Memories of the World War II in Japanese manga by Costa, Analía Soledad Master Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies of Kyushu University Master Degree Kyushu University January, 2013 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all I want to thank my advisor Sugiyama Sensei for offering advice and keeping me on track all the time. This thesis wouldn’t be possible without his support. I would also like to thank to Yamamura Sensei, Matsumura Sensei and Ao Sensei for agreeing to be my co advisors in this project; their suggestions and the time dedicated to my work helped me to clear my ideas and improved my knowledge. I want to make a special mention to Yamamura Sensei, since she always spoke to me in Spanish, my mother language, and that gave me more confidence and home felling while working. My gratitude also goes to Naono Sensei, whose suggestions always challenged me to push further in research and at the same time made easier to find some answers Finally, I also want to thank the entire Department of Japanese Social Cultural Studies of Kyushu University for giving me the opportunity to participate as a Student taking classes with so many brilliant professors. 1 ABSTRACT MEMORIES OF THE WORLD WAR II IN JAPANESE MANGA By Analía Costa Master degree in the Graduate School of Social and Cultural Studies of Kyushu University, 2013. SUPERVISOR: Sugiyama, Akashi The World War II has divided Japanese history between what came before and what came behind. After been defeated in 1945, a new narrative of postwar Japan, separated for the militarized past one was constructed. Manga, or Japanese comics, have traditionally been a significant part of Japanese popular culture. As a popular medium of social expression, manga added a visual form that helped disseminate the new narratives and perspectives to a mass audience. However, manga works are closely connected to Japanese history and culture. Then they reflect not only the reality of Japanese society but also their myths, beliefs and fantasies they have about themselves. The representation of the war in manga shows in a certain way how Japanese postwar society attempted to deal with the war and how Japan came to be what it is today. My goal is to study how World War II was remembered and depicted in Japanese comic art during the postwar and to understand which narratives were accepted and which were rejected by the society in order to configure the idea of Japanese Nation; which 2 narratives differs from the official discourse of the role of Japan in the War, and which ones strengthens it. The fixation of certain war representations and the expressions used to describe them implies that certain dominant interpretative codes were strengthened and privileged above others. The configuration of one hegemonic memory was necessary for the construction of a social imaginary as the notion of nation, but it led Japanese to think Japan within a victimhood paradigm for a long time. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 ABSTRACT 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 4 1. INTRODUCTION 6 1.1 Purpose 7 1.2 Presentation of the proble m 8 1.3 Corpus (materials and structure) 11 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 14 2.1 Previous literatures 14 2.1.1 Pictorial propaganda in Japanese comic art during the Pacific War 14 2.1.2 The pure self and the demonic other 15 2.1.3 Manga and war 16 2.1.4 Narratives of WW2 in Japanese Manga, 1957-1977 16 2.2 Theoretical background 17 2.2.1 Imagined Communities of Benedict Anderson 17 2.2.2 Pierre Bourdieu, Symbolic violence and Structural censorship 19 2.2.3 Williams: Hegemony and Residual and emergent cultures 22 2.3 Methodology 24 2.3.1 Historical approach 25 2.3.2 Comic art analysis 26 3. HISTORY OF MANGA 28 3.1 Premodern Comic Art 28 3.2 First manga magazines 29 3.3 Political manga in the Meiji Period (1868-1912) 30 3.4 Taisho Period (1912-1926): Proletarian cartoons 30 3.5 Showa Period (1926-1989): Children’s manga, Pacific War and censorship 31 3.6 Norakuro and Fuku-chan 33 3.6.1 Norakuro (1931-1941) 34 3.6.2 Fuku-Chan (1936-1971) 36 4 4. 1950s AND 1960s 40 4.1 Historical context 40 4.2 Manga context 43 4.3 Manga analysis 47 4.3.1 Zero-sen redo (1961) 47 4.3.2 Shidenkai no taka (1963-1965) 51 5. 1970s 57 5.1 Historical context 57 5.2 Manga context 59 5.2.1 The boom of Gekiga 61 5.2.2 A-bomb manga 62 5.3 Manga analysis 64 5.3.1 S in gyokusai seyo (1973) 64 5.3.2 Hadashi no gen (1973-1985) 70 6. 1980s and 1990s 77 6.1 Historical context 77 6.2 Manga context 80 6.3 Manga analysis 82 6.3.1 Adolf ni tsugu (1983-1985) 82 6.3.2 Sens ron (1998) 88 7. CONCLUSION 95 8. BIBLIOGRAPHY 104 APENDIX 1: HIROSHIMA: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BAREFOOT GEN 106 APENDIX II: EVANGELION AND THE RISE OF SEKAIKEI 108 5 1. INTRODUCTION According to Snow and Benford (1992), the act of remembering is more collective than personal. That suggests that society has the power to frame people‘s individual memories by providing the resources for classify and condense into organized and meaningful wholes some particular historical situations, actions, events, and experiences. Historical memory is the way in which historical events are looked back upon from the standpoint of the present. At the heart of the concept of memory is the past-present relationship. This past-present relationship exists on both a collective and an individual level. The term ‗memory‘ highlights that ‗looking back on the events of the past‘ may say as much about the present priorities and politics of the individual or society as it does about the past.(Seaton 11) The World War II has divided Japanese history between what came before and what came behind. After been defeated in 1945, a new narrative of postwar Japan, separated for the militarized past one was constructed. This new narrative was built mainly around the idea of Japanese as a victim of the war. After the immediately postwar period, has gradually emerged an implicit political, social and cultural consensus supporting this perspective. As Susan Napier (2001) suggested: ―[a]s many scholars have pointed out, the Japanese version of World War II may generally be described as a victim‘s history, in which the Japanese people were seen as helpless victims of a corrupt and evil conspiracy between their government and military‖(Napier 162) 6 I believe that popular culture is powerful way to access to the Japanese memories of the Second World War. In this work I want to explore how Japanese society has enclosed individual memories of the WW2 inside the manga context. Manga, or Japanese comics, have traditionally been a significant part of Japanese popular culture. As a popular medium of social expression, manga added a visual form that helped disseminate the new narratives and perspectives to a mass audience. However, manga works are closely connected to Japanese history and culture. Then they reflect not only the reality of Japanese society but also their myths, beliefs and fantasies they have about themselves. The representation of the war in manga shows in a certain way how Japanese postwar society attempted to deal with the war and how Japan came to be what it is today. 1.1 Purpose My goal is to study how World War II was remembered and depicted in Japanese comic art during the postwar and to understand which narratives were accepted and which were rejected by the society in order to configure the idea of Japanese Nation; which narratives differs from the official discourse of the role of Japan in the War, and which ones strengthens it. According to the annual economic White Paper published by the government, the postwar period ended in 1956, but I will call postwar to all Japanese history after 1945 until present, since within Japanese society the postwar periods seems not to be ended yet. 7 From the late 1950s until now, Japanese publishing houses produced many manga dealing with the World War II as a main theme. First they were published and distributed through the kashihonya (pay-libraries), but due to their success they jumped to the weekly boys‘ magazines by the beginning of 1960s. This manga was classified by the Japanese term senki mono (records of war), conveying the impression that they were narrating real stories. These works -combining fictitious details with real historical places, characters, dates, and figures- had changed over time, according to social, economical and generational changes of the postwar period. They were a regular feature in manga magazines over the years and still appear today. The fixation of certain war representations and the expressions used to describe them implies that certain dominant interpretative codes were strengthened and privileged above others. When a fluid memory of an experience is fixed within society, it can be said that public history is recorded. 1.2 Presentation of the proble m Based on the terms of ―pure self‖ and ―demonic other‖ proposed by John Dower, Okamoto Rei (1999) presented the Japanese perspective of Pacific War by analyzing news paper strips, single-panel cartoons in magazines and cartoon leaflets. She noted that in wartime Japanese comic art, "the pure Self" and "the demonic Other" are aligned along a single continuum. At one extreme is the superhero Japanese soldier, in the other the monstrous enemy. In the middle we can find the ordinary 8 Japanese people facing the adversity and defending the country and the victims of Japanese war crimes committed abroad. I think that what lies in the middle was silenced and repressed of war time memories by the exertion of what Bourdieu (1985) calls a symbolical violence. This symbolical violence is exerted based on a structural censorship which regulates what can be and should be said. According to the situation, subjects will produce one type of discourse. This symbolical violence, in my opinion, was necessary to Japan to get recovered and think about the war. The configuration of one hegemonic me mory was necessary for the construction of a social imaginary as the notion of nation, but it led Japanese to think Japan within a victimhood paradigm for a long time. Defining the nation it‘s crucial for the state, since it helps to legitimate a government as well as unify a population. In order to manipulate history and make it fit in their narrative of nation, the state uses diverse methods. No matter what the efforts of governments to present their narrative of nation as historical truth and to homogenize a diverse population under notion of nation, there is a multiplicity of concurrent narratives which exist and even challenge this official narrative making it never closed. I start from the idea that nations are imagined communities as Benedict Anderson (1991) argues: ―A nation is a political community that is imagined as both inherently limited and as sovereign‖ (Anderson, 1991, p. 224). In his book Imagined Communities understands the nation, nationality and nationalism as "artifacts" or "cultural products" that must be studied from a historical perspective to show us how they appeared, how they have been changing their meaning and how they acquired the enormous emotional legitimacy that have today. 9 Although for Anderson the idea of a nation is configured through a set of narratives, it doesn‘t mean that there aren‘t alternative narratives challenging the dominant one. This idea of alternative narratives can be articulated with the concept of selectivity and emergent forms. Selectivity is the way within a society in which certain meanings and practices are chosen and others are excluded. The dominant culture then is alert to every practice which can be considered new and usually the first effort will be try to incorporate these emergent practices. But within them there would be also alternatives and oppositional proposals. The study of popular culture and therefore the study of manga allow us to go beyond political and official narratives. Manga as medium of social expression added a visual form that helped spread the new narratives within Japanese Society. For example, the younger generation who didn‘t have any experience of the Word War II (more than three-quarters of citizens) only can access to other people‘s accounts of the war. Popular cultural media also can build and shape a "memory" of the war in those who didn‘t have any direct contact with it. Seaton (2007) has conducted a survey among 436 university students, about the most influential elements in the formation of students‘ historical consciousness. Japanese students ranked documentaries, museums, and TV news as the most influential items. Japanese government was placed 15th, while manga ranked 8th, just after testimonies from Japanese people who experienced the war. The interpretation of the war made by these narratives, the elements selected to be remembered and the one to be excluded means that they constituted a social phenomenon in itself and it worth to be analyzed within the Social Sciences. 10 1.3 Corpus (materials and structure) The present work is based on my own readings and in previous literatures related to the subject. Some of the selected manga were first published in magazines and later compiled into books. The works published during wartime and in the immediate postwar period are able only to read in Japanese, so I had to consult secondary literature of other scholars who analyzed the publications of this early period. This thesis is structured in seven chapters from introduction to conclusion. I will add also two appendixes that I considered pertinent for the work. The manga analysis starts in Chapter 4. Here I will present the immediate postwar period until the end of the 1960s: The ending of the U.S military occupation, the necessary ―time distancing‖ from the war, the first manga about WW2 featuring air war pilots heroes. The selected materials of this period were: a) Zero-sen Reddo (1961): Written by Kaizuka Hiroshi, the story follows six crooked ―boy pilots‖ who disobey their orders to sacrifice themselves in a Japanese suicide attack. They begin to fight a war of their own, becoming part of the regular Japanese forces. They then begin to steal food from U.S bases to bring back to their fellow Japanese soldiers. All of their war efforts go unrewarded; furthermore they are regarded as traitors by the Japanese army. b) Shidenkai no Taka (1963-1965): Written by Chiba Tetsuya appeared in the magazine Sh nen Magazine. The story begins in the late stages of WW2 at a Japanese air force base in Taiwan. It protagonist Taki is a young pilot who has extraordinary talent as a fighter pilot in battle. The plot shows how he slowly begins 11 to mature after countless battles against the American air-forces, gradually realizing that the enemy he has been taught to hate, is also human. In Chapter 5 I will consider the changes in Japanese society during the 1970s: How Vietnam war calls to the examination of the details of WW2 in Japan, the diplomatic relations with China and Korea, the shift to the gekiga and A-bomb Manga depicting the aftermaths and the cruelty of the war. The selected materials of this period were: a) Hadashi no Gen (1973-1975): Writen by Keji Nakazawa, it‘s based on the experiences of his family in Hiroshima. It starts a few months before the blast and then focuses on the immediate aftermath, detailing the torment of those daring to speak up against the war, the scarcity of food, and the daily struggle to survive. b) S in gyokusai seyo! (1973): This manga, according to Mizuki Shigeru, "based on 90% fact", debunks the imperial project by exposing the irrationality or absurdity of the war itself. Unlike a typical war manga genre that often depicts heroic fighting scenes on a battlefield, the majority of the manga recounts the daily menial activities and hard labor on the island. In the Chapter 6 I will present the 1980s and the 1990s: The consequences that brought Hirohito‘s dead, the reconciliation with the past vs. the revisionism positions of wartime policies, anti- war vs. nationalism in manga. The selected materials of this period were: a) Adolf ni tsugu (1983-1985): Written by Osamu Tezuka, this is the story of three people name Adolf: Kamil (Jewish), Kaufman (Half Japanese and German) and Hitler. The main character and the narrator is Sohei Toge a reporter who discovers that Hitler has Jewish ancestors. 12 b) Sens ron (1998): Written by Yoshinori Kobayashi, the manga tries to present Japan as a liberator of other Asian countries rather than an oppressor, and he dismisses some of Japan's wartime atrocities such as the military's coercion of comfort women. Finally in the conclusions I will make a recapitulation of previous chapters and an introduction to the war manga in the XXI century presenting alternatives stories about a World War III and raise of the sekakei. 13 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Previous literatures 2.1.1 Pictorial propaganda in Japanese comic art during the Pacific War Based on the terms of ―pure self‖ and ―demonic other‖ proposed by Dower, Okamoto Rei (1999) presented in this PHD thesis, the Japanese perspective of Pacific War by analyzing news paper strips, single-panel cartoons in magazines and cartoon leaflets. According to her, there are three texts produced between 1941 and 1945 which best represent the comic art medium of the time: 1) Fuku-chan was a popular, long-running newspaper strip targeting families that supported the government's domestic propaganda campaign. 2) The single-panel cartoons in Manga, the only cartoon magazine with a national circulation, sought to arouse animosity toward the enemy by ridiculing leaders such as Roosevelt, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek. 3) Propaganda cartoon leaflets produced by the Japanese Army General Staff were targeted at foreign troops and civilians. Their purposes included demoralizing enemy soldiers and intensifying antagonism of Asians toward their Western oppressors. She noted that in wartime Japanese comic art, "the p ure Self" and "the demonic Other" are aligned along a single continuum. At one extreme is the superhero Japanese soldier, in the other the monstrous enemy. In the middle we can find the ordinary Japanese people facing the adversity and defending the country and the pitiful foreign victims of Japan's enemies. 14 This work is foundational to my research in terms of structure and methodology, but it‘s quite limited regarding the contents. Since my thesis is focused in the memories of the World War II, I‘m interested in the analysis of the postwar comic art. 2.1.2 The pure self and the demonic other John Dower's War without Mercy describes the ugly racial dimensions of the conflict in the Asian theater of World War II and their consequences on both military and reconstruction policy in the Pacific. Dower also examines the manifestations of Americans in Japanese public culture:  In "The Pure Self," Dower describes how Japanese came to see whites not in terms of color but of "purity." "Where racism in the West was characterized by denigration of others," writes Dower, "the Japanese were preoccupied far more exclusively with elevating themselves (…) They spent more time wrestling with the question of what it really meant to be Japanese, how the Yamato race was unique among the races and cultures of the world, and why this uniqueness made them superior." As such, "the Japanese presented themselves as being purer than others (…) a concept that carried both ancient religious connotations and complex contemporary ramifications," (Dower, 1986 p. 204-205, 231-232) particularly after this purity became increasingly conflated with heroic rituals of self-sacrifice (Gyokusai) by the Japanese leadership.  Similarly, in "The Demonic Other," Dower describes how the Japanese came to portray the allied powe rs as de mons. "This latter stereotype was the dominant 15 metaphor in Japanese propaganda against the enemy during World War II (…) the Anglo-Americans were described as demons (oni), devils (kichiku), fiends (akki and akuma), and monsters (kaibutsu.)" (Dower, 1986, p. 244) 2.1.3 Manga and war In one of his recent works, Manga to Sens (Manga and War), Natsume Fusanosuke discusses how a lot of Japanese manga has dealt with the war issue. He traced the evolution of the depiction of war in manga from the immediate postwar period to the 1990s. Natsume goes from Tezuka‗s early manga to Evangelion. He states that the war images held by those born after World War II -the people accounting for the great majority of Japanese society- have mostly been derived from comics and other media. He himself as a postwar child has his first contact with war through television, movies and manga. In his own words: After the defeat in World War II, Japan has not been directly involved in any war. I think that is quite a rare occurrence in history. But manga have repeatedly featured wars, destructive robots and so on. In other words, there are wars in manga because there is no war (in reality). (Natsume). 2.1.4 Narratives of WW2 in Japanese Manga, 1957-1977 In the chapter 8 of the book Japanese Visual Culture, Eldad Nakar analyzed the published manga in the postwar period that explicitly dealt with the war. The essay 16 examines how Japanese remember World War II from 1957 to 1977. He explored the contents of the early works and the changing over time in two different types of ―living narratives‖ that reflect the social, economical and cultural reality of the postwar period. He divided his work in two periods, the first one from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, characterized for a heroic warfare and hegemonic narrative of air war battle; and the second from the late 1960s to the late 1970s, with stories more critical of the war and plots focused not only in the front but also on civilians affected by the war. Which is interesting of this essay is that the author made also a historical approach to explore the changes in historical and social conditions in postwar period. His approach is going to be the starting point of my research but I will go further and continue until the 1990s. Nakar concludes that: ―Manga stories about World War II clearly reflect the different times in which they were produced, faithfully conforming to contemporary dictates of the collective moods and perceptions of the war‖. (Nakar, 2008, p. 198) 2.2 Theoretical background 2.2.1 Imagined Communities of Benedict Anderson As I said at the beginning, I‘m starting from the idea of Nation as a construction in the order of the collective imaginary that Benedict Anderson (1991) defined as an imagined community inherently limited and sovereign. 17 The nation is one of the discursive social constructions which higher incidence have had and have on the course of world history. Is the one for which individuals are willing to die and kill, the one which one longs when the socio-economic, historical or political conditions granted to a subject by its membership of a particular nation state don‘t meet its expectations. In short, the concept or discourse of nation is a crucial element in the identity of each individual, and one of the collective identities starring endless social phenomena of different kinds (political, cultural, social, etc.). Imagined Communities understands the nation, nationality and nationalism as "artifacts" or "cultural products" that must be studied from a historical perspective to show us how they appeared, how they have been changing their meaning and how they acquired the enormous emotional legitimacy that have today. According to the author we tend to reify the existence of nationalism considering it as an ideology. It would be better understand it as a social or anthropological relation at the level of family or religious relationships that as an ideology, since it doesn‘t got the consistency of political theories as for example, "liberalism" or even "fascism." Anderson proposed an anthropological approach which takes as its starting point the following definition: ―A nation is a political community that is imagined as both inherently limited and as sovereign.‖ (Anderson, 1991, p. 224) The nation is an imagined political community because although members of a nation don‘t know each other, yet they have in their minds a certain image of their communion. The nation is a political community imagined as something limited because it is never imagined as coincident with humanity. That is, no nation ever pretends nor wishes 18 that all mankind join them. The nation is a political community that is imagined as sovereign because the concept of nation came at a time where the Enlightenment and the French Revolution had destroyed "the grace of God" as a source of legitimacy of dynastic rule, having to turn to nation as a new basis of legitimacy. And the nation is a community that, despite the inequalities and exploitation that always exist within any social group, it is always conceived as a horizontal comradeship. Anderson thinks that the emergence of the novel and the newspaper provided the technical resources for thinking and representing the national imagined community. The book-newspaper was the first object of mass-produced consumption. Reading the press became a mass ceremony which took place every morning in the same territory and that helped to generate its corresponding national imagined community. 2.2.2 Pierre Bourdieu, Symbolic violence and Structural censorship To think the idea of symbolic violence implies necessarily thinking about the phenomenon of domination in social relations, especially its effectiveness, its mode of operation, and what makes it possible. Symbolic violence is the coercion which is setup only trough the consent that the dominated cannot fail to give to the dominator (and therefore to the domination) when their understanding of the situation can only use instruments of knowledge that they have in common with the dominator, which, being merely the incorporated form of the structure of the relation of domination, make this relation appear as natural. (Bourdieu 170) 19 To explain symbolic violence, Bourdieu makes use of the notion of habitus and with it, he tries to account the way in which social agents finds the world as evident in itself, and with it co-constitutes the dominance relation in which they take part. The habitus is a set of rules that generate adjusted practices to certain sche mes of thought, vision, judgment and action that agents incorporate throughout their lives. It‘s a kind of practical sense of what must be done in a certain situation. The social world is conceived as a multidimensional space in which various fields (economic, political, educational, cultural, etc.) function as spaces of power and are structured according to several variables. This social world is nothing but the significant network that is woven between all the component fields. The notion of field talks about a space in which agents put into play a certain type of capital, in which must agree with the imposed rules to participate. So as long as a force field, this space is simultaneously an area of struggle in which agents face different means and ends. Imposing a proper principle of vision and division, and influence on the consideration of what is legitimate, involves building the common sense, the sense of who we are together, and then legitimize our own place in that world in common. Domination, Bourdieu says, always has a symbolic dimension in so far that acts of obedience and submission – acts of fully conscious- are acts of knowing (of a structure) and recognition (of legitimacy). The possibility of building the common sense, sense of the social, enables functioning of structures of domination, not only making them readable in common, but natural and obvious. 20 The objects of the social world, constituted by the common sense, have certain margin of vagueness and uncertainty of a world shaped by various social agents, differentially located in the social fabric and significantly distributed in it. This diversity provides a basis for the plurality of visions of the world and thus, allows a symbolic struggle to impose the legitimate vision of the world. The higher or lower chances for this imposition will be at all related to the possession of a quantity of legitimate symbolic capital, which is simply the product of the previous symbolic struggles. However, symbolic violence is done by an act that is both o f knowledge (of the structure, of the common sense, of one's position and that of others, etc.), of recognition (because it gives a subjective sense to that structure, to that common sense, to those positions), but also of misrecognition. I call misrecognition the fact of recognizing a violence which is wielded precisely inasmuch as one does not perceive it as such. (…) What I put under the term of ―recognition‖, then, is the set of fundamental, prereflexive assumptions that social agents engage by the mere fact of taking the world for granted, of accepting the world as it is, and of finding it natural because their mind is constructed according to cognitive structures that are issued out of the very structures of the world.(Bourdieu y Vacquant 178) As a repository of common sense, the state somehow diagnosed and says what it has to be. Bourdieu describes the state as an organizational structure and a regulatory authority of practices, exercised by subjecting agents to impositions and disciplines. 21 2.2.3 Williams: Hegemony and Residual and emergent cultures The concept of hegemony is one of the Gramsci‘s contributions. It supposes the existence of something which is truly total and not just secondary of superstructura l, which constitutes the essence and limit of common sense for most people under its way. Williams underscore the emphasis in that hegemony is not singular. Its internal structures are highly complex, and they must be continually renewed, recreated and defended. But at the same time, they can be continually challenged and sometimes modified. Williams calls for a model which allows for this kind of variation and contradiction, its sets of alternatives and its processes of change. In any society within a particular period, we can find a central system of practices, meanings and values that can be called dominant and effective as they are organized and lived. But it should be borne in mind that such an effective and dominant culture is not a static system, but is dependent, rather, on the social process of incorporation. Williams has in mind, in this regard, the educational institutions of a given society which are the main agencies of the transmission of an effective dominant culture. What Williams terms the ―selective tradition‖ is ―that which, within the terms of an effective dominant culture, is always passed off as the tradition, the significant past‖ (Higgins 169). Williams stresses that the ―selectivity‖ is the crucial point, that is, the way in which certain meanings and practices are chosen for emphasis from a whole possible area of past and present, while other meanings and practices are neglected and excluded. Some of these meanings and practices are ―reinterpreted, diluted, or put into forms which support or at least do not contradict other elements within the effective dominant culture‖ ( Ibid, p. 169). 22 Williams proposes to think again practices, experiences, meanings, values which are not part of the effective dominant culture. Here we can find something which is alternative to the dominant culture and something which is oppositional. These forms of social life and culture have to be recognized as subject to historical variation and as having sources significant as a fact about the dominant culture itself. At this point, Williams introduces a distinction between residual and e mergent forms. Residual are those experiences, meaning and values that even they are not expressed in terms of the dominant culture; they are lived and practiced on the basis of the residue of some previous social formation. Emergent are those new created meanings, values and practices; new significances and experiences. The dominant culture is very alert to anything which can be seen as new and different. The effort is immediately made to incorporate it. Capitalist society is especially vigilant in this regard. The rela tionship of the dominant culture to the residual and emergent elements of a culture is, clearly, a temporal relationship. Williams also distinguishes between a merely alternative point of view and one that is oppositional. The former is usually an individualistic or ―small- group‖ affair, while the latter properly belongs to ―political and ultimately revolutionary practice‖. Of course, what today is tolerated as simply deviant tomorrow is crushed because of the challenge it poses. Williams argues that one of the best crucibles in which the emergent can be glimpsed is the formation of a ne w class, i.e. the coming to consciousness of a new class. No mode of production, and therefore no dominant society or order of society, and therefore no dominant culture, in reality exhausts the full range of human practice, 23 human energy, human intention (this range is not the inventory of some original ‗human nature‘ but, on the contrary, is that extraordinary range of variations, both practiced and imagined, of which human beings are and have shown themselves to be capable) (Ibid, p. 172). The modes of domination are selected, and therefore exclude the full range of actual and possible human practices. The practices outside or against the dominant mode depend on if the dominant class and the dominant culture have any interest in this area. If this interest is explicit the new practices will be incorporated or extirpated. But certain areas, he stresses, will not be reached for because by definition from its own limited character, or in its profound deformation, the dominant culture is unable in any real terms to recognize. Williams‘ point is that the arts in general and literature in particular are something of a hybrid creature, ideologically-speaking. Literature simultaneously contributes to the dominant culture and is a central articulation of it. Literature embodies residual meanings and values, not all of them incorporated but many of them are. Literature expresses also some emergent practices and meanings; however some of them may eventually be incorporated since they reach people and being to move them. 2.3 Methodology The main method of this work is Comic art analysis. The works analyzed were selected according to previous works of manga analyst, basically the work of Natsume Fusanosuke. Due to limitations in the language I tried to choose works that had been 24 translated to English. It was possible in almost all of them except the ones representative of the air pilot stories. The methodology is going to be applied by dividing the analysis into three main periods of the postwar years from the late 1950s to 1990s. The purpose is to analyze the transformations of the plot in Japanese manga about the World War II produced during those years. I‘m also going to make use of historical approach, because this study aims to determine if the Japanese comic art has reinforced or challenge the state‘s discourse of the war. 2.3.1 Historical approach To perform a historical approach is crucial to my research since what I want to explore is if postwar manga challenged or supported the state‘s narratives of the memories of the War World II. For doing so, the first thing I must do is analyze the social, political and economical changes of Japan during the postwar years, and elucidate how these changes affected the way to remember the war. Having defined the historical context, I will go deeper into manga analysis to figure out if manga was a response to the necessities of the Japanese official narratives. Also the Chapter 3 presents the historical development of Japanese comic art from its origins trough the World War II. This is to account how Japanese comic art has developed as a mass medium. 25 2.3.2 Comic art analysis The uniqueness nature of comic art (in which manga is included) reside in the blending of visual and verbal elements that together convey a narrative. Then, both elements must be taken in consideration within the analysis. The first popularized approach to Japanese visual language grammar was performed by Scott McCloud (1993). He defines comics as: "Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer" (McCloud, 1993, p. 9). According to him, the use of certain resources may determine a way to narrate the story. He provided particular aspects of comics which benefit the analysis of the narrative comics: (a) icons, vocabulary of comics; (b) panel-to panel closure, categories of transition between panels; (c) time frames expressed by either sound (word balloons and sound effects) or motion (panel-to-panel closure and motion within panels); (d) lines that represent a visible and invisible, word balloons containing words and non- verbal sounds; (e) backgrounds indicating emotions; (f) the d egree of word-picture combination (word specific, picture specific, duo-specific, additive, parallel, montage, and inter-dependent); and (g) color versus black and white. Due to time and goals restrictions, it is impossible to address all these aspects in the analysis. I will focus on those considered most necessary for this work. 26 McCloud‘s hypothesis is that sequential meaning could be derived from the linear relationships between panels, accomplished through various types of ―panel transitions.‖ The types of transition are: 1. Moment to moment: illustrate a short amount of time passing. 2. Action to action: illustrate a whole action occurring. 3. Subject to subject: illustrate a shift from character to character. 4. Scene to scene: illustrate shift between two different environments. 5. Aspect to aspect: step outside of time to show aspects of the environment. 6. Non sequitur: have no logical relationship between panels. In Japanese manga is common to find ―moment to moment‖ transitions and a lot of ―aspect to aspect‖ transitions, while in American comics is more common to find action, subject and scene transitions. He argues that the format of manga series allow the mangaka to dedicate more panels for scenes and focus on the moods and feelings of the chara cters. The panel transitions describe the relations between images. Thinking in terms of broader hierarchic structures shifts the focus away from what happens between the individual panels, over to how the content of panels fits into a larger cognitive architecture, making the understanding of sequences richer. 27 3. HISTORY OF MANGA Since I‘m considering manga as a mass medium I will focus on the period when manga began to be received by a mass audience. However, it‘s necessary to trace the origin and the history of Japanese comic art since manga is closely relate to Japanese history and culture. 3.1 Premodern Comic Art Some scholars mark the beginning of the tradition of comic art to Emaki (picture scrolls) that were created around the XII century. They are the oldest form of narrative comic art since they depict a story with a sequence of pictures. The famous one is Ch jūgiga attributed to Buddhist priest-artist Bishop Toba, drawn in the late Heian Period. This work is a four picture scroll depicting in a satirical way the corrupt society at the time with the particularity that the characters of Ch jūgiga are animals. Although the picture scrolls were the first form of Japanese comic art, they had a limited audience only among the elite class. It was not until the Edo Period that the manga reached a mass audience. During the Edo Period we can find three types of illustration: The Otsu-e, the Tobae and the Ukiyo-e. In the beginning of the Edo Period the local artist painted pictures and sold them to the people in the streets of Otsu. The first works were referred to Buddhism, but by the XVIII century they shifted to satire and humor, becoming very popular between the middleclass. 28 In the early XVIII century artist in Kyoto and Osaka created the Toba-E. They were a sort of books produced by woodblock printing process. Toba-E are considered the first comic books ever produced in the world, and they marked the beginning of reproducible comic art. Finally, the Ukiyo-e prints were enjoyed by the townspeople during the Edo Period. Katsushika Hokusai compiled and published a series of fifteen books titled Hokusai Manga in the early XIX century. The mainly characteristics of his work are: (a) it was intended as a guidebook to show the basics of art, i.e., how to accurately depict things; (b) it tried to portray scenes of the society satirically and playfully; and (c) it attempted to show that art can be an embodiment of an artist's imagination (Shimizu, 1985). In his title the word manga appeared for the first time. 3.2 First manga magazines When Japanese opened their borders to foreign trade in 1850 they became influenced by Western technologies. The English Charles Wirgman created Japan's first cartoon magazine, The Japan Punch (1862-1887) in order to inform the foreign community in Yokohama about Japan's politics and society. This magazine included cartoons on a ll pages. The magazine quickly gained reputation among foreigners and by 1865 became a monthly edition. Japanese manga have long been used for satire; this was particularly evident during the Jiyū minken und (Freedom and people‘s right movement). Some political leaders, under the influence of European thinkers as Rousseau and the liberal British philosophers, formed the first political party, the Aikoku K t , in 1874. This group used manga to get their antigovernment message out. In the same year, Kawanabe Kyosai, and Kanagaki 29 Robun created the Eshinbun Nipponchi (Illustrated Newspaper Japan), the first cartoon magazine published by the Japanese. Pitifully it only last two issues, but was the first attempt of Japanese to publish a magazine filled of cartoons. 3.3 Political manga in the Meiji Period (1868-1912) During the years of the imperial restoration of 1868, Japan experienced a radical shift in its social structure, from a traditional feudal to a modern industrial society. Since popular-rights movement extended throughout the nation, a weekly cartoon magazine named Marumaru Chinbun (1877-1907) also growth by satirizing the government. The owner of the magazine created a new type of manga mixing Western and Japanese styles. It was published every Saturday in both Japanese and English in order to reach a wider audience. These political and social drawings were welcomed by young intellectuals of that time. In 1894 the Sino-Japanese war exploded. Most of the mangaka drew manga supporting the state war policy and celebrating the victory. During the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905) the magazines like Nipponchi portrayed the Russians as week and cowardly. In 1905, Kitazawa Rakuten started a large-sized color cartoon magazine named Tokyo Puck (1905-1912). Its success was immediately, becoming biweekly in its second year and appeared every ten days the following year. All pages featured cartoons accompanied by captions in Japanese, Chinese, and English. That made the magazine an international success and forced to extend the topics to international affairs. To make the distinction of his cartoons between the others, Kitazawa named them manga. 3.4 Taisho Period (1912-1926): Proletarian cartoons 30 Taisho period is characterized by cultural and political liberalism. Mass culture introduced the modernity in everyday life of Japanese people. During this period a number of American comic strips were introduced to the Japanese newspapers and magazines. These American funnies had a big influence on the young mangaka. After Kitazawa quit the editorship of Tokyo Puck in 1912, another three editions followed it and the magazine was published until 1941. This was also a time when the Japanese government regulated the content of motion pictures and other media. Although started in 1925, the law was felt after 1931 with ―thought control‖ police who had the power to arrest artists and editors considered subversive because ―altering the national essence‖. The Proletarian Cartoon Movement began in the early 1920s but disappeared by the middle of 1930s due to repression of the state. This movement began to theorize about the role that manga can play in cultivating the masses by promoting Marxist ideology. The y conceive manga as an effective medium for agitation and propaganda. The Musansha Shinbun was founded in 1925 as "the communist party's aboveground organ" (Mitchell, 1983). In this newspaper political cartoon promoting leftist ideologies appeared. 3.5 Showa Period (1926-1989): Children’s manga, Pacific War and censorship. Even since Okamoto Ippei began to draw manga for his son in 1917, the boom of the children manga was in the early Showa Period. The main publishers were Kodansha and Nakamura Shoten. Kodansha compiled the most successful manga serialized in monthly magazines like Sh nen Club. 31 Two of the most famous manga in the prewar period were Norakuro (1931-1941) and Bouken Dankichi (1933-1938). The first one, written by Tagawa Suihou, was the story of an orphan dog that joined the army. This manga attracted the attention of the boys instantly and became a hit. The second was the story of Dankichi, a boy who became the king of a Pacific island and protected it against the white enemy. This story followed the events of the navy in the Pacific war. Some young cartoonist who adopted the style of American comics organized the New Cartoonist Faction Group in 1932. The key goal of this organization was to advertise its members as a group and to seek publishing outlets for them. They were well known for them ―nonsense manga‖ that contained more humor and less dialogues. One of the stars of the group was Yokohama Ryūichi. His drawing style was simple and playful. He depended less on verbal and more on the movements of the characters and visual humor. His famous work was Fuku-chan, which ran in the newspaper Asahi shinbun from 1936 to 1944. During the 1930s emerged the argument that manga had been corrupted and its artistic potential should be revisited. After the Japan-China war began in 1937, the discourse on manga turned to the relationship with the war. The founding declaration of the Tokyo Manga Institute stated: Manga is an indispensable political and economic weapon, and has grown into a powerful propaganda tool (…) our people need enjoyable manga to cleanse their minds. They need them as much as they need food. (Founding declaration) Most of the members of the Institute were arrested by the Special Higher Police in 1941 arguing that they were involved in ―lefty‘s cultural activities‖, and their magazine, Kakikare was discontinued in June. 32 During the Pacific War (1941-1945) the state control over manga became stricter. Magazines and newspapers were fused under the ―National Mobilization Law‖1 of the New Order. According to Okamoto Rei (1999) the result was a decreased number of publications and only three possibilities for the mangaka: comic strips in newspaper or magazines promoting national solidarity; single-panel cartoons denigrating the enemy; and propaganda leaflets made for both, enemy troops and Asian population. Because of the pressure put by the government over the publishers, they didn‘t accept any work that didn‘t respect the state policies. This censorship was not only imposed from the state, but also self-censorship was put in practice by the press workers and manga writers. However, children‘s manga had a rebirth after the war and grew to be a main genre. 3.6 Norakuro and Fuku-chan a. As I said before, by the 1930s magazines for Children as Sh nen Club or Sh jo Club started to feature heroic tales of Japanese soldiers, and showed its characters armed and ready for battle. ―Ganbatte‖ (do your best) became the slogan in the manga of this period, as Japan and its citizen prepared for the upcoming conflict. This period is bookended by two events: in 1931, the Mukden Incident, and in 1941, the invasion of Pearl Harbor. Tagawa Suih ‘s Norakuro, is an example of that kind of manga used to inspire values of sacrifice on the home front and courage on the battlefield even in the youngest readers. 1 The National Mobilization Law had fifty clauses, which provided for government controls over civilian organizations (including labor unions), nationalization of strategic industries, price controls and rationing, and nationalized the news media. The laws gave the government the authority to use unlimited budgets to subsidize war production, and to compensate manufacturers for losses caused by war -time mobilization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Mobilization_Law 33 3.6.1 Norakuro (1931-1941) Written by Tagawa Suih this manga began to appear in 1931 in the magazine Sh nen Club. Tagawa had a particular talent for ―nonsense manga‖ and ―rakugo‖2 . By that time, Kodansha‘s magazine Omoshiro Club was looking for some new rakugo writings, so he decided to take a shot. Aware of Tagawa‘s narrative skills, the editor asked him to draw cartoons. After drawing another manga for one year he came out with a new idea. The hero must be a dog and a soldier, two characteristics that children would like. That was the outline of Norakuro. Norakuro begins by introducing us to a black and white stray dog (maybe inspired by Felix the Cat) called Kurokichi, who is enrolled as a recruit to the army. At the beginning he is homeless and extremely poor. It‘s a dog without home, family, and not very smart. Even if he always tries to do the right thing, he always ended up ruining everything. Kurokichi managed to join the ―Fierce Dog Regiment‖ and repeating his failures all over again. But the response from its readers was surprising. The children supported Norakuro to the point of writing letters offering him they home to stay on Sundays. So Tagawa decided to promote the dog to private first class by the end of the second year. By that time the character turned independent of the intentions of his creator. Then, responding to the expectations of his readers made climb the ranks of the dog gradually up to lieutenant. 2 It’s a Japanese verbal entertainment. Using only a paper fan and a small cloth, the storyteller sits on the stage and depicts a long and complicated comical story. The story always involves the dialogue of two or more characters, the difference between the characters depicted only through change in pitch, tone, and a slight turn of the head. 34 In the end, Norakuro runs for eleven years, since 1941, just before the beginning of the Pacific War. We can note that the design of the pages of this manga is extremely simple. Normally there are three horizontal panels per page and the sense of motion given from a frame to another is virtually zero. Although it contains some scenes of action, this is totally static. Fig. 1 Norakuro vs. pigs (Chinese). 1937 From 1932 to 1936 Norakuro fought only against hilarious enemies such like monkeys, chimpanzees, kappas and frogs. But in 1937, parallel to the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war, the enemies changed to pigs. Those pigs, from every standpoint, were parodies of Chinese soldiers (Fig.1 and Fig 2). In the Fig.1, the pig‘s dialogue is Fig. 2 Norakuro vs. pigs, 1937 stereotyped version of Chinese dialect. The plot was suddenly turned into a Fig. 2 Norakuro vs. pigs (Chinese). 1937. realistic story. By then, Norakuro had already been promoted to a Second Lieutenant with considerable responsibilities. Norakuro was promoted as high as Major, but later was relieved of his position at his own request so he might be free. Then he went to Manchuria and worked at 35 developing natural resources. It is said that Tagawa wanted to continue increasing in rank to Norakuro. But the Japanese army, sick of the character trivialized armed forces and war, not only prevented Norakuro came to captain, but pushed for the series to be cut off. Although Norakuro was published in black and white in Sh nen Club, later it was redrawn by Tagawa and published in volumes printed in full color, protected in a cardboard box lined with cloth hardcover. Each volume was titled with Norakuro‘s rank at the time, and in total there are ten of these volumes. Even though the character wasn’t strictly military, it contributed to the popular feeling that war was a normal every day affair. When the war broke out, everybody was expecting it, because the psychological preparation was complete. b. After Japan‘s entry into the WW2 in 1937, mangaka were required to join a government-supported trade organization, the Shin Nippon Mangaka Kyokai (The New Cartoonist Association of Japan). Because of a restructuring of media and a shortage of paper, the number of newspapers and magazines, including cartoon magazines, decreased drastically in 1940. Mangaka who weren‘t fighting on the front lines, working in the factories or banned from cartooning drew manga following the government‘s guidelines for acceptable content. That manga included family-style humor situations and inventiveness of wartime everyday life. An example of this kind of manga is Fuku-chan. Its creator, Yokohama Ryūichi was sent to the war zone to create comics in service of the Japanese military. 3.6.2 Fuku-Chan (1936-1971) 36 Written by Yokoyama Ryūichi, the strip clearly aimed at family members including children, often depicting wartime life from children‘s point of view. The strip functioned as part of new journalism, incorporating then current events and war-related news. It ran in the home section of Asahi Shinbun from 1936 to 1944. After the war the strip continued in Mainichi Shinbun, from 1956 to 1971. Yokoyama having encountered with Western cartoons, developed a fascination with the simplified drawings. So he started to draw ―nonsense‖ for magazines and founded the New Cartoonist Faction Group. The main character, Fuku-chan, was a preschooler boy, and often depicts the war time issues from his point of view. He was usually pictured in the same garb-a college cap, white apron, and geta (wooden shoes). Fuku-chan was derived from another strip started in January 1936 under the title, Edokko Ken-chan. But rapidly the cute and prankish Fuku became more popular than the well-behaved Ken. The strip started with Fuku's millionaire uncle adopting him as a successor. Fuku used to call the uncle "Grandfather" because he is an old man. Another important character in the strip was Arakuma, a university student hired as Fuku's tutor. The uncle became so impressed with the simplicity of the living of his nephew and his tutor that he also decided to move to the countryside. Also Fuku‘s mother and younger brother appeared in the strip, but they were never really relevant to the story. The strip was welcomed as being refreshing and sophisticated. Its basic layout was in vertical four panels, drawn in black and white. In most cases, the narrative of each daily installment was auto conclusive, with the last frame presenting a punch line or a gag. The drawing style helped the reader focus on ―the graphic center of narrative focus‖ (Harvey, 1994), providing an effective way to storytelling. 37 When this manga started, the war between Japan and China was imminent, so the war was present from the very beginning. But since the war advance, the life of the people was constrained, and that can be seen in the comic. Anyway the characters never showed any doubt about Japan victory and they were willing to suffer in Fig. 3 Fuku-chan Jissen, 1941, Asahi Shinbun. order to achieve state goals. As the main ingredients of the strip were humor and nonsense, the war made it difficult to find appropriate topics. The war usually appeared in children‘s play. For example, in Fig.3 Fuku-chan made gas mask with a broken lantern. But as the war situation went worst, everyone, including children was expected to working hard to win the war. So the character of Fuku was gradually molded as a good child as all children were expected to be. Hard work and body training were encouraged in the strip during 1944. For example, as they were in a training camp the children were submitted to several tasks in order to increase discipline and strength. The situations and characters were generally the same, except for a brief period in 1942, when Yokoyama was drafted as part of the army press corps and sent to Java; there, he drew propaganda cartoons and toured to encourage Japanese troops. Trough the character of Fuku, he reported his experience of the war and Javanese way of life. This special series ran for 3 months. In the Java series Yokoyama basically reported the differences and the similarities between Javanese and Japanese culture, and always depicted Java as a paradise. 38 Fig. 4 Fuku-Chan, 1943, Asahi Shinbun. During the strip there were also two concrete references to enemies‘ leaders: one to Chiang Kai-Sek, Generalisimo of the Nationalist government of China, and the other to Winston Churchill, Britain‘s prime Minister. In Fig. 4 Fuku and his uncle got angry with a pumping that looked like Churchill. Like other articles in the newspaper of the time, the subject matter of the strip was carefully chosen to meet the state standard of appropriate topics. The characters faithfully supported the state propaganda campaign. Probably the most susceptible character was Arakuma, who became more patriotic and energetic as the war dragged out. Fuku-chan was an integral part of domestic propaganda intended to heighten the morale of the home front and serving as a role model to the readers. 39 4. 1950s AND 1960s It can be said that during the immediate postwar years, Japanese were silent about the war. Not until the ratification of the Peace treaty between the Allied Powers and Japan in 1951, the first stories dealing with the war appeared. 4.1 Historical context By the end of the World War II Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers 3 , led by the United States. That was the first time since Japan unification that the nation had been occupied by a foreign power. On December of 1945, General Mc Arthur released an order to set up the International Prosecution Section for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, better known as the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal. The judges were chosen from U.S allies whose fought in the WW2, that‘s why, is not surprising that the issues of colonialism were suppressed and focused on war atrocities. Furthermore, Mc Arthur protected Emperor Hirohito from condemnation as war criminal, keeping him the throne. The goal of United States was to exploit this system in order to smooth the occupation of Japan. Some Japanese officials and American scholars believed that the emperor could play a key role in the unification of Japan as a nation within the new system. They argued that Hirohito was 3 The anti-Ger man coalition at the start of the war (September 1939) consisted of France, Poland and the United Kingdom, soon to be joined by the British dominions (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa). After 1941, the leaders of the United States of America, the British Commonwealth, and the Soviet Union known as the "Big Three", held leadership of the allied powers. China, at that time, was also a major Ally. Other Allies included Belgium, Brazil, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Greece, India (as part of the British Empire), Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allies_of_World_War_II 40 manipulated by the military leaders and that actually he took the initiative to end the war. Thereby the emperor emerged as a peace maker who saves Japan from total annihilation. During the first postwar years, the Occupation authorities had censored every attempt to talk about the recent military conflict. This censorship relied on ten points of the Press Code, which states than nothing should ―disturb public tranquility‖. But also the devastation of the postwar was such that Japanese people were busy trying to survive and had no time to remember or regret. ―Japan‘s defeat was a national event: as a nation, could no longer exist as it had, and its members were forced to reconsider its very foundation‖ (Igarashi, 2000, p.12). The American framing of the War Crimes Tribunal and the building of the representation of the emperor as a peace symbol contributed to create the image of Japan as war victim who we re tricked by military leaders represented by General Tojo Hideki. The result was to relieve Japanese people from the necessity to rethink about colonization of Taiwan and Korea, war crimes such as Nanking Massacre, and emperor’s responsibility. The Treaty of San Francisco, signed in 1951 declared formal hostilities officially ended. By this treaty the Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida gave up all the territories conquest since 1895 and agreed to concede Okinawa to U.S. rule. Japan and the United States signed a separate agreement known as Japan-U.S. Security pact. With it, Japan consented the stationing of American bases on its land in order to protect them from outside aggressions. Both treaty and pact took effect in 1952, marking the end of postwar military occupation. This fact allowed the memories of the war to resurge in popular consciousness. 41 In the article 11 of the treaty, Japan accepted the judgments of the Tokyo War Tribunal and committed to carry out the sentences imposed upon Japanese nationals. But at the same time the article left open the possibility that class B or C war criminals would be granted clemency or reductions in them sentences. After the treaty came into effect, a movement demanding the release of B and C criminals began, and they turned to be victims of war instead of criminals for the majority of Japanese. By the end of 1958, all Japanese war criminals (A, B and C class) 4 were release from prison. In that way Japanese refused to accept any responsibility of the war within the domestic policy. According to Natsume (1997), in 1956 the government of Japan declared in its annual economic White Paper that the postwar period was over. The record of publications about the war went up to over 60. By the end of 1950s the situation of Japanese people was slowly getting better. They could enjoy the shanju no jingi (three imperial regalia) consistent in a refrigerator, a washing machine and a TV set and lived in functional apartments. This improvement in life quality allowed the people to reflect about the war. During the war, the Japanese aeronautical engineers acquired high valued knowledge by developing high-speed fighter planes. After the war most of these engineers joined the automobile industry and later contributed to the creation of the Shinkansen network. 4 Class A: crimes against peace. Class B: war crimes per se. Class C: crimes against humanity. 42 In October 1958 the Japanese government announced its intention to renegotiate the pact with the United States. This action was not welcome between Japanese citizens as the economic recovery of Japan made such agreement seem unnecessary. The opposition intensified by the end of 1959 when the URSS declared a right to retaliate against the American bases. Finally in 1960, the ampo t s brought down the government of Nobosuke Kishi, accused before of war crimes but released unproven by the Occupation authorities. The Anti-security Pact Movement created an atmosphere in which United States reemerged as the ―enemy‖ once again. In this context, people could again enjoy manga glorifying patriotic spirit. In a speech of the first War Dead Commemoration Day held on 1963 the Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda said that behind Japan‘s recovery for the war were the dreams of the ones who died for the country. An answer for the families of the war victims came to t he light: Their deaths set the foundation for Japan‘s prosperity. That marked the renewal of Japanese Nationalism. The celebration of the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964, symbolized Japan‘s reemergence as a player on international stage. This was the social background that gave way to air pilot manga celebrating military technology and the soldier‘s courage. 4.2 Manga context 43 Manga had to face the same problems as the other publications. During the occupation years it faced the censorship and neglected. During the 50s manga editors had to faced the challenge of keep teenagers reading manga. As a result, many editors launched manga magazines targeting them, and some quickly enjoyed a big success. Yonezawa (1996) states that the first manga dealing with the World War II was Senj shiirizu (The Battlefield series) written by Taro Himoto. This work published in 1957, was written during the Occupation period, but censored due to its content. But the manga world remained silent about the war until the late 1950s. Why? 1. Since war stories could evoke a sad past, war stories were omitted in the first decade. Younger readers needed stories of hope for a better future or fantasy escapism. The main genre that was developed under the first postwar years was the Science Fiction, providing dreaming and hopes for a better future. 2. The silence about the war was an indicative of the unwillingness to confront the past. The resurgence of Japanese nationalism during the 1960s, and the growing interesting in war technology and war heroes made the war stories to become permissible for children easier. The war turned from terrifying to fascinating. The first works were published and distributed through the kashihonya (paylibraries), but due to their success they jumped to the weekly boys‘ magazines by the beginning of 1960s. This manga was classified by the Japanese term senki mono (records of war), conveying the impression that they were narrating real stories. 44 But during this period also a new generation of mangaka appeared, the Towais generation composed mostly of young artist. So there are two changes: mangaka generation and the style of manga. Eldad Nakar (2008) states that early manga of the World War II displayed two main characteristics: they concentrate in the battlefield ignoring the home front, and they are air war adventures featuring brave and fearless pilots flying to victory or to dea th. It‘s a common thing within these manga to use the name of the fighter plane (usually the Zero) in their names. Some examples are: Sh nen Zero sentai (1959), Zero-sen redo (1961) and Zero-sen Hayato (1963). The only connection with the SF manga of the immediate postwar was the notion of self sacrifice and heroism. The plots of this early works always focus on Japanese pilots bravely fighting against the enemy. They always profess such a love for the country that they are willing to die in defense of the homeland. One characteristic of these stories is that they prolong the aerial combat for pages. The dogfights occupy the center of the narrative tending always to highlight the bravery and ability of Japanese pilot under fire. In terms of visual style the most remarkable characteristics of this works is the child appearance of the heroes. There are several theories to explain that feature: 1. One is that is made to reflect the youth of the soldiers who were drafted to the war in the final stages of the war. 2. Keeping the cuteness and childlike appearance of the heroes the experiences of the war were easier to depict. The death and the suffering its usually exclude from this manga. 45 3. A legacy of Tezuka‘s drawing style. 4. Dower (1986) believes that the childlike appearance could be read as a strategy of identification of the heroes with Momotaro. That‘s because Japanese trust in the ability of youthful to overcome massive odds. According to Dover the cute pilots in this period was stick to a visual myth plot structure which tried to knock over the fact of defeat. Usually situated at the end of the World War II, Japanese soldiers are depicted in a defensive position. Japanese bombers were never featured. The only bombers are Americans and the Zero pilots are always defending the innocent Japanese civilians. These stories allowed the readers to concentrate on the heroism of the pilots and to feel proud of the Japanese technological achievements. There is no defeat because what is shown is always a fragment of a mayor reality where victorious battles obscure the lost war. The selected memories mirrore d in the manga of this period depicted the war as a national heroic mome nt. The fact that these memories of pilots flooded children‘s literature in the end of 50s and beginning of the 60s proves the power of these images within society and the high degree of acceptance. Despite protest of educators, parent‘s associations and some literary critics none of these stories was cancelled. So the general acceptance was higher than some aisled resistance. Even though most of manga offered a positive representation of war, there were some dissident narratives of World War II not presenting a romanticized version of the conflict. Garo made the first open critique to World War II. Garo was able to propose this 46 criticism of war and go against the official narrative because the intentions of the magazine were mainly political and not commercial. Natsume (1997) pointed out that anti-war narratives were barely published during this period. Shigeru Mizuki himself testified that while he began to write this kind of material during the 50s, he had serious difficulties in publishing as editors were not interested in them. Anti-war stories became the re jected narrative of that time. 4.3 Manga analysis As the vast majority of manga featured the air war, I will analyze two of the air pilot manga that I found available in book stores. Except Shidenkai no Taka, which has several editions, the access to other manga of this period is quite difficult. 4.3.1 Zero-sen redo (1961) The author: Kaizuka Hiroshi was born in Chiba in 1938. He made his debut in 1957 after working as administrative staff in Chiba‘s railways. Only after one year started with one of his most famous series, Kuri kuri t shu (Smoothie Pitcher), published in the Omoshiro Book. Since then he specialized in youth publications, mainly in the sport genre. In 1966 he published his own magazine devoted to articles about comics, the ephemeral Manga Maniac. 47 The plot: This manga follows the adventures of six boy pilots who disobey their orders to sacrifice themselves in a Japanese suicide attack. Instead, they start they own unconventional war on the bounds of the regular Japanese forces. The story takes place somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. The pilots begin to steal food from US bases and bring it to Japanese forces. But all they efforts are unrewarded since they are declared traitors and hunted by the Japanese as well as the Americans. The title of the story derives from the design of the Zero fighter planes which are painted red on top and blue below. If the planes fly low over the sea they seem to be flying upside down and if they fly close to the sun they disappear turning the red side to the enemy. As we can see in Fig. 5, the planes and the military hardware were drawn in extreme detail evoking more a technical drawing than a manga frame. Fig. 5 Details of the plane. Zero Sen Reddo, 1961 It seems that the planes were so real in order to resemble the senki-mono, giving an impression of realism to the story. Also, as I said before, these years were marked by a technology advance that made the Japanese be proud of it. Show the complexity of the airplanes it‘s a way to glorify these technological acknowledgements. 48 Dead is barely shown in this manga. The readers have to imagine the dead rather than see it. For example in the first volume, Sergeant Akida feeling embarrassed by his Fig. 6 Suicide of Akida. Zero Sen Reddo, 1961 behavior commits suicide. In Fig. 6 we can see him in one frame pointing a gun to his head and several pages later (Fig. 7) is founded dead by the Zero Sen Pilots. If we look in detail, we can see that he is still holding his gun, so that confirms he killed himself because of guiltiness feelings. Fig. 7 Suicide of Akida. Zero Sen Reddo, 1961 Acording to McCloud (1993) this space between panels its called ―the gutter‖. This depend on the human capacity of closure. Closure is the ―phenomenon of observing the parts but percieving the whole. (…) Closure allows us to connect this moments and mentally construct a continuos, unifed, reality‖(McCloud, 1993, p. 63-67). In the limbo of the gutter imagination takes two separates images and transform them into one idea. Closure allows as to conect moments to construct a continuos reality. Even though closure is in every single panel of every single comic, this is a good example of how ―the gutter‖ can fill an idea without the necessity of show it. Actually, McCloud states ―To kill a man between panels is to condemn him to a thousand deaths‖(McCloud, 1993, p. 69). 49 For depicting the death in this manga the transition using between panels is mainly ―subject to subject‖. Staying on the same scene or idea, the reader involvement is necessary to give meaning to the transition. Fig. 8 Aerial combat. Zero Sen Reddo, 1961 At the same time, the act of killing someone is just depicted as a cloud of smoke in the sky while the enemy plane falls down (Fig. 8). There is no blood, no harms, so the pilots could be innocents in some way for these crimes, death is distant and they hands remain clean. To depict the movement and the speed of the airplanes we can notice here the use of what McCloud calls the ―motion line‖. This is part of a new tendency of drawing introduced by Shirato Sanpei. With his ninja‘s manga he changed the drawing style and turned from fantastic to more realistic, this can be read as a break with Tezuka‘s style. On the other hand the cuteness child- like appearance of the characters is still inscribed into Tezuka‘s drawing techniques. As I said before, it‘s a characteristic of this kind of manga to depict the heroes as young and cute boys. But here in particular Fig. 9 Chibitan wets his pants. Zero Sen Reddo, 1961. this tendency is exaggerated, especially with a character called Chibitan, who seem to have barely completed the elementary school. In fact, in the first volume of the manga we can 50 see that after a forced landing Chibitan wets his pants inside the plane (Fig. 9). Nakar (2003) thinks that the representation of the heroes as junior officers excludes them for the overall of the war. In doing so, the responsibility for war crimes cannot be questioned. I think that the representation of heroes as children against the enemy depicted as adults, it‘s a way to show the disadvantage of Japanese against the enemy by the end of the war. In a combat of children vs. adult its logic that even winning some battles, they will lose at the end. According to Igarashi Yoshikuni (2000), the use of atomic bomb against Japan and the non-Judgment of Hirohito during the Tokyo crimes promote a foundational narrative of postwar relations between Japan and United States based on a gendered relation, where Japan plays the role of the woman. This excessive cuteness in the Japanese characters with almost feminine features, against the mature and manly depiction of the enemy could respond to this. 4.3.2 Shidenkai no taka (1963-1965) The author: Chiba Tetsuya was born in Tokyo in 1939, but lived most of his early childhood in Manchuria, when it was still a Japanese colony during the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1956 he drew his first work as a professional cartoonist with Fukushu no Semushi, (The Hunchback Avenger). Later, in 1958, he started work on a weekly serial magazine with Mama no Baorin (Mom's Violin). Then, in 1961 he began to work in a weekly boy's magazine with Chikai no Makyu (The Promised Pitch). 51 The plot: The story begins in the summer of 1944, almost by the end of the war, at a Japanese air force base in Taiwan. The main character is a young pilot named Taki, who joins the unit and soon becomes an ace in aerial combat. The story follows his maturation as he shoots down American planes. During this process Taki realizes that the enemy is also human and has family and feelings just like Japanese soldiers do. This is helped by the fact that American Fig. 30 Using of katakana. Shidenkai no Taka, 1963 pilots can speak Japanese, which is represented in the manga by the use of word balloons containing katakana instead of hiragana, as we can see in Fig. 10. This is maybe a way to show the ―otherness‖. Even though the ―enemy‖ can speak the same language it‘s still different. Katakana in Japanese is use for the foreign words. So the enemy speaks Japanese, but foreign Japanese. As the things get worse for Japan, Taki starts questioning about the real purpose of the war. He remembers his dead mates and even the family of one of his main enemies killed at Peal Harbor. These entire events end up making him think that the war is stupid and unnecessary. In the dramatic point of the story he is selected with other pilots for a suicide mission. As a natural rebel he first refuse to accept, but finally the commanding officer persuades him to do it on behalf of Japan. The officer tells Taki that his sacrifice can save 52 the lives of Japanese civilians from American bombing raids. So in the last sequence, Taki takes off on his kamikaze mission hoping to save Japan. This manga was drawn like a typical sh nen manga of the time: a very strong and powerful character fighting rivals and enemies with definitive attack techniques. That was the same pattern as the sport manga. The main characters have the same face as the main ones of Chikai no Makyu5 and the same features. The protagonist prefers to move by itself and not as a team. He doesn‘t look as a typical Japanese soldier. Even his plane is different from the others. The strategy of the protagonist is a technique invented by him consisting in plummet at high speed to simulate the plane Fig. 11 Flying technique. Shidenkai no Taka, 1963. disappears (Fig. 11). The manga includes a scientific explanation of the strategy warning that can be dangerous because the pilot could fall unconscious by the pressure of gravity. To depict this technique a mix between ―moment to moment‖ and ―action to action‖ transition is used. The first one requires very little closure, as we can see in the four panels of the upper- left. The second features the subject making an action progression. McCloud (1993) states that this mix of transitions was common in Tezuka‘s manga. ―Moment to 5 It’s a ase all a ga of Chi a Tetsuya pu lished i 19 1. 53 moment‖ transition requires more panels to narrate what ―action to action‖ can resume using two. These attack techniques were all derived from the techniques of the ninja manga. Taki‘s rival, for example, has a technique to move from place to place in less than a second. Later in the manga is discovered that are actually two planes and one is piloted by his brother. According to Natsume (1997) this work is an exception to the regular narratives themes of this kind of manga since the hero dare to question the purpose of the war and the decisions of the authorities by the end of the story. Chiba could not draw the pilot's sacrifice as something cool because he himself was against it, thinking that this way of dying was "die like a dog". In the last part of the manga Taki realizes that Japan will lose the war and he decides to become a teacher to build a new Japan. He tries to justify staying alive would be more useful than die in a suicide mission. But note that this manga run for three years, and in its beginnings also showed the fascination with war machinery and the heroics and almost impossible actions in battle. In Fig. 12 we can see Taki flying his plane blindfolded after an Fig. 14 Flying blindfolded. Shidenkai no Taka, 1963 accident. This is the epitome of heroism which characterizes manga of this period. 54 Another exception in this manga is that the figure of the enemy is represented and Fig. 15 Meeting the enemy. Shidenkai no Taka, 1963 not only a group or a collective ―other‖. In the first volume Taki meets George Kisama, an American pilot almost as good as Taki (Fig. 13). In both manga the enemy is exclusively United States. Nakar (2003) states that the identification of this country with the recent events in Hiros hima and Nagasaki, and the attack on other cities, made it easier to accept the fact that killing Ame ricans was the right thing. One of the most impressive things of Shidenkai no Taka is it final scene. Taki's mother and her friend ignore that Taki had gone on a suicide mission and in the last frame are seen coming out of the train with gifts for him. Usually in the last parts of the manga the order of the vignettes was the opposite, with the last scene showing the pilot flying to his final destination. This manga was innovative in that sense. Taki has abandoned his dream of being a teacher, her mother, and her friend with the hope that his death could save Japan. The classic manga of this time although used to have a tragic end tended to be more optimistic, this manga is darker. The hero is not "kakkoi" because it is trying to believe but not convinced that it will work. In a typical manga, he should be sure that his death will save Japan. Here is where the manga get some distance from the sh nen manga. The main character became deeper and complex along the 55 story. It seems that the more advanced the manga, the more reflected are the words of Chiba Tetsuya in the words of Taki: ―live is better‖. Taki behavior marks the passage from sh nen manga to seinen manga where the main character reflects the author's idea, he thinks, suffers and gets angry. It is no coincidence that the years of publication of this manga match with the coming of age of the generation that read kodomo manga in the 50s. In the latter half of the 60s this similarity between the character and the author became more radical. New mangaka who innovate and provide the basis of modern manga began to appear. Manga of this period then, respond to the necessities of the time, since the mangaka we re simply responding to the demands of the times. “They did so by touching up their recollections of the war to fit the conte mporary social frame work.” (Nakar, Memories of Pilots and Planes: World War II in Japanese Manga, 1957-1967 73) These stories where consistent with the dominant discourse of war circulating in Japanese society. 56 5. 1970s Vietnam War and international relations with China and Korea prompted Japanese to rethink about their responsibility in the World War II. Japanese government apologized for the first time and some testimonies about the Nanking Massacre began to appear. 5.1 Historical context In early 1965 United States began to bomb the North of Vietnam. Images of American brutality were broadcasting in Japanese media. The positive image of the U.S. slowly went undermined within Japanese society. During 1970s some bomber, troops and military supplies for the Vietnam War were dispatched from the U.S bases in Japan. That led to a general fear that Japan could be drag again to a war and gave birth to contestation from both inside and outside the political arena. The idea expressed in the constitution that Japan must be the first pacifist country in the war wa s taking roots in this generation. A movement called Beheiren (Japan Peace for Vietnam Alliance) was formed to oppose the aggression and protest against Japan‘s support to United States in Vietnam War. To avoid the possibility of Japanese becoming attackers in the war, Oda Makoto –the leader of the movement- pointed out the necessity of recognize that Japan was both victim and assailant in the World War II. He was the first to publicly criticize the victimhood paradigm. Additionally, during this decade the efforts to normalize the relationship with China and South Korea encouraged the debate of Japan‘s war responsibility with China. The Japanese couldn‘t ignore any more the accusations of wartime crimes. In 1970s Japanese politicians apologize for the first time, but other Asian governments didn‘t believe that it 57 was a sincere apology. In this context, some reports about the Chinese victims of Japanese military atrocities like the Nanking Massacre began to come to light. For example, Maruki Toshi and Iri 6 completed a series of canvas called Death of American Prisoners of War in 1971, Crows in 1972, and The Rape of Nanking in 1975. As they lost relatives during Hirosima bombing, they perceived the war only from the perspective of victims of the bomb. But when they traveled to USA in the 1970s, they could have a view of the other side of the story. During this period it was civilian rather than former soldiers those who dared to write war memories, focusing mainly in the air raids. The newspaper Asahi Shinbun published in 1965 a collection of war stories of average Japanese named Chichi no senki (Father‘s records of war). This opened the way for war stories that broke down the partition between front line and home front. Another topic which began to gain importance was the ―comfort women‖7 . In 1976 all the articles written by the journalist Senda Kak were compiled in a book that became the first Japanese book dealing this issue. Focusing mainly in Korean women, the book was quite a bestseller. By that time the issue was well known in Japan, but only as a domestic issue and not as an international one. In the meanwhile, the Japanese government increased the effort to restore some prewar educational policies. They implemented a revised standard curriculum in elementary, junior and high school with the purpose of encourages patriotism. 6 The Hiroshima Panels: are a series of fifteen painted folding panels depicting the consequences of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as other nuclear disasters of the 20th century. 7 A euphemism to designate women forced to serve as sexual slaves for the Japanese army. 58 Since 1947, the School Education Law ruled that all of the text books must respond to the requirements set by the Ministry of Education. By this law the textbooks became an effective political medium to convey the official history through mandatory education 8 . In 1965, the historian Ienaga Sabur litigated the Japanese government when the Education Ministry asked him to rewrite many parts of his textbooks. Manga also became a n antiestablishment respond to this law. Within this context we can‘t ignore the oil crisis that started in 1973 during the Arab-Israeli war. The Arabian countries cut the oil supplies to the countries that were hostile to them cause. The shortened of oil in Japan brought back the memories of scarcity during the war. Japanese people were now ready to face the other reality of the war, including the suffering and the hopelessness into the narratives. Pacifis m and denunciation of armed conflicts became the mainstream idea within society. 5.2 Manga context In 1967 one issue of the magazine for young boys Shūkan Sh nen, sold for the first time more than 1.000.000 copies. Considering this success, editors proposed manga targeted to young adults in order to accompany their readers throughout their life. 8 Althusser in Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses named the school as the educational Ideological State Apparatuses as there the children learn the know-how, but also the rules of good behavior; i.e. the attitude that should be observed by every agent in the division of labor , a ordi g to the jo he is desti ed for. Williams in his essay Base and superstructure in Marxist Cultural theory also pointed the educational institutions of a society as the main agencies of the transmissio of a effe ti e do i a t ulture . 59 By the end of 1960s a new kind of manga began to win the reader‘s attention. Airplane pilot manga faced many criticisms for their positive depiction of the war and disappeared from comic magazines. Contrary to the past decade, these new stories were openly critical of the war. The plots now focused not only in front, but also in the civilians affected by the war. The new topics explored the moral and political ambiguities of war, mainly the atomic bomb. According to Dower (1999), the war left more than 120.000 orphans and homeless children in Japan but the government policies for help were limited. Not only the government neglected this issue, but also omitted it from the narrative of World War II. Manga came to fill that gap. These stories focus on the trauma of the children who saw their parents die and how did they manage to survive and even some of them to realize their dreams. The manga of this period didn‘t hesitate to portrait the a trocities of the war, the dead, and the suffering. This usually appears from the very beginning, in the cover, of some works. This is a clear difference with the cute faces of the fighter pilots of past decade. The soldiers are no longer kids. Devastated b y the war, the characters lost the innocence and had to struggle to survive. I will not go deep into the issue but I do wish to mention it. During this decade the topic of the World War II began to appear in girl‘s manga also. These stories are centered in the tragedy of the heroine who lost her love in the war and all the controversies that she had to face trough the war. 60 The dominant discourse of this period is no longer about heroic war stories. The new stories don‘t look back with nostalgia to the glory of the Japanese empire neither apotheosizes the ideals of honor and duty. They examine the course of the war and the tragic outcome of the events. The hegemonic narrative of this time feature ordinary soldiers facing the reality of the war, from death to hunger. The soldiers here aren’t heroes but victims. 5.2.1 The boom of Gekiga Gekiga is a style of manga that emerged in 1959 and became popular by the end of 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. The term was used for the first time by Tatsumi Yoshihiro in the story Yūrei taxi. Then, in 1959 Tatsumi together with another mangaka founded the Gekiga Atelier in Osaka. The style emerged from three trends in postwar manga: 1) The one of Tatsumi Yoshihiro and his group mostly specialized in short- manga for the rental industry. 2) The one of Shirato Shinpei and Mizuki Shigeru emerged from the kamishibai and the oral story telling tradition. 3) The one of Tezuka Osamu and his manga inspired in Walt Disney‘s films. Tastumi wrote in his Gekiga Manifesto that ―the difference between manga and gekiga most certainly lies in artistic technique, but it can also be defined by its target audience‖ (Tatsumi, 1968, p. 28). He defined the target audience as ―ranging from middle 61 school to first grade high school students‖, but admitting that the art of Shirato Sanpei and Hirata Hiroshi also captivated mature readers. The boom mainly occurred in Garo, a monthly manga magazine founded in 1964 by Nagai Katsuichi with the help of Shirato Sanpei. Its name is related to one of Shirato‘s gekiga ninja characters. Actually the first serialization published in the magazine was Kamui, a ninja drama manga which became a best seller within the college student engaged with social movements in 1960s. Usually the birth of gekiga is seen as a reaction against Tezuka‘s drawing style focused in children readers of the early postwar years. Gekiga style contained more mature, serious drama, depicted in a more realistic graphic style and usually portraying the anger of Japan‘s younger generation. Its major impact was its popularity amongst young urban workers and university student activists, where it became part of the anti-establishment politics of the time. Gekiga marked the shift from anthropomorphic analogies to realism, focusing on the self depicted through the individualism of characters in American movies. The realization of cinematographic effects encouraged the increase of realistic drawing techniques in manga. The success of this new style led to a more mature adult-oriented content which increased the target and diversified the media. 5.2.2 A-bomb manga 62 In 1954 a tuna fishing boat was exposed to nuclear fallout on the Bikini Atoll. The dead of one of fishermen and the fear of the fish could be contaminated alerted Japanese of the danger of radiation. As a result, a lot of anti- nuclear weapons movements began in Japan. The first manga that deals with the nuclear bomb as a social menace is Kaoru Hanano's Bikini: Shino-Hai (The Deadly Fallout in Bikini), published in 1954. But the A-bomb manga had prospered in the sh jo manga genre. By the time that buying manga magazines became common in Japan, the A-bomb mangas were featured in mainly magazines for teenage girls, such as Nakayoshi, Weekly Margaret, and Sh jo Friend. Often the covers were filled with stars and flowers and beautiful girls. Because of these covers, male readers kept away from this kind of manga. The plot usually showed the life of a happy girl whose life takes a violent turn when the ―A-bomb disease‖ hits her. The commotion and shock she undergoes then is the key point of the story which basically ends with the dead of the protagonist leaving behind all her memories. However the A-bomb was not taken as a major element that create tragedy but as another natural disaster. In 1973 the most famous manga on the A-bomb was published. It was Hadashi no Gen, written by Nakazawa Keiji. This comic defined what would become the genbaku (atomic bomb) manga genre. The A-bomb turned into a medium capable to send a social message rather than a form of entertainment. By the 1980s and 1990s, A-bomb mangas began to disappear from commercial manga magazines. Simply put, the topic of the A-bomb was too socially and politically controversial, and then became inadequate. 63 5.3 Manga analysis Two of the most famous mangaka of this period were Nakazawa Keiji and Mizuki Shigeru. I will analyze one manga of both of them with the particularity that both are semi auto-biographical works. The memories of the war in these two manga are the testimony from the authors themselves during war and postwar. 5.3.1 S in gyokusai seyo (1973) The author: Mizuki Shigeru stands out as one of the leading mangaka within the history of Japanese manga. In 1942, he was recruited by the Imperial Japanese Army and sent to New Britain Island in Papua New Guinea. During wartime he suffered malaria, lost friends in battle, and lost his left arm due to an explosion. While a prisoner of war the local Tolai tribes‘ people offered him land, a home, and citizenship via marriage to one of the local women. But he was forced by a military doctor to returning to Japan, which he did reluctantly. He debuted as a cartoonist in 1957. Since then, he has published numerous works, both on y kai 9 and military works. Due to his experience his war manga is unique and distinguished from others since he offers different narratives of the war. Mizuki‘s aesthetics 9 Three of his most famous works: Gegege no Kitarō, Kappa no Sanpei, and Akuma-kun, feature Japanese yōkai o sters as main characters. Yōkai refers to supernatural creatures and monsters that appear in folkloric stories and legends existing all over Japan. 64 seems to be rooted in traditional Japanese visual culture, mainly in his works inspired in folktales and legends. The plot: According to Mizuki this manga is 90% based on fact. It came to debunk the imperial project exposing the irrationality and the absurdity of the Pacific War. It accounts the last weeks of a Japanese military unit in Papua New Guinea by the end of the WW2. As their deaths have been already reported back in Japan, the soldiers are told that they must perform a suicide attack for the honor of the country. Otherwise, the execution is waiting them if they return alive to Japan. Unlike the manga of the 50s and the 60s depicting heroic scenes on the battlefield, the manga recounts the daily life and labor of the soldiers in the island. The first three pages of the manga are the faces of the characters and that will work as a cast list. Even though the story has various protagonists, there are no heroes. These soldiers are ordinary people just trying to survive. They are all victims of the war and of imperial Japan. His characters suffered and died not in the battle but by Fig. 64 Dead while fishing. Soin gyokusai seyo! 1973 disease, poor medical care, and starvation. Some deaths even border the ridiculous. In the Fig. 14 one soldier dies while fishing because he chokes to death with a fish in his mouth. 65 Although in the title of the manga the word gyokusai 10 (Japanese term for honorable suicide attack) is included, Mizuki has focus on the miseries of soldiers dying in complete dishonor. Worn out by the war, they have lost their pride and can be seen wearing rags instead of uniforms. Contrary to the manga of the previous decade, here we can contemplate the death in its entire splendor. Mizuki makes us witnesses not only of the dead soldiers, but also of all of the way to the fatality with extreme detail. No much closure is left to the reader. By the end of the manga, the soldier Murayama (Fig. 15) is depicted in a way close to a y kai. His body disfigured by injuries is Fig. 15 Murayama dying. Soin gyokusai seyo!, 1973 almost a specter wandering around. According to McCloud (1993), the panel transition used here is ―aspect to aspect‖, which allows us to take a look of different aspect of a place, mood or idea. In all this last sequence we suffer the agony of Murayama, and we are waiting and even wanting his death to ending the pain. Mizuki is famous for his representation of the world of y kai in Japanese popular culture. Anyhow he can be related to what is known as grotesque, where the characters are monstrous, messy and disproportionate. Here all the elements maintain an uneasy balance between the laughable and the tragic and assume all the time to its opposite. The first half part of the story shows the misery of the soldiers, suffering untreated diseased, starving and forced to work in dangerous conditions. He denounces the physical 10 The Cardinal Principles of the National Polity in a 193 des ri ed ho Japa ’s di i e, u roke i perial line ensured the absolute moral purity of the Japanese people. Sacrifice was the key in this equation. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the cleansing effect. Soldiers were encouraged to commit suicide before allowing they to become war prisoners. 66 abuse from the superiors to the subordinates. The Captain Nogami believes that ―new recruits are like tatami mats: the more you beat them, the better they are ‖ (Mizuki, 1973). Only Sgt. Honda shows some humanity when he gives his boot to Maruyama and declares his intention to go barefoot. Later Honda dies while trying to make sure his men could reach the water. His behavior was very much the exception to the rule in a situation where everyone ―got the same ticket to hell‖ (Mizuki,1973). This depiction of officers‘ cruelty shows how in the name of nationality and imperialism they were in fact ruining their own army. As the story progress, the enemy closes in, and the commander Tadokoro decided that must commit gyokusai against the Allies. Although the unit doesn‘t agree, he is convinced that is better to face the enemy directly and die in battle because it would be a noble death. Here we can see Japan as a nation where population is divided. On one hand the officers and officials who keep promoting war no matter the consequences and even using lies and violence. On the other, the great majority of conscripts and civilians who just wants to live a normal life (in many cases just live is enough). But the things go in an unexpected way when eighty soldiers survive the attack, presenting a problem for their commanders. The soldiers' deaths have already been announced and their nobility has been celebrated. The troop is shamed, and the two lieutenants are encouraged to commit harakiri. In spite of the doubts, in the end, the Japanese sense of honor wins out over human empathy. 67 Nonetheless, Mizuki‘s philosophy is revealed trough a voice of a medical officer of the troop. He defends life above all things. This Fig. 16 Doctor's opinion. Soin gyokusai seyo!, 1973 doctor (Fig. 16) refuses the lieutenant order to commit a suicide charge attack. "But you know, isn't that how life is? (…) It's the will of nature! Life is the will of the gods! Anything that gets in the way of that leap is no good. Whether it's a system or what have you, it's evil.‖ (Mizuki,1973) Mizuki rejects war because it prevents humans and non- human creatures to embrace their lives. Although Mizuki himself has suffered from malaria while he was recruited, he states that the worst disease for the humanity is the army. This manga and in general Mizuki‘s technique put together two different drawing Fig. 17 Soldiers in the jungle. Soin gyokusai seyo!, 1973 styles: one feebly-drawn for characters against a very elaborated and detailed background. As it‘s shown in Fig. 17, the human characters are barely lines in front of the magnificent of nature. There is a contrast between simplistic and realistic art offered in the same panel. The combination of both styles seems to emphasize the insignificance of human life in the war, in contrast to the exuberance of 68 animals and plants. The soldiers and the nature are to opposite entities. The feeling is like soldiers don‘t belong to nature, they shouldn‘t be there. Another possible interpretation is that according to McCloud (1993), one characteristic of comics is its ―universality‖. The cartoonier is a face, the more people could be represented. So, the soldiers are close to anonymity and at the same time, they could be any of us. On the contrary, the enemies are for the very beginning drawn in a very realistic style. I think this is a re source to produce the opposite effect; to emphasize their ―otherness‖ from the reader. Fig. 18 Depiction of dead bodies. Soin gyokusai seyo!, 1973 However, all the soldiers shared the same destiny regardless of their rank, all of they ended dead. And when they are dead Mizuki depicted them carefully and detailed (Fig. 18). They only became a part of nature once they‘re dead. And also when they are dead, paradoxically is the only moment when they are honored. They life is valuable only in their capacity to die for their country. Actually by the end of the manga, when the troop is ready for their final charge, Mizuki portrays the soldiers with cartoony faces upon realistic bodies (Fig. 19). Maybe this is a way to show that they are already dead men walking. If we go back to the Fig. 19 Realistic bodies. Soin gyokusai seyo!, 1973 Fig. 15, it‘s easier to understand this process, as closer is Murayama to dead the drawing becomes more detailed and realistic. 69 Mizuki’s war manga and yōkai could be read as a critical representation of the social and political repressive structure of postwar Japan. This particularly work is not only a story of the misadventures of one country's military, but also a story of the absolute horror and absurdity of war itself. 5.3.2 Hadashi no gen (1973-1985) The serialization of this manga began in 1973 in the magazine Sh nen Jump, turning into a ten-volume book by its competition in 1985. This manga is a good example of the transposition of a manga through different media if it‘s successful in Japan. The manga was adapted to a three-part live-action film (1976–1980), a two-part anime (1983 and 1986), and a two-day television drama (2007). The impact outside Japan was also very important, since by the end of the 70s a first partial English translation can be found. The author: Nakazawa Keiji is a survivor of Hiroshima. He lost his father, his older sister and younger brother during this episode. Nakazawa himself, his mother and two elder brothers survived, but they had to face not only the scarcity of postwar, but also the radiation illness. For all this reason, it‘s possible to read his manga as an eyewitness account of the atomic bomb. 70 The plot: The manga compiled today in ten volumes shows the horrors of the aftermaths of the bomb and recounts the difficulties that the survivors had to face over the next years. In the beginning of the manga we met the Nakaoka. Gen‘s father is morally opposed to war, and that cause certain enduring persecution from their neighbors. 8 years old Gen doesn‘t fully understand why his family is persecuted and he use to react with violence against it. But in the end of the first volume of the manga, everything changes when the atomic bomb is dropped in his home town, Hiroshima. His father, sister and younger brother die in the incident, and then he is left with a mother and a baby sister to protect and Fig. 70 Death of Gen's family. Hadashi no Gen I, 1975. support. In the Fig. 20 Gen and his mother try to rescue them from the ruins or their home but they fail and finally have to quit and let their family die. The depiction of the consequences of the bomb begins a few pages before with an entire page of the explosion itself. The treatment of bomb damages goes all over the first and second volume of the manga. After the dead of a big part of his family, the struggle to survive goes from difficult to seemingly impossible. And maybe it‘s only Gen‘s youth and relative innocence that help him through it. 71 By the end of volume 2 they find refuge with an old friend of Gen‘s mother. But the mother- in- law and the two children of the family don‘t welcome them at all. Children blame their own thefts from the family pantry on Gen‘s mother. She is force to sign a confession in the police station, but then Gen catches Hayashi children in the middle of a robbery. After that he starts to take his revenge on the mother- in- law. But that leads them to be again on the street without a place of refuge. This manga shows the cruelty of the war at its best. Every one, except Gen‘s family is mean, selfish, and only worried by their own business. The bombing ends by being an impersonal act. But the worst part is the attitude of everyone else except Gen‘s relatives. No one seems to care, no one wants to help, and most people actually make things worse by cursing them, stealing from then, accusing them of theft, beating them, etc. The only decent person is the Korean neighbor who despite how horrible he has been treated, he‘s nice to Gen and his family. This character introduces the Korean A-bomb victims‘ issue. Pak father dies after the bombing because he was denied to have his ration food for being a Korean. Although Pak is furious with Japanese for not saving his father he also blames himself for not being prevented for the tragedy and feels shame and guilt. I think the hardest part comes in the Fig. 21 Tomoko's death. Hadashi no Gen IV, 1975 volume 4. Gen and his family are kicked out of the rental home where they are living. He is suffering severe malnutrition and will die soon if he doesn‘t get enough food to eat. An observation to make here is that even though 72 Nakazawa writes of the extreme hunger that Gen‘s family is suffering, he depicts all of the characters as well- fed. Maybe it‘s due to artistic convention of the time. His baby sister, Tomoko, dies from cancer at the end of volume (Fig. 21). All of this sequence it‘s a masterpiece of art. It combines Gen‘s memories of Tomoko‘s birth with a Buddhist prayer and Gen‘s suffering and frustration. According to McCloud (1993), the panel transition Fig. 22 Gen's memories of Tomoko. Hadashi no Gen IV, 1975 here is ―moment to moment‖, showing a progression which requires a very little closure. This technique is useful to focus in the emotions and intentions of the character. Emotions are not only limited to facial expression; we can read it also in body postures (Gen‘s on his knees with clenched fists) and emotion lines. But in the same sequence of Tomoko‘s dead we can observe another transition, the ―scene to scene‖. Although it‘s presented as a single panel we are witnesses of four different moments of Tomoko‘s life (Fig. 22). In terms of action nothing really happens but we can perceive the distances of time and space. Her death is particularly touching, since Gen and his mother were struggling so hard to find food to keep her alive. She had become a symbol of hope for the future. Her death makes all their sufferings meaningless. At this point in the series, life seems empty and pointless. Sickness is another key-point of this manga. Sickness always ends in death. Along the manga we can see people surviving from different horrors but they can‘t survive illness. 73 Maybe this is a legacy of the A-bomb sh jo manga, where as I explain before the main character usually dies by the end. In the volume 8 Gen meets his teacher in a peace demonstration. The year is 1950, the outbreak of the Korean War. The Labor Fig. 28 Peace demonstration. Hadashi no Gen 8, 1984 Movement was active in manifestations against war and nuclear weapons. What follows then it‘s a dialogue between Gen and his friend about American occupation a little bit unrealistic for a 13 year old boy (Fig. 23). Here is clearly Nakazawa‘s voice speaking through Gen. Nakazawa blames the Japanese imperial government as much, if not more, than he does America. He questions the people who supported the imperial government. He criticizes the US occupying forces for being focused on documenting the effects of atomic radiation but not in easing the pain of the living. He accuses the Hiroshima government for turning the town into a peace monument and not helping the survivors. He points out the hypocrisy of politicians who supported the Emperor and the war. Gen is angry with everyone who exploits others. Thomas LaMarre (2010) points that his anger is On one hand anarchic, because this anger selects whatever is at hand, even as it makes broader proclamations. On the other hand, it is traumatic in that it doesn‘t seem liable to make an ―adequate‖ substitution. It is locked into repetition. The other side of Gen‘s 74 anger is his emotional attachments. In addition to his attachment to the surviving members of his family (mother and two brothers), Gen finds substitutes for the younger brother and older sister killed at Hiroshima (LaMarre 292). Gen mainly denounces those who profit from war. This usually follows a class line: the rich are the exploiters and profiteers. And those who profit at the expense of others are seeing also as those who perpetuate the war. The war then is also a class war. The visual style for this manga is a mix between cute characters and extremely crude and violent scenes. Probably this is a consequence of influence of gekiga in one hand and Tezuka‘s style on the other. Although the visual style and the topics of Hadashi no Gen are influenced by gekiga, this manga respond to the conventions of sh nen manga because of its fascination for warrelated items, the prevalence of depiction of violence, and the main characters fighting for their beliefs (It and Omote, 2006). The drawing style with prevalent thick heavy lines is also characteristic of the sh nen of the 60s and 70s. Also, even the serialization change after September 1974 to magazines more associated with public education than with boys‘ entertainment, the style didn‘t change at all. But Gen is not a conventional sh nen hero: friendship and victory aren‘t options; the hard work for keep living and making sure the people he love still do it as well, is the only thing he has left. The whole manga is an imposition of human resistance upon the military destruction. At the end the force of life defeat the force of death. This sense of resilience in face of the adversity allows Gen to emerge for the ruins stronger than ever. 75 In conclusion, while Barefoot Gen‘s primary focus is a condemnation of the use of atomic weapons, it is more generally and more broadly a condemnation of war itself. Nakazawa gave voice to those who were often omitted by the official history like children and war orphans. Although Barefoot Gen atte mpted to depict things and people which we re excluded from the dominant narrative, a few years after its publication was designated as a “superior literary work” and was added to school libraries and reading lists. This is a good example of how the dominant culture is alert to the incorporation of eme rgent cultural elements. The question that raises then is if this manga has managed to not lose its subversive potential or was Barefoot Gen merely swallowed up by the dominant narrative about the World War II? 76 6. 1980s and 1990s This period could be characterized by two opposite tendencies: Reconciliation vs. Revisionism. 6.1 Historical context Yoshida Yutaka (1995) states that during the 1980s there was a significant shift in Japanese political rhetoric toward an acknowledgment of wartime aggression and war time crimes. He suggests that behind this change lies a shift in public opinion and that popular culture had played a significant role ending the silence surrounding Japan‘s wartime past. The 1980s was the time of Japanese economic expansion; thanks to the ―bubble economy‖ more than 85 % of the population could be classified as middle class. The death of Hirohito in 1989 brought to light the debate about his responsibility during the World War II within the public sphere. In December 1989, the mayor of Nagasaki announced his position on the responsibility of the emperor in the war, and stated that many lives would have been saved if he had decided to surrender earlier. A right-wing activist tried to kill him because of these comments, but more than 380.000 people signed a declaration supporting the mayor view. However, in 1993 Hosokawa Morihiro became prime Minister of Japan. In his declaration about Japan‘s role in the war, claimed that the country carried out an ―aggressive war‖ in Asia. The public reaction was such that a few days later he has to correct his assertion and talk about aggressive ―behavior‖ instead of war. Later in 1995, the 77 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Diet pronounced a text acknowledging Japan‘s hostile role in the war which raised several national protest. War veterans presented a petition against that text signed by 5.000.000 people. The widespread of war responsibility is also reflected in the opening of a number of museums displaying Japanese atrocities and colonialism. The Okunoshima dokugasu shiry kan (Okunoshima Poison Gas Museum) opened in 1988 as public museum that displays artifacts regarding Japan‘s use of chemical weapons on the Chinese front. In 1991, the Osaka kokusai heiwa sentā (Peace Osaka) exhibited the effect of the American bombing but also Japan aggression in Asia. In 1994, Oka Masaharu kinen Nagasaki heiwa shiry kan (Oka Masaharu Memorial Peace Museum) showed mostly the victims of Japanese war crimes. In the international sphere, the collapse of Cold War strategic divides opened up possibilities for new geopolitical configurations at the regional level, but also allowed the re-emergence of old wartime tensions and unresolved conflicts. During these years the comfort women issue became a central topic for the historical reconciliation when in 1991 a group of Korean women filled a lawsuit against Japanese government with the purpose of obtaining an official recognition of their condition during the war. Japanese lawyers helped offering them services pro bono and paying the travel cost of researchers in China and South Korea. This gave more space to the non-Japanese victims within the mainstream narrative. In the media, the traditional programs commemorative of the tragedy of Nagasaki and Hiroshima have presented Japan as an aggressor and presented the issue of Asian victims. 78 This inclusion into the paradigm of non-Japanese victims also brought the reaction of the right-wing intellectuals, who even now deny the responsibility of Japan in the war as well as Japans crimes committed abroad. These nationalist scholars refused the historical record of Japanese wartime atrocities such as the Nanking Massacre and the comfort women, and encouraged Japanese to take pride in their war record. This reaction reverberated through the Japanese Ministry of Education‘s approval of the school textbook produced by nationalist scholars in association with the Tsukurukai (The Association for Producing New Textbooks) group. The goal of the government was create a school program to inculcate patriotism. In May 1994, the Justice Minister Nagano Shigeto claimed that the Nanking Massacre was a fabrication arguing that Japan intention during the Asia-Pacific War had been to liberate Asia from Western aggression. Because of his comments, Nagano was forced to resign his position. In December 1996, Fujioka and Nishio founded an organization called Atarashii rekishi ky kasho wo tsukurukai (Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform), with the aim of convey a ―correct version‖ of Japanese history for future generations. In order to achieve it, they edited its own junior high school history textbook. The government authorized the textbook in 2001, although remarked that the authors make a number of changes in the facts. The textbook put special emphasis in the uniq ueness and superiority of Japanese culture, standing up for the modernization during the Meiji period, criticizing Western imperialism, and pointing Western hostilities against Japan in the 1930s and the 1940s. 79 According to Sakamoto Rumi (2008): This views emanating from this reassessment of Japan‘s past and its role as a source of national pride and identity became widely available and popularized by the late 1990s and can be summarized as follows: I) it is natural and healthy to loves one‘s country, and Japanese people should be proud of Japan; II) postwar Japanese public discourse had been dominated by the left, which has presented distorted and masochistic history to the public and children in particular; III) Japan need not to apologize (or has apologized enough) over its war-time deed; IV) China and Korea‘s anti-Japanese sentiments and actions are unreasonable and irrational; and V) China and Korea are using history as a diplomatic card (Sakamoto, 2008). The following year, the Japan Conference was organized. It was the largest proImperial revisionist organization. The Conference worked in the reform of Japanese education, promulgated a Japanese- made constitution, and claimed for a government which pursues a diplomacy founded not on apologies, but upon the pride of the nation. The issue of war responsibility had turned again into a national and international issue. Even now, the question of Japan‗s responsibility in the II World War is still a sensitive topic. Both peace activists as revisionists still defending them arguments and continue publicizing their own perceptions in order to win public support. 6.2 Manga context 80 During the 80s there was a remarkable increase in adult manga and held half the market in the 90s. Reidikomi (Comics for Ladies) was established as a genre for adult women in the beginning of the 80s. The popularity of the sh jo manga in the 70s led the artist to continue producing manga for adult women. The tendency of drawing more sexual explicit graphic scenes in these comics rose until the 90s. But the ones published by the main publishing houses mainly deal whit everyday life experienced by modern housewives, office workers, and college students. The development of adult manga led to an expansion of a wider variety of topics, playing a big part in the growth of the overall manga market in the 80s. This growth also reached the manga for teenagers. Gakushū-manga (Educational mangas) covered a vast variety of school subjects and were also used to provide information about potential occupations that a student may be pondering over. Seiji-manga (Political manga) portrayed various political issues that may serve to raise ideas and trigger discussions among politicians. From highly educational content to explicitly pornographic content, manga became one of the main means of delivering them to the general public. Within educational manga there are some series covering the war years published by Sh gakukan (1983), Kumon shuppan (1989) and Shūeisha (1998). In all of them the main character is a young boy, and the war is viewed through the family in the home front. That view promotes the idea of Japan as a victim of war. If members of the Japanese military are depicted committing some atrocity, usually are nameless and faceless by being drawn from a distance or from behind. However, the Sh gakukan manga includes Nanking, 81 the ―kill all, burn all, loot all‖ policy, massacres of Chinese in Singapore, the Bataan Death March, the recruitment of ―comfort women‖, etc. Kumon shuppan manga is even more explicit, the first part includes the infamous ―100 heads killing contest‖ in Na nking. In 1990, the Ministry of education set a prize for manga, recognizing it as an artistic and cultural resource of Japan. During these years too many Doramas and soap operas were based in famous manga. By the end of this decade, many Manga kissaten (Manga cafes) started to appear all over Japan. These cafes replaced many previous karaoke. 6.3 Manga analysis The most popular and successful of the radical revisionist was the mangaka Kobayashi Yoshinori, who managed to transmit their views to a vast pop ular audience, and achieving a certain success in undermining the credibility of critical scholars. I will examine his manga Sens ron. On the other hand, as representative of the 80s, I will take the Adolf ni tsugu, one of the most famous manga of Tezuka Osamu. 6.3.1 Adolf ni tsugu (1983-1985) In this work the Second War World it‘s only the context for a narration which mainly takes place independently of war. But the historical context also plays an important role because it affects the motivations of the characters' actions. Adolf ni tsugu is considered an emblematic manga of the 80s and its global success is undeniable, (It was the 82 first Tezuka‘s manga to be translated into English and Spanish), so I decided to include it in the corpus. The author: Knowing as ―the God of manga‖, Tezuka Osamu played an important role in the development of postwar manga. His production left more than 150.000 manuscript pages. Tekuka‘s greatest achievement was the combination of Japanese traditional wordpicture techniques with new pictorial elements from United States and European cinema. In the 1950s he almost monopolized the manga industry. But by the 1960s his predominance was challenged by the gekiga. He was forced to adapt his drawing style and narratives themes to gekiga to remain competitive in the market. From here until his dead in 1989, we can find a horror gothic period and a last and successful historical-realistic period. The plot: The story begins in a cemetery with the tomb of one of the three characters named Adolf: A. Kamil, A. Kaufmann and A. Hitler. Sohei Toge is an old man visiting Kamil‘s grave, and there he recalls the whole story. So, the story is basically a huge flash back, but making us forget quickly that it is using this narrative resource. The opening and the conclusion portray the same moment and the history hook up a full circle (Fig 24 and 25). The last words of Toge: ―will be read by millions of ‗Adolfs‘ all over the world‖ intends to leave a testimony to every man, every potential Adolf, to not repeat the history. 83 Fig. 24 Toge visiting Kamil's grave. Adolf ni tsugu 1, 1996 Fig. 25 Toge visiting Kamil's grave. Adolf ni tsugu 5, 1997 Toge is a Japanese reporter who is covering the Berlin Olympics of 1936, during the regime of Adolf Hitler. One day he receives a phone-call from his brother, but when he goes to meet him finds him dead by murder. The protagonist then, begins to investigate who killed his brother and why. He discovers that what his brother was guarding were some papers proving that the Fuehrer has Jewish blood. In parallel, two children living in Japan: one a rich son of German Nazi and the other a poor Jewish, see how their friendship deteriorates because the father of the German ones sends him to a Nazi school. The German boy's father is a representative of the Nazi government in Japan, and he knows that if the documents proving Hitler‘s origin become public, his party could be lead to collapse. This work explores the issues of race and identity, attacking racist ideas through different characters. Sheng-Mei Ma (2009) gives an interest point of view when he states that the three Adolfs have something to hide. Hitler has Jewish origins, Kauffman denies his half Japanese blood, and Kamil believes his entirely Japanese. All of them have mix 84 origins that cause them identity troubles. All of them want to belong to a group. Hitler‘s way negation goes to the top by trying to eliminate all of the Jews from the face of earth. All along the story, each time Kamil and Kaufman meet, the events led them to be increasingly away from each other. Kaufman transformation is one of the most shocking. By the beginning of the manga he questions the Fig. 26 Kaufman killing Kamil's fater. Adolf ni tsugu 3, 1996 prohibition of his father for playing around with Kamil and doesn‘t understand why a Jew and a German can‘t be friends. He swears to Kamil that he would never betray him, but he ends belonging to the Hitler‘s court. He goes too far committing acts of rape and murder, including the execution of Kamil‘s father in the volume 3 (Fig. 26). He embrace Nazi ideology but he can‘t apply racism against himself or his Japanese mother, who he considers and ideal of beauty and humanity. Naturally, Kamil and Kaufman ended up becoming enemies with mixed emotions about it. In this manga Tezuka exposes three major reviews: Fig. 27 Government's critique. Adolf ni tsugu 2, 1996 1. He criticizes the Japanese government for fooling the people by making them believes that the war is going well. Only good news was received from the front, as if no Japanese had lost their lives. They also offered a single view of the facts applying information 85 censorship and repression, and if they considered necessary, shedding the blood of the Japanese who disagreed with what was going on (Fig. 27). 2. He criticizes the rudeness of Japanese Secret Police, embodied in Akabane, Fig. 29 Akanabe beating Toge. Adolf ni tsugu 2, 1996. who will hunt Toge for years, torturing him physically and mentally (Fig. 29). The panel transition in this sequence is what McCloud (1993) calls ―subject to subject‖ transition, where is necessary the reader involvement for convey a meaning to the transition. Most of Tezuka transitions are ―action to action‖ or subject to subject‖. In this picture is interesting the movement concept depicted by the motion lines. In order to show the speed of the whip, Tezuka drew three right arms for Akabane. Whitout the motion lines conveying the movement, this picture would be meaningless. Above Akabane is Lampe, the dog of the Gestapo, with identical evil arts and the purpose of avenging the death of someone close to him, a death propitiated by Toge. 3. He criticizes the brutality of Japanese officers against civilians. He presents a Japanese Nation that isn‘t homogeneous. He focuses on the dichotomy civilian/soldiers and within soldiers, privates/officers. The majority of Japanese people is presented as victims of the war, and therefore has no responsibility in the government or military actions. 86 The drawing style is quite detailed, particularly in the backgrounds and in the spotlights. It is remarkable the detail in the representation of the Olympics games and the author's effort to realistically draw some real characters included in the manga. This is a change in the way Tezuka use to draw, making his characters taller and more angular. In the volume 4 he introduce a character named Richard Sorge. Sorge was a Fig. 30 Richard Sorge. Adolf ni tsugu 4, 1996 German communist spy who worked for the Soviet Union. In fig. 30 we can see a photograph of Sorge vs. Tezuka‘s drawing. He respected even the rebel curly hair that overlooks in his forehead. Tezuka doesn‘t hesitate in show the atrocities committed during the war, but he focus only in the ones committed by the German Army or the Japanese army or Police within Japan. However, the condemnation of Nazi racism and crimes perpetuated under this regime became a significant part of Japanese anti-war discourse. According to Gluck (1993) by portraying Germany‘s war, Japanese authors are not only producing fantasies about a foreign culture, but also playing a part in the discourse on historical memory in contemporary Japan. In this way Germans became a Fig. 39 Nanking. Aldof ni tsugu 2, 1996 mirror for self-reflection. In the second volume of Adolf Tezuka denounce the war crimes committed by Japanese army in China (Fig. 31). But this only occupies two pages of a five volume 87 edition, and immediately after he adds: ―Military headquarters hid the atrocities from the Japanese people‖(Tezuka, 1996, p. 9). So it‘s clear that he didn‘t have his major interest placed in denounces Japanese war crimes committed abroad. Although this manga is considered a classic, I think in some way represent a step backward in the field of popular culture. As barely addresses the issue of Japanese war crimes, it strengthens the narrative of victimhood beginning to be left behind in this period. However the balance between facts and fiction made by Tezuka make Adolf an interesting approach to the events of World War II. 6.3.2 Sens ron (1998) This work it‘s not a manga but an ultra- nationalist retelling of Japan‘s participation in the World War II presented in manga format. Sens ron was a collection of Kobayashi's writings on war in his Shin gomanizumu sengen (New Declaration of Arrogance) column in the magazine Sapio. The proportion of written text in this manga is very high, making it look more like an illustrated political essay. Kobayashi used a popular cultural product as manga for disseminate nationalistic perspectives about Japanese history. As the author wrote the manga using archaic kanji and didn‘t include furigana readings, and there isn‘t any available English translation, I have to base the analysis of this manga according to previous literatures. It‘s said that Kobayashi did that for giving the text an air of scholarly credibility, but it also can be seen as a prove that he didn‘t expect anyone but Japanese readers; and not any Japanese, only those who are able to read all these kanji. 88 The author: Kobayashi Yoshinori was a member of the Jiyūshugi shikan kenkyūkai (Liberal Historiography Study Group), a right-wing organization which tried to assume Japan‘s wartime role in a positive and nationalistic way. This organization denied all Japanese military crimes and proposed a narrative empty of problematic elements. Its goal was to restore Nihon jishin no rekishi ishiki (Japanese historical consciousness) as a condition to develop the sense of patriotism. Since the publication of Sens ron he has been disseminating his perspectives on Japan‘s modern history, the Asia-Pacific War, and the importance of patriotism in Japan present. The plot: Along the manga Kobayashi tells us the story of several individuals, including him as a character. Kobayashi himself is the narrator and the main character. All the manga is written as a testimony of his experiences and thoughts. He recounts histories of t his own life, depicts himself doing research, and facing the reader telling them his point of view. In each chapter he examines a particular issue related to war by first considering one side of a position. The main character then points out a few weaknesses and logical inconsistencies with this side of the issue, so he gets angry and concludes that the other side is correct after mentioning a few more pieces of evidence. The main hypothesis of the author is that the crisis of national consciousness is a consequence of the inability of Japan of taking pride in the history of the war. 89 He argues that Japan went to war to protect their National Security and to liberate Asia from Western oppression. Present Japanese society can be rebuilt if they learn to devote to the national entity and to ―respect our grandfathers and what they wanted to protect in the war‖ (Kobayashi, 1998, p. 284). The lack of the desire to die willingly for Japan is an indicative of the corruption of society. At the same time, he is aware that today‘s Japan is not worth to die for. In the first chapter of the manga the main character maintains a conversation with a taxi driver about war and national defense. Fig.310 Con erstation ith a taxi dri er. Sensō ron, 1998 First he is surprised when the man states his desire to become a pilot for Japanese Selfdefense Forces, but he ended shocked when the man explain that the reason for doing that is that he will be able to escape in case of nuclear attack targeting Japan (Fig. 32). He traces the beginning of decay of Japanese patriotism in the policies of the Allied Occupation government, and to the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in particular. According to Kobayashi the Tokyo Tribunal impose punishment to Japan by denying the validity of its participation in the war. The result was a distortion of the facts which relieves them for their own war crimes. American convinced Japanese that the adoption of ideals such as democracy and individualism were necessary to reverse the militarism to which Japan had been subjected. He goes far enough to say that the Nanking Massacre was an invention of America and China. 90 ―One of the crimes invented by the judges at the Tokyo Trials was the Nanking Massacre. Since the Americans killed 300,000 people with the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they wanted to pin an equally heinous crime on the Japanese. (…) 300,000 people were massacred (in Japan); there weren‘t even 200,000 people living in Nanking at the time. (…) There were 200 Nationalist Army guerillas hiding in the safety zone at Nanking, and they were the ones who committed rape and murder in Nanking. They then pretended that these crimes had been the doing of the Japanese army.‖ (Kobayashi, 1998, p. 45) Kobayashi argues that all the Chinese killed in the massacre were guerrillas, so Japanese Fig. 113 Nanking Massacre. Sensō ron, 1998 army couldn‘t trust anyone (Fig. 33). That‘s how he justifies the opened fire against civilians and once again blaming the other keeps the purity of Japanese intact. All the guilt was share between America and China. This is a very simplistic but somehow effective argument. It‘s true that the Occupation government did apply censorship in the media, and in particular in anything related to the drop of the atomic bomb. But the censorship aimed to remove material considered inappropriate from the popular media rather than force the media to record information considered suitable. The Official Press Code released in 1945 provided the guidelines for censorship, but summarized only those topics that should be avoid. 91 Occupation forces made public its intention to demilitarize Japan. So although the censorship never forced the media to condemn the wartime or war, many did it voluntary anticipating a favorable reaction of Occupation government to such declarations. In fig. 34 Kobayashi depicts the Japanese as totally fascinated for the Americans: eyes wide open, glazed looks, silly smiles. On the contrary, Americans looks calm and smiling a little mischievous. It‘s interesting how Kobayashi Fig. 312 Brainwashed Japanese. Sensō ron, 1 here mix two drawing techniques to convey his message. Japanese are drawn in a totally caricature funny style, while Americans features are a little bit more realistic. In their totally ―brainwashed‖ situation Japanese came to claim: ―War is evil! We don‘t need an army! Peace is more important than anything! Give me chocolate! Give me the Japanese Constitution!‖ It can be thought as contradictory to feel proud of a Nation which is so easily manipulated and mentally weak, but this feature also can be seen as a sign of the Japanese purity and innocence in which Kobayashi puts all his cards. The victims then are separated in two generational lines: the pre-defeat Japanese – considered as the last true Japanese-, and the postwar generations filled with guilt and shame. The roles of the heroes must be to recover the purity, but prevent Japanese to not be fooled again. For Kobayashi it‘s not necessary to rebuild the patriotism, the point is waking it up from its sleep. Historical images are invoked in order to remind people about their 92 ―unconscious patriotism‖. Sens ron appeals to the heroism of dying for the nation of war-time period Fig.313 Tribute to the air pilot manga of the 60s. Sensō ron, 1 with images of kamikazes. "The kamikaze did not lose their individuality. They discarded it for the sake of the public. They died for the future of the nation, in other words, they died for us‖ (Kobayashi, 1998, p. 96). This is a return to the manga of the 60s where the idea of self-sacrifice was seen like something beyond individuals and on behalf of the nation. Actually, in a clear quote to the manga of these years, Kobayashi draw the pilots with the same cute and child- like appearance (Fig. 35). In chapter 6, he declares himself and avid reader of this kind of manga when he was a child. The strategy of Sens ron is the same, to wake up ordinary people patriotism. As Anderson (1991) suggest, there is a natural tie between the individual and the nation as an imagined community. Dying for the nation will be the greater act of pure sacrifice, of ―disinterested love and solidarity‖ (Anderson, 1991, p. 141). Japanese soldiers here are depicted in a way placed in between the concept of the 60s and the one of the 70s. They had the heroism of the brave pilots of 60s manga willing to die for the country, but at the same time they were no heroes in the sense of have special abilities or definitive combat techniques. They were ordinary people who believe in ―Japanese honor‖ and gave up their live to protect their homeland. Kobayas hi uses manga to make a critique of today's Japan. He appeals to emotion in orde r to construct national subjects. He interpellate the readers 93 encouraging the m to feel proud of being Japanese. This appellation to emotion rather than logic is essential to the success of nationalis m. The manga was quite success between young adults who didn‘t have any experience of the war except of what they have studied in the school. Kobayashi's work appears in line with the reform in the textbooks proposed by Atarashii rekishi ky kasho wo tsukurukai. His discourse presenting ―our grandfathers‖ as silenced victims of the hegemonic discourse of postwar Japan also goes in line with the redress movements for the "comfort women'' and other victims of Japanese war-time actions during the 90s. Sens ron had a lot of repercussion both positive and negative within others Japanese manga. Authors as Mizuki Shigeru continue to publish anti- war manga and denouncing Japanese war crimes committed abroad in works like War and Japan 11 . In 2005 two controversial manga were published: Ken Kanryū (Hate Korean Wave) by Sharin Yamano and Manga Chūgoku nyūmon (Manga Introduction to China) by George Akiyama and K Bunyū. These manga argue that it is time for Japan to stop apologizing about the War and Korea and China should stop blaming Japan for their own problems. 11 A short work in the style of Showa-shi, originally published in 1991 in Shogaku rokunen-sei (Sixth Grader), a leading edutainment magazine for young readers. … These serve as a powerful counterpoint to revisionist a ga like Ko ayashi Yoshi ori’s Sensoron (On War) that have grabbed attention in the English-speaking world. Several neo-nationalist manga have sold well, but a wide variety of progressive titles have also been successful. Importantly, anti -war themes introduced into the medium by Mizuki and others have helped to shape the trajectory of postwar manga . http://www.japanfocus.org/-Matthew-Penney/2905 94 7. CONCLUSION In this thesis, I have focused on the representations and memories of World War II in manga from the early 60s until the 90s. I didn‘t choose any specific educational manga but manga intended to entertain younger and young adult audience. With these fictional works neither the artists nor the editors pretended to present an objective vision of history (except Sens ron), but they were related to the historical context and current concerns in Japanese society of that period. In most of these manga stories it is possible find characte ristics of the period in which they were produced, sometimes following the dictates of the collective perceptions of the war and the official discourse and sometimes presenting alternatives or oppositional narratives to the hegemonic one. It‘s important to keep in mind that narratives, and therefore manga too are selective accounts with beginnings and endings, constructed to create meanings, interpret reality, organize events in time, establish coherency and continuity, construct identities, enable social action, and to construct the world and its moral and social order for its audience‖ (Vinitzky-Seroussi, 2oo2, p. 34,35) Therefore we can say that the historical consciousness is the result of a perpetual negotiation process among different narratives. Manga stories about World War II in each decade were connected with other discourses about the past, being able to create, as media product, a symbolic system that gave meaning to the Japanese society after the war. 95 As I mention in the introduction, the foundational narratives about the role of Japan in the World War II presented Japan as a victim. Victim not only of United States dropping the A-bomb, but also victims of their militarized past, and portrayed the vast majority of Japanese people as ignorant of what was really happening. Igarashi (2000) has pointed that this foundational narrative has two main consequences. First, the emperor was free of any political responsibility in the war. Moreover, Hirohito became a sort of a hero saving Japan from its racialist and colonialist drifts. Second, by putting the atomic bomb in the center of US-Japan relations, it has emphasized in the suffering of Japanese citizens, ignoring the suffering of the people of Asia under Japanese domination and of course omitting any comment about Japanese war crimes committing abroad. This image of a victim of the events can be reflected in the answer to two major questions: How is Japanese nation presented in postwar narratives? And, what events are highlighted and which ones are hidden? In other words, where is the focus placed when talking about main themes? Using the concept of ―hegemony‖, led me to assume that what it‘s considered hegemonic during one particular period has to be continually renewed, recreated and defended. Therefore, the official discourse o f the role of Japan in the war was not one and the same since 1945. It has being varying according to the historical context and systems of meanings, practices and values prevalent in every decade. At the same time, what is considered hegemonic can be challenged by oppositional or in a lesser extent by alternative positions. 96 Let‘s then examine how was the discourse of the war changing since the early postwar until present in Japanese manga. During the war, the official discourse used to present Japan as an homogeneous and united nation fighting for only one goal: to win the war. The efforts of military propaganda where focused in obtaining the unconditional support of both, military and civil citizens. Manga of the late 50s and 60s tended to look back positively to the past war years, putting the focus on the courage and bravery of the air war pilots willing to die for the sake of the country. This went in line with Anti-security Pact Movement that made United States reemerged as Japan‘s enemy and therefore strengthens the patriotic spirit, and also with the discourse of the first War Dead Commemoration Day where the Prime Minister stated that behind Japan‘s recovery for the war were the dreams of the ones who died for the country. The deaths of war‘s victims have placed the basis for Japan‘s welfare. The bad feeling of the war where muted, not only for the Occupation authorities but also because of Japanese were so busy trying to recover and forced to act more than remember or feel sorry. Other voices recalling the tragic aspect of the war were generally silenced. Manga artist as Mizuki Shigeru or Ozamu Tezuka declared later that they have problems publishing them manga. However, in manga of this period we can begin to tell the difference between privates and officers and noted that the villains are not only the enemy but also the authorities. Nevertheless, the feeling of heroism and patriotism prevails over anything else and the pilots became the main symbol to recreate a fictitious past highlighting the success of air battles and hiding the defeat in the war. The sacrifice of the 97 death pilots fed a reciprocal obligation of the living to continue the sacrifice for the sake of the nation. In the 70s, the mistreatment of soldiers to civilians and atrocities of war began to be exposed in Japanese manga. Many manga with content related to the atomic bomb were released during those years. The A-bomb genre had its boom within sh jo manga, but this only reinforced the victimhood paradigm as we see civilians suffering the consequences of the bomb even years later. But now, Japan is no longer presented as a homogenous nation. We can tell the difference between military and civilians (suffering because of bad decisions), and also within military, the opposition between private and officers and the abuse of the latter on the soldiers. The generation of the 50s, which grew up reading manga, wanted to continue reading it when they became young adults. That led to what is known as gekiga which contained more mature and drama content. The issue of the war then, began to be treated not only in kodomo manga, but also for an adult audience. That gave to the artist more permission in the depiction of violence. Mizuki Shigeru is one of the most famous exponents of gekiga style. In his manga he was continually denouncing the absurdity of the war, and also denouncing and depicting Japanese war crimes committed abroad. Even he has some problems to publish during the early postwar, several of his works were released in the 70s and translated to Spanish and English recently. Manga denouncing the war during this decade was possible because the explosion of Vietnam‘s war called Japanese to re-think about their role during the WW2. Beheiren 98 movement expressed the necessity of recognize that Japan wasn‘t only victim but aggressor of another Asian countries during the war time. The efforts of Japan to reestablis h the relationship with China and Korea encouraged the question about war responsibility. Japanese politician apologized for the first time in front of other Asian countries but they didn‘t believe it was a sincere apology. Most of the manga of this decade are placed in the end of the war, when Japan's defeat was already inevitable. There are no longer heroes, only soldiers trying to survive and civilians suffering the consequences of a war that many considered unnecessary and absurd. Hadashi no gen was an outstanding manga of this period. Although it is a sh nen manga, the visual style and the topics have strong influence of gekiga. Nakazawa depicted the horrors of the aftermaths with incredible detail through the eyes of a ten years boy called Gen. But it‘s not a conventional sh nen. Victory is never and option. The main problem is to survive and help the love ones to make it also. From 80s to 90s there was a revival of revisionist positions, and Japan appeared divided in two: those who defended Japan's position and deny being responsible for war crimes and those who argued that this responsibility could no longer continue to be evaded. This division is also reflected in manga. One of the best examples of the nationalism was Kobayashi Yoshinori‘s Sens ron. Here Kobayashi declared that the incapacity of Japan of taking pride of the war has led to a crisis of national consciousness. He argued that Japanese has been brainwashed by American censorship and as a result they give up their army and became a pacifist country. 99 This argument is really difficult to believe. It‘s impossible to completely brainwash an entire population in a few months. Kobayashi ignored in his argument other factors like psychological and physical exhaustion after the war and the inability of many to meet the basic needs like food, housing, hospitals… Japanese History then is presented in a way which excludes any possibility of participation of those who weren‘t Japanese. Kobayashi longs for the returning to a past Japan when the nation was presented as unified. In the domestic context the manga did challenge the mainstream interpretation of history and opened the path for a different political position of right-wings intellectuals. Since the work appeared in parallel with the Atarashii rekishi ky kasho wo tsukurukai, was successful between young adults who didn‘t have any previous experience of the war. Popular culture has become in Japan a site for contesting historical truth. Tezuka himself when talking about mangaka opposed to the military propaganda during the war period has stated: ―Boku wa, manga to iu no wa (eiga o fukumetedearu to omoukedo) tatakai no bukida to omou (I believe that manga (and also movies) is a fighting weapon)‖ (Tezuka, Tezuka Osamu Manga no gi 130). But it wasn‘t always like this. The first postwar manga were in line with the official discourse about the war, and praised the heroism of the soldiers dead for the sake of Japan. That doesn‘t mean that there weren‘t some oppositional works, but editors didn‘t want to publish them and people didn‘t want to read them. 100 More dissident narratives of World War II came to light from the 70s. They contributed to rewrite the Japan‗s official victimhood paradigm and war-crimes and gender issues obtained more space. Japanese nation started to take ―the others‖ in account for define and re-think them identities. This others appear now not only as the enemy, but also as the victims of war-time atrocities of Japanese army. After certain events began to be revealed it was no longer possible to Japan to maintain a purely national narrative without contemplating this others. In the 2000s a new genre in Japanese pop culture dealing with war themes had emerged. It is called sekaikei, what roughly means ―related to the world‖. These manga are set in an apocalyptical word or a dystopian society result of the World War III. Neon Genesis Evangelion opened up the doors to this genre within Japan. In this works a love story between a male character and a heroine who usually has the power both to save and destruct the world, goes in parallel with an apocalyptic crisis. The most common subjects in these manga are utopian and dystopian societies, artificial intelligence and the limits of the human. Something curious of this kind of manga is that we are witnesses of the end of the world, but the reasons of the war are never explained and we never know exactly who or what the enemies are. Japanese society or Japanese Nation isn‘t depicted in a larger scale. And when they are, it tends to be a society blinded by greed, jealousy, or divine right as a dangerous and ultimately evil force. Some of this might be a reaction to the consequences of Japan‘s ultra-nationalism in World War II and the desire to mute that impulse in their own society. 101 It is always a personal story centered in the inner conflicts of the characters set in the most limited situation. Tanaka Motoko (2011) states that the social phenomena that can explain the boom of sekaikei is the increasing number of hikikomori, freeters and NEETs12 within Japanese society. ―These complicated factors led Japanese youth in the mid-1990s to withdraw from social relationships and from establishing mature identities as members of society‖ (Tanaka, 2011, p. 170). Within this context in sekaikei works the protagonist doesn‘t grow or change even after the crisis. ―Contemporary Japanese apocalypse narratives paradoxically become stories without the sense of an ending, conflict between opposing values, or confrontation with the Other‖ (Tanaka, 2011, p. 174). In our daily lives we are constantly surrounded by images and information of popular culture and Japanese society in particular has developed a powerful visual culture where manga is only one of its manifestations. Therefore, the influence of manga as a memory-shaping medium should not be underestimated. But it‘s important to keep in mind that the analyzed manga, even presenting historical facts, are fiction works. So the emphasis is not put in the same place than academic work or an historical record. Here is common to find simplification of important facts, sensationalism, and even polemic. But as McCloud states: ―The ability of cartoons to focus our attention on one idea is, I think, an important part of their special power, both in 12 Hikikomori: refers to the phenomenon of individuals choosing to completely withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme isolation and confinement. Freeter: people between the fifteens and thirties lack full-time employment or unemployed. They usually do ’t ha e a y areer a d live with their parents. The low income they earn makes it difficult for freeters to start their own families, and their lack of qualifications makes it difficult for them to get fulltime jobs . NEETs: Not in Edu atio , E ploy e t or Trai i g . 102 comics and in drawing generally‖ (McCloud, 1993, p. 31). The story is always a point of view, an individual memory framed into the society. 103 8. BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. London: Verso Books, 1991. Bourdieu, Pierre and J.D Vacquant. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. Bourdieu, Pierre. Pascalian meditations. Standford, California: Standford University Press, 1997. Clifford, Rebecca. "Cleansing History, Cleansing Japan: Kobayashi Yoshinori‘s Analects of War and Japan‘s Revisionist Revival". Nissan Occasional paper series, N 35 (2004) Dower, John. War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. Pantheon, 1986 "Founding declaration." Kakikare, N° 1 (1938). Feuillassier, Rémi L. Remembering World War and narrating the nation: Study of Tezuka Osamu's war manga. University of Pittsburgh, 2010 Higgins, Jhon. The Raymond Williams Reader. Wiley-Blackwell, 2001. Igarashi, Yoshikuni. Bodies of Memory. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. Kobayashi, Yoshinori. Senso ron. Tokyo: Gentosha, 1998. LaMarre, Thomas. "Manga Bomb: Between the Lines of Barefoot Gen." Comics Worlds and the World of Comics. Kyoto: International Manga Research Center, 2006. 263307. Masashi, Ichiki. ―Embracing the Victimhood: A History of A-Bomb Manga in Japan". IJAPS, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Special Issue 2011). Universiti Sains Malaysia Press. McCloud, Scott. Understanding comics: The invisible art. New York: Harper Perennial, 1993. Nakar, Eldad. "Framing Manga. On Narratives of the Second World War in Japanese Manga, 1957 - 1997." MacWilliams, Mark W. Japanese Visual Culture. London: An East Gate Books, 2008. 198. —. "Memories of Pilots and Planes: World War II in Japanese Manga, 1957-1967." Social Science Japan Journal. Vol 6, No 1 (2003): 57-76. Napier, Susan. Anime – From Akira to Princess Mononoke. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. 104 Natsume, Fusanosuke. Yomiuri Shinbun, 28 May 1999. —. Manga to senso. Japan: Kodansha Gendai Shinsho, 2006. Okamoto, Rei. Pictorial Propaganda in Japanese Comic Art, 1941-1945: Images of the Self and the Other in a Newspaper Strip, Single-Panel Cartoons, and Cartoon Leaflets. Temple University, 1999. Sakamoto, Rumi. "Will you go to War? Or will you stop being Japanese." Japan Focus (2008). Seaton, Philip A. Japan’s Contested War Memories. New York, London: Taylor and Francis Group, 2007. Susuki, Shige. "Learning from Monsters: Mizuki Shigeru's Y kai and War Manga". Image & Narrative, Vol 12, No1 (2011) Tanaka, Makoto. Apocalypticism in postwar Japanese Fiction. Vancouver: University of Columbia, 2011. Tanaka, Yuki. Crime and Responsibility: War, the state, and Japanese society. Japan Focus, 2006. Tatsumi, Yoshihiro. Gekiga daigaku: gekiga no nazo o saguru. Tokyo: Hiro shob , 1968. Tezuka, Osamu. Tezuka Osamu Manga no gi. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1997. Various authors. Mechademia 4: War/Time. University Of Minnesota Press, 2009. Vinitzky-Seroussi, Vered. "Commemorating a Difficult Past: Yitzhak Rabin‘s Memorials." American Sociological Review 67 (2002) 30-51. Yonezawa, Yoshihiro. Sh nen manga no sekai–kodomo no sh wa shi 2. Bessatsu Taiy . Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1996 Yoshida, Takashi. "Historiography of the Asia-Pacific War in Japan". Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence, June 2008. 105 APENDIX 1: HIROSHIMA: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BAREFOOT GEN With this autobiography Nakazawa Keiji tells in a different way the events occurred in 1945 after the atomic bomb. Nakazawa was six years old when United States dropped the bomb in Hiroshima. He accounts the horrors of the aftermath through the eyes of a child who lost most of his family and neighbors. He continues through the harshly difficult years after the war, his art apprenticeship in Tokyo, his pioneering "A-bomb" manga, and the creation of the manga Barefoot Gen. The autobiography has appeared in two editions. First in 1987, under the title The void that is “Hiroshima”- Account of the Nakazawa clan. A revised version was reissued in 1995. The story differs from the manga since each genre has its own conventions, and that‘s what makes interesting the reading of the autobiography. The simplicity of the writing style makes it accessible for readers of all ages. It can be said that it is maybe the simplest and comprehensible account of the Hiroshima experience. By comparing Barefoot Gen and this autobiography some contrasts emerge. Nakazawa himself has pointed an important one: What differs about the death of my father from Barefoot Gen is that I myself wasn‘t at the scene. Mom told me about it, in gruesome detail. It was in my head, so in the manga I decided to have Gen be there and try to save his father. Mom always had nightmares about it. She said it was unbearable—she could still hear my brother‘s cries. Saying ―I‘ll die with you,‖ she locked my brother in her arms, but no matter how she pulled, she couldn‘t free him. Meanwhile, my brother said, ―It‘s hot!‖ and Dad too said, ―Do something!‖ My older sister Eiko, perhaps because she was pinned between 106 beams, said not a thing. At the time, Mom said, she herself was already crazed. She was crying, ―I‘ll die with you.‖ Fortunately, a neighbor passing by said to her, ―Please stop; it‘s no use. No need for you to die with them.‖ And, taking her by the hand, he got her to flee the spot. When she turned back, the flames were fierce, and she could hear clearly my brother‘s cries, ―Mother, it‘s hot!‖ It was unbearable. Mom told me this scene, bitterest of the bitter. A cruel way to kill. (Minear, 2008, p. 311) This book not only serves as an account of the bombing of Hiroshima as well as the autobiography of Nakazawa, represented as Gen, it also serves as an origin story of the Barefoot Gen manga and its creation. 107 APENDIX II: EVANGELION AND THE RISE OF SEKAIKEI It is said that the series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995-1996) opened up the doors for a new genre in manga and animation known as sekaikei. Actually this phenomenon is also referred as ―the Post-Evangelion Syndrome‖. Neon Genesis Evangelion is a 26-episode science fiction anime set in a postapocalyptic Japan. We now that what is known as ―the Second impact‖ has drained much of the human race. Since then some creatures called ―Angels‖ are attacking the Earth and a group of 14- year olds working for NERV, are the defenders piloting giant robots called Evas. The main difference between Evangelion and post sekaikei works is that in the former at least Shinji –the protagonist- is a reluctant fighter, so he plays an active role in the plot of the story. In sekaikei, the male protagonist always chooses to play a passive role, but as they are loved by the heroine, indirectly they achieve the power to control the world. Other difference is that in Evangelion all Shinji‘s ―Others‖ (friends, family, enemies) are somehow described and collaborate to create tension and confrontation within Shinji inner thoughts. While in sekaikei, there are no Others creating any tension. There are no father figures and the enemies aren‘t described. One of the best examples of sekaikei is the manga Saishū heiki kanojo (Saikano: The Last Love Song on This Little Planet) written by Takahashi Shin in 2001. This story takes place at the beginning of the WW3 in a town of Hokkaid . The manga tells us the romance between Shuji and Chise, two students in the third year of high school. What Shuji ignores is that his girlfriend is the "Ultimate Weapon", that is the most powerful weapon for Japan‘s victory World War III She was developed by the Japan Self- Defense Forces without her knowledge or consent in order to defend the world. 108 Characteristics of the sekaikei genre: 1. The male protagonist and heroine are highs school students involved in a relationship. 2. The narrator is the male character. 3. Even though the story takes place in the future, their everyday life is depicted similar to the present lifestyle. (But there is an emphasis in the technological achievements in terms of weapons) 4. Suddenly, they get involved in a war that may cause the end of the world 5. This led the couple to focus more in their relationship. 6. While the heroine who goes to the war front to fight to protect the male protagonist and the world, the male protagonist assumes a role of observer. 109