- Kenji Yanobe (Osaka 1965)
- MA at Kyoto City University of the Arts 1991
- European and American artistic traditions and the Japanese
experience
- Why am I so excited by the Godzilla movie?
Tanking Machine 1990
Yellow Suit 1991
Survival System Train 1992
Soul of Bubble King 1992
Radiation Suits 1996:
Atom and Uran
Atom Car 1998
Atom Suit #2
- National Identity, Yanobe, and Godzilla
- Catastrophic imagination
- Even those [who survived] were nothing but ghostly
skeletons with their inner parts blown away by the terrible
blast, as if trampled all over by a crowd of gigantic
monsters.
- Crisis in representation
- The Occupation and Censorship
- The censorship ordinances virtually silenced all discussion
of the atomic attacks and their effects.
- Censorship rescinded at the end of occupation April 28,
1952.
- Kenzaburo Oë: Why did public discussion remain sparse
until 1954?
Godzilla premieres November 3, 1954
- Bravo Test Series - Bikini Atoll
- 4:00 am on March 1, 1954
- 23 crewmen of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon Number
5)
- 148 Kilometers removed
- 7:30 am showered in radioactive dust
- Radiation illness
- Environmental concerns
- Aikichi Kuboyama - Chief Wireless Operator
- September 23, 1954
- Public outburst of grief
- This public outburst of grief coincides with the wide
public support of the anti-nuclear (non-proliferation)
movement.
- It is no accident that Godzilla premiers, 7 months
following the F/M incident, and 1 month following the death of
Kuboyama.
Kuboyama
- Daigo Fukuryu Maru Reenactment
- Bravo Test Blast
- Flash of light and thunderous roar
- Chief wireless operator frantically sends a distress call
… and dies.
- Suppressed (repressed?) memories
- Hibakusha
Daigo Fukuryu Maru Exhibition Hall, Tokyo
Godzilla was born in Bikini
Daigo Fukuryu Maru
- Hibakusha
- Keloid scars - humiliation &curious glances
- Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC)
- Dejects, ascetics, high suicide rate
- Hibakusha figured as foreign
- Julia Kristeva Strangers to Ourselves -strangeness as a
challenge to boundaries
Keiji Nakazawa
Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen: The Day After, trans. Dadakai and
Project Gen (Santa Cruz: New Society Publishers, 1988), 99.
Nakazawa:
But was she better off surviving?
Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen: The Day After, 103.
- Monsters
- Challenge to proper relations to life & death
- Hibakusha: the undead, the walking dead
- David Skal The Monster Show monsters are
reassurancing.
- Beings who could not die
- Hibakusha/ Godzilla did more than survive, they are created
by a catastrophic force.
- Hibakusha Impure Monsters
- Branded
- And what about the children of hibakusha?
- Swept into a logic of impurity
- Hibakusha have taboo or forbidden knowledge, a knowledge of
death.
- Hibakusha become untouchable
Half a century of Godzilla (1954)
Half a century of Godzilla (1962)
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Half a century of Godzilla (1965)
Monster Zero
Half a century of Godzilla (1991)
Godzilla vs. King Ghidrah
Half a century of Godzilla (1995)
Half a century of Godzilla (1998)
hmmm, aberration?
Half a century of Godzilla (1999/2000)
Skin, Godzilla, and Hibakusha
Foot Solider (Godzilla) 1991