes gained such popularity is that this was a story of ‘the home front’. It is natural that an anti-war film about ‘the home front’ emphasizes ‘we as victims’ and ‘we who suffer from the horror of the war’, not ‘we who threaten other countries’. . . . This was a closed and comfortable space where people could feel a sense of belonging without the necessity of remembering the reprehensible past. In this space, they were able to reconstruct their identities that had lost legitimacy because of the defeat in the war. Since the occupying country [the United States] gave Japan ‘peace’ as well as ‘independence’, Japan desperately tried to maintain them. Neither in-depth investigation of the past nor a reconsideration of the relationship was required by Japanese people in those days. There was an autistic nationalism that merely satisfied an ‘ego that never wants to be exposed to the tribulations of war again’. (Fukuma 2006: 48–49) The ‘autistic nationalism’ and ‘victim-consciousness’ represented in the antiwar films have varied over time (Fukuma 2006). During the high economic growth period of the 1960s, it was common for filmmakers to portray aggressive nationalism rather than ‘autistic nationalism’ in their popular anti-war films. On the other hand, films in the 1980s represented particular social contradictions that stemmed from the setback of Western-style industrialization and economic evolution in Japan. Fukuma cites Ichikawa’s 1985 film, The Burmese Harp, a remake of his original 1956 film, as a typical example of these films. Although the original 1956 film paid little attention to the Burmese because of their ‘backwardness’, the 1985 remake emphasized their Buddhist spirituality, and projected them as providing admirable alternatives to Western values. This remake became much more popular than the original film, because its exotic spirituality appealed to audiences who interpreted it as a criticism of a Western civilization typified by materialism and industrialization (Fukuma 2006). Furthermore, other popular anti-war films and their remakes, such as Listen to the Voices from the Sea (Kike wadatsumi no koe) (1950 and 1995), Children of Hiroshima (Genbaku no ko) (1952), Black Rain (Kuroi ame) (1989), and Himeyuri Lily Tower (Himeyuri no tō) (1953, 1968,

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1982, and 1995), also directly reflect the political agendas and public opinions of these agendas at that time (Fukuma 2006). War memories and experiences are vital elements of both post-war academic discourse and popular culture such as that portrayed in films. However, Japanese films tend not to reflect mainstream academic discourse. Filmmakers have often used the war not to focus criticism, but as a subject to be romanticized, for the sake of justifying the war, while engendering post-war nationalism. Although the symbolic content of anti-war films and its acceptance may vary over time, what is most important to note here is that every anti-war film reflects the public opinions and sentiments of the period in which it was made. In other words, the film producers of each period exploited the theme of war to resolve the specific social contradictions of their times. Of significance is that the war was sometimes used to criticize post-war society. As discussed earlier, kamikaze films glorified the camaraderie of Japanese soldiers in order to criticize post-war individualism and materialism. Meanwhile, the 1985 version of The Burmese Harp achieved box office success because it censured Western-style Japanese post-war prosperity, particularly by emphasizing Buddhist spirituality as the antithesis of Western civilization. It is paradoxical, however, that what is criticized in these anti-war films is not the war, but post-war society. The war itself is romanticized as an ideal situation in which young soldiers forged deep friendships with fellow soldiers or the local Burmese, while the actual calamity associated with the war is excluded, to some extent, from these films. This paradox is particularly noteworthy for this study, because it encourages researchers studying Shōwa nostalgia to discard preconceived notions and carefully examine what the nostalgic media and cultural products actually signify. There is even a possibility that representations in these retro cultural products may involve some criticisms of the Shōwa thirties and the present day, and/or at the same time show a yearning for something quite different. With regard to the relationship between the media and the Japanese past, it is also necessary to discuss the manner in which the media represent pre-war periods. Here, it is worthwhile discussing the popular genre of jidaigeki (period dramas) that focuses mainly on the Edo period (1603–1868) in films, television, and theatre. In the late 1980s, Brian Moeran examined why jidaigeki, which he claims are based on Confucian virtues, achieved great popularity in post-war television dramas and films, despite the ‘disastrous consequences of Confucianism’s alliance with Shinto nationalism in the 1930s’ (Moeran 1989: 154). According to Moeran, jidaigeki’s popularity can be attributed to Japanese resistance to Westernization and modern industrialization. He posits that ‘just as in Tokugawa times Confucian ethics tried to deal with the role of the individual in Japanese society, so now they are used to combat what is seen to be the purely negative ideal of Western individualism’ (Moeran 1989: 154). Moeran’s argument is interesting because jidaigeki have certain aspects in common with war-retrospective films, in the sense that both exploit the past in order to censure the present. This argument is understandable, although his discussion, written at the end of the

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1980s, is limited only to jidaigeki produced from the end of the Second World War to the 1980s. It must be noted, however, that the targets of the current Shōwa retro films are not necessarily the distant past, such as the Edo period (1603–1868), but rather the recent past some forty years ago. It is believed that the unprecedented economic growth of Japan in the 1960s and 1970s was supported by the solidarity of Japanese office workers, which is partially related to Confucian values, particularly that of harmony. On the other hand, as was discussed earlier, the Japanese in those days considered the United States their role model, and their aim was to ‘catch up with the United States and get ahead of the United States’. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that current nostalgia-evoking Japanese films do not necessarily depict a simple longing for a ‘pure’ Japan threatened by the negative aspects of Westernization, but a yearning for certain values that are different from Western ones. Other literature also acknowledged the existence of this yearning for a premodern, non-Westernized Japan. Millie Creighton examines the increasing trend of taking journeys into the countryside in the 1990s, and argues that this trend is actually supported by Japanese nostalgia for pre-modern Japan during the era of non-industrialization, prior to the arrival of Western influences (Creighton 1997). Creighton emphasizes that Japanese people are obsessed with the concepts of inaka (rural areas) and furusato (hometowns), because they believe that inaka and furusato represent the pre-modern, traditional, and non-Western lives that were lost during the high economic growth era of the post-war period. Creighton concludes as follows: Despite its promise of encounter with a pristine past Japan and its offerings of communitas, the nostalgia-driven tradition craze being promoted in the Japanese travel industry is a pseudo-rural phenomenon based in the modern, urban-focused, culturally eclectic actuality of today’s real Japan. . . . The timing is significant. It suggests that, like an individual who finally realizes a long-sought-after dream only to discover disillusionment with it, many Japanese began experiencing discontent despite the economic affluence Japan had finally achieved after four decades of struggle, and a surge of nostalgia for the ‘lost Japan’(Kerr 1996) sacrificed in the process. (Creighton 1997: 248) Creighton’s argument is suggestive, in that she emphasizes Japanese nostalgia for periods prior to the time of rapid economic growth. In fact, Western researchers typically emphasize the Japanese longing for premodern Japan, and the argument put forward by Marilyn Ivy is probably the most significant. Ivy comprehensively discusses the problems of Japanese modernity, focusing on the widespread acceptance and consumerization of Japan’s past heritage, which she calls ‘vintage Japan’ (Ivy 1995: 56). Although Ivy’s argument is highly complicated and difficult to summarize, the essence of the argument is Japanese modernity’s particular adherence to pre-modern Japan. Paradoxically, according to Ivy, the more modernity progresses, the more Japanese people are

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bound by their pre-modern traditions (Ivy 1995). Although Japanese modernization presupposes Westernization, Japanese people deny the complete disappearance of their declining pre-modern heritages, and tend to value them as ‘vanishing’ or ‘vintage Japan’. Ivy cites folklore, spirit mediums, and traditional popular dramas as typical examples, and argues that even though these manifestations of pre-modern cultures are usually ignored and even excluded in contemporary Japanese daily lives, they do not disappear completely, because they are valued as irreplaceable. Places of origins, displaced, subsist as traces of loss that reinfiltrate modernity’s present, in Japan as elsewhere. In doing so, these losses emerge as actively troublesome to rationalized orders of things. In modern regimes of knowledge, their excluded status cannot easily be left as simply that; indeed, such residues demand an accounting in the present – either through active forgetting or effects at rememoration. . . . The vanishing tremble on the edge of dissolution, but never move completely to the side of disappearance (or appearance). . . . When the marginal is temporally inscribed within the nostalgic register as the vanishing, it then functions as a special, and fetishized, guarantor of social status. Fetishized, in the sense that the vanishing is never allowed actually to disappear, but is kept hovering, with anxiety and dread, on the edge of absence. (Ivy 1995: 242) Although Ivy’s discussion is highly complex, it does indicate that Japanese people cannot discard their pre-modern cultures so easily. Her nuanced description is suggestive of this fact. However, the arguments of Moeran, Creighton, and Ivy cannot completely explain the ongoing nostalgia evident in Japanese media and cultural products of the twenty-first century. First, the target of the current nostalgia is not the distant past of the pre-modern era, but the recent past, when Japan was at the height of its economic growth in the 1960s and 1970s. It can be argued that the targets of the dominant memories of the past preferred by media and cultural producers have been changing from the distant to the recent past. Numerous jidaigeki films are still made, and ‘it could be possible to make a novel jidaigeki from a new perspective’ (Satō 2006: 333); nevertheless, jidaigeki as a genre cannot be considered a mainstream genre, as it was previously. In addition, we should remember that the 1960s and 1970s were not ‘pure’ Japanese cultural ages, but decades in which Japan was greatly influenced by Western cultures, particularly American, as well as commodities. Ivy, Creighton, and Moeran all highlight the Japanese resistance to Westernization; however, their arguments contradict themselves at times, as the ongoing nostalgia for the recent past in Japanese media and culture targets a period when Westernization was an active process. Moreover, the Japanese countryside is not always the main target of this nostalgia; it often includes urban places, such as Tokyo’s city centre – Tokyo Tower, and the Japan World Exposition – all characterized by Western industrialization. Overall, it appears

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that the existing literature cannot convincingly explain why current Japanese nostalgic media primarily concern themselves with the recent past and its memories. However, the arguments of Moeran, Creighton, and Ivy become comprehensible if what is being expressed through the Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products is not simply a yearning for that time. Strange as this may sound, later chapters will reveal that their arguments do not necessarily contradict the basic thrust of this study, as the ongoing Shōwa nostalgia involves fundamental discontent with Japanese modernity.

Theoretical framework: how to approach Shōwa nostalgia The last few sections have clarified that the major drawback of the previous studies on Shōwa nostalgia is their lack of detailed content-based analysis of nostalgic media and cultural products. The reason for this drawback is somewhat complicated, but it has resulted mainly because most scholars in the field presume that the end of the Second World War was a starting point for contemporary Japan, as was discussed in the previous section. This shared starting point makes them consider as self-evident that the Shōwa thirties represented the ‘good old days’, between the terrible reality of war in the 1940s and the collapse of the bubble economy in the 1990s. However, depending on their aims, historical narratives depict diverse representations of past events. Therefore, what is especially important for this study is to accurately understand what these nostalgic media and cultural products actually express, while eliminating all preconceptions in this matter. To do so, it is necessary to conduct a detailed, content-based analysis of Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products. Through such an analysis, this study aims to arrive at a conclusion that is different from those of previous works. One of the original approaches adopted by this study is dealing not only with films, but also with television programmes. It does so for two reasons: First, we need to understand the content of a wide range of media and cultural products, because the Shōwa nostalgia, a social phenomenon, has been brought about by the growing popularity of various kinds of media and cultural products. Second, it is important to explore the intertextualities of different media texts to identify the socio-cultural meanings these popular products actually encompass, because, as Fiske argues, the texts of popular culture can be made meaningful ‘only in social relations and in intertextual relations’ (Fiske 1989: 3). We can find numerous intertextualities between media texts pertaining to memory, because these memory texts, as Kuhn states, ‘create, rework, repeat and recontextualise the stories people tell each other about the kinds of lives they lead’ (Kuhn 2000: 192). It may be particularly fruitful to examine the intertextualities within the representations of memories in television programmes carefully, as these representations are ‘circular and self-referential’ (Holdsworth 2010: 142). Another methodological reason for analyzing both films and television programmes is that twenty-first-century Japan has witnessed a remarkable bridging of the gap between the film and television industries. The making of a majority of the current blockbuster Japanese films involves close collaboration between

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film companies and television stations. It is worth noting that two-thirds of current Japanese films are made not by solo film companies, but by seisaku iinkai, a kind of consortium comprising many investors such as film companies, television stations, publishers, newspaper companies, and advertising firms (Yomota 2010: 11). As a result, ‘the age when single film companies were in charge of producing films has become a thing of the past’ (Yomota 2010: 11). We should note that those who lead the current Japanese film scene and take the initiative in making films are not necessarily film companies, but television stations, and television stations are involved in almost all of the top-twenty highest grossing films every year (Horikoshi 2011: 59). Among the companies that formed the seisaku iinkai involved in making the original film and sequel of Always: Sunset on Third Street – which will be discussed in detail in a later chapter – were Nippon Television and several other television stations affiliated with the Nippon News Network (NNN), such as Yomiuri Television, Sapporo Television, Miyagi Television, Chūkyō Television, Hiroshima Television, and Fukuoka Broadcasting Corporation. Nippon Television and other television stations affiliated with the NNN were also involved in making the film Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad. It must be added that many current blockbuster films are film adaptations of popular television programmes. Some examples are the Partner film series (Aibō, 2008, 2009, 2010), which were originally a drama series produced by TV Asahi (2002–); the Unfair series (Anfea, 2007, 2011), originally a drama series by Fuji Television (2006); the Bayside Shakedown series (Odoru daisōsasen, 1998, 2003, 2010), originally a drama series by Fuji Television (1997); the Trick series (Torikku, 2002, 2006, 2010), originally a drama series by TV Asahi (2000–2003), and Vulture (Hagetaka, 2009) and Second Virgin (Sekando bājin, 2011), both of which were originally drama series produced by NHK (in 2007 and 2010 respectively). The film The Sun Also Rises (Hi wa mata noboru, 2002), which will be discussed in Chapter 3, was originally an NHK documentary programme (2000). Furthermore, as Iwabuchi states, films ‘have come to be seen as an extension of television programmes because television stations sometimes contemplate giving away the ending of a television drama in its film adaptation’ (Iwabuchi 2011: 185). In fact, the ending of the much-loved Fuji Television drama Nodame Cantabile (Nodame Kantābire, 2006) was revealed in its two-film adaptation released in 2009 and 2010. Thus, it can be argued that intertextualities between current Japanese films and television programmes cannot be ignored, particularly when exploring the socio-cultural meaning of these media products, as this study does. This new reality has not necessarily been examined in Western literature, as Japanese cinema is largely known because of a few key auteurs such as Kurosawa, Ozu, and Mizoguchi, and, as Phillips and Stringer argue, ‘to date, only a relatively very small number of its [Japanese] films have circulated globally and received much in-depth scholarly attention in English’ (Phillips and Stringer 2007: 14). Therefore, I hope this study will shed light on this hitherto unexplored subject in the relevant research field.

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Films and television programmes for this study’s content-based analysis were selected primarily on the basis of their popularity, and not their artistic value, as this study aims to examine influential media products that attract a large audience. Therefore, I carefully chose representative films and television programmes that are particularly popular in each media genre. Although 350–400 films are released every year in Japan, less than 10 per cent account for 85 per cent of Japan’s total annual box office revenue (Horikoshi 2011: 37). The first film and sequels of Always: Sunset on Third Street, Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad, and Hula Girls, films that this study focuses on, are among the highest grossing of the current blockbuster films that have attracted millions of viewers. NHK’s television programme Project X: Challengers, which will be discussed in Chapter 3, garnered unusually high audience ratings, and, as was stated earlier, was selected by the National Parent-Teacher Association as ‘the most recommended television programme for children’ for four consecutive years (2001–2004). From the approximately 200 episodes of Project X: Challengers, several episodes, which are discussed in this study, were particularly popular. In fact, NHK received several thousand inquiries and fan mail letters from viewers for these episodes (Imai 2002). Although this study discusses some reviews and critical essays of nostalgiaoriented films and television programmes, it must be admitted that this study does not consider one important area for analysis: audience response. As Hall (1980) argues in his classic essay, the audience does not necessarily accept media text in the way media producers expect. However, it seems that different approaches need to be adopted for the audiences of different media and cultural products, mainly because the audience for each product is not the same, even if the products themselves are popular across the country. This study adopts a qualitative approach that mainly involves the narrative analysis of media texts. There are various approaches to media and cultural studies, and there are many possibilities for studying media, history, memory, modernity, and gender. I am well aware that there has been some criticism of the qualitative approach in media scholarship, particularly because ‘in the past, claims about frequency, or the lack of it, have often been made in qualitative analyses of media content’ (Deacon et al. 1999: 133). On the other hand, some suggest that ‘discontent with the inadequacies of the quantitative and macro studies of media has led to interest in qualitative, or ethnographic, approaches’ (Hobart 2006: 26). I believe that the qualitative approach is appropriate for this study, for the following reasons. First, it is difficult to quantitatively measure signs of national consciousness, such as solidarity among a people, in media texts. While numerous studies have adopted a quantitative approach to examine media and national identity, most of them focus on the distinction between the self and the other in media expression, which is apparently measurable. As discussed in the previous section, however, the theoretical concepts of nationalism and national identity are too complicated to be explained by simply drawing a distinction between the self and the other. In addition, quantitative content analysis is sometimes criticized for

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lacking reliability, because how material is categorized differs between researchers (Stokes 2003: 58). Second, the qualitative approach is often more suitable than the quantitative approach when taking into account detailed textual properties, and when identifying complicated and nuanced meanings in various media representations (Kracauer 1953; Hall 1994; Altheide 1996; Hobart 2006). This argument can be supported by the notion that a quantitative approach tends to view social and cultural structures as ‘a one-way process’ (Deacon et al. 1999: 10). This study requires more comprehensive and interpretative methodologies, because it explores the relationship between several diverse concepts such as memory, history, nostalgia, nationalism, consumption, antagonism, masculinity, and femininity, which appear to be interrelated. Third, this study requires a historical perspective that focuses on the transformation of Japanese society after the Second World War. Unfortunately, there have been very few serious attempts in Japanese media scholarship to analyze the socio-historical aspects of media and culture; Japanese media scholarship ‘has tended to centre on the historical and in so doing has stayed within a preestablished discursive tradition that privileges the factual over and above the analytical’ (Standish 2000: 10). This study, however, requires an analytical approach from a socio-historical perspective to comprehensively study memory, nostalgia, social antagonism, and the history of Japan after the Second World War. For Foucault, ‘in each period, discourse produced forms of knowledge, objects, subjects, and practices of knowledge, which differed radically from period to period, with no necessary continuity between them’ (Hall 1997: 46). Foucault’s views prompt me to presume that the recent past represented in contemporary Japanese media and cultural products may be totally different from what it really was. This is one of the reasons that this study adopts a qualitative approach, which will be able to pay detailed attention to the subtle transformation of meanings from period to period. In addition, this study employs narrative structure analysis based especially on media and cultural studies. Cultural studies commonly involve ‘the analysis of institution and texts, discourse and readings, and . . . all four are best understood in their social and historical contexts’ (Corner and Harvey 1991). Moreover, analyzing media texts has become significant for other reasons. Numerous cultural studies scholars have tended to neglect the analysis of media texts because they have been more committed to audience research, influenced by Hall’s encoding/ decoding model (Hall 1980) and the postmodernist criticism of media texts (Tulloch 2000; Barker and Galasinski 2001; Hidaka 2007b). In Japan, there has been a similar focus on audience research in the field of media studies, due to the influence of cultural studies, as typified by Hall’s ideas. This is why presentday Japanese academia may have neglected analyzing Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products in detail so far, along with their assumption that the Shōwa thirties were the ‘good old days’ in Japan. As I have mentioned earlier, these nostalgic products are consumed by a vast number of people, irrespective of age or sex. Typical audience research, which focuses on dozens of audience members,

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cannot necessarily explain the acceptance of various Shōwa nostalgic films and television programmes by diverse audiences. I believe, as was argued earlier, that it requires separate treatment. This study places particular emphasis on ideological approaches, because media and cultural products are ideological products based on commercialism. Among numerous definitions of ideology, Louis Althusser’s definition is particularly relevant to this study. In his essay Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatus (1971), Althusser introduces the concept of ‘Ideological State Apparatuses’ (ISAs). According to Althusser, the ‘State Apparatus’ (SA) consists of public institutions such as the government, army, police, courts, and prison, while the ‘Ideological State Apparatuses’ consist of private domains such as religion, education, family, communication (such as the press, radio, television), and culture (such as literature, art, sports). Althusser argues that although the SA, which is repressive, functions by violence, the ISAs function on the basis of ideology (Althusser 1971: 152). In addition, Althusser stresses the close relationship between ideology and people’s basic need to represent and imagine themselves. Ideology, according to Althusser, ‘represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence’ (Althusser 1971: 153). Although Althusser’s explanation is esoteric, it suggests that ideology ‘works to iron out contradictions between its subjects’ real and imaginary social relations’ (Fiske 1987: 88). Furthermore, social identity is connected with ideology because ideologies ‘reflect the basic criteria that constitute the social identity and define the interests of a group’ (van Dijk 1998: 25). Hence, media and cultural products are a kind of mirror in which people are able to see their own images by producing or consuming imaginary narratives. However, it must be stressed that, as Eagleton argues, Althusser’s thinking is ‘covertly constrained by an attention to the narrower sense of ideology as a dominant theory’ (Eagleton 1991: 18). This is a bit problematic because ‘[i]f the term ideology is confined to dominant forms of social thought, such a move [anti-establishment attitude] would be inaccurate and needlessly confusing; but it may be felt that there is need here for a broader definition of ideology’ (Eagleton 1991: 6). Although Althusser’s concept is most relevant to the present study, I would like to agree with Eagleton’s argument, to some extent, because there is a possibility that media products that promote a sense of Shōwa nostalgia, as popular cultural goods produced by the media and cultural industries, express not only dominant social thoughts, but also anti-establishment thoughts. Accordingly, certain scholars are critical of ideology as a theoretical concept. Foucault rejects the ‘classical Marxist problematic of “ideology” ’ (Hall 1997: 48). As far as Foucault is concerned, the major drawback of the classical Marxist theory of ideology is its reduction of the comprehensive relationship between power and knowledge to a question of class power and class interests (Hall 1997: 48). This narrowness of the classical Marxist definition of ideology compels this study to adopt the broader concepts of ideology and the ISAs put forward by Althusser. However, discourse as well as ideology is relevant to the focus of this study, particularly Foucault’s concept of discourse. Although discourse may often be

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regarded as a linguistic concept, Foucault argues that it comprises both language and practice (Hall 1997: 44). While Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe also emphasize that discourse has linguistic as well as non-linguistic aspects (Laclau and Mouffe 1985), what is most important here is the diversity and totality of Foucault’s discourse. According to Hall, Discourse, Foucault argues, constructs the topic. It defines and produces the objects of our knowledge. It governs the way that a topic can be meaningfully talked about and reasoned about. It also influences how ideas are put into practice and used to regulate the conduct of others. . . . Discourse, Foucault argued, never consists of one statement, one text, one action, or one source. The same discourse, characteristic of the way of thinking or the state of knowledge at any one time (what Foucault called episteme), will appear across a range of texts, and as forms of conduct, at a number of different institutional sites within society. (Hall 1997: 44) Furthermore, the social aspect of discourse is also significant; as stated by Laclau and Mouffe, ‘[W]e use it [the term discourse] to emphasize the fact that every social configuration is meaningful’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 100). In addition, it is crucial to arrive at a critical understanding of the narrative as a concept, because narrative analysis is particularly important for the qualitative approach of this study. In this context, it is extremely significant to remember that the narrative is ‘not an innocent idea. It entails a messy metaphysics’ (Hobart 2000: 205) and has a close connection with ideology. According to White, ‘[N]arrative is not merely a neutral discursive form . . . but rather entails ontological and epistemic choices with distinct ideological and even specifically political implications’ (White 1987: ix). This view encourages us to surmise that the narratives in media products that play upon themes of Shōwa nostalgia are not ‘sweet’ and ‘harmless’, but are constructed with ideological implications. Accordingly, it is necessary to carefully investigate the narratives shown in Shōwa nostalgic films and television programmes and to uncover the ideological and political implications that have been overlooked by the preceding studies, as well as newspaper articles. This disclosure, meanwhile, will result in contributing to the ‘demythicization’ of myths created by both academics and journalists. Furthermore, the present study attaches utmost importance to extracting and analyzing social antagonisms that underlie the narratives of media and cultural products playing upon the themes of nostalgia, as these narratives must clearly reflect the social contradictions and antagonisms of contemporary Japan. As I have discussed in my review of the previous studies, Kawamoto argues that the period of the Shōwa thirties represented the ‘good old days’ of Japan, imbued with a ‘serenity that is peculiar to a warm autumn day’. For Asaba, the Shōwa thirties is the object of profound veneration, as he argues that Shōwa nostalgia should be upgraded to an ideology based on ‘the principles of the Shōwa thirties’, which can be used to reconstruct the ‘good old’ cooperative social system that

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collapsed during Japan’s subsequent rapid growth. In contrast, Fuse fiercely criticizes the glamorization of that time, as, according to him, ‘Japan in the present is much more comfortable to live in than [it was at] that time’ (Fuse 2008: 15). These contrasting arguments clearly reveal the presence of social antagonisms associated with the evaluation of Japan’s recent past and present. Laclau and Mouffe criticize the classical Marxist concept of ‘contradiction’, due to the need for a non-dualist notion to overcome dichotomies such as the mind and the body; accordingly, they prefer to think in terms of ‘antagonism’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985). For Laclau and Mouffe, the impossibility of defining a complete identity also renders impossible any real opposition or contradiction, which leads to the justification of antagonism as a realistic concept. Laclau and Mouffe argue that the presence of the ‘other’ prevents a person from being totally himself or herself; for example, ‘it is because a peasant cannot be a peasant that an antagonism exists with the landowner expelling him from his land’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 125). Since it is impossible to finally exclude antagonism, antagonism is ‘the “experience” of the limit of the social’ and becomes ‘not internal but external to society’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 125). As far as Laclau and Mouffe are concerned, the principle of antagonism entails that the ‘constitutive outside’ created by antagonism negates the entity’s identity and its very existence, resulting in making the relation between the entity and the ‘constitutive outside’ the site of a struggle (Dapia 2000: 11). Dapia explains this ‘struggle’ as follows: Indeed the theorization of the ‘constitutive outside’ plays a decisive role . . . in the context of difference. Once it is accepted that there cannot be any entity without a ‘constitutive outside’ that can always negate it, we will no longer attempt to create an order from which antagonism, conflict, or division has allegedly been banished. . . . Laclau theorizes the ‘other’ as a constitutive force whose primary function lies in maintaining alive an agon which should never be over. (Dapia 2000: 11) It would be possible to reveal a kind of ‘struggle’ between the entity and its ‘constitutive outside’ in the journalistic and academic arguments on Shōwa nostalgia, and also in the narratives of the nostalgia-evoking films and television programmes, as they reflect the actual social problems of contemporary Japan. Consequently, it is vital that the present study examine carefully the antagonisms that underlie these narratives and representations, and the socio-political problems that are exposed by the antagonism between an entity and its ‘constitutive outside’.

2

Yearning for yesterday Is modernity an unfinished project? – Always: Sunset on Third Street and Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad

Nostalgia is more a crepuscular emotion. It takes hold when the dark of impending change is seen to be encroaching, although not so fast as to make a monster loom where but a moment ago stood a coat tree. (Davis 1979: 110)

Tokyo Tower and its unfinished image Media and cultural products that play upon themes of Shōwa nostalgia have certain characteristics, one of the most distinctive being their emphasis on an iconic past event or heritage. These media products frequently bear nostalgia-evoking images of events such as the construction of the Tokyo Tower, the Tokyo Olympics, and the Japan World Exposition. Without doubt, the representation of such historic events is a crucial aspect not only of Shōwa nostalgic media but also of numerous nostalgic products from around the world. As Collini states, the anniversaries of past events only exist in media (Collini 1999). Nevertheless, the representation of iconic symbols from the past in Shōwa nostalgic media are highly distinctive, because these media often represent the symbols as incomplete projects. What does this emphasis on an incomplete condition of an event occurring in the recent past actually mean? Do the nostalgic media seek to evade the actual reality for any reason or seek out the possibilities of an alternative reality? It is necessary to carefully examine the manner in which media and cultural products that promote a sense of Shōwa nostalgia represent the ‘incompleteness’ of past events in order to understand what they actually mean. Therefore, this chapter will analyze some representative Shōwa nostalgic films – the film series of Always: Sunset on Third Street (2005–) and Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (2007) – in which Tokyo Tower plays a significant role as mise-en-scène. Tokyo Tower, a celebrated landmark, is probably the most popular icon among nostalgic media and cultural products representing the recent past. Tokyo Tower, a communication tower that is the tallest self-supporting steel structure in the world, was built in Minato ward, Tokyo, in 1958. The huge structure was originally built to broadcast radio and television signals of major Japanese media outlets. At first, the concerned parties intended to build a tower taller than the

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Eiffel Tower of Paris, which was then the tallest tower in the world, standing at a height of 324 m (1,063 ft); hence, they decided that the new tower’s height would be 333 m (1,091 ft). Thus, the Japanese, who wanted to arise from the ashes of their defeat in the Second World War, generally regarded the construction of Tokyo Tower as a symbolic projection of Japan’s post-war recovery. After the building was completed in October 1958, it became Tokyo’s most popular and representative tourist attraction: more than five million people visited it in 1959 (Samejima 2008: 150), a figure much higher than the number of visitors to Tokyo’s Ueno Zoological Garden, based on the latter’s records. Tokyo Tower went on to attract 30 million visitors by 1966 and 150 million visitors by 2006 (Samejima 2008: 258). Two weekly magazines that specialize in nostalgic features on the Shōwa period were launched in 2007 and 2008. The first is Shūkan Shōwa (Weekly Shōwa), published by Asahi Shimbun (Asahi Newspaper), a quality Japanese newspaper, while the second is Shūkan Shōwa Taimuzu (Weekly Shōwa Times), published by a Japan-based subsidiary of the Italian publishing house De Agostini. Both Shūkan Shōwa and Shūkan Shōwa Taimuzu focus on a certain year of the Shōwa period every week and discuss representative events, incidents, fashion, sports, and popular culture of that year. Both magazines lay great emphasis on the completion of the Tokyo Tower in their special issues on the thirty-third year of the Shōwa period (1958), during which the construction of the tower was completed. It must be noted that these magazines, by focusing on the tower under construction, particularly emphasized images of an unfinished Tokyo Tower even though they published articles celebrating its completion. The front page of the Shūkan Shōwa issue dated 14 December 2008 portrays an evening view of the tower under construction (see Figure 2.1). Surprisingly, the other magazine, Shūkan Shōwa Taimuzu, also uses a photograph of the tower under construction on the front cover of its special issue on 1958 (see Figure 2.2). Furthermore, in the case of Shūkan Shōwa, the images of a partially constructed tower are uniquely emphasized. The title of the feature article announces: ‘Tokyo Tower Is Completed’; nevertheless, all the pictures that appear in the article are of the tower under construction, and there are no pictures of the completed tower. The first page of the article quotes the words of an engineer involved in the construction: ‘Believe it or not, the clouds are under the tower. This is not a joke: it’s true. We cannot see the top of the tower very often because of the clouds’ (Shūkan Shōwa 2008 vol. 2: 20). Oddly enough, however, the photograph above the engineer’s comment does not show the top of the Tokyo Tower; it merely shows the foundations of the tower (see Figure 2.3). Therefore, the picture does not really correspond to the engineer’s words stressing the height of the tower. Furthermore, it should be noted that all five other pictures of Tokyo Tower in the article depict it under construction. Consequently, it can be surmised that images of an unfinished Tokyo Tower were intentionally selected by the editors of these magazines, even though the articles emphasized the completion of the tower.

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Figures 2.1–2.2 The front page of Shūkan Shōwa, 14 December 2008 (left) and Shūkan Shōwa Taimuzu, 27 November 2007 (right)

In this regard, let us remember that the residents of Tokyo at that time neither nurtured any strong desire for the construction of Tokyo Tower nor did they particularly look forward to its completion. In other words, its image as depicted in the magazines is quite different from the place it occupies in the memories of the people who actually lived in Tokyo at that time. Although the critic Ishigami Mitsutoshi (2007) expresses his approval of the social phenomenon of Shōwa nostalgia and describes the film Always: Sunset on Third Street as one of the best Japanese films of the twenty-first century, he also argues that the Tokyo Tower that is embedded deeply in his memories is the completed one. This is because Ishigami, who was a teenager at the time of its construction, suffered much inconvenience from the ‘annoying’ (jammakena) construction of the huge tower. This nuisance resulting from the large-scale construction of the tower is commonly remembered by Tokyo residents (Asahi Shimbun, 2 April 1958); hence, most people prefer to recall the dignified appearance of the completed Tokyo Tower rather than images of its construction (Ishigami 2007: 142). Based on this, we can surmise that the nostalgia-evoking magazines’ emphasis on the unfinished aspects of Tokyo Tower does not accurately represent the memories of the people living in Tokyo at that time but rather reflects a certain common intention of the magazine editors. Intriguingly, Shōwa nostalgic magazines are not the only ones that emphasize images of Tokyo Tower under construction: Shōwa retro theme parks often make use of similar images. A Japanese theme park is a kind of amusement centre,

Figure 2.3 Tokyo Tower under construction in Shūkan Shōwa, 14 December 2008

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although it is different from a typical amusement park in that it usually focuses on a particular theme, story, nation, or region. A Shōwa retro theme park is thus an amusement facility that displays, and in some cases sells, objects familiar to people who lived during the Shōwa period. Although the Shōwa period lasted from 1926 to 1989, Shōwa retro parks focus on the late Shōwa period, particularly the period from the late 1950s to the 1970s. It is difficult to estimate the exact number of Shōwa retro theme parks, because there is a fine line of distinction between a specific Shōwa retro theme park and other, similar kinds of theme parks; however, there are presumably dozens of theme parks featuring the Shōwa period, sharing features in common with each other. They recreate the shopping streets, restaurants, and buildings of those days, and sell reproductions of Shōwa-period goods, such as cheap confectionery, food, toys, and photographs of celebrities. In addition, the objects characteristic to those days – signboards, neon signs, postboxes, and shrines – are often on display as well. Among these, Tokyo Tower is probably one of the most important display objects. One of the most popular Shōwa retro theme parks is the Daiba itchōme shōtengai (Daiba Town Shopping Avenue), which was opened in Tokyo’s bay area in October 2002. Daiba itchōme shōtengai recreates a typical downtown Tokyo scene of the Shōwa 30s (1955– 1964). As is common in a Shōwa retro theme park, there are dozens of reproduced shops, restaurants, and houses in Daiba itchōme shōtengai. This park also has a special space where Tokyo Tower has been recreated – not the completed tower but the tower under construction. At the foot of this under-construction Tokyo Tower, there is a shop named Tower Department Store (Tawā hyakkaten), which sells foodstuffs, confectionery, and souvenirs. However, significantly, only two pillars of the tower are built, and these two pillars merely form the foundations of the entire tower. It is understandable that the theme park took the creative leap of recreating an unfinished Tokyo Tower, probably because it would be difficult to house a complete, tall tower in the low-ceilinged indoor facility. However, the theme park appears to adopt a strategy that intentionally emphasizes the image of an unfinished Tokyo Tower for certain reasons. First, a sign that reads ‘Under construction: Do not climb’ is hung from one of the pillars. This can be interpreted as an attempt by the theme park creators to increase the appeal of the unfinished image from the viewpoint of the visitors. In addition, this theme park regularly organizes a handicraft workshop for its visitors. When I visited the theme park, the park was conducting a handicraft class on how to make a kaleidoscope, with numerous families participating. Thus, the specific image of Tokyo Tower under construction can be said to be accentuated by the regular handicraft workshops. Nevertheless, it is difficult to surmise why these nostalgia-evoking media and cultural products prefer the image of an unfinished Tokyo Tower, and an analysis of these products yields only limited findings. This chapter will conduct further research on films in order to explore the reasons behind and background to this tendency because, as will be shown in this chapter, some representative Shōwa nostalgic films also adhere to the incomplete image of Tokyo Tower.

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Tokyo Tower in films Although Tokyo Tower is frequently represented in Shōwa nostalgic films, it has also appeared in other Japanese films set in the past. It must be stressed that the manner in which it is represented in mainstream films is far from nostalgic and quite different from the manner in which it is represented in Shōwa nostalgic films. For example, Tokyo Tower was often depicted as a target of attack in the popular giant-monster films of the 1960s. A 1961 film, Mothra (Mosura), was the first to film a battle scene in which a giant monster destroys it. According to Samejima, numerous children in the audience were traumatized because they actually believed that Tokyo Tower was in ruins after the attack (Samejima 2008: 276). Other 1960s giant-monster films in which Tokyo Tower and Tokyo’s midtown district are destroyed by a giant monster include the 1964 film Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (Sandai kaijū chikyū saidai no kessen), the 1965 film Gamera (Daikaijū gamera), the 1967 film King Kong Escapes (Kingu kongu no gyakushū), and the 1968 film Gamera vs. Viras (Gamera tai uchū kaijū bairasu). In the 1967 film King Kong Escapes, there is a scene in which King Kong climbs Tokyo Tower in order to capture a blonde woman. In the relatively recent film Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (Gojira tai mosura tai mekagojira Tokyo esu ō esu), released in 2003, Tokyo Tower appears frequently on the screen, only to collapse to the ground when it is directly hit by a nuclear strike launched by Godzilla. These scenes are reminiscent of the King Kong films’ representation of the Empire State Building in New York. On the other hand, Tokyo Tower also appears in several serious films. The film Tokyo Tower at Twilight (Tasogare no Tokyo tawā), released in 1959 – one year after the completion of the tower – is a kind of Cinderella story in which a poor salesgirl from a dressmaker’s shop gets married to the son of the president of a major automobile company. In the film, the tower is a symbol of love and luck, because the lovers are eventually brought together on the tower’s observation deck. A much more celebrated film that deals with the tower is Ozu Yasujirō’s 1960 film, Late Autumn (Akibiyori), in which, according to Samejima, Ozu symbolically represents Tokyo Tower as ‘a sign of the new era’ (Samejima 2008: 297), with the tower filling the film screen under the blue sky in the film’s opening sequence. Nomura Yoshitarō’s 1978 film, The Demon (Kichiku), based on the novel by Matsumoto Seichō, also uses the tower symbolically, but this symbolism is completely different from that in Ozu’s Late Autumn. The protagonist of The Demon, a printer, tries to abandon an illegitimate daughter born to his mistress, as he intends to prioritize his current family life. He chooses the observation deck of Tokyo Tower as the place to abandon the child. This scene from the 1970s masterpiece clearly implies a social contradiction within Japan’s post-war recovery. The sharp contrast between the airy tower and the abandoned child stands for both the accomplishment of rapid economic growth and the sacrifices made on its account. In this manner, Tokyo Tower has been represented as a landmark of Tokyo and a symbol of Japan’s post-war prosperity in numerous films. However,

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it was not until the release of Shōwa nostalgic films in the twenty-first century that it came to be used as a symbol of nostalgia. Furthermore, very few films, apart from the Shōwa nostalgic films, have ever emphasized the ‘incomplete’ or ‘unfinished’ aspect of this established landmark. That is why, as a starting point of the empirical analysis, I would like to analyze the manner in which the nostalgic films give preference to the incomplete aspect of Tokyo Tower. As discussed earlier, the recent proliferation of Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products has been prompted by the success of the 2005 film Always: Sunset on Third Street. This film, based on Saigan Ryōhei’s long-running manga, centres on the lives of two families living in a small community in downtown Tokyo in the late 1950s when Tokyo Tower was actually under construction. One of these is the Suzuki family, who run a small auto repair shop called ‘Suzuki Auto’. Its proprietor, Suzuki Norifumi (Tsutsumi Shin’ichi), lives with his wife, Tomoe (Yakushimaru Hiroko), a son, Ippei, and a teenage girl, Hoshino Mutsuko (Horikita Maki), who comes to Tokyo to work for Suzuki Auto. The other family is the pseudo-family of Chagawa Ryūnosuke (Yoshioka Hidetaka). Chagawa, a failed novelist who lives across the street from Suzuki’s house, runs an old-fashioned penny sweetshop from his house because he is unable to make a living from his writing. Although Chagawa is single, he lives with a boy, Jun’nosuke, who has no relatives. Always: Sunset on Third Street follows the daily lives of both the families (see Figure 2.4).

Figure 2.4 Always: Sunset on Third Street, a front cover of the film’s brochure (Toho Film Company)

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It may not necessarily be surprising that Tokyo Tower is frequently shown in the film, because the area in which the two families live is situated very close to it. It is significant, however, that the film hardly ever depicts the completed tower; instead, it emphasizes the unfinished state of the tower by focusing on its construction and associating the tower’s incomplete condition with the characters’ lives. First, the beginning of the film clearly indicates that it is set in the Tokyo of the late 1950s, when the tower was still under construction. At the beginning of the film, there is an aerial shot threading through the numerous buildings of the city centre until it reaches Tokyo Tower. After the aerial shot is fixed on this image, the title credits appear on the screen. The tower that appears in this first scene is still in the foundation-laying stage, suggesting that completion is a long way off. Even after the first scene, the film is frequently peppered with shots of the tower, particularly through long shots, not close-up shots. One reason for this depiction may be that the film is set in the period of its construction. In fact, in a sense, the shots of the tower are undoubtedly used as markers of the passage of time, because the tower appears repeatedly in the film in many stages of construction, until its completion. However, it is still worthwhile to note that this particular period has been selected as a setting for the film – the temporal setting of the original manga covers a much longer period, extending from 1955 to 1964. Therefore, the tower is used as an effective mise-en-scène and is treated as a symbol by the filmmakers. In one scene, for example, the teenage girl, Hoshino Mutsuko, sees the ongoing construction of Tokyo Tower from a car just as she arrives in Tokyo to work at Suzuki Auto. Mutsuko comes to Tokyo as a ‘mass employee’ (shūdan shūshokusha), a common sight in Japan’s post-war high-speed economic growth era. Mass employees were young provincial manual workers who came to big cities, particularly Tokyo and Osaka, in large numbers with hopes of earning a lot of money in a glittering city. The mass employment system (shūdan shūshoku) ran smoothly until the mid-1970s, thanks to the symbiotic needs of companies that required numerous unskilled workers and provincial workers who wanted to obtain employment in large cities. In reality, however, the working conditions were very harsh and the payments were meagre. This scene appears to indicate that while the typical ‘mass employee’ yearns for a new city life, he or she is soon forced to ‘slave’ for a small auto repair company. Thus, the under-construction Tokyo Tower that frequently appears in the film is symbolically associated with the future hopes of the film’s major characters. Significantly, the film ends without any of these hopes coming to fruition. In other words, although these characters have their own specific dreams at the beginning of the film, their lives are still far from their original ideals when the film ends. While Suzuki Norifumi dreams of transforming his small auto repair shop into a big auto company, he will never accomplish his dream. As regards the pseudo-family of Chagawa Ryūnosuke and the boy Jun’nosuke, the outcome is far worse. Chagawa falls in love with Ishizaki Hiromi, who runs a small bar near his house. Hiromi reluctantly takes in the abandoned boy, Jun’nosuke, who has no relatives, even though she wishes to be free of him; hence, when Chagawa

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becomes a customer of Hiromi’s bar and tells her that he writes novels for boy’s magazines, she makes up her mind to leave Jun’nosuke to Chagawa’s care. Unable to resist Hiromi’s charm and wishes, Chagawa is forced to take charge of Jun’nosuke. After a while on Christmas Eve, Chagawa asks Hiromi to marry him; the following day, Hiromi abruptly closes down her bar and disappears from the lives of Chagawa and Jun’nosuke. When Jun’nosuke asks Chagawa, ‘Will we soon be able to eat Hiromi’s curried rice?’ Chagawa answers, ‘Of course.’ However, Hiromi never returns. Therefore, Chagawa is not only unable to marry Hiromi but also forced to permanently take care of Jun’nosuke. Furthermore, Chagawa, who dreams of becoming a successful novelist, can never become one and is forced to continue running the sweetshop; whenever he submits his novels to literary competitions, they are rejected. While he eventually does achieve some amount of satisfaction with his pseudo-family life with Jun’nosuke, he achieves nothing with regard to his professional ambitions. In contrast, Kawabuchi – Jun’nosuke’s real father and an extremely affluent industrialist, who tries to take Jun’nosuke back from Chagawa by using his financial power – eventually loses his son. In this regard, there is no doubt that this film presents the simple but clear message that human relationships are more important than material success. Yamazaki Takashi, the director of this film, explained this aspect in a magazine interview: ‘How does Kawabuchi, who blindly believes that money is everything, react in the face of his failure? This is a notable highlight of this film’ (quoted in Kanazawa 2007: 38). However, we must not overlook the fact that Chagawa fails to achieve his professional ambitions. In fact, most of Chagawa’s dreams remain unfulfilled. The unrewarded lives of the major characters raise some pertinent questions: Why has this film attracted such a vast audience? It is generally believed that this film fuelled the Shōwa nostalgia boom, but it is not clear what exactly the audiences hope to gain from the film. Ōsawa Masachi, who defines the 1950s and 1960s in Japan as ‘the age of ideals’ (risō no jidai), argues that this film represents a yearning for the ideals of that time. It flushes out the audience’s accumulated sense of fatigue because all the characters living in the Tokyo of the 1950s experience an inner happiness in vigorously pursuing their ideals in spite of the fact they are not properly rewarded for their effort (Ōsawa 2008: 126–127). Ōsawa states, We can imagine (somewhat fantastically) that, in [the] Shōwa 30s (1955– 1964), there was the expectation even among the people from the lower classes that they would be able to find future salvation, so they could [continue to live their] lower class reality while sharing this hope. In a kind of ‘boom’ in yearning for the Shōwa 30s, contemporary people do not necessarily yearn for the actual reality of the Shōwa 30s. We rather yearn for the expectations of the people of those days, because they were able to think that reality was actually the way to the[ir] salvation. Undoubtedly, the ‘ideals’ of ‘the age of ideals’ are what people must have expected with the certainty that their expectations would yield results. (Ōsawa 2008: 127)

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Ōsawa adds that the glimpses of Tokyo Tower under construction in this film connote the ‘ideal’ that was believed to be possible, but goes on to argue that present-day Japan provides a striking contrast to those days, because people of the twenty-first century cannot share any of these ideals (Ōsawa 2008: 127). While Ōsawa’s argument is quite persuasive, he does not provide sufficient explanation as to why this film never depicts the realization of these ideals. There must have been alternative possibilities that would have allowed the filmmakers to depict not only the ideals of the era but also their specific realization. In my opinion, this film uses an incomplete narrative in an attempt to prolong its major characters’ pursuit of their dreams. In other words, the film’s narrative uses ‘delaying tactics’, which successfully exploit specific unfinished images and plots. This appears to be the major reason the film prefers to use the image of Tokyo Tower under construction. It is possible that the poignant images of the unfinished tower connote limitless possibilities for the future and allows the audience to expect a future without bounds. In addition, it should be noted that the film’s narrative, to some extent, is constructed through the eyes of children – particularly Jun’nosuke and Ippei. The middle-aged and older audiences of the film were children during the late 1950s, when Tokyo Tower was under construction, and particularly the ‘dankai no sedai’ generation (Japan’s post-war baby-boomer generation, born between 1947 and 1949) – the population of which amounts to eight million today – spent their elementary school days quite like Jun’nosuke and Ippei. Consequently, the construction of the tower in the late 1950s coincides with the growth of the dankai no sedai. As Ishitobi Noriki (2005) argues, one reason that this film uses images of Tokyo Tower under construction is that the period of construction was the happiest time for the dankai no sedai and, in fact, for most of the Japanese people who lived at that time. Ishitobi writes, ‘When the tower is finally completed and the children become adults, the growth of Japan ends. Contemporary Japanese are well aware that the time was the climax (shūchakueki) of the[ir] dreams and hopes’ (Ishitobi 2005: 59). In other words, it might have been somewhat inconvenient for the film to depict Japanese society after the completion of Tokyo Tower. Therefore, the children’s hopes for the future at the time of the tower’s construction are highlighted in this film. A representative example is the final scene, which indicates the Suzuki family’s uncertain, but at the same time promising, future by superimposing on the screen an image of the nearly complete Tokyo Tower. As mentioned earlier, Suzuki Norifumi continues to manage a small auto repair shop in spite of his intention to establish a big auto company and expand the enterprise globally. In the last scene, the Suzuki family go for a drive; they drive along an embankment and then get out of the car. The parents have a conversation with their son on the embankment while watching the sunset. Ippei (son):

Today’s sunset is beautiful, isn’t it? The sunsets tomorrow and fifty years from now will also be beautiful, won’t they?

Yearning for yesterday Tomoe (mother): Norifumi ( father):

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I certainly hope so (Sōda to īne). I hope so too (Sōda to īnā).

At the end of this conversation, the camera glides over the heads of the parents and son to capture the twilight image of a nearly complete Tokyo Tower. Thus, we can say that the ending makes it possible for the audience to imagine an open and optimistic future by associating the image of Tokyo Tower near completion with the hopes of ordinary people at that time. However, we must not overlook the fact that the year 1958, when the construction of the tower was completed, was only the initial stage of a few decades of high economic growth in Japan’s post-war period. It is ironic that this film’s incomplete narrative winds up with an open ending, despite the fact that most of the characters in the film are still to realize their personal dreams. Another interesting point is that the film’s sequel, Always: Sunset on Third Street Part 2 (Ōruweizu: zoku sanchōme no yūhi), which was released in 2007, once again depicts the tower in an unfinished state despite the fact that the sequel is set in a period when its construction had already been completed. This indicates that the delaying tactics adopted in the original film are continued in the sequel. If the two films are intended to stress the perpetuity of the dreams and hopes of the people who lived at that time, it is understandable that both films consciously avoid depicting images of a completed Tokyo Tower. The conversation between Norifumi and Ippei in the first scene of the sequel is probably the best example of a symbolic representation of the prolongation of hopes. Ippei anxiously asks Norifumi to take him for a visit to Tokyo Tower, which has been completed shortly before, but Norifumi turns down his son’s appeal, saying, ‘This is no time for that (sore dokoro ja nēnda). I’ll take you to Tokyo Tower someday (Tokyo tawā wa sono uchi da).’ Nevertheless, Ippei continues to beg his father to take him to the tower. Norifumi finally requests a neighbour to persuade Ippei to give up his demand; the woman tells Ippei, ‘Tokyo Tower will not disappear, so there is no need to be in such a hurry.’ In a fit of anger, Norifumi tells him to visit the tower by himself and climb up to the observation platform by spending his own pocket money if he really wants to. As a result, it is only in the final scene of the sequel that Ippei manages to climb up to Tokyo Tower’s observation platform with his family. Without doubt, in this regard, Ippei eventually accomplishes his original goal; nevertheless, we can see that the film’s narrative keeps him in a state of expectation by not giving him a chance to climb up to the tower until the very end of the film. What does this delaying tactic really indicate? These delaying tactics, which are carried over from the first film, may enable audiences to expect that the characters’ hopes will last eternally. It is possible that the filmmakers have adopted these delaying tactics with the intention of disguising the fact that Tokyo Tower has been completed. In other words, the image of a completely constructed tower may have been inconvenient for the filmmakers as well as audiences for certain reasons. The filmmakers may be well aware that, as Ōsawa (2008) argues,

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Japan’s post-war growth did not continue for very long, and the Japanese cannot seek or hope for ‘salvation’ in the future any more. Furthermore, it is well worth noting that the sequel emphasizes not only the unfinished character of the tower but also the incomplete lives of the major characters, albeit in a slightly different way from the first film. Although the sequel depicts the full-fledged advent of the high-speed economic growth era of the late 1950s, the main characters are not necessarily in charge of their own futures but instead are forced to deal with their past – particularly, a past that is connected with their experiences of the Second World War. In a way, it is ironic that the sequel deals with many events that occurred in the past, prior to the time depicted in the first film. Mutsuko, who had come to Tokyo as a mass employee, is reunited with her friends from her hometown; nevertheless, she gets into trouble as one of her boyfriends becomes a swindler. Although Chagawa receives an invitation letter for a university alumni meeting and sets out to attend it, he turns back when he happens to hear some of his fellow alumni gossip unkindly about him, saying that he is perpetually rejected by various literary awards; hearing this, he decides not to proceed to the venue and returns home instead. Suzuki, who has served in the war, receives an invitation to attend the first-ever party hosted by his fellow soldiers; however, he is hesitant to attend, partly because he is afraid to learn how many of them died in battle. One day, he dreams of one of his closest comrades-in-arms. This scene suggests that although Suzuki came home alive after the war, a number of his comrades were killed in action. While crossing a bridge in the city centre, Suzuki’s wife Tomoe happens to meet her ex-lover, who had gone off to war. Although they part after assuring themselves of each other’s safety, we realize that the war mercilessly destroyed their engagement. Immediately after this scene, however, the film provides an ‘explanatory’ scene in that Tomoe begins to breathe more freely when she returns home and sees her husband’s face. As in the first film, these characters never seem to fulfil their dreams. Chagawa is still unable to make his living from writing as he is rejected by a major literary competition once again. Suzuki’s auto repair shop, despite his dream to transform it into a big auto company, remains very small. In other words, nothing changes in the characters’ lives. However, the sequel, instead of depicting the characters’ success in the period of high economic growth, focuses on their pasts and contrasts their past and present lives, almost as if to imply that even though their dreams remain unfulfilled, the present is at least better than the past. The scene in which Suzuki and his wife Tomoe watch an 8 mm home movie is probably one of the most symbolic scenes in the film. One day, they decide to watch an old 8 mm home movie using a projector at home. This film, shot by Suzuki himself when he and his wife were newlyweds, shows them playing with their baby, Ippei. This scene appears to be somewhat parenthetical because it is not directly related to the main plot of the film; nevertheless, it has obviously been introduced to convey the idea that the characters are far happier now than in the pre-war era, even though they cannot accomplish their dreams at present. However, it must not be forgotten that the time stops in the film and the characters’

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lives are only associated with their past, although Japan had already entered the age of unprecedented economic growth. The last scene of the sequel is also the most remarkable in the film. Although this scene mirrors a similar one in the first film, and both films end with a conversation among the Suzuki family members as they watch the sunset, the contents of their conversation are very different in the two films. While in the first film the family members speak of a future fifty years later, they do not refer to the future in the sequel but merely reaffirm the status quo. As mentioned before, the Suzuki family members climb up to Tokyo Tower’s observation platform and converse as follows. Tomoe (mother): Norifumi ( father): Ippei (son): Norifumi ( father):

The evening sun is beautiful as always. Sure, it’s beautiful (kireidanā). . . . The setting sun stings your eyes, doesn’t it? Don’t try to be oversmart. It’s about ten years too early for you to say such things (jūnen hayaiyo).

Thus, this conversation appears to imply that the Suzuki family is content with its present situation. In the final scene of the first film, the topic of the future was omitted from the plot for some reason, even though it was the central concern of the characters. Moreover, the dialogue between Ippei and his father, Norifumi, deserves special attention. When Ippei says, ‘The setting sun stings your eyes, doesn’t it?’ his father replies, ‘Don’t try to be oversmart. It’s about ten years too early for you to say such things.’ Norifumi’s remark is a tired Japanese cliché that is usually used by older people to tell youths that it takes many years to understand the real nature of life. Ippei’s words sound like a metaphor for life’s bitterness, as suggested by the word ‘sting’. In this context, Norifumi’s statement appears to imply that human beings must accept all that happens in their lives and make a compromise with reality, although youths such as Ippei may not know it when they are young. In this regard, it should be remembered that the sequel ends with Norifumi suspending his dream of establishing a big auto company. Why does he have to be complacent about the current situation? The other characters follow almost the same trajectories. Of course, as was discussed earlier, it is true that both the films deal with the basic theme of human relationships. For instance, Chagawa keeps Jun’nosuke with him despite Jun’nosuke’s father’s repeated attempts to take him away; in the final part of the sequel, he also wins back his love, Hiromi. Nevertheless, these characters do not achieve their dreamed-of social successes even though the sequel is set in an era when Japan achieved very rapid economic growth, of which many Japanese must have been proud. Consequently, it seems promising to further explore why the image of a completed Tokyo Tower is, in fact, inconvenient for media producers. The third instalment in the series, Always: Sunset on Third Street Part 3 (Ōruweizu: sanchōme no yūhi ’64), was released in January 2012, and while it did not match the success of the first two films, it was a major hit which brought in box office revenue of 3.4 billion yen and ranked third among Japanese films in the

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first half of 2012, second if animated films are excluded. Critics also responded favourably to the film, writing that it ‘recreates a world of filtered memories’ (Ishitobi 2012: 50) and evokes ‘the era when row-house neighbours knew each other’ (Tatsumi 2012: 137). The first film in the Always: Sunset on Third Street series is set in 1958, during the construction of Tokyo Tower, and the second is set in 1959, the year after it was completed, but the third takes place in 1964. Because Tokyo Tower does not play a significant role in the narrative of the third film, this study will not consider it in detail, but will only touch briefly on the points that relate to the themes of this chapter. The key point is that while Tokyo Tower fades into the background of the story, the concept of ‘incompletion’ remains important to the narrative, as it is in the first two films. The film takes place in the final year of the Shōwa thirties (1955–1964) and focuses on the residents of Tokyo as they anticipate and prepare for the Tokyo Olympics, which opened on 11 October of that year. In short, Always: Sunset on Third Street Part 3 ‘resets’ the movie’s narrative to just before the Tokyo Olympics – the preeminent event of the post-war years, as well as another symbol of Japan’s period of rapid economic growth – which occurred six years post completion of Tokyo Tower. By doing so, this series of nationally popular films accomplishes the feat of continuing the image of ‘incompleteness’ from the period immediately preceding Tokyo Tower’s completion to the period immediately preceding the Tokyo Olympics. According to director Yamazaki Takashi, the actors and other staff decided on 1964 as the setting for the third film ‘as naturally as if it was predetermined’ (Kanazawa 2012: 41). Indeed, taking into account the age of the characters and the passage of time, and assuming that the filmmakers aimed to continue the theme of ‘incompletion’ from the previous films, the decision to set the third instalment just before the Tokyo Olympics is certainly appropriate enough to call ‘predetermined’. Yamazaki’s comment can be seen as evidence that the filmmakers themselves understand the series as centring on the concept of ‘incompletion’. Furthermore, the visual styles of Always: Sunset on Third Street and its two sequels are very distinctive. These three films frequently use settings against the evening sky, which must be a deliberate mise-en-scène, since the films are titled ‘Always: Sunset on Third Street’. Within the films, the colours of the sunset – orange-based hues – dominate the scenes. Furthermore, it should also be noted that the opening shots of all three films are close-ups of an old-fashioned radio. These common opening shots as well as numerous subsequent scenes, mostly dominated by orange hues, are effectively used to lead the spectator into an imaginary historical time frame. In another film, Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (2007), which will be analyzed in the subsequent section, there are again frequent glimpses of Tokyo Tower against the evening sky. Apart from films, many other Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products – such as television programmes, theme parks, and magazines – often use the sunset motif. For instance, the sunset, with its orange aura surrounding Tokyo Tower, dominates an entire cover of the Sh ūkan Sh ōwa magazine, which was discussed earlier on in

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this chapter (see Figure 2.1 of this chapter). It is possible that this particular visual style has deeper connotative meanings.

Unfinished images and mourning After the resounding success of Always: Sunset on Third Street in 2005, numerous films focusing on the late Shōwa period, particularly the 1960s and 1970s, have been produced in Japan. The 2007 film, Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (Tokyo tawā, okan to boku to tokidoki oton), based on the bestselling autobiographical novel by Lily Franky, is probably the most popular and successful film among them (see Figure 2.5). Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad was not only a commercial hit but also adjudged the Best Picture of the Year in the 2008 Japan Academy Awards. As indicated by the title, this film focuses on a family residing near Tokyo Tower. It must be noted that the characters’ unfulfilled aspirations are emphasized more intensely in Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad than in Always: Sunset on Third Street – the former clearly depicts the hero’s regret through metaphoric images of the tower. The protagonist, Masaya (played by Odagiri Jō), born in the Kyushu countryside in the 1960s, is the only son (and only child) of his mother (okan, played by Kiki Kirin) and father (oton, played by Kobayasi Kaoru). The story begins with the protagonist’s early childhood in the 1960s. Masaya is, in effect, raised by his mother on her own, after his father abandons them when Masaya is still a child. Later, he moves to Tokyo, where he joins an art college. Although financially dependent on his poor mother, who manages to make ends meet by washing dishes in a local pub, Masaya leads an idle life and does not take his studies seriously. After repeating a year and thereby placing an additional financial burden on his mother, he finally graduates and begins to be financially independent by taking up the job of a radio DJ. At this time, however, his mother is affected by cancer; hence, he invites her to Tokyo and lives with her for the first time in years. Although his mother adjusts to a new life in the capital city, her medical condition worsens. Masaya then admits his mother to a hospital, from where she is able to see Tokyo Tower. She eventually dies in the hospital room. Thus, this film is a rather dismal film that merely depicts the relentless passage of time. Although the film begins with a shot of Tokyo Tower, just like Always: Sunset on Third Street, it has a stronger metaphoric presence in this particular film. The film’s first shot is a close-up of a photograph of Masaya’s father in his young days, with a guitar in his hand, smiling at the camera against the backdrop of Tokyo Tower under construction. The camera zooms in on the tower in the photograph as the voice-over narration states, ‘Tokyo Tower is the centre (chūshin) of Tokyo. It is the centre of Japan.’ Although the film does not explicitly say so, the picture and the voice-over indicate that Masaya’s father, with high hopes for the future, left the countryside for Tokyo when he was young. As the film advances,

Figure 2.5 Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (the film’s DVD package, Vap)

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however, it becomes clear that he never made much progress in his life. It also becomes evident that he was unable to realize the dreams of his youth. Hence, it can be said that the photograph of the tower is used as a metaphor for the unfulfilled dreams of his youth. This photograph is repeatedly shown in the film. For instance, Masaya, as a young boy, sees this picture on a visit to his father’s house. This scene implies that the protagonist might go to Tokyo someday to achieve his own ambitions, despite the fact that his father was forced to abandon his dreams. Thus, the film uses Tokyo Tower as a metaphor to represent common adolescent dreams and ambitions, as yet unrealized, which are often crushed or thwarted with the passage of time. The film’s ending is probably its most significant part. Although Masaya has never been to Tokyo Tower, he promises his mother that they will visit it together; however, she dies of cancer just before they can make the visit. Previously in the film, when Masaya picks up his mother at Tokyo Station on her arrival for treatment, they drive by Tokyo Tower. At this time, he tells her that he has never visited the observation deck of the tower and promises to take her there soon. Before he can do so, however, she has to be admitted to a hospital. There is a scene in the film, just after she is admitted to the hospital, in which both the protagonist and his mother are seen gazing at the tower (see Figure 2.6), while a

Figure 2.6 Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad, from the film’s brochure (Shochiku Film Company)

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voice-over by the protagonist states, ‘This is the hospital that sits in the shadow of Tokyo Tower. This, therefore, is the last place where my mother lived.’ Thus, the film announces beforehand that Masaya’s mother will die in the hospital room. She is never given the chance to visit the tower, and Masaya’s promise to his mother is never fulfilled. In other words, the dream of visiting Tokyo Tower’s observation deck is postponed indefinitely for both mother and son. Thus, on a superficial level, it appears that the possibility of realizing a dream is virtually eliminated in Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad; in contrast, Always: Sunset on Third Street allows for limitless possibilities by adopting ingenious delaying tactics. From a deeper perspective, however, this is not necessarily true. In fact, Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad gives audiences a rather unique resolution for the future. The protagonist does, in fact, visit the tower’s observation deck with his mother’s ihai (mortuary tablet or spirit tablet) just after her death. An ihai, indigenous to East Asian countries, is a small wooden tablet inscribed with a posthumous Buddhist name representing a dead ancestor. It is generally a special object used to worship the dead, since, in Buddhist countries, the soul of the dead is believed to dwell in it (Hasegawa 2008: 59). The concept of the ihai is believed to have originated in Chinese Confucianism, from where it was introduced to Buddhism (Hasegawa 2008: 59). Although the worship of remote ancestors has dwindled in recent times with the widespread decline of religious beliefs in contemporary Japanese society, the practice of mourning the deaths of individual family members is becoming more prevalent, according to Inoue Haruyo (Inoue 2007). Hence, it is becoming more common for contemporary Japanese to accord an ihai great respect and recognition, equivalent to that given to living relatives. It can be stated that a visit to any place carrying an ihai is not only an act of physical movement but also one of serious mourning or commemoration. In that respect, the ending sequence of this film is extremely significant and suggestive. In this context, it is important not to regard the story of Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad as a narrative from an entertaining film but to view it as a common narrative for the contemporary Japanese. Lily Franky, the Japanese novelist who wrote the novel on which the film is based – and whose novel sold over two million copies – states, ‘I believe this story is common to all people. When I [spoke] with the readers of my novel, I found that most of them think the story is applicable to their own family’ (Lily 2007: 22). Moreover, after reading the novel, Kuze Teruhiko, a well-known television producer and novelist, confessed in his book review, ‘I wept [on reading it]. . . . This is the Bible written in hiragana [the Japanese cursive syllabary]’ (Kuze 2005). Therefore, it would be no exaggeration to argue that the basic narrative of this film and novel is closely interwoven with the Japanese collective consciousness. Although the hero loses his mother, he is given a chance to mourn her by visiting Tokyo Tower with her ihai. Mourning is also closely connected to the collective consciousness (Boym 2001). In this regard, Svetlana Boym introduces the concept of

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‘reflective nostalgia’ and argues that collective frameworks of memory are evoked by mourning. According to Boym, One becomes aware of the collective frameworks of memories when one distances oneself from one’s community or when that community itself enters the moment of twilight. Collective frameworks of memory are rediscovered in mourning. Freud made a distinction between mourning and melancholia. Mourning is connected to the loss of a loved one or the loss of some abstraction, such as a homeland, liberty, or an ideal. Mourning passes with the elapsing of time needed for the ‘work of grief’. In mourning, ‘deference to reality gains the day’, even if its ‘behest cannot be at once obeyed’. In melancholia, the loss is not clearly defined and is more unconscious. . . . Reflective nostalgia has elements of both mourning and melancholia. While its loss is never completely recalled, it has some connection to the loss of collective frameworks of memory. Reflective nostalgia is a form of deep mourning that performs a labour of grief both through pondering pain and through play that points to the future. (Boym 2001: 54–55) Thus, mourning is closely interrelated with the collective frameworks of memory. At the same time, Boym argues that people become aware of their collective frameworks of memory when a community ‘enters the moment of twilight’. In addition, according to Weissberg, collective memory ‘often becomes a form of mourning and a paradoxical sign of loss’ (Weissberg 1999: 22). The arguments of Boym and Weissberg are applicable to Japan’s current social climate, which has been seriously damaged by the burst of the bubble economy, the ‘lost decade’ of the 1990s, and the ongoing financial crisis, although Japan enjoyed high economic prosperity and development before the early 1990s. At any rate, if a Shōwa nostalgic media narrative is seen as a kind of collective mourning, it cannot be discussed without simultaneously considering Japan’s dramatic social transformation and its social loss. In that case, how do Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products commemorate the past by means of mourning for the dead, as represented in Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad? According to Katriel, a ‘memory orientation’ to the past ‘involves the invocation of the past through ritualized actions designed to create an atemporal sense of the presence of the past in the present – in other words, the past mythologized’ (Katriel 1999: 99–100). Thus, the ritualized characteristics of the protagonist’s visit to Tokyo Tower with his mother’s ihai make the narrative an ‘atemporal’ myth. In other words, it appears that the ritualized final scenes of both the film and the novel are intended to detach the plot from reality, thereby offering extraordinary experiences to the audience and the readership. It can be surmised that the atemporality of Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad and the delaying tactics of Always: Sunset on Third Street are intentionally introduced into these films in order to avoid the reality

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of Japan’s past and to portray an imaginary future. Hence, we can say that the major media products that play upon the themes of Shōwa nostalgia have a tense relationship with the actual Shōwa reality; they may even be described as being in conflict with and somewhat in opposition to the actual past for some reason, even though they are generally regarded as stereotyped representations indicating merely a longing for the recent past. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that a piece of nostalgic media that shows much discontent with its period of focus is recognized by a critic as a contemporary Japanese ‘Bible’. As far as Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad is concerned, the film’s tense relationship with the actual past may be related to a sense of discontent with modernity, as suggested by the tragic ending depicting the death of the protagonist’s mother. Numerous other Shōwa nostalgic films likewise contain tragic elements, even though they are mainly, perhaps superficially, intended to show a yearning for the past. Typical examples include Last Snow (Nagori yuki) (2002), A Heartful of Love (Kono mune ippai no ai wo) (2005), Riding the Metro (Metoro ni notte) (2006), Curtain Call (Kāten kōru) (2006), First Love (Hatsukoi) (2006), Yellow Tears (Kiiroi namida) (2007), and GS Wonderland ( Jī esu wandārando) (2008). According to Eagleton (2003), a tragic narrative is an antithesis of modernity and reflects the contradiction of modernity, although tragedy itself is an attribute of the essence of modernity. [I]f [tragedy] is of absolute value, whether alive or dead, it is because it represents a reaction to modern barbarism. It is just that what it complains of in that era is usually science, democracy, liberalism, and social hope rather than injustice, exploitation, and military aggression. In this sense, it remains bound to the very social forms which it disowns. . . . Yet modernity never really needed reminding of tragedy. To assume so is to reduce a complex formation to a single, crassly triumphalist doctrine, a grand narrative of progress which rides roughshod over individual lives. Arthur Schopenhauer recounted one such grand narrative, that of the Will, but there was nothing teleological about it, and certainly nothing triumphant. On the contrary, it was one of the most remorselessly tragic fables which modern history has witnessed. It is a mistake to suppose that all grand narratives are forever striving onwards and upwards. Though modernity recounts several such tales, they do not exhaust its narrative repertoire. There are also stories to be told of deadlock, contradiction, self-undoing, which represent the dark underside of the fables of progress. (Eagleton 2003: 206–207) Thus, tragedy has a close relationship with modernity, even though this relationship is rather complicated and even equivocal; although tragedy is a modern attribute, it is critical of modernity. As regards the relationship between tragedy and Japanese society, Isolde Standish, analyzing the conceptualization of the ‘tragic hero’ in Japan’s post-war films, argues that the films exploit all the major characteristics of the tragic hero, as typified by self-sacrifice and excessive masculinity, in

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order to reposition the war experience and even resolve the social contradictions in post-war Japan; as a result, the ‘tragic hero’ narrative has, ‘through repetition, reached mythic significance’ (Standish 2000: 200). Therefore, it can be surmised that filmmakers consciously incorporate tragic elements into Shōwa nostalgic films in order to resolve certain social contradictions of early twenty-first-century Japan. Furthermore, if the emergence of a grand narrative, progress, rational thinking, and secularity are the typical characteristics of modernity, then ambiguity, incompleteness, ritualized mourning, and tragedy may signify discontent or friction with modernity. If this is true, then the question arises: with what aspects of modernity are these Shōwa nostalgic media actually discontented? Although we can discuss only a limited set of possibilities in this section, we can certainly deduce that the media and cultural products seeking to invoke a sense of nostalgia resist the actual history of Japan – particularly occurrences after the completion of Tokyo Tower, that is, after the 1960s – while superficially expressing a yearning for that period in terms of stereotypes. In other words, a sense of antagonism toward Japan’s post-war history may have prompted these nostalgic media producers to create a kind of revised historical narrative of Japan’s post-war society or a counter-narrative to the dominant understanding of Japan’s post-war development. We cannot overlook the fact that Japan’s post-war economic ‘heyday’ does not necessarily satisfy the Japanese who lived at that time but rather arouses their antipathy. In that case, why is there a proliferation of media and cultural products focusing on that period of time? What do its audience and creators actually long for? As shown earlier, people become conscious of the collective frameworks of memory when a community ‘enters the moment of twilight’ (Boym 2001: 54). In addition, according to Davis (1979), collective nostalgia commonly arises in order to maintain socio-historic continuity in the face of an unfortunate historic event or sudden social change, such as war, depression, or a massive natural disaster. Allowing then that we are susceptible to feelings of anxiety and concern for our future selves when we are brought up short by some untoward historic event or intrusive social change, it can be seen how at the most elemental level collective nostalgia acts to restore, at least temporarily, a sense of sociohistoric continuity with respect to that which had verged on being rendered discontinuous. (Davis 1979: 103–104) Therefore, it would be more understandable if Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products simply yearned for the days of Japan’s economic glory before the lost decade of the 1990s. However, the reality is somewhat different, because the nostalgic media appear to be discontented with the outcome of those days, for some reason, and instead prefer to dwell on specific images of the unfinished. In any case, the current ‘boom’ in the production of Shōwa nostalgic media must have some underlying reasons, and likewise, there must be some reason for the widespread adherence to the recent past. In order to further explore

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this issue, the next chapter will analyze the nostalgia-invoking television programmes and films that deal with Japan’s post-war technical development; it is widely recognized that Japan’s technical advancements particularly characterize the country’s post-war socio-economic transformation, and a kind of ‘techno myth’ narrative constitutes a major genre of the Shōwa nostalgic media. The next chapter will further clarify the mixed emotions regarding the late Shōwa period expressed in the media playing upon the themes of Shōwa nostalgia, despite the fact that this very period is the target of their nostalgia.

3

Technology and nostalgia – Project X: Challengers and Hula Girls

It goes without saying that technology is deeply related to the development of modernity. Modernity is above all scientific thinking and is, as Lyotard argues, ‘unquestioning acceptance of an instrumental conception of knowledge’ (Lyotard 1984: 18). As far as Lyon is concerned, ‘modernity questions all conventional ways of doing things, substituting authorities of its own, based in science, economic growth, democracy or law’ (Lyon 1999: 27). Therefore, modernity places a high priority on the progress of scientific knowledge and technology, and at the same time modern development is measured by the extent to which technology is advanced. On the other hand, the special status of scientific knowledge and technology might have provoked various criticisms of modernity. Needless to say, numerous arguments, particularly ones provided by postmodern thinkers, fall into this category. Meanwhile, Habermas’s argument, which defines modernity as an unfinished project, is a kind of reconstruction of modernity through the integration of fragmented modern knowledge. Habermas still places his trust in modern enlightened thought and scientific thinking, as he believes that proper understanding of ‘the mistakes of those extravagant programmes, which have tried to negate modernity’ (Habermas 1985: 12) renders modernity more effective. Thus, scientific thinking and technology are crucial for both the people who criticize modernity and those who defend it. Consequently, the creation of Shōwa nostalgic media products on the theme of Japan’s technological development after World War II deserves a detailed investigation in this study. It is critical to carefully examine the manner in which the nostalgic media products review Japanese modernity. It must be added that technological evolution is closely related to the rise of nationalism and industrial society. Gellner (1983) argues that industrial society is completely different from an agrarian society on the grounds that industrial society needs homogenized education in order to equip all people with advanced technologic abilities. Homogenized education, as far as Gellner is concerned, cannot be sustained by private organizations and is accomplished only by nationwide public education because, ‘though only the state can sustain so large a burden, only the state is also strong enough to control so important and crucial a function’ (Gellner 1983: 37). Therefore, modern nation-states have seen a need to promote an understanding of the significance of technology when they have

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provided public education. In a sense, nationalism is a concept that was born by this particular modern quest (Mosse 1975; Gellner 1983). According to Mosse (1975), one of the reasons why nationalism emphasizes masculinity and sports is that nation building – especially technological advancement – requires these abilities. Thus, masculinity is closely related to technology. Technology has occupied a particularly significant position in Japanese society, although technology’s close relationship with modernity and nationalism is common in a number of countries. As the first Asian country that adopted Western industrial technology, according to Najita, Japan has had to ‘clarify its cultural identity as a nation outside the ordering of the cultural framework shaped by Western nations’ (Najita 1988: 408). Hannerz argues that although the French see their culture as a ‘gift to the world’ and believe it is their mission to disperse their culture to the world, the Japanese tend to emphasize their cultural uniqueness and ‘find it a strange notion that anyone can “become Japanese”, and they put Japanese culture on exhibit, in the framework of organized international contacts, as a way of displaying irreducible distinctiveness rather than in order to make it spread’ (Hannerz 1989: 67). Consequently, according to Yoshimi, Japanese people have been inclined to attribute their technological evolution to their ‘original’ cultural characteristics (Yoshimi 1998). In Japan, importance has been attached to the advancement of technology, particularly since the end of World War II. Just after the end of the war, the Japanese came to the conclusion that the major cause of Japan’s defeat was their country’s technological weakness in contrast with the overwhelming military strength and technology of the United States. It is worth noting that, in order to develop post-war Japan, Suzuki Kantarō, the Japanese prime minister at the time, delivered Japan’s concession speech on the radio on 15 August 1945 and stated, ‘[T]here is nothing for it but to promote science and technology, which was our most serious shortcoming in the war.’ Therefore, the catchy political slogan of ‘a science and technology-oriented nation’ (kagaku gijutsu rikkoku) became a catchphrase of Japan’s post-war reconstruction (Abe 2001). On the other hand, chanting nationalistic political slogans in public was considered taboo, as postwar Japanese were forced to become introspective about the war. Consequently, the Japanese government succeeded in advancing a kind of ‘alternative nationalism’ that exploited this readily understood slogan and spread it throughout the nation. In this regard, it can be stated that technological evolution is, for Japan, not merely a matter of the technological realm but is also closely related to politics and nationalism. Furthermore, as the Cold War structure became consolidated, General Headquarters of the Allied Forces (GHQ) began to exploit Japan as an East Asian hub against communism. It is ironic that Japan’s post-war technological development was even welcomed by the United States, which had been cautious about the resurgence of Japanese nationalism. As a result, technological evolution has become a useful benchmark for measuring Japan’s post-war reconstruction, which was particularly aimed at catching up with the United States and at receiving worldwide recognition. In the following passage, Abe (2001)

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clearly explains how technological advancement has functioned in Japan’s postwar society. The economic growth process in which Japanese cars and home electronics have attained worldwide recognition since the 1970s coincides with the political and cultural process in which post-war Japan has restored its pride and regained its self-confidence. ‘Japanese technology is internationally respected.’ ‘Made-in-Japan products make us proud.’ This pride in Japanese technology is felt by not only those who produce or sell the products but also numerous ordinary Japanese citizens. . . . Japan’s post-war intention to ‘catch up with’ the United States through advancing science and technology implies further intention to ‘outstrip’ the United States someday. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the slogan of creating a ‘science and technology-oriented nation’ just after the end of the war is not only oriented for the ‘public principle’ (tatemae) of realization of a peaceful state and democracy, but also for the ‘real intention’ (honne) of a revenge (ribenji) [against the United States] through the competition of technological and economic development. Although the project of creating ‘a science and technology-oriented nation’ is a specific policy adopted by Japan’s post-war government, it at the same time signifies an unfinished dream through which Japanese manage to recover ‘what is national’ (nashonaru na mono) that was forbidden by the defeat of the war. (Abe 2001: 52–53) This intention of the early post-war years, symbolically represented in the slogan of creating a ‘scientific and technology-oriented nation’, did not change even after the 1960s. The major Japanese consumer-electronics makers such as Sony and Matsushita flaunted in their 1960s advertisements that they had succeeded in entering the world market. It is notable that these advertisements also emphasized that ‘dexterity’ and ‘delicacy’, which are purported to be inherent Japanese characteristics, contributed to developing technologically sophisticated products, which Yoshimi boastingly calls ‘techno-nationalism’ (Yoshimi 1998). Furthermore, at the end of the 1980s, the superior quality of Japanese products allegedly achieved through Japanese uniqueness was remarked on nationalistically and aggressively by Japanese because they believed that Japanese economic power had come to surpass that of the United States (Iwabuchi 2002: 103). It deserves attention that the rise of this Japanese pride coincides with the increase of nihonjinron (discussions of Japaneseness). Nihonjinron, mainly written about by Japanese scholars and entrepreneurs, gained great popularity among Japanese office workers because nihonjinron has ‘always been appealed to as a form of defensive reaction to distinguish Japan from the West, and as the surest protection from the desire of the Other’ (Miyoshi and Harootunian 1988: 395). Nihonjinron is, however, severely criticized and often recognized as a problematic discourse, particularly by foreign scholars, because of its lack of explicit criteria. It must be added that, as far as Westerners are concerned, Japanese

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technological advancement was not necessarily achieved through their cultural uniqueness but was merely achieved through strong Western influences or through copying Western technology (Morley and Robins 1995). In any case, it is true that Japan’s technological advancement before the 1980s drew particular attention of both the Japanese themselves and Westerners, and they interpreted the achievement from their own perspective respectively. What is significant here is the fact that the technological evolution occupies a rather significant position in Shōwa nostalgic media and cultural products. The nostalgic media’s repeated admiration for the country’s technological achievement indicates that the slogan of creating a ‘science and technology-oriented nation’, launched just after the end of World War II, still holds meaning for twenty-first-century Japanese. For example, nostalgic magazines place great emphasis on the technological advancement of the late Shōwa era. As was shown in the previous chapter, two nostalgic magazines, Shūkan Shōwa (Weekly Shōwa) and Shūkan Shōwa Taimuzu (Weekly Shōwa Times), which tend to underscore the unfinished image of Tokyo Tower, appear to consciously avoid discussing the complete tower. In contrast, these magazines give a most detailed description of the technology used in the construction of Tokyo Tower. These magazines proudly provide a detailed account of the manner in which Japanese scientists developed an original technology to construct the tower. That there is an imbalance between the lack of description of the finished tower and the full description of construction technology used could hardly be coincidental. It is also noticeable that, for the film Always: Sunset on Third Street and its two sequels, technological evolution is rather important, because certain episodes with regard to technology play a significant role as a sub-narrative in these films. As was shown in the previous chapter, the hero Suzuki Norifumi intends to establish a major automobile company and expand his business into the global market, however, in the film setting of the 1950s, he is only able to manage a very small auto repair shop. Suzuki is symbolically presented as a typical Japanese at that time who worked hard and dreamed of a rosy future, strongly influenced by the national slogan of creating a ‘science and technology-oriented nation’. In the first half of the film Always: Sunset on Third Street, strong words are exchanged between Suzuki and a teenage girl, Mutsuko, who had just come up to Tokyo to find employment. The quarrel occurred because Mutsuko found the workplace to be merely a tiny auto repair shop, and she was angry with Suzuki, who misled applicants through his recruitment advertisement, saying that he managed not an auto repair shop but a big auto manufacturer. The following dialogue with Suzuki explains the sentiments of ordinary Japanese people at that time. Suzuki:

Sure, not that I don’t understand why you are so bitterly disappointed. I couldn’t decide what to write in the ads. Mutsuko: What? Suzuki: But, I definitely wanted to avoid writing that I manage a mere auto repair shop. I was afraid that everything would have gone down the drain if I wrote that. I believe my dream of building a decent auto

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company is not impossible. In fact, I believe the company could advance into the global market. It is true that I am merely an owner of a small shop. Yet, the war is already over. I’m sure I can build a large business. You can cooperate with me, can’t you? Thus, it is obvious that the hero Suzuki is represented as a typical, average person who is greatly influenced by the dominant ideology of that time. In the 1950s, a television receiver, refrigerator, and washing machine were compared to ‘three sacred treasures’ (sanshu no jingi), and these three home appliances were particularly yearned for by Japanese people at that time. Yoshimi argues that the ‘three sacred treasures’ functioned effectively as a ‘sign that individual families confirmed their identities as “modernized” families. This actually shows that a kind of politics based on an image strategy exploiting home appliances was played during the high-speed growth era’ (Yoshimi 1998: 144). Always: Sunset on Third Street stereotypically, while symbolically, depicts the longing of people in the 1950s for these household appliances. The best example is a scene about a television receiver. When Suzuki purchases a television receiver for his family, and the receiver is set up in his house, dozens of neighbours, who were then among the general population that could not afford a television receiver, crowd into Suzuki’s house in order to watch a professional wrestling match on television. What is worth noting is that the film emphasizes how important a television receiver is by changing the original manga story, which did not portray the neighbours as thrusting themselves into Suzuki’s house. Furthermore, the scenes with regard to a refrigerator appear in both Always: Sunset on Third Street and its sequel. It was rather common for Japanese to buy ice blocks from an ice dealer (kōriya), because a refrigerator was not yet widely used among the ordinary households of the 1950s. Always: Sunset on Third Street depicts the Suzuki family buying ice from a dealer; on the other hand, its sequel sets the scene in which the family purchases a refrigerator. Although the film depicts the family’s immense satisfaction when the refrigerator is carried into their home, the film, at the same time, represents the ice dealer leaving the city in despair. Thus, both films construct the sub-narratives that symbolically represent the changes in the technological environment from the 1950s to the ’60s. It appears rather significant that these representative nostalgic films and magazines attach a high value to the technological evolution at that time, as a major subject of collective nostalgia. A main reason why this book devotes one chapter to the subject of technology is because the way technology is represented in Shōwa nostalgic media is significantly different from representations in the media products of the previous century. The difference is of decisive importance, as this change appears to have been brought about through the transformation of Japanese attitudes toward their modernity. To put it another way, media that promote a sense of Shōwa nostalgia appear to conduct self-evaluations about Japanese modernity, particularly the post-war development. The result of the self-evaluations, as shown in the narratives of these nostalgic media, reflects a fundamental discontent with the orthodox understanding of mainstream post-war

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history. Therefore, in a sense, this chapter is a partial answer to the question addressed in the previous chapter.

Attribution of success to individuals Although it is common for Shōwa nostalgic films and magazines to shed light on the evolution of technology, as argued above, television programmes have been the most enthusiastic in promoting this theme, and some programmes have gained extremely high audience ratings. Therefore, this chapter will focus on major nostalgic television programmes. Not only current nostalgic television programmes raise the subject of post-war technological advancement; programmes from the twentieth century also did, as they often reviewed Japanese technological development. However, their attitude to the post-war technological evolution is rather different from that of nostalgic TV programmes of the twenty-first century. The most well-known and typical programme of the twentieth century is probably a 1991 special series programme, Japanese Memoir of Creating a Technology-Oriented Nation (Denshi rikkoku Nippon no jijoden), broadcast on NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation). This series of programmes, which focuses on the development of the semiconductor industry in Japan’s post-war period, gained great popularity among viewers and received numerous media awards. The major characteristic of this programme is its nationalistic narrative that particularly emphasizes Japanese ‘abilities’ and ‘efforts’, particularly those of Japanese private companies, although these were often criticized for imitating American technology. On the other hand, Abe is strongly critical of this NHK programme because it merely sheds light on the achievements of private companies and ignores Japan’s government which, according to Abe, has played a leading role in the post-war technological development (Abe 2001: 117). Certainly, as Yamada argues, Japan’s post-war technological evolution was accomplished through a joint effort by the public and private sectors (Yamada 2001). The 1960s and ’70s films that focus on technological developments usually depict both sectors. A typical example is a 1970 film, The Summit of Mt. Fuji (Fujisanchō), that deals with the construction of weather observation radar on the top of Mount Fuji. The film depicts technicians from private companies as heroes and exploits Ishihara Yūjirō’s star persona; yet at the same time the film depicts the close cooperation of elite bureaucrats. On the other hand, the representation of the 1991 special series programme Japanese Memoir of Creating a Technology-Oriented Nation is rather different. Although technological evolution has been achieved in part as a result of the initiative of the bureaucracy, this television programme places a particular emphasis on the performance of private companies, and its narrative succeeds in appealing to the viewing audiences not least because ‘this was an acceptable and desirable narrative to the majority of Japanese viewers at that time’ (Abe 2001: 121). The relationship between the bureaucracy and the private sector has always been tense in Japan’s post-war society. The tension is typically seen in the world expositions, which were believed to be golden opportunities for both the

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bureaucracy and the private sector to display national technological prestige. Yoshimi, who carries out research on several of the post-war world expositions held in Japan, argues that all these expositions result in bureaucrat-dominated events – bureaucrats always reverse the agreements of exposition committees, which consist of both public and private sectors (Yoshimi 2005). Furthermore, bureaucrats usually implement regional development in parallel with promoting a world exposition. As a result, all world expositions, such as Expo ’70 (Osaka), Expo ’75 (Okinawa), Expo ’85 (Tsukuba), and Expo 2005 (Aichi), provide similar ‘landscapes of futuristic cities which are far from the understanding of their original theme and concepts’ (Yoshimi 2005: 274). Therefore, it is obvious that post-war technological development has been promoted owing to the initiative of the bureaucracy. At the same time, the point that the private sector has been discontent with the bureaucratic centralization should not be overlooked. In one sense, the television programme Japanese Memoir of Creating a TechnologyOriented Nation may have achieved its popularity through this programme’s strong emphasis on the overlooked role of the private sector, to which most television viewers belong. As this chapter will clarify, Shōwa nostalgic television programmes of the twenty-first century also pay little attention to bureaucrats and rather emphasize the private sector’s achievement when they depict the post-war technological evolution. At the same time, however, it must be noted that there is a significant difference between them. What distinguishes Shōwa nostalgic television programmes from the previous century’s programmes is their particular depiction of an individual’s initiative and not that of an institution. Shōwa nostalgic programmes argue that post-war technological advancement has been promoted not by bureaucrats or even private companies but by certain individual employees who, the programmes argue, make enormous efforts to invent new technologies. In addition, the employees whom the programmes shed light on are not necessarily elite engineers but are non-mainstream employees or even marginalized workers. A major purpose of this chapter is to clarify the manner in which Shōwa nostalgic television programmes differ from the major programmes of the previous century and, more significantly, to argue that these nostalgic programmes provide the viewers with a kind of ‘revised historical narrative’ that reflects discontent with Japan’s post-war development and the commonly held orthodox understanding of that development. The most well-known nostalgic television programme of the twenty-first century that focuses on Japan’s technological evolution is NHK’s Project X: Challengers (Purojekuto ekkusu chōsensha tachi), broadcast for more than five years from March 2000 to December 2005. Featured on the public broadcasting network every Tuesday night at 9:15 p.m., this programme, with nearly two hundred episodes, was basically composed of studio discussion and a documentary clip depicting a typical success story with regard to Japan’s post-war development. Project X: Challengers is widely recognized as one of the representative Shōwa nostalgic media products (Matsumoto and Hosaka 2003), and in practice the target audiences are middle-aged and elderly Japanese who lived through the

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period of high-speed economic growth (Edagawa 2001). Yet this programme gained enormous popularity with a whole new generation because it was selected as ‘the most recommended television programme for children’ by the National Parent-Teacher Association for four consecutive years. Moreover, the number of requests for the rebroadcast of Project X: Challengers, despite its serious content, was one of the highest of all public broadcasting programmes at the beginning of the twenty-first century, hence the popularity and feedback for this programme are ‘quite unusual’ (Edagawa 2001: 91). Consequently, it is no exaggeration to say that Project X: Challengers is not only a representative Shōwa nostalgic media product but also one of the most significant public broadcasting programmes in the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is true that certain intellectuals highly praise Project X: Challengers and strongly recommend that the public watch it (Matsui 2001; Oda 2001). However, it must also be stated that this programme has often been the focus of severe criticism from other intellectuals. First, this programme is criticized for its exaggerated mise-en-scène (Inamasu 2001; Ishikawa 2001; Murofushi 2001; Maki and Tahara 2002). Inamasu Tatsuo – a media scholar – states, ‘[A]n exaggerated way of representation is remarkable, although I understand this is the strength of this programme. This programme dramatizes certain things more than necessary by making free use of music and narration even though the actual reality that it focuses on is merely a small thing brought about by a slight business chance’ (Inamasu 2001: 206). Secondly, there is criticism of the programme’s stereotypical structure (Ishikawa 2001; Matsuzaki 2001; Maki and Tahara 2002). A critic, Ishikawa Yoshimi, states, ‘[T]his programme carries its enthusiasm to an extreme to make viewers cry, hence I get bored with it. . . . This programme is essentially a tear-milking story. It is like Tōyama no Kinsan and Mito Kōmon [both are wellknown television period dramas] because of its stereotyped pattern. Viewers may expect to see this pattern every week’ (Ishikawa 2001: 206). Ishikawa’s argument deserves attention because period drama (jidaigeki) caters to nostalgia for a pre-modern Japan, particularly for the Edo period; it is ‘a device that evokes strong nostalgia and emotion in Japanese who long for “bygone days” that disappeared due to urbanization and industrialization’ (Tsutsui 2008: 166). Although Ishikawa is critical of Project X: Challengers because of its formulaic pattern as well as of Tōyama no Kinsan and Mito Kōmon, Odagiri Makoto argues that these period dramas have enjoyed popularity and trust among audiences for several decades owing to their stereotyped images (Odagiri 2009: 42–43). According to Billig, the more a media product is reproduced formulaically, the more it becomes popular as ‘familiar particularities are employed to represent a commonly understood sense of “us”; and, because they are familiar, the representation is a repetition, which involves an imaginative act of unimagination’ (Billig 1995: 102). On the other hand, it should be remembered that Project X: Challengers is not fiction as are period dramas and other film and television dramas, but a documentary series. Although documentaries have their own genres, it can be stated that Project X: Challengers combines the ‘compilation’ style programme that is

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produced by assembling images from archival sources with the ‘talking-heads’ style programme that consists of interviews or testimonies about actual events. As Nichols argues, it is rather difficult to make a clear distinction between a fictional programme and a documentary (Nichols 1991: 6). On the other hand, there are at least some fundamental disparities between them. According to Bordwell and Thompson, ‘Typically, the documentary filmmaker controls only certain variables of preparation, shooting, and assembly; some variables (e.g. script, rehearsal) may be omitted, whereas others (e.g. setting, lighting, behaviour of the figures) are present but often uncontrolled’ (Bordwell and Thompson 1990: 23). However, script is not omitted but plays a significant role in Project X: Challengers, as this is a ‘compilation’ programme that adopts the expository mode, depending upon an omniscient narrator’s voice-over commentary. Therefore, this programme is typical of the expository mode documentary in which ‘the rhetoric of the commentator’s argument serves as the textual dominant, moving the text forward in service of its persuasive needs’ (Nichols 1991: 35). Furthermore, it must be noted that interviews tend to be subordinate to an argument offered by the programme itself (Nichols 1991: 37), although Project X: Challengers uses a number of interviews of the people involved. According to Nichols, documentaries are less concerned with fictional characters than with social actors and less interested in portraying a story than in presenting an argument (Nichols 1991: 5). Meanwhile, documentaries prefer using rhetoric in order to make arguments persuasive, as rhetoric ‘involves making a persuasive case, not describing and assessing damaging or less appealing facts, though their disclosure would be necessary to a well-informed judgement’ (Nichols 1991: 136). Consequently, documentaries are not neutral but reflect the producers’ thoughts, although they are rather different from fictional works. In particular, it can be surmised that Project X: Challengers easily reflects the producers’ intentions because of its style. The most distinctive characteristic of Project X: Challengers is its particular emphasis on the role of individual employees or engineers and not that of institutions, whether public or private. Imai Akira, an NHK senior producer who developed the programme and was in charge of all the episodes, frequently stated the reason why this programme focused on individual employees and engineers (Imai 2001, 2002, 2007a, 2007b). I wanted to produce Project X: Challengers at any cost. This intention was based on my belief that Japan should not become a state that lacks a high regard for people. I believe that Japanese history has begun in the twentieth year of Showa (1945) [the year when the war ended]. Those who have reconstructed and grown present-day Japan are corporate employees, workers at small businesses, and ordinary local people. In addition, several tens of thousands of the projects developed by these people result in contemporary Japan’s prosperity. I do believe that today’s Japan has been constructed not by political super leaders but by the struggles (tatakai) of ordinary people including regional leaders, mid-level executives of companies and so on. (Imai 2002)

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Thus, it is obvious that Project X: Challengers was originally produced in order to focus on the achievement of individuals, not that of bureaucrats and politicians. Hence, the important characters who appear in the documentary part of this programme are not bureaucrats, top executives, and celebrities but corporate employees and unknown engineers. Furthermore, it was common for this programme to invite these unknown employees to the television studio for the discussion segment. As shown before, however, it is unreasonable to attribute all post-war technological evolution merely to the efforts of the private sector, much less that of individual engineers. In addition, the numerous technological development ‘projects’ would not have been undertaken without the support of top executives, although Imai emphasizes that the achievements of these projects were, above all, due to the discretionary efforts of individual employees. It must be noted that Japan’s post-war projects are, as economist Katayama Osamu argues, merely ‘systems of bringing out an individual’s voluntary intentions and motivations’ (Katayama 2001: 202), fostered by top executive management policies. Therefore, if the projects were based only on the spontaneity of employees, as portrayed by Imai, the top management strategy behind the projects would be lost. Moreover, what must not be missed is the nationalistic or ethnocentric characteristic of Project X: Challengers. After the considerable success of this programme, Imai has been frequently invited as a guest speaker at various conferences organized by companies, and Imai always emphasizes that the numerous developed technologies shown in the programme were brought about by a ‘Japanese ethnic distinction’, as is suggested below. Japanese are often told that they cling together in groups and are timid, yet this is wrong. There is no other race more fearless than the Japanese race, anywhere in the world. . . . I believe that no other people are braver than the Japanese, who intend to build a radar in a place four thousand metres above sea level, dig an undersea tunnel twenty-three kilometres below the sea, or build a bridge straddling across the sea. As far as technological evolution is concerned, it is not true that both rotary engine and liquid crystal were developed through imitation (sarumane). Japanese gleaned abandoned technologies from around the world, built technology from scratch and then crystallized them into a world-class technology. Therefore, in this sense, I would argue that Japanese should believe in themselves and should be very proud of their intelligence and bold inventiveness. (Imai 2002) Undoubtedly, Imai’s remark is based on a kind of ethnocentrism commonly shared by certain right-wing Japanese intellectuals, particularly Ishihara Shintarō, the Tokyo governor and also a celebrated novelist (Morita and Ishihara 1989; Ishihara and Etō 1991; Ishihara 2001; Ishihara 2004; Ishihara 2006). However, well-known economist Uchihashi Katsuto argues that a commonly shared Japanese belief that it is highly problematic is that the quality of Japanese

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technology succeeded in surpassing the quality of Western technology and became number one in the world in the 1980s due to a ‘Japanese ethnic distinction’, as this belief is not based upon any objective criterion but merely on overconfidence (Uchihashi 1992). Even Ezra Vogel, who praises Japan a great deal in his well-known book Japan as Number One, attributes Japan’s post-war technological development not to Japanese culture but to the particular structure and planning of Japanese enterprise. Vogel states as follows. I wanted to understand the success of the Japanese in dealing with practical questions. My first inclination was to examine how such Japanese virtues as hard work, patience, self-discipline, and sensitivity to others contributed to their success. But the more I examined the Japanese approach to modern organization, the business community, and the bureaucracy, the more I became convinced that Japanese success had less to do with traditional character traits than with specific organizational structures, policy programmes, and conscious planning. (Vogel 1979: ix) In addition, Paul de Gay and Stuart Hall analyze Sony’s Walkman from their cultural studies perspective and argue that it is totally wrong to attribute Japan’s post-war success in developing technology to the conventional cultural nature and spirituality of Japanese (du Gay et al. 1997: 72). Rather, Japan’s post-war success in developing technology is, according to du Gay and Hall, a result of a kind of ‘hybridization’ not least because the technology, particularly Japan’s industrial designs, heavily draws inspiration from that of Western countries such as Germany and the United States (du Gay et al. 1997: 72). Hence, Imai’s ethnocentric belief is somewhat problematic because it lacks any objective criteria. According to Bordwell and Thompson, ‘If the conclusion cannot be proved beyond question’, the producer of a documentary that uses ‘rhetorical’ form ‘often appeals to our emotions, rather than presenting only factual evidence’ (Bordwell and Thompson 2004: 141). It can be surmised that the basic narrative structure of the television programme Project X: Challengers reflects Imai’s biased belief and appeals to the audience’s emotions. This chapter will analyze several typical episodes of Project X: Challengers and will argue that this programme is a kind of ‘revised historical narrative’; it will also show that the programme, despite its longing for the post-war days, reflects discontent with Japan’s post-war society and with the common orthodox understanding of it. Among these episodes, ‘Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers’ (Tokyo tawā: koibitotachi no tatakai), which focuses on the construction of Tokyo Tower, appears an appropriate episode to discuss first. This episode is consistent from beginning to end in emphasizing that the construction of Tokyo Tower required the ‘world’s best’ technological capability. At the beginning of this episode, anchorman Kunii Masahiko says, ‘The world was very surprised because they [Japanese] intended to build the world’s best structure in a period when they lacked adequate technology.’ During the programme, the anchorman and

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a voice-over narrator repeat similar expressions conveying that the tower is the ‘world’s best’. Although the construction of Tokyo Tower was, strictly speaking, a private sector project as shown in the previous chapter, it was a major representative post-war project originally planned by the Posts and Telecommunications Ministry and as a result involved prominent scientists and one of the world’s largest architectural firms. However, ‘Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers’ emphasizes that the completion of the tower is actually the result of the effort of engineers and individuals. This programme focuses on just two people involved in the project: a field overseer and a construction worker. It is worth noting that neither are top management executives – one is a nameless mid-level manager and the other an employee. Furthermore, what is notable is the fact that, in addition to the representation of their daily work on the construction of Tokyo Tower, this episode depicts their private lives – particularly their love affairs, since they were unmarried during the period depicted. In other words, the achievement of constructing Tokyo Tower is attributed to the efforts of these nameless employees, and the ‘great achievement’ is also connected with the successful conduct of their private love affairs. Undoubtedly, the title ‘Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers’ itself indicates the basic narrative concept of this episode. A voice-over narration at the beginning of this episode more clearly portrays this concept as follows. Voice-over narration One of the toughest construction projects of the century was entrusted to the men who are the best craftsmen in Japan. They were construction workers belonging to Kurosaki Construction Corporation, a well-known construction firm. There was a man who was more pleased to be involved with the construction than any of his colleagues. His name is Kiryū Gorō, who is twenty-five years old and is appointed to head the team of young construction workers because of his craftsmanship (ude) and courage (dokyō). Kiryū Gorō I was enthusiastic about this work. I wanted to be considered a full-fledged team leader as soon as possible. I also wanted to gain a good salary and then to get married. Voice-over narration The project needed a field overseer who had to care for the hard-bitten construction workers. The field overseer had to comprehend the structure of the huge and intricate tower. At the same time, he was required to spend considerable energy and effort in order to work at the world’s highest construction site. The man appointed as the field overseer of Tokyo Tower was an engineer named Takeyama Masaaki, still thirty-one years old. At that time, Takeyama was involved in constructing the iron tower of NHK Matsuyama broadcasting station. He was a brave man who remained imperturbable in

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the face of difficulties. Takeyama was very excited about the major task of constructing the world’s highest tower in Tokyo. Takeyama Masaaki To be quite honest, I trembled with excitement. I was rather proud to be an engineer involved in this world-class project and was resolutely prepared to see it through. Voice-over narration Takeyama wrote to a woman living in Kyoto with whom he was infatuated. She was eight years his junior and was named Izawa Ryōko. Takeyama wrote, in a five-page letter, his determination to handle the project. Takeyama had nothing else to do but tell her about his work in order to make her understand his feelings for her. (A close-up of one letter) ‘The new tower will be the highest in the world. I have staked my life on this task.’ Grim determination and burning ambition. In the summer of the thirty-second year of the Showa period [1957], the men (otokotachi) gathered at Shiba in Tokyo. It is obvious that this voice-over narration dramatizes both the tasks of the field overseer and construction worker as well as emphasizes that Tokyo Tower is a ‘world-class’ tower. In addition, the narrator makes known that both the men are unmarried and infatuated with two women. Both of them try to succeed in love by devoting all their energies to the big project. Thus, the television producers associate the construction of the ‘world-class’ tower, or even identify it, with the successful conduct of their love affairs. The programme, from beginning to end, traces these two characters’ love affairs in parallel with depicting their tasks of constructing Tokyo Tower and, as a result, arrives at a happy ending wherein the tower is completed and their marriages take place. The ending narrative is rather dramatic because the construction worker Kiryū proposes to a young woman, Misao, while the construction of Tokyo Tower is in progress and they celebrate their wedding on the day after the tower is completed. The voice-over narration states, ‘One day, Misao, who was undecided as to whether she should marry Kiryū, secretly visited the construction site. She found there a young man sedulously working atop the soaring tower. The construction worker Kiryū appeared dazzling (kagayaiteita). She decided then to marry him.’ In the case of the field overseer Takeyama, he married Ryōko one year after the completion of Tokyo Tower. The voice-over narration states that Takeyama and Ryōko are now living peacefully in Kyoto, where they first met long ago. Then the programme introduces Ryōko reminiscing. ‘At heart, I was very proud that my partner was involved in such a big project although I did not tell anybody, not even my friends. I treasure the more than one hundred love letters I received from him. I would like to have these letters put into my coffin when I pass away.’ After Ryōko’s reminiscences, the programme ends with the theme song.

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There is no doubt that these stories are based on the facts and real experiences of these people. On the other hand, it must be noted that these facts are intentionally selected from numerous facts by the television producers. It can be surmised that a fact that can be related to the completion of Tokyo Tower and the establishment of a happy family is deliberately selected and romanticized by the producers. This distinctive narrative has two characteristics. First, this programme attributes the feat of technological advancement merely to employees’ efforts and not to institutional management. This provides a marked contrast with the twentieth century’s television programmes such as NHK’s Japanese Memoir of Creating a Technology-Oriented Nation, which focuses on technology itself and corporate strategy with regard to technological development. Secondly, it is notable that this programme identifies the technological achievement not only with the workers’ efforts but also with their private lives, particularly with their love affairs. In this regard, it appears most interesting that ‘Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers’ even links the construction workers to the imperial family. This programme identifies their marriage with the crown prince’s marriage through linking their wedding with the legendary wedding parade of Crown Prince Akihito (the incumbent emperor) and Princess Michiko in April 1959. As is represented in the voice-over narration, this programme emphasizes the manner in which these construction workers made tremendous efforts to complete the tower that enables multiple broadcasts and then argues that their efforts were well rewarded with their marriages and even with their contribution to the live broadcast of the crown wedding of the century. The following description is a voice-over narration that dramatizes the situation on the very day of the completion of Tokyo Tower. Voice-over narration They have no choice but to go for broke now because this is a major project that would influence the prologue of the television era. The antenna is pulled up to 250 metres in the air. Then, the scaffold wobbles badly. The wind picks up and reaches a speed of 16 kilometres a second. It is dangerous! Takeyama immediately orders the construction workers to stop the work. The huge antenna is left up in the air. The construction workers cling to the tower. The wind is still strong even after one hour has passed. The construction worker Kiryū is quite irritated. If the antenna is not raised, he cannot recite a Shinto prayer (norito) tomorrow. [It is common that a Shinto prayer be recited at a Shinto-style wedding.] At last, Takeyama takes a decision and gives an order. The antenna begins to be slowly erected. Oh! A great cheer goes up from the construction workers at 3:47 p.m. The huge antenna is set aloft the tower at a height of 333 metres. This is the moment when the world-class tower is completed in Tokyo. The following day, Kiryū celebrates his wedding with Misao. In January of the thirty-fourth year of Shōwa [1959], the first radio waves were emitted throughout the Kantō region. Three months later, fifteen million people

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were glued to their TV set to view live the royal wedding of the crown prince and Princess Michiko. Takeyama, field overseer of the construction site of Tokyo Tower, finally had the chance to propose to Ryōko. Takeyama’s interview I was relieved rather than pleased. The construction did not progress on schedule because of the strong wind and other conditions, therefore I felt relieved when erection of the antenna was complete. Kiryū’s interview I felt that everything went well (buji ni anzan shita to iu kanji kane). I believe that all construction workers intend to do their best because they feel their responsibility. That’s the only reason why they do their best. It is clear that ‘Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers’ attributes the completion of Tokyo Tower to the employees’ relentless efforts and also links the employees to the imperial family. The ‘family state’ (kazoku kokka), which is based on Confucian values such as ‘chū’ (loyalty) and ‘kō’ (filial piety), is a major nationalistic ideology of the Meiji period (1868–1912). In the Meiji period, according to Fujita Shōzo, the ‘nation-state is an extension of the relationship between a village and a family. One identifies full emotional unification between the family and village as simply a pillar of the official order of a nation-state. Thus, chū (loyalty) corresponds to kō (filial piety) (chū kō icchi)’ (Fujita 1966: 120). The ‘family state’ as a political ideology was intended to make people accept that the emperor was the comprehensive patriarch of the whole nation and individual families are the smallest unit of the nation. The ideology of ‘family state’ was adopted particularly by the pre-war government for the purpose of enhancing national solidarity and permeated throughout the nation before the Second World War. It is conceivable that the pre-war ideology is still circulating in the twenty-first century, on the grounds that Shōwa nostalgic television programmes still utilize the ideology of ‘family state’. On the other hand, it must be noted that, as argued by sociologist Muta Kazue, the ideology of the ‘family state’ was successfully diffused in the pre-war era not only because of its Confucian values, which were familiar to people at that time, but also because of the rise in the number of nuclear families and the emergence of new family norms (Muta 1996: 108–109). In addition, it must also be noted that the spread of the ‘family state’ ideology is found not only in Japan but also in certain European countries, particularly France, according to Nishikawa Yuko, because ‘family state’oriented ideology is to some degree common to the modernization of numerous countries (Nishikawa 2000). In any case, the present chapter does not explore further the question of ‘family state’, because this topic needs a comprehensive study. Yet, at least, it can be stated here that the narrative of ‘Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers’, a typical Shōwa nostalgic television programme, is based on a stereotyped and even conservative modern concept rather than on a novel concept.

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Most topics that the NHK television programme Project X: Challengers adopts for weekly broadcast are very similar to ‘Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers’, which is why certain intellectuals severely criticize it. As discussed earlier, these critics argue that these broadcasts are merely a tear-milking story like typical period dramas Tōyama no Kinsan and Mito Kōmon because of their stereotyped pattern. On the other hand, as is stated by Ishikawa (2001: 206), one may conclude that viewers thoroughly enjoy the stereotyped pattern every week, since these broadcasts have received high commendation from viewers as exemplified by the programme’s being ‘the most recommended television programme for children’ by the National Parent-Teacher Association for four consecutive years. It is interesting to note that certain other episodes of the Project X: Challengers series stress the role of individuals even more as they extend the range of individuals to the general public who were not necessarily involved in the technological developments covered in the episode. A typical example is ‘Capital Freeway: An Aerial Operation for the Tokyo Olympics’ (Shuto Kōsoku Tokyo Gorin he no Kūchū sakusen), which is based upon the construction of expressways that were intended to improve transportation conditions with regard to the Tokyo Olympics in 1964. This episode deserves attention because, although it covers the memorable Tokyo Olympic Games that were the first to be held in an Asian country, the focus is not on the Olympics itself but on the supporting technological infrastructure. In this programme, more significantly, the general public, who did not participate in the construction of capital freeways, are represented as though they contributed to the project. It is true that one of the major challenges that had to be overcome in order to make the Olympic Games a success was the improvement of the transportation infrastructure, because it took more than two hours by car from Tokyo International Airport (Haneda Airport) to the Olympic stadium that was situated just inside Tokyo’s city centre. (This airport was the only international airport in Tokyo until New Tokyo International Airport [Narita Airport] opened in 1978.) For this reason, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government planned to construct an elevated freeway that would considerably shorten the amount of travel time. ‘Capital Freeway: An Aerial Operation for the Tokyo Olympics’ traces the entire process of constructing the elevated freeway, emphasizing that the construction required an ‘unprecedented’ technology and the ‘tough’ task was accomplished not only by the technicians and employees who were directly involved in the project but also because of the support of the general public. One of the main narratives of this broadcast is devoted to explaining the reason why fishermen working in the Tokyo Bay area are relevant to the construction of the expressway and the manner in which they supported the project. As was stated before, the major purpose in constructing the elevated freeway was to reduce travel time from the international airport to the Olympic stadium. According to the broadcast, it was inevitable that river works would be undertaken in the Tokyo city centre for the construction of the freeway and that the river works would force the fishermen to stop working for a few days. For this reason, some fishermen’s unions declined the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s request for their support. The government

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subsequently made concessions, and the fishermen’s unions accepted the revised request. The broadcast devotes much time to dramatizing this episode. It shows Nakada Tadao, the government engineer responsible for the project, visiting the unions’ offices and informing the union officials that the government is prepared to shorten the duration of river works to reduce the burden on the fishermen. The voice-over narration explains that Sugihara Moemon, the president of the fishermen’s unions, was pleased that the responsible engineer took the time to visit the union office. The programme explains that Sugihara accepted the offer by ‘pouring sake from a sake bottle (isshobin)’ for Nakada. Sugihara’s action is called sakazukigoto (a ritual exchange of sake cups), which is a traditional Japanese ritual. It is true that ‘hobnobbing’ together is commonly done not only in Japan but in numerous other countries, yet Japanese sakazukigoto has a rather particular meaning because it originated in a Shinto (ethnic religion of Japanese people) ritual. For example, in a Shinto-style wedding, sakazukigoto by a bridal couple and their relatives means the exchange of marital vows and also a formation of kinship among participants. It must be added that this Shinto ritual has been applied to yakuza conventions. Yakuza members commonly do sakazukigoto in order to create a pseudo-brother relationship such as an oyabun/kobun (boss and his henchmen) relation. Yang In-sil argues that a scene of sakazukigoto as well as a character’s death is an essential ‘ritual’ in yakuza films (Yang 2002: 121). The fishermen’s support of the construction is further emphasized in the last half of the broadcast. The broadcast depicts the government as being much troubled by a typhoon that threatened on the penultimate day of the construction’s completion. This dramatization of a climactic sequence using nature’s force reminds us of ‘Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers’, which depicts a strong wind hampering the completion of Tokyo Tower. What is notable is that ‘Capital Freeway: An Aerial Operation for the Tokyo Olympics’ depicts an unknown fisherman as being responsible for getting the government out of difficulty. A young fisherman, Matsubara Suekichi, speaks to Nakada Tadao, responsible engineer on the project, who is unable to decide if they should finish the construction on schedule. Matsubara tells Nakada that there is no need to worry unduly, because his experience as a fisherman shows that the typhoon would soon pass. Encouraged by this young fisherman’s advice, Nakada resolves to complete the construction of the elevated freeways as previously scheduled. In short, this broadcast depicts the construction of the ‘world-class’ elevated freeways, which contributed to the success of the Tokyo Olympics, as being finished not merely through bureaucratic initiative but through the tremendous support of unknown ordinary people who were not directly involved in the project. Yet, it seems appropriate to explore the reason why ‘Capital Freeway: An Aerial Operation for the Tokyo Olympics’ depicts the general public as well as the construction of the elevated expressways. As the following television studio discussion tells us, it appears that this infinite extension of the attribution of technological achievement to the general public is maintained by nationalism or a kind of ethnicism. The broadcast features two guests: Nakada Tadao, head of the

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construction office, and Tamano Hiromitsu, a bureaucrat at Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Nakada Tadao This [completion of the elevated freeways] is attributable to Japanese technology. Compere (Kunii Masahiko) What do you think was the secret to the success of these unprecedented expressways? Tamano Hiromitsu The entire Japanese race welcomed the Olympic Games by a consensus (minzoku no sōi wo agete). To concentrate their efforts on the success of the Olympic Games at any cost was the consensus of the Japanese nation (Nihon kokumin), or the Japanese race (Nihon minzoku no sōi). These remarks that attribute the success of the Olympics Games to ‘Japanese technology’ and ‘the consensus of the Japanese race’ (Nihon minzoku no sōi) appear to be based on a view of nationalistic ideology or ethnicism. The conversation is, however, rather consistent with the underlying narrative of the programme series. It is true that these remarks were made by the guests; nevertheless, it must not be overlooked that the remarks were selected by the television producers. Furthermore, another sequence of ‘Capital Freeway: An Aerial Operation for the Tokyo Olympics’ enhances the nationalistic narrative by associating the technological achievement with a post-war recovery, particularly with a victory over the United States. The sequence argues that the technological achievement is comparable to a ‘gold medal’ on the grounds that the technology used for the elevated freeways surpasses that of the United States. The broadcast depicts numerous foreign engineers visiting Tokyo in order to observe the finished freeways during the Olympic Games period. This sequence argues that the foreign engineers admitted that no nation other than the Japanese could develop the technology for constructing the elevated expressways, as follows. Voice-over narration On the tenth of October in the thirty-ninth year of Shōwa [1964], the Tokyo Olympic Games begin. Twenty thousand foreigners travel along the capital freeways. Japan displays its full recovery to the world. (Television frame is a close-up shot of Tokyo Tower.) Certain foreigners mingled with spectators who came to the Olympic Games. A thousand road construction engineers from the United States and West Germany came in order to observe the capital freeways. Tamano Hiromitsu acted as a guide. Lex Witton, chief of the U.S. Road Bureau, told

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him, ‘We could never create such a very intricately curved roadway running above a metropolis. This is great.’ Tamano Hiromitsu I made it! I thought everything went well. I felt fulfilled and satisfied. I felt as if I had subdued the wilderness where no one had been before. Voice-over narration Tamano believed that it was a gold medal for him. It appears that, in this broadcast, a kind of ‘national myth’ with regard to a post-war recovery is created by interrelating several elements with each other. First, the completion of the capital freeways as well as the organization of the Tokyo Olympics is assessed as a perfect opportunity for Japan to display its full recovery to the world. In addition, the technology used for the construction of the expressways is compared with that of the United States. By exploiting the U.S. Road Bureau chief’s comment that admits to the superiority of Japanese technology over that of the United States, this broadcast implies that Japan succeeded in recovering from the defeat of the war. More significantly, the accomplishment is attributed to an unknown young engineer despite the fact that the capital expressways were constructed as a huge government project in which tens of thousands of people participated. Furthermore, it must be noted that his ‘deed’ is likened to the highest possible accomplishment by comparing it to a ‘gold medal’. In other words, according to this broadcast, each engineer’s work in the construction of the elevated freeways is even equal to a top athlete’s gold medal in the Tokyo Olympics. Last but not least, the major reason this programme seeks to associate the general public with this accomplishment is to demonstrate that all Japanese people deserve a ‘gold medal’ for their efforts in the post-war recovery. Therefore, it can be stated that the episode’s narrative feeds into a kind of national myth that is structured around an unconditional admiration of the post-war Japanese people. There is a possibility that this episode depicts a level of scepticism toward bureaucracy and large companies that are controlled by elites. While the 1991 special series programme Japanese Memoir of Creating a Technology-Oriented Nation merely ignores bureaucracy and emphasizes the role of the private sector, this programme series of the twenty-first century focuses on individuals and the general public and unstintingly praises them.

Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard and its discontent with post-war society It is true to say that the programme series Project X: Challengers is structured around a formulaic narrative. Nevertheless, what is well worth noting is that although these programmes depict the achievements of individuals rather than institutions as shown in ‘Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers’ and ‘Capital

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Freeway: An Aerial Operation for the Tokyo Olympics’, some of them represent a ‘great achievement’ of technological evolution as being accomplished not by ‘normal’ individuals or engineers but by ‘marginalized workers’ (madogiwazoku). Moreover, these broadcasts often emphasize that these ‘dead wood’ engineers try to defy the established order of typical Japanese institutions and then make a breakthrough that leads to an ‘unprecedented’ technological advancement. By analyzing a few typical broadcasts as follows, this chapter argues that Project X: Challengers expresses a discontent with post-war society while creating an imaginary narrative that the ‘unprecedented’ post-war technological evolution was accomplished by marginalized engineers defying the Japanese system. Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard (Madogiwazoku ga sekai kikaku o tsukutta) is probably one of the best examples of programmes that praise marginalized engineers, as is easily surmised from the title. This programme is based on a true story, particularly on a 1999 nonfiction book, The Sun Also Rises (Hi wa mata noboru), written by Satō Masaaki. When producing the programme, NHK asked Satō to support the making of the television programme (Satō and Sasabe 2002). The basic story which appears in Satō’s nonfiction book is as follows. At the beginning of the 1970s, a consumer-electronics manufacturer, Victor Company of Japan (JVC), which was ranked eighth among the major manufacturers at that time, was plagued by an operating deficit, although its recorded music section showed a surplus. Under such circumstances, Takano Shizuo, a staff engineer who had long argued the necessity of developing video technology, was appointed a manager of the video enterprise department. JVC at that time intended to reduce redundant personnel in order to stem the flow of red ink, and the video enterprise department was required to reduce the number of employees by 20 per cent. On the other hand, Takano, who foresaw that an era of home video would come before long, frantically explored every avenue for his department to design home video equipment. It was fortunate that the video enterprise department had excellent engineers who were involved with the development of a television receiver under the direction of Takayanagi Kenjirō, who is referred to as ‘the father of Japanese television’ because he developed the world’s first all-electronic television receiver. Hence, Takano determined to orchestrate a project of developing an original home video format of VHS (Video Home System) in his video enterprise department. However, in the early 1970s, Sony, JVC’s rival, was thought to own Japan’s best technology at that time and was also advancing the development of a home video unit by using a Betamax format that was fundamentally different from VHS. It was generally thought that it would be rather difficult for JVC to develop a home video unit that would be superior to Sony’s Betamax (Satō 1999). However, JVC’s project team under the command of Takano managed to develop a VHS format that combines both miniaturization and long-duration recording, while Sony’s completed Betamax was a format of short-duration recording. Takano believed that only one format could become the world standard. Therefore, JVC provided its original technology used for VHS to several rival manufacturers including Matsushita, Mitsubishi, and Hitachi free of charge for the sake of encouraging them to adopt the VHS format for

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their products. Although both Betamax and VHS coexisted originally, Western manufacturers began to adopt the VHS format and as a result it was VHS that became the world standard in the ensuing decades. On the other hand, it must be noted that the basic narrative of the NHK programme is rather different from that of Satō’s book, as can be easily surmised from the title of the television programme. This section will discuss in detail how the television programme differs from Satō’s nonfiction book. First, the programme emphasizes that the tremendous efforts by ‘marginalized’ engineers enabled the development of the world standard VHS. The phrase ‘marginalized workers’ (madogiwazoku) in the title probably implies two things. On the one hand, it implies that the engineers at the video enterprise department are marginalized employees and face redundancy at JVC. On the other hand, it may connote JVC’s inferior position in the consumer-electronics industry, particularly in contrast with rival maker Sony, which was the top manufacturer at that time. However, the narrative of Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard is consistent from beginning to end in its emphasizing that VHS was developed by sidelined engineers. At the beginning of the programme, the voice-over narration states, ‘The development was an implacable come-from-behind victory by the engineers who had not given up their dream even though they were dead wood.’ After this opening narration, Kunii Masahiko, the programme anchorman, points at the photograph of the JVC engineers of the video enterprise department and states, ‘The men who developed the home video unit are these people, namely JVC’s engineers. JVC was ranked eighth at that time. These people were so-called sidelined employees whose department was a target for restructuring. Nobody expected that these employees could develop a home video unit.’ Moreover, at the beginning of the subsequent clip, the voice-over narration states, ‘A drama of pride and tenacity by the dead wood started.’ In addition, when the voiceover narration mentions the project’s engineers, it selects two engineers and then states they are not university graduates but merely high school and industrial high school graduates, respectively. Thus, it is obvious that the programme is consistent in its attribution of the development of VHS to marginalized employees. However, it must be noted that Satō’s original nonfiction novel does not represent them as marginalized employees (Satō 1999). According to Satō, the situation was more complicated, and these engineers cannot necessarily be compared to marginalized workers. It is true that the video enterprise department had a deficit at that time and was required to reduce redundant personnel, although most departments involved with the development of audio and visual devices were in a similar position, not least because JVC was overly dependent on the entertainment business, particularly its promotion of an LP record using popular singers (Satō 1999: 50). The executive team wanted the entertainment business to be replaced by the development of a video unit because JVC was originally a consumer-electronics manufacturer. According to Satō, the JVC president Momose Hitoshi thought, ‘JVC has to produce golden eggs instead of LP records in order to survive as a consumer-electronics manufacturer. The only thing that

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comes to mind is video’ (Satō 1999: 50). JVC’s video enterprise department led by Takano appears to have been significant to JVC to a fair degree because it had more than 270 employees. In addition, when Takano was appointed head of the department in 1970, JVC was producing videocassette players with recording capability, despite the fact that the players produced by all other companies only had replay capability. In a feature article titled ‘The Video Industry Gets Moving’, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported that ‘JVC and Sony led the pack’ in terms of hardware (Asahi Shimbun, 30 January 1970). This suggests that when Takano became head of the video enterprise department, JVC in fact occupied a high position at the forefront of companies engaged in developing video technology. Thus, there seems little support for the interpretation that these employees were marginalized engineers as is represented in Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard. Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard not only depicts the video enterprise department as redundant but also represents the manager Takano as a typical engineer who is relegated to a redundant department. The voice-over narration states as follows. Voice-over narration Takano joined JVC in the twenty-first year of the Shōwa period [1946]. But he had been shunted off the company’s career track. He took charge of the film projector development, which was unspectacular work in contrast with the development of stereo and television, which were core products of JVC. It was too unrewarding for him to work at a money-losing department as his last workplace. Moreover, as will be shown later, Takano is depicted as if he had given himself over to drinking because he was depressed about the ‘demotion’. On the other hand, according to Satō’s nonfiction book, Takano was appointed as a manager by the president Momose not least because Momose believed Takano was the only fit person for the job (Satō 1999: 50–51). Takano, who was a professional engineer of optical equipment, had surmised that video would lead the market of the next generation. He had thus one day made a direct plea to Momose stating, ‘JVC should establish a video enterprise department as soon as possible’ (Satō 1999: 36). Later, when Momose determined to set up a video enterprise department, he thought, ‘That guy [Takano] has an inner fortitude (ippon shin ga tōtteiru). Nobody other than that guy could do the job’ (Satō 1999: 51). Then, Momose told Takano, ‘We will establish a video enterprise department. This department will decide our company’s fate. Hence, I would like to appoint you as a founding manager’ (Satō 1999: 51). In addition, it must be added that when a journalist interviewed Takano in a 1980 book, Takano himself said that he was proud to be involved with the development of video because video was at the cutting edge of technology. Takano said in the interview, ‘Video was a leading-edge technology at that time. The development of video was much more

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interesting than that of a tape recorder. Three hundred engineers worked all day like crazy. There was no more interesting work for engineers’ (Terakado 1980: 85). Consequently, it appears that Takano’s appointment as the manager was not a demotion but a promotion which was brought about by the president’s high regard for him. Nevertheless, Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard depicts Takano as a typical ‘dead wood’, while particularly emphasizing that he was an alcoholic. It is true that Takano often went to a Japanese-style pub (izakaya) after he took up the post as manager of the video enterprise department, although, according to Satō, Takano was originally a non-drinker and took to drink because of the pressure of the new position (Satō 1999: 56–57). It is well worth noting that the opening sequence of the television programme represents Takano as a drunken ‘dead wood’ who felt apprehensive about restructuring as follows. Voice-over narration (Long shot of Yokohama’s factory district) Ten thousand small and large factories stand side by side in Kanagawa ward in Yokohama. (Medium long shot of a nightlife circuit) At the corner of this area, a Japanese-style pub, Kishiya, where office workers have a glass on their way home from work, is located. It was the fortyfifth year of the Shōwa period [1970], just after the pub opened. There was one grey-haired man who used to get dead drunk. He came here every day from the JVC factory which is a hundred metres away. His name is Takano Shizuo, forty-seven years old. He has just assumed the position of manager of JVC’s video enterprise department. This section was just on the brink of restructuring. As a symbolic image, the Japanese-style pub Kishiya appears several times in Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard. For example, when Takano was determined to set up a project team to develop the video format, the voiceover narrates, ‘Takano, who used to get dead drunk, suddenly stopped visiting Kishiya.’ This implies that the drunken ‘dead wood’ was back on the right track in life. However, as shown before, Takano was originally a non-drinker and was not a marginalized employee since he was appointed as the manager after the president singled him out as having a future. In addition, Takano himself, in an interview with a journalist, said, ‘Since I am doing interesting work, I don’t mind whatever is said about me. As long as I can do this work, I don’t worry about what they say’ (Terakado 1980: 85). Consequently, the television depiction is rather different from the fact. It must be noted that the narrative of Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard indicates a kind of criticism of the Japanese model of corporate

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management. In her well-known book, Japanese Society, anthropologist Nakane Chie argues that Japanese society is totally different from Western society in that ‘the vertical principle’ dominates all social domains in Japan (Nakane 1970). Japanese workers’ human relationships are, according to Nakane, particular because of a very robust ‘vertical’ relationship inside companies, namely the manageremployee relationship, that is so close as to restrict the workers’ whole lives. She states as follows: The relationship between employer and employee is not to be explained in contractual terms. The attitude of the employer is expressed by the spirit of the common saying, ‘the enterprise is the people’. This affirms the belief that employer and employee are bound as one by fate in conditions which produce a tie between man and man often as firm and close as that between husband and wife. Such a relationship is manifestly not a purely contractual one between employer and employee; the employee is already a member of his own family, and all members of his family are naturally included in the larger company ‘family’. Employers do not employ only a man’s labour itself but really employ the total man, as is shown in the expression marugakae (completely enveloped). This trend can be traced consistently in Japanese management from [the] Meiji period to the present. (Nakane 1970: 15) In addition, this ‘vertical’ relationship establishes a strict hierarchy inside companies. As far as Nakane is concerned, ‘because of the overwhelming ascendancy of this vertical orientation, even a set of individuals sharing identical qualifications tend to create a difference among themselves. As this is reinforced, an amazingly delicate and intricate system of ranking takes shape’ (Nakane 1970: 25). It is true that democratization in the post-war period, as Nakane herself admits, has weakened ‘the vertical principles’ to some degree; nevertheless, the vertical hierarchy is still common in Japanese companies (Nakane 1970). Therefore, it is rather difficult for Japanese employees to resist any principles and decisions made by management executives even if they are thought to be wrong. On the other hand, Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard represents the development of VHS format as occurring when a redundant department under the direction of an incapable manager manages to develop VHS by straying from the company policy. For example, the television programme depicts the VHS development team as maintaining strict confidentiality even inside JVC because if the JVC top management detects the project there is the possibility that Takano and the development team may be severely disciplined. In other words, this television programme implies that Takano goes against ‘the vertical principles’ for the sake of developing a world-class format of home video unit at any cost. On the other hand, the account given in the book is rather different. According to the JVC company history book Sixty Years of JVC (Nihon bikutā no rokujūnen), the JVC executive team was ‘at a loss as to whether to invest more in the development of a home video unit or not’ (1987: 112) because the

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management environment was insecure at that time. This passage shows that the development of a home video unit was not a secret, not least because the JVC executive team knew of the development of the home video unit, although they were wondering if they should continue with it. According to Satō, it is also true that the video enterprise department was plagued by an operating deficit. Therefore, indeed, Takano had to put a higher priority on selling the video unit for industrial use than developing a format of the home video unit. That was the major reason why Takano hesitated to contribute his energy to the development of the home video unit. Furthermore, Takano himself, in an interview with a journalist, said, ‘[T]he head office was angry; nevertheless they allowed us’ (Terakado 1980: 85) to develop the home video unit. Consequently, it can be stated that the development of the home video unit was not necessarily a secret kept from the head office and various accounts are somewhat different from the programme’s depiction. In addition, by representing Takano as a manager who performs work on his own authority, this programme gives the impression that Takano’s work behaviour not only deviates from ‘the vertical principles’ but also succeeds in establishing a ‘horizontal’ relationship. Nakane, who introduces the concept of ‘the vertical principles’, argues that Western corporate management is based on a ‘horizontal’ relationship which is characterized by contractual terms, individualism, and collegial relations (Nakane 1970). On the other hand, according to Nakane, Japanese corporate workers are lacking a human relationship with other companies’ workers because their desire to build relationships is hampered by the stiff ‘vertical principles’ of their workplaces. Nakane states as follows. The independence of the group and the stability of the frame, both cultivated by this sense of unity, create a gulf between the group and others with similar attributes but outside the frame; meanwhile, the distance between people with differing attributes within the frame is narrowed and the functioning of any group formed on the base of similar attributes is paralysed. Employees in an enterprise must remain in the group, whether they like it or not: not only do they not want to change to another company; even if they desire a change, they lack the means to accomplish it. Because there is no tie between workers of the same kind, as in a ‘horizontal’ craft union, they get neither information nor assistance from their counterparts. (This situation is identical with that of the Japanese married-in bride). (Nakane 1970: 20) Thus, it has been rather difficult for Japanese corporate engineers to form a relationship with engineers from other companies. Nevertheless, Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard depicts Takano easily overcoming the constraint of the ‘vertical principles’ and jumping ‘the frame’ of companies in order to make VHS a world format. For example, this television programme depicts Takano deciding on his own to show a VHS test model to Matsushita Kōnosuke, founder and president of Matsushita Electric

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Industrial, which was a top Japanese manufacturer, in order to introduce VHS format to Matsushita Electric Industrial. Indeed, in the mid-1970s, Sony had just developed a Betamax video format that was fundamentally different from JVC’s VHS. Hence, both JVC and Sony competed fiercely against each other in order to make other manufacturers adopt their respective formats, and the format that Matsushita Electric Industrial selected would be highly influential in the competition. The voice-over narrates, ‘Takano thought that the fate of VHS must be left up to one figure. His name is Matsushita Kōnosuke.’ Then the screen shows a head shot of Matsushita. According to the programme, Matsushita Kōnosuke visits the JVC factory later and is extremely satisfied with the VHS test model. This event creates an opportunity for JVC to make VHS a world format, according to the programme. Indeed, Matsushita’s decision to introduce VHS format appears vital, because Satō’s book also states that this was a turning point in VHS’s fate (Satō 1999). However, Satō’s original explanation is rather different from that shown on the television programme. As far as the programme is concerned, Takano showed the VHS test model to Matsushita, the president of another manufacturer, on his own authority as if he were free from the ‘vertical principles’. Yet, according to Satō’s original story, the person who decided to show Matsushita the test model was not Takano but JVC president Matsuno (Satō 1999: 98). In addition, it must be noted that Matsushita Electric Industrial is JVC’s parent company, although this fact is not underscored in the television programme. It is not surprising that a subsidiary company would ask the opinion of the parent company with regard to an important matter. However, the programme’s lesser emphasis on the fact that Matsushita Electric Industrial is JVC’s parent company and that Takano is merely advised by the JVC president to show the test model to Matsushita gives the viewers the impression that Takano is a kind of maverick ‘hero’ who defies rigid Japanese ‘vertical principles’ with courage and then succeeds in making VHS a world video format. The defiance of the Japanese model of corporate management becomes more apparent when Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard represents Takano lending a VHS test model to several Japanese makers such as Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and Sharp without preconditions. According to the programme, these makers’ engineers were impressed by Takano’s enthusiasm and his ‘maverick’ ideas. In an interview, Mitsubishi’s engineer says, ‘Takano may have firmly believed that manufacturers that adopted VHS shared a common destiny.’ In the programme, Sharp’s engineer says, ‘As a result, not only JVC but also certain other manufacturers intended to promote VHS. We wanted to get along well with each other. I believe a sense of unity [minna de yatte ikunda to iu mono] aroused everybody’s sympathy beyond a situational constraint as an office worker [sararīman].’ It appears that the words ‘a common destiny’, ‘a sense of unity’ among employees who work for different manufacturers, and ‘beyond a situational constraint as an office worker’ are symbolic. These words are common in their reflection of discontent with Japanese ‘vertical principles’ and at the same time in their great yearning for overcoming the constraints as Japanese office

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workers and even for a ‘horizontal’ relationship, which is unfamiliar to them. Indeed, these remarks are not created by NHK but are actually spoken by the interviewees. Moreover, it may also be true that Takano is an attractive person and has somewhat ‘maverick’ characteristics. It must not be overlooked, however, that the television producers selected these remarks from the vast amount of interviews and structured their own story based on their own objectives. What is most significant here is that NHK constructs a narrative that shows some sort of discontent with the Japanese conventional model of corporate management when they produce a nostalgic programme whose major aim is to record remarkable technological developments of the Shōwa period. Undoubtedly, the narrative structure is rather different from that of NHK’s Japanese Memoir of Creating a Technology-Oriented Nation broadcast at the beginning of the 1990s. Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard enjoyed the greatest popularity among all the episodes of Project X: Challengers. The senior producer Imai Akira states, ‘When a programme arouses a favourable public response, we usually receive forty or fifty phone calls from audience members just after the broadcast, but after the broadcast of Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard, there were more than five thousand phone calls in only a couple of days. Most people who called were office workers from smaller businesses’ (Imai 2002). Imai adds that a huge number of corporate employees across the country have visited the Japanese-style pub Kishiya, where Takano is alleged to have often visited, in order to seat themselves on a chair Takano used. These visitors, according to Imai, have vowed they will ‘hang in there’ when they are seated in the chair, and this sight is still a familiar one (Imai 2002). Consequently, it can be stated that Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard has succeeded in establishing a mythic status as a national narrative that receives an overwhelming endorsement by typical Japanese office workers. However, it is well worth noting that certain intellectuals severely criticize the television programme despite its enormous popularity among diverse audiences. For example, a prominent economist, Sataka Makoto, argues, ‘The heroic tale that people who rescued a company are marginalized employees is a very forced plot’ (Furutachi 2003: 23). Why is this imaginary narrative created by the public broadcasting station, and why has it also gained immense popularity at the beginning of the present century? It would be reasonable to form a hypothesis that the current Japanese social climate, which has suffered from prolonged recession and financial crisis, may be at the root of this programme’s popularity. A critic, Matsumoto Ken’ichi, states, ‘Undoubtedly, the popular programme Project X: Challengers is based upon a kind of nostalgia; nevertheless it appears that this programme does not merely long for the high-speed growth era uncritically. Deep down in their hearts, the viewers may regret how much contemporary Japan has become corrupt’ (Hosaka and Matsumoto 2003: 185). On the other hand, certain intellectuals argue that Project X: Challengers is an imaginary narrative that is intended to realize a Japanese dream through a media representation of the past. Maki Noboru and Tahara Shigeyuki state, ‘Although the producers of this

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programme adopt a documentary style narrative, they appear to create a contemporary “myth” (densetsu) for Japanese people who cannot give up their dreams’ (Maki and Tahara 2002: 86). At any rate, this ‘myth’ in Project X: Challengers is rather different from the narrative in the early 1990s Japanese Memoir of Creating a Technology-Oriented Nation. Although laying emphasis on the private sector’s role, Japanese Memoir of Creating a Technology-Oriented Nation appears to have been able to acclaim Japan’s post-war technological development with simplicity because Japanese at that time were enjoying an economic ‘heyday’ during the bubble economy. On the other hand, it appears that the prolonged recession since the burst of the economic bubble and the subsequent ‘lost decade’ from the 1990s have moved Japanese to reflect on their past conduct. Undoubtedly, the Japanese model of corporate management that led to the unprecedented high-growth period in the post-war era must be a target of nostalgia by media products of the present day. Nevertheless, these media products may be forced to revise the past because the ‘heyday’ was not only a fruitful result of the Japanese style of management exemplified in the ‘vertical principles’ but also a cause of the bubble’s bursting and the ‘lost decade’ that distress Japanese people today. Needless to say, the late Shōwa period is not merely the focus of Japanese people’s criticism, because most of them must have felt fulfilment from their arduous daily work at that time. Although media scholar Itō Mamoru criticizes the stereotyped representations of Project X: Challengers, he at the same time states, ‘We cannot criticize the programme because even though the extent to which it accurately represents the real facts is unclear, at least no one can deny the fact that numerous people took on a difficult challenge with passion’ (Itō 2005: 88). Therefore, it is understandable that some Japanese people may yearn for the days when they thought they were rebuilding Japan. The huge gap between their ideals at that time and the present-day realities, however, cannot be overlooked. Hence it can be argued that for Japanese the recent past is an ambivalent memory in the twenty-first century. That may be the reason why the media industry adheres to the recent past and aims to strike a balance between sentimental expression and a certain discontent with that time. The sub-narrative of Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard supports my argument here. Although most departments of JVC were required to promote restructuring at the beginning of the 1970s, the television programme emphasizes that Takano did not reduce the level of personnel due to the successful development of VHS by his video enterprise department. In the last half of the programme, the voice-over narrates, ‘The video enterprise department was once ridiculed as being a sinecure. But the manager Takano Shizuo saved all two hundred and seventy employees from restructuring without retrenching even one employee’. Thus, the programme considers the ‘marginalized’ manager Takano to be an almighty hero who was able to save all his subordinates’ livelihoods in addition to making VHS a world video format. In other words, this programme may suggest that the ‘marginalized’ manager’s deed is superior to the conventional Japanese model of corporate management that caused the bursting of the bubble economy and serious unemployment.

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Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard was broadcast in April 2000. At the time, Japan was in the midst of the post-bubble ‘lost decade’; by the time of the broadcast in 2000, the number of unemployed people nationwide had risen to 3.2 million (an unemployment rate of 4.7 per cent) following a string of collapses of large financial institutions, including Sanyo Securities, Hokkaido Takushoku Bank, and Yamaichi Securities, which caused unemployment rates to rocket. The level of unemployment was five times what it had been thirty years earlier, in 1970, and three times the level twenty years earlier, in 1980 (Labour Force Survey, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). A significant portion of this unemployment was of course caused by companies laying off workers, but the pattern of termination was slightly unusual in that large companies with over 1,000 workers laid off workers more frequently than small and medium-sized companies did. According to the Industrial Labour Situation Survey implemented by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 11.7 per cent of companies carried out employment adjustment by laying off workers between 1992 and 1994, but by the period from 1998 to 2000, the figure had risen to 17.7 per cent. However, among large companies the figure went from 8.5 per cent to 23.8 per cent, representing a dramatic increase to one in four companies. There are many reasons that restructuring was more common at large companies than small and medium-sized ones, among them the fact that the practice of transferring workers to affiliated companies (shukkō) became untenable (Genda 2002: 6). Up to this point, shukkō had served as an important element in the Japanese system of lifetime employment, because large companies were able to transfer unneeded employees to small and medium-sized companies with which they were associated. However, as a result of the recession, these small and medium-sized companies lost their capacity to receive workers, and the shukkō system ceased to function. One reason so many middle-aged and older employees were laid off is that they would originally have been targeted for shukkō, but now had no place to go. The difficulty that these middle-aged and older workers had in finding new jobs is evident in the fact that during this period, the number of unemployed workers between the ages of 45 and 54 without work for over a year rose to 130,000 (Labour Force Survey, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, February 2001). The elaborate subplots in the television programme Marginalized Workers Create a Global Standard, which emphasizes Takano did not reduce the level of personnel due to the successful development of VHS by his video enterprise department, can be interpreted as an antithesis to the widespread practice of rationalization through worker layoffs, which even major Japanese companies implemented in the early twenty-first century in response to the recession. In practice, certain intellectuals discuss the associations made by Project X: Challengers with regard to the current recession and financial crisis. A critic, Matsumoto Ken’ichi, sees Project X: Challengers as a criticism of current Japan, and at the same time, in the same article, he heavily criticizes the Koizumi cabinet’s structural reform at the beginning of the twenty-first century as this caused a nationwide restructuring accompanied by a huge number of job losses (Hosaka

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and Matsumoto 2003: 187). As was shown earlier, Carr argues that a historical narrative is ‘a dialogue between past and present’ and even ‘a dialogue between the events of the past and progressive emerging future ends’ (Carr 1961: 118). Hence, in one sense, the basic narrative structure of Project X: Challengers can be interpreted as a loud warning bell regarding the rigid Japanese model of corporate management exemplified in its ‘vertical principles’. It must be added that Satō Masaaki’s nonfiction book on which the television programme Marginalized Workers Create a Global Standard was tenuously based was later made into a Tōei film, The Sun Also Rises (Hi wa mata noboru), in 2002, two years after the broadcast, because of its tremendous popularity. The audacious character of Takano represented in the television programme is further exaggerated in this film by the theatrical performance of popular actor Nishida Toshiyuki, and as a result Takano’s character is crystallized into a mythic status. Although this film is based on Satō’s work, there is a significant change from the original story. As shown before, according to Satō’s nonfiction book, JVC intended to show a VHS test model to Matsushita Kōnosuke, the president of JVC’s parent company Matsushita Electric Industrial, in order to get Matsushita to agree to use the VHS format. In the book, Matsushita Kōnosuke visits a JVC factory in Yokohama to see the VHS test model. On the other hand, it is surprising that in the film version of The Sun Also Rises, Takano and his subordinate drive a car through the night from Yokohama to Osaka, where Matsushita Kōnosuke lives, in order to bring the VHS test model to Matsushita’s office early in the morning without prior notice and to catch Matsushita by surprise. Takano’s ‘surprise tactics’ succeed in capturing Matsushita’s heart and persuade Matsushita to adopt the VHS format. This film is more or less accepted by film critics. (It is ranked twenty-eighth in Kinema Junpō’s Best Ten in 2002). However, a prominent critic, Satō Tadao, severely criticizes the film, arguing that this film does not sufficiently depict the technological aspect of the development of VHS and only focuses on human relationships from beginning to end, rendering this film ‘superficial’ (Satō 2002: 16). As far as the public broadcasting programme Project X: Challengers is concerned, some episodes depict more directly the defiance by corporate engineers against the management than does Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard. ‘One Car That Surprised the World: Young Employees Who Confronted the President’, broadcast in April 2000, is probably the best example. ‘One Car That Surprised the World: Young Employees Who Confronted the President’ is based on a true story about young engineers who work for the world-renowned automobile maker Honda Motor Company. The time represented in this programme is the early 1970s, which closely corresponds to the period depicted in Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard. In this programme, some Honda engineers confront Honda Sōichirō, the well-known president and founder of Honda Motor Company, with the goal of developing a new car equipped with water-cooled engines. At first, Honda Sōichirō strongly rejects the development of water-cooled engines, as he believes that air-cooled engines, which were commonly used for warplanes in World War II, are far superior. On

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the other hand, according to the programme, the young Honda engineers believe that water-cooled engines are technologically superior and argue that air-cooled engines are about to become a thing of the past. Although these young engineers are regarded as heretics in the company, they develop water-cooled engines in secrecy. In addition, as far as this programme is concerned, these young engineers become sceptical of the management policies of Honda Sōichirō because they think that his policies are highly company-oriented and fail to make a contribution to society. Certain executives who at first supported Honda Sōichirō gradually are persuaded by these young engineers’ views, and Honda Sōichirō becomes isolated as the only person who favours air-cooled engines. As a result, Honda Sōichirō reluctantly agrees to the development of water-cooled engines. The programme ends with a scene that depicts Honda Sōichirō as satisfied with the completion of an epoch-making low-pollution car equipped with water-cooled engines, but determined to resign as president because he realizes that his time is over. The concept of ‘One Car That Surprised the World: Young Employees Who Confronted the President’ is rather obvious. Similar to Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard, this programme reflects discontent with the conventional Japanese model of corporate management through its depiction of young engineers defying a prominent president. Honda’s young engineers are represented as maverick ‘dead woods’, as are JVC’s Takano and his subordinate engineers in Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard. Moreover, ‘One Car That Surprised the World: Young Employees Who Confronted the President’ implies a collapse of the conventional Japanese model of corporate management, which is typified by ‘vertical principles’, through the symbolic depiction of a generation change from Honda Sōichirō to the young maverick engineers. This programme builds to a climax by depicting Honda Sōichirō’s resignation ceremony and his remarks at that time. The voice-over presents Honda’s words as follows. Voice-over narration As far as the development of compound vortex controlled combustion is concerned, I was told that it would be a good opportunity for us to rank with the U.S.’s big three car makers if we developed it. But the young engineers were opposed and said that they do not develop cars merely for our company but for society. So, I found that my ideas had become company-oriented. How wonderful it is to be young. The young employees have grown up rapidly. After this narration, the episode ends with the theme song of Project X: Challengers. In short, this episode ends with a self-criticism by a world-renowned prominent entrepreneur who was a leader of his generation. What is represented in this episode is probably true, because most depictions in the episode are not fundamentally different from what is written in a few nonfiction books regarding Honda Sōichirō (Satō 1995; Ōshita 2003). Hence,

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it appears that this programme is based on actual accounts, in contrast with the exaggerated and romanticized representations of Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard. However, it must be noted that these accounts are selected by the television producers from among the vast number of facts, even if they are truths. Undoubtedly, the Honda Motor Company, which began business in 1946 in the chaos that existed just after the end of World War II and became a worldwide manufacturer in a short time, must have a myriad of interesting episodes that could be televised for Japanese viewers. In particular, the Honda Motor Company, which was originally a motorbike manufacturer before expanding its production to cars, must have numerous stories regarding the development of the motorcycle. Despite this, when documenting the technological development of the post-war period, the public broadcasting programme selects the development of water-cooled engines for cars by young ‘maverick’ engineers and depicts a kind of discontent with the Japanese model of corporate management by associating this development with Honda Sōichirō’s resignation. Not only Project X: Challengers but also numerous other nostalgic media products are sympathetic to marginalized workers. Nostalgic media products of the twenty-first century commonly sympathize with ‘maverick’ or ‘dead wood’ employees who are marginalized from society for some reason, although these media are often critical of social power, bureaucrats, and conservative institutions and their leaders. As was shown earlier, in a representative nostalgic film Always: Sunset on Third Street and its two sequels, social power versus ordinary people is a major subject. In both films, Kawabuchi, the president of a large company and the biological father of Jun’nosuke, tries desperately to take his son back from an obscure writer Chagawa; nonetheless, Jun’nosuke chooses his life with poor Chagawa, who is unable to earn his living through writing and manages a penny sweetshop. It is obvious that these serials show discontent with real post-war recovery that was mainly attained by the mainstream social elite, the Japanese model of corporate management and big companies that often make money talk. These are too numerous to comprehensively list here, yet other representative nostalgic films and television dramas that contain similar motifs include the 2004 film Curtain Call (Kāten kōru), the 2005 film Pacchigi! and its sequel in 2007, the 2006 film My Great Grandma from Saga (Saga no gabai bāchan) and its 2007 television remake, the 2006 film First Love (Hatsukoi), the 2006 film Riding the Metro (Metoro ni notte), the 2007 film Yellow Tears (Kiiroi namida), the 2008 film Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo), the 2008 film GS Wonderland (Jī esu wandālando), and the 2008 television drama Top Sales (Toppu sērusu).

Hula Girls: male trouble and the empowered female On the other hand, it should be noted that the Shōwa nostalgic media which explore themes of technological innovation place greater emphasis on females than males when females appear in the narratives. It cannot be overlooked that these media depict females as the prime movers of post-war development, while representing both male employers and male employees as incompetent. The film Hula Girls, released in 2006, is one of the best examples of this phenomenon (see Figure 3.1).

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Figure 3.1 Hula Girls (the film’s DVD package, Happinet Pictures)

Although Hula Girls was not made and distributed by a major film company, it went on to become a blockbuster film, being released in about two hundred theatres and achieving box office revenue of 1.4 billion yen (Kinema Junpō in late February 2007: 194). Hula Girls not only attracted audiences but also great critical acclaim.

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This film won five major Japan Academy Awards including that of Best Film, Most Popular Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress. As noted in the introduction, films that promote a sense of Shōwa nostalgia received the Best Film award at the Japan Academy Awards for three consecutive years: the 2005 Best Film award went to Always: Sunset on Third Street and the 2007 award went to Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad. Hula Girls, however, also won the prominent Kinema Junpō’s Best Film of the Year award which neither Always: Sunset on Third Street nor Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad received. Hula Girls has certain distinctive characteristics. This film is set in the countryside, whereas Always: Sunset on Third Street and Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad use the city centre of Tokyo as their location. According to Jennifer Robertson, Japanese media often prefer representing furusato (the hometown) in a nostalgic countryside setting because the image of the furusato ‘unequivocally identifies native place with the nation and conflates localism and nationalism’ (Robertson 1991: 35). Indeed, most blockbuster films that play upon themes of Shōwa nostalgia select urban locations, although certain nostalgic films such as the 2004 Curtain Call (Kāten kōru), the 2005 A Heartful of Love (Kono mune ippai no ai wo), and the 2006 My Great Grandma from Saga (Saga no gabai bāchan) use the countryside as their main locations and appear to succeed in conflating localism and nationalism. Hula Girls is probably the most successful example of these types of films. The most outstanding feature of Hula Girls is that this film is based on a true story. This film deals with an actual rehabilitation of a coal-mining area in the mid-1960s. Although coal played a crucial role in Japan’s post-war economic recovery, coal lost its dominant status as an energy source from the beginning of the 1960s because the price of domestic coal became expensive compared with that of imported coal; while oil, which is a ‘directly competing commodity’ (Yoshimura 1984: 346), enjoyed increasing demand. Therefore, numerous Japanese coal mines were closed in the early 1960s. Hula Girls focuses on the Jōban Mine, a typical coal mine region in the Tōhoku district (northeastern area of Japan). The Jōban Mine was forced to implement massive layoffs because of financial difficulties in the mid-1960s. Mine owners were concerned that the coal industry would end before long because of unfavourable market conditions, and they determined to search out new business opportunities. One board member hit upon the idea of creating a resort facility making use of the area’s hot spring. As a result, the executive thought of establishing the Jōban Hawaiian Centre, a huge resort facility with an exotic atmosphere reminiscent of the island Hawaii. Then, the mining company decided to feature a Hawaiian hula dance show at the Jōban Hawaiian Centre and invited a professional hula dancer from Tokyo as an instructor in order to teach the dance to local girls. The professional dancer gave them a crash course; nevertheless, the local population, most of whom earned their living as coal miners, were strongly opposed to the mining company’s decision to create a resort facility and abandon coal mining. In addition, these coal miners were furious with their daughters for becoming hula dancers,

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as these parents had conceived a prejudice against hula dancing and viewed it as a sex-related business. However, after watching the instructor’s fervent training and their daughters’ earnest attempts to learn the dance, these parents began to understand hula dancing. This film finally depicts the hula dance show enjoying tremendous success, and the film ends by implying that the dancers rescue the coal mine region from its financial crisis. Hula Girls is a unique nostalgic film which is based upon the true success story of how a management crisis in a typical rural coal mine town was averted by a change in business focus. Hula Girls was developed into a film by female producer Ishihara Hitomi, who was impressed to hear exactly how the Jōban Hawaiian Centre was made and how it contributed to the financial recovery of a typical countryside coal mine area (Kitahara 2007: 66). Ishihara originally planned to make a film on a business success story like those typically shown in NHK’s television programme Project X: Challengers, and she tried to focus on the mining company and the manner in which they succeeded in changing their business through diversification. However, Ishihara was utterly enthralled by the energetic efforts of both the hula dance instructor and the girls, and thus changed the concept of this film to focus on them (www.asahi.com/travel/traveler/ TKY200709140235.html 21 October 2009). At the same time, it must not be overlooked that the representation of coal miners is marginalized in this film. It is true that Hula Girls depicts the harsh realities of coal miners’ lives, such as dismissals and fatal accidents in the mine. Nevertheless, these harsh realities are not the main subjects of this film. In this regard, Hula Girls is fundamentally different from Mark Herman’s well-known British film Brassed Off (1996), which also focuses on coal miners’ lives. Hula Girls and Brassed Off have in common their portrayal of the lives of miners outside the mines, such as in hula dancing and playing in a brass band. However, the brass band members, facing the possibility of dismissal and unemployment, want to quit the brass band because they have to search for new jobs. Some debt-ridden members are forced to work part-time jobs and are deserted by their wives and children. It is true that the brass band wins the final of the national brass band competition at the Royal Albert Hall in London despite their adversities. Nevertheless, it is well worth noting that the conductor, Danny (Pete Postlethwaite), who is critical of the government for closing numerous coal mines, refuses to accept the winning trophy. Brassed Off ends with Danny’s speech in which he says that ‘the government has systematically destroyed an entire industry. Our industry. And not just our industry – our communities, our homes, our lives, all in the name of progress. . . .’ Therefore, there is no doubt that the major theme of Brassed Off is the problem of closed mines and unemployment, particularly caused by the Thatcher administration, although this film deals with the brass band on a superficial level. Brassed Off appears far from a happy ending, even though the brass band obtains a brilliant victory at the national competition. On the other hand, Hula Girls is a typical happy ending story that straightforwardly celebrates the recovery of the coal mine town through the success of the

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hula dancers. Certainly, it may not be appropriate to discuss the two films on the same basis, because the 1990s Brassed Off deals with a social problem that was ongoing at the time of its production, while Hula Girls is a nostalgic film that focuses on a reality four decades old. Nevertheless, it cannot be overlooked that Hula Girls does not sufficiently represent the harsh realities of coal mine districts at that time. The number of Japanese coal miners amounted to about 460,000 in 1948, three years after the end of the Second World War, as there were a huge number of unemployed due to wartime destruction and soldiers returning from the front who were searching for jobs (Ueno 1960: 240). On the other hand, numerous specialists argue that social security for coal miners was totally inadequate because the wage of coal miners was historically lower than that of general industrial workers (Yoshimura 1984: 335). In addition, the problem of unemployment of coal miners at that time was indeed serious. Consequently, numerous people who became coal miners after the war’s end faced severe labour woes. Ueno Eishin argues that the jobless issue in regard to Japanese coal miners was a structural problem that could not be easily overcome. Ueno argues as follows: We now know that what has ‘dehumanized’ human beings is exploitation by monopolistic capital, rationalization policies, and present-day unemployment. . . . A troubling contradiction of the post-war unemployment [of coal miners] is attributable to the contemporary principle of unemployment and the structural unemployment which is peculiar to a crisis brought on by monopolistic capital. These factors heavily influenced unemployment both in qualitative and quantitative terms. These two cruel principles were intricately intertwined and as a result the accelerated unemployment generated a huge bottomless swamp from which people could not escape, and people, therefore, were never able to get a decent job again. (Ueno 1960: 240) Thus, the post-war labour conditions of coal miners were terrible, as expressed figuratively by ‘bottomless swamp’. The situation of the Jōban Mine area, where Hula Girls is set, was also critical. While there were ninety-four coal mines in the Jōban Mine in 1957, the number had dramatically decreased to seventeen in 1967 (Marui 1969). The number of coal miners was also significantly reduced, from 27,871 to 8,881 in the same period, because 18,990 miners left the job due to mines closing or restructuring (Marui 1969). The manner of restructuring was rather harsh because it forced the miners to quit their jobs before their mandatory retirement age (Yata 1975: 267). In consequence, from 70 to 90 per cent of the displaced workers became unemployed (Yata 1975: 285). It may be true that the labour-management confrontation at the Jōban coal mines was less serious than that of other coal mines. In 1952, the Japan Coal Mine Trade Union conducted a very long strike which lasted for sixty-three days, although the Jōban Coal Mines Trade Union resigned its membership of the Japan Coal Mine Trade Union when the strike reached thirty-six days (Takeda

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et al. 1963: 15). Therefore, it can be surmised that the labour-management confrontation in this district was not necessarily that serious. Takeda and his fellow researchers argue that one of the reasons why the labour-management relationship at the Jōban Coal Mines was not contentious is that the rationalization by the Jōban Tankō Company succeeded to some degree (Takeda et al. 1963: 28). If it were true, it can be surmised that the management ability at the Jōban Tankō Company at that time was rather high, and at the same time it must be stated that the success in diversifying the business from mining was attributable to the foresight and business strategy of the top executives. In practice, the successful diversification, particularly the success of the Jōban Hawaiian Centre, was due to an inventive idea of Nakamura Yutaka. Nakamura was then vice president of the Jōban Tankō Company and later became president. Nakamura aimed to establish a hot spring resort that made good use of the Jōban district’s hot spring, and he visited numerous resorts across the country and even in Europe and the United States (Tanaka 1988: 61). As a result, Nakamura suggested the idea of creating a comprehensive resort facility which offered not only a spa but also made good use of the hot spring, because he thought that a mere spa resort would not attract repeat visitors. Then, Nakamura contrived a very unconventional resort facility in the form of an artificial tropical island with never-ending summer in a huge dome. He particularly tried to emphasize the atmosphere of Hawaii because Hawaii was the destination of Japanese dreams at that time, to which a mere handful of people were able to go (Tanaka 1988). In 1966, he opened a very ingenious and huge resort facility, the Jōban Hawaiian Centre, featuring a spa, tropical timber, beach, and hula dancing. In fact, the Jōban Hawaiian Centre was a tremendous success, as it attracted 1.27 million visitors in 1966, 1.34 million visitors in 1967, and 1.43 million visitors in 1968 (Tanaka 1988: 64). As a consequence, Jōban district was revitalized by the success of the diversification management undertaken by the Jōban Tankō Company. Therefore, the remarkable feat seems primarily attributable to the foresight and ingenuity of Nakamura. Ishihara, the producer of the film Hula Girls, also admits this achievement, and she originally planned to produce a film that focused on Nakamura. However, as shown before, Ishihara became attracted to the story of the hula dancers and thus changed the concept of this film. Yet, this film, as a consequence, never depicts the deeds of Nakamura. It is well worth noting that in Hula Girls, Yoshimoto (Kishibe Ittoku), who appears to be modelled on Nakamura, is represented as an effeminate and helpless man who cannot take the initiative as manager but merely asks the hula dance trainer Madoka (Matsuyuki Yasuko) in a humble manner to train local girls. Consequently, Nakamura’s foresight and ingenuity are completely excluded from this film. The helplessness of the top executive is emphasized by contrasting it with the strong attitude of the heroine Madoka as follows. Yoshimoto: The major principle of the Hawaiian Centre is ‘of the coal miners, by the coal miners, and for the coal miners’.

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Madoka:

What a nuisance you are! Why are you saying coal miners over and over again? Do you really believe that complete novices living in a coal-mining area would be able to appear on stage within a few months? You must be joking! So you think you can make a fool of me, do you? That really ticks me off!

Yoshimoto also gets angry and speaks in dialect, ‘Don’t try to belittle the coal miners!’ However, he soon recovers himself and apologizes to Madoka. Yoshimoto: I’m sorry, I’m sorry. . . . Madoka: I don’t understand what you are saying because you speak with a provincial accent. Yoshimoto: Have a heart! Please bring the local girls up to the standard of fullfledged dancers. Please! Then, Yoshimoto kneels and bows until his forehead touches the floor. What should be noted is that Yoshimoto is always modest in his dealings with Madoka, while she carries herself with pride. In this film, mise-en-scène is effectively used to emphasize the contrast between Yoshimoto and Madoka. For example, the opening sequence in which Yoshimoto goes out to meet Madoka from Tokyo strikingly contrasts Madoka’s flamboyant dress and Yoshimoto’s drab working clothes. Moreover, there are sharp contrasts between Madoka’s good posture and Yoshimoto’s slouched back, as well as Madoka’s grammatical, standard language and Yoshimoto’s marked Tōhoku (northeastern region) accent (which is well known for its unintelligibility). As a result, this film succeeds in giving audiences a sense that there is a glaring disparity or even a kind of hierarchy between them. Thus, the film Hula Girls never touches upon any structural problems regarding coal mine labour at that time. Instead, executives are depicted as helpless and incompetent, and executives have no choice but to depend on the hula dance instructor; although in reality, the real executive was a driving force behind the commercial success of the extremely original resort facility. This basic concept of the film never changes until the ending. It is worth noting that in Hula Girls, it is not only the executives who are depicted as incompetent. Coal miners, the employees of a colliery company, are also depicted as helpless. This is a salient point of difference from NHK’s programme Project X: Challengers. While it is understandable that the decrease in demand for coal due to rising demand for oil was beyond the miners’ control, Hula Girls depicts the miners as helpless and incompetent people who insist on clinging to the coal mines. This film contrasts the conservativeness and incompetence of the male miners with the progressiveness and flexibility of the females. The following conversation between Yōjirō, a local coal miner, and the heroine Madoka is largely symbolic. Yōjirō:

Why did you come to a country town like this? Well, I can guess the reason even without asking. Just for the money?

Technology and nostalgia Madoka: Yōjirō:

Madoka: Yōjirō: Madoka: Yōjirō:

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Is that a problem? You also dig a hole for the sake of money, don’t you? I’m not digging a hole, but digging for coal. Both my dead father and grandfather were also coal miners. I thought it was quite natural to become a miner when I grew up. When my father mined for coal, it was called a black diamond. The more they dug, the more money they earned. But, the age of coal has ended, hasn’t it? Why do we have to change our way of life even if times have changed? Times have actually changed of their own accord! So you lay the blame on the times? A woman like you makes me angry because you must believe that you have lived without having to rely on anyone.

Thus, the coal miner Yōjirō is represented as if he were hopelessly incompetent and conservative, never making any efforts to search for new job opportunities, although the female hula dance trainer is depicted as progressive. This incompetence and conservativeness of Yōjirō is emphasized in his conversation with one of his coworkers, Mitsuo, when Mitsuo tells him that he is going to join in the construction of the Jōban Hawaiian Centre. Mitsuo: It’ll mean curtains for the coal mines. Why don’t you understand that? Yōjirō: I don’t know. How could I know? I don’t know anything! When did you become an armchair theorist? Mitsuo: I cannot be as easygoing as you are! Yōjirō: What are you saying? I’m not too easygoing! Mitsuo: You must be very easygoing! You never look to the future! Consequently, the incompetence and conservativeness of coal miners is further emphasized. In addition, when another coal miner gets a dismissal notice, he merely mutters to himself, ‘Does my work end only with a slip of paper? I worked here for about thirty years.’ He never fights back against the firing. In contrast, Madoka and her dance students are depicted as rather progressive and aggressive in this film. It appears as if male masculinity, which the miners are deprived of, is transplanted to the female characters and flourishes as ‘female activity’. As was shown above, Madoka takes a tough stance with Yoshimoto and the miners. Yet the scene in a public bath is probably the best example that emphasizes Madoka’s active character. One old miner brutally beats his daughter when he notices that she is going to study hula dancing under Madoka. On hearing about this, Madoka makes a beeline for a public bath where this miner is and rushes into a bath for males in order to beat him. While this scene is comically represented, Madoka’s behaviour appears somewhat extraordinary. Madoka abruptly bursts into a public bath for males and runs into Yōjirō, who is just leaving the bath.

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Madoka:

Get out of the way!

Madoka pushes aside Yōjirō and enters the bath. Madoka: Kimura Seiji! [This is the name of the miner.] Seiji: Huh? Madoka: Are you? (Omaeka?) Madoka jumps into the bath and swoops down on Seiji. Yōjirō tries to hold down Madoka. Many people gather and the bath dissolves into chaos. Thus, Madoka is depicted as an extremely active female. It is true that, in Japan, there is a kind of genealogy of female action films in which active female heroines appear: pre-war action films (katsugeki), cat monster (bakeneko) films, post-war Tōei female yakuza films such as the series of The Scarlet Peony Rose Gambler (Hibotan bakuto) in which Fuji Junko stars and Gangster Women (Gokudō no onnatachi) starring Iwashita Shima and Katase Rino. There are also the 1970s Tōei action films such as the series Female Convict (Joshuū Sasori) and The Sister Street Fighter (Onna hissatsuken) starring Kaji Meiko and Shiomi Etsuko, respectively. On the other hand, it should be noted that female activity is often emphasized in Japanese films by male producers or directors who originally intend to acclaim female heroines’ bravery but at the same time feature the sexual allure of these heroines in order to attract male audiences (Washitani 2009). Washitani states, ‘It may be difficult to find any feministic achievements that involve the attainment of woman’s dignity’ (Washitani 2009: 49) in the major female action films. However, it appears that this criticism does not necessarily apply to Hula Girls. Certainly, this film focuses on Hawaiian hula dancing, which usually bares female flesh to the public. Yet, as was discussed above, Hula Girls was made by a female producer, Ishihara Hitomi, after many years of toil. Ishihara emphasizes that she aimed to make a film from a particular female perspective. ‘I intended to represent “an ideal woman” that the male [filmmaker] is unable to depict because I am a female producer,’ she said (Kitahara 2007: 68). Hence, it can be argued that Hula Girls, which is based upon the female producer’s particular perspective, is rather different from major Japanese female action films which are inclined to rely on the female heroines’ sex appeal. In addition, film director Lee Sang-il, who was asked to direct Hula Girls, also says that this film depicts particularly strong females who are revolutionary for their time (Kanazawa 2006). According to Lee, ‘[T]his film does not depict females who just worry about love and are in great distress but represents very vigorous females who transform the era. I believe that it is possible to make a new type of film through representing their strength even if they are depicted as unwomanly’ (Kanazawa 2006: 70). There is no doubt that Hula Girls accurately reflects the values and objectives which are shared by both the producer and the director of this film. Indeed, this film carefully avoids creating an offensive narrative in which a progressive person from an urban background enlightens people living in a backward

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rural community, doing so by its elaboration of a well-made sub-plotline. This film indicates that Madoka is a woman with a past who has nowhere to go and has to dodge Tokyo’s debt collectors. In practice, one of the debt collectors follows her tenaciously even after she moves to the Jōban Mine area, although the audience is not informed why Madoka has run into debt. As a result, this plotline deconstructs a typical narrative that a mighty superheroine saves the backward community, and gives Madoka a highly enigmatic presence and the status of a personal transformer who resolves the emerging crisis by her own efforts while finding that her retreat has been cut off. This is noteworthy as this plotline depicts Madoka in the ‘genealogy’ of narazumono (maverick) of Japanese film tradition and, more significantly, creates a kind of parallel to her crisis with that of the coal miners and their family members who are completely at a loss after being forced out of their jobs. Madoka is depicted as a model who shapes her own future, as this film progressively reveals to both the audience and the main characters that she is desperately struggling to undo the past although she is in a similar predicament to the coal miners and their families. It is ironic that this original parallel between Madoka and the coal miners is, as a result, effectively used in accentuating the later widening gap between her growth and their inability. To put it more precisely, there is a subtle hierarchy among them, and this is shown as the film plot evolves. First, young girls are enlightened by Madoka’s ebullience and then they begin to aim to become hula dancers. Secondly, some young men come to an understanding of the limitations of the coal mine industry and get involved in the business of the Jōban Hawaiian Centre, whereas other men do not understand the reason for their change. On the other hand, all middle-aged and elderly men, except Yoshimoto, who cannot understand the changing situation get left behind right up until the end of the film, and are represented as mere obstacles to the hula dance enterprise. It cannot necessarily be argued that the representation of Hula Girls is totally untrue. Indeed, the hula dance instructors and dancers of that time deserve admiration, as they made tremendous efforts. On the other hand, as was discussed above, all achievements pertaining to the recovery of the shattered mine district are attributed to them, and then vice president Nakamura, who was the real key player in establishing the Jōban Hawaiian Centre, is deprived of his dignity and is portrayed derogatorily as an incompetent guy who has no idea but to supplicate Madoka to help in the crisis. This inverted representation reminds me of the NHK television programme Project X: Challengers, which stresses marginalized workers while ignoring or even criticizing company executives. On the other hand, Hula Girls is different from Project X: Challengers, as the former depicts both executives and coal miners as helpless while placing emphasis on the role of females in the revitalization of the provincial coal-mining towns. Yet, in practice, the situation of female workers in the Jōban coal mines was not so rosy. The rationalization by management at the Jōban coal mines was particularly hard on women. According to Yata, the rationalization at the Jōban coal mines ‘took the heaviest toll on women and elderly labourers. They experienced the worst unemployment and their reemployment conditions were the

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harshest’ (Yata 1975: 285). Consequently, most women lost their jobs and then were forced into the extremely difficult situation of having to search for new jobs, although some young women may have been able to achieve success as hula dancers. Most importantly, this film’s representation, which places too much emphasis on the roles of hula dancers and their instructors, not only ignores the feats of Nakamura but also fails to notice the really serious unemployment problems faced by female workers in the coal mine area. Furthermore, Hula Girls actually depicts elderly women as highly conservative and incompetent like male coal miners in this film, despite the fact that these elderly women were the most unfortunate victims of the rationalization. The elderly women are contrasted with the liberal and active hula dancers, and their ideas are criticized as somewhat old-fashioned. A typical scene is a conversation between Kimiko, a young girl who practices hula dancing, and her mother Chiyo, who disapproves of her daughter studying dancing. Kimiko: Did you hear about Hawaiian dance in church today? Chiyo: Hawaiian dance? What? I would never waste my money on that stuff! We earned our money through working ourselves to death. Kimiko: Don’t get so uptight. I just asked. Chiyo: Coal mines have continued for almost a hundred years. Do you really think that the mines would go bankrupt so easily? Thus, Chiyo never approves of her daughter’s hula dancing. In addition, Chiyo has a conflict with Madoka as follows. Chiyo:

Mine women bear their children and support their husbands who work in the mines. Women should not play the coquette with men. Women should not wiggle their hips and spread their legs while laughing foolishly. Madoka: Women have been looked down on by men for a long, long time not least because all middle-aged women are like you! Hence, Hula Girls is not a simple film that merely contrasts effeminate men with active women, but it also depicts a kind of generation gap between middle-aged and young women. What must be noted here is that Chiyo is played by Fuji Junko, who was the superstar actress who portrayed the heroine Oryū in the Tōei 1960s yakuza film series The Scarlet Peony Rose Gambler. Most interestingly, Chiyo’s thinking has something in common with Oryū’s way of life as a female yakuza, because Chiyo firmly adheres to Confucian values such as ie (family), chastity, abstinence, and tradition – all of which are peculiarly represented in the characters of Oryū in the series The Scarlet Peony Rose Gambler. It appears that this particular casting of Fuji Junko in Hula Girls implies two things. First, masculinity as it appeared in the 1960s yakuza films is denied in this film because, according to this film, this kind of masculinity has become obsolete and completely ineffective in reconstructing Japan’s post-war society. Secondly,

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female activity as shown in the 1960s yakuza films which was accepted enthusiastically by the audience at that time faces severe criticism from the twenty-first century filmmakers. Madoka’s words above, ‘Women have been looked down on by men for a long, long time not least because all middle-aged women are like you!’, charges women of the older generation with the responsibility for having been discriminated against by men. At the same time, Madoka’s words to Chiyo appear to criticize this 1960s yakuza film heroine for the reason that her female activity, which swept the world at that time, was ineffective in promoting the advancement of the status of women. Although Hula Girls is a bit too hard on elderly women and men who experienced the worst effects of unemployment, this film gives young women a kind of privileged status that could revolutionize gender-biased attitudes and usher in a new era. Anyway, what is most important for this study is that the major Shōwa nostalgic films tend to depict males as incompetent and occasionally even effeminate but represent females as highly active, shrewd, and in some cases intimidating. There are numerous other Shōwa nostalgic films that have similar characteristics. The 2007 blockbuster film Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad which was discussed in previous chapters is a typical example. Although the leading character’s mother is depicted as a tough woman who raised her son by herself, the character holds his father in contempt because of his incompetence. In the same way, the 2006 film My Great Grandma from Saga (Saga no gabai bāchan) sheds light on a hero’s grandmother of extraordinary vitality, who raised her grandson on behalf of his parents despite her extreme poverty in a remote area. In the 2008 NHK television drama Top Sales (Toppu sērusu), based on a true story, the heroine, a saleswoman, surpasses all the men in auto sales and becomes the president of a sales company, while all the male salesmen except her first boss are depicted as marginalized and useless. In the 2007 film Yellow Tears (Kiiroi namida), which features the members of a popular male idol group, Arashi, four male youths who live together in an apartment in 1960s Tokyo try hard to follow their ideal professions such as singer, novelist, cartoonist, and painter. However, they are forced to face severe social reality and suffer setbacks. A 2008 film, GS Wonderland ( Jī esu wandārando), is worth mentioning, as this film represents transvestism. The heroine of this film transvests according to the intention of the male director, although most transvestism in current manga and cartoon films is depicted by female cartoonists or producers. It is interesting that GS Wonderland represents an active female who transvests and incompetent males as portrayed by the hands of a male director and author and not by a female producer or author as is Hula Girls. In GS Wonderland, while a female singer is able to overcome social contradictions by using her male colleagues and managers as a stepping stone to her own success, males are forced to compromise their futures, being controlled by a rigid Japanese corporate system. If the female strength shown in Hula Girls was feminist representation as portrayed by female creators, the female hardiness depicted in GS Wonderland would be the envy of male directors and audiences. Both current feministic values and fear of them are integrated into these media products that depict some decades past when

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feminism was not sufficiently known. It is certain that these representations do not depict the actual reality of the Shōwa period, although they are preferred as an idealized fiction in nostalgic media products not least because they give people ‘self-justification’ of their own personal histories of various positions. Although the 2005 film Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean (Rōrerai) is not a typical Shōwa nostalgic film but rather belongs to the genealogy of warretro films, it deserves mention in that this film admires the female role on the battlefield, seemingly breaking a taboo of the war-retro film narrative. In this film, the fate of Japan hangs on one battleship after the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Surprisingly, this battleship takes up a young woman who has supernatural powers to detect enemy battleships. This film constructs an imaginary narrative that depicts this woman as a saviour because her supernatural power saves Japan from defeat in the war. In contrast, military organization dominated by male chiefs is merely wracked by internal conflicts. As was discussed in the present chapter, in films and television programmes that promote a sense of Shōwa nostalgia, the major driving forces that have achieved Japan’s post-war development are attributed not to social powers and elites but to ordinary people and marginalized employees. However, as far as a gender perspective is concerned, the representations are rather different. In addition to the criticism of social powers, average men and marginalized male workers – who are often thought highly of in contrast with the powers – are also criticized as incompetent and useless. Otherwise they are depicted as vulnerable victims who cannot overcome adverse situations on their own. On the other hand, women, particularly young women, are admired as winners and occasionally deified for their shrewdness and even omnipotence, although it is ironic that their strength is seen as a threat to males. A few points can be argued from these analyses. In closed social spheres such as corporate organizations which are almost totally occupied by men, a simple contrast between employers and employees in media products may be effective in criticizing the post-war social contradictions typified by a ‘vertical principle’. Yet, in broader social realms, women are given a dominant position to control the reality, although all men, from elites to marginalized employees, are deprived of their masculinity, which was believed to be the driving force behind Japan’s post-war reconstruction. It is certain that these representations do not depict the actual reality of the Shōwa period, although they are preferred as an idealized fiction in nostalgic media products. Current feministic values are integrated into these products that depict some decades past when feminism was not sufficiently known. If the masculinity represented in Japanese cultural products has its roots in the imaginings of the Edo period (1603–1867), as Satō (1980) and Standish (2000) argue, it would be reasonable to examine the loss of masculinity witnessed in Shōwa nostalgic films from a wider perspective. It is well worth noting that masculinity has been abandoned not only in Shōwa nostalgic media but also in numerous au courant contemporary period dramas (jidaigeki). Yamada Yōji’s The Twilight Samurai (Tasogare Seibei) (2002) has been recognized as one of the greatest masterpiece period dramas, and it dominated almost all categories of

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the Japan Academy Awards in 2002. In the same year, it was chosen as Kinema Junpō’s best film of the year. The protagonist in The Twilight Samurai, Seibei (played by Sanada Hiroyuki), is a ‘castrated’ samurai, whose life bears no semblance to the life or values of a conventional samurai, as he sells his sword and engages in agriculture after losing his wife and receding into poverty. Seibei abhors wielding a sword and he only uses a bamboo sword and dagger when forced to duel with another samurai. In short, Seibei is divested of almost all masculinity flaunted in typical period drama films, particularly in the 1950s – the heyday of period drama. The film’s director, Yamada, states that the primary aim of the film was not to depict the typical samurai, but to realistically portray the plight of contemporary ‘mid-level managers’ who are caught in business dilemmas (Watanabe 2002: 43). Nevertheless, The Twilight Samurai was a blockbuster and won high praise from critics. Film critic Satō believes that this is ‘one of the best period drama films of all time’ (Satō 2006: 334). In 2004, Yamada directed another film, The Hidden Blade (Kakushi ken oni no tsume), based on a novel by Fujisawa Shūhei, who also authored The Twilight Samurai. The protagonist, Munezō (played by Nagase Masatoshi), transgresses samurai values and conventions and gives up his samurai status in order to marry a girl. Although his way of life is the exact antithesis of that of conventional samurai characters repeatedly portrayed in period dramas, this film also became a blockbuster. Koreeda Hirokazu’s Hana, also known as The Tale of a Reluctant Samurai (Hana yorimo nao) (2006), is a film that is probably most openly critical of conventional samurai masculinity, as it makes a sardonic reference to the Chūshingura narrative. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Sōzaemon, the protagonist of this film, travels from Matsumoto to Edo (Tokyo) in order to avenge his father’s murder; nevertheless, three years elapse and Sōzaemon is unable to seek revenge, not only because he is far from being an expert with swords but also because of his fear of using one. This film is set in the period between 1702 and 1703, the period when the famed forty-seven samurai from Akō redeemed their master’s honour by killing Kira Yoshinaka, who was believed to have been primarily responsible in forcing their master to commit seppuku (ritual suicide). This film portrays a stark contrast between the protagonist, Sōzaemon, and the forty-seven samurai from Akō, who were later deified in numerous Chūshingura narratives, because Sōzaemon is unable to avenge his father’s death owing to his lack of confidence despite familial pressures that demand that he complete the ‘mission’. However, it must be noted that Sōzaemon is able to retain his dignity because his friends support him and help him keep up appearances by pretending that he successfully avenged his father’s murder although Sōzaemon and his friends do not kill anyone. This film has a tranquil ending, as Sōzaemon finds fulfilment in a simple life as a peasant. It is manifest that the film Hana satirizes the mythicized Chūshingura narrative. It severely criticizes the conventional Japanese socio-cultural system and cultural products that have glorified masculinity, which was based on the value of chū (loyalty), for a long time. Koreeda, the director of this film, states in an interview, ‘[T]he purpose behind making this film was to

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argue that sacrificing one’s life must not be considered respectable’ (quoted in Sekiguchi 2006: 45). Another symbolic example is Ichi (2008), which is a unique remake of a longrunning film series called Zatoichi in which the film star actor Katsu Shintarō plays the blind swordsman Ichi. Surprisingly, in Ichi the role of Ichi is played by a young female actress, Ayase Haruka. On the other hand, a male samurai Tōma (Ōsawa Takao), who is responsible for Ichi’s safety, is good at nothing because he is scared of drawing a sword, like Sōzaemon in Hana. It is ironic how Tōma’s life is saved by the dainty Ichi’s swordsmanship time and again. Overall, it can be argued that these films are a kind of revision of a generally accepted dominant historical understanding; the media products are critical of Japan’s past, particularly Japan’s post-war growth, although, on the surface, they appear to be innocuous nostalgic representations merely longing for the recent past. It is true that numerous intellectuals both in Japan and abroad have argued that Japan’s unprecedented post-war economic growth is because of a particular Japanese style of management as well as the special procurement economic booms triggered by the logistic support Japan supplied to the United States in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Even Nakane, who introduces the concept of the ‘vertical principles’ and criticizes the resulting closed corporate culture and homogeneous community, admits that the particular principle has contributed to the success of Japan’s modernization. As Nakane states: What is most important is that in Japan, a group inevitably and eventually develops the vertical type of organizational structure. Further, an organizational structure based on the vertical principle appears more profoundly in well-established, large institutions with a higher degree of prestige. This is the major strength of the Japanese system. . . . The strength of this structure lies in its effectiveness for centralized communication and its capability of efficient and swift mobilization of the collective power of its members. The importance of its contribution to the process of modernization is immeasurable. It has been noted above that this structure served to underpin Japan’s post-war economic growth. (Nakane 1970: 63) It may be ironic that even though David Morley and Kevin Robins – well-known cultural studies scholars – severely criticize the ethnocentric idea that Japan’s economic and technological success are attributable to ‘the Japanese mind’ (Morley and Robins 1995: 167); they, however, argue that distinguished technological achievements characterize Japan and highly praise Japan’s growth because, according to them, ‘postmodern’ Japan would replace hegemonic Western modernity (Morley and Robins 1995: 167). Morley and Robins state, [H]igh-technology has become associated with Japaneseness. . . . If the future is technological, and if technology has become “Japanised”, then the syllogism would suggest that the future is now Japanese too. The postmodern era

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will be the Pacific era. Japan is the future, and it is a future that seems to be transcending and displacing Western modernity. (Morley and Robins 1995: 167) Thus, Japan has been regarded as a typical successful example of a scientific and technologic powerhouse. However, what this chapter clarifies is that the nostalgic media products that focus on Japan’s technological achievements do not simply yearn for the accomplishments but reflect a measure of discontent with the successful model of corporate management. As was discussed before, the dark side of Japanese contemporary history such as the ‘bursting of the bubble economy’ in the 1990s and the following ‘lost decade’ may have given rise to a negative perception of the Japanese model of corporate management and of corporate executives. These media show enormous sympathy with ordinary people, engineers, and particularly ‘marginalized employees’ or ‘mavericks’, and often romanticize them as key players who lead the technological evolution by defying the rigid Japanese corporate culture. In addition, there is a certain aspiration toward individualism that requires the sacrifice of conventional Japanese corporate culture. This may suggest that Japan is far from the stage of postmodernity, but is still in the stage of modernity or even pre-modernity in that individualism, which is essential in Western modernity, has not yet sufficiently taken root in Japanese society. In other words, Japanese people have not yet acquired individualism, even if they would like to at all costs. This dilemma may lead the nostalgic media to create an imaginary ‘maverick’ who challenges social power with perfect freedom. In order to fully develop what is discussed in the present chapter, the subsequent chapter will explore the films that focus on around the year 1970, when Japan actually reached its zenith of rapid economic growth.

4

Conflict between ideal self and real self – Twentieth Century Boys and Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’

This chapter analytically discusses two popular Japanese films: Twentieth Century Boys (Nijyusseiki Shōnen) (2008–2009) and Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ (Crayon Shin-chan: Arashi wo yobu Mōretsu! Otona Teikoku no Gyakushū) (2001). The films are examined together because of their important commonalities. First, images of the Japan World Exposition (Expo ’70), often referred to as the Osaka World Exhibition because it was held in Osaka in 1970, play significant parts in both films’ narratives. The ways that Expo ’70 is characterized and represented in these films are worth careful consideration, because Expo ’70 is widely recognized as a symbol of the height as well as of the end of the rapid economic growth experienced in Japan after World War II. A comparison of this chapter’s research findings to those of the previous chapters in this volume provides a comprehensive understanding of the ways that the Shōwa period’s nostalgic media products reflect that period. The second commonality considered in this chapter is that the creators are prestigious artists with an auteuristic approach. As is discussed below in detail, Twentieth Century Boys is a film based on Urasawa Naoki’s manga (a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels) works. Urasawa, a Japanese manga artist of international fame, and Nagasaki Takashi, who edited this particular manga, wrote the screenplay of the film. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ was the idea of Hara Keiichi, who conceived the unusual storyline, wrote the screenplay, and directed the film. Furthermore, it is important that these creators are members of Japan’s so-called shirake sedai (apathy generation) or moratoriamu sedai (moratorium generation), a generation born between the early 1950s and the early 1960s: Urasawa was born in 1960, Nagasaki in 1956, and Hara in 1959. Tsutsumi Yukihiko, director of the Twentieth Century Boys trilogy, was born in 1955. Although the notion of generation should be carefully handled because it can be problematic in analysis, it is worth investigating the ways that their generation and life histories contributed to the films’ narratives.

The ideal and the real: Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ The film Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ is based on the manga, Crayon Shin-chan, written by Usui Yoshito. The story

Conflict between ideal self and real self 123 depicts the amazing daily lives of a five-year-old boy (Nohara Shin’nosuke) and his family in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture. Shortly after the manga was serialized, it was published in Manga Action magazine (from August 1990). It was very popular among children, and the serialization continued for almost twenty years, ending as a result of Usui’s death in a mountain climbing accident in September of 2009. The popularity of Crayon Shin-chan goes beyond the magazine serial, because the circulation of the manga books has exceeded fifty million copies. Crayon Shin-chan was first developed as a film in 1993, and the film series was released every year thereafter because of its popularity among young children. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’, which is specifically discussed in this chapter, was the ninth film in the series, released in 2001 (see Figure 4.1). The primary reason that this chapter focuses on that particular film is that it attained an exceptionally high reputation among film critics, although its targeted audience was young children. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ is ranked fourth in Kinema Junpō magazine’s 2010 all-time best animated films. Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro (Rupan Sansei: Kariosutoro no Shiro) (1979) was ranked first, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Kaze no Tani no Naushika) (1984) was second, and My Neighbour Totoro (Tonari no Totoro) (1988) was ranked third. The second and third ranked films are Miyazaki Hayao’s works. Importantly, Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ was created for young children, whereas the other three works were aimed at teenagers and adults. Thus, the high praise for this film was by critics and adults, not children. The highest box office revenues among the twenty-two serialized Crayon Shin-chan films were for the first film, Crayon Shin-chan: Action Kamen vs. Leotard Devil (Kureyon Shinchan: Akushon Kamen tai Haigure Maō) (1993), followed by the second film, Crayon Shin-chan: The Secret Treasure of Buri Buri Kingdom (Kureyon Shinchan: Buriburi Ōkoku no Hihō) (1994). Although the first and second films’ revenues exceeded 2 billion yen each, Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ earned only about 1.5 billion yen, which is equivalent to the average revenue of all the Crayon Shin-chan films. This difference demonstrates the gap between the critics’ praise and the young audiences’ responses. In other words, critics were enthusiastic about the film although children’s responses were somewhat mediocre. Despite later praise, Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ did not draw widespread attention from film critics when it was first released in April of 2001. At the previews, many critics and journalists criticized it as a ‘failure’; one of them stated that ‘this is the most unpleasant film I have ever seen’ (Asahi Shimbun, 20 April 2013). In addition, as is the general case regarding animated films for children, only a few reviews were published in newspapers or magazines when it was first released. Among the many animated films released that same year, Miyazaki Hayao’s Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kami Kakushi) won the highest critical praise. Spirited Away virtually dominated the major Japanese film awards, including Best Film Award of the 25th Japan Academy Awards, Best Film Award of the Mainichi Film Awards, and Best Film Award of the Blue Ribbon Awards. Spirited Away

Figure 4.1 Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ (the film’s DVD package)

Conflict between ideal self and real self 125 also won prestigious international awards, such as Best Animated Feature from the US 75th Annual Academy Awards and the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival. Over time, the critical reputations of Spirited Away and Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ in Japan have reversed; currently, the latter is ranked fourth and the former is ranked fourteenth in Kinema Junpō magazine’s 2010 all-time best animated films. However, their international reputations have not changed. For example, in the British magazine Time Out’s 2009 list of the fifty greatest animated feature films of all time, Spirited Away is ranked sixth, behind pre-WWII classical films such as Walt Disney’s Snow White (1937) and Fantasia (1940). In the same magazine’s 2014 list of the best one hundred animated films, Spirited Away is ranked second (Pinocchio [1940] ranked first). Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ does not appear in either list. Thus, the reversal in critical reputation apparently is limited to Japan. The question then is: What has changed to give Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ the status of a classical film in Japan? First, it is important to understand that the value of Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ was first recognized by adult viewers who were not professional film critics. Praise for the film initially spread among parents who had seen it with their children in theatres. Ishitobi Noriki, an Asahi Shimbun newspaper correspondent, wrote that, Adults who weep after watching this film have come forward one after another. . . . It is because the quality of the film actually transcends the category of ‘gag cartoon’. Adults who saw the film were deeply moved and the film’s reputation spread by their word of mouth. (Ishitobi 2003: 33) In April of 2002, about one year after the film was released, Ikebukuro Shinbungeiza, a classical film theatre in Tokyo, presented an all-night event of the entire Crayon Shin-chan series for adults only. The event was highly successful, because the venue filled to overflowing (Kairakutei 2002: 316). A rakugo (minimalistic performance art of comic storytelling) performer, Kairakutei Black, raved about Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ and criticized Spirited Away, stating that, I could not stop crying even after I finished watching this film and left the venue. This film is more than a film for children. This is my true impression. Compared with this film, Spirited Away is not interesting because it is just for kids. (Kairakutei 2002: 318) After the film’s reputation had spread among adults, film critics began to pay attention. In April of 2002, Kinema Junpō, a film review magazine, published a

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fourteen-page feature article entitled ‘Crayon Shin-chan Series for Adults’. The prefatory note of the feature story, which follows, shows the extent to which this film magazine acknowledged the value of the Crayon Shin-chan series and intended to bring it to the public. There exists a pleasure of unknown ‘film entertainment’. We would be happy if this feature article were read by the people who assume that the Crayon Shin-chan series is merely a group of films for children and who do not know how much fun they are. Welcome to the world of Crayon Shin-chan! (Kinema Junpō, April 2002: 129) Interestingly, film critics recommended Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ as a film suitable to the uncertain times after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011. For example, Sano Tōru wrote, ‘I paused to realize that this film involves an extraordinary suggestive message to us in the age after the disaster’ (Sano 2012: 79). Film director Iwai Shunji, known for his films Love Letter (1995) and Swallowtail (1996), tweeted that, ‘Although this film was made in 2001, we feel deep sympathy with this film’s message that the twenty-first century should never be such a horrible time’. Thousands of his Twitter followers re-tweeted it. The storyline of Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ is as follows. A large theme park named Twentieth Century Exhibition is built in Kasukabe in Saitama Prefecture, where a kindergarten child, Nohara Shin’nosuke (the protagonist) lives. Twentieth Century Exhibition is an unusual place where city, culture, and aspects of the Shōwa 30s (1955–1964) and 40s (1965–1974) are elaborately reconstructed, while all things unrelated to that period are intentionally omitted. The local children, including Shin’nosuke, have no apparent interest in the theme park, but the adults become captivated by it because the nostalgia of the period attracts them. One day, all of the adults in Kasukabe suddenly disappear from the town, leaving the children behind. This is a deliberate act by Yesterday Once More, the secret society that organizes Twentieth Century Exhibition. Yesterday Once More is plotting to create the otona teikoku (Adult Empire), in which social values would be based only on the good old twentieth century, and the twentyfirst century would be entirely denied. The adults vanish from the town because Yesterday Once More exploits their longing for the things of the Shōwa period by inviting them to Twentieth Century Exhibition and then confining them there. Although Shin’nosuke and the other children must surrender to Yesterday Once More, they learn Yesterday Once More’s true intentions, and they enter the Twentieth Century Exhibition to rescue their parents. Shin’nosuke sees that many of the adults, including his parents, are forgetting themselves and falling under trances from the artificial odours of the Shōwa period developed by Yesterday Once More. Shin’nosuke and the other children try to break the trances by making their parents smell their own stinky socks. It works, and the adults regain consciousness. Yesterday Once More continues to tempt the adults to embrace

Conflict between ideal self and real self 127 the nostalgic feelings of Twentieth Century Exhibition, but Shin’nosuke and the other children block the assault with courageous resistance. At the end, Ken and Chako, the two leaders of Yesterday Once More, abandon their scheme to reconstruct society into the Adult Empire based on the values of the Shōwa period. The film’s exceptionally high praise from adult audiences owes a great deal of credit to the impressive talents of Hara Keiichi, who directed the film. Hara was born in 1959 into a family that owned an old-fashioned penny candy shop in Tatebayashi, Gunma Prefecture. Apparently, Hara’s family was not wealthy, because, according to Hara, his family purchased its first television receiver in 1964 when the Tokyo Olympics was held. Hara was absorbed in drawing, painting, and playing the folk guitar during junior high school, and he failed to enter a public high school. Although the Crayon Shin-chan series was originally based on the original manga of Usui Yoshito, most of the storylines were adapted to the film medium by filmmakers. Hara wrote the storyline of Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’. Hara is appreciated for his film style influenced by Japanese traditional domestic drama, particularly 1950s Shōchiku (Japan’s leading film and theatre company) films directed by Ozu Yasujiró and Kinoshita Keisuke (Hamano 2005: 271–273). Dramatic author Nakajima Kazuki highly praised Hara, arguing that he could be a ‘national auteur’ if he were to adhere to his unique style (Nakajima 2005: 211). Although the book in which this chapter is found does not analyze films in the auteurist perspective, such an analysis would be important for understanding the films’ storylines and why a storyline targeted at young children has had a widespread and deep attraction for adults. The antagonisms in Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ are important. First, there is a tension between the present and the past expressed by the antagonism between the Adult Empire of the Twentieth Century Exhibition promoted by Yesterday Once More and present society. The storyline contrasts the two periods, particularly contrasting the Shōwa 40s (1965–1974) with the beginning of the twenty-first century. There also is an antagonism between adults who desperately long for the past and their children who live for the present moment. Furthermore, a familiar scent from the Shōwa period is contrasted with the nasty smell of the adults’ socks, which metaphorically demonstrates the difference between illusion and reality. In addition to these superficial contrasts, meta-antagonisms lay beneath the narrative. First, the contrast between the past and the present implies an antagonism between spirit and matter. The following conversation between Ken and Chako, the leaders of Yesterday Once More, support this interpretation. The two characters converse on Yūhichōginza Street, where Yesterday Once More artificially revived a Shōwa 40s town. Chako: I can be relaxed when I cross the street. Ken: People nurtured vivid dreams and hopes some decades ago. Although numerous people expected that a glittering twenty-first century would

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come, there is only dirty money and rotten rubbish in today’s Japan. Is this really the twenty-first-century Japan that we had eagerly awaited? Chako: Because the minds of contemporary people actually go blank, they make up for their mental satisfaction by mono (goods). Therefore, the world is becoming ugly and unpleasant day by day from the production of unnecessary goods. Ken: We have to start our lives all over again. We have to go back to the period when the Japanese people lived within their own minds. Chako: Yes, we should return to that time when we could believe in our future. I do hope that our society will become like the old days. Ken: It should. This conversation may seem naïve because it is so simple and direct. Moreover, it could be interpreted as similar to the conflicts widely recognized in journalism and among contemporary intellectuals: The antagonism between Shōwa (the desired) and the present (the rejected). However, it is important to recognize the contradictions and reversals in the storyline’s antagonisms. Chako states, ‘Because the minds of contemporary people actually go blank, they make up for their mental satisfaction by mono (goods).’ That is why Ken and Chako argue that the Japanese people should return to the Shōwa period, which was when they nurtured a rich spirit. On the other hand, their words contradict their actions, which should not be ignored. For example, although Ken abhors the materialistic behaviours of contemporary Japanese, he also adheres to consumerism by filling the Twentieth Century Exhibition with Shōwa products and culture, such as music, food, shops, buildings, clothing, and so on. Similarly, Ken grows red with anger when someone damages his cherished Toyota 2000 GT car. Moreover, although Ken and Chako intend to create their Adult Empire based on the Twentieth Century Exhibition, many of the captured adults are in a trance state in which they are obsessed with the Shōwa atmosphere created with consumer goods. The adults seem far from focused on spiritual desires and interests. Yet, some of the characters’ lives are spiritually based; these are the children in the film, such as Shin’nosuke. They try to help their parents wake up from the trance of obsession with Shōwa’s consumer goods. It is not clear whether the creators intentionally created this as a paradox or they provide it as an example of the self-contradictions and self-deceptions of the Ken and Chako characters. Regardless, the theme demonstrates a reversal. It is contradictory that individual freedoms are advocated by Yesterday Once More’s leaders (Ken and Chako) and the children, including Shin’nosuke, aim to persuade their parents that community, family, and human bonds are more important than individualism. In Japan, however, the reality tends to be the opposite, because parents tend to admonish their children to prioritize family over individuality. In the film, young five-year-old children educate and help their parents, which probably is the most unusual reversal of the film. We now ask: Why did Hara Keiichi, writer and director of the film, create this unusual story? What was his purpose for including these contrasts and

Conflict between ideal self and real self 129 antagonisms in the storyline? After the film Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ was released, Hara was interviewed many times, and his statements in these interviews imply that he made this film very carefully and risked losing his job by doing so. In an interview with Asahi Shimbun, Hara stated, Although I am satisfied with this film because it went far beyond what I had expected, I have to recognize that this film far exceeds the framework of Crayon Shin-chan. I thought I had risked losing my job; but, absolutely, this film must be better than other ones. (Asahi Shimbun, 1 August 2007) In another interview, Hara stated, ‘This film was actually the outcome after I had worried about how to create the narrative by almost driving me into a tight corner. . . . I believe that a film will not be interesting if filmmakers took no risks’ (Yamashita 2002: 139). Why did Hara need to risk his job by ‘driving [himself] into a tight corner’ (Yamashita 2002: 139)? It seems important that Hara repeatedly stated his strong attachment to the period around 1970 when he, born in 1959, was a boy. Hara also explained that the character for which he felt the most sympathy is Yesterday Once More’s leader Ken, because Ken reminded him of himself (Hara and Hamano 2005: 84). Hara consistently argued that, although he upholds Yesterday Once More’s so-called revolution by returning to Shōwa, it is necessary to deny this notion. Why does he support Ken’s scheme while rejecting it? How can this ambiguity be interpreted, and how is this ambiguity related to some of the reversals and contradictions in the storyline? We can understand Hara’s ambiguity by considering the particular environment of the period around 1970 when Expo ’70, a central symbolic focus of the film, was held. Around 1970, Japan enjoyed the peak of its post-WWII economic growth; in 1968, Japan’s gross national product exceeded that of West Germany, reaching almost 143 billion dollars, and it was the second largest world economy (after the United States). On the other hand, that period was characterized as a political season, typified by the student movement. In January of 1968, the student union of Tokyo University’s Medical School went on strike in opposition to the introduction of the enrolled doctor system. In May, the All-Campus Joint Struggle League was organized at Nihon University. When the All-Campus Joint Struggle League at Tokyo University blocked the entrance of Yasuda Auditorium in January of 1969 to disorganize the university, riot police fired 4,000 tear gas shells at them and arrested 364 student activists. On 31 March 1970, just after Expo ’70 opened its gates, nine members of the Japanese Red Army hijacked Japan Airlines Flight 351 while en route from Tokyo to Fukuoka. This was the first hijacking incident in Japanese history. On 25 November 1970, two months after Expo ’70 ended, prestigious novelist Mishima Yukio committed seppuku (ritual suicide) after giving a speech that aimed to inspire a coup d’état to restore power to the emperor.

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Thus, an antagonism between the established powers and an anti-establishment movement existed around 1970. Importantly, even ardent student activists who opposed capitalism found it difficult to control their desires to consume because they were enjoying the benefits of the rapid economic growth. Oguma Eiji, a sociologist, wrote that the student movement activists gradually adapted to the rise of mass consumption society although they rejected it at first (Oguma 2009: 836). From this perspective, the self-contradictions of the characters Ken and Chaco could be reflective of the internal struggles of the student movement activists of the 1970s, although it is not clear that the filmmakers intended this particular interpretation. It can be argued that advancing toward an ideal society based on spiritual concerns bases that society on identification with an ideal self. On the other hand, obsession with consumer goods while denying materialism can be interpreted as identification with the actual self. This is true for the character Ken as well as for the director Hara because (as pointed out above) Hara acknowledged that he and Ken are very similar. The storyline of the film Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’, from that perspective, is a type of self-assessment by the adults who were torn between their ideal selves and their actual selves in their younger years. Therefore, the storyline blends retrospect, reminiscence, and (probably) self-examination of past selves from the perspective of the social context of early twenty-first century Japan. The blending explains why the themes and storyline involve reversals and contradictions, and why Hara Keiichi risked his job by ‘driving [himself] into a tight corner’, because Hara committed a so-called code violation by embedding adult themes in a film intended for children. The film’s subtitle, ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’, is truly metaphorical and equivocal.

The decline of symbolic consumption and the new reality It is important to recognize that Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ involves another meta-narrative, in which criticism of the consumption of symbols underlies the storyline. As explained above, 1970 was a period when excessive material consumption in Japanese society began. There is no theoryneutral language available to describe consumption, because the social conditions of any given historical period transform the meaning of consumption from what it meant in the preceding period (Bocock 1993: 34). According to Bocock (1993), in the early stages of industrial capitalism, consumption was not necessarily related to an individual’s sense of identity (p. 49). It was not until the mid-twentieth century that mass consumption became a crucial factor in many Western societies (Bocock 1993: 21). Moreover, it is only since the 1970s and 1980s that a certain type of consumer has appeared, for whom consumption plays a significant part in lifestyle and the construction of individual identity. This type of consumer comprises the majority of people today. Regarding this type of consumer, Bocock stated, The construction of a sense of identity can be seen as a process which may make use of items of consumption such as clothing, footwear, popular music

Conflict between ideal self and real self 131 or sporting activities, including being a supporter of particular music groups, singers or soccer clubs. Such consumption patterns could be used as a central means of defining who was a member and who was outside a specific group. These kinds of phenomena were found especially among young people aged 14 and up to 30 or more. (Bocock 1993: 28) Thus, the notions of consumption and consumers dramatically changed during the twentieth century. Baudrillard’s (2001b) understanding of the relationship between consumption and identity is helpful for understanding the close relationship between consumption and lifestyle. Baudrillard argued that contemporary consumption is about more than the satisfaction gained from the mere possession of objects, because today’s needs are less about objects than values (Baudrillard 2001a: 40), suggesting that consumption is more than a materialistic behaviour. According to Baudrillard (2001b), consumption is ‘a systematic act of the manipulation of signs’ (p. 25). Japan is representative of those industrialized countries that experienced this transformation of consumption in the 1970s from use value to symbolic value. In Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’, the character Ken’s self-contradiction between obsession with consumer goods and organizing a political movement against them demonstrates that the 1970 period was a time of transition to higher consumption of objects as symbols (i.e. signs). Ken’s obsessive attachment to his Toyota 2000 GT car apparently symbolizes the consumption of symbols that creates personal identity. In contrast, the film’s children, including Shin’nosuke, show no interest in consumer goods for either their material or symbolic value. This distinction presents another significant contrast with real life because, in actuality, parents often protest their children’s seemingly uncontrollable desires for consumer goods. Thus, it is ironic that Shin’nosuke and the other children, as opposed to the adults, are the reformers who recover family values and bonds by saving their materialistic and obsessed parents. This part of the plot exposes the self-deception and hypocrisy of Japanese adults who experienced the student movement of the 1970s. Therefore, Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ is a metaphor for the philosophy of anti-consumption. Sociologist Yabe Kentarō argued that the Twentieth Century Exhibition in the film represents a huge space of consumption where everything is transformed into consumer goods with the mark of nostalgia (Yabe 2004: 47). According to Yabe, the most important antagonism of the narrative is between the ‘consumption of symbols’ and ‘human relationship irreducible to consumption’ as opposed to a conflict between the past and the present. It is important that the film’s theme of the high value of an anti-consumption lifestyle apparently reflects and supports the current Japanese lifestyle of daily consumption. Many Japanese intellectuals argued that Baudrillard’s (2001b) ideas apply to the characteristics of Japanese consumption in the 1980s. Ōtsuka Eiji, a scholar of Japanese popular culture, argued that Japan completely transitioned to a postmodern society in the late 1980s when the consumption of symbols (as described

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by Baudrillard) became commonplace (Ōtsuka 2001). Karatani Kōjin, one of Japan’s most influential philosophers, argued in 1984 that Japan became a society that excessively consumes symbols in the 1980s. According to Karatani, Japan is an ‘over-consumption society’, in which consumption dominates all other aspects of people’s lives. In a conversation with French philosopher Jacques Derrida, Karatani stated, ‘I would argue that current Japanese capitalism has entered a highly abnormal phase. This situation outstrips the consuming society written about by Baudrillard. Japan has actually entered a terrible stage’ (Derrida, Karatani, and Asada 1984: 10–11). Postmodern philosophy was a dominant perspective in 1980s Japan. It was widely accepted that the consumption of symbols (as described by Baudrillard) and over-consumption were evidence of Japanese society’s postmodern condition. Even some prominent Western scholars who, in the 1980s, had questioned the notion of Japan as a postmodern society argued that Japan’s consumption pattern was unusual (e.g. Ivy 1988). However, according to Consumer Confidence Surveys conducted by the Cabinet Office, since the collapse of the bubble economy in the early 1990s, Japanese consumer spending has become noticeably circumspect. I believe that this change in consumerism signals a revival of modern or pre-postmodern consumption. Despite the dramatic shift in consumerism, few scholars are theorizing about the decline of Baudrillard’s notion of consumption in Japan or about its social effects. Perhaps the lack of work is less due to a lack of interest in consumerism per se than because consumption has slowed and may seem less interesting in the sluggish economy. Nevertheless, Mamada Takao (2005, 2007), a sociologist specializing in Japanese consumption, argued that consuming the symbolic value of goods no longer dominates Japan. According to Mamada, modern consumption patterns can be classified into two basic categories: ‘postmodern consumption’ and ‘modern consumption’ (p. 10). ‘Postmodern consumption’ is characterized by postrationalism, deconstruction, and simulacrum, whereas ‘modern consumption’ has features such as rationalism, structuration, and predominance of the original and the real over simulacrum (Mamada 2007: 50). Although he admitted that ideas about ‘postmodern consumption’ had dominated in Japan since the 1980s because of the influence of certain books, particularly those by Baudrillard, Mamada argued that ‘postmodern consumption’ is less dominant than ‘modern consumption’ in present-day Japan. Moreover, he pointed out that ‘it appears that the notion of consumption of signs has already become old-fashioned’ (Mamada 2005: 11). Mamada stated, I do not think that a new life culture characterized by consumption of signs will dramatically change the conventional social framework. As was argued previously, the tendencies that require functional effectiveness in consumption are continuing, and the boom in the consumption of signs only added a new element to the conventionally functional rationality. Certainly, consumers have sought not only comfort, but also something beautiful and exciting; but this does not mean that consumers reject the former and select the latter.

Conflict between ideal self and real self 133 Therefore, the social framework that was made for the sake of realizing the former must not collapse dramatically. . . . Nevertheless, in Japan, special emphasis was placed on the consumption of signs (by academia). The reason that consumption of signs attracted a great deal of attention is the introduction of a new fascinating theory of postmodernism and the consumption of signs coincided in Japan with the time when consumer goods adhering to symbolic meanings were produced and consumed. (Mamada 2005: 20–21) In addition, Matsuda Hisakazu, a specialist in market research, argued from a different perspective that was, however, relevant to Mamada’s contention. According to Matsuda (2009), there is a rising kenshōhi (generation of anticonsumption) comprising people with no apparent interest in luxury cars, highfashion clothing brands, or international travel because they were teenagers in the 1990s when the economic bubble burst, which dramatically influenced their values (Matsuda 2009). Matsuda argued regarding the anti-consumption generation that they do not consume according to income. Although conventional consumers increase their expenditures when their incomes rise, this anti-consumption generation never loosens the purse strings, even when the economy recovers. In one sense, the most difficult consumers for manufacturing businesses and service industries are rising. (Matsuda 2009: 1) Some Japanese intellectuals who discussed the consumption of symbols in the 1980s currently argue in support of Mamada and Matsuda. For example, Okada Toshio, known for his work on 1980s otakus (people with obsessive interests that could apply to anime, manga, cosplay, collectibles, and so on), argued in his 2008 book that the ‘otaku phenomenon is already dead’ (Okada 2008). Otaku culture, according to Okada, was supported by the extensive consumption of symbols in the 1980s, and ‘sophisticated otaku’ are now almost entirely extinct because that particular type of consumption has dramatically declined (Okada 2008: 8). Although the number of would-be otaku is increasing today, their consumption style is considered banal and their knowledge of popular culture (the main feature of 1980s otaku) is limited (Okada 2008). Those differences are why Okada argued that the Japanese otaku phenomenon is dead. Mamada, Matsuda, and Okada argued to explain why the phenomenon of Japanese postmodern consumption – which was, according to Karatani (Derrida, Karatani, and Asada 1984: 10–11), ‘far beyond the consuming society written of by Baudrillard’ – had declined. These philosophical arguments lead us to reinterpret the antagonism between the ‘consumption of symbols’ and ‘human relationship irreducible to consumption’ (Yabe 2004: 47) and the victory of the latter in the film Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ as a harsh criticism of and

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caution against the over-consuming society that caused the Japanese bubble economy. This film’s atypical narrative reviews the life histories of twenty-firstcentury adults, typified by the character Ken, who experienced conflict between their ideal selves and their actual selves in their young days. It is ironic that Shin’nosuke and the other children realize Ken’s ideal self by setting personal examples for an anti-consumption lifestyle based on family values and bonds, a lifestyle that Ken and the adults fail to find. Thus, past dreams that were never realized could be realized in the present. As director Hara explained, ‘Shin’nosuke inherits the genes and ideals of the past student activists’ (Eiga Hihō, January 2002: 60–61), and, thus, the problems and contradictions of real life could be solved in the imaginary world of the film through the plot of an intergenerational legacy embracing an ideal. On a superficial level, this film offers a stereotypical antagonism between the past and the present commonly found in journalistic and intellectual discourses. However, a significant meta-level narrative exists that criticizes the longing for the past Shōwa period because, in the storyline, the filmmakers aim to regain their personal ideal selves by critically reflecting on their previous self-contradictions and actual selves, in that they can be obsessed with consumer goods.

Ritual of self-examination: the consequences of the past moratorium in Twentieth Century Boys After the 1970s, many films were made by adapting manga to that medium, and they increased with the rise of children’s comic (graphic) magazines. Many Shōwa nostalgic films are based on manga, perhaps the best known of which is the film series Always: Sunset on Third Street, based on Saigan Ryōhei’s popular manga. Yellow Tears (2007), featuring all five members of the idol group (equivalent to British and American ‘boy bands’) Arashi, adapted Nagashima Shinji’s autobiographical manga. The Crayon Shin-chan series was animated based on Usui Yoshito’s popular manga. Manga, as a media genre, is suited to storylines set in the past or future because manga artists can use their imaginations to depict any time and any place. The development of special effects technologies made it possible for filmmakers to transfer the graphic manga images and animate them in the films. The film series Always: Sunset on Third Street would not have been the huge box office success that it was without the meticulous re-creation of the Shōwa 30s Tokyo streetscape. Film critic Satō Tadao pointed out that ‘this film is a milestone of making use of computer graphic technology’ (Satō 2005: 58). Similar to the Always: Sunset on Third Street series, the Twentieth Century Boys (2008–2009) trilogy, based on Urasawa Naoki’s manga, exemplifies successful elaborate reproduction of the Shōwa period atmosphere. It is important to discuss Twentieth Century Boys in this analysis for three main reasons. First, the foundational manga was a well-known and extremely successful work with circulation of almost thirty million, surpassing Saigan Ryōhei’s original manga of Sunset on Third Street (the original of Always: Sunset on Third Street). Second, Urasawa’s original manga received extraordinarily high critical praise and many

Conflict between ideal self and real self 135 prestigious awards, such as Japan Cartoonists Association Awards, Japan Media Arts Festival Awards, Kōdansha Manga Award, Shōgakukan Manga Award, and Seiun Award. In addition, it achieved international awards, including the first Angoulême International Comics Festival Prize in 2004 and the 2011 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material in the Asia category. Third, the film adaptation of Twentieth Century Boys was a major production effort, similar to Hollywood films, which was unusual for Japanese films. The production cost six billion yen and had a cast of three hundred for the trilogy released in 2008 and 2009. The box office revenues of the trilogy exceeded eleven billion yen. Its impacts were far-reaching, and it is integral to analyses that focus on Shōwa nostalgia as a social phenomenon (see Figure 4.2). First, to analyze Twentieth Century Boys, we should recognize that the major creators of the manga and films are members of the shirake sedai (apathy generation) or moratoriamu sedai (moratorium generation), born during the late 1950s. Urasawa Naoki, the original manga artist, was born in 1960; Nagasaki Takashi, a manga editor who wrote the screenplay of the trilogy films, was born in 1956; and Tsutsumi Yukihiko, the director of the three films, was born in 1955. They acknowledge that they share feelings and experiences particular to their generation. A detailed analysis of Twentieth Century Boys helps us to understand the ways that the creators critically reviewed the twentieth century through the lens of the social perspective of their generation; indeed, Urasawa and Nagasaki point out that the main theme of the work was a ‘critical examination of the twentieth century’. Hara Keiichi, director of Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’, was described above as a member of the apathy generation or moratorium generation because he was born in 1959. Therefore, to thoroughly compare Twentieth Century Boys – paying particular attention to the way that Urasawa, Nagasaki, and Tsutsumi critically examined the twentieth century – with Hara’s Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ might shed further light on the ways that these creators, all in the same cohort, critically understood the Shōwa period, through which they lived as children. Another important point is that Expo ’70 plays a more significant part in the Twentieth Century Boys trilogy than in Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’. Therefore, how and why Expo ’70 is represented in the trilogy is a crucial issue to the analysis. Moreover, it must not be overlooked that film adaptations of manga often differ from the original manga or graphic novel. In the Twentieth Century Boys trilogy, very little was changed because Urasawa and Nagasaki wrote the screenplays, and director Tsutsumi stated, ‘I tried to straightforwardly reproduce the content of the original manga in the films not least because the manga itself is superb’ (Shindo 2008: 19). Tohō released the Twentieth Century Boys trilogy in 2008 and 2009. The first film was The Beginning of the End, and it was released in August of 2008. It was followed by The Last Hope, released in January of 2009, and the third film, Our Flag, was released in August of 2009. Although the storyline of the seven-hour combined run time is complex and has many characters, it can be outlined as

Figure 4.2 First film (The Beginning of the End) of the Twentieth Century Boys trilogy (the film’s DVD package)

Conflict between ideal self and real self 137 follows. Set in 1997, protagonist Kenji (portrayed by Karasawa Toshiaki) abandons the idea of becoming a rock star and becomes, instead, a convenience store manager while caring for his niece, Kan’na, because her mother (his sister Kiriko) had suddenly disappeared. Strange incidents, allegedly caused by a mystery cult led by tomodachi (Friend), were happening in rapid succession, frightening the people. One day during this time, Kenji is reunited with his elementary school classmates at his alumni reunion, and he and his former classmates are astonished to realize that the strange incidents strikingly resemble things they had written about during their school days in 1969 in a journal, the Book of Prophecy. Kenji and his friends try to thwart Friend’s plot, and Friend brands Kenji as a terrorist. Then, on New Year’s Eve of 2001, Friend orders his cult members to set a time bomb to massacre all humankind. The first film ends with the suggestion that Kenji dies in the blast. The second film is set fourteen years later in the near future of 2015. Friend now governs Japan as a dictator, but he also is admired as a saviour believed to have averted the Bloody New Year’s Eve terrorism allegedly attempted by Kenji and his friends in 2001. Kenji’s niece, Kan’na, now a high school student, organizes a resistance movement against Friend and his autocratic state, and she infiltrates Friend Land (created by Friend) to plead her uncle Kenji’s innocence. Moreover, Kenji’s former classmates organize underground activities to subvert the Friend regime. One of Kenji’s former classmates succeeds in shooting and killing Friend just before the World Exhibition 2015, planned by Friend, begins. A prodigious funerary ritual, attended by many celebrities, including the pope and the UN secretary-general, is held to honour Friend, but he miraculously comes to life at the ceremony. The third film is set two years later, in 2017. Friend is becoming the World President, who rules the entire world. The population of Tokyo is dramatically decreased because of deaths caused by a killer virus spread by Friend. When Friend announces that ‘humankind will become extinct on August 20 and only the people who believe in me will be saved,’ Kan’na and Kenji’s friends try to frustrate his evil scheme. Then, Kan’na learns that her uncle Kenji is alive. She learns that the venue of the World Exhibition 2015 will be the only place where Friend will not release the killer virus, and she develops the brilliant idea to organize a huge promenade concert at the venue. She calls for everyone to gather there on August 20, 2017. Suddenly, someone assassinates Friend, and his plot is thereby defeated. On August 20, Kenji appears alive and well at the promenade concert venue of the World Exhibition 2015 to deafening applause from the tens of thousands of people singing a rock song. That is the end of the story of Twentieth Century Boys. Manga artist Urasawa Naoki was born in Tokyo in 1960. His grandparents raised him during his early childhood because his parents separated shortly after his birth. He began drawing manga in kindergarten after being impressed by Tezuka Osamu. Although he was absorbed in rock music during junior high school, high school, and university, he continued drawing manga. Urasawa debuted in 1983, and he was catapulted to fame by his works Pineapple Army

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(1985–1988), Yawara (1986–1993), Master Keaton (1988–1994), and Happy (1993–1999). Urasawa is the only manga artist who twice won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize: in 1997 for Monster and in 2005 for Pluto. Twentieth Century Boys is his most notable work. Urasawa repeatedly points out during media interviews that the major theme of Twentieth Century Boys is a critical examination of the positive and negative aspects of the twentieth century. For example, Q (interviewer): When the serialization of this manga began, you argued that you actually wanted to review the twentieth century. Could you tell us about that in detail? A (Urasawa): Let me explain clearly. I would like to argue that the major causes of things happening now reside in what happened in the past because history is a continuity of happenings. If we ignore that continuity and grasp history fragmentally, we miss the points. I drew this manga based on the idea that it is crucial to comprehend what has been maturing and, on the other hand, what has been corrupting since the new culture was born after the Second World War. (Film booklet on The Beginning of the End, 2008) Urasawa’s comments explain that the inserted historical mise-en-scènes in Twentieth Century Boys were not impromptu pastiches; they are meaningful symbols consciously woven into the storyline by the manga artist. The functions of Nagasaki Takashi, an editor of the manga and a scene writer for the films, are very significant because Tsutsumi Yukihiko, a director of the films, argued that combining the efforts of Urasawa and Nagasaki is like the collaboration of ‘John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the music world’. Nagasaki also stated in an interview that ‘what Urasawa and I questioned in this work was not “who is Friend”, but “what is Friend”. In other words, we questioned: “What was the twentieth century?” ’ (Film booklet on Our Flag, 2009). It therefore seems important to carefully explore their critical examination of the twentieth century. First, antagonisms can be found on numerous conceptual levels in the Twentieth Century Boys’ storylines. The most obvious one is the tangible antagonism between good and evil, right and wrong. This antagonism reflects Urasawa’s central concern to expose ‘what everybody agrees to recognize as the darkness of the human mind’ (Yamashita 2006: 21). Nagasaki stated that he shared a sense of ethics with Urasawa and a philosophy that justice defeats evil, arguing that the theme was intended to answer the question of the difference between right and wrong (Film booklet on The Last Hope, 2009). The timing of the serialization of this manga, which began in 1999, suggests that the character Friend is a metaphor for the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyō and its founder Asahara Shōkō that carried out the deadly 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack. Friend’s formation of a political party and his executions justified by zekkō (breakup) remind us of Aum Shinrikyō’s formation of a political party and the murders it committed through misuse of the Buddhist concept of

Conflict between ideal self and real self 139 poa (transference of consciousness during the dying process). Yet, these connections seemed obsolete and lacking in reality when the trilogy films were released in 2008 and 2009. It is more reasonable that the character of Friend, as a dictator and fascist, relates to Hitler and the Nazis of World War II, because Urasawa and Nagasaki aimed to present a critical review of the twentieth century in Twentieth Century Boys. Although the superficial antagonism between good and evil as a theme is banal because this theme is common (actually, overdone) in Hollywood entertainment films, there are metaphorical antagonisms underlying the storyline throughout the three films. In the antagonism between good and evil, good is linked to images of rock music, which relates alternative culture or counterculture to goodness and justice. Rock music is undoubtedly used by the creators as a mise-en-scène to connote ethics, as Urasawa and director Tsutsumi explained. Urasawa:

Tsutsumi:

Urasawa:

Rock music is often misunderstood. Most people might think that rock music is cool and fashionable, but from the historical angle, rock music has a rather different meaning. I wanted to represent how rock music was when it was started in its first stage because it appears that rock music has been transforming to some other type of music in the last five decades. I think both Tsutsumi (the director) and Karasawa (Karasawa Toshiaki, a featured actor who portrays Kenji) share my intention. For me, in short, rock music is rather a state of mind, although it is a musical genre. People of our generation, including Urasawa and I, have actually experienced our lives believing rock music as a state of mind. Probably Kenji (protagonist) exemplifies this way of life. Rock music is not necessarily for kids and youths, but rather for adults. Rock music is a valuable guidance for ‘what kind of adult one should be and how to live one’s life’. When I was a child, I hankered after rock music not least because this sets a good example of ‘what kind of adult one should be’. (Urasawa, Karasawa, and Tsutsumi 2008: 70)

Thus, Urasawa and Nagasaki believed that rock music could play a part in the realization of the ideal self because rock music is a valuable guide for ‘what kind of adult one should be and how to live one’s life’. From this, rock music apparently served as an important metaphor for good and justice in Twentieth Century Boys. Tsutsumi even stated that the trilogy is a type of musical creation and that he focused on the rock music in these films to create a ‘sincere rock music spirit’ in them (Film booklets on The Beginning of the End, 2008, and Our Flag, 2009). In addition, rock music was given meaning in the trilogy beyond that of mere alternative attitudes to indicate political revolution. This means that the self as an ultimate life goal is a subversion of the established political system. Kenji’s former classmate Yukiji says to Kenji in The Beginning of the End (the first film), ‘Kenji, do you remember what you argued a long time ago? You told

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me you would change the contemporary world by rock music. I am still waiting for you to accomplish it.’ In addition, a man who was stabbed in the chest by one of Friend’s henchmen tells Kenji before he dies, ‘Beside you, there is no other person who can save the world. Save the world!’ These characters’ words demonstrate that the filmmakers used rock music in the storyline as a symbol of revolution and salvation of the world. However, in these scenes set in 1997, Kenji is thirty-seven years old. Although he had dreamed in his youth of becoming a rock star with a band, he now seems too old, only a convenience store manager, and his dream was brutally crushed. It seems unreasonable, even irrational, that his friends and acquaintances should expect him to rescue them all, but they tell him, ‘Beside you, there is no other person who can save the world. Save the world!’ through rock music. After that, Kenji is on Friend’s wanted list; but he shouts to himself while wildly playing his guitar at his friend’s house that ‘Nobody except me can save the world! Let me save the world!’ That scene is crucial because Tsutsumi pointed out that it was this scene in the original manga that made him decide to take the job as film director. Tsutsumi explained in an interview as follows. I discovered the essence of this manga in the scene where Kenji was playing the guitar like crazy after he was challenged by the (Friend’s) intrigue. It is quite unusual that Kenji would continue singing and playing guitar even after Friend placed him on the wanted list. After I read the scene, I wanted to direct the trilogy of films because I thought that I should not sidestep a challenging bit of work. The generation and rock ’n’ roll depicted in the manga were two significant elements that I was able to absorb in. (Film booklet on The Beginning of the End, 2008) Tsutsumi’s words, ‘I thought that I should not sidestep a challenging bit of work,’ imply that he accepted Kenji’s behaviour as his personal problem, which, at the same time, suggests that Twentieth Century Boys is a narrative leap from the notion of the real self to that of the ideal self. For Kenji, being a convenience store manager after giving up a rock music career means the actual self abandoned his search for the ideal self. However, attempting a rock music career again is a crucial decision of not eluding his ideal self for him. By doing this, he can leap into a magnificent mission to change and save the world. It is important to recognize that Urasawa and Tsutsumi have common ground in their life courses. Although Urasawa (born in 1960) and Tsutsumi (born in 1955) are members of the apathy generation or moratorium generation, neither was an outstanding student. Urasawa was raised from early childhood by his grandparents because his parents separated, and he began to draw manga in his kindergarten period. Rock music (in addition to manga) was his passion in junior high school, high school, and university. Tsutsumi stated, ‘I have a sense of failure and inferiority complex,’ because, according to him, his academic performance was a disaster. Tsutsumi failed the high school entrance examination and entered an inferior high school that ‘I never wanted to enter’ and, in this high school,

Conflict between ideal self and real self 141 ‘long hair was most cool for us because we were absorbed in rock music’ (Tsutsumi 2010: 150–151). Rock music was important to Urasawa and Tsutsumi because of its importance to their generation. In Twentieth Century Boys, rock music was not treated as an abstract idea; it is a specific image directly connected to 1969’s US Woodstock Music and Art Festival. Kenji’s words to Kan’na in the first film support that link; he states, ‘You do know Woodstock, don’t you? A mere rock concert gathered four hundred thousand people and the big crowd broke down gates and fences. This shows that something can be changed when people take serious action.’ Woodstock was held in August of 1969 on a farm in Bethel, New York, comprising more than thirty rock artists and bands. It was a pivotal moment in the history of music and the pinnacle of the counterculture and the Human Be-In movement that particularly aimed to revitalize humanity. Urasawa and Tsutsumi attempted to relate rock music to the symbolic events of the 1960s political period, which suggests that their ideal sense of self is the mind searching for world revolution through the revitalization of humankind. The following dialogue between Kenji, Kan’na, and Kenji’s former classmate, Occho, symbolizes the basic concepts of this distinctive work. Kenji:

Occho: Kenji:

In the old days, I heard an interesting story that most rock musicians die when they become twenty-seven years old. Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix all died at the age of twenty-seven. Therefore, somehow, I had thought I would also die young. However, I became twenty-eight years old. I felt depressed and I asked myself: Was I not an authentic rock musician? Yet, are there not a few great rock musicians who play rock music even when they get old? Then, I abandoned the idea that premature mortality is superb. Do you remember who told you the story? That was me. When I told you the story, twenty-seven years old seemed far into the future. Kan’na, I have to go now. There are absolutely vital things that should be accomplished in my life. I will surely return any day. . . . Let us save the world as we dreamt in our childhood!

Kenji’s words, ‘There are absolutely vital things that should be accomplished in my life,’ are significant because similar lines are repeated throughout the trilogy films. Arguably, the ‘absolutely vital things’ in Kenji’s life are not about personal self-realization and are not abstract ideals and concepts, such as world peace; they are concrete, radical ideas directly drawn from 1960s political revolutionary ideas.

Expo ’70 as the dark side of post-WWII Japanese society In Twentieth Century Boys, World Exhibition 2015 is produced by Friend to be held in March of 2015. Although the venue is a Tokyo waterfront location, there is little doubt that World Exhibition 2015 is a direct metaphor for Expo ’70 in Osaka, because the numerous Osaka pavilions were elaborately reconstructed

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in Tokyo in 2015. It is important to recognize that Friend particularly favours World Exhibition 2015, which he shows in his efforts to save it from the destruction he intends to inflict on humankind. The following dialogue between Friend and Kan’na in Our Flag (the third film) expresses the symbolism. Friend: Kan’na, have you been to World Exhibition 2015? Kan’na: What? Friend: It’s actually an amazing place. I am going to save it even if the human race becomes extinct. I will protect it forever, forever, forever, forever. Kan’na: Don’t you feel any sense of guilt if you exterminate the human race? Friend: The number of human beings has increased too much. Kan’na: You are crazy! Friend: Someone else must do it if I do not carry out the scheme. I am just representative of that kind of man. Kan’na: Representative of what? Friend: I represent the twentieth century, the best and worst time of human history. Kan’na, do you understand? It is I who am a twentieth century boy! Friend repeats the word ‘forever’ four times to drive home how much he cares for the World Exhibition 2015. The notion that the World Exhibition 2015, a symbol of human progress, is loved by a dictator, Friend, who intends to massacre humankind links progress to evil. On the other hand, Kenji and his former classmates organize a resistance movement against Friend’s dictatorship and never show any interest in the World Exhibition 2015. In addition, they are physically separate from the venue: Kenji wanders around Hokkaido, the northernmost region of Japan, since the Bloody New Year’s Eve in 2000; his close friend, Occho, is incarcerated in prison; and Kan’na and Kenji’s close friend, Yoshitsune, hide underground to organize a resistance event. In short, they are far away, physically and mentally, from World Exhibition 2015. However, they plan a huge rock music concert at the World Exhibition for August of 2017 and they appeal to the public to gather there because they learn that Friend, who loves and wants to protect the exhibition, intends to save it from destruction when he massacres humankind. In the third film, hundreds of thousands of people gather in the concert venue, and Kenji, who is widely believed to have died in the turmoil of the Bloody New Year’s Eve in 2001, rides a motorcycle to the venue with a guitar on his back. Kenji sings his rock music song and is applauded and cheered by the huge audience. This scene metaphorically symbolizes the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival so admired by Kenji and his friends as the sacred place of world revolution. Note the irony of juxtaposing Woodstock, a 1969 symbolic event of the counterculture, against Expo ’70, symbolic of human progress. It seems likely that Urasawa, Tsutsumi, and Nagasaki consciously developed this strikingly original storyline, in which the counterculture, symbolized by rock music and 1969 Woodstock, defeats the established and conservative position, symbolized by the monumental 1970 event of post-WWII rapid economic growth.

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Figure 4.3 Expo ’70 in Osaka, courtesy of the Mainichi Newspapers

At this point, it is useful to point out an ambiguity of Expo ’70. As discussed above, Expo ’70 was held when Japan was at the peak of its post-WWII rapid economic growth. In 1968, Japan’s gross national product exceeded that of West Germany and reached nearly 143 billion dollars. Japan was the second largest world economy. Expo ’70 was the largest ever world’s fair, attended by 77 countries and 64,218,000 visitors from around the world between 14 March and 13 September 1970. The theme was Human Progress and Harmony, and it was a symbol of Japan’s post-WWII technological and economic progress. Sociologist

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Yoshimi Shun’ya proposed that Expo ’70 was a grand monument that created ‘a collective image through which one hundred million Japanese people were able to confirm that they had recovered economically and achieved rapid economic growth after the war’ (Yoshimi 2005: 36). The period also was characterized as a political season, typified by the rise of a student movement. In January of 1968, the Tokyo University Medical School’s student union went on strike in response to the introduction of the enrolled doctor system. Four months later, in May, the All-Campus Joint Struggle League was organized at Nihon University, and the student movement peaked from 1968 to 1969. On 31 March 1970, just after Expo ’70 opened, Japan Airlines Flight 351, on its way from Tokyo to Fukuoka, was hijacked by the Japanese Communist League-Red Army Faction. This was Japan’s first airplane hijacking. On 25 November 1970, two months after Expo ’70 closed, novelist Mishima Yukio committed seppuku (ritual suicide) after giving a speech to inspire a coup d’état to restore power to the emperor. Thus, although Japan was continuing to enjoy post-WWII economic recovery and progress in 1970, it also was experiencing social unrest. Before it opened in 1970, Expo ’70 did not receive a universally warm welcome, and it often faced mass media criticisms. For example, three years before it opened, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper published a special feature article, entitled ‘Is the Japan World Exposition a Proper Event?’ criticizing it as ‘inefficiently managed by a patched-together organization’, as ‘lavish with money’, and claiming that ‘it is unclear how to use the venue after the huge event’ (Asahi Shimbun, 16 March 1967). On the same day, Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper published a special feature article, entitled ‘The Problems of the Exhibition’, that pointed out that ‘it is extremely doubtful that much of the concept of “human progress and harmony” has appeal to the wide variety of citizens’ (Yomiuri Shimbun, 16 March 1967). A year later, Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper again criticized it in an editorial based on ‘the lack of the nation’s interest in the Exhibition’ (Yomiuri Shimbun, 15 March 1968). Asahi Shimbun’s article published six months before the opening criticized its quality in that ‘every pavilion organized by Japanese companies only admires the future uncritically. Although these pavilions emphasize human progress, they do not thematize human harmony, although this is its theme as well as human progress’ (Asahi Shimbun, 15 September 1969). Thus, before it even opened, Expo ’70 faced criticisms as well as positive national interest. Expo ’70 was particularly criticized after the rise of the 1968 student movement, and it was often labelled as a political measure through which the government would attempt to turn public attention away from the problem of the Japan-US Security Treaty that the mass media had framed as a major public concern. Voicing this position, Asahi Shimbun’s article published one year before the opening opined that ‘the nation’s criticisms against the Exhibition are severe. The government should seriously seek to present the best possible Exhibition for the nation without ignoring the criticisms’ (Asahi Shimbun, 16 March 1969). Furthermore, Beheiren (Citizen’s League for Peace in Vietnam), a Japanese activist group that protested Japanese assistance to the US Vietnam War,

Conflict between ideal self and real self 145 organized Hanpaku (a 1969 anti-war exhibition), which was an event intended to counter Expo ’70. Hanpaku’s slogan, ‘Human Peace and Liberation’, parodied Expo ’70’s slogan of ‘Human Progress and Harmony’. The countercultural event attracted 60,000 participants, including Beheiren’s activists, student movement activists, high school students, and young adult labourers from across the country. The strong criticisms of Expo ’70 were not limited to the social activists who organized Hanpaku. Film critic Ogi Masahiro published a series of highly critical articles about Expo ’70 across six Kinema Junpō issues, arguing that a world’s fair in the late twentieth century was a useless endeavour because it was ‘meaningful only to the nineteen century’s scientism and industrialism’ (Ogi 1970: 30). Significantly, Urasawa, Nagasaki, and Tsutsumi employed the negative aspects of Expo ’70 for metaphorical mise-en-scènes. Expo ’70 was valuable to the filmmakers because it was emblematic of the darker side of Japan’s post-WWII economic recovery. Their contrast of Expo ’70 to the 1969 Woodstock event emphasizes the symbolism of that dark side. Expo ’70 serves this symbolic function in both films analyzed in this chapter: Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ and the Twentieth Century Boys trilogy, although the criticisms differ. Twentieth Century Boys used Expo ’70 to demonstrate the obsession of the antagonist, Friend, and the disinterest of Kenji and his former classmates. In Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’, Expo ’70 symbolizes Yesterday Once More’s intention to return to the Shōwa period through violent revolution. The latter film’s exhibition is a symbol of the human spirit. The character Ken is self-contradictory in that he is blinded by his love of material consumption while advocating the recovery of the human spirit. The character of Ken is an average youth torn between the ideal self and the actual self, with whom director Hara has stated he has the most sympathy. Crayon Shin-chan’s character Ken and Twentieth Century Boys’ dictator character Friend face different challenges, but both of them are leaders who plot to protect their perspectives, symbolized by their respective exhibitions. There are similarities between the character Ken and Twentieth Century Boy’s protagonist, Kenji, who feels compelled to save the world by reverting to values of the past, in which the ideal of rock music is a valuable guide to learning ‘what kind of adult one should be and how to live one’s life’. Thus, Kenji represents Twentieth Century Boys’ filmmakers’ absorption (perhaps obsession) in rock music the same way that the character Ken in Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ represents Hara’s personal experiences.

Pride of the apathy generation and moratorium generation The generation into which the creators of the two films under analysis were born cannot be ignored. All were born between 1955 and 1960. Often referred to as shirake sedai (apathy generation) or moratoriamu sedai (moratorium generation) and sometimes referred to as posuto zenkyōtō sedai (post-student activism generation), this generation entered elementary school in the midst of rapid economic

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growth. Many of its members visited Expo ’70 when they were children. However, this generation experienced the end as well as the height of the unprecedented economic growth, Expo ’70 as a symbol of prosperity, and the economic transition mainly triggered by the 1973 global oil crisis. During childhood, this generation experienced the student activism of those who were somewhat older than they were, and these dramatic experiences, and their contrasts, peaks, and declines, encouraged them to become apolitical and individualistic. That is why they are often labelled as the apathy generation. The importance of generation (or cohort) to this analysis is undeniable because of the historical aspects of both films; however, it is sometimes difficult to assess the impact. First, some scholars argue that a generation cannot be defined (Ōgushi 2008: 44). Second, emphasis on a particular generation in socio-cultural analysis could obscure the importance of other social factors, such as ethnicity, religion, class, gender, minority, and so on (Ishida 2007: 40). However, according to sociologist Nakanishi Shintarō, Japan has a large generation gap because of its major social and cultural transformations that occurred around 1970 (Nakanishi 2004). That transformation is one reason that this chapter does not ignore the apathy generation; the filmmakers personally experienced the social changes during their impressionable childhood years. Although this generation is referred to as the apathy generation or moratorium generation, this generation did not naturally or passively become apathetic; the members often deliberately chose an apathetic perspective as a personal lifestyle choice. One influence on this choice was the Asama-Sansō Incident in February of 1972. The Asama-Sansō Incident was a hostage crisis executed by the United Red Army, a Japanese New Left terrorist group. Five members of the group seized the Asama-Sansō mountain lodge and took a woman hostage after murdering fourteen of its own group members. After a ten-day confrontation with police, the police stormed the lodge and rescued the woman. The incident was the first national live broadcast in Japan, and it captivated the attention of the Japanese people with repeated coverage by broadcast media throughout the stand-off and non-stop live coverage of the rescue for more than ten hours. The incident is widely believed to mark the end of Japan’s New Left movement, in part because of the brutality of the United Red Army’s lynching of their members as punishment. It caused youths to reject it and other aspects of the New Left movement typified by student activism. Sociologist Kitada Akihiro believed that the reason youths consciously turned apolitical and apathetic about the future was that the student movement had become too radical for them, compelling them to abandon everything related to consumption through self-abnegation and a suppression of their desires (Kitada 2005: 76–77). Kitada argued that the youth lifestyle of the apathy generation was a satire of the student activism period because they avoided the 1960s political activists’ philosophy and strategically embraced a philosophy of consumption (Kitada 2005: 76–77). Although this backlash by the apathy generation might have applied during its youth, it is unlikely that most of them would have sustained it, because the perspective was specific to that time of peaks and valleys in the two social forces that

Conflict between ideal self and real self 147 dominated the period: economic growth and student activism. The reference of moratorium generation to the apathy generation is relevant, and the link is that the apathy concerned politics and student activism manifested as a moratorium (in other words, suspension) of decisions about how to live one’s life. A moratorium enabled them to realize their ideals in the future as opposed to the present. Twentieth Century Boys focuses on the period around 1970 by metaphorically contrasting Expo ’70 to 1969 Woodstock under the assumption that this was Japan’s historical pivot in the post-WWII period. Urasawa, Nagasaki, and Tsutsumi likely experienced long moratoria as the manifestation of their political apathy aroused by the Asama-Sansō Incident, and they used Twentieth Century Boys to express their ideals through the storyline by recalling the 1970s period at the beginning of the twenty-first century. This chapter’s argument is confirmed by the filmmakers’ statements. Tsutsumi’s experiences around 1970 may have made more of an impression on him than the experiences of Urasawa and Nagasaki made on them because he was a few years older than they were in 1970. He stated that he was able to ‘join the student activists just under the wire’ (Tsutsumi 2010: 151), meaning that he was barely old enough to participate. Tsutsumi entered Hōsei University in the early 1970s, and he was willing to do ‘some radical things’, but he was burdened by a sense of failure because ‘the student movement suddenly ended’ after the Asama-Sansō Incident, and he left the university without graduating (Tsutsumi 2010: 151). When the student activism organization disappeared, my basic thoughts and creed were totally destroyed. That is why I left the university. Although I had tried to adhere to these thoughts and creed, I found that I could not carry them out. I was twenty-one years old and my life became completely meaningless (honto, jinsei nanka dōdemo yokunatta no) because my feeling of frustration was enormous. Although I wanted to die, I had no courage to commit suicide. I had nothing to lose anymore and then became nothing. (Tsutsumi 2010: 151) After leaving university, Tsutsumi went to technical school to learn visual media. His career change as a result of his setback led to his later success as a film director. When asked to direct the Twentieth Century Boys trilogy, Tsutsumi replied that, After I read the scene [of Kenji playing the guitar like crazy after he was challenged by the (Friend’s) intrigue], I wanted to direct the trilogy of films because I thought that I should not sidestep a challenging bit of work. The generation and rock ’n’ roll depicted in the manga were two significant elements that I was able to be absorbed in. (Film booklet on The Beginning of the End, 2008) His adolescent experiences enlighten us to his reasons for his attraction to ‘the generation and rock ’n’ roll music’ and his promise to himself that ‘I should not sidestep a challenging bit of work.’

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Urasawa created the theme of Twentieth Century Boys to be resistance against a longing for the past, symbolized as the Shōwa period, and he stated that he depicted it to be ‘like a grand party for reviewing the twentieth century’. I would argue that Twentieth Century Boys is like a grand party for reviewing the twentieth century. The year 1998, when I was thirty-eight years old, was when I started writing this manga; it actually was the time when the trend of yearning for the Shōwa period began. Most people reminisced about the past. But, I hate it. That period was not good at all. The air was dirty and smelly due to rampant pollution. I do believe that the present is much better than the past. Rather, the origin of the deterioration of Japanese society, I think, dates back to that period. That is why I tried to create a large party of people regretting today’s reminiscent social climate in my piece. (Urasawa 2008: 24) Urasawa’s statements demonstrate that he recognized that the late Shōwa period was a turning point in post-WWII Japan and show that his motivation for creating Twentieth Century Boys was to resist the social climate of longing for the good old days. Nagasaki also emphasized that the theme of Twentieth Century Boys is a critical examination of the twentieth century, as follows. I would like audiences to think many things by seeing these films. Like Urasawa and me, most people who see the films have lived in both the twentieth century and the twenty-first century. Therefore, I would like the audiences to ask themselves, ‘What actually happened in the twentieth century?’, ‘What was the end of the century?’, ‘What was the twenty-first century that we dreamed in the twentieth century?’, and ‘What did we expect at the advent of the twenty-first century?’ Twentieth Century Boys is full of what both Urasawa and I think happened in the twentieth century. These are never a yearning for the past. A particularly important question in this work is, ‘Why was Friend born in the twentieth century?’ This is a crucial question. (Film booklet on Our Flag, 2009) In these quotations, Urasawa, Nagasaki, and Tsutsumi tell us the things that motivated them to create Twentieth Century Boys, which are not about yearning for the Shōwa period. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ similarly criticizes the historical turning point around 1970 by symbolically criticizing Japan’s over-consumption that developed after the 1970s. It does this through a storyline that juxtaposes the ‘consumption of symbols’ against ‘human relationship irreducible to consumerism’ and the victory of the latter. Both films, which were created by members of the apathy generation, focus on the critical year of 1970, and consider the recovery of their personal (and the Japanese people’s) deferred ideal selves using stories of redemption of the collective compromise that followed the historical turning point in post-WWII Japanese society.

Conclusions

Mainly through narrative analysis, this study analyzed numerous present-day films and television programmes that invoke a sense of nostalgia for the late Shōwa period; it also explored why and in what ways that timeframe is represented by and through those products. The results of this study’s analysis found that what is at the centre of these products is something quite different from that discussed in earlier studies and journal-based articles. Those previous works name the popularity of these products ‘the Shōwa 30s boom’ and commonly argue that the phenomenon is a simple longing for the recent past because the Shōwa 30s was an exceptionally peaceful period between the chaos that followed World War II and the bustle of spectacular economic growth in the 1970s. Kawamoto compares this period to the ‘serenity that is peculiar to a warm autumn day’ (Kawamoto 2008: 7). This commonly accepted preconception had prompted the authors of those previous studies to discuss the phenomenon, often without conducting a detailed content-based analysis of these nostalgic products. Indeed, neither those who acclaim nor those who criticize ‘the Shōwa 30s boom’ necessarily doubt that the products simply yearn for ‘the good old days’. The detailed analysis of this study, however, showed that what was supposedly self-evident in those preceding studies is not entirely correct. The films and television programmes that play upon themes of nostalgia do not proudly boast of the results of Japan’s unprecedentedly sharp economic growth in the post-war period; rather, they tend to adhere to an incomplete picture of Japan’s economic development. In reality, while Tokyo Tower was under construction it did not attract attention, as it was simply just a television-broadcasting tower and was even regarded by some as an obstruction. Regardless of this, films such as the Always: Sunset on Third Street series and Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad focus on the incomplete tower and attribute an independent meaning to it within their narratives. These films deliberately omit any glorification of Japan’s period of rapid economic development, while on the other hand creating narratives in which truths about human life are understood through incompletion and loss. The imagined image of the incomplete tower serves as an important mise-en-scène in the films’ narrative structures to justify them and implement them. Focusing on the post-war technological innovations that are often lauded as ‘miraculous successes’, numerous episodes of the popular television programme

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Project X: Challengers, as shown on NHK, suggest that the actual driving force behind Japan’s advances in technological development were not the authorities or the elites, but marginalized workers. These episodes also suggest that many ‘maverick’ or ‘dead wood’ employees had been marginalized from the mainstream workforce for a variety of reasons, and they also often criticize social power, even among ‘celebrities’ like Honda Sōichirō, the founder of Honda Motor Company. As far as the gender perspective is concerned, representations of the late-Shōwa period are somewhat varied. Marginalized male workers and ordinary men who are conferred a heroic status in Project X: Challengers are often portrayed as useless or incompetent, along with the powerful and the elite; otherwise, they are shown as vulnerable victims who were unable to ‘take charge’ of their own destinies. On the other hand, females – particularly young females – are lauded as victors and reformers of post-war society and occasionally deified for their seeming omnipotence. The question of age here enters the equation, however. As shown in the film Hula Girls, for example, middle-aged and elderly females occasionally become the target of criticism for their conservative thinking; this is comparable to the experiences of their male counterparts. In the case of Hula Girls, the ‘masculinity’ of female yakuza members – who drew widespread sympathy from many in the 1960s through the popular yakuza films – is implicitly criticized, because this particular female activity hinges not on a so-called ‘genuine’ strength but rather on tradition and old-fashioned ideas. In Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ and the Twentieth Century Boys trilogy, the close relationship between the films and the life course and positionality of the filmmakers’ generation reveals the deeply introspective nature of the narratives. The will to create aroused by this introspection bears fruit in a kind of antithesis to the strikingly uncritical and conservative ‘Shōwa nostalgia’ discussed in journalism and intellectual discourse. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ includes an unvarnished, internally conflicted portrait of the anti-establishment revolutionary character Ken, who seeks to accomplish a coup d’état and build a society that honours the spirit, yet on the other hand is imprisoned by his desire for objects. Director Hara Keiichi has said that Ken is the character closest to himself. The film is a drama of self-summation in which Hara looks back from the vantage point of the early 2000s at youth around 1970, who, living in the context of a society where the ‘season of politics’ existed in parallel with the arrival of mass consumption, were torn between their ideal and actual selves. The central theme here is the ultimate separation from the longing for the past, following a long period of rumination. In Twentieth Century Boys, the Japan World Exposition of 1970, which symbolizes the period of rapid economic growth, is contrasted with the Woodstock Festival of 1969, which represents the counterculture. This is done because these years represent an extremely important historical moment – indeed, even a historical turning point – just before both rapid economic growth and the student movement came to an end. Through the victory of the protagonist Kenji and

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his old friends (in other words, the filmmakers’ alter egos), the counterculture, a metaphor for justice, drives away progress, a metaphor for evil.

Critical adherence to the recent past What do these representations among films and television programmes, which often play upon themes of nostalgia, actually tell us? What they involve is not a simple yearning for the life of some decades ago but an amalgam of love and hatred for the recent past and memories – a mixed feeling of regret, discontent, introspection, and nostalgia. I would like to call this amalgam a ‘critical adherence to the recent past’, as it appears to be a complicated sentiment that is meant to revise the actual past realities through the undertaking of a profound self-questioning and the active use of imagination. Although Japan experienced an unprecedented high level of economic growth after the 1960s to become the second-wealthiest nation in the 1970s, it has since suffered from the aftereffects of the bubble economy which burst in the 1990s. There is no simple way to redress Japan’s nearly two-decade economic decline – the symptoms of which include the collapse of the ‘lifelong employment’ tradition, the increase of underpaid workers, and devastation to the national pension system, among others. Certainly, the late Shōwa period was a vibrant age that brought about a miraculous post-war recovery; nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that the rapid progress witnessed in that period also laid the foundation for the later collapse of the bubble economy. Therefore, it is understandable that present-day media and cultural products that are believed to invoke a naïve sense of nostalgia show a ‘critical adherence to the recent past’. The ‘boom’ in Shōwa-period nostalgia, as seen across a variety of media forms, must not be considered irrelevant to the ongoing politics, particularly the dramatic regime change after the 2009 general election, in which the Democratic Party of Japan swept to a landslide victory against the Liberal Democratic Party. The Liberal Democratic Party had actually dominated Japanese politics for most of the previous half century. According to Shinohara Hajime, the administration change is ‘not only a change in regime but also a shift in the political system’. ‘This,’ he says, ‘is the total defiance of the established system’ (Shinohara 2009: 9). However, in the general election of December 2012 three years later, the Liberal Democratic Party won 294 parliamentary seats in a landslide victory that gave them control of the government once again. Criticism of the unreservedly right-wing Liberal Democratic Party administration led by Abe Shinzō nevertheless remains strong. Together with advocating for changes to the constitution, the Abe administration has succeeded in passing state secrecy and national security bills, but strong public opposition and demonstrations against these actions have continued in recent years. The critical point here is that both the rightwing faction that supports the Abe administration and the left-wing faction that opposes it evince sharp criticism of Japan’s post-war path.

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Why now, at the start of the twenty-first century, are both the political left and right questioning Japan’s post-war stance with unprecedented intensity? The context for this situation is a view of history divided sharply between the preand post-war periods. In most countries, the term ‘post-war’ is used in discussions of history to refer to the period ending in the late 1950s, and ‘modern’ or ‘contemporary’ to refer to everything after that. In Japan, however, the division occurs between the pre- and post-war periods, with the end of the war serving as the starting point for a ‘long post-war’ that has continued in the realm of discourse (Gluck 1993). Many Japanese mentally erased the ‘evil past’ of the pre-war era and saw the post-war moment as the starting point for democracy, peace, and prosperity; as the American historian Carol Gluck writes, ‘Clinging to the postwar expressed contentment with the status quo’ (Gluck 1993: 93). For that reason, the term ‘post-war’ has functioned in Japan as a kind of amulet that saves the entire system from collapse, as Gluck describes in the following passage: In Japan the postwar moment applied a kind of torque to history that cast the postwar in terms of discontinuity in the larger context of war and modernity. But, as in other countries, the postwar apprehension of national history was part of a longer twentieth-century discourse, which was merely obscured by the insistence on the break in 1945. The myth of a new beginning, itself a radically ahistorical notion, not only prevented seeing the twentieth century whole, but it also elided the prewar and wartime and perpetuated the notion of a long postwar. (Gluck 1993: 94) The amulet of ‘post-war’, which ‘elided the prewar and wartime’, positioned the post-war moment as ground zero, and thereby reproduced a positive heritage and memory that extended from that point up to the present, indeed served as a tremendously powerful ideology. That is probably the most significant reason discursive spaces take as self-evident (or encourage) the idea that the years surrounding the period of rapid economic growth that built Japanese prosperity are ‘the good old days’, and the films that depict that era are simple expressions of nostalgia. In addition, these types of discourse abound with terms such as ‘Shōwa retro’ and ‘Shōwa 30s boom’ that are uncritically positive toward the era. As a result, this view has proliferated as a mythological ideology that ‘organizes a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident’, as Barthes writes (Barthes 2000: 143). In other words, the hegemonic discourse surrounding Shōwa nostalgia has an affinity for post-war paradigms that presuppose the amulet of ‘the long post-war’, and for this reason, objections or ideas that contradict ‘the long post-war’ are avoided in this type of discourse. The ‘amulet-like’ post-war paradigm, which lies at the root of the perspective that sees a world ‘without contradictions because it is without depth, a world wide open and wallowing in the evident’, actually shares commonalities with the ‘myth of nuclear safety’. Nuclear power was at first feared in Japan due to the

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atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but in the post-war period it has been linked to a discourse of growth surrounding the goal of economic development on an island nation with limited energy resources. As a result, the myth that ‘post-war prosperity’ could be achieved through ‘the magic of nuclear power’ was constructed in many different contexts. For that reason, ‘more than salvation from the experience of the atomic bomb or sustainable growth for Japanese society, many post-war Japanese desired a rose-coloured image in which nuclear power served directly to bring them a more convenient future life’ (Yoshimi 2012: 290). In addition, because the ‘myth of nuclear safety’ has been linked to the desire of provincial regions for economic growth, ‘nuclear villages’ arose throughout the country (Kainuma 2011). Thus, although the parallel may seem slightly surprising, an odd commonality can be observed between the journalistic and intellectual discourse of Shōwa nostalgia, which assumes that the period around Shōwa thirties were the ‘good old days’ and in doing so serves as a driving force in erasing the problems of that era, and the hegemonic post-war discourse of the nuclear myth, in which government, industry, and media were complexly intertwined (and whose falsity was exposed after the Fukushima nuclear disaster of March 2011). Seen from this perspective, the recent intense conflict between right and left over the Abe administration’s right-wing policies can be said to signify the enlivening of debate over the validity of the ‘amulet-like’ post-war paradigm itself, which has existed throughout the seventy-year period since the end of the war. In reality, the debate surrounding Shōwa nostalgia is not unrelated to this type of political debate. The detailed analysis undertaken in this study of films and television programmes representative of Shōwa nostalgic media has elucidated the true nature of that nostalgia, which rather differs from the Shōwa nostalgia of journalistic and intellectual discourse. While each individual film and television programme generally has its own anti-hegemonic characteristic, they also put forth together a voice of objection about a disclosure of a ‘long post-war period’ being used as an amulet, and how something like that could cause disharmony. My argument is that media and cultural products tinged with nostalgia for the Shōwa period basically demonstrate a ‘critical adherence to the recent past’. This argument can be supported by the fact that these products, which originally maintained the appearance of simple entertainment, as typified by Always: Sunset on Third Street and Hula Girls, have gradually transformed to become overt criticisms of the recent past. Symptomatic of this shift are numerous film adaptations and television dramatizations of the novels written by Matsumoto Seichō (1909– 1992), the most celebrated mystery novelist of the Shōwa period. Although Matsumoto’s novels have been made into films and television dramas since the late 1950s – when he was still prolifically writing novels – innumerable dramas and films have been made in recent years; this was particularly so in 2009, the centennial of his birth. Matsumoto’s detective novels are well known for depicting the complicated social contradictions and dark side of the Shōwa period behind the crimes. Nevertheless, it is notable, and perhaps telling, that most films and television dramas made in the Shōwa period that were based on his novels were mere

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crime thrillers that focused on riddle-solving, omitting altogether the social contradictions addressed in the original novels (Higuchi 2009: 62). According to Higuchi, who analyzes four major films made in 1958 (i.e. the thirty-third year of the Shōwa period), each of Ōba Hideo’s A Wall of Eyes (Me no kabe), Tanaka Shigeo’s Accomplices (Kyōhansha), Suzuki Seijun’s Voices without Figures (Kage naki koe) and Kobayashi Tsuneo’s Points and Lines (Ten to sen) conspicuously ‘lacks . . . [the] social criticisms that underlie his novels’ (Higuchi 2009: 62). However, Higuchi argues that current films clearly reveal the dark side of that period. After comparing the film Zero Focus (Zero no shōten) made in 1961 and its remake in 2009, Higuchi states that the latter is compared to the earlier work, much more critical of the social conditions prevalent at the time. It specifically depicts post-war society’s dark side, which underlies the original novel, by shedding light on the lives of both criminals and victims who intended to escape the gloomy period. (Higuchi 2009: 63) In my opinion, the 2009 film is not only more critical of post-war society than the previous one; it is also more critical than even Matsumoto’s original novel, because the newer film includes a subnarrative not found in the novel: the criminal who had been a prostitute for soldiers of the Allied Occupation forces later becomes an ardent advocate of the women’s suffrage movement. It is obvious that the criminal in the film is symbolically represented as a victim of post-war social contradictions, and of gender-based segregation in particular. Not only Matsumoto’s novels but also those of Yamasaki Toyoko (1924–2013) have been made into numerous films and television dramas in the early twentyfirst century. Yamasaki is a popular novelist also known for unveiling the dark side of post-war society – particularly Japan’s power structure. Several of her outstanding works have been adapted to script: The White Tower (Shiroi Kyotō), The Great Families (Karei naru ichizoku), and Barren Land (Fumō chitai) were made into television dramas in 2003, 2007, and 2009, respectively, and The Sun Does Not Go Down (Shizumanu taiyō) was made into a film in 2009. Although the film is a serious and very long one (i.e. 202 minutes) and deals with an actual conflict between an airline company’s management and its trade union in the 1970s and 1980s, it was a blockbuster hit and received the Japan Academy Award’s Best Film Award of the year. Although academics and journalists alike have used the term ‘the Shōwa 30s boom’, current nostalgia-tinged media and cultural products hearken not to the Shōwa 30s alone. Rather, it has become clear that their foci have extended to the Shōwa 40s (1965–1974) and occasionally the Shōwa 50s (1975–1984). At the same time, simple longing for that period has receded into the background, while the aforementioned ‘critical adherence’ to that time has come to the foreground. For example, it is noteworthy that Baba Yasuo’s film Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust (Baburu e gō!! taimu mashin wa doramu-shiki) (2007) – which clearly expresses a simple yearning for the bubble era in the 1980s – was a box

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office disaster. On the other hand, Climber’s High (Kuraimāzu hai) (2008) – which depicts the severe conflict between a local newspaper’s management and its young reporters, regarding how best to cover an actual Japan Airlines plane crash in 1985 – became a blockbuster and won ‘Best Film’ at the Blue Ribbon Awards. It is significant that both The Sun Does Not Go Down and Climber’s High became blockbusters, although they deal with the tempestuous relationship between workers and their superiors in the 1970s and 1980s. At their very hearts, these two films remind me of NHK’s Project X: Challengers, because they both seem to admire and celebrate the bravery and efforts of ‘everyman’ subordinates. It must be noted, however, that there is an important difference between these films and the television programme. Whereas the television episodes, which were broadcast between 2000 and 2005, maintained the appearance of the so-called ‘nostalgic media products’ and offered happy endings by depicting reconciliations between management and marginalized employees, the later films are far from ‘sweet’ and ‘harmless’; indeed, the films’ extreme ‘critical adherence’ to the actual past goes beyond the framework of the so-called ‘nostalgic media’. Both films end with the heroes being sorely troubled by the internal contradictions of Japanese corporate organizations, particularly by those shown in the actual 1985 Japan Airlines plane crash that resulted in a total of 520 deaths. The actual hero of The Sun Does Not Go Down, an airline employee, was relegated to a developing country’s office, again due to his self-sacrificing support of the bereaved families at film’s end. Meanwhile, the hero of Climber’s High – a newspaper reporter covering the same plane crash – experienced trauma as a result of the authoritarian control of information related to the accident, as exercised by the newspaper’s management; he decides to alter the course of his whole life, in order to discover himself, twenty-three years after the crash. Recent media interest in the 1985 Japan Airlines plane crash does not stop with The Sun Does Not Go Down and Climber’s High. In October 2012, the pay TV station WOWOW broadcast a two-part special drama on the crash titled Beyond the Mountain Ridge: A Father, His Sons, and the Japan Airlines Plane Crash (One no kanata ni~chichi to ko no nikkōkijiko). The television drama focuses on two boys who lost their father in the crash, and traces the story of three families over the course of twenty-seven years as they gradually recover the hope they lost in the disaster. It garnered critical acclaim, winning an excellence award in the television drama division of the 2012 Agency for Cultural Affairs Art Festival and the Galaxy Award’s monthly prize in October 2012. Another film on the subject, Mount Osutaka (Osutakayama), was produced in 2006 and screened nationwide despite being an independent production. The film centres on the fictional premise that the Japan Airlines plane was shot down by a Self-Defence Force plane, and features an unusual narrative in which the main character disguises himself as the family member of a crash victim and exacts revenge through a terror attack on those who covered up the true cause of the disaster. The theatre troupe Uranagaya Mansions also debuted a production on the incident titled 8・12 (Hatten ichi ni) in 2004, and repeated the performance in 2008 under the title 8・12: Connections (Hatten ichi ni~kizuna). These projects have been so

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numerous in recent years that they might accurately be dubbed part of a ‘Japan Airlines disaster-narrative boom’.

Japan Airlines and the ‘post-war’ The reason the Japan Airlines plane crash has entered the limelight as a narrative focus in the popular media now, twenty-some years after the crash occurred, has to do with the symbolic affinity between the history of the Japan Airlines corporation and the economic history of post-war Japan. Stated differently, the creators of these narratives have turned Japan Airlines into a symbol of the positive and negative aspects of Japan’s development at and after the period of rapid economic growth, and have assessed the crash as a symbol of the negative. The crash occurred in August 1985, during the administration of Nakasone Yasuhiro, a time when Japan, together with the United States, the United Kingdom, and other major Western nations, had adopted a neoliberal policy platform that aimed to create a ‘small government’ and promote free markets and free trade. This was also an era of heightened friction in US-Japan trade relations. With the US trade deficit with Japan reaching 50 billion dollars in 1985, Japan’s export surplus came to be seen as a problem, and ‘Japan bashing’ proliferated in the United States. The Plaza Accord, in which countries agreed on a scheme to depreciate the US dollar in relation to the yen in order to alleviate the US trade deficit, was announced in New York in September 1985, one month after the Japan Airlines crash. The downturn in inflation and interest rates that followed the Plaza Accord prompted speculation in real estate and stocks, which served as a primary driver of Japan’s bubble economy. Japan Airlines was a national symbol of rapid economic growth in the post-war era, as well as of Japan’s expansion into global markets. Established in 1951 as the first private airline company of the post-war period, the company became Japan’s flag carrier and grew rapidly as the country recovered from the war. It launched international flights in 1953, immediately before rapid economic growth began. In 1965, the year after Japan announced its recovery to the world with the Tokyo Olympics, Japan Airlines offered its first overseas package tour, opening the door to international travel for a large segment of the Japanese population. In 1967 the company launched a number of international routes, including the first round-the-world route to be offered by an Asian airline company, and came to serve as the ‘legs’ of Japan’s corporate warriors on their overseas business trips; its trajectory during this period paralleled that of Japan’s post-war development. At the same time, the company became a target for left-wing extremists such as the Japanese Red Army in incidents like the March 1970 hijacking of Japan Airlines Flight 351, the July 1973 hijacking of Japan Airlines Flight 404, and the September 1977 hijacking of Japan Airlines Flight 472, indicating that it had come to be equated with the Japanese state and post-war capitalism. The 1985 crash on Mt. Osutaka was likely the company’s first stumble – and a major one. As described above, that incident overlapped with the onset of the bubble economy. A commission was established to investigate the accident and a report

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was issued two years later putting forth a probable cause for the accident. It is difficult to say that the incident was adequately resolved. In the following years, the company suffered a number of other accidents both small and large, including an incident in January 2001 in which two Japan Airlines planes nearly collided above Suruga Bay, as well as an engine explosion and an accident involving abrupt altitude changes. These accidents coincided with the post-bubble decline of the Japanese economy. In business terms, the company responded to the increase in overseas air travellers brought about by the high yen and bubble economy of the post-Plaza Accord years by pursuing a strategy of rapid growth that included the construction of affiliated hotels at many international locations in the late 1980s. However, performance rapidly worsened after the bubble burst, with the company becoming unprofitable and losses reaching a staggering 53.8 billion yen in 1992. In the following years, lax management became chronic as the company came to rely on government assistance, neglecting to reassess its unprofitable routes and tendency toward high salaries. In January 2010, Japan Airlines applied for bankruptcy under the Corporation Rehabilitation Law, becoming one of the largest business failures of the post-war period, with aggregate debt of 2.3 trillion yen including that of its two affiliated companies. The twenty-first-century creators of films and television programmes thus trained their spotlight on a plane crash that occurred more than twenty years earlier because Japan Airlines symbolizes both the light and dark sides of postwar development, and the crash itself radiates a powerful negative energy as an embodiment of dark memories. Constructing narratives related to this accident allows for the renegotiation of memory through ‘critical adherence to the recent past’, and for the creation of introspective narratives that examine the nature of post-war Japan. The British cultural anthropologist Christopher Hood, who has studied the Japan Airlines crash over the course of many years and made research trips to Mt. Osutaka, has concluded that given the fact that not only victims’ family members, but ordinary citizens as well, visit the memorials at the crash site, the accident is ‘Japan’s Titanic’, likely to be passed down through future generations as a societal memory (Hood 2011).

Shōwa nostalgia and the year of 1968 I am writing this conclusion section in the beginning of 2016. At present, the most prevalent target of the media is not the Shōwa 30s, but the Shōwa 40s. There seems, in particular, to be a focus on and around the year of 1968. For example, some films that deal with the legendary 300-million-yen robbery incident (san okuen jiken) in 1968 have been released. The film Lost Crime: Flash (Rosuto kuraimu: senkō) (2010) is probably the best example. The 300-millionyen robbery incident occurred on the morning of 10 December 1968, in the suburb of Tokyo, when a cash transport car from a bank was transporting about 300 million yen in bonuses for the employees of an electronics company. This car was stopped by a criminal who was in the guise of a uniformed policeman on a

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police motorcycle. This bogus police officer told the four bankers inside the car that their branch manager’s home had been destroyed in a bombing, and the bank had also received a threatening letter which wrote that dynamite had been placed in the cash transport car. Then the bogus police officer told them that they had to get out of the car immediately because the car was very dangerous and he wanted to investigate it. After they got out of the car, the bogus officer crawled under the car to show them that he was trying to locate the bomb, and then he set off a smoke canister in order to deceive them that dynamite had ignited. After the surprised bank employees lost their heads and ran, this criminal got in the car and drove away. Although the police, who placed the highest priority on solving this unprecedented crime, persistently and energetically strove to arrest the criminal by assigning hundreds of investigators and devoting a huge budget to the case, the statute of limitations passed in December 1975 without an arrest. Since the modus operandi of this robbery was very elaborate and the real culprit was not identified, this crime remained a mystery and became even legendary among Japanese citizens. It must be noted that the media and intellectuals at that time did not condemn this crime but rather admired it to some degree on the grounds that the clever ploy taken by the criminal to steal the immense sum of money endeared the criminal to the public. An Asahi Shimbun article wrote, ‘One of the reasons why some people thought this crime is “cool” is that the victim of this crime is a bank. Banks are unapproachable for the public because they usually feel self-conscious as if entering a vault. Yet, this crime easily destroyed the “perfect” security of banks’ (Asahi Shimbun, 11 December 1968). A renowned poet, Satō Sanpei, also said, ‘It may sound funny if I say that this is a real theft. Still I feel as if I saw in it a virtuoso-like acting skill’ (Asahi Shimbun, 11 December 1968). In order to understand this rather favourable reaction to the 300-million-yen robbery by both the media and intellectuals, it is necessary to understand the social background of that time. As was discussed in detail in Chapter 4, the student campaign against the Japan-US Security Treaty reached its climax in 1968 just when this crime occurred. Numerous university campuses including Tokyo University, Kyoto University, and Waseda University were barricaded by student activists, and there were intensely offensive and defensive battles between riot police and activists on university campuses and in cities. Meanwhile, antipathy toward the overbearing attitude of the riot police increased not only among student activists but also among the public. Therefore, the criminal in the 300-million-yen robbery was welcomed as an unusual anti-authoritarian hero by the general public. Intriguingly, the unprecedented crime portrayed in the film Lost Crime: Flash was carried out mainly by student movement activists. Lost Crime: Flash is set in Tokyo at the beginning of the twenty-first century; while investigating a murder, two police detectives find that the incident is deeply related to the suspects of the 300-million-yen robbery incident of more than thirty years previous. In this film, the student movement activists who carried out the 300-million-yen robbery later became men and women of prestige, including a hospital director and

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a business manager; nevertheless, they unexpectedly become targets of retaliation by an unknown person or persons. This film implicitly criticizes the school movement activists who later kowtowed to authority, even if the crime itself could be construed as ‘heroic’. In fact, this film metaphorically calls into question the capitulation of the school movement activists. In addition, in this film, two members of the criminal group were the sons of police officers, and the police attempted a cover-up because of the scandal that knowledge of their involvement would create; in this way, the film severely criticizes the conservativeness of the police institution. In the same vein, the director of the film Lost Crime: Flash, Itō Shunya, is also known for directing the 1970s series Female Prisoner (Joshū Sasori), which uniquely satirizes the absurdity of authority. As far as Lost Crime: Flash is concerned, Itō says in an interview: I know that various kinds of books regarding 1968 have been published so far. In these books, 1968 is looked back upon nostalgically as a very special period. Nevertheless, I am extremely critical about this viewpoint, which merely admires that period. People who were active in the student movement were discriminated against when they entered the employment world. However, many people made colossal efforts [to realize their ideals]; for example, a medical student who was compelled to work in a rural hospital and not a city hospital later contributed to the improvement of community healthcare. In short, he continued to combat [the social problems] by exploring his ideal concept of medical care. However, very few people have lived such lives. I would like to ask a lot of people, ‘What kind of lives have you spent after the student movement?’ Therefore, in this film, I represented the reduced circumstances of the criminal group in the present, as well as their actions in 1968. They are the wrecks of the adolescents. (Kanazawa 2010: 76) It is notable that the 2010 serial television drama Destiny 1969–2010: Once Upon a Time in Tokyo (Shukumei 1969–2010: wansu apon a taimu in Tokyo) hinges upon a concept very similar to that seen in Lost Crime: Flash. In this television drama, Arikawa Mina and Shirai Shin’ichirō, both previously enthusiastic activists of the student movement, meet again by accident for the first time in forty years. Although Shin’ichirō has become a big-name politician and Arikawa has become the head of a large hospital, they are suddenly forced to question their calculating, post-movement ways of life, upon encountering one grim event. I assert that such a serious serial drama would not have had the viewership – and therefore not been broadcast in Friday’s prime time – if there had been no ‘boom’ of ‘critical adherence to the recent past’. Furthermore, the fact that the twenty-first century has already seen three film adaptations of the Asama Lodge incident, which occurred in February 1972, is also symptomatic of this ‘boom’. As discussed in Chapter 4, the Asama Lodge incident was a legendary hostage crisis undertaken by the United Red Army, a Japanese new-left terrorist group that broke into a mountain lodge and took one

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woman as hostage after the group murdered fourteen group members under the pretence of carrying out a ‘purge’. After a ten-day confrontation between the police and the United Red Army, the police stormed the lodge and rescued the woman. This incident became a kind of national media event for the Japanese people at that time, because it was repeatedly covered by broadcast media throughout the stand-off; in fact, the audience rating peaked at nearly 90 per cent when television stations broadcast live feeds of the police storming of the lodge. Meanwhile, the resolution of that case has been widely recognized as the ‘cap’ of Japan’s new-left movement, which since the 1960s had been typified by the school movement. In this regard, the early twenty-first-century film adaptations of this particular incident of the early 1970s may be directly relevant to this relatively new ‘critical adherence to the recent past’. In 2001, Takahashi Banmei’s film Rain of Light (Hikari no ame) was released; in 2002, Harada Masato’s film Rush In! Asama Lodge Incident (Totsunyū seyo! Asama sansō jiken) was released and an episode of NHK’s Project X: Challengers that focused on this incident was also broadcast. What makes Rain of Light unique is its ‘play-within-a-play’ format, which portrays the production of a film about the Asama Lodge incident. Rain of Light presents the horror of that incident to contemporary viewers while also including interviews in which the young actors who play the perpetrators talk about their feelings regarding the incident, making for an unusual approach that explores the emotions of contemporary young people encountering the incident through acting several decades after it occurred. While the film, of course, does not glorify the incident, it exhibits an awareness for the problem of a possible existence of an emotional link between contemporary young people and the young people who were provoked to participate in the crisis by an ideology of ‘extreme self-denial’ (Kitada 2005: 48). Rush In! Asama Lodge Incident was released in 2002, the year after Rain of Light, and was based on a novel about the incident written by Sassa Atsuyuki, the National Police Agency staff member in charge during the incident. The film focuses on how the police, under Sassa’s command, broke through the deadlock and solved the crisis. The point worthy of attention here is the film’s focus on Commander Sassa’s struggle, not with the group of criminals, but rather with the rigid bureaucratic structure of the police organization to which he himself belongs. Ironically, a narrative is constructed in which antagonism develops between the police officers on-site and this rigid bureaucratic organization instead of between them and the criminals. On the other hand, the well-known film director Wakamatsu Kōji severely criticized Rush In! Asama Lodge Incident because, according to him, the film was made from the viewpoint of the police (www.indierom.com/dengei/secret/ gin_navi/48.htm 20 January 2011); in response, he produced and distributed his own semi-documentary-style film, United Red Army (Jitsuroku rengō sekigun: Asama sansō e no michi), in 2008. The numerous depictions at the beginning of the twenty-first century of the 1972 Asama Lodge incident suggest that contemporary filmmakers are competing with one another to demonstrate how they

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are sincerely addressing and reconsidering that era, in line with their own selfappraisal. It can be surmised that so-called ‘Shōwa 30s boom’ media products, which originally maintained the appearance of yearning for that time, have gradually shifted and come to level criticism against the era – particularly the 1960s – in order to meet present-day needs. A new question arises, in the midst of this re-examination: Why has the major target of this ‘critical adherence to the recent past’ by contemporary media producers been the 1960s, and especially the time around 1968? In his bulky 2009 two-volume tome 1968, which contains more than 2,000 pages, Oguma concludes that the school movement of around 1968 and its results continue to have a tremendous impact on contemporary Japanese society. Although the school movement activists, according to Oguma, aimed to deny fundamentally the tenets of post-war capitalism, it is extremely ironic that, as a result, ‘the biggest achievement by the youths “at that time” was that they managed to adapt to the rapid economic growth and the resulting society of mass consumption’ (Oguma 2009: 835). As far as Oguma is concerned, the United Red Army’s Asama Lodge incident was rather ‘convenient’ for many activists, as it afforded them an excuse to abandon their activities; they wanted to be able to interpret the new-left movement as having come to a ‘dead end’. Such an interpretation would not be improbable, given that the United Red Army had cruelly murdered its own group members on the pretext that they had failed to abandon their own desires to consume luxury goods – a desire that the group believed to be the pernicious evil of commercialism (Oguma 2009). The student movement activists across the country, according to Oguma, ‘allowed themselves to be faithful to “their own” desires [for consumption]’ (Oguma 2009: 838) by criticizing both the United Red Army and its Asama Lodge incident: Only the material aspect of the negative effects caused by the high economic growth, for example environmental pollution, has been discussed so far. On the other hand, the mental stresses of the youths back then and how they adapted themselves to the changing new society have hardly been discussed. The fact that the student activism and United Red Army caused severe traumas on the baby-boom generation shows how much a painful price a developing country has to pay in its transition to becoming a developed country. (Oguma 2009: 838) Therefore, according to Suga (2006: 8), Japanese have still no choice but to ‘live within the social framework of “the year of 1968” ’. In this regard, the ‘critical adherence’ to the 1960s – particularly with regards to the period around 1968 – as found in current media products may demonstrate a sort of self-questioning, prompted by people’s regret at having compromised their ideals in the face of the realities of the time. I would instead argue that the media’s repeated ‘critical adherence’ to that time is a special ritual of mourning for their ‘restless spirit’. What must not be overlooked is the fact that the year 1968 was not only important for Japan, but also for numerous other countries, as civic movements

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also occurred in the United States, France, Italy, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Mexico at around the same time. According to Wallerstein, both 1968 and 1848 were significant years in modern history, on the grounds that ‘the Revolution of 1968’ was symptomatic of ‘more than a century of worldwide, organized antisystemic activity’ (Wallerstein 1991: 77) against capitalism, particularly American hegemony, in the world system. The revolution of 1968 was a revolution; it was a single revolution. It was marked by demonstrations, disorder, and violence in many parts of the world over a period of at least three years. . . . As an event, 1968 has long since ended. However, it was one of the great, formative events in the history of our modern world-system, the kind we call watershed events. This means that the cultural-ideological realities of that world-system have been definitely changed by the event, itself the crystallization of certain long-existing structural trends within the operation of the system. (Wallerstein 1991: 65) Certain other thinkers also argue that the 1960s acted as a pivotal turning point vis-à-vis modernity. Harvey suggests that structural changes to capitalism have occurred since the 1960s, especially in light of the 1973 oil crisis, and that they caused significant results with regards to generating postmodernity. As far as Harvey is concerned, postmodernity is the ‘aesthetic responses to [the] conditions of time–space compression’ (Harvey 1990: 327) seen in modernity. For Harvey, images, ephemerality, fragmentation, and aesthetics are rather dominant in the postmodern era. As Harvey states, The crisis of overaccumulation that began in the late 1960s and which came to a head in 1973 has generated exactly such a result. The experience of time and space has changed, the confidence in the association between scientific and moral judgements has collapsed, aesthetics has triumphed over ethics as a prime focus of social and intellectual concern, images dominate narratives, ephemerality and fragmentation take precedence over eternal truths and unified politics, and explanations have shifted from the realm of material and political-economic grounding towards a consideration of autonomous cultural and political practices. (Harvey 1990: 327–328) It can be surmised that the collapse of scientific and moral judgements, aesthetics’ triumph over ethics, and the priority of images over eternal truths and unified politics may coincide with both the end of the political movement era and the rise of a mass-consumption society. Both Wallerstein and Harvey ask us to consider, from a global perspective, the future of Japanese ‘critical adherence to the recent past’. How, then, can contemporary Japanese best resolve, in the early twenty-first century, fundamental problems that had imposed critical conformity upon them

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decades ago? This is a critical question, and although answering it may extend beyond the reach of this book, I would like to devote the final paragraphs to a search for certain clues on this issue. Indeed, numerous Japanese and foreign intellectuals – especially those who discuss nihonjinron (theories of ‘Japaneseness’) – argue that Japanese modernity is unique, without necessarily showing apparent grounds (Mouer and Sugimoto 1986) for saying so. On the other hand, Ivy emphasizes the commonality between Japanese modernity and that of other regions, as follows: What I want to underline, however, is the co-occurrence – the coevalness – of the problem of Japanese modernity with that of modernities elsewhere, and shared temporality that implies. That coevalness does not imply the collapsing of differences within an undifferentiated global modernity, although I would argue that we ignore the homogenizing trajectories of advanced capitalism at our peril. Japan is not merely the same as other nation-states within this global order by virtue of its modernity, nor is it just a variation on the larger modernization theme, divergence. . . . Instead, I prefer to emphasize the contradictions that always accompany the ruptures of modernity, such that the very formulation of the notion of “culture” as that which could bear the burden of difference is unthinkable outside the transformations of the twentieth century. If Japan is incommensurable, it is incommensurable in ways commensurate with other modern nation-cultures in the historical specificity of its modern entanglements. (Ivy 1995: 5–6) Exploring the unique characteristics of Japanese modernity would never be meaningless; nevertheless, the search for a common basis with other countries, in order to tackle the problems inherent in modernity, may be more fruitful if there were a global ‘coevalness’ or ‘covalentness’ in that regard. Although other Asian countries have often been ignored by the Japanese as they have sought to make their own country a scientific and technological powerhouse – as evidenced by the use since the Meiji period of the slogan ‘leave Asia and enter the West’ (datsu a nyūō) – the situation has changed considerably, and continues to do so (Iwabuchi 2002). In the previous two decades, Asian countries and regions such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea have achieved remarkable levels of economic development; this fact, according to Iwabuchi, has induced a ‘cultural proximity’ between Japan and other Asian countries. The notion of ‘cultural proximity’ between Japan and other Asian countries creates for ‘the [Asian media] audience [a] preference for products from countries with which their consumers allegedly share cultural ties’ (Iwabuchi 2002: 130); it also prompts numerous Japanese to consume Asian popular culture products in their daily lives. It goes without saying that the ‘Korean wave’ has been sweeping across Japan since the airing of the Korean soap opera Winter Sonata on NHK in 2003. What is most significant here is the fact that Japanese audiences not only readily consume Asian cultural products; they also feel a sort of nostalgia for these ‘newcomer’

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countries’ processes of achieving modernity and even search for possibilities of alternative or ideal modernities through those products’ representations. This [Japanese] nostalgia for a modern Asia is not fed by a nationalistic impulse to rid Japan of Western influence or recuperate an “authentic” Japan. Rather, the issue is how to live with Western-induced capitalist modernity, how to make life in actual, modern Japan more promising and humane. A mounting sense of urgency explains, if only partly, why the object of nostalgia is directed to Asia’s present. Japan’s newly imagined “Asia” serves as a contraposition to its own society – one which is commonly regarded as suffocating, closed, and rigidly structured, as well as worn down by a pessimism about the future instilled by a prolonged economic recession. Here, “Asia” is not simply idealized as the way things were in Japan. Some people in Japan also appreciate it, for the purpose of self-reformation, as representing an alternate, more uplifting cultural modernity. (Iwabuchi 2002: 195) Thus, it is undoubtedly vital for contemporary Japanese to undergo a selftransformation, in light of other regions’ experiences in the globalization era. Here, I would like to make note of the late 2000s global recession, especially as embodied by the 2008 financial crisis and ‘the world-systematic revolution of 1968’ (Wallerstein 1991: 83). If the actual importance of the revolution of 1968 is ‘less its critique of the past than the questions it raised about the future’ (Wallerstein 1991: 83), the 2008 financial crisis and the concomitant global recession are about consequences that, at forty years’ remove, occurred as a result of allowing the fundamental problems of capitalism to go unchecked. It is a crucial point that people throughout the world have been suffering from the after-effects of the financial crisis; this fact clearly differentiates the financial crisis from World War II, which most Japanese intellectuals regard as the starting point of problems with contemporary Japanese society. Indeed, it would be rather dangerous and controversial to discuss these two events on the same basis. Both are markedly different; although the experiences of the war generated a victor and vanquished nations, the financial crisis only generated victims around the world, save for those individuals who profited by exploiting the crisis. Although the experiences of the war created ‘selves’ versus ‘others’ and caused conflicts regarding still-painful memories, those concerning the financial crisis have instead been creating sympathy, as it has created pains that can be shared by countless numbers of people, regardless of nationality: those who have lost their jobs due to corporate restructuring, those who are forced to undertake different forms of worksharing, and those who have seen salary reductions, among others. It must not be overlooked that the Japanese film Departures (Okuribito) (2008) – which focuses on a young cellist who lost his orchestra job due to restructuring and goes on to make a career change at a funeral parlour – gained worldwide acclaim and won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, despite the fact that the reputations of almost all Shōwa nostalgic films are limited to Japan. Such films

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tend not to have international appeal, likely because their ‘critical adherence’ is only to the closed national memories and experiences of the recent past; as such, they tend to be the sphere of Japanese audience members alone. There is no doubt that the global recession of the late 2000s has increasingly created a socio-cultural proximity among people around the world. What is significant here is that there is the sufficient possibility that such ‘global proximity’ could promote a kind of cosmopolitanism at the beginning of the twenty-first century. According to Tomlinson, this cosmopolitanism has a ‘distanciated identity’ that is ‘not totally circumscribed by the immediate locality, but, crucially, that embraces a sense of what unites us as human beings, of common risks and possibilities, of mutual responsibilities’ (Tomlinson 1999: 194). It would be rather effective to transform a closed and introspective adherence to the late Shōwa period into a more universal critical thinking vis-à-vis modernity that is from a global perspective. In order to manifest this transformation, it should be vital to explore, theoretically, the problems created or exacerbated by the events of 1968 and the consequential global recession that occurred forty-plus years later. If both are global phenomena, this approach would be more expeditious in resolving the fundamental problems inherent in modernity than any closed adherence to the recent past – the latter of which would involve the belief that Japanese modernity is ‘very unique’ and therefore can be examined only via a ‘particular’ approach. Today’s experiences will, for future generations, become the memories of the recent past. Winston Churchill was quoted as saying, ‘The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity,’ while ‘the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.’ I do hope that future Japanese, as well as their counterparts around the world, can feel a simple yearning for their present lives – namely, a feeling that ‘this time is certain’ – despite being fraught with present-day difficulties. It is never too late to work in this direction, toward such a fruitful and worthwhile goal.

Filmography

Accomplices (Kyōhansha/共犯者) 1958 Director: Tanaka Shigeo, Daiei. Always: Sunset on Third Street (Ōruweizu sanchōme no yūhi/Always 三丁目の夕日) 2005 Director: Yamazaki Takashi, Tōhō. Always: Sunset on Third Street Part 2 (Ōruweizu zoku sanchōme no yūhi /Always 続・ 三丁目の夕日) 2007 Director: Yamazaki Takashi, Tōhō. Always: Sunset on Third Street ’Part 3 (Ōruweizu sanchōme no yūhi ’64/Always 三丁目 の夕日 ’64) 2012 Director: Yamazaki Takashi, Tōhō. Beyond the Clouds (Kumo nagaruru hateni/雲ながるる果てに) 1953 Director: Ieki Miyoji, Shōchiku. Black Rain (Kuroi ame/黒い雨) 1989 Director: Imamura Shōhei, Tōei. Brassed Off ! (1996) Director: Mark Herman, Channnel Four Films and Miramax Films. Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust (Baburu e gō!! taimu mashin wa doramu-shiki/バブルへ GO!!タイムマシンはドラム式) (2007) Director: Baba Yasuo, Tōhō. The Burmese Harp (Biruma no tategoto/ビルマの竪琴) 1956 Director: Ichikawa Kon, Nikkatsu. The Burmese Harp (Biruma no tategoto/ビルマの竪琴) 1985 Director: Ichikawa Kon, Tōhō. Café Isobe (Jyun Kissa Isobe/純喫茶磯辺) 2008 Director: Yoshida Keisuke, Movie-eye Entertainment. Children of Hiroshima (Genbaku no ko/原爆の子) (1952) Director: Shindō Kaneto, Kindai Eiga Kyōkai. Climber’s High (Kuraimāzu hai/クライマーズ・ハイ) 2008 Director: Harada Masato, Tōei and Gaga Communications. Crayon Shin-chan: Action Kamen vs Leotard Devil (Kureyon Shinchan: Akushon Kamen tai Haigure Maō/クレヨンしんちゃん アクション仮面VSハイグレ魔王) 1993 Director: Hongō Mitsuru, Tohō. Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called: ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ (Crayon Shinchan: Arashi wo yobu kyoretsu! otonateikoku no gyakushu/クレヨンしんちゃん 嵐を 呼ぶ モーレツ！ オトナ帝国の逆襲) 2001 Director: Hara Keiichi, Shin’ei Dōga. Crayon Shin-chan: The Secret Treasure of Buri Buri Kingdom (Kureyon Shinchan: Buriburi Ōkoku no Hihō/クレヨンしんちゃん ブリブリ王国の秘宝) 1994 Director: Hongō Mitsuru, Tohō. Curtain Call (Kāten kōru/カーテンコール) 2006 Director: Sasabe Kiyoshi, Comstock. The Demon (Kichiku/鬼畜) 1978 Director: Nomura Yoshitarō, Shōchiku. Departures (Okuribito/おくりびと) 2008 Director: Takita Yōjirō, Shōchiku. Fantasia (1940) Director: Ben Sharpsteen, Walt Disney Productions and RKO Radio Pictures.

Filmography

167

Female Prisoner Series (Joshū Sasori/女囚さそり) 1972–1973 Director: Itō Shunya, Tōei. First Love (Hatsukoi/初恋) 2006 Director: Hanawa Yukinari, Gaga Communications. Gamera (Daikaijū gamera/大怪獣ガメラ) 1965 Director: Yuasa Noriaki, Daiei. Gamera vs. Viras (Gamera tai uchū kaijū bairasu/ガメラ対宇宙怪獣バイラス) 1968 Director: Yuasa Noriaki, Daiei. Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (Sandai kaijū chikyū saidai no kessen/三大怪獣 地球最大の決戦) 1964 Director: Director: Honda Ishirō, Tōhō. Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (Gojira tai mosura tai mekagojira Tokyo esu ō esu/ゴジラ×モス ラ×メカゴジラ 東京SOS) 2003 Director: Tezuka Masaaki, Tōhō. GS Wonderland (Jī esu wandārando/GSワンダーランド) 2008 Director: Honda Ryūichi, Nikkatsu. Hana also known as The Tale of a Reluctant Samurai (Hana yorimo naho/花よりも なほ) 2006 Director: Koreeda Hirokazu, Shōchiku. Hand Drum in the Night (Yoru no Tsuzumi/夜の鼓) 1958 Director: Imai Tadashi, Shōchiku. A Heartful of Love (Kono mune ippai no aiwo/この胸いっぱいの愛を) 2005 Director: Shioka Akihiko, Tōhō. The Hidden Blade (Kakushi ken Oni no tsume/隠し剣 鬼の爪) 2004, Director: Yamada Yōji, Shōchiku. Himeyuri Lily Tower (Himeyuri no tō/ひめゆりの塔) 1953 Director: Imai Tadashi, Tōei. Himeyuri Lily Tower (Himeyuri no tō/ひめゆりの塔) 1968 Director: Masuda Toshio, Nikkatsu. Himeyuri Lily Tower (Himeyuri no tō/ひめゆりの塔) 1982 Director: Imai Tadashi, Tōei. Himeyuri Lily Tower (Himeyuri no tō/ひめゆりの塔) 1995 Director: Kōyama Seijirō, Tōhō. Hula Girls (Fula gāru/フラガール) 2006 Director: Lee Sang-il, Cinequanon. Human Torpedoes (Ningen gyorai kaiten/人間魚雷回天) 1955 Director: Matsubayashi Shue, Shin Tōhō. Ichi (Ichi/ICHI) 2008 Director: Sori Fumihiko, Shōchiku. I Don’t Wanna Cry (Nakumonka) 2009 Director: Mizuta Nobuo, Tōhō. I Live in Fear (Ikimono no kiroku/生きものの記録) 1955 Director: Kurosawa Akira, Tōhō. It’s tough being a man (series) (Otoko wa tsurai yo/男はつらいよ（シリーズ）) 1969–1995 Director: Yamada Yōji, Shōchiku. A Japanese Tragedy (Nihon no higeki/日本の悲劇) 1953 Director: Kinoshita Keisuke, Shōchiku. King Kong Escapes (Kingu kongu no gyakushū/キングコングの逆襲) 1967 Director: Honda Ishirō, Tōhō. Last Snow (Nagori yuki/なごり雪) 2002 Director: Ōbayashi Nobuhiko, Daiei. Late Autumn (Akibiyori/秋日和) 1960 Director: Ozu Yasujirō, Shōchiku. Listen to the Voices from the Sea (Kike wadatsumi no koe/きけ、わだつみの声) 1950 Director: Sekigawa Hideo, Tōei. Listen to the Voices from the Sea (Kike wadatsumi no koe/きけ、わだつみの声) 1995 Director: Deme Masanobu, Tōei. Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean (Rōrerai/ローレライ) 2005, Director: Higuchi Shinji, Tōhō. Lost Crime: Flash (Rosuto kuraimu: senkō/ロスト・クライム 閃光) 2010 Director: Itō Shunya, Kadokawa Eiga.

168

Filmography

Love Letter (Labu letā/ラブレター) 1995 Director: Iwai Shunji, Japan Herald. Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro (Rupan Sansei: Kariosutoro no Shiro/ルパン三 世：カリオストロの城) 1979 Director: Miyazaki Hayao, Tohō. Morning for the Ōsone Family (Ōsone ke no ashita/大曾根家の朝) 1946 Director: Kinoshita Keisuke, Shōchiku. Mothra (Mosura/モスラ) 1961 Director: Honda Ishirō, Tōhō. Mount Osutaka (Osutakayama/御巣鷹山) 2006 Director: Watanabe Fumiki. My Great Grandma from Saga (Saga no gabai bāchan/佐賀のがばいばあちゃん) 2006 Director: Kurauchi Hitoshi, T Joy. My Neighbour Totoro (Tonari no Totoro/となりのトロロ) 1988 Director: Miyazaki Hayao, Tōhō. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Kaze no Tani no Naushika/風の谷のナウシカ) 1984 Director: Miyazaki Hayao, Tōei. Night Picnic (Yoru no pikunikku/夜のピクニック) 2006 Director: Nagasawa Masahiko, Movie-eye Entertainment and Shōchiku. One Wonderful Sunday (Subarashiki nichiyōbi/素晴らしき日曜日) 1947 Director: Kurosawa Akira, Tōhō. Pacchigi! (Pacchigi!/パッチギ！) 2005 Director: Izutsu Kazuyuki, Cinequanon. Pacchigi: Love and Peace (Pacchigi: Rabu ando pīsu/パッチギ！LOVE&PEACE) 2007 Director: Izutsu Kazuyuki, Cinequanon. Pinocchio (1940) Director: Ben Sharpsteen and Hamilton Luske, RKO Radio Pictures. Points and Lines (Ten to sen/点と線) 1958 Director: Kobayashi Tsuneo, Tōei. Rain of Light (Hikari no ame/光の雨) 2001 Director: Takahashi Banmei, Cinequanon. Riding the Metro (Metoro ni note/地下鉄（メトロ）に乗って) 2006 Director: Shinohara Tetsuo, Shōchiku. Rush In! Asama Lodge Incident (Totsunyū seyo! Asama sansō jiken/突入せよ！あさ ま山荘事件) 2002 Director: Harada Masato, Asmik Ace Entertainment and Tōei. The Scarlet Peony Rose Gambler (series) (Hibotan bakuto/緋牡丹博徒) 1968–1972, Tōei. Snow White (1937) Director: David Hand, RKO Radio Pictures. Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kami Kakushi/千と千尋の神隠し) 2001 Director: Miyazaki Hayao, Tōhō and Studio Ghibli. Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo/歩いても歩いても) 2008 Director: Koreeda Hirokazu, Cinequanon. Swallowtail (Suwarōteiru/スワロウテイル) 1996 Director: Iwai Shunji, Japan Herald. The Summit of Mt. Fuji (Fujisanchō/富士山頂) 1970 Director: Murano Tetsutarō, Nikkatsu. The Sun Also Rises (Hi wa mata noboru/陽はまた昇る) 2002 Director: Sasabe Kiyoshi, Tōei. The Sun Does Not Go Down (Shizumanu taiyō/沈まぬ太陽) 2009, Director: Wakamatsu Seturō, Tōhō. Tokyo Tower at Twilight (Tasogare no Tokyo tawā/たそがれの東京タワー) 1959 Drector: Abe Tsuyoshi, Daiei. Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (Tokyo tawā okan to boku to tokidoki oton/東京タワー～オカンとボクと、時々、オトン) 2007 Director: Matsuoka Jōji, Shōchiku. Twentieth Century Boys (trilogy) (Nijusseiki Shōnen/二十世紀少年（三部作）) 2008– 2009 Director: Tsutsumi Yukihiko, Tōhō. Twenty-Four Eyes (Nijyū-shi no hitomi/二十四の瞳) 1954 Director: Kinoshita Keisuke, Shōchiku.

Filmography

169

Twilight Samurai (Tasogare Seibei/たそがれ清兵衛) 2002 Director: Yamada Yōji, Shōchiku. United Red Army (Jitsuroku rengō sekigun: Asama sansō e no michi/実録・連合赤 軍 あさま山荘への道程) 2008 Director: Wakamatsu Kōji, Wakamatsu Production. Until We Meet Again (Mata auhi made/また逢う日まで) 1950 Director: Imai Tadashi, Tōhō. Voices without Figures (Kage naki koe/影なき声) 1958 Director: Suzuki Seijun, Nikkatsu. A Wall of Eyes (Me no kabe/眼の壁) 1958 Director: Ōba Hideo, Shōchiku. Yellow Tears (Kiiroi namida/黄色い涙) 2007 Director: Inudō Isshin, J Stream. Zero Focus (Zero no shōten/ゼロの焦点) 1961 Director: Nomura Yoshitarō, Shōchiku. Zero Focus (Zero no shōten/ゼロの焦点) 2009 Director: Inudō Isshin, Tōhō.

Television programmes Audry (Ōdorī/オードリー) October 2000-March 2001, NHK. Barren Land (Fumō chitai/不毛地帯) October 2009-March 2010, Fuji Television. Beyond the Mountain Ridge: A Father, His Sons, and the Japan Airlines Plane Crash (One no kanata ni~chichi to ko no nikkōkijiko/尾根の彼方に～父と子の日航機事 故) October 2012, WOWOW. Destiny 1969–2010: Once Upon a Time in Tokyo (Shukumei 1969–2010: wansu apon a taimu in Tokyo/宿命1969–2010: ワンスアポン・ア・タイム・イン東京) JanuaryMarch 2010, TV Asahi Corporation. The Great Families (Karei naru ichizoku/華麗なる一族) January-March 2007, Tokyo Broadcasting System. Japanese Memoir of Creating a Technology-Oriented Nation (Denshi rikkoku Nippon no jijoden/電子立国日本の自叙伝) January-September 1991, NHK. Potato, Octopus and Pumpkin (Imo Tako Nankin/芋たこなんきん) October 2006March 2007, NHK. Project X: Challengers (Purojekuto ekkusu: chōsensha tachi/プロジェクトX 挑戦者た ち) March 2000-December2005, NHK. Project X: Challengers Capital freeway: An aerial operation for the Tokyo Olympics (Shuto Kōsoku Tokyo Gorin he no Kūchū sakusen/首都高速 東京五輪への空中作 戦) 5 April 2005, NHK. Project X: Challengers Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard (Madogiwazoku ga sekai kikaku o tsukutta/窓際族が世界規格を作った) 4 April 2000, NHK. Project X: Challengers One Car That Surprised the World: Young Employees Who Confronted the President (Sekai o odorokaseta ichidai no kuruma/世界を驚かせ た一台 の車 名社長と闘った若手技術者たち) 25 April 2000, NHK. Project X: Challengers Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers (Tokyo tawā: koibitotachi no tatakai/東京タワー 恋人たちの戦い) 5 September 2000, NHK. Fine Family (Teruteru Kazoku/てるてる家族) September 2003-March 2004, NHK. Top Sales (Toppu sērusu/トップセールス) April-May 2008, NHK. The White Tower (Shiroi Kyotō/白い巨塔) October 2003-September 2004, Fuji Television.

Plays 8・12 (Hatten ichi ni/8.12) 2004, by The theatre troupe Uranagaya Mansions. 8・12: Connections (Hatten ichi ni~kizuna/8.12～絆) 2008, by The theatre troupe Uranagaya Mansions.

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Index

300-million-yen robbery incident (san okuen jiken) 157–8 8・12 (Hatten ichi ni) (play) 155 8・12: Connections (Hatten ichi ni~kizuna) (play) 155 Abe, Kiyoshi 35–6, 76–7, 80 Abe, Shinzō 1–3, 151, 153 Accomplices (Kyōhansha) 154 All-Campus Joint Struggle League 7, 129, 144 Altheide, David, L. 49 Althusser, Louis 50 Always: Sunset on Third Street (Ōruweizu sanchōme no yūhi) 1–6, 8, 12, 22, 27–8, 47–8, 53, 55, 59–67, 70–1, 78–9, 106, 108, 134, 149, 153 Always: Sunset on Third Street (Ōruweizu sanchōme no yūhi 2) 3, 59–66, 70–1, 78–9, 106, 134, 149, 153 Always: Sunset on Third Street Part 3 (Ōruweizu: sanchōme no yūhi ’64) 65–6, 70–1, 78–9, 106, 134, 149, 153 Amuro, Namie 5 Ankersmit, Franklin, R. 16 Annales School 15 antagonism 49, 52, 73, 127–8, 130–1, 133–4, 138–9, 160 anti-war film 42–3 Arashi (male idol group) 117, 134 Asaba, Michiaki 5, 22–3, 51 Asada, Akira 132–3 Asahi Shimbun 2, 4, 8, 9 Asama-Sansō Incident 146–7, 159–61 Asaoka, Takahiro 25–6, 32–3 Atsumi, Kiyoshi 6 Aum Shinrikyō 138 Ayase, Haruka 120

Baba, Yasuo 154 Barker, Chris 49 Barren Land (Fumō chitai) 154 Barthes, Roland 10, 34, 152 Bartlett, Frederic, C. 20 Baudrillard, Jean 131–3 Bayside Shakedown series (Odoru daisōsasen) 47 Beheiren (Citizen’s League for Peace in Vietnam) 144 Berlin International Film Festival 125 Beyond the Clouds (Kumo nagaruru hateni) 40 Beyond the Mountain Ridge: A Father, His Sons, and the Japan Airlines Plane Crash (One no kanata ni~chichi to ko no nikkōkijiko) 155 Billig, Michael 15, 34, 82 Black Rain (Kuroi ame) 42 Bloch, Marc 14–16, 27 Bocock, Robert 130–1 Bordwell, David 83, 85 Boym, Svetlana 9–11, 30–1, 70–1, 73 Brassed Off 109–10 bubble economy 22, 46, 71, 102, 121, 132, 134, 151, 156–7 Bubble Fiction: Boom or Bust (Baburu e gō!! taimu mashin wa doramu-shiki) 154 Buddhism 70 Buddhist spirituality 42–3 Bungei Shunjū 1 Burmese Harp, The (Biruma no tategoto, 1956) 42 Burmese Harp, The (Biruma no tategoto, 1985) 42–3 Calhoun, Theodore 10 Carr, Edward, H. 14–16, 27, 104

Index Carrier, Peter 156 Chandler, Daniel 10 Children of Hiroshima (Genbaku no ko) 42 Churchill, Winston 165 Chūshingura 119 Climber’s High (Kuraimāzu hai) 13, 155 coal mining 3, 12–13, 108, 112, 115 Collingwood, Robin, G. 14–16, 27, 29–30 Collini, Stefan 53 Confucian value 43–4, 89, 116 constitutive outside 52 consumption: anti-consumption 131, 131, 134; consumer identity 38; consumption of symbols 130–3, 148; mass consumption 130, 150, 161–2; modern consumption 132; postmodern consumption 132–3 Corner, John 49 cosmopolitanism 165 Crayon Shin-chan: Action Kamen vs Leotard Devil (Kureyon Shinchan: Akushon Kamen tai Haigure Maō) 123 Crayon Shin-chan: The Secret Treasure of Buri Buri Kingdom (Kureyon Shinchan: Buriburi Ōkoku no Hihō) 123 Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called ‘The Adult Empire Strikes Back’ (Crayon Shin-chan: Arashi wo yobu kyoretsu! otonateikoku no gyakushū) 4, 13, 22, 122–35, 145, 148, 150 Creighton, Millie 44–6 cultural proximity 163, 165 cultural studies 17, 48–9, 85, 120 Curtain Call (Kāten kōru) 72, 106, 108 Daiba itchōme shōtengai (Daiba Town Shopping Avenue) 57 Dapia, Silvia 52 Davis, Fred 7, 18, 22, 53, 73 Deacon, David 48–9 delaying tactics 62–3, 70–1 Demon, The (Kichiku) 58 Departures (Okuribito) 164 Derrida, Jacques 132–3 Destiny 1969–2010: Once Upon a Time in Tokyo (Shukumei 1969–2010: wansu apon a taimu in Tokyo) 159 Disney, Walt 125 Dower, John, W. 38–9 Du Gay, Paul 85

185

Eagleton, Terry 50, 72 Edagawa, Kōichi 82 Edo period 6, 43–4, 82, 118 Edwards, Derek 17, 20 emotion 9–10, 21, 28, 53, 82 ethnicism 91–2 Etō, Jun 35, 84 EXPO’70 see Japan World Exposition Fantasia 125 Female Prisoner Series (Joshū Sasori) 159 femininity 49 feminism 118 financial crisis 71, 101, 103, 109, 164 First Love (Hatsukoi) 72, 106 Fiske, John 46, 50 Foucault, Michel 49–51 Fuji, Junko 114, 116 Fujisawa, Shūhei 119 Fujita, Shōzō 89 Fuji Television 47 Fukuma, Yoshiaki 42–3 Fukushima nuclear disaster 153 furusato (hometown) 44, 108 Furutachi, Kenji 101 Fuse, Katsuhiko 26–7, 52 Galasinski, Dariusz 49 Gamera (Daikaijū gamera) 58 Gamera vs. Viras (Gamera tai uchū kaijū bairasu) 58 Gellner, Ernest 75–6 Genda, Yūji 103 gender 13, 48, 117–18, 146, 150, 154 gender politics 13 generation: dankai no sedai (babyboomer generation) 22, 25, 62; generation gap 116, 146; moratoriamu sedai (moratorium generation) 13, 122, 135; posuto zenkyōtō sedai (post-student activism generation) 145; shirake sedai (apathy generation) 122, 135, 140, 145–8 Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (Sandai kaijū chikyū saidai no kessen) 58 GHQ (General Headquarters of the Allied Forces) 76 giant-monster film 58 Giddens, Anthony 20–1, 31 globalization 19, 164 global recession 164–5 Gluck, Carol 152 Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (Gojira tai mosura tai mekagojira Tokyo esu ō esu) 58

186

Index

Great East Japan Earthquake 126 Great Families, The (Karei naru ichizoku) 154 GS Wonderland (Jī esu wandārando) 72, 106, 117 Habermas, Jurgen 75 Halbwachs, Maurice 16–17 Hall, Stuart 48–51, 85 Hama, Hideo 17 Hamano, Yasuki 127, 129 Hana, also known as The Tale of a Reluctant Samurai (Hana yorimo nao) 119–20 Hand Drum in the Night (Yoru no Tsuzumi) 41 Hannerz, Ulf 76 Hanpaku (a 1969 anti-war exhibition) 145 Happy 138 Hara, Keiichi 4, 122, 127–30, 134–5, 145, 150 Harada, Masato 160 Harootunian, Harry, D. 77 Harvey, David 162 Harvey, Sylvia 49 Hasegawa, Sonoe 70 Heartful of Love, A (Kono mune ippai no aiwo) 72, 108 heritage 4, 6, 7, 31, 44, 53, 152 Herman, Mark 109 Hidaka, Katsuyuki 5, 7, 49 Hidden Blade, The (Kakushi ken oni no tsume) 119 high economic growth see rapid economic growth Higuchi, Naofumi 154 Himeyuri Lily Tower (Himeyuri no tō, 1953) 42 Himeyuri Lily Tower (Himeyuri no tō, 1968) 42 Himeyuri Lily Tower (Himeyuri no tō, 1982) 43 Himeyuri Lily Tower (Himeyuri no tō, 1995) 43 Hiroshima 118, 153 history: acceleration of history 19; concept of history 14, 16, 18; historiography 11, 14; as an official record 18; personal histories 14, 20–1, 118 Hobart, Mark 16, 48–9, 51 Hodgkin, Katharine 15, 27–8 Hofer, Johannes 9

Holdsworth, Amy 46 Holocaust 32 Honda, Sōichirō 104–5, 150 Hood, Christopher 157 Horikita, Maki 2, 59 Horikoshi, Kenzō 47–8 Hosaka, Masayasu 81, 101, 103 hula dance 13, 108–9, 111–16 Hula Girls (Fula gāru) 3, 6, 12, 28, 48, 106–17, 150, 153 Human Torpedoes (Ningen gyorai kaiten) 40 Hutton, Patrick, H. 16 Huyssen, Andreas 30–1 Ichi 120 Ichikawa, Kōichi 5 ihai (mortuary tablet or spirit tablet) 70–1 I Live in Fear (Ikimono no kiroku) 41 Imai, Akira 48, 83–4, 101 Imai, Tadashi 41 Inamasu, Tatsuo 82 individualism 43, 99, 121, 128 Inoue, Haruyo 70 intellectual discourse 12–13, 150, 153 Ishida, Saeko 146 Ishigami, Mitsutoshi 55 Ishihara, Hitomi 109, 111, 114 Ishihara, Shintarō 84 Ishihara, Yūjirō 80 Ishikawa, Yoshimi 82, 90 Ishitobi, Noriki 62, 66, 125 Itō, Mamoru 102 Itō, Shunya 159 It’s tough being a man (series) (Otoko wa tsurai yo) 6 Ivy, Marilyn 44–6, 132, 163 Iwabuchi, Kōichi 47, 77, 163–4 Iwai, Shunji 126 Japan Academy Awards 3, 67, 108, 119, 123 Japan Airlines Flight 123 crash 155–7 Japanese Memoir of Creating a Technology-Oriented Nation (Denshi rikkoku Nippon no jijoden) 80–1, 88, 93, 101–2 Japanese model of corporate management 97, 100, 102, 104–6, 121 Japanese Red Army 129, 156 Japanese Tragedy, A (Nihon no higeki) 41 Japan-US security arrangements 35

Index Japan-US Security Treaty 144, 158 Japan World Exposition (EXPO’70) 4, 13, 45, 53, 81, 122, 129, 135, 141–7, 150 jidaigeki (period dramas) 6, 43–5, 82, 118 Jōban Hawaiian Centre 108–9, 111, 113, 115 Kainuma, Hiroshi 153 Kairakutei, Black 125 Kanazawa, Makoto 61, 66, 114, 159 Karasawa, Toshiaki 137, 139 Karatani, Kōjin 132–3 Katagiri, Shinji 5, 22 Katayama, Osamu 84 Katō, Norihiro 36–7 Katriel, Tamar 71 Katsu, Shintarō 120 Kawamoto, Saburō 21–2, 51, 149 Kayama, Rika 21–2 kazoku kokka (family state) 89 Kiki, Kirin 67 Kinema Junpō 104, 107–8, 119, 123, 125–6, 145 King Kong Escapes (Kingu kongu no gyakushū) 58 Kinoshita, Keisuke 41–2, 127 Kishibe, Ittoku 111 Kitada, Akihiro 37–8, 146, 160 Kitahara, Minori 109, 114 Kobayashi, Tsuneo 154 Koizumi cabinet 103 Korean wave 163 Koreeda, Hirokazu 119 Kracauer, Siegfried 49 Kuhn, Annette 46 Kunii, Masahiko 85, 92, 95 Kurosawa, Akira 41, 47 Kuze, Teruhiko 70 Laclau, Ernesto 51–2 Last Snow (Nagori yuki) 72 Late Autumn (Akibiyori) 58 Lee, Sang-il 28, 114 Lehman Brothers k 13 Lennon, John 138 Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) 1–2, 26, 54–5, 96, 123, 125, 129, 144, 151, 158 lifetime employment 103, 151 Lily, Franky 67, 70 Listen to the Voices from the Sea (Kike wadatsumi no koe, 1950) 42

187

Listen to the Voices from the Sea (Kike wadatsumi no koe, 1995) 42 Lorelei: The Witch of the Pacific Ocean (Rōrerai) 118 Lost Crime: Flash (Rosuto kuraimu: senkō) 157–9 lost decade of the 1990s 71, 73, 102–3, 121 Love Letter (Labu letā) 126 Lowenthal, David 31 Lupin the Third: Castle of Cagliostro (Rupan Sansei: Kariosutoro no Shiro) 123 Lyon, David 75 Lyotard, Jean-Francois 75 McCartney, Paul 138 madogiwazoku (marginalized workers) 81, 94–7, 101, 106, 115, 118, 121, 150, 155 Maki, Noboru 82, 101–2 Mamada, Takao 132–3 manga 29, 59–60, 79, 117, 122–3, 127, 133–5, 137–8, 140, 147–8 Manga Action 123 Marui, Hiroshi 110 Maruyama, Masao 35 Marxist theory 50 masculinity 40, 49, 72, 76, 113, 118–19, 150 mass employee (shūdan shūshokusha) 60, 64 Master Keaton 138 Matsuda, Hisakazu 133 Matsui, Takanori 82 Matsumoto, Ken’ichi 81, 101, 103–4 Matsumoto, Seichō 13, 58, 153 Matsushita, Kōnosuke 99–100, 104 Matsuyuki, Yasuko 111 Meiji period 25, 89, 98, 163 memory: collective memory 14, 17, 19, 71; memory boom 31–2; memory research 17, 31–3; memory studies 12, 16–18, 20, 27, 32; nostalgic memories 9; rehabilitation of memory 19; unofficial memories 18; war memories 32–3, 43 Middleton, David 17, 20 mise-en-scène 12, 53, 60, 66, 82, 112, 138–9, 145, 149 Mishima, Yukio 129, 144 Misztal, Barbara, A. 18, 19 Mito Kōmon 82, 90 Miyazaki, Hayao 123 Miyoshi, Masao 77

188

Index

Mizoguchi, Kenji 47 modernity: development of modernity 9, 27, 75; discontent with modernity 72; Japanese modernity 44, 46, 75, 79, 163, 165; problems of modernity 30; progress of modernity 9, 21, 28 Moeran, Brian 43, 45–6 Monster 138 Morita, Akio 84 Morley, David 78, 120–1 Morning for the Ōsone Family (Ōsone ke no ashita) 41 Morris–Suzuki, Tessa 14, 20 Mosse, George, L. 76 Mothra (Mosura) 58 Mouer, Ross 163 Mouffe, Chantal 51–2 Mount Osutaka (Osutakayama) 155 mourning 36, 39, 67, 70–1, 73, 161 Murofushi, Tetsurō 82 museum 17, 25, 28, 31 Muta, Kazue 89 My Great Grandma from Saga (Saga no gabai bāchan) 106, 108, 117 My Neighbour Totoro (Tonari no Totoro) 123 myth 10–11, 19, 26, 34, 38, 71, 74, 93, 102, 152–3 Nagasaki 118, 153 Nagasaki, Takashi 122, 135, 138–9, 142, 145, 147–8 Nagase, Masatoshi 119 Nagashima, Shinji 134 Nairn, Tom 7 Najita, Tetsuo 76 Nakajima, Kazuki 127 Nakamura, Yutaka 111, 115–16 Nakane, Chie 98–9, 120 Nakanishi, Shintarō 146 Nakasone, Yasuhiro 156 narrative: historical narrative 16, 27, 29–30, 73, 81, 85, 104; imaginary narrative 94, 101, 118; national narrative 101; tragic narrative 72 national identity 36–7, 48 nationalism 1, 7, 34–6, 38, 42–3, 48–9, 75–7, 91, 108 National Parent-Teacher Association 3, 48, 82, 90 Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Kaze no Tani no Naushika) 123 NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) 3, 12, 47–8, 80, 83, 86, 90, 94–5, 101, 115, 117, 150, 163

Nichols, Bill 83 nihonjinron (discussions of Japaneseness) 40, 77, 163 Nihon Keizai Shimbun 8 Nippon Television 2, 47 Nishida, Toshiyuki 104 Nishikawa, Yūko 89 Nodame Cantabile (Nodame Kantābire) 47 Nomura, Yoshitarō 58 Nora, Pierre 19, 21, 30–1 nostalgia: meaning of nostalgia 10–11; nostalgic device 6; reflective nostalgia 71; romantic nostalgia 9 nuclear myth 153 nuclear power 152–3 nuclear safety 152–3 Ōba, Hideo 154 Odagiri, Jō 67 Odagiri, Makoto 3, 28, 82 Ogi, Masahiro 145 Oguma, Eiji 7, 35, 130, 161 Ōgushi, Junji 146 Okada, Toshio 133 One Wonderful Sunday (Subarashiki nichiyōbi) 41 Osaka World Exposition see Japan World Exposition (EXPO’70) Ōsawa, Masachi 37–8, 61–3 Ōsawa, Takao 120 Ōshita, Eiji 105 otaku 133 Ōtsuka, Eiji 131–2 Ozu, Yasujirō 47, 58, 127 Pacchigi! (Pacchigi!) 106 Pacchigi: Love and Peace (Pacchigi: Rabu ando pīsu) 106 Partner (Aibō) 47 Phillips, Alastair 47 Pineapple Army 137 Pinocchio 125 Plaza Accord 156–7 Pluto 138 Points and Lines (Ten to sen) 154 Postlethwaite, Pete 109 postmodernity 121, 162 post-war intellectual (sengoha chishikijin) 35 post-war paradigm 12, 152–3 pre-modern societies 20 Project X: Challengers (Purojekuto ekkusu: chōsensha tachi) 3, 5, 12, 48, 81–106, 109, 112, 115, 150, 155, 160

Index Project X: Challengers Capital freeway: An aerial operation for the Tokyo Olympics (Shuto Kōsoku Tokyo Gorin he no Kūchū sakusen) 90–2 Project X: Challengers Marginalized Workers Created a Global Standard (Madogiwazoku ga sekai kikaku o tsukutta) 93–106 Project X: Challengers One Car That Surprised the World: Young Employees who Confronted the President (Sekai o odorokaseta ichidai no kuruma) 104–6 Project X: Challengers Tokyo Tower: A Fight by the Lovers (Tokyo tawā: koibitotachi no tatakai) 85–93 Radstone, Susannah 15, 17, 27–8, 31–2 Rain of Light (Hikari no ame) 160 rapid economic growth 2, 5, 11–13, 23, 26, 36–7, 42, 44, 58, 63–6, 121–2, 130, 142–4, 150, 152, 156, 161 Re: Japan 4 reflexivity 20 Riding the Metro (Metoro ni note) 72, 106 Robertson, Jennifer 108 Robins, Kevin 78, 120–1 Rush In! Asama Lodge Incident (Totsunyū seyo! Asama sansō jiken) 160 Sacrifice of the Human Torpedoes, The (Ningen gyorai kaiten) 40 Saigan, Ryōhei 59, 134 Sakamoto, Kyū 4 Samejima, Atsushi 54, 58 samurai 119–20 Sanada, Hiroyuki 119 San Francisco Peace Treaty 39 sanshu no jingi (three sacred treasures) 79 Sasabe, Kiyoshi 94 Sassa, Atsuyuki 160 Satō, Masaaki 94–7, 99–100, 104–5 Sato, Sanpei 158 Satō, Tadao 6, 41, 45, 104, 118–19, 134 Scarlet Peony Rose Gambler, The (series) (Hibotan bakuto) 114, 116 science and technology-oriented nation (kagaku gijutsu rikkoku) 76 season of politics 7, 13, 129, 144, 150 Second Virgin (Sekando bājin) 47 Second World War 2, 7–8, 12, 14, 18, 22, 27, 31–7, 39, 40, 44, 46, 49, 54, 64, 89, 110, 138 seisaku iinkai 47

189

seppuku (ritual suicide) 119, 129, 144 Shimatani, Hitomi 4 Shindo, Yoshihiko 135 Shinohara, Hajime 151 Shinto (ethnic religion of Japanese people) 43, 88, 91 Shōchiku (film company) 69, 127 Shōwa Emperor (Hirohito) 2, 38 shukkō (practice of transferring workers to affiliated companies) 103 Snow White 125 Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kami Kakushi) 123, 125 Standish, Isolde 40–1, 49, 72–3, 118 Still Walking (Aruitemo aruitemo) 106 Stokes, Jane 49 Stringer, Julian 47 student movement 7, 129–31, 144–7, 150, 158–9, 161 Suga, Hidemi 7, 161 Sugimoto, Yoshio 163 Summit of Mt. Fuji, The (Fujisanchō) 80 Sun Also Rises, The (Hi wa mata noboru) 47, 94, 104 Sun Does Not Go Down, The (Shizumanu taiyō) 154–5 Suzuki, Kenji 36 Suzuki, Seijun 154 Swallowtail (Suwarōteiru) 126 symbol 4, 12, 40, 58–60, 66, 122, 140, 142–3, 145–6, 156 Tahara, Shigeyuki 82, 101–2 Takahashi, Banmei 160 Takahashi, Tetsuya 36–7 Takeda, Ryozō 110–11 Takeuchi, Yoshimi 35 Tanaka, Shigeo 154 Tanaka, Shōgo 111, 154 Tatsumi, Takayuki 66 technological development 75–6, 80–1, 84–5, 88, 102, 106, 150 technological evolution see technological development Terakado, Masaru 97, 99 Terao, Kumiko 6, 23–6 theme park 55, 57, 126 Thompson, Kristine 83, 85 Time Out 125 Tōei (film company) 104, 114, 116 Tokyo Olympics (1964) 53, 66, 90–4, 127, 156 Tokyo Tower 4, 12, 45, 48, 53–60, 62–3, 65–7, 69–71, 73, 78, 85–9, 91–2, 149

190

Index

Tokyo Tower at Twilight (Tasogare no Tokyo tawā) 58 Tokyo Tower: Mom and Me, and Sometimes Dad (Tokyo tawā okan to boku to tokidoki oton) 3–4, 6, 12, 47–8, 53, 66–72, 108, 117, 149 Tomlinson, John 165 Top Sales (Toppu sērusu) 106, 117 Tōyama no Kinsan 82, 90 tragedy 72–3 Trick (Torikku) 47 Tsutsui, Kiyotada 6, 82 Tsutsumi, Shin’ichi 59 Tsutsumi, Yukihiko 122, 135, 138–42, 145, 147–8 Tulloch, John 49 TV Asahi 47 Twentieth Century Boys (trilogy) (Nijusseiki Shōnen) 13, 29, 122, 134–48, 150 Twenty-Four Eyes (Nijyū-shi no hitomi) 42 Twilight Samurai, The (Tasogare Seibei) 118–19 Uchihashi, Katsuto 84–5 Ueno, Eishin 110 Ulfuls 4 Unfair (Anfea) 47 United Red Army (Jitsuroku rengō sekigun: Asama sansō e no michi) 160 United Red Army 146, 159, 160–1 United States 35–8, 42, 44, 76–7, 85, 92–3, 111, 120, 129, 156, 162 Until We Meet Again (Mata auhi made) 41 Uranagaya Mansions 155 Urasawa, Naoki 29, 122, 134–5, 137–42, 145, 147–8 Usui, Yoshito 122, 127, 134 van Dijk, Teun, A. 50 Village Singers 4 Vogel, Ezra, F. 85 Voices without Figures (Kage naki koe) 154 Vulture (Hagetaka) 47 Wakamatsu, Kōji 160 Walkman 85

Wallerstein, Immanuel 162, 164 Wall of Eyes, A (Me no kabe) 154 war propaganda 38 war-retro film 118 wartime responsibility 35 Washitani, Hana 114 Weekly Shōwa, The (Shūkan Shōwa) 4, 54, 78 Weekly Shōwa Times, The (Shūkan Shōwa taimuzu) 4, 54, 78 Weissberg, Liliane 71 Wen, Jiabao 1 Wertsch, James, V. 17–18, 20 Westernization 40, 43–5 White, Hayden 29–30, 51 White Tower, The (Shiroi Kyotō) 154 Winter Sonata 163 Woodstock Music and Art Festival 141–2, 145, 147, 150 WOWOW 155 Yabe, Kentarō 131, 133 Yakushimaru, Hiroko 2, 59 yakuza 91, 116, 150 yakuza film 116–17 Yamada, Atsushi 80 Yamada, Yōji 6, 118–19 Yamasaki, Toyoko 13, 154 Yamashita, Taku 129, 138 Yamazaki, Takashi 3, 28, 61, 66 Yang, In-sil 91 Yata, Toshifumi 110, 115–16 Yawara 138 Yellow Tears (Kiiroi namida) 72, 106, 117, 134 Yokoyama, Hideo 13 Yomiuri Shimbun 8, 144 Yomota, Inuhiko 7, 39–40, 47 Yoshimi, Shunya 76–7, 79, 81, 144, 153 Yoshimoto, Takaaki 35 Yoshimura, Sakuo 108, 110 Yoshioka, Hidetaka 59 youth 2, 38, 69, 140, 145–6, 150 Zatoichi 120 Zero Focus (Zero no shōten, 1961) 154 Zero Focus (Zero no shōten, 2009) 13, 154