- Popular Culture and the Fifteen Year War
- Total War and Mobilization
- Momotaro: Folk Tale to Propaganda
- Popular Culture and the American Occupation
- King of Postwar Popular Culture: Manga
- Introduction
- Historical Development
- Cat Fight: Disney versus Tezuka Osamu?
The 15 Year War: Total War
- Integration of home and battle fronts
- Mobilization of civilian population for battle efforts
- Targeting both civilians and combatants
- Total War and Modernization
- Speeded industrialization, technological innovation,
bureaucratic expansion, sense of nat'lism in colonies,
etc.
- The Death Toll:
- 55 mil. in European & Pacific theaters of WWII
- 20 million Russians; 6 million Jews; 15 million in
Asia
- 1.3 million soldiers and 9 million civilians in China
- Hundreds of thousands of Asians died due to forced
labor
- Approx. 2 million Jpz. soldiers & 600,000 Jpz.
civilians
- U.S.: roughly 101,000 in Pacific, nearly half between
1944-45
Top-Down Mobilization
- Cabinet Planning Agency
- Coalition of bureaucrats and military men
- Economic Mobilization Law to control over everything from
foreign trade to labor
- The New Order Movement
- National Spiritual Mobilization campaign in 1937
- IRAA under jurisdiction of Home Minister
- State organization & surveillance of all groups
- State intrusion/militarization of daily life
- Any deviance from norms seen as possible disloyalty
- World War II and the Science of Propaganda
- Generally used in a pejorative sense: crude, simplistic,
false
- "Any association, activity, plan, etc., for the spread of
opinion or principles, especially to effect change or reform"
(Chambers)
From Folk Tale to Propaganda
- Momotaro: Gods of the Sea (Momotaro umi no shimpei)
- Director: Seo Mitsuyo
- The Assault Troops of Sankichi the Monkey
- The Dauntless Sea of Momotaro
- 74 minute feature released by Shochiku
- Commissioned by the Navy
Japanese Surrender
- Military running on fumes
- Army mired in China, Navy in shambles, no materiel
- With German surrender, Japan faced Allies alone
- Crumbling homefront
- Absenteeism, agricultural crisis, expressions of dissent,
Konoe Memorial & red scare
- Soviet Union
- No action as intermediary for peace
- Indicated would not renew Neutrality Pact
- Entry into the war on August 8, 1945
- Atomic bombs dropped August 6 & 9, 1945
- Surrender August 15, 1945
Starting Over
The Postwar Constitution
- Officially an amendment to the Meiji Constitution but written
and forced through by American Occupation staff
- Major points included:
- Transfer of sovereignty from emperor to people
- Article 9: renunciation of war
- Article 14: equality under the law for all citizens &
no discrim. based on race, creed, sex, social status or
family
- Diet as "highest organ of state power"
- Only site where laws can be made
- Both houses elected
- Cabinet responsible to Diet
- Judiciary independent and co-equal to Diet &
Cabinet
- Principle of local autonomy
Individualism? Decadence? Liberty and Libertines
- Three S's of American Policy: Sex, Sports and Screen
- General rejection of state intrusion & mobilization of
private sphere, rejection of collective identity
- Kasutori culture: elevation of the body, material desires, the
impure, the ephemeral, the individual, love = revolution
Postwar Manga: An Introduction
- Japanese comics (alt. gekiga, comikkusu)
- "Cinematic" style: visuals play key role in conveying the
story
- Onomatopoeia
- Artwork mostly black-and-white
- Read from left to right
- Magazines are hundreds of pages long, offering many serialized
stories
- Popular stories are reissued in book format
- Distinctions from American comics?
Development of Manga
Cariacature in Premodern Japan
- Doodles found in temples built 7-8th centuries
- Bishop Toba (1053-1140) & the Animal Scrolls
- Ôtsu-e for pilgrims, travelers from 17th c.
- Ukiyo-e from 17th c.
Beginning of Modern Manga
- Political & Satirical Cartoons
- 19th c. Western cartoonists in Japan
- New styles, format for Jpz satirists
- American newspaper comic strips imported, inspired Jpz
strips
- Youth Journals
- Shônen Kurabu 1914, Shôjo Kurabu 1923,
Yônen Kurabu 1926
- Monthlies, circulation close to million
- Leftist vehicle for reaching out to broad audience:
proletarian art
Manga During the War
- 1925: Peace Preservation Law allows for extremely strict
government censorship at all levels
- 1940: cartoonists forced to join government controlled Shin
Nippon Manga Kyôkai
- Youth-oriented magazines to publish more "educational"
content
- Scarcity of resources hurt publication
- Comic strips banned from newspapers in 1944
Kami shibai
Medieval e-toki
- 19th c. paper doll theater at festivals
- 1920s: Performers leave festivals to hit the streets
- 1930s-40s: Unionization, mass production, government
censorship, propaganda uses
- 1946: revival of demand
- 1950s: peak with 50,000 performers nation-wide
- Precursor to both manga & anime
American Influences
- Comic strips revived; "Blondie" esp. popular
- Early postwar comic books followed American formatting,
published by cottage industries
- Disney animated films box office hits in Japan
Tezuka Osamu (1928-1989)
- Comic strip artist for Mainichi in postwar
- 1947 New Treasure Island hit in Osaka market
- 1951 Jungle Emperor in Manga Shônen
- His Mistress: Animation
- 1963 Atom Boy in B/W
- 1965 Jungle Emperor in color
- Innovations
Rental Libraries
- Appeared in the 1950s, declined rapidly in early 60s
- At peak, approx. 30,000 shops nation-wide
- Borrow books, esp. comic books, from shop for a small fee
- Story-comics began to draw considerable readership before
youth income could accommodate regular purchase of output
- Positive cycle for comics industry
The 1960s: Growth of an Industry
- Magazines for children convert to comics format
- 1959 Shônen Magazine (Shûeisha) first all
comics weekly, followed by Big Comic (Shôgakukan) and
others
- Economic boom meant young people began to have more disposable
income
- Buy rather than borrow
- Millions of copies of comics journals sold each week
subsidize other publishing ventures
Early Animation
- Experiments in animation from 1910s by Western-style artists
in Japan
- First full-length feature, "Momotaro," produced in
1944-45
- Animation industry begins in postwar with Toei Doga studio
production of "Hakujaden" in 1958
- During 1960s, animation production quickly climbs with ties to
television
- Examples include Tetsujin 28-Go, Cyborg 009, Mach Go Go Go,
Maho tsukai Sally, Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, Tiger Mask, Kyojin no hoshi
60s Comics and Rebellion
- Politics of the Comics Generation
- Reading comics as a way of rejecting
authority/adulthood
- "In our right hands we hold the Asahi Journal, and in our
left hands, we hold the Magazine"
- Alternative comics journals
- Artistic freedom for artists such as Shirato Sanpei, Tsuge
Yoshiharu, Uchida Shungicu
- Adult themes
Artist and Industry
- The 1960s and 1970s:
- Large publishing houses lured manga artists from other
venues with good money
- Conversion from monthly to weekly production schedules
- Editorial supervision and intervention on part of publishing
company
- Emergence of "mini-komi" amateur comic production
- The 1980s:
- Alternative/underground "professional" comics brought into
the mainstream
- Amateur comics explode in number and popularity
Manga as Postwar King of Pop
- Continuous expansion of industry late 1950s through 1990s
- Symbiotic relationship with TV animation series
- In contrast, movies have been in decline
- Competition with manga
- Competition w/Hollywood
Billion Dollar Industry
- 1995: 2.3 billion produced, 1.9 billion sold
- 265 magazine titles
- 40% of total of books and magazines sold in Japan
- 15 per each member of the population
- Tachi-yomi and mawashi-yomi
- The Big Three: Shûeisha, Kôdansha,
Shôgakukan
- Ties to TV, theater, movies, video games, amusement parks,
literature
- Overseas distribution and influence
Full Circle?
- Kimba v. Simba Debate
- "Jungle Emperor" (Tezuka Osamu, 50s & 60s)
- "The Lion King" (Disney Corporation, 1994)
- Copyright Issues
- Legal v. moral stances
- International variations
- Anxiety of Influence
- How much is too much?
- Shifting power relations?
- Historical contexts