The 1964 Tokyo Games Reconsidered

Volume 18 | Issue 5 | Number 11 | Article ID 5369 | Mar 01, 2020 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Symbolic Transformation: The 1964 Tokyo Games Reconsidered Christian Tagsold Abstract: The 1964 Tokyo Olympics facilitated that began with the torch relay in Okinawa, Japan’s symbolic rebirth in the wake of World which remained under US administration until War II. Infrastructural projects like the1972, and ended with a ‘victim’ of the Shinkansen were intentionally blended with Hiroshima atomic bombing lighting the remnants of ultra-nationalism into a new type Olympic cauldron in Tokyo. of post-war patriotism. The games sanctioned Japan’s redemption and reinforced a sense of After the Tokyo Olympics ended, Ishihara national purpose and collective identity while Shintarō wrote, “It is a bit frivolous to dwell on providing a stage for Emperor Hirohito’s the Olympics regarding the fate of the state rehabilitation. In subtle ways the Olympics and its people, since the relationship between created an opportunity to rebrand Japan as both is substantially weak. But since we have modern and cutting edge while alsothis opportunity anyway, why not start by symbolically embracing a history and traditions slowly reconsidering ourselves, and our present that had been implicated and discredited by situation?” (Ishihara 2014 [1964]: 303) The wartime depredations. games taught Ishihara to respect and appreciate the beauty of athletes’ relentless struggles. He admired their discipline and willingness to sacrifice, virtues he believed Discussion of the 1964 Summer Olympics tends were lacking among his postwar Japanese to focus on the massive infrastructure projects compatriots. and Japan’s pell-mell postwar modernization, but it is also important to examine the symbolic In 1999, Ishihara Shintarō was elected implications of the games. The infrastructural governor of Tokyo. By then, he had morphed improvements were due to happen anyway, but into a staunch rightwing nationalist, but his were accelerated in light of the Olympic enthusiasm for the Olympics persisted. He deadline. By invoking the internationalhoped hosting the games would rouse the limelight, and the potential for embarrassment, Japanese people from their torpor and advocates could use the games to bulldoze over overcome an economic slump. His campaign to any opposition. The games also served to host the 2016 games failed miserably, however, sanction Japan’s redemption, and reinforced a due to a lack of public support (Tagsold 2009). sense of national purpose and collective In 2013, however, there was a degree of identity, while providing a stage for Emperor vindication at the 125th IOC session in Buenos Hirohito’s rehabilitation. In subtle ways, the Aires, where Tokyo won the right to host the Olympics created an opportunity to rebrand 2020 Summer Olympics. At the time, Japan Japan as modern and cutting edge, while also attracted global sympathy and goodwill, in light symbolically embracing a history and set of of the March 2011 triple-catastrophe traditions that had been implicated and(earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor discredited by wartime depredations.meltdowns), which had devastated the Tohoku Moreover, there was a subversive narrative region in northern Japan. Ironically, the plight 1 18 | 5 | 11 APJ | JF of remote Tohoku helped establish a compelling needs of a quickly urbanizing and heavily narrative for the Tokyo games, the absence of industrializing country. Plans and processes which had doomed the first attempt. which would usually have been spread out over more than a decade were implemented in less While Ishihara was skeptical about thethan five years; at the time, the period between transformative power of the Olympics in 1964, selecting the host city and hosting the games the Tokyo 2020 Games Vision is absolutely was two years shorter than it is today. clear that: “Sport has the power to change the world and our future. The Tokyo 1964 Games completely transformed Japan. The Tokyo 2020 Games will bring positive reform to the world” (The Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games 2018). Yet, I argue that the 1964 games did not “completely transform” the country. Certainly, they helped the world appreciate the economic strength of a renascent country and provided Japan with international validation. In addition, the games facilitated a different type of patriotism, which blended the remnants of ultra-nationalism with the economic and technological progress of the two post-war decades. However, most of the new infrastructure, such as the bullet-train and The swimming arena at Tange’s National highways, would have been built even without Gymnasium the games, while conservatives would have found other means to instill national pride among the Japanese population. Rather than transforming Japan, the games symbolized an ongoing evolution—and did so very efficiently, The new sports facilities announced that the to an astonishing degree. In this article, I Olympics were coming to the East. The land elaborate on this symbolic transformation in chosen for these facilities hinted at what was three ways. First, I explain how the capital was symbolically at stake. The venues were built on rebuilt to align sport, patriotism, and modern lots which either belonged to thetennō infrastructure to the utmost effect. Then, I take (Emperor) or had been used by the military a closer look at the freshly emerging economic before the games (Machimura 2007: 13). The patriotism in Japan. Finally, I ask how and why new national stadium, for example, was erected the spectacle of sport in the capital was able to on the grounds of the Outer Meiji Shrine. This captivate the minds not only of Tokyoites, but area was transformed into sports grounds a also of all Japan, including its most remote and decade after the Meiji tennō had passed away, rural areas. and a new shrine was dedicated to him. These developments highlighted the importance of When looking at Tokyo’s rapid metamorphosis sports in nurturing the bodies of an emerging in the run-up to the 1964 Olympics, it is easy to imperial(ist) nation (Tagsold 2010). A few understand how the games might be perceived hundred meters away, next to the Inner Meiji as the magic wand of transformation. Within Shrine, the Washington Heights housing only a few years, the city’s infrastructure was complex was returned by the US army to make substantially modernized and reinforced for the space for the athletes’ village. Adjacent to the 2 18 | 5 | 11 APJ | JF athletes’ village, opposite the shrine’s grounds, prosecution by the US occupation forces, but the architect Tange Kenzo designed his highly this did not diminish controversies over his war acclaimed National Gymnasium. In particular, responsibility. As a sort of countermeasure, the the swimming arena stood out with its boldly games helped sanctify the repositioning of the curved roof and concrete structure. tennō as a symbol of peace and national unity, presenting him to the world as a benevolent monarch. Here, the Olympic organizers had to overcome some hurdles, especially the expectation that a nation’s head of state would preside over the opening ceremonies. The tennō, however, was not the head of state. Under the 1947 constitution, the Emperor was the symbol of the unity of the Japanese people, and was barred from exercising any political role. Rather than confront this restriction, the emperor was turned into the patron of the games, and it was in this capacity that he gave the opening speech (Tagsold 2002: 78). Attendees in the stadium and television viewers worldwide were thus led to believe that the tennō was indeed Japan’s formal head of state. The National Gymnasium and the Meiji Tokyo was not only transformed by the new Shrine stadia and arenas, but also, and more so, by a number of infrastructural projects, which had been badly needed to keep up with the demands of rapid industrialization and the Seen from above, the arena looks like a giant increasing use of motorized vehicles. The first sun with the roof’s main axis exactlykilometers of a new web of inner-city highways corresponding to the main axis of the Meiji were laid down in 1962, followed by other Shrine (Tagsold 2010: 298). Thus, Tange linked stretches in the lead-up to the games’ opening the new gymnasium with the imperial past. in October 1964. A state-of-the-art monorail Prior to his Olympic designs, Tange was famous connecting Haneda Airport to the inner city for designing the Hiroshima Peace Park a also opened shortly before the games, though decade earlier, which had turned him into a Whiting (2014) notes that due to the lack of sort of “state architect” (Cho 2012: 74f.). His funds, the line ended at an inconvenient station stunning gymnasium designs explicitly evoke some distance away from the city center. Land Japan’s efforts to overcome its imperialistic was simply too expensive to extend the past under wartime, all the while retaining monorail all the way to Tokyo Station. Whiting, links to it – much like all the Olympic venues who lived in Tokyo during these tumultuous built on former military sites or tennō-grounds. years, also vividly recounts the extensive The games symbolized Tokyo’s rebirth,renovations: “When I first came to Tokyo in overcoming a militarist past while remaining 1962 with the United States Air Force, the level faithful to the institution of the tennō. Hirohito, of construction was simply off the charts. the reigning emperor in 1964, had been spared Everywhere you turned it seemed there was a 3 18 | 5 | 11 APJ | JF building being erected or another one being focusing on GNP and the income doubling plan. torn down. Crumbling sidewalks were being ripped apart, roadways air-hammered into New railway lines and national highways were rubble, trucks whizzing by carrying dirt and part of the massive pre-Olympic infrastructure building materials” (Whiting 2014).

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