The Japan Society Review 38
Book, Stage, Movie, Arts and Events Review

Issue 38 Volume 7 Number 2 (April 2012)

Emerging from the ruins
Susan Meehan and Ali Muskett explore the aftermath of disaster
The life of the mind
Examining the state of mental health care in JapanTo mark the first year anniversary of the devastating 11 March2011 Tohoku Earthquake, now also known as the Great East
Japan Earthquake, we devote this issue to looking at its
aftermath. The massive scale of the destruction and terrible
loss of life is almost beyond comprehension, something which
poses a challenge to those trying to chronicle the catastrophe.
Susan Meehan looks at the first documentary to have been
made in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami bydirector Koichi Omiya. It’s a hard-hitting and heart-breaking
film which shows scene upon scene of devastation in North
East Japan. It captures the eerie, almost surreal, atmosphereand immense scale of destruction along with the bitter tideof human tragedy. Omiya, who is from Tohoku, entitles his
work mujo [無常] which is a Buddhist concept he defines asconveying impermanence or transience. Ali Muskett explores
Elin Lindqvist’s Fukushima Colours which describes thesituation in the early post-devastation months. Lindqvist, a UKbased Swedish journalist and author who was born in Japan,
immediately returned to Japan after the triple catastrophe togather material for her book and present what she believes isa different perspective on the situation. Next Susan Meehan
examines Stu Levy’s film Pray for Japan which was shot in theimmediate aftermath of the calamity. Levy volunteered with
the Japan Emergency NPO (JEN) in Ishinomaki (a city with apopulation of over 160,000) in Miyagi Prefecture. He recorded

about 40 hours of footage during five weeks, interviewing over
30 people including victims and volunteers. He produces anextraordinary snapshot of life in Ishinomaki during the initialdays and weeks of the disaster. We next look at the soon to be
published work Mental Health Care in Japan edited by Ruth
Taplin and Sandra J. Lawman. It’s an impressive multi-authoredvolume examining the current state of mental health in Japan,
especially in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
We also look at Depression in Japan: Psychiatric Cures for aSociety in Distress a scholarly work by Junko Kitanaka which
gives a clear view of the history of depression in Japan, its
medicalization and its effects on society. Susan Meehan looks at
Himizu a fictional movie set against the harsh backdrop of post
earthquake and tsunami Japan. Director Shion Sono gives us a
no-holds-barred unflattering tale, exposing a cruel and violent
side of society that emerges with the implosion of social order. Sir
Hugh Cortazzi examines Martin Dusinberre’s Hard Times in theHometown, A History of Community Survival in Modern Japan
which looks at the historical fortunes of the town of Kaminoseki
in Yamaguchi prefecture. The future of the town was throwninto serious doubt after the Great East Japan Earthquake halted
the building of a controversial nuclear plant on its outskirts.
Mike Sullivan rounds off this issue with a look at an exciting new
exhibition at Somerset House, Kokoro: The Art of Horiyoshi III.
Sean Curtin, April 2012..................................................

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Contents

1) Sketch of Mujo (無常素描)
2) Fukushima Colours
3) Pray for Japan
4) Mental Health Care in Japan
5) Depression in Japan: Psychiatric Cures for a Society in Distress
6) Himizu [ヒミズ]7) Hard Times in the Hometown, A History of Community Survival in Modern Japan8) Kokoro: The Art of Horiyoshi III

EditorSean Curtin

Managing Editor
Jack Cooke
Staff Reviewers
Susan Meehan and Michael Sullivan
Special Reviewer
Hugh Cortazzi
New reviewswww.japansociety.org.uk/resources/the-japan-society-review

Sketch of Mujo (無常素描)
Directed by Koichi Omiya(大宮浩一)
2011, 75 minutes
Review by Susan MeehanThis documentary is the firstto have been made in theaftermath of the earthquake
and tsunami which wrecked the
Tohoku region of northeasternJapan on 11 March 2011.
Tohoku is the land of Omiya’sbirth and his parents’ home so the disaster particularly
affected him.
Omiya defines mujo [無常] as a Buddhist concept
conveying impermanence or transience. The Japaneseoften resort to this idea to alleviate the sadness of deathand separation and to remind themselves that this worldis but a stepping stone on the way to nirvana.
This heart-breaking and beautifully shot documentaryshows scene upon scene of devastation in North East
Japan. The eerie sound of crows in the backgroundremind one of the immense death toll wreaked upon
Tohoku. Within the scenes of rubble recognisable objects
occasionally appear; a plastic bottle of ume (pickledplums) pokes through the dereliction and in the debris
by the coast every now an almost intact house appears,
highlighting the sheer level of destruction.

‘The inhabitants of Tohoku realise that they can’tbeat nature and that sometimes the gods rage.’
Omiya intersperses the scenes of devastation with thoseof survivors. An old woman is shown looking through a
photo album which she has salvaged. ‘It’s our history,’ shesays. ‘We are coming to an end,’ she continues and laughs
with tears in her eyes.

The monk appears again and this time talks about Laos
where bridges are washed away every year. They are notbuilt to resist; this fleeting existence encapsulates mujo
– nothing is permanent, nothing stays the same.
I was unsure when the documentary was made but
there are distinctive clues towards the end as we see
carp streamers flying in the wind indicating it is aroundthe time of the boys’ day celebration on 5 May and a
few daffodils growing out of the mud. I wonder how thepeople of Tohoku are coping this winter.

Sketch of Mujo ends with a shot of the young woman wholoves the sea resolutely standing, basked in light. We also
see an endless queue of cars (ferrying people to hanami
or similar celebrations I wondered) motionless under thecherry tree blossoms swaying in the wind – the symbol,
par excellence, of the transitory nature of life.
This film was shown at the Premiere Japan 2011 event at
the Barbican.

Fukushima Colours
by Elin Lindqvist
Langenskiöld(*), 2012155 pages, approx. £17.00
ISBN: 978-91-87007-04-0
Review by Ali Muskett
Elin Lindqvist, journalist andauthor of three novels in
Swedish, was born in Japan in1982 and lived there for two years as a child. She currently
lives in England, but has maintained a strong connection
with Japan, having spent further time there in her teens
and twenties.

Further testifying to the steadfastness and lack of selfpity of those affected by the earthquake and tsunami,
a young, bright woman is interviewed – she can’t leave
her hometown – she loves the sea, ‘It is beautiful,’ sheremarks.

Immediately after the triple catastrophe of earthquake,tsunami and nuclear disaster on 11 March 2011, Elin was
moved to travel to Japan. She felt she needed to be there
to see things for herself, and to report on the situation in afair and honest way, which she thought the Western media
was not doing. Many would agree that the Western media
sensationalised certain aspects of the disaster – especially thesituation at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant – and Elinwas determined to find out what things were really like in
Tohoku (the north-eastern region of Honshu, the main islandof Japan). In March 2011 Elin wrote for the largest Swedish
daily newspaper, Aftonbladet, and she returned in May 2011
to write about the reconstruction process and continuing
nuclear crisis for newspapers Aftonbladet and Svenska
Dagbladet.

We encounter evacuation centres piled high with blankets
and mattresses and replete with kettle, kerosene stovesand bright, young, spirited boys and older people. We
meet a 98-year-old woman who has to rev herself up on adaily basis in order to keep going.

Fukushima Colours is the result of a number of visits to Japanin the months following the disaster, and went to print 10
months after Elin’s initial visit. Elin was accompanied byphotographer Yoshikazu Fukuda and journalist Yuko Ota, andtogether they spoke to people affected by the catastrophe in

A monk, reflecting on the disaster and the noble reaction
and stoicism of the people of Tohoku, says that the peopleof North East Japan have never basked in the nation’s
wealth and that is why they are so modest. ‘It is important.’
he says, ‘to protect and nurture those disappearing virtues.’‘The inhabitants of Tohoku realise they can’t beat natureand that sometimes the gods rage. Maybe we have erredon the wrong path.’2

Issue 38 Volume 7 Number 2 (April 2012)different ways. The eight individuals, or groups of individuals,
who feature in this book were all affected by the earthquake,tsunami and nuclear crisis even though some of them do notlive in the Tohoku region itself. Personal accounts come fromorganic farmers talking about the effects of the disaster on
the agricultural industry and ways in which renewable energy
can be used in the future, the founder and president of theaid organisation CRASH (a Christian volunteer group withwhich Elin volunteered, despite not being Christian), a fishand seafood restaurant owner and intermediate wholesaler
at Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, an oyster farmer, the managing
director of a Honda car dealership and garage, a beef farmer(who is also the Lord of Soma, and creator of the volunteer
organisation Soma Aid) and a couple of housewives,
concerned about bringing up their children in world ofuncertainty and possible radioactive contamination.
The book is beautifully designed, and the simple phrases(such as ‘我慢 GAMAN Endure the seemingly unbearablewith patience and dignity’) which separate the chapters givethe reader a moment to pause and reflect on each account.
Fukushima Colours isn’t quite what I had expected it to be,
but that isn’t necessarily a negative comment on the book.
Personally, I had hoped to read the translated accounts
directly from the mouths of those affected, but what I actuallyfound was a book which contained Elin’s voice throughout,
as a kind of guiding voice and narrator. It was, at times, difficult
to know if the words were Elin’s or the interviewee’s, and I feltthat the tone of the book was set by the author’s voice rather
than the voices of the people I really wanted to hear from.
I believe the purpose of the book was to remember the
lives lost in the triple disaster, but also to look to the future
through the eyes of the people who survived and are trying
to reconstruct their lives. I did, however, feel that the overall‘message’ of the book was unclear, and reflected the great
uncertainty in Japan at the time of the interviews. The oyster
farmer’swifecomments,‘thecolouroftheseawaterisdifferent
than it used to be before the tsunami,’ but no one knows
what this means. A certain sense of fear comes through insome accounts, and for me this fear and uncertainty formeda heavy cloud over the book, blocking out the bright coloursof the future that I think it hoped to show.

After the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, Stu Levy
volunteered with the Japan Emergency NPO (JEN) in
Ishinomaki (a city with a population of over 160,000),
Miyagi Prefecture. He shot 40 hours of footage over five
weeks, interviewing over 30 people including victims andvolunteers. At the time of the earthquake Levy was in Tokyo.
The film is an extraordinary snapshot of life in Ishinomaki[石巻市] within days of the earthquake and tsunami.
The film starts by zooming into Ishinomaki, thelargest coastal city in north east Japan, as it wasprior to the disaster. This footage is beautiful, sharp
and exhilarating; we see Ishinomaki’s unspoiled
bridge, cherry blossoms and homes by the sea.
Yet more cherry blossoms appear. We are fastforwarded to the events of March 11 and hear people
talking about their hometown. A most poignant
comment resonates,‘My hometown is everything.’
At the time of the earthquake Kento Ito, a high-school student,
was performing with his band in Sendai, and a graduation
ceremony at Ogatsu Middle School had not long concluded.
Everyone was going about his or her business when theearthquake hit at 2:46pm on 11 March, changing everything.
Levy’s interviewees recall their thoughts at the time. ‘Wethought it was a Tokyo earthquake.’ ‘There was no [phone]
reception.’ ‘I thought the whole of Japan was going to sink.’
30 minutes later the destruction of the earthquake wascompounded by a devastating tsunami which reached 40
metres in height at places. We see cars and huge containers
being washed away, looking like miniature playthings in achild’s bathtub. ‘We lost it all,’ says one of Levy’s interviewees.
The film then breaks into almost psychedelic animation andguitar music, mirroring the viewer’s disbelief and sense ofsurrealism at the extent of the destruction, the number ofpeople deceased or missing and the thousands of evacuees.
We are exhorted to pray for love, rebirth, dedication,
conviction, resilience, leadership, fortitude, the future,
hope, the soul, compassion, strength, solidarity,
recovery, unity, courage and Japan while beautifully
crafted animated pictures are shown on the screen.

*Fukushima Colours has been published in both English andSwedish (Swedish title: Fukushimas Färger)

The Ishinomaki we now encounter is a ghost of its
former self; it has been left wrecked with only piles
debris to account for the former homesteads. Homes
have been washed away and so has the bridge.

Pray for Japan

Levy focuses on four themes: shelter, school, family
and volunteers, letting the people of Ishinomaki speak
for themselves. He keeps returning to each of these
items in turn for the remainder of the film. This results inrepetition and frustration as no one’s story or viewpointis ever given enough time or the chance to develop.

Directed by Stu Levy
2012, 97 minutes
Review by Susan Meehan
The Japan Society organiseda special charity screening
for the European premiereof Stu Levy’s documentaryfilm, Pray for Japan, at the British Academy for Filmand Television Arts (BAFTA) on 14 March 2012.
Issue 38 Volume 7 Number 2 (April 2012)

About 1,500 people sheltered in a flooded gym and wereisolated for three days with no food and only four bottles ofwater. Priority was given to the dehydrated, the elderly andchildren while the healthy survived without water for threedays. Provisions finally arrived, in the form of 300 rice balls. An
impressive Council man reads the ‘emergency manual’ in the
3

gym which says that food must not be distributed until there isenough to share with all evacuees to ensure fairness and thatfights don’t break out. These dispossessed individuals wait
until they have enough rice balls for everyone to receive ‘half aportion.’ The Council man, extraordinary in his sense of justiceand dignified and charming comportment, is an undoubted
star of the film and a shining example of humanity to all.
We then shift to Ogatsu Middle School. The graduation
ceremony for the Year Six had taken place earlier thatafternoon and the kids had been sent home at about
1pm on 11 March. They were all scattered throughout thecity when the earthquake and tsunami hit. As the spirited
art teacher remarked, had they all been at school at thetime of the disaster it is likely that many wouldn’t havesurvived as school emergency procedures and rigmarole,
including roll call, would have delayed evacuation.

house had been. They beat Japanese taiko (drums) with afrenzy and passion reflecting their agonising heartbreak.
While honouring and perhaps calling the dead, their valiant
resolve to keep living despite the overwhelming grief isapparent. Once the drumming is over, lit lanterns, flickeringlike fireflies, are sent down the river in memory of the dead.
At one of the volunteer emergency centres, two busloads
of volunteers from Sendai are arriving every day and threebusloads on the weekends. One volunteer says, ‘There’s nogive and take; it’s give, give, give.’ It is clear that the longer thevolunteers stay in Ishinomaki, the more reluctant they are toleave as they are aware of how much needs to be done. The
volunteers selflessly dedicate themselves to their work withimpressive panache: cooking, shovelling mud, clearing up
debrisandgenerallyelevatingthespiritsofthoseintheshelters.

The teachers, who feel tremendous responsibility foreach of their pupils, went to Ogatsu Shinrin Park andcompiled the names of all their pupils from memory. Their
next objective was to track down their seventy-seven
pupils. By 19 March all pupils had been accounted for,dispersed amongst seventeen different evacuation centres.

As we begin to see early glimmers of hope and a slow
return to normality, there is a farewell party for some ofthe volunteers who are returning home, having been
helping since immediately after the earthquake up
until April. Many of the volunteers are set to return toIshinomaki in the near future in order to help once again.
For many, Ishinomaki has become their second home.

In an attempt to create a sense of normality and cohesion,
the school is relocated to the nearby, apparently empty
Iinogawa High School. The pupils derive great comfort fromtheir new base and this decides their families to stay in thearea rather than evacuate Tohoku. This is testament to theextraordinary vitality and speedy action of the teachers.

Levy finishes by asking his interviewees what they expect
the situation will be one year on. The answers vary from,‘Still in chaos,’ to ‘Lots of debris still,’ to ‘I don’t know’ to ‘I’ve
no clear picture’ to ‘The situation won’t be rosy in a year.’
Levy himself could have added his own insights at this point
or galvanised people to act and help (rather than pray).

‘The film then breaks into almost psychedelic
animation and guitar music, mirroring theviewer’s disbelief and sense of surrealism at theextent of the destruction.’

It is a pity that the film doesn’t include current informationon the situation in Ishinomaki to bring it up to date. With theimmediacy of the news, blogs and social media in general,
we have all been made aware of the devastation wreaked in
Tohoku which has been reported on a global scale. Levy’s film
is another reminder of what happened. It would, perhaps,
have been helpful to have a perspective on the situation inother parts of Tohoku, not just Ishinomaki, or to have heard
about the role of the government or the nuclear accident
or speculations about the future of Ishinomaki and Tohoku.

The school motto is changed for the first time in 30 years, thenewversioncomprisestheJapanesefor ‘resilience’(たくましく).
A third focus is the Ito family. Kento, a seventeen-year old
student from Ishinomaki Nishi Senior High School, wasrehearsing for a gig in Sendai with his band members whenthe earthquake struck. Finally back in Ishinomaki, having been
stranded in Sendai for two days, he heads to the razed area
where his house had stood and begins a quest for his family
by visiting the evacuation centres. He is reunited with hisfather and one of his brothers, but discovers that his adorable
five-year old brother Ritsu has died along with his mother andgrandparents. They were all at home when the earthquake
struck and decided to flee by car. Tragically, this was not to be as
they were stuck in traffic when the tsunami claimed their lives.
Amidst the rubble, Kento finds a colourful carp streamer
which reminds him of little Ritsu who loved seeing the koi
nobori (carp streamers) flying in the wind on Children’s Day,
5 May. Kento manages to gather hundreds of carp streamers
sent from well-wishers all around Japan and hoists them up
in honour of little Ritsu in time for Children’s Day. This partof the film is particularly harrowing as we see Kento, friends
and band members back in the desolation where the Ito’s
4

On 12 March an explosion blew apart the building
containing reactor 1 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear
plant, yet no mention of this crisis is made in the film.
Instead of an objective interlocutor, adding useful
information not known or available to the interviewees
at the time of filming, there is an occasional female voice
reading aloud poems in Japanese. This is an unnecessary
pretension and somewhat irritating. Along with theanimation it was perhaps intended to give the film an artistic
dimension, but failed to add anything of positive worth.
The way Levy focused on the shelter, the volunteers, afamily and a school was ambitious but the continual tug
between the four perspectives resulted in a rather disjointed
film. A more in depth look at the volunteers or evacuees or
the school alone might have made for an improved film.
While undeniably a powerful film, we could have done withhaving seen it in May of last year or in the run-up to the first year
Issue 38 Volume 7 Number 2 (April 2012)

commemoration of the disaster rather than a year on. For Levy
it is important to point out that 900,000 people are still living inshelters and that 650,000 have lost their livelihoods and thatentire villages have been destroyed. However, the needs ofthe evacuees have moved on and we have become aware ofdifferent and changing issues through daily updated blogs.
Moving into the present doesn’t diminish the horror of what
happened a year ago; it, acts in fact, as a means of ensuringthat awareness of the situation in Tohoku is ever present.

problems is looked at as well as the wider social concepts oftatemae and honne. Ruth Taplin writes in the comprehensive
introductory chapter, Tatemae and honne are concepts
essential to understanding the Japanese psyche as the former
refers to how things should be and the latter refers to the reality
and how things are in actuality . . . In Japan, the very attempt
to separate the two states of mind so they do not come into
conflict can cause tension, especially within the context of thefamily where it is more difficult to hide true feelings (page 2).’

Levy has produced a good film for an excellent cause.
Though I’d exhort everyone to do what they can for therecovery of Tohoku and not to forget this importantcause, the film won’t add to what we already know.

There is analysis of various ideas and practices concerning avariety of aspects related to rehabilitation into the workforce
and the community and service user groups that empower
the mentally afflicted. Sandra Lawman believes, ‘The user
movement in Japan is fragile and needs further nurturing(page 111),’ while Satoru Hashimoto observes, ‘At thepresent time, the way of creating new jobs for those withmetal disorders is not generally accepted at Japaneseenterprises (page 70).’ The topic of the social stigma attached
to mental health issues is explored by Shuntaro Ando andGraham Thornicroft (pages 113-142) with some illuminatinginternational comparisons while a Japan-Britain analysis of theuser movement is given by Sandra Lawman (pages 98-112).

Mental Health Care in Japan
Edited by Ruth Taplin and
Sandra J. Lawman
Routledge: Contemporary Japan
Series, June 2012148 pages, £90.00
ISBN: 978-0-415-69068-3
Review by Sean CurtinThis impressive multi-authored work comprehensively
examines the current state of the mental health system
in Japan. It furnishes an excellent overview of the present
situation and the multifaceted issues facing the country.
Despite having one of the world’s highest suicide rates,
mental health issues are often underplayed or completely
overlooked. Other major challenges confronting thecountry are widespread depression, institutionalisation,over sedation of patients and a relatively restrictive mental
health care system. All these important topics are analysedin this work which meticulously explores the current
challenges. It provides a helpful overview of the complex
tapestry of the current system and discusses the latest
legislation, approaches to treatment and problematic areas.
Although research indicates depression is relatively
common in the country, with a significant increase since
the devastating March 2011 triple catastrophe, according
to Hiroto Ito, ‘awareness of depression is not high in Japan(page 45).’ Psychiatric care is also problematic as Hajime
Oketani and Hiromi Akiyama outline, ‘Massive doses ofpsychiatric drugs are administered in order to keep thepatients under sedation; they are often over-sedated.
Then, the treatment is considered as “going well” . . . This isthe background of megadose culture in psychiatric carein Japan, which is extremely unique; few countries in theworld practise this type of mental care approach (page 83).’
To provide a comprehensive picture, there is analysis of key
cultural aspects which impact on mental health. For example,
the role of family structures in contributing to mental health
Issue 38 Volume 7 Number 2 (April 2012)

On attitudes towards mental illness Shuntaro Ando andGraham Thornicroft conclude, ‘In Japan, knowledge about
the causes of mental illness was found to be poor, andweakness of personality was preferred as the cause rather
than heritability . . . The majority of the general public in Japan
presented social distance from individuals with mental illness
especially in closer relationships (page 132).’ They also notedthat ‘Japanese society’s values emphasising conformity
may also be a deteriorating factor for stigma against
mental illness, which deviates from the norm (page 129).’
This work is also packed with a variety of interesting casestudies, I particularly found the one by Yayoi Imamura
on how people with mental illness can be integrated
into a rural town enlightening (pages 79-82). The trial
took place in the relatively remote town of Urakawa in
Hokkaido and demonstrates that the countryside inJapan is not as conservative as it is generally portrayed.
It has only been in recent years that mental health issues
have become a more prominent public issue of concern
with demands for action. This momentum can be seen in
the various laws and reforms that have been passed in thepast decade. Dr Hiroto Ito, one of the book’s contributors
who looks at this issue (pages 36-56), has also beenclosely involved with helping shape government policy.
The issue of counselling those with post traumatic stresshas also become a prominent issue since the devastating
11 March 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and it is hoped
this should spur further improvements in the system.
While there are many challenges facing the mental healthsystem in Japan, most contributors to this work believe theoverall situation is improving. Shuntaro Ando and Graham
Thornicroft recommend, ‘ . . . educational programmesthat focus on the adverse effect of institutionalism andoffer direct social contact with people with mental illness5

are required in Japan, as they have been shown to beeffective in the world (page 133).’ Focusing on the positive
Hajime Oketani and Hiromi Akiyama comment, ‘What
we can do, from within the field of mental health, is tokeep on nurturing good aspects of Japanese culture
and society and contribute to build communities
where people can happily live their lives (page 96).’
The book was launched on 26 June 2012 at a lively and wellattended seminar entitled ‘Mental Health Care in Japan’ which
was held in the impressive surroundings of St. Dunstan’s
Church, in Fleet Street, London. There were four speakers,
three of the book’s contributors, Graham Thornicroft witheditors Ruth Taplin and Sandra Lawman along with Yuriko
Suzuki, a Japanese psychiatrist with first hand experienceof treating and dealing with the victims of post traumatic
shock in Japan. Koji Maruyama, First Secretary (Health andWelfare) at the Embassy of Japan in the UK also spoke about
the importance of improving mental health care in Japan.
All the speakers underlined the increased importance of the
topic since the Great East Japan Earthquake and how thisnew book will help non-Japanese understand the current
state of mental health care and the challenges facing Japan.
It is often difficult to find good quality analysis of these issues
in English and this impressive new work fills an important
void with first rate contributions and analysis from a wide
range of Japanese and foreign professionals and practitioners.
The editors and authors deserved to be commended
for producing this insightful and cutting-edge work.

Depression in Japan:
Psychiatric Cures for aSociety in Distressby Junko Kitanaka [宮部 みゆき]translatedbyDeborah
Stuhr Iwabuchi
Princeton University Press, 2011
264 pages, £19.95
ISBN: 9780691142050
Review by Sandra Lawman
Miyuki In this very scholarly book, Junko Kitanaka
gives a clear view of the history of depression in
Japan, its medicalization and its effects on society.
From my own work on mental health in Japan, I knowthat suicide rates are soaring and depression is now a kindof ‘national disease’, but how did it get to this? It is deeply
engrained into the Japanese psyche ‘not to stick out from thecrowd’, but anyone with severe mental illness does, and thisattitude makes it worse. Even not at the severe end, there
is a high incidence of low level depression which affects the
economy and the general well-being of the population.
Kitanaka highlights karoshi or death from overwork,
6

which now seems to be an accepted phenomenon.
She writes from a historical, clinical and sociologicalperspective, which are all her areas of academic expertise.
Her account is fascinating and gripping, and she relates
how historically, contra to previous opinion, there was alanguage for depression, and the talk of melancholia in
the 19th century was very similar to the Western view. She
goes on to relate how psychiatry fits in with this, and how
now it is accepted and part of society and the wider humancondition. She says (p51) ‘I suggest that the antipsychiatry
movement – and its dismantling of traditional Japanese
psychiatry – was crucial for preparing the conditions for thelater medicalization of depression’. This was in the 1980’s
and a very prevalent force in the West, from where from adifferent angle strong mental health service user movements
were founded. Japan is now catching up with this.
She also spends some time both on the physiological effects
of depression, which were the main concerns in medieval
times, and then the 19th century somatisation of mental
illness, when it was suggested it might have a biological basis.
This was a good basis for the acceptance of psychiatry later.
Kitkanaka concentrates some of her work on the treatment ofsuicide, which was very much the focus of psychiatry fifty years
ago, and details how this has developed into a wider mental
health treatment which is now accepted. She is also very
interesting on gender and depression, and points out that inJapan depression is seen as a male illness, whereas elsewhere it
is very female. She says (p140) ‘In sharp contrast to the culturally
evocative, sympathetic portrayal of overworked salarymen in
the popular discourse, until recently no clear master narrative
had existed for female depression.’ This is an interesting andnew analysis of this issue and provides food for thought.
Overall the book adds greatly to the knowledge of the
field, and is a jolly good read. More is being published
now on this subject, and there is interest from a lay
audience outside Japan, which is growing. Junko Kitanaka
provides a scholarly insight into aspects of the issue,
and a coherent overall view of the state of mental illness
in Japanese society, and is to be commended for that.

Sandra J Lawman is an Associate for the Shaftesbury
Partnership. She has recently co-edited with Dr Ruth Taplin‘Mental Health Care in Japan’ published by Routledge in June
2012.

Himizu [ヒミズ]Directed by Shion Sono
[園 子温]
2011, 129 minutes
Review by Susan MeehanFilm director Shion Sono was
working on his adaptation of
Himizu, a manga by Minoru
Furuya [古谷 実] when Japan
Issue 38 Volume 7 Number 2 (April 2012)

was devastated by the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.
Sono incorporated changes into his film accordingly.
Set against the backdrop of post earthquake and tsunami
Japan the pain Himizu portrays is unrelenting and incontrast to often saccharine portrayals of Japan. It is hardhitting and unflattering, exposing a cruel and violent
side of society that emerges with the implosion of order.
Given that the Great North East Japan Earthquake
left 19,000 dead perhaps Sono wanted to show how
precarious and vulnerable we are as human beings,
whether at the mercy of natural forces or other people.

being normal doesn’t mean shying away from society
but trying to fit in with the demands and constraints offamily life and society while trying to make life better for all.
The two young stars played their roles exceedingly welland it is worth mentioning that Shota Sometani and Fumi
Nikaido deservedly received the Marcello Mastroianni
Award for Best New Young Actor and Actress at the 68th
Venice International Film Festival in September 2011.

Hard Times in the
Keiko Chazawa, played by Fumi Nikaido [二階堂 ふみ], Hometown, A History of
befriends Sumida, played by Shota Sometani [染谷 将太], at Community Survival inschool; she is absolutely smitten and wants the best for him. Modern Japan
They are both fourteen years old and emotionally fragile.

Sumida wants to be ‘normal’, yet normal for him means
living like a ‘himizu’ or mole – quietly and fending for himself.
He lives in a shack and takes over his family’s rental boat
business. His mother leaves with another man and his father
is alcoholic, abusive and mainly absent. While Sumida’s
mother wants her husband dead and fantasizes aboutkilling him (when another earthquake strikes and no one will
notice), Sumida’s father wants his son dead. It is all very grim.
Keiko is hyperbolic and annoyingly, screechingly
enthusiastic; she is Sumida’s one-person cheerleading
band. Keiko doesn’t want Sumida to retreat from life but
wants him to make a success of his boat rental business.
In order to get him on his way, Keiko starts drummingup customers and producing fliers advertising the boats.
She receives no thanks; on the contrary, Sumida often
slaps her when she is too exuberant for his liking.
Depressingly, he repeats the behaviour of his odious parents.

‘Himizu left me cold with nothing to show for thetwo hours spent watching it and, occasionally,
averting my eyes from the violence.’
Keiko’s parents are no nicer, but being wealthy, comfortably
live in a large house in a nice part of town. They havelovingly arranged a noose for Keiko to hang herself, so
it is no surprise that she would rather spend time awayfrom home with Sumida despite his tendency to slap her.
The bleak, existential film is too uncomfortable to watch attimes. While the violence portrayed made me feel queasy,
the images of the destruction visited by the earthquake andtsunami which are interwoven into the film are, of course, farmore harrowing, poignant and tragic for the whole of Japan.

Himizu left me cold with nothing to show for the twohours spent watching it and, occasionally, averting myeyes from the violence. While a bleak and violent series
and film such as This is England is also a thoughtfulcomment on society, Himizu, unfortunately, does
not match this depth, being somewhat erratic.
If Japanese society is to recover from its trauma, ‘normality’shouldn’t be the aspiration of the young. In any case,
Issue 38 Volume 7 Number 2 (April 2012)by Martin Dusinberre
University of Hawaii Press, 2012247 pages, US$55
ISBN 978-0-8248-3524-8, US$55
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Martin Dusinberre first went toKaminoseki, the subject of this book, as an English language
teacher. He found the town of great interest and returned
there to undertake sociological research.
In this well researched book he traces the history of the town
and reviews its problems in the 21st century. Kaminoseki lieson the shore of the Inland Sea in what was the Chõshû domain[長州藩] and is now part of Yamaguchi prefecture. Hiroshima
is not so far away. Kaminoseki (literarily the upper barrier -上関) was the counterpart in the Edo period of Shimonoseki(literally the lower barrier). Both were important ‘guard’ postson the route from Nagasaki to Edo and were accordingly
stopping places for the ambassadors from Nagasaki to the
Shogun’s court in Edo. Among these ambassadors were
Korean envoys as well as the regular Dutch missions. So
Kaminoseki was visited by such famous scholars as Engelbert
Kaempfer and Carl Peter Thunberg when they accompanied
the Dutch factor [chief executive officer] on his way to Edo
to present his gifts to the Shogun. Robert Fortune, the plantcollector, called there on the steamship England in 1860.
Fortunately for Dusinberre many of the town’s records
have been preserved although sifting through them was
a complicated and difficult process. His book follows thegrowth of the town and its subsequent economic decline.
In some respects Kaminoseki was typical of other rural andcoastal towns. In other ways it was different not least becauseof its position on the route through the Inland Sea to Edo.
During the Edo period the Chõshû fief, whose headquarters
were in Hagi [萩], maintained significant facilities in Kaminoseki
including a large official guest house. In the early nineteenth
century Kaminoseki had become an important trading
centre where small Japanese wooden ships were being
built. By the middle of the century the port was dominating7

the village and the regional economy and providing nonagricultural employment. But from 1860 onwards steamships
predominated and the port’s importance declined.
Agriculture for which the land was poorly suited and fishingin the waters of the Inland Sea could not provide adequate
employment for the population which grew quickly after the
Meiji Restoration. Many left for the cities which developed withJapan’s modernization. Others joined the flow of Japaneseemigrants to Hawai’i and other places which welcomed
Japanese immigrants.
A major development for the town was the bridge from
Kaminoseki to Nagashima Island [長島] which was opened
in 1969. This proved not to be quite the boon which the local
people had hoped. Tourists now tended to be day trippers
rather than staying over-night. The town’s population whichpeaked at 13,200 in 1950 had declined to 6,100 by 1988 andhas decreased further since then.
Kaminoseki benefitted to a limited extent from the furusato[hometown] boom of the 1970s. NHK in 1974 began tobroadcast a series of dramas tracing the life of Hatoko who
was said to be from Kaminoseki thus drawing attention to
the plight of the town and its inhabitants.
The declining fortunes of the town and its geographicallocation attracted the attention of Chugoku Electric Power
Company [中国電力株式会社] which planned to constructa nuclear reactor on reclaimed land near the town. This
plan split the inhabitants into two opposing factions. The
pro-nuclear faction won a mayoral election in 1987 but
this seems to have been ‘aided’ by fraudulent registrationsof non-town residents in the run up to the election. 111
offenders were prosecuted and fined but the election was
not overturned. Dusinberre, who traced the way in whichpower in the community had hitherto rested with a small
number of comparatively wealthy families, notes (page 178)
that ‘The nuclear dispute exposed fault lines in island andtown life over the extent to which the historical elites could
continue to wield power.’ Chugoku Electric Power were inept
in handling the issues and in attempting to influence opinion
in favour of allowing a nuclear power station in the vicinity ofthe town. A site has been cleared but building has not begun
and following the Fukushima disaster prospects for one at
Kaminoseki look bleak.
Kaminoseki cannot really be considered as a typical Japaneserural township, but Dusinberre’s analysis, which looks at
so many aspects of local life including participation in local
shrine festivals, casts some interesting light on many of thechanges taking place in Japanese society and the economy.

8

Kokoro: The
Horiyoshi III

Art

of

Exhibition at Somerset House,
London21 March – 1 July 2012
Review by Michael Sullivan
On the first day of spring 2012a new exhibition opened up
at Somerset House, although
it is easy to get side tracked
by Somerset House’s terrace
which is always popular on warm spring days and by thespectacular sight of 10,000 ceramic daffodils that wereplaced in The Edmond J. Safra Fountain Court, if you venture
into the South Wing you would have seen something
very special. It has been named Kokoro, meaning heart,mind and spirit in Japanese, and as soon one entered theSouth Wing you were greeted by the sight of dragons
appearing out of the mist, demons, gods and eerie ghosts.
Horiyoshi III is a famous artist, who is a complete master ofJapan’s ancient art of tattooing, and his photo shown at
the exhibition perfectly epitomises his strong connection
with the kokoro of Japan as, bare chested but covered intattoos, he poses with a katana. However, his amazing ability
is not limited to skin as you can also see his work on silk.
There was a striking predominance of dragons appearing
behind fire, water, mountain and the sky, but in stark contrast
there were also scenes of bamboo that demonstrate a lightand gentle touch, including one silk picture of a cat andbutterfly. A more chilling sight was that of ghosts, their heads
hanging to the side at an unnatural angle with long hairflowing to the ground. One rather shocking picture, called
Namakubi, which has several meanings one of which being
an acceptance of fate, that can’t be described as it is best seen.
The picture above is called Kokoro Daruma with blade, thishighlights another side to Hiroyoshi III’s work as he embeds
hidden messages in his work, in this case the katana stands
for the kanji 刀「かたな」which when put together withthe kanji 心「こころ・しん」below it forms a new word 忍「にん」which means perseverance. In the centre of the second
room of the exhibit there were also the tools of the tattooist’s
trade on show, though currently the artist uses a mixture ofmore modern electric needles as well as traditional methods.
They are amazing pictures and reveal an artistry that
goes beyond mere images but also the culture of an
entire civilisation as well as the mind of an extraordinary
man who has practised his art for over 30 years.

Issue 38 Volume 7 Number 2 (April 2012)