Spaces of sympathy: The role of Asia in contempo-rary Japanese popular cinema
PDF

Keywords

Japanese popular cinema
victim's history
new Asianism
cosmetic multiculturalism
othering
erasure
orientalism

How to Cite

Hudson, S. “Spaces of Sympathy: The Role of Asia in Contempo-Rary Japanese Popular Cinema”. Mutual Images Journal, no. 4, June 2018, pp. 62-75, doi:10.32926/2018.4.hud.space.

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of two discourses in the study of Japanese popular film, while also bringing the two into conversation with one another in relation to their constructions of “Japan” and “Asia” as conceptual spaces. The discourse known as “victims’ history” is discussed first, drawing on a few relevant films as examples of how the war period is articulated in terms of Japanese suffering. The contemporary political implications of this apparatus within Japanese film are explored. For example, films such as Grave of the Fireflies (1988, Hotaru no Haka) have been internationally lauded for their pacifist stance, despite the fact that this pacifism is, I argue, constituted by the same victims’ narrative that sustains feelings of distrust towards Japan’s East Asian neighbours. In other words, we must consider these films not only in terms of passive victimisation, but also in terms of active erasure. The second discourse considered is that of “New Asianism”, or the modern boom in representations of Asia in popular films. Various commentators have forcibly challenged the idea that the internationalization of Japanese cinema (from the late 1980s to the present), both in terms of industry and narrative representation, has had a decolonizing effect on the Japanese cultural sphere. On the contrary, these films are accused of the exoticisation and Othering of Asia, and I argue they are therefore similar to victims’ history films in their positioning of Asia “outside” of the space of subjectivity.

https://doi.org/10.32926/2018.4.hud.space
PDF

References

Gerow, A. (2006), Fantasies of War and Nation in Recent Japanese Cinema. The Asia-Pacific Journal [Online], Vol. 4 (2). [Accessed 30 September 2018].

Iwabuchi, K. (1994), Complicit Exoticism: Japan and its Other. Continuum: The Australian Journal of Media & Culture [Online], Vol. 8 (2). [Accessed 24 May 2017].

Kirsch, G. (2015), Contemporary Sino-Japanese Relations on Screen: A History (1989-2005). London: Bloomsbury.

Ko, M. (2010), Japanese Cinema and Otherness: Nationalism, Multiculturalism and the Problem of Japaneseness. London: Routledge.

Lo, K. (2014), Erasing China in Japan’s ‘Hong Kong Films’. In: Miyao, D., ed. The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 208-222.

Morris-Suzuki, T. (1998), Re-Inventing Japan: Time Space Nation. London: M. E. Sharpe.

Morris-Suzuki, T. (2002), Immigration and Citizenship in Contemporary Japan. In: Maswood, J., Graham, J., Miyajima, H., (Eds), Japan: Change and Continuity. London: Routledge Curzon, 163-278.

Napier, S. (2001), Anime: From “Akira” to “Princess Mononoke”: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation. New York: Palgrave.

Nishihara, D. (2000), China as Japan’s Orient: ‘Chinashumi’ writings and paintings in the Taishō period. In: D’haen, T., and Krüs, P., (Eds), Colonizer and Colonized. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 19-26.

Orr, J. (2001), The Victim as Hero: Ideologies of Peace and National Identity in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

Penney, M. (2013), Miyazaki Hayao's Kaze Tachinu (The Wind Rises). The Asia-Pacific Journal [Online], Vol. 11 (30/2). [Accessed 24 May 2017].

Richie, D. (2005), A Hundred Years of Japanese Film. Tokyo: Kodansha International.

Said, E. (1979), Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

Sakai, N. (2010), Transpacific Complicity and Comparatist Strategy. In: Edwards, B., and Gaonkar, D. P., (Eds), Globalizing American Studies. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Schilling, M. (2008), ‘Watashi wa Kai ni Naritai’: Making a Case for a ‘War Criminal’. The Japan Times. [Online]

Available from: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2008/11/21/films/film-reviews/watashi-wa-kaini-naritai/#.W7B0eK17HUo [Accessed 30 September 2018].

Shih, C. (2011), A Rising Unknown: Rediscovering the China in Japan’s East Asia. China Review [Online]. Vol. 11 (1), 1-26. [Accessed 1 February 2017].

Tanaka, Y. (2017), A Critique of An Open Letter to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Suizen Yuki Tanaka. [Online] Available from: http://yjtanaka.blogspot.jp/2017/01/a-critique-of-open-letter-to-prime.html [Accessed 1 February 2017].

Tokyo International Film Festival. (2006), List of TIFF Awards. TIFF History. [Online] Available from: http://history.tiff-jp.net/ja/prizes#award_1995 [Accessed 26 September 2018].

Wickham, K. (2010), Making Victims: History, Memory, and Literature in Japan's Post-War Social Imaginary [Online]. MA, University of South Carolina. Supervised by: Steele, M. Available from: http://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/289 [Accessed 1 February 2017].

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Copyright (c) 2018 Seán Hudson