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.
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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
Port Building museum offers a cartoon leaflet to young visitors, with 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 publisher called Kyodo shuppansha has recently brought out a six-part
"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.
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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
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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.
"kyodo The old shiryokan" still have a compelling atmosphere for those who
like to take in history through the skin, But it takes a lot of determination
"What to focus on particular questions, such as: was life like for a worker in
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a small spinning factory around 1900?" For questions like these, you often have
to consult the experienced curator, or sometimes the local bulletin, to find out
what the museum itself leaves unsaid. The new museums, in contrast, lead you
firmly and thematically, pointing out connections through a variety of media.
"learnt" Coming out, you feel yeu have something, and have a coherent picture
of the past.
"been It may be more accurate, though, to say that you have taught" something.
The coherent picture has been thought out in advance by a directing committee.
Nobody would want to say that today's public museums are out to indoctrinate
the public. Nevertheless, sorne ideas are inevitably stressed in the planning, while
"kyodo others are shyly or unconsciously left aside. To visit a shiryokan"
intelligently, you needed to combine browsing i'nstinct with an ability to
formulate sharp questions. To visit today's thematic displays, what is needed
is the power to notice what is NOT SHOWN.
"Electricity To give simple local examples, the Museum'' at Nagoya notably
lacks any section mentioning the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl
and explaining whether similar accidents can be ruled out in Japan; nor are
there displays about fuel recycling and storage of radioactive waste. Similarly,
during the controversy over the Nagara River Barrage scheme, the Water
Museum at the Three Rivers Park failed to illustrate and explain the problem
in its main display.
Both of these museums are fine institutions, doing valuable work. But the
logical consequence of guiding visitors by one firmly thought out set of themes
is that gaps occur, so that other possible views of the same subject areas are
lost to view. And unless the display is continuously updated, these gaps become
more and more serious with time.
Having mapped out a subject area, I now mean to focus in on my own
"local theme: history presentation through a new cartoon book and a new
museum in the case of Yokkaichi." I hope the reader will be on careful look-
out for all the views of the subject that I shyly or unconsciously Ieave out.
- 3, The cartoon history guiding mechanisms and guiding principle
"Divine Ever since Botticelli illustrated Dante's Comedy", the majority of
historical cartoons have made use of a guide figure to lead the reader into the
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The Yokkaichi of eur Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon History Book and the New City Museum
narration. All the cartoons mentioned above have guide figures of this kind.
"Kiso One of them, sansen suichi monogatari", alse uses another classic epic
technique, the narrative flashback. By a series of stories within stories, attention
is switched from the 20th to the 19th century and then to the 18th, before being
allowed to return in reverse sequence.
"Yokkaichi monogatari" also uses both of these guiding mechanisms.
Altogether we find half a dozen principal guide figures: first the class teacher,
who explains Yokkaichi's general origins in chapters 1 and 2 and sets project
assignments, and then the various adults, who in chapters 3 to 7 treat the children
to more specialised explanations about this or that aspect of the past. The book
ends in chapter 8 with a class discussion, which starts from a summary of what
the children have found out (YM, 216-17) and expands into an exchange of ideas
about how the city should develop in the future.
In this final discussion, the children start taking a more creative role. They
are no longer mere listeners, but have ideas to contribute, on the basis of what
"Yokkaichi they have learnt. In my view, the special strength of monogatari"
lies here, in its human dynamics, The instructors are not always and only
{nstructors, and the learners not always and only learners. The interaction
between them helps to tone down the didactic side of the book and introduce
a precious element of .give-and-take.
In several cases, we can witness this modulation of roles at work. A boy who
has been asking questions about environmental problems during the visit to the
petrochemical complex (YM, 212) raises the same points more positively during
the class discussion (YM, 224). And a girl with a thoughtful but dreamy plan
for a coast to coast ship canal (YM, 232'33) can be seen in retrospect to have
been unusually reflective all during the train study outing, too (YM, 112-43),
Although most of the children are not named in the story, the reader has the
strong sense that they are real people, who react to what they hear.
At the same time, the adult roles are mostly softened by touches of
idiosyncracy. The student in chapter 4 is train mad to an extent that the children
find odd (YM, 122), and the old man in chapter 3 habitually repeats himself
(YM, 102). Most humanly memorable, though, is the young class teacher, who
is prone to forget timetables (YM, 59), or to site Environment Agency buildings
on the exact spot on the map where a protected environment is supposed to
be (YM, 225), Curiously, lapses like these make us trust him more than we would
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a glib speaker, His heart is brighter than his brain.
0n the sNrhole, then. we can say that the artist has taken particular trouble
with character creation and human rapport, and that it pays off. I seem to detect
one exception, however. It is the plant guide at the petrechemical complex, in
chapter 7. This man seems to be delivering a prepared message rather than
really talking with the children or trying to fathom their point of view. This
is more apparent still if he is compared with the woman talking about the tea
plantations in chapter 5. The warmth of the presentation in chapter 5 is quite
lacking in chapter 7. It seems a pity that this rnost delicate chapter of the book
shouid be the one delivered most woodenly. I suspect this awkwardness at the
character level reflects reticence at the project direction level, But this is
something to come back to later.
In fact, we shall return presently to look in more detail at three passages
in the narratixJe presentation, But for now, I wish to end my general comments
on the book with a w･ord about I take to be its guiding eonception,
"development". A word I found myself using very often in translating it was
"hatten", ''machizukuri", This usually stood for Japanese but sometimes also for
''town which means something like planning", with a stronger nuance of image
''growth" raising as wel! as utility. By contrast, words like ("seicho") hardly
occur, except in the sense of tea bushes reaching maturity (YM, 153), This choice
of words, as far as I can judge, reflects a deep=down assumption that Yokkaichi's
past and future (between about 1470 and 2000) is primarily a question of planning,
building, mapping, developing and enlarging. .
This may not be the spontaneous personal belief of the authors. One feels
"Yokkaichi rather that the idea belongs programatically to the monogatari"
project itself. At least, that is what the book's apparatus suggests,
''Greeting" 'Sector In his (YM, 2-3), the Secretary of the Inter Exchange Plaza
writes that Yokkaichi's traditional ways of life were disrupted by the 1945
bombings, and the subsequent rush to reindustrialise, which led to the pollution
disaster of the sixties. Now, to put development ("YokkaichiJzukuri") back on
course, we need to look back to the origins of the modern city as a market,
a staging post on the Tokaido Highway and a port. This will put us in a position
to learn from our predecessors' dreams and struggles, achievements and mistakes,
Behind all its changes, Yokkaichi has always remained a centre of land and
"things sea communications, a place where and people come together''.
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The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon History Book and the New City Museum
"Afterword" The by the project committee chairman (YM, 236) puts similar
thoug. hts into more personal language. Through the preparation of the history,
the project team found themselves growing fonder of their local area. Learning
about a place's past is a good way of appreciating its essential qualities, and
picturing its future cQurse of development,
In both cases, it is suggested that scrutiny of the past provides the best guidance
"land for building the future. This idea, with the same formulae of and sea
"things communications" and and people coming together", occurs repeatedly
in the story itself. Conspicuous examples come in the teacher's talk about Edo
Period Yokkaichi on pages 28 30, the concluding part of the port history on
pages 98-106, and the round'up of the project reports on pages 216-17, This
"market" steady emphasis is reinforced by the repetition of the words ("ichi")
"crossroads" and ("tsuji"), emphasising the etymology of the place
"Yokkaichi" "Fuda names and no Tsuji".
Where the development urge shows more clearly still is in the last
"Drawing chapter, the Yokkaichi of our Dreams". After the round"up of the
children's reports, the teacher pins an outline map of Yokkaichi to the blackboard
and asks the children what new creations should be drawn on it, His exact
words are:
"... Yokkaichi is a fine place to live, provided with all kinds of good
things. But all of them are due to the hard work of Yokkaichj people
of the past. Well, then,.. When all of you are grown up, and have
children of your own coming to elementary schools like this one, what
kind of place do you think you'd like Yokkaichi to be?"
(YM, 218)
In effect, he is saying that Yokkaichi has been made, by people like port builder
Inaba San'emon (YM, 61 ff.) and texti]e entrepreneur Ito Denshichi (YM, 108),
and that the present generation should continue the good work.
Contradictions are not far below the surface, however. The angry fishermen
and farmers who oppose Inaba San'emon on page 84 are also trying to keep
"they'd the town the way like it to be". And they are punished for it. The same
beach fishermen who were drawn so sympathetically on page 68, are transformed
into scowling clowns.
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YM, 84
Thinking purely objectively, it is a fact that these people lost their livelihood
by abeut the time Inaba's port was completed in 188-4 and Ito opened hjs ne",
"Yokkaichi spinning works alongside it in 1886. monogatari" is therefore not
''meanly" being very kind to them. Similarly, the business competitors who so
accuse Inaba of working for one"sided gain on page 84 should not really be
''Yokkaichi dismissed quite so summarily. The port history ko no ayumi" (YKA),
records that Inaba's brother Yamanaka Denshiro signed a contract with
Mitsubishi Steamship Company to become their sole Yokkaichi agent a year
before the port construction started, and at a time when Inaba was mayor. Only･
three years later, thanks to government support, Mitsubishi achieved a monopoly
of the Yokkaichi steamship business, driving the rival company to ruin (YKA,
34 :l7). We shall return to this presently, But we have already said enough to
"the show that this talk of remembering and emulat,ing hard work of Yokkaichi
people of the past" is less straightforward than it sounds. Only certain Yokkaichi
people are intended, and it is not obvious that these people were always acting
more honestly or nobly than their neighbours. It is simply that in hindsight their
"development" achievements score higher in the of Yokkaichi, as the project
team see lt.
"development" This could lead to the radical question of whether exists at
"local all, except as a product of aftersight (ljke identity", above), If not, this
"Yokkaichi enthusiasm to participate in the task of zukuri" might be a dangerous
misunderstanding, and a wiser course might be to see which way the city
"growing'' is in practice, and take steps to weed, water and fertilise,
But even accepting that Yokkaichi's future really is mappable, and that there
are pianners at hand with enough vision and skill to avoid gross mistakes, one
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The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon IIistory Book and the New City Museum
"plan-it-yeurself" objection still remains to this view ef history: once you turn
men like Inaba, Yamanaka and Ito Denshichi unreservedly into heroes of
development, it is difficult not to regard those who disagreed with them, or
suffered the unlucky side-effects of their great actions, as enviers, dolts and
villains.
"Yokkaichi This is certainly not the view of the authors of monogatari". I
have gone out of my way to praise the realism with which every child in the
story is drawn seriously, as a feeling and thinking individual. I gladly go further,
and say that the book respects the dignity of all people at present Iiving in
Yokkaichi. But it does distort the fishermen and shipowners on page 8･4. Thjs
is not because of the attitude of heart of the writers, but because of
"Yokkaichi' the zukuri" framework they work within,
4. The museum guiding mechanisms and guiding principle
It was said above that recently local history museums tend to orientate visitors'
attention more firmly than was usual in the past, by arranging exhibits
thematically, according to a predetermined plan. In this section we shall see
how this works out at the Yokkaichi City Museum in AM Square.
"Orientation" can begin with the siting of the museum. To take examples
already mentioned, the Port Building in Nagoya and the Water Museum in the
Three Rivers Park both take the visitor to the top of a high tower for a bird's
eye view of the artificial waterscapes.
The siting of the Yokkaichi City Museum is significant, too. This area west
"culture of the Kintetsu Station is gradually turning into a kind of zone". The
City Library and Cultural Centre have been established nearby for some time,
but it is only with the opening of AM Square that the area has acquired a focal
point. The Square combines commercial, social and cultural functions. One side
leads to the Station, another is formed by a large hotel and department store,
a third by the museum. For a city that has lacked a planned centre ever since
the decline of Fuda no Tsuji and the transfer of the business centre to the Suwa
District, the concept of AM Square is revolutionary. The gesture to culture has
coincided with a commitrnent to bolder city planning.
Between the museum and the department store, there is one more building
on AM Square, the curiously named Mie Jiba. This is primarily a promotion
centre for local industry, but also fulfils cultural roles and everlaps functionally
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with the museum. At the most basic level, museum visitors can eat in the Mie
Jiba restaurant or buy local products such as Banko earthenware in the ground
floor display area. More ambitiously, the upper floors include rooms for cu]tural
activities, from public lectures to speech contests. There is a clear intention
that Mie Jiba and the museum should cooperate, and that Mie Jiba should be
a place where townspeople and schoolchildren feel at home. Sure enough, one
"Yekkaichi group of children visit it in monogatari" (YM, 145).
This interpenetration of civic, industrial, commercial and cultural spheres is
further symbolised in one of the sculptures on AM Square. Unveiled in March
1994, at the time the museum opened, it represents two girls releasing birds,
and cornmemorates the activities of the Yokkaichi Chamber of Commerce and
"spirit Industry. The figures stand for the city's of development" ("hatten-buri").
"Hiyaku", "Flight", The work's title is which means especially in contexts
"hiyakuteki like na hatten" ("soaring development"). Having noticed the new
museum's equally new surroundings, let us now look inside.
"theme The local history display on floors 3 and 2 is divided into six areas",
and makes use of a combination of showcases for models and objects, wall texts
and charts fer connected explanations, and video recordings for more detailed
coverage of particular topics.
"Yokkaichi I visited just after reading monogatari", and discovered to my
surprise that the museum and the cartoon history were both arranged to an
almost identical master plan, This is best shown in a table. On the left are the
museum's theme areas, on the right the corresponding parts of the history.
Tkeble: A coniParison o.f the contents of Ybkkaichi Cit.v Mlrtseum's locag histor.v
"Ybkkaichi disPlavv and monagatari"
"Yokkaichi Museum theme areas Chapters or features in monogatari"
1. Primaeval times and
natural environment
2. People's life in ancient
tlmes
3.Yokkaichi market and the Chap. 1: the market, pp. 14-30.
early harbour the harbour, pp. 23, 24, 28-30,
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The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflectiens on a Cartoen History Book and the New City Museum
4. The Tokaido Highway Chap. 1: the Tokaido Highway, pp. 16L20, 28.
and the Ise pilgrim route Chap. 4: road systems, pp. 123-28.
Feature: old roads, p, 144.
5. Yokkaichi Port and the Chap. 3: the port, pp. 61-107.
deve]opment of modern industrialisation, pp. 100-06.
industry Feature: industrialisation, p. 108.
Feature: Banko earthenware, p. 162.
6. The War disaster, Chap. 7: petrochemicals and the environment,
reconstruction and city pp,189"213.
creation Chap. 8: the future, pp, 215 35.
Feature: pure water, p. 214.
This table only gives broad correspondences. Most of the other sections of
the cartoon history also turn up in the museum in the form of subtopics. For
example, the area's railway history (chapter 4), the tea industry (chapter 5) and
the aviation feats of the Tamai Brothers (chapter 6) are all present in theme
area 5, which a]so has a video film on Meiji Era administration changes (chapter
3, pp. 54-57). A feature essay about the Yekkaichi Festival (YM, 60, displaced
to 32) exactly matches a separate display case near area 5, while another feature
page on the two trade expesitions and Yokkaichi High School's 1955 Koshien
victory (YM, 188) resembles a video film in area 6.
There are correspondences of detail, too. The guide's explanation of the
sulphur and carbon extraction apparatus at the petrochemical plant (YM.206)
is nearly identical to another video film in area 6. The drawing of polypropylene
globules on page 199 and the car parts made from them on page 210 may be
based directly on the central display in area 6. Factory pioneers Ito Shozaemon
and Ito Denshichi, mentioned in the same sentence on page 108, are also found
as two photographs in the same frame in area 5. Numerous other coincidences
could be listed, as well. Of course, certain parts of the cartoon history are taken
from other sources and are not to be found in the museum. But all in all, it
is impossible to read the carteon and then walk around the museum (especially
the second floor part) without feeling that you are breathing the same air.
As the book appeared eight months before the museum opened, one could
infer that the two projects advanced in parallel, with a good deal of interfeed.
Might it be that the cartoon was a by-product of the same preparations that
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produced the museum? Possibly the relation was a little less direct than that.
But one can confidently guess that it existed.
Leaving the details, let us now return to broader correspondences, arranged
this time by points Qf resemblance rather than by themes or chapters. We can
pick out at least five points that the museum and cartoon have in comrnon.
1 ) They both reflect a strong tradition of institutionalised partnership between
the municipality and local commerce and industry.
2 ) Local history is represented as a record of advance from primitive to more
developed levels, Crucial steps of development are seen in the regulation
of markets and roads, the building of the port, and subsequent industrialisation,
3) The bui]ding of the port is taken as a central turning point. In the cartoon,
chapter :S ("Town and Port") marks a narrative switch from classroom
teaching to group project work, In the museum, the visitor has to change
''Yokkaichi floors to reach area 5, Port and the development of modern industry",
4 ) The early history of manufacturing is treated much more fully than the
pre-War transition to heavy industry. The War is presented as a near-total 'I'he interruption of developement, followed by a new start. question of
continuity between pre' and post-War industrial planning is not treated.
5 ) The rnuseum and cartoon both end in similar ways, with the overceming
of the pollution problem, and the announcement of a future concept
combining environmental concern (in research, technological innovation and
"Development" teaching) with international communications. merges
"creation", into in the sense of integral urban and environmental planning.
The concluding message to the public is confident and bright in both cases:
the energy accumulated in the past (especially the Meiji past) still serves as
a kind of motor that will enable the city to shape the future, more gently but
with no less inherent vigour. Of course, there is an allusion here to projects
that the City, together with local firms, is eurrently pursuing, including the
development of the International Centre for Environmental Technology Transfer
{ICETT). The cartoon history draws the connection explicitly (YM, 209, 225).
"mistakes" Past environmental are acknowledgecl in passing, both in the
museum (graph of sulphur oxide values in area 6) and in the cartoon (three
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The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon History Book and the New City Museum
pictures on pages 207-08), but not in detail or depth. The museum display is
particularly chary on the subject. The video film on the air environment (area
6) shows blue skies, without mentioning that they were ever any other colour.
"Yokkaichi The absence of any film material concerning asthma" seems intended
as a deliberate challenge to the visitor's expectations.
"the This challenge may be ill-judged. Adults may take silence as meaning
"the problem is behind us," but fer chi]dren it is more likely to mean that problem
was never so bad." But what is more worrying is the one-dimensionality of
the presentation as a whole: according to the theme layout, development in
Yokkaichi has proceeded in an ascending line since the 15th century, and with
wise and energetic planning will continue to do so. With this simple message
to lean on, one wonders how many visitors, especially younger ones, will pause
to ask about the other dimensions of change NOT SHOWN in this scheme: the
dispossessions and loss of livelihood that accompanied the coastal development
plans, or the fouling of the sea and air that destroyed fishing and made parts
of Yokkaichi unhealthy to live in even before the War,
Nobody wants to condemn the city's development. It has brought wealth, and
the higher things that wealth ultimately buys. But any kind of development comes
at a social cost, and creates losers as well as winners. History is not like a
planned path through a museum, with everything logically tending to
advancement. It only becomes that in retrospect, or from the viewpoint of
"pioneers". certain Fer the majority, history is a maze of tracks, many of them
leading nowhere, or only to personal descent.
It needs to be said: a one-sided celebration of development is always cruel
to those who have failed or suffered. A city's prosperity rests on their misfortunes as much as it does on the efforts of the more successful, and museums that
only celebrate successes without also sorrowing for failures turn into cold and
ugly places. Yokkaichi City Museum is not exactly ugly, but it does need a
few more grams of the experience of failure, one feels.
"Yokkaichi I now mean to return to three episodes of monogatari": Ieyasu's
escape in chapter 1, the building of the port in chapter 3, and the visit to the
petrochemical plant in chapter 7, to see what kind of alternative view might
be offered in each case. My aim is not to contradict the book's (or the museum's)
version of these stories, but to try and add a shadow side.
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5. Three episodes
5 a) , leyasu's escape
The tale of Ieyasu's escape across Ise Bay to Hamamatsu in lr)82 is hard]y
more than an anecdote explaining the name of a bridge in the cjty centre. In
the museum the story is not mentioned. The reason it is used to open the cartoon
history (YM, (i 12) may be that it symbolises the beginning of the Tokugawa
Era, when the Tokaido Highway became safe, markets were regulated and trade
"Tenryo" flourished. It also purports to explain how Yokka{chi became a town,
ruled directly from Edo.
The cartoon represents both le]Tasu and Oda Nobunaga in a positive light.
(';iven that the two men broug. ht order tQ traffic on the Tokaido, on which Iocal
"developmental" wealth depended (cf. YM, 125), this judgement is natural from a
point of view. But it does lead at once into some uncomfortable half'
"Japan truths. was just on the point of becoming united under Oda Nobunaga"
(YM, 8), for example, is not exactly untrue, but one wonders whether Nobunaga's
concept of terrjtory ("tenka") really was quite the same as what is meant
"Japan" by today. Also, while it is true from today･'s viewpoint that Nobunaga,
Hideyoshi and Ieyasu imposed unity of government, it is hardly fair to suggest
that Nobunaga's rivals stood for disunity. The rea] question was c)n whose terms,
and to whose benefit unified rule was going to 1)e achieved. To some people,
Nobunaga's actions seemed to threaten unity more than furthering it, On the
one hand he was dividing Japan religiously and perhaps preparing the way for
a European invasion, and on the other he was ignoring traditional power
structures by by-passing the Court and Shogun and giving a free hand to exiles
and commoners. Certainly, IIideyoshi's main concern after usurping the
"faults'' succession was to correct these by restricting foreign religion, restormg
Imperial and feudal principles and disarming the people (Inoue, 1, 241",19).
Similarly, one doubts whether Ieyasu's thoughts about unity were quite as
simple as shown. Like other leaders, he must have been waiting to see which
way new alliances would form. His ardent and visionary gaze in the carteon
(YM, 7, 8, 9, 11) expresses a faith in Japan's (and Yokkaichi's) destiny that can
only come from afterknowledge.
As long as only positive values are superimposed, this writing by hindsight
"unifiers may not seem to matter. Ieyasu and Nobunaga, as of Japan", are simply
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The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Curtoon History Book and the New City Mttseum
made a little more prescient than they really were. But the real problem comes,
as so often, with the description of non-heroic third parties.
I leave aside the question of whether Mitsuhide is treated fairly or not in
this story. Instead, I want to show how the simplified assumption that Nobunaga
and Ieyasu stand for a future destiny leads to a regrettable blind spot where
common people are concerned.
The reason given for Ieyasu's hesitations on the bridge is his distrust of the
"On peasantry along the shores of Ise Bay: the land route he would have to
pass through an area where the country people had resisted Nobunaga in a
peasant rising" ("nomin ikki"; YM, ll). The picture suggests the same:
If we had no outside knowledge, the
peasants' hostility might seem a mere
fact ef nature, Iike wild beasts or bad
"peasant weather, But in fact this rising"
was a religious movement ("ikko ikki")
that Nobunaga crushed in 1574, with the
use of ships from Shima. It was among
the grisliest of his punitive actions. On
his express orders, the entire beseiged
population was killed, including women,
children, old people, and those trying to
escape or surrender. The number YM, 11
exceeded 20,OOO (Inoue, I,2:39; Morikawa, 59; Takeda, 21l). Ieyasu was not involved
in this,but one understands his hesitations nonetheless. The story has a certain
ironic symmetry: a ship from Ise saves Ieyasu frorn the peasants whose
neighbours had been wiped out by the fleet from Shima eight years before,
To be sure, No bunaga's enemies were bloody, too. It may be that the Japanese
way of writing history so as to make past bitterness disappear and massacres
"peasant melt into risings" has its own wisdom, while the European habit of
keeping religious and civil wars alive for centuries is unnecessarily mean. But
there should be a middle path. In the Tokugawa Period, the Mie coast was
a progressive region, that based its prosperity on cash crops, manufactures,
commerce and shipping. This all depended on the law and order built up by
the Tokugawas on No bunaga's special blend of wisdom and terror. But the terror
was there at the start, and Yokkaichi's rise to wealth was partly built on
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"country Nagashima's disaster. Even in an anecdote, people who resisted
Nobunaga in a peasant rising'' is not an adequate remembrance for the grim
way the Tokaido "ras opened up in this part of Japan,
5 b) . Inaba San'emon's port
"Yokkaichi We have seen that both monogatarir' and the City Museum present
the building of Inaba San'emon's pert as the crucial turning point in the story
of Yokkaichi's development. I do not quarrel with this, and no doubt Inaba
deserves his statue in the city's Central Avenue. However, real life circumstances
are always mere complex than officially celebrated ones,
Both the cartoon's and the museum's portraits of Inaba are consiclerably more
accurate than the saga of the bearded titan in Kyodo shuppansha's version {MMR,
6, 5･4 57). All the same. a good deal of important information is left out, and
:'purified". as a result the story is in a sense In this subsection, I shall be
"Yokkaichi cemparing the presentation in monogatari"with what can be found
in the official city history ("Yokkaichi-shi shi'', YSS) and, especially, the history
of the port published by the Y()kkaichi Port Authority ("Yokka{chi-ko no ayumi", YKA).
''Yokkaichi What one immediately notices in rnonogatari" is that the book's
attitude to Inaba San'emon is extremely friendly, The children and their teacher
"San'emon call him san" throughout, as do the two elderly men who tell his
story in chapter 3 ("Y'M, (;1 107). Yet in his day lnaba was far from popular.
In the t.wo men's narration, it is his courage in fighting off prejudice and envy
for the sake of the city's long-term interests that rnakes him heroic. These long
term interests, are the lines of development leading to the present day. That
Yokkaichi might, with certain gains, have developed in different or more gentle
"Jays, is net considered.
"San'emon This emphasis en future interests shows in san"'s dilated eyes.
He has the same visionary eyes as Ieyasu.
"dematerialised''. As a person, lnaba is largely The book simplifies him into
a kind of freelancing enterpriser, whereas, according to the port history, he was
actually very active in town politics. The museum (area 5) says slightly more,
"kocho" telling us that he resigned his office as in order to devote himself to
the port project, but even that hardly conveys the whole picture.
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The Yokkaichi of eurDreamsReflectiops on aCHrtoon HistorvBonknnd the NewCity TV{useum
.f- YM, 93 / ･ll,llillisiii,' Li41ijZz. IiZ 1..-.... f.i'ITi'1ij'-ff'/lrl,(' " ,y) oT) Fj'/liY-II;･･ ,';･.g,･
YM, 12
The port history (YKA, 54) says that from 1868 commerce and shipping. Thus, his fact'finding visit to Yokohama in 1870 was "Yokkaichi not a purely private initiative, as monogatari" seems to suggest (YM, 78), As his brother Yamanaka Denjiro had a branch effice in Yokohama, there may have been additional business motives, but these are passed over in the cartoon, too. "kocho". In 1871, Inaba became Yokkaichi's first This roughly means that he was mavor. But at this time it was a highly political post, intended to represent the central government at local town level, and to displace feudal influences, The kocho's first task was the comp{ling of the new huusehold registers ("koseki"), as a basis for centralised administration, policing and (after 1873) military conscription (Ikeda & Sasaki, 4, ]16). Thus, it is fair to say that the kocho acted as the local arm of the Interior Ministry and Prefecture. The local population was conscious of this connection, and many kochos' houses were attacked during the 1876 riots, which we shall come back to. As kocho, Inaba will have had close dealings with Prefectural Governor Iwamura Sadataka, especially during the temporary transfer of the Prefectural Office to Yokkaichi from 1872 to 1873, a political move designed to neutralise feudal opposition to government reforms in Tsu. This is mentioned in a "Yokkaichi completely different context in monogatari" (YM, 56-57), but no - -- 74 NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University connection is drawn there to Inaba or the port project. But Inaba himself, in his building application to Iwamura dated March 1873, explicitly cites Yokkaichi's new political status as an additional ground for giving urgent priority to modernisation (YKA, 42). The documents prepared around this time show signs of close coliusion between Inaba and Iwamura. For example, Iwamura's application to Finance Minister Inoue is falsely backdated to January 1873 (YKA, 4,'l), and Inaba was allowed to begin work in March although Ministry permission did not arrive until July (YKA, 45). By the time it did arrive, it was signed by the new Finance Minister Okuma, a close associate of Iwasaki Yataro, founder of Mitsubishi Steamship Company. Inaba's brother Yamanaka Denjiro. as we have mentioned, had signed an agency agreement with Mitsubishi in 1872 (YKA, :.l･t). So although Inaba's ideals were no doubt genuine, we see already that his manner of realising them was fairly devious. In trying to make Inaba naive against the evidence, the cartoon even edges close to untruth. On page 88, we are told that after the main building work "thanks was finished steamship traffic increased, and then, to Yamanaka Denjiro's efforts, a branch of the Mitsubishi Steamship Company was opened in the Inaba District." This is a very misleading way of saying that Yamanaka, by a contract s{gned beforehand, opened the branch himself, and that the Yamanaka family remained the permanent agents, first for Mitsubishi and then for the successor company Nippon Yusen (YA, 34, 36-37; YSS, 12, 281-82), To "In quote the city history account: Meiji 8 (1875), [Mitsubishi] opened a branch office in the Inaba District. From around this time on, the Kaiso Company, embroiled in a bitter competitive battle against Mitsubishi, made large losses, and finally discontinued their Yokkaichi Tokyo service in 1876, closing down their branch. This left Mitsubishi with a monopoly, and Yamanaka Denjiro in charge of Iocal freight shipments." Idealising Inaba and Yamanaka is not particularly harmful, though one "ronders why it is really necessary, or where the disgrace lies in adrnitting that people with ideals may still act from mixed motives. More important than this, however, is the implied injustice to others, Inaba's original project partner "Yokkaichi Tanaka is presented in monogatari" as a faintheart (YM, 85), When he pulls out under the pressures of public criticism, Inaba resolves to rely only "faithful on his friends" to help him through, But, as we have seen, his main i u e' ' i:} NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University The Yokkajchi uf our Drearns Reflections on a Cartoon History Book and the New City Museum faithful friend was Yamanaka, the Mitsubishi agent, and according to the port history, it may have been this underhand aspect of the project that caused Tanaka to have serious misgivings in the first place (YKA, 45). , When Inaba ran out of funds at the end of 1873, Governor Iwamura's decision to take over the port as a Prefectural project may partly have been in response to the local criticisms of Inaba and Yamanaka, as the port history suggests (YKA, 46). A second reason may lie in the administrative reforms of November that year that transferred control of large public works from the Finance to the Interior Ministry (Inoue, 2, 151), which perhaps made Yokkaichi Port more "Yokkaichi of a Prefectural concern. monogatari" presents the decision as a kind of breach of promise. But through all the litigation, it is worth remembering "San'emon's that the point at issue was not whether port" should be allowed to open or not, but mere materially, who should participate and prefit. Behind "Inaba the vs Prefecture" contest, there is an obscure background struggle among Mitsubishi, the local shippers and the official administration. Maybe this is too subtle for a cartoon history, and that may be an argument against putting such difficult subjects into cartoon form at all, But it would not be so difficult to make clear that part of Inaba's additional finance after 1873 came directly from Mitsubishi (YKA f16). The cartoon's silence here (YM, 90), followed by "surprise" the intervention of Iwasaki Yataro as a saving angel (YM, 9:1'95) ls mlsrepresentatlon. The minister who overturns a high court decision in order to save Inaba while incidentally helping Iwasaki Yataro to his monopoly in Yokkaichi, is once again Okuma Shigenobu, now Minister of the Interior and therefore Iwamura's direct superior, Although Okuma did many beneficial things for Japan, his early association with Iwasaki is not usually reckoned to be ethically exemplary. Is this bending of the Iaw really the right episode with which to crown a city's development story, one wonders? "developers" Again, this sympathetic portrayal of Yokkaichi's finds its shadow side in the unjustly negative view of their opponents. Riots broke out in Mie in 1876, the year after Yamanaka opened his agency. The immediate grievance was the 3% land tax, which remained unchanged despite a sharp fall in rice prices (HSR, 2, 13; Ikeda & Sasaki, 4, 134-35), but household registration and military conscription were at issue, too, as was the government's whole policy of taking money from the countryside to pay for Westernisation, Favourite -76- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University targets for destruction were telegraph offices and government document stores. According to the Tokyo press, three things were notably attacked in Yokkaichi: first the telegraph office, then the Mitsubishi braTich, and finally the new port district in general. The immediate motive for the attack on the branch building was that the telegraph staff had fled in that direction and were taken aboard a Mitsubishi steamship. Whether the building would have been attacked otherwise is not c]ear. But the fact that the fugitives chose that spot to run to suggests that it symbolised a government presence in the town. The Kaiso Company office was not attacked (Tokyo Hibi, 25 & 27.12.1876, in NMNH, 264-67). Mitsubishi Steamship Company had every reason to be identified as government territory. Just then. it was preparing the naval logistics for the invasion of Kyushu. In the absence of trains, many supplies were due to be taken to the front by steamer. Only a year before, the government had announced a discount sale of 1,4 ships to the company, together with an order for five regular domestic steamship lines "ncludjng Yokohama'YokkaichD, with annual subsidies of \250,OOO for operations and \15,OOO for technical training (Inoue, 2, l57 58; Ikeda & Sasaki, ,1, l･'13: Tokyo Hibi, 18.9.l875 & Tokyo Akebono, :3.10.1875, in NMNH, 209-10). This support was mainly paid for out of the rural land tax. Naturally, my ebject here is not to attack the Mitsubishi Steamship Company for the sake of it, but simply to comment on a suspect practice of mentioning names in favourable contexts and omitting them in unfavourable ones, Unnatural omissions are unhealthy. Companies, like individuals, always bring both good and bad to the areas where they are established, and if the bad is never reported, the good will not be believed in the long run, either. Returning now to the argument, the cartoon history's description of the "the Yekkaichi rieting: Inaba and Takasago Districts vLTere burnt down in the riots that broke out in December" (YM, 92) seems unnecessarily bare. As with "peasant the rising" at Nagashima, the whole business is treated as a kind of natural accident, to be expressed through impersonal and passive verbs. "Inaba And District was burnt down" is not really a fair way to describe the firing of the branch office. The drawing is unfair, too, These are people who have seen the price of their rice crop fall from \5.35 in August to \3.50 in September, while the government taxes their land at a fixed rate and spends the money on telegraph lines and -7･7･- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon IIistory Book and the New City Museum shipping subsidies. But they are drawn as if they were part of the fun at Yokkaichi Festival: YM, 92 "Yokkaichi monogatari" is a very human work, that draws modern-day people with sensitive and sympathetic realism. Why this grotesqueness when it comes to people who lived 120 years ago? The answer may lie in area 5 of the City "kami Museum, where the Mie Riots are narrated on a push"button shibai" machine, When you switch it on, a chuckling old man tells in Mie dialect about "fuss the and commotion" ("sawagi") of the riots, while a series of boisterous pictures very much like the one above flick across a screen. There is no attempt to go deeper, or to recognise that the peasants really were the victims of a crude and harsh kind of development policy that Japan and Yokkaichi (like all other countries and cities in this world) have sometimes unfortunately stood for. I believe the authors' real intentions are in the earnest, reflective and individually drawn schoolchildren who stand for the city's future. The "the difformities with regard to the past are the result of raising Spirit of Deveropment" ("IIattenburi") a little too high up on an ungainly pedestal, as if development itself and not its human results, seen from every point of view,was what really mattered. 5 c) , The visit to the petrochemical plant "Yokkaichi Chapter 7 of Monogatari" describes a visit to the Number 1 Petrochemical Cemplex. The guide explains the importance and diversity of the productien, and also mentions two main problem areas, pollution and the treatment of plastic waste. Nowadays these problems can be converted into opportunities, by developing and exporting the know-how and technology for - 78 NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University smoke filtering and high temperature plastic furnaces for energy generation. Yokkaichi has a large role to play in the.se developments, In this subsection, while accepting the positive side of the guide's presentation, we shall be concentrating on the problems, especially the historical question of how to view "pollution }r'okkaichi's unfortunate past reputation as a city" (YM. 2). rrhe question of ho"' Yokkaichi Tnanaged to develep into Japan's xvorst case ef sulphurous gas pollution in the 1960's can be mishandled in two opposite ways. I;.ither individual finns can be blanied as if it "'as their deliberate aiin to poison the air, or else it can be implied that everything was the regrettable bLit inevitable "post "rapid result of NS･) ar reconstruction" or economic gre"ith'', quite escaping individual or ceinpany control. "company Against plot" arguments it has to be said that pe]lution is a very widespread problem, in Japan as elsewhere. In the sixties, Yokkaichi stood out for the density of its air polltttion, but not for its nature er causes (YKA, IOO). Nor is the question {)f responsibility siinple "There I]ollution urises from niultiple sources. Even limiting the discussion to the six firms prosecuted in IY6ri', the questi{}n of how far six parties should all be held accountable for a sum of damage that none of them caused individually was at the time a legal novelty. Fina]ly, it is difficult t{) apportion responsibility between the fimns theniselves and the administrations in Mie and Yokkaichi that encouraged them to set up their l'act.ories. As the Prefecture and City were not put on trial, this question was never decided legally, and moral opinions may vary. These are good reasons for not making stark judgements. Those interested in the problem of who was responsible for what had best read the detailed court findings, These can be found in full in the 25th August 1972 issue of the "Kogai bulletin tomare'' (KT), ef which the City Library keeps copies. VLihat will concern us more here is the other false argument inentioned above, that pollution at that time resulted from exceptional historical circumstances, with the implication that individuals are hardly to blame. An extreme form "Manga of this is found in Kyodo shuppansha's Mie Ken no rekishi", where Yokkaichi's air polluti{}n is almost explicitly made the result of the Ikeda government's high growth policy (MMR, 6, 1136, 138), although Ikeda became prime minister in 1960 and the offending petrochemical complex was approved in 1955I "Yokkaichi monogatari" and the City Museum both more accurately place -79- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University The Yokkaichi of our I)reams Reflections on a Cartoon History Boo]{ and the New City Museum "post-War the creation of the complex in the context of reconstruction", but "reconstruction" without making it quite clear whether means the restoration of what was there before, or its replacement by something different. The cartoon history tends mainly towards this latter meaning. For example, the teacher "develop speaks of the 1950's plan as a scheme to Yokkaichi as the biggest industrial zone in the Tokai Region" (YM, 190. But a brief mention is also made of the city's important glass and chemicals industries before the War, and of the Navy fuel plant (YM, 190). The museum is a little more specific here. A wall chart in area 6 shows a planned development, from the late 1930's on, away from purely commercial port activities to heavy industry. It also "largest mentions that the Navy's oil refinery was the in the Far East". Piecing these bits together, one can therefore gather that the city's reconstruction, and "heavy the 1955 plan for a industry zone" contain elements of continuity from pre'War days. In this respect, the cartoon and museum both differ markedly ''Manga from what we see in Mie Ken no rekishi". Other things can be said to their credit, too. In the cartoon, victims of the air pollution are drawn both as sufferers (YM, 207) and as rightful winners in the Iaw suit (YM, 208). In the museum, something is lacking here, probably a video film of the smoke and the clinics of the time. But anyway, at least a graph of the (declining) sulphurous acid Ievels in the city's air is shown on another wall chart (area 6), Thus, basic facts are presented. And of course, the less noble parts of the defence arguments at the time of the trial, such as the suggestion that victims' asthma might come from tobacco smoking, are completely dropped, There is no trace of disrespect towards sufferers in this episode of the city's past, nor would any be tolerable. Most creditable of all is the implied conclusion in both cases. The past is irremediable, but its lessons can be applied to the future. The ernphasis on a healthy environment in Yokkaichi, and on an active contribution to damage reduction in newly developing countries, has to be applauded, The only problem "development". is how to make this accord with the overall principle of "environmental "development" If the principles of responsibiljty" and are left unlinked, the resulting harm may be practical as well as aesthetic. The finest plans for environmental protection, if they coexist uncritically with a belief in progress as a race forward at all costs, can still degenerate into unprincipled "patriotism" deals for contracts. It was a similarly uncritical mix of -80- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University "development" and that led to steamship monopolies ]20 years ago, "Yokkaichi The werrying thing about both monogatari" and the City Museum 'War is that while they both recognise the existence of pre and post War chemical "know" industries in Yokkaichi, they de not try very hard to link them. The "kombinat" how'' and tradition survived, but the system is presented as a new departure. Where it partially failed, it was because it broke with the old trading and shipping spirit of the city, A return to that pre War spirit, exernplified in Inaba San'emon, guarantees a healthy future. This is literally what the ''Greeting" "Yokkaichi introductory to monogatari" says (YM, 2-3). Our task, then, is to fill this gap between the pre-War and postmWar phases of the chemical industry. And before that, there is another gap to fill, between the commercial and the industrial phases of the port's expansion. My main source, again, will be the port history. "Yokkaichi Chapter 3 of monogatari" tells how the port's opening Ied to an industrial boom that culminated in the creation of Toyo Spinneries (YM, 103), the feature essay on economic pioneers also finishes on spinning and the Itos (YM, 108), In the chapter on railways, we momentarily glimpse Ito Denshichi in a very different role in 1927, planning a line from Mt. Fujiwara to transport cement (YM, 1 19), But apart from this, there is nothing to suggest that Yokkaichi did not rernain mainly a spinneries town until the War, In fact, in l936, the Mayor and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry "Plan presented their for a Large Scale Coastal Industry Zone" to the Ministry of the Interior, It was to be sited at Shiohama. The main participants in the scheme were the two landowners, together with local industrialists and the chemical firm Ishihara (YSS, 764). There was some delay, caused by the unwillingness of tenant farmers to move, but this problem disappeared in 19t39, when the Navy declared its interest, too, and issued clearance orders (YSS, 802- 09). Between 1936 and 1941, Yokkaichi acquired a cluster of factories in the chemicals and metals sectors: Japan Plate Glass, Daiichi Industrial Pharmaceutics, Daini Stainless and Ishihara Industries (YSS, 794-800). These were joined by the Navy's Number Two Fuel Plant (Number One was at Tokushima) which started partial operations around 1941. Several of these companies formed a complementary grouping which later provided a model for the post-War complexes. In the case of the premWar grouping, while the first initiative had come from the City and local industry, -81- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon IIistory Book and the New City Museum it was the pewer of the Navy that gave cohering force. The Navy apparently had two motives. One was strategic, in case of possible attacks on Tokushima, "the The second aim is described in the port history as advancement of a Japanese petrochemical industry based on the years of pioneering research performed at Tokushima into technology, and fuel and lubrication oils" (YKA, 81C). By 19tl5, the Yokkaichi plant accounted for more than half of Japan's (admittedly destroyed) refining capacity (YKA, 209). While one can hardly demand all this detail from a cartoon, there is still something strange in the way the port's development history in chapter 3 is made to end just before this shift to heavy industry takes place. This cutting of the thread is matched by the guide's over-tidy opening explanation about "Do the post"War petrochemical complexes in chapter 7. His question: you know 'kombinat' what a is?" (YM, 193) may be the right starting point technically speaking, but it is the wrong one historically. The easy answer, that an industrial complex is a planned assemblage of interrelated factories, and that Yokkaichi has three such complexes, opened in 1959, 1963 and 1972 (YM, 194, 191'92), explains only their present operation, while blocking the question of their origin. Like "developers", all abstract the guide talks in schemes djvorced from time and place, which therefore explain everything and nothing simultaneously. As a result, he fails even to understand questions that are direct and concrete. "how "it When a child unexpectedly asks things were before", his answer: seems mostly coal was used" (YM, 203> is revealing. He jumps from plastics to steam trains, while standing on the very spot where most of Japan's 1940's aircraft fuel was refined, The port history gives a different account of how the first post-War complex 'kombinat' was created. In 1959, the name was not in use, Nor, in the first place, was the complex conceived from an overall master plan. What happened was that when oil processing was restricted in the early Occupation years, oil firms, sometimes in cooperation with foreign partners, reserved themselves small corners of the old Navy complex on which to produce other things while waiting for restrictions to be relaxed. Control of the Yokkaichi site, ruined or not, conferred a flying advantage once oil production took off again. It was this enforced waiting period that led to the mergers and agreements that finally resulted in a rational division of roles under the domination of the Mitsubishi Group and Shell (YKA, 209-11), and the success of this solution then inspired -82- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University joint planning for the second and third complexes, -life Another set ef real relations overlooked in the guide's schematic summary concerns what was happening in the city while the complexes were being planned. "first" In the cartoon, the guide presents the three cemplexes as a group (YM, ''later" 194) and talks of the problem of air pollution (YM, 207). The ordinary reader might therefore suppose that the pollution problern occurred after the complexes were constructed. But in fact the (sea) pollution scandal began in 1958, even before the first complex opened (YKA, 397). Just as terms were being ' arranged (May 1960 May 1961) for the building of the second complex, the City was simultaneously setting up an investigation and action committee for air pollution (autumn 1960; YKA, 320, 216). And the agreement to build the third complex coincided with the start of the pollution lawsuit in 1967. By this stage, residents' opposition to any new installations was absolutely certain, and "counter expensive measures had to be taken to it" ("kore ni taisho suru"; YKA, 320). As a result, the residents obtained elaborate safety and health precautions, as well as a coastal park. But a widespread resentment remained that Yokkaichi's industrial planning was in the hands of politicians and entrepreneurs who saw public protests rather than public health as their number one problem in life. That may not reflect the politicians and entrepreneurs' real thoughts, but it is undeniable that all through the sixties, the City was pushing for more petrochemical plants on the one hand while unable to control the emissions from the ones it already had on the other. It was this double"handedness, rather than the pollution itself, which damaged the City's reputation so thoroughly. The "followed" plant guide's falsely simple presentation of complexes 1, 2 and 3, by the pollution problem, ebscures this context completely, I ended subsections 1 and 2 above with reflections on how the cartoon history treated revolt movements. We saw the Nagashima massacre described as a peasants' rising, and the Mie rioters of 1876 drawn as buffoons. The protests of 1958 to 1972 are not dismissed in this crude way, of course. But there is still some room for criticism. The investments in filters and safety measures and research centres are to be praised, certainly. But they de not provide an answer to the other fundamental problem that planning for a city means ]istening and searching for existing harmony as well as drawing schemes and dreams onto maps. The very -83- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon History Book and the New City Museum insinuation that a city is a blank map for planners to play with as they please is suspect. A city is a delicate existing organism that is easily harmed. More than sulphur levels and desulphurisers, the history of pollution is surely "City a question of evolving consciousness, fog", for example, was known in the 19th century and killed thousands of people, but was not regarded as a particular problem needing remedy. The air belonged to nobody, so nobody had "city rights to protect. But smog" in the 1950's, though it killed fewer people, caused an outcry. The right to clean air had been discovered. In Yokkaichi, we have seen how oil and chemical works were clustered around Shiohama by 1941. Apart from the refinery smoke, there were metal smelting furnaces and a sulphur plant in operation (YSS, 798). So when the first post War petrochemical complex was opened in 1958, it was perfectly clear frorn experience that it would bring dirty air, sometimes blowing ashore. Only the sense that this was unacceptable was missing. Rather than with smoke, the local history of perceived pollution begins with disputes about water. Toyo Spinneries had to pay compensation when it opened its Tomisuhara factory in 1936, for example, because of anticipated harm to farming and fishing (YSS, 765, 789). If the pre War Shiohama complex escaped this kind of wrangling, it was not because it was cleaner, but because the local population were tenants, whose landowners had interests in the industrialisation plan (YSS, 804, 764). "discovered", Post-War water pollution did not therefore need to be in the "Discovery" sense that the sea was suddenly found te be dirty. was a question of protests and scandals. These came in 1958, when Tokyo fishmarkets placed a ban on catches from the Yokkaichi' Suzuka area (YKA, 397), The fish had an unnatural smell which was found to come from effluent chemicals, In 1962, the petrochemical companies, City and Prefecture teok their first countermeasure, by trying to buy off the Isozu fishermen for a total of \100 million. This backfired and led to a blockade of the power plant's outlet ports. In the end \3,500,OOO,000 compensation was paid, regulations were progressively imposed and sea pollution is now much reduced (YKA, 398). But the initial quarrel over fishing, and especially the firms' and authorities' early negative attitude to compensation and remedies laid the base for the unexpected scale of public protest over the air pollutien. The cartoon history omits this background, apart "the from an extremely general comment that sea and air were polluted" (YM, -84- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University 207). The museum, too. fails to mention the problem in detail. When it comes to the air pollution problem, which surfaced around 1960, the cartoon, as we have said, does basically tell what happened, with drawings based on photographs of the time, There is still a certain bias, though, in the selective use of passive and impersonal verbs for references to pollution (YM, 207, 208>, in contrast to active verbs and clear subjects for describing industrialists' and authorities' efforts and responses pollution is given a wall chart, while desulphurisation and blue skies merit a video filrn. The plant guide in the cartoon history is fundamentally a good, honest man performing his public relations duty, and probably unaware of the built-in bias of his message, His desire for an efficient, clean and environmentally friendly･ jndustrial future is sincere. The technical means for achieving it are clearly mapped out. Why, then, is this man so hard to trust? It is partiy that he persuades and informs instead of discussing. But partly, too, it is because of his eyes. IIe has the same eyes as Ieyasu and Inaba San'emon. They look forward to a noble goal, and see nothing else, If the two sculpted girls releasing their birds of the future on AM Square had eyes painted on their faces, they would look just the same. TM, 209 6. A closing word In both the cartoon history and the museum, there seems to be a reluctance "development" to leok squarely back and see the shadow side of what planned "off has led to in Yokkaichi. It is not because develepment went momentarily course" that riots broke out in 1876, and citizens put entrepreneurs on trial in -85- NII-Electronic Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University The Yokkaichi of our Dreams Reflections on a Cartoon IIistor}, Boek and the New City Museum "on 1967. It is because it kept too rigidly course", forgetting that modernisation and industrialisation have high social costs that are not always primarily borne by the modernisers and industrialisers themselves. "Yokkaichi The introductory greeting to monogatari" says that the best way to correct wrong courses is to return to origins, and rediscover the roots of development, This may be true, provided one looks at the whole picture of the "Yokkaichi past, and not just one selected face of it, At the very least, monogatari" needs a few more drawings showing the situations of less prosperous townspeople in the past, the City Museum a few more video displays of the city's failures, and AM Square a better balance of visions and remembrances. Once it is accepted, without bitterness, that a community's past is a patchwork of good and bad, that will be the time for people to plan more comfortably together for the common good in the spirit suggested by the cartoon's closing chapter and the museum's final display area. Works referred to HSR Hokusei no rekishi II Kyodo Nagoya, 1992. ,publ. shuppansha, rJtescf)msstti ('Fts). #1't : ee51;tliftSCit. ZSva. Igg2iit Ikeda & Ikeda Yoshimasa & Sasaki Ryuji, K oTonin no Nihonshi 4 Sasaki Shakaishisosha, Tokyo, 1967. F'XS(as i-tiIHI eskill. th /r 71 Inoue Inoue Kiyoshi, Nihon no rekishi I, II ,Iwanami shoten, Tokyo, 1963 1966tl:- <4i) KSC Miyake Masako, Numata Kiyoshi, Onodera Kyogo, Kiso sansen chisui mono atari, Kodama shuppan, Tokyo, 1993, -i!EW'r-. ieP]i･?l. tJi"iE!itrI.i. r*EMi :.Jll?S7J KT !t!ggql-!g!gtom e, ed. Yokkaichi kogai to tatakau shiminhei no kai, no. 17, 25 Aug., 1972. rasfilF -) F ? Lfi. wtMaga'I' : P[1 H ll/f astEl,5 l X rti ec Sr.;Ok.Ne.17, 1972 fii 8 )] 25 H -- 86 - NII-ElectronicNII-ElectronicMbraryService Library Service YokkaichiYokkaichiUniversity University MMR Makimura Tadashi, tyM!upgg-IY!ie!fl{a Me Ken no rekishi (6),Kvodo shuppansha, Nagoya, [99:l. '!. r -1 tt' iFIi!-cr))il.i.;2L1 galS 1C)[)3 fuLt+･j-rt: L . g( L tht (6). 1/,i1',itltli/.Z,IiktL fl'. ' Morikawa Morikawa retsuro, peS pggn ku ansatsushi. San'ichi shobo, Tol MTMT Ito Akio, Mako to Taro no minato tanken, publ. Nagoya ko kanri kumiai. 1988. r7- f]LS{ [:il jC. P- Su-nj;L a- ,l ttlE-PfiJ. IEi]i i Z,I,-J-itsi'fti:jVSM.{>. 1988"'- NDS Inoue Yoshio, Nara no DRibutsusama, publ. Todaiji, Nara, n.d.. ij-,Li rl,kil'., : Jl:l･. Jk. dt)J I NMNII Suzuki Koichi (ed.),Nvusu de ou Mei'i Nihon hakkutsu , Kawade shc)bo shinsha, Tokyo, 1994. . F= -) g',f)Ll,:LIf, (ssiA). .z-7L T･jL/ IiJlift [I 2b;1l 4stfEtlnt.J (I ), iiil!IVI: J]J:-;yr"t. *I );<. 199,1 {1 1･ Takeda Takeda Kyoson,Nobuntu tthishn,Nihonbungeisha, Tokyo, n.d.. rf,l' 'sl{)'ik' I,"Elli-fi+lit, tldi't(-l'.fFiE'\･iri ii'4KJtl1(-)Fk YKA Yt!/d!gig!ti-!sgnQ-ay!gnikchk i,publ.Yokkaichikokanrikumiai,1987. r[JLi iil:J'[il.*[lf:ij-. tl tli'i{ aEE} v),ll]. ifEfi' : ua ll'i'Mll 1987(l't YM Ito Rie, NishigakiChieko,p M dts t ruYokkaichi 199:'I, IuQngga!t!ula , pub] . Yokkaichi igyoshu koryu puraza, -(･Xfi ± i. r-"] a) i) : fJi- ti?tslig :g, . Vlj.iT-tkk ;- b' E,[JYI1iti{, 7bi71: J. IEti- 'i -ft:' l, Ll [ I fi !.itl. kl pt tr i"l 7' 7 . 1 993 {ti yss Yokkaichi shishi!{IU, publ. Yokkaichi shi, l993. rIJLI l1 rTi'i ii ･[nj -87- NII-Electronic Library Service