The Yokkaichi of Our Reflectionson a Cartoon History the New City Museum

YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University 1,LHITIik'i::,if,t!k ;h"'i 7 li iil L, i;- (Tht' Jeurnal of 1('okkaichi LJniversity, Vel. 7 No. 2. I99'1.) The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon History Book and the New City Museum David Dykes 1. First introduction: the Yokkaichi story in cartoons In July 1993. the Yokkaichi Cross'Sector Exchange Plaza, a municipal organisation that encourages cooperation and information exchange among local manufacturers, trading and service enterprises, brought out an unusual "Manga "The publication entitled de tsuzuru Yokkaichi menogatari" (YM; Yokkaichi Story in Cartoons"), as a team project. It is a polished, brisk and entertaining piece of work. My personal interest in it dates from the early summer of 1994, when I was asked to produce a translation summary for insertion in copies destined for overseas readers. Before starting, I did some "fact preliminary finding" and was set thinking about problems concerning the city's past, and its present self'image. This essay is my attempt to set those thc)ughts into order, Cartoon histories seem to enjoy greater popularity in Japan than in Europe, partly because cartoon books are more popular anyway, and partly because the contents of the mass-marketed ones are carefully geared to national school curricula, so that they can loosely be viewed as a kind of educational aid. The best selling series are either chronicles (for example, the history of Japan period by period) or biographies. "lean- Recently, however, these mass series are being joined by a number of run" productions aimed at limited but locally concentrated readerships. These include histories of particular places, institutions and events. Town histories are repre$entative of this trend, and offer the attraction of a shared benefit. While the force of local identity ensures relatively favourable sales, the book in turn centributes to a further strengthening of town spirit. Some local areas even launch their own history projects. as we find here in the case of Yokkaichi. -57- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University The Yokkaichi of our Drearns Reflections on a Cartoon History Book and the New City Museum After a short search around the area I have found several other local cartoon "Yokkaichi histories of varying type and quality. The closest in spirit to monogatari" is a history of the river engineering work north of Nagashima, "Kiso "The entitled sansen chisui monogatari" (KSC; roughly Taming of the Three Rivers"), on sale at the Water Museum in the Kiso Three Rivers Park. This book also serves as a biography of the Dutch engineer Johannis de Ruyke, and his 18th century Japanese predecessor Hirata Yukie, In Nagoya, too, the museum offers a cartoon visitors, with Port Building leafletto young the "Mako "Mako title to Taro no rninato tanken" (MTMT; and Taro Explore the Port"). This contains no history as such, but a wealth of facts about the present'day Nagoya Port and its surrounding facilities, A little further afield, 'for "Nara the Todaiji Temple at Nara has a cartoon history children entitled "The no Daibutsu-sama" (NDS; Great Buddha of Nara"). It soon forgets that it is a cartoon, however, and ends as a richly illustrated prose history. Finally, a called Kyodo shuppansha has recently brought out a six-part publisher "Manga "The chronicle called Mie Ken no rekishi" (MMR; History of Mie Prefecture in Cartoons"). Of the works Iisted here, this is the most crudely drawn and the least accurate. There may be other cartoon histories of the area available. But the ones above suffice to show the extent of popularity this kind of work enjoys and the variety of forms and standards that exist. I next wish to say a few words about the narrative characteristics of cartoon histories, and about the hazards these can cause when it comes to the representation of an area's development over a prolonged length of time. "innocently" Histories are never written, They always contain the hopes, fears, regrets and other projections of the present. In the cases of national chronicles or famous people's biographies, these affective elements may already be institutionalised, so that the writer and artist only need set the old story into a new frame, Most rnass marketed cartoon histories are of this kind, In local history, though, institutionalised versions have a narrower base. Thus, the few people concerned with their forrnulation have a surprisingly large influence and responsibility in deciding what to include, from whose point of view, and in what order and prominence. Thjs difficulty is magnified in a cartoon history, because you cannot pass rival views of the facts before the reader's judgement, as you might in prose. -58- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University You just have to go on drawing one picture after the next, as if the growth of a city, which is really the play-off of a million contradicting intentions every day, could be represented linearly in half a dozen key acts of will, Yokkaichi's history, finally, is especially hard to draw, because opinion concern{ng the one incident of fame to outsiders, the petrochemical pollution, is so polarised. It has to be mentioned, of course. But what is said about it will depend on what has previously been said about the port and city development preceding it. And this, being of less interest to the rest of Japan, is under the local historian's influence, or, seen from another point of view, hangs like a heavy weight over every decision about the storyline. 2, Second introduction: the Yokkaichi story in glass cases Slightly more recently still, in the spring of 1994, Yokkaichi opened a City Museum. This museum caters for a range of interests. Among other things, it offers first-rate visiting exhibitions of art, history, culture and science. But of the permanent parts the heart of everything is the display of local history on the 3rd and 2nd floors. On the 3rd floor, the visitor is first introduced "theme" to topography and prehistory, then led through a series of areas covering the periods up to the end of the Tokugawa Era. Then, going downstairs, one is treated to the more recent history of the city, starting with the Meiji reforms and the building of the port, and ending with a concept for reconciling industrial production with environmental concern. This museum, like the comic book above, fits easily into a current trend in local area self' definition. Until recently, most history museums in Japan were "kyodo of the shiryokan" ("hometown museum") type. On the whole, these museums' function is to preserve as many relics as possible of vanished or "whose" vanishing local ways of life, without much precision as to exactly life "what "what is meant, at moment" of the past, or in social context." 17th century helmets, 18th century medicine chests, 19th century miso tubs and 1940's gas masks are often displayed in quite close proximity, as if they all represented the same common past. Of course, this is not the view of the curators, who may conscientiously explain how particular people lived in given situations at given times, But the effect of the display itself is to suggest mysterious communion of one age with another, ancl of all with the present day. This communion undoubtedly exists, in the mental form of local identity, but only -59- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon History Book and the New City Museum as a result of hindsight. In this sense, the significance of every helmet and miso tub on display is really a present-day creation. In most kyodo''shiryokan museums, this imprinting of meaning is undeliberate. But more recently, a type of museum is being built that consciously organises the past from a definite point of view, with the aim of orientating the visitor's perceptlons. A typical example is the Ieyasu Hall in Okazaki, built some twelve years ago. It presents the career of Tekugawa Ieyasu, but at the same time demonstrates Okazaki's past commercial and cultural importance as a daimyo residence and trading town. This Ieyasu Hall, opened to synchronise with an NHK series and an Okazaki Exposition, was also an attempt to escape from Nagoya's shadow and assert pride in locar values, Nagoya itself keeps its past and present portraits curiously separate, The Tokugawa Museum and the display at Nagoya Castle both exclude the present, while the Electricity Museum at Fushimi and Port Building at Nagoya Port concentrate on modern achievements, nuclear generating plants in the one case, and the activities of the port and coastal industrial zone in the other. Perhaps a city like Nagoya is strong enough to survive without a carefully cultivated modern history, for the time being at least. In contrast, the Water Museum at the Kiso Three Rivers Park, opened in 1987 to mark the centenary of de Rujke's engineering project, contrives a blend of history and modernity. A video film at the entrance tells of the district's flood problems, how they were partially remedied in the 18th century, and then overcome by de Rujke. The rest of the museum's display is concerned with flow phenomena in large rivers, modern methods of controlling them, and the importance of balancing the rivers' various natural and human functions in harmony with the general environment. These are only a few examples from among the numerous historical and other local museums that have sprung up in the past ten years or so. Sometimes, as in the cases of the Port Building and the Water Museum, these museums coexist with cartoon guides or histories, which suggests that our treatment of both subjects together in this essay is not meaningless.

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