The Japan Society Review 73
Book, Stage, Film, Arts and Events Review

Issue 73 Volume 13 Number 1 (February 2018)

Welcome to the February issue of The Japan Society
Review, the first in our thirteenth volume of the
publication. We enter 2018 with renewed enthusiasm,
bringing you reviews of interesting books, films andother events related to Japan. In this issue, we include
reviews of two academic books, one focusing on the pastand the other considering the future of Japanese politics
and nationalism, an anthology of short stories by writers
based in Kyoto, a book which received the Great Britain
Sasakawa Foundation Award and a Japanese film fromThe Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme 2018.
Focusing on five controversial issues, Rethinking
Japan: The Politics of Contested Nationalism explores
Japan’s future prospects under the political direction ofPrime Minister Abe Shinzo’s government. From anotherperspective, but sharing the contentious issue of historic
revisionism, The History Problem. The Politics of War
Commemoration in East Asia, documents the forms of war
commemoration ‘against the background of a shifting

international landscape in East Asia, and of evolving
national perceptions about World War II in Japan’.
The two fiction books reviewed in this issue show theinterest of non-Japanese writers in writing about Japan.
Echoes: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 2017 is a compilationof memories, fictional accounts, poems and literary
extracts which draw on individual experiences of Kyoto
by a group of writers currently living or remembering
their time in the city. The second fiction book is My Falling
Down House by Jayne Joso, which offers a wonderful
exploration of human sociality and isolation through themonologues of her fascinating character.
To conclude our February issue, the review of thefilm Japanese Girls Never Die offers some insights on therefreshing take on girl power depicted in the narrative, ‘astory of women who cannot find their place in Japanesesociety regardless of their efforts to fit in’.
Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández

Contents
1)

Rethinking Japan: The Politics of Contested Nationalism
by Arthur Stockwin and Kweku Ampiah

Editor2)

The History Problem. The Politics of War Commemorationin East Asia
by Saito Hiro

Reviewers

Alejandra Armendáriz-HernándezMorgane Chinal-Dargent, Sir Hugh Cortazzi, Alice French, Dr Andrew

3)

Echoes: Writers in Kyoto Anthology 2017edited by John Dougill, Amy Chavez and Mark Richardson

Levidis, Harry Martin.

4)

My Falling Down House
by Jayne Joso

Image from the cover of My Falling Down House

5)

Japanese Girls Never Die
directed by Matsui Daigo

Rethinking Japan: The Politics
of Contested Nationalism
by Arthur Stockwin and Kweku
AmpiahLexington Books (2017)
ISBN: 978-1-4985-3792-6
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi(The following is an opinion piecebased on this book originally published by The Japan
Times on 9 March).
Japan’s continuing importance should not needrestating, but Japan’s future prospects are not so clear.
Serious questions need to be asked about the direction
and policies being pursued by the government ofPrime Minister Abe Shinzo.
An important new book Rethinking Japan: The
Politics of Contested Nationalism by two senior British
scholars of Japan Arthur Stockwin and Kweku Ampiah,
discusses the main contentious issues facing Japan.
Their worrying conclusion is that ‘The new Japan thatis emerging... will be more controlled, less democratic,
less oriented towards peace, more internationallyassertive, more inclined to confront neighboring
countries, more unequal, more stressed, moreconcerned to flaunt national traditions reflecting theethos of a militaristic past, more inward looking andless internationalist than the world became used to in
the postwar years’.
This is a disturbing conclusion. How far is it
justified? The authors, after outlining the political
history of Japan since the war, discuss in some depth
the changes wrought in Japan’s political system
by electoral reform and the decline of the factions(habatsu). They draw particular attention to thegrowing strength of right wing nationalism in theruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and stress theimportance for Japan of success being achieved by‘Abenomics’.
Their concerns focus on five main issues, namely
constitutional revision, the ‘Designated Secrets
Law’ and freedom of speech, historical revisionism,
legislating for collective self-defense, relations withJapan’s neighbors and with the rest of the world. Eachissue is discussed in some detail and the arguments
set out logically.
The LDP’s proposals for revision of the postwar
constitution are worrying. Apart from the proposed
amendments to Article 9, which could undermine
Japan’s commitment to peace, they detract fromJapan’s commitment to upholding universal human2rights by asserting the primacy of Japan’s ‘unique’cultural heritage.
Prime Minister Abe, who has recently won
endorsement for a third term in office, has managed
to achieve a two-thirds majority in both houses of thediet. It would thus theoretically be possible for the
LDP to get parliamentary approval for amendments
to the constitution and seek the endorsement of theelectorate in a referendum, although it is not clear how
far he could rely on his allies in Komeito to support
what would be a risky strategy.
One of Mr. Abe’s achievements has been stability.
Any attempt to change the constitution would arouselarge-scale public protest and would be destabilizing.
Mr, Abe is a pragmatist and should recognize that his
economic policies cannot succeed unless stability is
maintained.
The Americans saw the Japanese government as‘a leaky sieve’. To meet this criticism the ‘Designated
Secrets’ Law was pushed through the diet without
adequate debate. Its provisions, which remind someof the absurd lengths to which the prewar military
went to preserve secrecy, do not contain adequate
safeguards to prevent action being taken against
whistleblowers and investigative journalists.
The law does not seem to have been misused sofar, but the way in which NHK has been manipulated
to support government policies and the pressuresapplied to deter critical comments even in prestigious
foreign newspapers such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung are disturbing. These measures suggest agovernment, which is oversensitive to critical reporting
and waiting for the chance to act against its critics.
Freedom of speech can only be preserved if theJapanese media uphold The Guardian’s slogan ‘facts
are sacred, comment is free’. Unfortunately parts of theJapanese media act like pussycats being stroked andfed through the kisha club system. If tested we musthope that they will show their claws and use them todefend their freedom.
Historical revisionism is grist to the advocatesof constitutional amendments and of controls onpress freedom. In the ‘post truth’ society promoted
by Donald Trump who sees the media as his enemies,
the more frequently lies are repeated the more theytend to be believed. As a survivor from war service inAsia, I find it particularly difficult to swallow the lies anddistortions of Japanese historical revisionists, but weshould not get this side issue out of proportion.
The way in which legislation for collective selfdefense was enacted by ‘fiat’ aroused anger among
Issue 73, Volume 13, Number 1 (February 2018)

devotees of Japan’s peace constitution. But Japanwas under great pressure, both from its American allyand from the growing military power of China andthe militarization of islets in the South China Sea, tobeef up it defense forces and commit them to support
their ally. If this legislation had not been enacted Japan
would have been in even greater difficulties with
President Trump than it is today.
Japan’s relations with China are complicatedby history as well as the way in which bilateral tradeand investment have developed. The Japanese
government mishandled the Senkaku problem andofficial visits to the Yasukuni shrine were provocative,
but the Chinese government allowed nationalist antiJapanese sentiment to get out of hand and blame forthe present unhappy relationship rests to a significant
extent with the Chinese authorities.
Relations with the Republic of Korea (ROK) ought
to be much better than they are. The Japanese handlingof the ‘comfort women’ problem under pressure fromthe right-wing revisionists and Japanese harping on
their right to the barren Takeshima rocks in the Sea ofJapan were insensitive.
Japan, the ROK and China all need to concentrate
now on countering the growing menace from North
Korea. Pragmatism and restraint should guide Japan’s
policies in Asia. Japan is becoming more assertivein relations with the rest of the world We shall haveto get used to the change that has come rather late.
But Japan’s newfound assertiveness is hampered by
the still inadequate command of English and failure
to speak out in public of Japanese in international
meetings and by the reluctance of Japanese young
people to study abroad.
Japan’s future hangs to a great extent on the
success of Abenomics and on the handling of thedemographic crisis facing Japan. How can Japancope with an aging and declining population while
maintaining its economic achievements unless it alters
radically its immigration policies and its obsession with
its cultural ‘uniqueness’?
The immediate problem for Japan is how to adjust
to the unpredictable President Trump. Prime Minister
Abe has tried hard to get alongside the President. This
may work to Japan’s advantage but there are dangers
in cooperating too closely with a populist leader with
autocratic tendencies.
We must hope that Mr. Abe’s pragmatism andthe Japanese people’s adherence to democratic
principles and human rights will be sufficiently strong
to overcome the threats facing Japan today and provethat the fears of the authors of this thought provoking
book are not borne out by events.§

The History Problem.
The Politics of War
Commemoration in East Asia

in 1949 following the victory of Mao Zedong in therevolutionary war (1937-1949); and the post-colonial
lands of the Korean nation were divided and soon atwar (1950-1953).
It is these phantoms of Japan’s imperium, andthe complex post-1945 landscape of commemorationand memorialization that Hiro Saito wrestles within this thoughtful account, whose arguments
span the different fields of East Asian history, warcommemoration, sociology, and memory studies.
The “history problem” is an umbrella term thathas been used to describe the ensemble of issues
including apologizes and reparations for the foreign
victims of Imperial Japan’s wars (1931-1945), prime
ministerial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where spiritsof Japan’s war dead are enshrined, and narrativesof World War II in Japanese school textbooks. The
History Problem is a rich and penetrating study ofthe vociferous debates and interactions among
political parties and social movements of the rightand left, over how to memorialize the Second World
War and its legacies in post-imperial Japanese

by Saito Hiro
Honolulu: University of Hawai’i /Hawai’i Press (2017)
ISBN-13: 978-0824874391
Review by Dr Andrew Levidis
Remembrance of war is seared into the landscape of
East Asia. Hiroshima, Nanjing, Tokyo fire-bombings,
and the breaching of the Yellow River, these names call
forth the battlefields and ruins of Japan’s multiethnic
empire, and conjure up shadows of the great
conflagration which in the 1930s and 1940s wrought
unprecedented violence and destruction in East Asia.
At the denouement of these interconnected imperialand civil wars, waged on and off between 1931 and1949, the geopolitics of the region were convulsivelytransformed: The Great Japanese Empire disintegrated
in 1945; the People’s Republic of China was declared
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3society. Saito adroitly documents the decades-longstruggle to institutionalize cosmopolitan forms ofcommemoration against the background of a shifting
international landscape in East Asia, and evolving
national perceptions about World War II in Japan.
The History Problem comprises two major layersof analysis over seven chapters. The introduction
outlines the book’s analytical framework in termsof shifting configurations of nationalism andcosmopolitanism – the two foci of commemoration.
Saito argues the politics of war commemorationin East Asia are “fundamentally relational,” (6) andenmeshed in self-serving stories of defeat, revolution,and national liberation still prevalent in Tokyo, Beijing
and Seoul. The first four chapters comprise a tourd’horizon of war commemoration from 1945 to theearly twenty-first century. Chapter 1 illustrates how
the early years of organizing and hard lobbying by theJapan Bereaved Families Association (Nihon Izokukai)
to restore pensions and social welfare to the familiesof fallen soldiers and injured veterans, represented a
crucial step in shaping official commemoration which,with few exceptions, failed to embrace former imperial
subjects and mobilized populations. It is this logic ofcommemoration, politically and territorially bounded
to the nation-state after 1945, and reinforced by Cold
War ideologies, which Saito argues circumscribed“cosmopolitan” recognition of foreign victims of theatomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Chapter
2 examines how in the wake of normalization of
diplomatic relations with South Korea (1965) and China(1972), newly mobilized transnational networks ofactivists led the Japanese government to begrudgingly
extend welfare support to Korean A-bomb survivors;
and also inhibited attempts to restore Yasukuni Shrine
to the center of official commemorations in the 1980s.
The ending of the Cold War in the 1990s broughtwith it a far-reaching reexamination of long suppressedissues of compensation (Korean comfort women,
Chinese forced laborers) flowing from Imperial Japan’s
total war mobilization against China and the Allies.
Chapter 3 shows how shifting geopolitical forces,
together with the brief domestic political realignment
after the fall of the long-governing Liberal Democratic
Party in 1993, ushered in explicitly cosmopolitan
projects to address historically marginalized Asian
victims. Chapter 4 reveals neither a clean victory fornationalism or cosmopolitanism in Japanese war
commemoration in the 2000s, and chronicles thedeepening brutalization of the wartime past in East
Asia, together with the growing enmeshment of the4“history problem” with territorial disputes (Liancourt,
Senkaku islands).
The essential and most thought-provoking
arguments of this book reside in chapter 5 in which
Saito argues for re-examination of key tenets of the
postwar legal edifice, namely the judgement of theInternational Military Tribunal for the Far East (19461948), to take into account the longer histories ofimperialism and colonial rule, thus enabling recognitionof Japan as both perpetrator and victim. In Chapter 6,
Saito makes explicit the essentially progressive thrustof his intellectual project when he proposes historians,a “transnational epistemic community,” (178) play a
crucial role in reorienting remembrance towards thecommon ground of shared suffering.
The History Problem is a poignant, yet essentially
hopeful, call for transcending the shibboleths ofnarrow forms of nationalism in war commemorationin East Asia. It is not however, entirely unproblematic.
Saito’s analytical framework is ambitious, and attimes overburden the book with his insistence ona starkly dichotomous relationship of nationalism
and cosmopolitanism in which little room is left
for the subtleties, ironies, and messiness of lived
historical experience. There is an inescapable sensethat these abstract and formalistic distinctions shut
Saito off from other possible configurations of war
commemoration. One wonders of the possibilities forcollective remembrance of the military war dead ofJapan, China and Korea, a veritable “community of thefallen,” transcending borders and uniting individuals
and families in mourning and contemplation of thehorrors of war. The (albeit ambivalent) role playedby former Japanese Imperial Army officers, South
Manchurian Railway officials, and right-wing politicians
as intermediaries between Japan and the “New China”
in the 1950s, further militates against such a clear
separation between cosmopolitan and nationalist
ethos.
The History Problem is at its weakest when
dealing with postwar political parties which areeither to be condemned (LDP) or condoned (JCP,
JSP). One would be forgiven for assuming that very
little has changed between the Liberal Democratic
Party of the 1950s and its early-twenty first century
incarnations. Yet far from the monolithic “defender ofnationalist commemoration” (72) that Saito portrays,
the LDP’s position has always been the consequenceof fierce intra-party contestation and evolving politicalimperatives. Intriguingly, one wonders how the shifting
landscape of war commemoration was impacted when
Issue 73, Volume 13, Number 1 (February 2018)

the generation of political leaders, who had come ofage in the last decades of the Japanese Empire, yielded
power to younger colleagues not directly implicatedin wartime atrocities?
While Saito’s nuanced argument to de-center
the judgement of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials fromthe politics of war commemoration is well taken, hemisses an opportunity to reach back to Chinese BC war
crimes trials and the ideal of “justice over revenge” torestore previously elided possibilities beyond victim
and perpetrator.[1] The History Problem points to how
war commemoration is bound up in deeper historical
processes, namely, de-imperialization, military defeat,and Allied occupation which established important
precedents – legal and political – that continue toinfluence the Japanese government’s notion of state
responsibility. A stronger account would examine hownationalism was mobilized in nineteenth and twentiethcentury nation-building projects in Japan, Korea, andChina, to better understand the role nationalist formsof commemoration played in legitimizing state power
after 1945.

Echoes: Writers in Kyoto
Anthology 2017edited by John Dougill, Amy Chavez
and Mark Richardson
Writers in Kyoto (2017)
ISBN-13: 978-1387479115
Review by Harry Martin
Founded in the 8th century, Kyoto is the dignified andenigmatic Grande Dame of Japan, stoically fosteringand preserving Japan’s cultural heritage over the
centuries while her more effusive cousins such as Tokyo
and Osaka storm ahead in their enthusiastic embraceof internationalisation and modern innovation.
Echoes, the ‘Writers in Kyoto’s’ 2017 Anthology,
is a compilation of short stories (fact and fiction),
poems and literary extracts which draw on individual
experiences and the personal influence Kyoto has
exerted on a selection of writers who have lived or
are living in and around Kyoto. The themes are broad
and focus on an eclectic and esoteric range of topics
incorporating haiku, ceramics, traditional interiors,child rearing, sake vessels and classical poetry as wellas personal stories, all of which may, at first, soundtoo specific in focus to be enjoyed by readers without
prior knowledge or interest. However, the works arewell considered and delivered in styles which capture
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What then of historians? I am not entirely
convinced by this book’s argument for historians toassume a greater role in the public sphere to adjudicate
unresolved issues stemming from war and Japanese
empire-building. Saito presumes a fundamentallybenign understanding of the writing of history – which
can divide as much as unite – and of the historicalprofession which is not necessarily driven by the rubric
of cosmopolitanism, but just as often has deep roots inthe nation-state.
For all the reservations made above, The History
Problem is an important addition to the growing
literature on Japan’s war commemoration that
contributes much to our understanding of larger
questions of justice, politicized history, and collective
memory in East Asia.
[1] Barak Kushner, Men to devils, devils to men:
Japanese war crimes and Chinese justice (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), p. 305. §the imagination, likely to appeal to a range of different
readers.
Not having previously come across the Writers in
Kyoto’s writing collective, I was surprised to find thatthe members are almost exclusively non-Japanesenationals. My initial feelings were that a body of work
covering such unique and endemically Japanesetraditions – within the context of Japan’s mostculturally important city – felt almost to be a form of
appropriation when told through the experience of
non-Japanese writers. However as I read on I found theforeign perspective on these distinctly Japanese topics
provided a fresh and insightful viewpoint, unmarred bycultural boundaries that can be erected when handled
by the Japanese experts.
These are all writers who clearly love Kyoto, somewell-known such as the Japanologist Alex Kerr (Lost
Japan, Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan,
Another Kyoto) and John Dougill (In Search of Japan’sHidden Christians), and others who happen to live orwork in the city and have been entranced by its uniquecharacteristics and eccentricities. The contributions area mix between expert and laity, all coming together
though a shared admiration and experience of thiscity, offering a wonderfully varied collection to readthrough.
5

I particularly enjoyed Jeff Robbins’ insightful newtranslations of some of Basho’s haiku. I have always felt
haiku to be a uniquely Japanese form of expression
which I have just not been able to understand. However
through Robbins’ careful and beautifully thought-outtranslations and explanations, the art has suddenly
become more animated, which was a surprising andunforeseen outcome when I first picked up the book.
Aside from this, a large part of the appeal of
Echoes is the diversity in content. The variation in styleand theme will allow most readers the opportunity
to find something of interest, whether in the factual
essays on pottery styles or in the touching stories
about love and loss.
I do feel that the book is perhaps best enjoyed bythose with a personal experience of Kyoto or Japan as

there is a lot of reference to geography and landmarks
which may be lost on those who have never been or
haven’t a particularly strong interest in the culture. I
also felt it a great shame that the imagery in the book isin black and white, depriving the reader of what seemto be striking and beautifully photographed colour
pictures to accompany some of the works.
Overall, this is a reflective collection of work
celebrating the international appeal of Japan, its
ancient capital and the unique and varied culture it has
to offer. It is touching to read first-hand how Kyoto has
influenced people in different ways, and to witness the
profound effect it has had on people’s lives and thepaths they have chosen to follow.§

My Falling Down House

distress that comes with the loss of his hair, Joso allows
us intimate insight into Takeo’s every up and down.
Joso’s mastery lies in her ability to make a seemingly
inaccessible scenario relatable. Takeo’s monologue
is interspersed with beautifully eloquent metaphorsand poetic breaks that make it easy to get lost in her
narrative. The blatantly absurd becomes almost sensible
as Joso leads the reader into Takeo’s delusional self. We
are so immersed, in fact, that his decisive plan to ‘plant’
his bare head in the ground in order to regrow his headhair seems feasible. Even Takeo himself later admits that
‘attempting to plant my un-plant-like self is now themost unique event in my life’.
Despite the loneliness, hunger, and near insanity,
My Falling Down House is ultimately a celebration of
the self. Starved of everything else, Takeo discovers that’what remains is ambition... box dwelling ambitions‘.
As the legendary Abe Kobo alluded to in The Box Man,
give a man an empty box, and he will create a home.
Takeo finds that “a box is a house is a place,” whichis all one really needs for self-exploration. Although
Takeo’s isolation is at times bleak, and there are indeed
moments when Joso leads us to believe he won’t makeit, free from the conventions of society, his inner self
actually thrives. The burden of societal expectations is
reduced to nothing more than Takeo’s almost comicalobsession with his hair, which he sees as a symbol of
his formerly successful salaryman lifestyle.
In such a way, My Falling Down House provides awelcome escape from the everyday stress of living inmodern society. It is a reminder of the basic importanceof understanding one’s self in a world where we areconstantly bombarded with virtual versions of others.

by Jayne Joso
Seren (2016)
ISBN-13: 978-1781723395
Review by Alice French
It is difficult to envision, in our world dominated by
the internet and social media, the sensation of being
truly and utterly alone. Without the comforting soundsof the television or radio, the reassuring smartphone
notifications, or the background hum of Spotify
playlist. Imagine going for a day, or even just anhour, without any kind of human interaction, or any
technological proof of one’s membership to society.
For me, it is virtually impossible to picture being so
alone, with only one’s own thoughts for company; andthe prospect is, quite frankly, terrifying.
It is difficult to say whether Joso’s masterful
My Falling Down House is an advertisement for, or awarning against, such isolation from society. It follows
the thoughts, dreams and humble adventures of Tanaka
Takeo, as he comes to terms with living alone, and inturn comes to terms with himself. After losing his job
and splitting up with his girlfriend, the protagonist isleft with nothing but “an abandoned and dilapidated”
house, a cat, and a cello to his name. Shut off fromhuman contact, material possessions, and food, Takeo
is reduced to the rawest form of the self, often referring
to himself as foetal in his musings. We find ourselves
immersed in his, often nonsensical, conversations withhimself and experience hallucinations through his eyes.
From the euphoria he finds in natural sunlight, to his
6Issue 73, Volume 13, Number 1 (February 2018)

Left with no one to compare himself to, Takeo Tanaka
does not fade into insignificance, but rather his self
becomes the only significant thing in his life. The
direction of his thoughts, his relationship with nature,
his search for sustenance, are all that consume him.
While Takeo does learn never to take for granted
the luxuries allowed by societal interaction, what
he ultimately discovers is the impermanence andinsignificance of them all. As Abe Kobo asserted morethan forty years ago, and as still rings true in Joso’s
novel today, “the world intends to keep its mouth
entirely shut” about the feasibility of living without
participation in and cooperation with modern society.
What matters is an understanding and acceptance ofthe self, and nothing else.§

Japanese Girls Never Die

segue into the film’s second plot thread: Yukio and yet
another classmate, Manabu (Hayama Shono), tagging
the town with Haruko’s missing poster as a stencil.
As this plays out, the radio plays in the background,warning men about the danger caused by a highschool girl’s gang beating men up at night.

directed by Matsui Daigo
Showing at The Japan Foundation Touring Film
Programme (screened at the ICA in London, 10
February 2018)
Review by Morgane Chinal-Dargent
For the 2018 Touring Film Programme, The JapanFoundation put together a variety of contemporary
Japanese films under the audacious and promising
theme of (Un)true Colours: Secrets and Lies in Japanese
Cinema. Through this selection, viewers can discoverelements of the hidden face of Japanese culture
alongside some new and unique Japanese movies.
The film Japanese Girls Never Die (Azumi Haruko wa
yukue fumei, A.K.A Azumi Haruko is Missing, 2016) by
Matsui Daigo was undoubtedly one of them.
As the original title indicates, the film focuses on
the disappearance of Azumi Haruko (Aoi Yu), a 27 years
old woman who lives in a suburban city and shares herhouse with her mother, father and grand-mother. She
works as an office lady in a small company where she
has to confront the misogynistic behaviour of her twoolder male colleagues every day. As we follow the young
woman in her daily life we observe how the people
she meets throughout the film constantly bombard
her with comments regarding her life and constantly
stress the importance that she get married as soon as
possible in order to escape the mundane life she leads.
Seeking to escape such a dull existence, she attempts todate her neighbour and childhood friend Soga (Ishizaki
Huey), but with no success as the young man proves
himself unable to fulfil Haruko’s expectations.
The young woman’s story slowly rejoins the oneof Aina (Takahata Mitsuki), who, like Haruko, suffersfrom the crushing monotony of life. Bubbly andenergetic she is desperate for love and adventure andthinks she has found the answer in Yukio (Taiga), a
former classmate who it seems is only interested in fun
and one nights stands. As a present for his birthday,
Aina offers Yukio a DVD about Banksy which is how weLatest reviews: www.japansociety.org.uk/resources/reviews/

Image from Japanese Girls Never Die

Matsui Daigo has chosen female protagonists yet
again as he did in his previous film Our Huff and Puff
Journey (Watashitachi no haa haa, 2015), which followed
a group of high school girls on a road trip. With thislatest film, adapted from the novel of Mariko Yamauchi,
Matsui initiates his critical thinking concerning Japan.
Through the gaze of his observational camera, heprofiles a society deeply rooted in patriarchy in which
women struggle to find their place.
Japanese Girls Never Die’s non-chronologicalnarrative can appear misleading at times, but thestrength of the film resides in the dramatic irony thatthe viewer knows since the beginning that Haruko
is going to disappear. This constantly prompts theaudience to question the circumstances regarding her
vanishing. Subsequently, this creates a tension thatkeeps the viewer engaged and on the lookout for any
details to connect the three plots of an increasingly
complex story. While we think we already know theoutcome of the film, Matsui constantly challenges
and surprises us, achieving an unexpected ending
7

supported by a subtle and precise scenario, validating
the talent of the young director.
The real strength of the film lays in the contrast
the director creates between two worlds: the female
and the male. This is reflected in the discrepancy
between the fantasies the female protagonists havebeen conditioned to long for and the reality theylive. In turn, the male characters are depicted asshallow, unfaithful or absent thorough. Through theirdialogues we learn that they are solely attracted byyouth, beauty and artifice. With cynicism, the director
fulfils their wishes by giving them the high school girls
they desire, but they are ready to beat them.

Image from Japanese Girls Never Die

At first sight, they look like any other high school
club you see constantly cropping up in popular
Japanese culture, but Matsui chooses the show them as
a new symbol, one of a generation aware of the genderstruggle and seeking vengeance. What follows in theirwake are fight scenes of pure violence, the images onscreen contrasting with the naive laughter of the school
girls. This manga inspired group of girls don’t advocate
gender equality, they literally fight for their right toexist at all. While Haruko, who does not belong to thisgeneration of women, find herself fighting a lone battle
and seems to have no choice but to disappear.
The leading actress, Aoi Yu, (who also appears inanother Japan Foundation Film Touring Programme
film, Birds Without Names directed by Shiraishi Kazuya),carries the role of Haruko with a sense of strength andaccuracy thorough the film. She creates a character
whose strength and truth allows the film to avoid
stereotypes and enhance the narrative twist and turns,
her passivity concealing something hidden thorough.

By following Haruko’s story, we witness the heinous
commentaries of obnoxious men which bring the filmon the verge of surrealism sometimes, like in the scene
when her colleagues tell her that unmarried womeneggs’s get rotten and when we have to painfully watch
Haruko silently facing the commentary.
The contrast between women and men reaches
its climax when Yukio and Manabu are propelled into
the local art scene as their tags attract such attention
that they are even able to open their very own ‘Dream
Land’ – a park decorated with their graffiti tags. Throughvandalism and without seeking it, the duo is rewarded
with fame. By comparison, Haruko’s efforts are rewarded
only with her colleague’s sexist and vile comments.
Her face is remembered not as that of a disappeared
woman but as a piece of art crafted by men.
In the end, the film tells the story of women who
cannot find their place in Japanese society regardlessof their efforts to fit in. Haruko tried to wear skirts
at work, seeking to be more youthful as her malecolleague advices her and attempts to conform to thestereotypes of love and marriage, only for her partner toreveal himself as unfaithful. Aina hides her extravagant
personality under fake lashes, fake nails, oversized pink
accessories to emphasise her femininity and hopefully
attract her prince charming, but she ends up with adeceitful yankee who shamelessly trade her to his friend.
Japanese Girls Never Die shows us two worlds,
unable to communicate with one another and tofulfil the unrealistic and outdated expectations setof the society where the gender roles are shown ashugely unbalanced. Thus, the film fits perfectly thetheme of (Un)true Colours, as this depiction of theJapanese society is scarcely shown on the big screen.
With his innovative message, Matsui reveals himself
as a promising young director who understands
the struggle of his and subsequent generations. He
conveys a message of hope through his depiction ofyouth, one full of energy and the will to see thingschange. Japanese girls, indeed, never die, and withthe dim prospects of Japan’s plummeting birth rate inmind, the film offers a strong message that responds
to the inability of men by allowing women theopportunity to forge their own way forward, amongst
themselves, and offering to the audience a refreshing
and well needed dose of girl power.§Interested in writing for The Japan Society Review?

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