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

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

Issue 28 Volume 5 Number 4 (August 2010)

As life in both Japan and the UK takes on a more relaxing narrator’s thought stream on his pilgrimage-like attempt tosummer tempo, we offer you a simulating selection of books track down his old overcoat.
to enjoy during the warm August nights. Elizabeth Ingrams This is a first rate translation of the awarding winning Goto’s
explores Lesley Downer’s gripping new historical novel The novel by Tom Gill, who deserves a huge amount of praise for
Courtesan and the Samurai. This historical tale is set on the bringing this intriguing work into the English language world.
borderline of the Edo and Meiji Periods, two eras which form We round off this issue with a peek at elaborate Meiji period
the backdrop for several of our reviews. Downer weaves her ivory carvings examined in The Golden Age of Japanesenarrative in the turbulent years 1868-9 and tells the story of Okimono. Ivory carving requires amazing skill combined with
Hana, a 17-year-old daughter of a samurai caught up in the patience and the exquisite illustrations in this book show thecivil war (also see Anna Davis’ review of Downer’s The Last fantastic craftsmanship of Japanese carvers in the Meiji era.
Concubine in Issue 13).
Sean Curtin
Staying in the same period, Sir Hugh Cortazzi guides us ....................................................................................................
through the Art of Edo Japan, the Artist and the City 1615- New reviews
1868. This fascinating work surveys the activities of several www.japansociety.org.uk/resources/the-japan-society-review
artists in their physical and socio-economic environments. It Archiveis packed full of exquisite prints and provides insights into the http://www.japansociety.org.uk/reviews_archive.html
development of the Kano and Tosa schools of painting. It also We are grateful to our regular reviewers:
looks at famous individual painters like Kōkan Shiba, Hokuei Sir Hugh Cortazzi
Susan Meehan
Takahiro Miyao
Shunkōsai, Kōrin Ogata, Kōetsu Hon’ami, Sōtatsu Tawaraya Simon Cotterill
Ian Nishand Jakuchū Itō while also reminding us of the influence of William Farr
Ben-Ami Shillony
FumikoHalloranDutch studies (rangaku) on Japanese artists.
Tomohiko Taniguchi
Mikihiro Maeda
Ian Nish reviews an important new Japanese language book ....................................................................................................
Why Did the Greater East Asian War Happen? – The Economic
Contents
and Political History of Pan-Asianism by Professor Masataka(1) The Courtesan and the Samurai
Matsuura. The author systematically dissects pan-Asianism(2) Art of Edo Japan, the Artist and the City 1615-1868from a political and economic perspective in a highly detailed
study stretching to over 1100 pages and including 200 pages (3) Why Did the Greater East Asian War Happen?
「大東亜戦争」はなぜ起きたのかof endnotes. A swathe of the book is devoted to the activities(4)
China-Japan Relations in the Twenty-First Century:of General Iwane Matsui, the Greater Asia Association andCreating a Future Past?
analysing the thinking of right-wing groups and officers. Thisis a masterly document-based study, offering many new (5) Perfect Blue (パーフェクトブルー)
perspectives on the causes of the conflict and making an (6) Shot by Both Sides(7) The Golden Age of Japanese Okimono
important contribution to the study of this period.
....................................................................................................
Michael Heazle and Nick Knight explore some of theaftermath from the war in China-Japan Relations in the
The Courtesan andTwenty-First Century: Creating a Future Past? A central themeof this thought-provoking work is the importance of historic
the Samurai
memory on Sino-Japanese relations, and how it relates toby Lesley Downereach nation’s contemporary perspective of the other, shaping
their future outlook. This first-rate original work sets bilateral
Bantam Press, 2010,
ties in a multi-dimensional context, covers an impressive
352 pages.
range of topics and offers superb cutting-edge insights on
ISBN-10:0593057937,
East Asia’s pivotal bilateral relationship.
£12.99Susan Meehan checks out the anime movie Perfect Blue, aReview by Elizabeth Ingrams
tension-packed tale with a hard to predict plot. The heroine,
pop idol Mima Kirigoe, gives up her successful singing career“The Courtesan and the Samurai”
for acting, taking a small role in the TV drama “Double Bind.” It’sis the second book in a series ofat this point that the gripping storyline becomes increasingly
historical fiction by Lesley Downercomplicated, fact and fiction appear to merge, and events set in 1860s Japan. This novel is set in 1868-9, a particularly
spiral out of control with a series of gruesome murders.
turbulent year, covering the civil war between the shogunate
Adam House looks at Shot by Both Sides an imaginative, forces, or “northerners,” and the imperial Japanese forces, ormoving and enigmatic narrative by Goto Meisei which is “southerners” as the two sides are simply called in the novel. This
reminiscent of James Joyce’s Ulysses. The novel follows theperiod is usually known as the Meiji Restoration.

Written from the point of the losing side in the civil war,
the protagonist here is Hana, a 17-year-old daughter of asamurai married to one of the fiercest commanders of the
ex-shogun’s forces of the Northern Alliance. The last shogun,
Yoshinobu had resigned at the end of 1867, under duress
from the Mikado’s councillors and the Southern clans.
Hana’s marriage is based on Confucian patriarchal ideals. She
is expected to obey her husband as she would a father, oreven a sovereign. Her husband is not expected to love her,or to treat her particularly kindly. But, like a good samurai, she
is trained to fight. While her husband goes to rally forces for
the Northern Alliance, she is given the task of being the soledefender of her household in Edo. And when the southerners
come to the gates of her residence, she promptly kills one ofthem with a halberd and escapes at the behest of her servants
across the river towards Nihonbashi, or Japan Bridge. There
she is sold by a procuress to become a courtesan in Edo’s
licensed quarters, the “five streets” of the Yoshiwara.
Hana has read about these quarters in the romantic fiction,‘The Plum Calendar’ but she has never yet visited. Downer’s
descriptions of life in the walled enclave of the Yoshiwara(established by the shogunate as a way of controlling
prostitution), are a tour de force of literary dramatisation.
Downer has previously written about the Yoshiwara in her
book ‘Geisha: The Secret History of a Vanishing World’ (2000),a history of the customs of Japanese courtesans and geisha.
In her talk for this book’s launch the author provided a rare
glimpse of her visit to the courtesans in Kyoto in the 1990s:“There are five women who still uphold the traditions ofcourtesan, they are not the same as geisha, but they occupy
the same world of the flower and the willow,” she said.
Courtesans are high-class prostitutes, whereas geisha are
women who sell their arts and social skills. Hana is equippedwith the ability to write poetry, and so quickly promoted tobeing a star courtesan, given the honorific title “Hanaogi.”
In her talk, Downer described the awesome appearance of acourtesan (a ‘re-enactor’ in this day and age) dressed in manylayers of kimono, escorted by child attendants, with a head oflacquered hair pinned together with tortoiseshell combs. She
described the “electric” atmosphere among the men on thisoccasion, who were all lining up for an audience. The scene
is recreated in the book when Hana appears in a cage alongwith her companions. During this viewing she is meant topick out a man to be her lover. Outdoor scenes of this canalso be seen in Utagawa Hiroshige’s prints.
The year that Downer chose to portray the life of a courtesan
is crucial. At this time, courtesans were still sought after by
the elite, but very shortly after, geisha women, partners of the
new ruling Imperial elite installed in the newly named Tokyo,
were elevated to higher social status. A few years later, the old
Yoshiwara was burned down and then moved. Interestingly
there are no photographs of the old Yoshiwara. It is as though
Downer has chosen a period just beyond our reach to createa lavish world of high romance.
The other half of this story of star-crossed lovers is seen
through the eyes of Yozo Tajima, a samurai sailor, fighting on
2

the side of the Northern Alliance, serving the historical figureof Admiral Enomoto, of the ex-shogun’s navy. Both haverecently returned from an expedition to the West licensed by
the shogun. Part of their mission there was to build and bringback a warship, the Kaiyo Maru (which was later sunk). On
their return, they are appalled to find the shogun has in fact
resigned but Enomoto refuses to hand over the navy to thesouthern Imperial forces. Instead he is motivated by a mix ofloyalty to the previous regime and idealism gained from his
exposure to the more democratic ways of the West, to leadthe Northern Alliance to Ezo, present-day Hokkaido. From
there, the Northern Alliance “will establish the Democratic
Republic of Ezo in the name of the shogun with Hakodate as
our capital and from there move South and take the rest ofJapan,” as Downer has him proclaim.
The army of the Northern Alliance, is here led by Commander
Yamaguchi, a fictional figure based on the formidable leaderof the shinsengumi (the ‘new select corps’), Toshizō Hijikata.
His story is cleverly woven into Downer’s tale of star-crossed
lovers. This army included crack troops some of whom had
been trained by the French to protect the shogun before heresigned. Thus, historically, nine French officers sailed with
the Japanese including Jean Marlin, who features in the novel
as Yozo’s friend and supporter.
Downer imaginatively recreates the internal tensions ofsuch a dynamic mix of personalities. Yamaguchi turns out
to be bitterly opposed to the foreign-leaning Enomoto andYozo, who is so adept at languages that not only has he readCharles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species, but he also
sings an English sea shanty to entertain the troops. When
Kitaro, a friend of Yozo is murdered mysteriously by one of
Yamaguchi’s men, Yozo is motivated to take revenge for his
friend’s death.
The defeat of the Northern Alliance at Hakodate gives Yozo
the opportunity to take his chance at revenge but Enomoto,
Yozo and his French protector Marlin, are eventually captured
and brought back to Edo. They escape to the Yoshiwara,
where Hana is preparing for her ‘debut’ or ‘mizuage’. Oncea courtesan attracted a wealthy patron who would arrange
for her mizuage, she could escape her debts and leave the
Yoshiwara. So when the wealthy merchant Saburosuké
Kashima catches sight of Hana, her fate is sealed, or is it? The
pièce de resistance here is the mizuage itself, a grotesqueaffair where the odious merchant Saburosuké meets hismatch at last in a manner appropriate to this exaggerated
world – gaudy, lascivious and grotesque.
There is a symbolic ending for the other characters too. Yozo
and Enomoto survive, their skills are needed in the newJapan. Meanwhile the old-style samurai Yamaguchi is killed,
and in fact Hijikata died at Hakodate. Without such inspiringand entertaining books to draw our attention to it, Japan’s
less well-known history of the 1860s might be in danger ofgoing the way of the Kaiyo Maru herself.

Elizabeth Ingrams is the editor of Japan Through Writers’Eyes, published by Eland Books, £12.99, to order go to:www.travelbooks.co.uk.
Issue 28 Volume 5 Number 4 (August 2010)

Art of Edo Japan: The
Artist and the City
1615-1868
by Christine Guth
Yale University Press, 2010(soft back edition), 176 pages
including index, glossary andchronology, copious colour
illustrations, £12.99
ISBN: 978-0-300-16414-8
Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
This book was first published in hardback in 1996. It is a usefuland readable introduction to the painters and print artists ofthis prolific period in Japanese art. It does not cover, except
very cursorily, other aspects of Japanese art in the Edo era.
Nor does it directly describe the political, economic or social
life or the prolific literature of the age. But anyone who wantsa reasonably priced survey of painters and print artists in Edo
Japan will find this a useful and reasonable purchase.
Christine Guth declares rather ponderously that “This booktakes as its premise that a strong sense of urban and regional
identity is one of the distinguishing features of Edo-period
culture. It surveys the activities of selected artists in their
physical and socio-economic environments to bring into relief
the cultural dynamics within and among four major cities,
Kyoto, Edo, Osaka and Nagasaki.” Thus after an introduction on“Mapping the Artistic Landscape” the author devotes separate
chapters to Kyoto artists, Edo artists, Osaka and Nagasaki artists
with a final chapter devoted to itinerant, provincial and ruralartists. The chapter on Kyoto artists gives a useful summary ofthe development of the Kano and Tosa schools of painting
and such famous individual painters as Kōrin, Kōetsu, Sōtatsu
and Jakuchū. The chapter on Edo artists concentrates on
print artists. The chapter on Nagasaki reminds readers of theinfluence of Dutch studies (rangaku) and the importance ofartists such as Shiba Kōkan.
Most of the illustrations will befamiliar to students of Japaneseart, but I was not familiar withsome such as this one (middle)
by Maruyama Ōkyo (1733-95),
in the Nagasaki Prefectural Art
Museum, of “The Riverside
At Shijō,” a nocturnal scene,designed for viewing in a stereoscopic device, where figures
are silhouetted against lantern-lit restaurants and theatres
while an acrobatic performance dominates the background.
And this (bottom) a print by
Shunkōsai Hokuei (d.1836)
depicting a dramatic scene
where Lady Osuma emerges
from the cave where she has
been hiding and shines a torch
on Hanbei, her brother-in-law’s
murderer (Victoria and Albert Museum).
Issue 28 Volume 5 Number 4 (August 2010)

Why Did the Greater East Asian War Happen?
– The Economic and Political History of
Pan-Asianism「大東亜戦争」(
はなぜ起きたのか -汎アジア主義の政治経済史)by Matsuura Masataka (松浦 正孝)
Nagoya University Press (名古屋大学出版会), 2010,
1079 pages.
ISBN 978-4-8158-0629-3
9975 yen
Review by Ian Nish
In addressing the topic “howdid the Greater East Asian
War come about,?” Professor
Matsuura focuses on thesubject of pan-Asianism,
but analyses its political andeconomic aspects rather
than its ideological ones.
In particular, he asks thequestion as set out on the
dust jacket, “why did Japan,
using the ideology of a holy
war for the liberation of Asia,
take over various countries
as colonies?” and sets out to explain the “greatest riddleof recent history”: how pan-Asianism by its rise during theinterwar period pushed Japan to confrontation with China,
to southern expansion and ultimately towards what she
liked to call “the Greater East Asian War,” virtually colonial
war. It is an immense subject, covering commerce, politics
and religion, and receives monumental treatment, about1100 pages including endnotes of 200 pages. It is foolhardyof anyone to try to introduce such an encyclopaedic
work, full of new materials and fresh insights, on what isinevitably a sensitive subject for the Japanese.
The author starts out by tracing the origins anddevelopment of ‘Asianism’ back to the nineteenth century
and highlights the attitudes of Choshu, Satsuma and Saga
clans towards relations with China and Korea. As a resultof the intellectual ferment following the Russo-Japanesewar, the scope of the Asian concept changed in line withthe growth of Japan’s economic and military stature in
the world. As the result of the failure of the racial equality
resolution at the Paris peace conference of 1919 and the
US anti-immigration legislation of the 1920s, its exponents
began to speak of “Greater East Asia” and the Japanesestate portrayed itself as “The Empire of the Seas.”
By the mid-thirties the Japanese economy had revived
under the skilful management of Finance Minister
Takahashi Korekiyo and gained ground on other countries
still locked in the Great Depression. With the fall in the yen’svalue, the author argues that Japanese goods swamped
the markets of British India and other parts of the British
Empire and, when Britain took steps to restrict this trade3

in the interests of Lancashire, this confirmed the panAsianists in their anti-colonial views. They could look to
the merchant community for financial support for their
movement. The author devotes a chapter to the activities
of Indians who sought political exile in Japan, part ofthe diaspora of the British Empire. While the Japanese
government trod a cautious path, those like Rashbehari
Bose and A.M. Sahay obtained protection in various rightwing quarters until government itself recognized Subhas
Chandra Bose as its preferred Indian leader in 1943.
A fascinating chapter tells of the attempts to integrate
Manchukuo, which effectively became an economic
protectorate of the Japanese after 1933, with otherparts of China. Pan-Asianists believed that the colonial
economies of Manchukuo, Korea and Taiwan had beensuccessful – the tiger economies of the 1930s – andshould be integrated into an Asian bloc. They hoped,with the collaboration of Chinese merchants aroundthe area, to create an economic zone linking Taiwan
with the adjacent mainland provinces of China (Fujian,Guangdong), areas largely in the hands of the Japanesemilitary. The practical object behind this was to outflankthe tactic of boycotting Japanese goods which Chinesemerchants at the main ports were employing.
A large portion of the book is devoted to the activities ofGeneral Matsui Iwane and the Greater Asia Association(Dai Ajia Kyokai). Matsui who had been a Japanese officer
specializing in Chinese affairs, became one of Japan’s top
generals and was serving in General Staff roles at the
beginning of the 1930s where his views were mouldedby the Manchurian crisis. In 1933-4 he was appointed ascommander-in-chief in the colony of Taiwan. There hehatched the idea of the Association and came to favour
Japan expanding south (Nanshin) instead of north. He
was a key figure in what was an influential group which
was non-governmental and tended to include the army
officers with a few civilians. As the international situation
deteriorated, it became a powerful enough lobby that
could exert pressure on any government. Recalled to thecolours from retirement for the China war in 1937, Matsui
was appointed commander of the Shanghai force which
captured Shanghai and later Nanking, where atrocities
were committed. He was immediately retired again andwas ultimately condemned to death by the International
Military Tribunal for the Far East for his connection withthese atrocities.
Matsuuratriestoanalysetheindependentthinkingofrightwing groups like the Greater Asia Association and officers
like Matsui. They were motivated by hostility to signs ofracial discrimination and commercial restrictions against
Japan. They tried by conferences and cultural activities
both inside and outside Japan to make propaganda foran expanding role for Japan in Asia. As for government,
there seems to have been in effect a tug-of-war between
various factions. While some Japanese cabinets seemto have initially resisted and punished such views, they
gradually came round to adopting pan-Asian doctrines
4in order to mobilize military and civilian opinion behind
the war effort. Pan-Asianism was, the author believes, one
factor which brought about the war by forming a bridge
between Japan’s political dissatisfaction with the Westand her growing expansionism in 1937 and 1941. But it
could be argued that Japan merely used the ideologicalcontent of pan-Asianism to justify her continental, andultimately hemispheric, expansion.
This is a masterly study, carefully based on documents
and offering many new perspectives on the causes of theGreater East Asian War. It makes an important contribution
to the debate which will continue to surround theseyears.

China-Japan Relationsin the Twenty-First
Century: Creating a
Future Past?
edited by Michael
Heazle and Nick Knight
247 pages, Edward Elgar
Publishing Ltd, 2007
ISBN-13: 978-1847201126£59.95
Review by Sean CurtinThis thought-provoking work analyzes the complex
dynamics of East Asia’s most important bilateralrelationship, how it may evolve and what impact it will
have both regionally and globally. A central theme is
the importance of historic memory on Sino-Japaneserelations, how this relates to each nation’s contemporary
perspective of the other and powerfully shapes their
future visions. Several authors argue that competing
perceptions of the past are powerfully shaping today’s
image and are significantly impacting on each country’s
long-term vision of the other. The editors assemble animpressive line-up of scholars and disciplinary approaches(history, anthropology, sociology, political science andinternational relations) to examine key domestic andinternational aspects of this multifaceted dynamic. The
book seeks to set bilateral ties in a multi-dimensional
context and covers an impressive range of topics
including historical interaction, cultural perceptions,
nationalism as well as a host of other ideological andregional perspectives.
In the introductory chapter the editors, Michael Heazle
and Nick Knight, highlight the key issues analyzed in thefollowing chapters. At the core of bilateral friction are
divergent historical views of Japan’s colonial past and its
wartime behaviour in China and the wider Asia-Pacificregion. Heazle and Knight observe, “Many Chinese retain
a deep sense of grievance about Japan’s pre-war andwartime activities in China, and express anger that Japan
Issue 28 Volume 5 Number 4 (August 2010)

has (supposedly) not shown sufficient remorse for its
injurious behaviour stretching back well over a century(page 2).”In Chapter two Jian Zhang looks at the influence of grassroots Chinese nationalism found amongst ordinary
citizens and its impact on bilateral ties. He views it assomething that is often difficult for Beijing to control.
Jian notes, “The rapid growth of on-line and off-line
nationalistic groups has transformed popular anti-Japaneseprotests from ephemeral expressions of public anger
to a potentially sustained grassroots social movement(page 21).” Opinion polls in China consistently show
Japan as one of their most disliked nations and when
provocative actions or insensitive statements are madeby Japanese politicians, anti-Japanese sentiment cansuddenly flare up and get out of control. The Chinese
government realizes this is a deeply unsatisfactory
situation and desperately wants more stable diplomatic ties
with Tokyo, but this goal usually conflicts with a higher ranked
objective of wanting to be more responsive to Chinese
public sentiment. Thus Beijing finds itself increasingly
constrained and bilateral political ties are frequently held
hostage by emotive events such as the controversial annual
visits of former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi
to the war-tainted Yasukuni Shrine.
In the following chapter Xia Liping takes an in depth lookat the relationship in the wider context of multilateral
cooperation within East Asia. There are a host of areas suchas trade and economic cooperation where it is beneficial
for Beijing to work closely with Tokyo, a fact Chinese
foreign policy readily acknowledges. While Xia sees thisrealization as highly a positive development with longterm future returns, he also acknowledges that frequent
friction over sensitive historical issues is seriously holdingback the process. Thus great efforts should be madeto avoid inflaming nationalist passions, he comments,“Every visit to Yasukuni Shrine by Koizumi opened the oldwounds of those in Asian countries who suffered terribly
from the brutality of the Japanese army before andduring World War II (page 51).” He optimistically concludes
that if Tokyo can restrain its nationalist lawmakers, historic
tensions will naturally recede, greatly benefiting bothnations and the region as a whole.
In a highly thought-provoking chapter Nick Knight
looks at the distinct perceptions both China and Japan
hold of the modern world and associated dichotomies
which characterize them, for example developing/developed nation and capitalist/socialist state. These havestrongly shaped their perceptions of each other, especiallyas the two sit in opposing categories which only servesto accentuate the perceived differences between them.
Knight concludes, “China’s perception of the dichotomies
that characterise the modern world, in which Japan iscategorised as developed and capitalist, in contrast to
China which is developing and socialist, thus serves toreinforce China’s negative perceptions of Japan in other,more concrete, areas of disagreement (page 68).”
Issue 28 Volume 5 Number 4 (August 2010)

Rumi Sakamoto looks at the dynamics of popularnationalism in contemporary Japan by analysing Yoshinori
Kobayashi’s (小林 よしのり) controversial best selling
1998 nationalistic manga series Sensoron (戦争論). Thishighly revisionist comic was targeted at young readers
and is considered to have successfully disseminateda right-wing revisionist view of the war to the younger
generation. He has a high profile as Eric Johnson notes
in a latter chapter, “Kobayashi is given the same status
and respect as professional historians and diplomats, andhis views are rarely challenged aggressively (page 115).”
Sakamoto argues that Kobayashi’s and similar works haveto be taken into account when we try to understand thecurrent perceptions and controversy over history andmemory between Japan, China and Korea. Kobayashi
deliberately ignores historical facts in his distorted viewof the war which emphasizes the heroic struggle of
the Japanese people against murky external forces.
He utilizes an array of emotive nationalistic devices todrive home his highly charged ultra-rightwing narrative.
Sakamoto comments, “he uses his materials selectively,
ignores what contradicts his point, blows them out
proportion and without any context, and generally jumps
to unwarranted conclusions (page 86).” She observes,“Kobayashi’s manga does challenge the mainstream
interpretation of history and opens up a dialogue overimportant issues such as the continuity between Japan
before and after 1945 (page 89).”
Barbara Hartley looks at the hotly contested area of
historical wartime memory in contemporary Japan andthe competing narratives that appear in the Japanese
media. She examines how perceptions of this inneighbouring countries powerfully shapes public opinion
towards Japan, where it is generally believed a revisionist
outlook is in the ascendancy. Hartley challenges thisperception demonstrating that there is strong resistanceto neo-nationalist interpretations.
However, ultra-nationalists continually manage to grab
the headlines over such issues as school text books,
creating the impression that revisionism is part of themainstream narrative. Provocative actions and statements
by prominent members of the long governing LDP
reinforced this view, drowning out the more moderate,
mainstream Japanese opinion. She also explores thehighly disturbing documentary “Japanese Devils” (日本鬼子) about the brutal war atrocities committed by theImperial Army as related by 14 former Japanese soldiers.
These veterans bluntly tell of the horrific acts they
committed including “throwing babies into bonfires
and stuffing women’s vaginas with rags before dousing
them with gasoline and setting them alight (page 101)”or “a former sergeant who raped and murdered a woman
before serving her flesh to his comrades (page 102).” In
her conclusion she asserts “many Japanese accept thenecessity for a full and frank acknowledgement of thenation’s misdeeds of the past (page 108).”
Eric Johnson looks at the current way the Japanese5media portrays China and the two Koreas, focusing inparticular on 2005, the 60th anniversary year of Tokyo’s
WWII surrender. He does not present a positive image,“Japan’s increasingly right-leaning mainstream media
was either defending the country’s brutal colonisationof China and the Korean peninsula, or doing its best
to play down such crimes (page 111).” He sees thistrend as extremely problematic for Japan in the new
globalized world where comments designed exclusively
for domestic consumption can be instantly scrutinizedworldwide.

its relationship with Beijing develops as this will define
its position in Asia and consequently on the international
stage. Ironically, were bilateral ties to markedly improve
Japan would become a more prominent global player
and less dependent on the US, exactly what Japanese
neo-nationalists want. At the time Heazle wrote his paper(about 2005/6) the LDP seemed entrenched in power, afactor he saw as a significant stumbling block impeding
progress. With their ouster in August 2009, the future
may be more promising for Sino-Japanese relations thanHeazle’s conclusion envisages.

He also sees the media as portraying Japan as “themisunderstood victim” and warns, “until Japan realisesthat it can no longer have a tatemae (what you may
encourage others to believe your opinions are) for theinternational community and a honne (your actual
opinions or thinking) for domestic politics, it is doomed
to find itself bedevilled by these historical disputes (page112).” Johnson, a talented journalist, produces a highly
readable, insightful chapter which is less academic thanothers, also containing fewer endnotes.

In a well written and stimulating chapter Michael Wesley
looks at Sino-Japanese regional rivalry and the impact on
East Asia. He charts how the turbulent relationship has
played out over the postwar period, concluding that at
the time of writing (2005/6) there was little optimism
for a substantive improvement in the short to medium
term. He neatly sums up one of the key impediments
to progress, “as Japan becomes increasingly concerned
about China’s and North Korea’s belligerence, it becomesincreasingly committed to defence transformation within
the [US-Japan] alliance; which in turn, further heightens
China’s hostility (page 218).”

Jian Yang pens a stimulating and highly readable
chapter on China’s security policy towards Japan. He sees
historical issues as strongly influencing contemporary
Chinese defence policy towards Tokyo, but also notesthat some observers believe, “the friction between China
and Japan over the history issue is merely a manifestationof strategic conflicts between the two countries (page136).” Beijing fears, “It is just a matter of time before Japanrevises its Peace Constitution to enable Tokyo to freely
send military forces overseas (page 131).”
Joseph Y.S. Cheng takes an in-depth look at China’s
regional policy from various perspectives, producing
some excellent insights into its geopolitical strategy inCentral Asia and Beijing’s tactics in dealing with what itsees as a US policy of containment. He comes to similar
conclusions as many other writers regarding the ChinaJapan equation, he notes “mutual distrust between
China and Japan has been increasing in recent years, andit has been exacerbated both by the Taiwan issue andthe failure to resolve the historical legacy of World War II(page 156).”
However, he concedes, “Sino-Japanese relations have beena failure in Chinese diplomacy (page 171).” Nationalism,
as Jian Zhang documents earlier, is a growing force ineach nation which is shaping policy, Cheng notes, “Thespontaneous anti-Japanese protests in several Chinese
cities in April 2005 probably caught the Chinese leadershipby surprise, and it in turn feels pressure to stand firm in
dealing with Japan (page 156).”
Michael Heazle offers an in-depth analysis of SinoJapanese relations through the trinity of nationalism,
security and prosperity. He is not overly optimistic, “Thecurrent outlook for Sino-Japanese relations is not a
positive one (page 200).” He argues that Tokyo’s regionaland global role will be significantly shaped by the way
6David Hundt rounds off the book with a look at South
Korea’s relationship with both Japan and China. He points
out that historical disputes are not just a China-Japanor Korea-Japan issue but also cause tensions between
China and the Koreas as the 2003 dispute over Goguryeo(old Koryo) illustrates. China attempted to claim one of
Korea’s ancient “three kingdoms” as historically Chinesecausing uproar in South Korea. Hundt demonstrates
that even on the sidelines of China-Japan relations life iscomplicated.
This original work offers superb insights and cuttingedge analysis on East Asia’s most pivotal relationship.
It provides a first-rate framework which enables thereader to understand its dynamics and possible futurescenarios. The Sino-Japanese tensions of 2005 were thePromethean spark for this work, thus most of the papers
have been researched in 2005/2006 when Sino-Japaneserelations were at an extremely low point and the long
dominant Liberal Democratic Party seemed unassailable.
Consequently, the book’s conclusions are a little
gloomier than the situation appears in 2010.
The LDP has been decisively unseated from a five-decadestranglehold on power giving a tremendous boost to a
fresh type of bilateral exchange under the new Democratic
Party of Japan administration. No prime minster has visitedthe controversial Yasukuni Shrine since Koizumi left officein 2006, enabling political ties to stabilize and thrive once
more. There are still a multitude of future challenges facing
this complex relationship which will shape both Asiaand the world. This excellent book offers one of the best
opportunities to understand them and is a must-read foranyone interested in East Asia.

Issue 28 Volume 5 Number 4 (August 2010)

Perfect Blue
(パーフェクトブルー)
directed by
Satoshi Kon (今 敏)
1998, anime, 82 minutes,
based on novel of same
name by Yoshikazu Takeuchi(竹内義和)
Review by Susan Meehan“Perfect Blue” is a tension-packed thriller which had me on
the edge of my seat, surprising perhaps as it is an anime.
Not a fan of thrillers and having simply tripped over the
DVD in a secondhand book and film shop, even I could
tell that Perfect Blue is cleverly made, with a psychologicaland compelling storyline crossing into the grisly towards
its denouement. The anime avatars are believable, wellrounded characters, not too dissimilar from their real-life
cousins.
Made in the early 1990s, Perfect Blue was an enormous
breakthrough. Though it has dated somewhat, mostnotably in that its young heroine doesn’t know how to use
the internet and needs her agent’s help – this would be
unthinkable today - it still has a modern and slick feel to it.
The heroine, pop idol Mima Kirigoe (霧越未麻), is amember of the girl band Cham. Giving up her singing
career in favour of acting, much to the grief of some ofher music fans, her foray into TV begins with a small rolein the drama “Double Bind.” Her career move is somewhat
blighted when she receives a fax at home accusing her ofbeing a traitor to her fans and a letter sent to her at the TV
studio set explodes, injuring the unsuspecting producer
who’d opened it.
Paranoia further ensues when, learning how to navigate
the internet, Mima encounters a “pop idol” blog called“Mima’s Room.” Whoever is writing it, and it’s not Mima,accounts for Mima’s every move and reveals Mima’s
innermost thoughts.
The film plot becomes increasingly complicated andlost me several times as Mima’s own life and that ofher character’s in “Double Bind” become increasinglyintertwined, making it hard for viewers to differentiate
between them. Events spiral out of control - murders
are being committed in the drama and also outside assome of Mima’s colleagues working on the TV set aregruesomely killed. Mima seems implicated in some of themurders or is she hallucinating or did I misunderstand?
We progressively enter Hitchcockian territory as theconcept of “doubles” is introduced bringing to mind
Hitchcock’s words, “If you meet your double, you should
kill him or he will kill you.” Applied to Perfect Blue, thesewords turn out to be prophetic.
As the film nears its end we are confirmed in our belief
Issue 28 Volume 5 Number 4 (August 2010)that the villainous and fanatical Mr Me-Mania is stalking
Mima and penning “Mima’s Room.” In a scary encounterhe tells her that the real Mima emails him every day andtells him to get rid of the impostor. He tries to stab her;she hits him with a hammer. Is this a dream? Is she losing
a grip on reality? Are there two Mimas?
All is revealed as the film wraps up, having successfully
toyed with the viewer’s mind.

Shot by Both Sides,
by Meisei Goto
translated by Tom Gill
Counterpoint Berkeley, 2009,
215 pages (paperback)ISBN-10: 1582434735£ 11.99
Review by Adam House

Watching the river flowing under Ochanomizu Bridge, weread as Akaki (our narrator) muses on bridges mentioned
in the stories of Kafu, and also that of Gogol, another of
his favourite authors. He’s on the bridge waiting to meet aman called Yamakawa, we follow his thoughts on Gogol
and that in his student days he had a khaki overcoat,
where is it now? Lost, mislaid? As his story begins, welearn that he’s forty years old and has two children,
married for twelve years, he leads a vigil like existence,but a vigil for what we are not sure. Arising early thatmorning the phrases, “the early bird catches the worm”
and the Japanese equivalent, “Early rising is three pence/
mon to the good,” echo in his thoughts, and thinking
about his old coat leads him to think over Gogol’s story‘The Overcoat’, his name resembles that of the hero too,
Akaky Akakievich. His fascination with Gogol is touched
upon again, “To me, Gogol wasn’t just some Russian guy
who lived over one hundred years ago. And he wasn’t
just a ‘great writer of Russian Literature,’ nor the founderof realism. You might say he was my fate.” Thinking backon the overcoat he had worn some twenty years ago,
Akaki begins to recall his childhood. The details of his
memories seem difficult to grasp, but it’s as if he were
turning the dial on the lens of a microscope, trying tofocus in to get the clearest image possible of past events,
his thought patterns sometime seem to arrive randomly,“What on earth have I been thinking about all this time?
True I’ve stayed alive this whole time so I must havethought about things.” He reflects on the nature of his
thinking.
The novel follows the narrator on his pilgrimage in an
attempt to track down his old overcoat, which he likens
to a pilgrimage of sorts, he makes the contrast to KoboDaishi (Kukai), with a slight humour. Returning to the7places of his student days, we revisit with him the oldthree-mat room he used to rent from the Ishida family,
when he lived with the Koga brothers. This was at thetime when he first arrived in Tokyo to study at Tokyo
University of Foreign Studies, the same university in which
the novelist Futabatei Shimei studied Russian. Chapter
by chapter we go back further into Akaki’s past, things
that he encounters as he retraces the places he went totwenty years ago in search of his coat reignite memories
of his childhood, the layered Sebald-like narrative isn’t
too far away, although this novel was first published inJapan in 1972. As Akaki travels along the Keihin-Tohoku
train line revisiting places and people from twenty years
back, visiting his old pawn shop - in pursuit of his coat,and seeing a cinema poster provokes memories of hischildhood in northern Korea, where he was born in theearly 1930s. He recalls the house they lived in with its ondol
underfloor heating, his old schools, and also the bombing
raids as the Soviets advanced. He looks back at himself as a
boy and remembers sensing something much larger thanhimself coming to an end. He recalls listening in to what
he thinks was the Emperor’s muffled broadcast through aneighbour’s wall and recounts the night he and his brotherburn their collection of magazines and records of Japaneseballads, singing the songs as the flames engulf the albums,
clinging onto his father’s army beret, but that too getsconsigned to the flames. His grandmother had died in aconcentration camp, and their house is impounded by
the Korean civil guard, “take what you can in your hands,
leave in thirty minutes,” they are informed. His story of
repatriation changes to that of a confession addressedto his elder brother, telling him of his inner feelings andthoughts. The narrative interweaves between flowing
points in time and history, a history not perceived in the
grand scale, but seen in the eyes of a boy whose watchinghistory move as if on an opposite shore, or parallel.
This novel is many things, informative, moving, enigmatic,
literary and at times has a subtile philosophical humour.
Goto Meisei drew from personal experience in writing
Akaki’s story, and in 1981 won the Tanizaki Prize for his
novel The Courtesan Yoshino. This translation of Goto by
Tom Gill, hopefully not the last work we’ll see in English, isseamless.

The Golden Age ofJapanese Okimono: The Dr
A.M. Kanter Collection

Laura Bordignon

Antique Collectors’ Club, 2010,
302 pages, coplously illustrated
with colour plates,
ISBN 978-1-85149-609-9£45

Laura Bordignon is an antique dealer who has developed
a close interest in the arts and crafts of the Meiji era. Dr
Kanter has collected many fine pieces of ivory carvings
made by Japanese artists and craftsmen in this period.
His collection focuses on the elaborate ivory carvings
called okimono (literally put or placed objects) although
it also contains a number of items in metal, cloisonné andlacquer. In addition to colour illustrations of objects in Dr
Kanter’s collection, the book includes a list of ivory carvers
in the Tokyo Sculptors Society with the characters which
they used for their names, a list of Shibayama craftsmen,
a note about Japanese signatures and an analysis of thedifferent types of ivory used by Japanese carvers.
As Bordignon points out,
Japanese craftsmen who had
devoted much of their energies
to producing swords and sword
fittings were deprived of thismarket following the prohibitionon the wearing of swords in theearly Meiji period. Instead they
began to make pieces for western
visitors and for the burgeoning
trade in Japanese curios. Netsuke
were still produced but carvers
began to produce larger pieces for export. Craft goodsin ivory, metal, cloisonné, lacquer and ceramics indeed
formed a major element in Japanese exports in the last
decades of the nineteenth century.
Ivory carving requires great skill
and patience. It is also very time
consuming. Japanese carvers
showed exquisite workmanshipin the many examples illustrated
in this book. The first section ofillustrations of okimono is devoted
to depictions of various artisans atwork. This is followed by a sectionof carvings of farmers performing
various agricultural tasks. Anothersection is devoted to animals.
These are followed by carvings of Japanese beauties (bijin),samurai, entertainers and of mythological scenes. The
final section devoted to okimono, headed ‘miscellaneous’,
covers carvings which do not fit into any of the othercategories
The objects depicted in this well illustrated volume
may not appeal to all collectors. Those brought up to
believe that the finest Japanese art is restrained andshibui may in particular find these highly decorativepieces over-ornamental, but everyone who sees theseobjects and looks at this volume must be impressed by
the workmanship and skill of the Japanese craftsmen as
well as by their imaginative and artistic depiction of thepersonalities and scenes which they carve.

Review by Sir Hugh Cortazzi
8

Issue 28 Volume 5 Number 4 (August 2010)