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

Editor: Sean Curtin
Managing Editor: John Toppon.................................................................................................................................................

Issue 22 Volume 4 Number 4 (September 2009)

In this issue we focus on various aspects of changing
Japan. September 2009 itself heralded in seismic
political change with the first non-Liberal Democratic
Party (LDP) Prime Minister since Tomiichi Murayama
back in 1996, and more significantly the first unified
opposite party to take power since the formationof the LDP in 1955. To mark such a pivotal moment
Fumiko Halloran reviews several recent Japanese
language books about the new Democratic Party ofJapan government, its leader Yukio Hatoyama andpotential future Prime Minister Katsuya Okada, the
new no-nonsense Foreign Minister. These books were
written before the DPJ’s landslide victory in the 30th
August general election and offer some fascinating
insights into the new men at the political helm.
Our lead review looks at the state of mental healthin Japan, a much neglected subject, but one which
has become increasingly important as rapid socioeconomic change continues to batter Japanesesociety. Sir Hugh Cortazzi and Sandra Lawman eachoffer their own insightful review of Yuko Kawanishi’s
new cutting edge book. Ian Nish and Roger Buckleyreview some significant books of recent years, while
Peter Gysin examines a fascinating new publication on
the impact of the Russo-Japanese war on Japan.
Sean Curtin

Contents(1) Mental Health Challenges Facing Contemporary JapaneseSociety (two reviews)(2) Hatoyama Yukio to Hatoyama-ke Yondai(3) Minshuto Kaibo(4) Minshuto No Yami
(5) Seiken Kotai – Kono Kuni o Kaeru(6) Ultimate Crush(7) Japanese Society at War: Death, Memory and the RussoJapanese War(8) Contested Governance In Japan: Sites and Issues

New reviewswww.japansociety.org.uk/resources/the-japan-society-review
Archive
http://www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews_archive.html

We are grateful to our regular reviewers:
Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Fumiko Halloran
Takahiro Miyao
Ben-Ami Shillony
Mikihiro Maeda
Ian NishAnna Davis
Susan Meehan
William Farr
Tomohiko Taniguchi
Simon Cotterill......................................................................................................................................................................................................

Mental Health Challenges
Facing Contemporary
Japanese Society – The‘Lonely People,’by Yuko Kawanishi
Global Oriental, 2009, 175
pages including index andbibliography
Hardcover, £30
ISBN: 978-1-906876-00-5
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
One of the main problems for Japanese today is thatthey take themselves too seriously. But is this not trueof other peoples and does the diagnosis help? Our
personalities are all conditioned not only by our genes
but also by our environment including family and the
traditional values we absorb.
Dr Kawanishi, who attended universities in California,
Boston and Kyoto and has specialized in social psychology,

describes in this interesting book many of the stresses andstrains of modern Japanese life and analyses the factors
which have led to mental breakdowns and suicides. It
has taken a long time for Japanese generally to recognizethat mental health needs to be treated with as muchseriousness as physical health. The Ministry of Health,Welfare and Labour (page 54) reports that “three quartersof those suffering from depression are not receiving
any treatment.” Dr Kawanishi notes that “There is an old
Japanese saying that emphasizes the importance of being
resilient: one should keep going even though fallingseven times by picking oneself up eight times.” In Britain
also for far too long the stresses and strains of modern
life were treated as flaws or weakness of character rather
than problems of mental health. The answer was thought
to lie in calling for the sufferer to show a stiff upper lip.
It was only towards the end of the First World War thatshell-shock was recognized as a mental illness and did
not amount to cowardice. We have moved on from such
simple analyses and Dr Kawanishi shows that Japaneseopinion has also progressed, although probably not as far
as in some other developed societies.

Dr Kawanishi’s initial analysis of the Japanese psyche is
not new. She notes (page 15) that “Japanese thinking
patterns are dominated by an almost excessive stresson valuing social relationships over the individual as
an independent entity.” She emphasizes the bonddeveloped between mother and child and notes that
“too much love can kill you.” She draws attention to
the Japanese emphasis on ittaikan or “oneness in thegroup.” She points out that the image of Japan as
number one boosted Japanese self–confidence but
this was followed by years of stagnation and loss of selfconfidence.
Her second Chapter on “Mental Health at Work” covers
among other phenomena karoshi or death by over work
which she describes as a form of suicide. She notesthat long hours for many employees were regarded by
employers as normal. She quotes a woman as saying ofher son who killed himself after overwork that “no matter
how long he worked, his payroll would only record thathe left work at 9 p.m.” Japanese employers, who insist
on employees taking their holiday entitlements are very
rare, although a few in the financial sector must surely
have come round to recognizing that an employee, who
never takes a holiday, could be disguising problems. She
points out that the performance evaluations systems
introduced in many Japanese companies instead ofseniority based promotion structures have increased
pressure to overwork.
Her third chapter devoted to the Japanese family, whichis still influenced by the old pre-war Ie or household
system under a male head, makes dismal reading. She
describes “The contemporary family” as “an efficientarrangement for great economic growth.” She notes(page 70) that “husbands spend less and less time athome with their wives and children. Their contribution tohousehold chores is notoriously low…Home became aplace for many Japanese husbands simply to rest before
going back to work again next morning…With thehusband often a weak and peripheral figure, the risk of amother-child bond becoming too close is rather high.”
She draws attention to the number of sexless marriages
among young people in Japan today where the net
reproduction rate is one of the lowest in the world. She
asks: “Is Japanese marriage at a crossroads?” She thinksthat (page 93) “many of the problems Japanese families
face today come from a strange mixture of warped postwar political and economic development, the haunting
influence of Confucian-based ie ideology on the surface,and a deeper cultural, psychological orientation.”
This sets the framework for her discussion in chapter fourof Japanese youth and its various problems including
refusal to go to school, bullying, violence by children
against their parents and the hikkomori or withdrawal
syndrome which has become such a prominent feature
in foreign commentaries on Japanese life. She notesthat hikkomori, with its implication that the person
concerned, like monks in olden times, is withdrawing
from the world, “sounds more benign and more like a2

temporary condition than ‘personality disorder’” andthus tends to gloss over the reality. She feels (page133) that it “is ironic that, in an era of globalization inwhich communication with different kinds of people iscrucial to the future and survival of Japan, many young
Japanese suffer from an inability to relate to otherhuman beings.”
Sadly Dr Kawanishi does not see any simple ways outof the psychological problems Japan confronts today.
For her the Japanese need (page 158) “to re-establish ahealthy sense of boundary between the individual andothers… and to learn how to do this” or in other words(page 160) “to create a new sense of independence thatcan coexist alongside a traditional Japanese self.” If theycannot do so “the Japanese will continue to live a lonely
and lightless existence.”
This is a thought-provoking if depressing book.

Review by Sandra Lawman
I first went to Japan because I thought it would be aschizophrenic society, with its emphasis on a maternal
culture, its reserve and its mood swings. I think I wasproved largely right, and it suited me to experience asociety I thought I had some kinship with.
This book examines the mental health challenges facing
contemporary Japan, and frames them in terms of thenational psyche, such as it exists, and the pressures on the
traditional psychology with the decline as a superpower
and all that comes with post industrialisation. The
author gives an incisive and coherent account of why
there are now so many “lonely people” and why thecountry seems to be going through a depressive phase.
She posits that the traditional strengths of group
loyalty, self effacement and concealment of emotions
are now contributing to some of the bad aspects today.
She particularly emphasises people’s difficulty withexpressing emotions and communicating generally ona personal level, which is increasing with the failings in
the economy.
Japanese people rightly pride themselves on subtle
non-verbal communication, but somewhere along theway the ability to articulate problems has been lost, andthe author claims this leads to pent-up stress which may
contribute to the high levels of suicide. There is also an
increasingly high incidence of clinical depression, which
is often disguised as mental stress or mild depression toescape the stigma of something worse.
She looks at mental health at work, and the phenomenonof dying through hard work, and she investigatesthe current trend in family life, including sex, and theprevalence of hikikomori, where people withdraw
completely from society and shut themselves up in theirrooms. This has attracted considerable international
media interest in the last decade or so, and it is still
unclear whether in itself it is a mental health problem
Issue 22 Volume 4 Number 4 (September 2009)per se, or has more of a social cause. Examination ofthis leads to a particular in depth look at youth, andthe changes in society which are putting pressure not
only on the young people but also on their families andworkplaces. A phenomenon almost unique to Japan
is violence in the home by children towards parents,
which is on the increase, and which is the result of anunarticulated frustration.
Most of the book concentrates on common mental
stresses and strains, which are becoming more prevalent,but, interestingly, the incidence of major illnesses suchas schizophrenia or manic depression seems to be
decreasing, with better treatment. These diseases are
not so medicated yet as in other countries, and from my
own research I know there is limited self-help, although
there are groups out there. I was always taught that,whilst the main thing in British society is to ‘stand on
your own two feet,’ the main tenet of Japanese society
is ‘not to stick out from the crowd.’ The book does point
to some measures which are now being taken to help
those who deviate from the norm, but there is still some
way to go.
Sandra Lawman lived in Tokyo in the early 1980’s until
she left with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia,
Since then she has lectured on mental health in Japan,
done a study of the Japanese mental health service user
movement, and written a paper on the added value oftrust and foundation funding to the health and social
care NGO sector in Japan. She also worked at a major
Japanese company in London throughout the 90’s.

Hatoyama Yukio to
Hatoyama-ke Yondai[鳩山由紀夫と鳩山家四代] (Yukio Hatoyama
and the Four Generation
Hatoyama Family)
by Seiho Mori
Chuko Shinsho La Clef,
September, 2009, 186 pages,
Paperback, 720 yen
ISBN-13: 978-4121503305
Review by Fumiko Halloran
Yukio Hatoyama is under intense scrutiny as Japan’s
new Prime Minister and the leader of the Democratic
Party of Japan (DPJ) which finally wrestled power fromthe Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) after its monopoly
in governing for over half a century. A flurry of newbooks have come out on Hatoyama as a person andwhat his party might do to solve Japan’s domestic anddiplomatic problems. Nicknamed the “Alien” becauseof his enigmatic personality and his wife Miyuki’s evenmore eccentric behaviour - she claimed that she once
flew to Mars and eats the sun every morning - theIssue 22 Volume 4 Number 4 (September 2009)

Japanese public is eager to understand who he is as aperson and political leader.
Seiho Mori’s concise book is useful in explaining thePrime Minister’s extraordinary family history. It goesback four generations to Kazuo Hatoyama, the Prime
Minister’s great grandfather. He was born in 1856
into a samurai family in Okayama Prefecture, three
years after Commodore Perry’s black ships appearedin the Uraga Bay and graduated from a school thatwas later to become the Faculty of Law at Tokyo
Imperial University. He studied at Columbia College in
New York, then moved to Yale University to receive amasters and doctorate in jurisprudence, and returned
to Japan in 1880. He was briefly a lecturer at the Tokyo
Imperial University but was soon elected to the Tokyo
Metropolitan Legislature. In 1892, he was elected to
the House of Representatives and was later appointed
as Speaker of the House.
Kazuo’s eldest son, Ichiro, graduated from the Facultyof Law at the Tokyo Imperial University and, after his
father’s death, was elected to the Tokyo Metropolitan
Legislature. That was followed by winning a seat in
the House of Representatives in 1915. Ichiro served
as the Chief Cabinet Secretary for Prime Minister
Giichi Tanaka and later as the Minister of Education in
the Tsuyoshi Inukai’s Cabinet in 1931. In 1943, Ichiro
criticized General Hideki Tojo which resulted in his
exile to Karuizawa. After the war, Ichiro returned toTokyo as the president of Nippon Jiyu-to (Japan Liberal
Party, later shortened to Jiyu-to) and won a majority
in the 1946 House of Representatives election. But
GHQ ordered Hatoyama to be purged from public
life, which drove him back to Karuizawa. In 1951, hesuffered a stroke that paralyzed him. After a partial
recovery from his illness, Ichiro struggled with Shigeru
Yoshida, president of Nippon Jiyu-to, and eventually
won the premiership as the president of Nippon
Minshu-to (Japan Democratic Party) in 1954. He wasinstrumental in merging the Jiyu-to (Liberal Party) and
Minshu-to (Democratic Party) to form the long-ruling
Liberal Democratic Party, which his grandson, Yukio,
finally succeeded in unseating. Ichiro’s legacy includes
restoring diplomatic relations with the then Soviet
Union. He retired from politics in 1956 and died three
years later.
Iichiro Hatoyama, Ichiro’s eldest son, was born in 1918.
He, too, graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Tokyo
Imperial University but chose a bureaucratic careerby joining the Ministry of Finance (MOF). Returningfrom the Imperial Navy duties during the war, he
immediately rejoined the MOF and rose to becomeits vice-minister in 1971. After retirement from MOF,
Iichiro was elected to the House of Councilors andwas the foreign minister in the Takeo Fukuda Cabinetof 1976. Although his political career was long, heremained in the shadow of his father’s legacy.
Iichiro and his wife Yasuko had two sons, Yukio andKunio, and a daughter, Kazuko. Following family
3tradition, both brothers graduated from the Universityof Tokyo, but Yukio from the Engineering Department
with a major in applied physics, and Kunio from theFaculty of Law. Kunio showed an interest in politics
even in his childhood and became an assistant to Prime
Minister Kakuei Tanaka. After Tanaka resigned due to ascandal, Kunio experienced a series of ups and downs,
sometimes winning, sometimes losing, in various
elections. He is today in the House of Representatives
as a member of the LDP and has served as minister ofjustice and minister of general management in recent
cabinets.
Yukio, on the other hand,
seemed to be content withan academic career. He
studied at Stanford University
to earn a doctorate, thenreturned to Japan and landed
on a teaching job at Senshu
University in Tokyo. While atStanford, according to Yukio
himself in an interview in“Hatoyama Yukio No Leadergaku” (鳩山由紀夫のリーダー
学 – Study on Leadership of
Yukio Hatoyama) publishedby PHP, he was impressed with Americans who wereindividualistic, yet would unite as Americans when
it came to patriotism. He claims to have chosen thepolitical life and had his own patriotism awakened byhis American experience.
In 1986, Yukio was elected to the House ofRepresentatives as a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)
member from a Hokkaido district where the Hatoyama
family had long ties with the local community throughits working farm. He remained in the LDP until 1993
when he joined a series of minority parties. In 1996,
he teamed up with Naoto Kan to form the Democratic
Party of Japan, which absorbed other minor parties
and eventually merged with the Liberal Party headedby Ichiro Ozawa in 2003. Several publications claimthat when Yukio formed the DPJ, his widowed motherYasuko provided 2.1 billion, repeat billion, yen incampaign expenses. The real power in the Hatoyama
family seems to be Yasuko, a frail, soft-spoken, elegant
woman whose political insight is respected. Her wealthcomes from her parents, the Ishibashi family foundersof the Bridgestone Tire industrial empire.
The wives and mothers in the Hatoyama family havebeen extraordinary as the clan expanded its power
through marriages among elite families in political,
academic, and business fields. Kazuo Hatoyama’swife, Haruko, was a pioneer in the higher education of
women in the early Meiji period. She founded Kyoritsu
Joshi Shokugyo Gakko (Kyoritsu Women’s Vocational
School, later to be Kyoritsu Women’s School System).
Ichiro’s wife, Kaoru, was also an educator, helping
Haruko in running the school system and affiliated4educational institutions. She was a confidant of her
husband Ichiro throughout his career. Iichiro’s wife
Yasuko, through her family’s wealth and connections
with other prominent families, brought the Hatoyama
family a special status on the political power map. Yukio
married Miyuki, a former member of the Takarazuka
theatre troop. She is a lifestyle consultant and has
published several cook books. Kunio’s wife, Emily,
is a former model and actress. She was born to an
Australian father and a Japanese mother. Both wives
have campaigned for their husbands but have notbeen active in public life like their great grandmotherin-law or grandmother-in-law. Yasuko, their motherin-law, rarely appears in public.
A different version of this review first appeared on the
National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) Japan-US
Discussion Forum and is reproduced with permission.

Minshuto Kaibo[民主党解剖] (Anatomyof the Democratic Partyof Japan)by Sankei Shimbun
Political News Division
Sankei Shimbun-sha No Hon,
July 2009, 228 pages
Paperback, 1300 yen
ISBN-13: 978-4819110648

Minshuto No Yami
[民主党の闇](The Democratic Partyof Japan in Darkness)by Keisuke Udagawa
Seiko Shobo, July 2009
253 pages, Paperback,1575 yen
ISBN-13:978-4880862507

Reviews by Fumiko Halloran
The Sankei Shimbun and Keisuke Udagawa books
reviewed here were published before the 30th August
2009 general election, and were best sellers snatched
up by voters who were eager to learn more about the
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and how the party
would steer a course head for the country.
Udagawa’s rambling book focuses on new elected
Issue 22 Volume 4 Number 4 (September 2009)

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s criticism of thebureaucracy as unrealistic, on his support for voting
rights for foreign permanent residents (mostly
Koreans) as dangerous and unconstitutional, andon his generous social welfare programs as lacking
financial resources. The author devotes three chapters
to several financial scandals that could undermine theaccountability of the Hatoyama regime. The author
warns readers, many of whom wanted major changes
in politics, not to be swept up by a superficial politicaltide but to look at the Democratic Party of Japan as it is.
The analysis in the Sankei Shimbun book is far morethorough, with a list of DPJ proposals on each issue.
Interestingly, while Hatoyama as the head of the DPJ is
prominently written up in the first chapter, the rest of
the book gives much space to Ichiro Ozawa’s role in theparty and future elections. Sankei foresaw the double
power centres in the party. Ozawa resigned as headof the DPJ after the arrest of one of his assistants who
was allegedly involved in illegal financial contributions
from a construction company. Ozawa, however,controlled campaign strategy for the 30th August
general election that brought a sweeping victory to
the DPJ. Prime Minister Hatoyama thus appointed
Ozawa as party secretary general. Ozawa is known forhis controversial remarks such as Japan needing only
the U.S. Seventh Fleet to be based in Japan for thenation’s protection. How much Hatoyama can rein in
Ozawa remains to be seen. Whether Ozawa continues
to have ambitions about becoming prime minister
also remains to be seen. Political observers say that thefinancial scandals embroiling Ozawa along with hishealth problems (he has suffered heart attacks in thepast) might be a handicap.
From these two books and the review of the Hatayama
study above, one gets the impression that Yukio
Hatoyama has several faces. He is an idealist who
advocates the spirit of “fraternity” (友愛 Yu-ai), a slogan
in the French Revolution. He is a liberal who advocatesa social welfare state that is kind to those in need.
And he shows signs of a Machiavellian politician whoplays hardball. Born into a wealthy family, his remarkson the poor and the unfortunate often sound out-oftouch. Yet he is quick to shift position to keep power.
The scrutiny of Japan’s new Prime Minister’s politicalleadership and his stand on various policies shows thatthe future of his new regime is impossible to predict.

Issue 22 Volume 4 Number 4 (September 2009)

Seiken Kotai – Kono
Kuni o Kaeru [政権交代―この国を変える](Change of Political
Power – To Change ThisCountry)by Katsuya Okada
Kodansha International,
2009, 104 pages
Paperback, £18.00
ISBN: 9784770030931
Review by Fumiko Halloran
Katsuya Okada is Japan’s new no-nonsense Foreign
Minister in the first DPJ Cabinet, a onetime head of theparty and the man Prime Minister Hatoyama narrowly
beat to become party leader. This book was publishedin 2008 but still has material that can be legitimately
examined to see where DPJ is heading in governing.
Readers might be disappointed if they are looking for his
thinking on Japan’s foreign policy; his book is devoted
to the domestic political situation.
A semi-autographical book, Okada narrates his politicalcareer steeped in pushing for political reform includingchanges in the electoral district system while he wasa member of the ruling LDP. As a thirty-three year
old former MITI (Ministry of International Trade andIndustry, currently Ministry of Economic, Trade andIndustry) official and a new member of the House ofRepresentatives in 1990, Okada was disappointed by theway the LDP conducted politics, by factional fights, byclose relations with interest groups and the corruptionthat rose from it; by sluggish efforts to change the statusquo; and by lukewarm policy debates.
Riding on a wave of reform, Okada quit the LDP in
1993 and joined the Shinshin-to (New Progressive
Party) that, with other opposition parties, succeeded
in toppling the LDP briefly. The coalition governmentof Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa collapsed inless than one year, however, and the LDP returned to
power. Okada asserts that a new DPJ prime ministerand his cabinet should take away power from thebureaucrats in policy making, including the controlof personnel appointments and budget proposals.
Priorities should focus on social welfare including
retirement pensions, local autonomy, and reform of
the financial structure and reducing the national deficit.
Although foreign policy is not discussed in this book,
Okada has had considerable overseas experience.
When he was a MITI official, he and his wife spent a year
in 1985 at Harvard University, where he was a guest
scholar at the Center for International Affairs (Kokusai
Mondai Kenkyusho). He describes with nostalgia theirlife in an apartment on the bank of the Charles River.
Every weekend they had a party to which they invited5Americans and foreign students from Malaysia, thePhilippines, Korea, China, Nepal, Venezuela, Mali, andother countries. He says he learned about the cultural
diversity of the world community and the importanceof freedom, in addition to being proud of his own
country. Observing American politicians, particularly
President Reagan, at the time of national crises, Okada
realized what politicians could do for their country andbegan to contemplate a political career for himself.
During the last few years, he travelled overseas
extensively, meeting with political leaders in manynations.
His first press conference as foreign minister took place
on 17th September 2009; the transcript is posted on
the Foreign Ministry’s homepage and is likely to bearchived for long term reference. Okada covered a range
of issues, including investigating secret agreements
between the U.S. and Japanese governments on the
movement of American nuclear weapons into or
through Japan; he ordered the Foreign Ministry tocome up with a report by November. He commented
on North Korea’s abduction of Japanese citizens,saying that without further information, sanctions
would continue, and indicated the Maritime Defence
Forces refuelling operation in Indian Ocean in supportof international operations in Afghanistan would not
be extended but Japan would consider other forms ofassistance.
Public opinion polls show that more than 70% of thecitizens approved of the new cabinet in its early days.
Whether the DPJ can resolve economic troubles, help
the elderly and families with children, narrow the gap
between the haves and have-nots, establish stable
relations with the United States and Asian neighbours,
and play an effective role in international community
will be closely watched both by the Japanese
themselves and people overseas.

Ultimate Crush: Waseda
University Rugby,
Leadership and Building
the Strongest Winning
Team in Japanby Katsuyuki Kiyomiya
Translated by Ian
Ruxton
North Carolina, Lulu Press,
2006, 150 pages, Paperback,£17.00
ISBN: 978-1430303213
Review by Ian Nish
This book was inspired by the death of Katsuhiko Oku(1958-2003) who will be known to many readers as the6former Counsellor of the Japanese Embassy in London
with special responsibility for the Japan Information
and Cultural Section. Subsequently he was gunned
down in an ambush during duty in Iraq and wasgiven the posthumous title of Japanese ambassador
to that country. His connection with this book is that
he was an Old Boy of Waseda Rugby Club for which
he had played and with which he kept close ties. The
author of this book set up in his honour a Non-Profit
Organization, the Oku-Inoue Fund for the children of
Iraq, just as rugby-playing associates in London set
up a similar fund in his name. The name of Oku wasthus commemorated along with that of his colleague
Masamori Inoue with whom he died.
This is a rugby autobiography written by Katsuyuki
Kiyomiya (1967- ), rugby player and coach of Waseda
University team for five years from 2001 to 2006. It
was originally published in Japanese as Kyukoku no
shori (Ultimate Crush) [Kodansha 2006] and contains
not just an account of his Waseda career but also
his theories on rugby tactics. Professor Ian Ruxton of
Kyushu Institute of Technology, himself an enthusiast
for Japanese rugby, offered to translate the volume
because he felt that “one of the reasons why the Japan
Rugby Football Union unfortunately failed in its bid tobring the Rugby World Cup 2011 to this country was
the lack of knowledge of Japanese rugby throughout
the world.” (page iii) His translation captures well theconversational style of rugby talk and, combined withhis extended introduction, is an enlightening read.
Kiyomiya, a former captain of Waseda, was nominatedas coach when he retired from playing. But he met
resistance from the players because he was a forward
and they wanted a back. He was eventually acceptedand his coaching methods proved to be successful inhis first season and took the side out of a long periodof poor performances. At the end of his first year, theteam was thought to be fit to tour the UK as part of the“Anglo-Japanese cultural exchanges” which Counsellor
Oku was organising. But the team needed a slogan,characteristically in the English language. Counsellor
Oku put up many suggestions and “Ultimate Crush”
eventually met with approval from the team. (Hencethe title of this book.) Its exact implications are vague;
but clearly opponents were well advised to takecover.
Whatever the mystic properties of the slogan,
Kiyomiya restored the fortunes of the Waseda team,which was successful in the Kanto Universities League,
beating their arch-rival Kanto Gakuin in the University
Championships in January 2005. They also played
well in the All-Japan Championship matches andagainst visiting teams from Oxford and Cambridge.
There were ups and downs of fortune; but broadly heaccomplished great things.
Yet despite the positive message of this book in favourof rugby, there is at the end a note of disappointment
about the present state of Japanese rugby. He writes
Issue 22 Volume 4 Number 4 (September 2009)

“This is because the number of students and highschool pupils playing the game is decreasing…When
I was a player, rugby was very popular. High school
rugby was broadcast nationwide on television, andHanazono Rugby stadium was packed day after day.
But now there is not even a pale shadow of that.” (page142)
Kiyomiya is an evangelist for rugby and seeks by thisand other books to restore the popularity of the sportin Japan and its international image.

Japanese Society at War:
Death, Memory and the
Russo-Japanese War
by Naoko Shimazu
Studies in the Social andCultural History of Modern
Warfare (No. 28), Birkbeck
College, University of
London, 2009, 354 pages.
Hardcover, £55
ISBN-13: 978-0521859349
Review by Peter Gysin
The Russo-Japanese war, the author reminds us,
was hugely symbolic – the first victory for a nonwhite, non-Christian, emerging nation over a white,
Christian, developed counterpart, it inspired nationalist
revolutionary movements in Asia and the Russian
empire itself. Histories of the war tend to focus on the“big picture,” diplomatic machinations leading to, andconcluding, the fighting, and the epic land and sea
battles (the scale of the slaughter should have madethis, not World War I, the conflict to end romantic
notions of warfare). This book examines the smaller,
human picture.
Received wisdom ascribes Japan’s victory to a
combinationof national unity (in contrast to
revolutionary racked Russia), proximity to the theatreof war, her strategic alliance with Britain and better
planning, but mainly to the spirit of the Japanesesoldiers, willing, perhaps even wanting, to dieheroically. Such self-sacrifice, reinforced by accounts
such as Sakurai Tadayoshi’s Human Bullets (Sakurai
bewails the drowning of an officer, not for the factof death but as a lost opportunity to die in battle)
made a huge impression on foes and observers alike.
Subsequently, in the Russian Civil war, Bolshevik officers
could sometimes only maintain morale by assuring
troops that their Japanese foes were Korean; later,
Soviet commentators denigrated Japanese soldiers as
smertniki (death seekers).
Dr Shimazu paints a more complex picture of Japanesesociety (military and civilian) than that propounded bycontemporary state propaganda or, for that matter,
Issue 22 Volume 4 Number 4 (September 2009)

western observers, modifying a number of stereotypes.
Japan’s national character was not monolithic - there
was a peace movement, her army too had its sceptics,
deserters and suicides. Conversely, Russians, lessmotivated, could also fight to the death.
Russia’s defeated Commander-in-chief Kuropatkincited the education of Japan’s rank and file (unlike theiroften illiterate Russian counterparts) as a key factor in
her triumph. Many (with official encouragement) kept
diaries; conscripts’ vivid accounts of their journeys
across Japan before embarkation, and impressions ofManchuria and Korea (generally unfavourable) andopponents (grudging respect) form a memorable partof the book. The author shows how the journey fromhome village to port, seeing famous temples, castles
and scenery for the first time, cheered by crowds at
stations en route, instilled in the conscripts a senseof patriotic identity – assuaging but not removing
anxiety over the fighting to come and the effect on
their dependents should they, the breadwinner, perish.
Loyalty to the state conflicted with family obligations.
To sugar the pill, the state came up with the slogan“honourable war death” – but conscripts did not, “buy”
this notion (more appropriate for the samurai class towhich they did not belong) even if they could only
criticise it obliquely.
Similarly jaundiced could be the reactions of those
who had experienced fighting to the patriotic fervourof the domestic public, who often treated the war as
an excuse to party. But gatherings mean crowds andeven patriotic crowds can and did get out of hand –with sometimes fatal results. If the Japanese authorities
struggled to dampen patriotic fervour – undignified ina nation seeking to portray itself as civilised – they were
scarcely less able to hold back the peace activists. We
learn that (surprisingly) anti-war journals, along withpoems and works of art on the futility of war death,continued to be produced throughout the conflict.
Another particularly memorable chapter covers Russian
POWs’ time in Matsuyama, whose generous treatment(recreational facilities, freedom of movement, cultural
sensitivity towards non-Russian minorities), to thebafflement of Japanese diehards but the benefit of
the local economy, seems more like a holiday camp.
WW II veterans of Japanese incarceration will raise aneyebrow on reading of Russian complaints over the
food. Of course there were diplomatic imperatives
behind what the author terms “humanitariannationalism”, Japan at pains to display to the outside
world behaviour towards the vanquished befitting acivilised nation.
Other chapters describe how the government (anxious
to spare the Exchequer) left commemoration of the war
dead and succour to bereaved families largely to local
elites; the posthumous “deification” of naval officer
Hirose - centrally inspired but lasting well beyond
the war thanks to popular renderings in song, and on
screen and stage; and consciousness of the war in its
7

aftermath - today, seemingly greater in Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, the scene of the protracted peace
negotiations, whose centenary was celebrated in 2005,
than in the combatant countries.
Though manifestly the fruits of scholarship, thisreadable book is for the layman as well as historian.
While it assumes a broad knowledge of the war, it
provides enough background for non cognoscenti tofill in the gaps. With 35 evocative photographs and 2maps, it is rich in detail – from socialising across thefront line during a New Year’s Eve truce, to schoolboys
misbehaving on outings to see Russian prisoners,
soldiers’ preoccupations (women, letters from home,food) and the treatment of the (much fewer) Japaneseprisoners in Russia.

Contested Governance
In Japan:Sites and Issues
edited by Glenn D Hook
Sheffield Centre for JapaneseStudies, Routledge Curzon
Series, Abingdon, 2005 288
pages, Paperback, £29.99
ISBN: 978-0415364980
Review by Roger Buckley
Getting rid of the nation-state never actually happens.
The authors of this collection of papers prepared for a
2001 Anglo-Japanese meeting have their misgivings overstate sovereignty but several admit that the beast keeps
reappearing in different guises. The state may indeed bediminished by global forces, yet paradoxically it pops up
again as the hidden funder, the quiet organizer and thesometime friend of institutions that wish to challenge
traditional power centres at home and abroad.
The thorny methodological issues are tackled first byProfessors Hook and Dobson in the expectation that thiswill provide the context for the more specific chapters on
Japanese approaches to gabanansu [ガバナンス]. Bothauthors wish to discover what might be the specificallyJapanese characteristics of the phenomenon, examining
governance at the international, national, regional andsmall-group levels.
Different authors in this most useful collection of
essays take different approaches. Hook suggests thatgovernance in Japan can be viewed as a process wherestate power frequently overrides that of the individual,
though he notes that the market and society may well beoffering greater challenges to the conventional view ofan all-dominate central authority. Dobson acknowledges
the “definitional fuzziness” of both governance andglobalization and goes on to caution against “the8lingering importance of traditional sovereign state actors
and we need to regard the appearance of new actors
with suspicion.”
Challenging the Japanese state through widening policy
debates and the decision-making process is shown to be
no easy matter. The obstacles are high and frequent for
those outside the iron triangle hoping to penetrate thebureaucratic arena.
We are told by Philip Cerny that major exporters have“grown steadily more independent” of officialdom
because firms can raise their own capital, yet Japanese
corporations and the financial sector still look instinctively
to the state when times get hard. An approach toothat Europeans and North American banks and car
manufacturers have most certainly been following during
the present global recession, leading commentators tosuggest that the West is reverting to its own versions ofJapan’s industrial policy. Neo-liberalism and globalization
are hardly the flavours of the month in the summer of2009 as the G-8 and G-20 club members attempt tohold back protectionism and beggar-my-neighbour
competitive devaluations.
Most essays in this collection refer to events of the late
1990s with a few touching on the early days of theKoizumi administration. The result of course is a slight
datedness with prime ministers and, perhaps more
importantly, officials coming and going in the interim
but anyone interested in how Japan has been tackling its
homeless issue or requiring data on corruption or family
policy is in for a feast. Recommended for those searchingfor both information and insights.

Next Issue:
Japan in Late Victorian
London: The Japanese
Native Village in
Knightsbridge and The
Mikado, 1885
In the next issue of the Japan
Society Review we will belooking at Sir Hugh Cortazzi’s
latest book, Japan in Late
Victorian London: The Japanese
Native Village in Knightsbridge
and The Mikado, 1885.
For those who would like to buy a copy of the book,you can do so by writing to The Sainsbury Institute for
the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures (SISJAC) at theaddress below, enclosing a cheque for £5.
The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts
& Cultures, 64 The Close, Norwich, NR1 4DH, United
Kingdom.

Issue 22 Volume 4 Number 4 (September 2009)