APOCALYPTICISM in POSTWAR JAPANESE FICTION By
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APOCALYPTICISM IN POSTWAR JAPANESE FICTION by MOTOKO TANAKA B.A., International Christian University, 1995 M.A., The University of British Columbia, 2001 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Asian Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) March, 2011 © MOTOKO TANAKA, 2011 Abstract This dissertation discusses modern Japanese apocalyptic fiction in novels, manga narratives, and animated films. It begins with an overview of the apocalyptic tradition from ancient times to the modern day, and reveals the ways in which apocalyptic narratives have changed due to major socio-cultural transitions. It focuses on two themes of apocalyptic narratives: the relationship between self and Other; and the opposition of conflicting values such as life/death and natural/artificial. Through a close study of these themes in apocalyptic fictions in postwar Japan, it becomes clear that such narratives primarily target a male audience and function as a tool to stabilize the damaged identities of the nation and the modern individual after the defeat in World War II. The study focuses on the period of transition after the end of World War II: Until the 1970s, Japanese apocalyptic narratives, targeting adult men, attempted to bring ideals into reality in order to reestablish the damaged national identity. The failures of social movements in the 1960s meant that it was no longer possible for Japanese to participate in real movements that aimed to counter the United States as threatening Other. This is reflected in the shift in apocalyptic narratives from the 1980s onward toward quests for ideals in fictional settings, targeted at younger males. After 1995, the Japanese apocalypse becomes totally postmodernized and explicitly targeted at young boys. Apocalypse after 1995 features characters who lack serious ii interpersonal relationships and those who inhabit an endless and changeless simulacrum world. It becomes difficult for the youth to establish their identities as mature members of society, for they are increasingly losing their connections with the wider community. In the contemporary Japanese apocalypse, there is no one left but a hypertrophic self- consciousness. This raises the question of whether it is possible for contemporary Japan to become fully mature. Japanese postmodern apocalyptic narratives suggest two different responses: one is to affirm that Japan is an eternally impotent adolescent state that tries to criticize power by subversively manipulating its relationships with the powerful. The other is to wait for an infinitesimal change of maturity in mundane daily life. iii Table of Contents Abstract . ii Table of Contents . iv Acknowledgements . v Introduction . 1 Chapter One: The Trajectory of Apocalyptic Discourse . 11 Premodern Apocalypse . 12 Modern Apocalypse . 16 Apocalypse in Non Judeo-Christian Tradition . .20 The Birth of Postmodern Apocalypse . 24 Functions of Apocalypse . 33 Chapter Two: Apocalypse in Japan . 43 Apocalypse in Modern Japan: from Meiji to the end of World War II . 46 Apocalypse in the Postwar Period . 53 Apocalypse in the Idealistic Age and in the Fictional Age . 58 Japanese Apocalypse since 1995 . 65 The Birth of Sekaikei Fiction . 74 Similarities and Differences . 83 Chapter Three: Apocalyptic Fiction from 1945 to the 1970s . 87 Ōe Kenzabur ō’s The Silent Cry . 89 Abe K ōbō’s Inter Ice Age 4 . 98 Chapter Four: Apocalyptic Fiction in 1980s Japan . 111 Murakami Haruki’s Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World . 112 Miyazaki Hayao’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind . 123 Ōtomo Katsuhiro’s AKIRA . .136 The Weakening of “the Middle Field” . .149 Chapter Five: Apocalyptic Fiction after 1995 – Sekaikei Works . 152 GAINAX’s Neon Genesis Evangelion . 152 The Birth of “ Sekaikei ” . 164 Possibility of Maturity in Post-apocalyptic Fiction in the 2000s . 175 Conclusion . .186 Bibliography . 198 iv Acknowledgements I benefited greatly from the insightful advice, assistance, and encouragement of all my dissertation committee members, but I owe special thanks to Dr. Sharalyn Orbaugh, my mentor and supervisor in the field of Japanese literature, who greatly helped me to develop my dissertation with her inspiring questions and observations. I would like to express to her my deepest gratitude for saving me from the darkest moments in my life and encouraging me not to give up writing. I owe much to Dr. Donald Baker, another mentor and my supervisor in religious studies, who generously instructed me in modern Asian religious histories and theories. I am particularly grateful to him for widening my scope of interest from Japanese religions to Asian and contemporary North American religious movements, which greatly helped me in understanding the differences between Japan and other Asian nations. I would like to show my profound gratitude to my committee member, Dr. Joshua Mostow, who gave me a number of insightful suggestions on premodern Japanese history and literature. Without his guidance, my argument on premodern Japan would be lacking. I offer enduring gratitude to the faculty, staff, and my fellow graduate students in the Asian Studies Department at UBC, who helped me to continue my studies in Vancouver and Japan. Special thanks go to my parents and my son who always support me, and to my senpai , Yoshida Kaori, Nagaike Kazumi, and Hirano Y ūki. I also would like to show gratitude to my friends Rev. Mashimo Jun, Kawano Kumiyo and Kimata Megumi. I owe special thanks to my friend Nick Hall, who always helped me with finding articles, and for proofreading the whole dissertation. Finally I would like to show profound gratitude to Prof. Sait ō Kazuaki, who passed away in June 2009. He was my mentor and supervisor at ICU when I was an undergraduate, and he opened my eyes to academic studies. v Introduction I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. 1 — The Book of Revelation In human histories, it has long been God/gods who are said to have created the universe and who will end it; both G/genesis and eschatology have belonged to the realm of religious literature. Narratives of the beginning and the end have been powerfully influential, since it was believed that these stories came directly from an omnipotent, transcendental being or from some other higher power. However, in the contemporary era, when many advanced nations have become highly secularized and cosmological explanations for the creation of the universe such as the Big Bang theory have become widespread, many people have come to accept science-based ideas of the beginning of the universe. As a result, non-scientific narratives of the origin of the universe are transformed into myths, and lose their impact on present reality. On the other hand, even in the current age of increasing scientific literacy, popular images of the end of the world/universe are inspired not by scientific theories about the natural destruction or death of the planet Earth or our Solar System, but rather by various crises depicted in apocalyptic fiction such as literature and movies. That is to say, even as non-scientific stories of the beginning of human life and the universe are increasingly understood and/or dismissed as myth, imaginative—rather than scientific—stories of the end continue to predominate. Apocalypse is thus widely understood in terms of imagination rather than science. 1 Rev. 22:13 Revised Standard Version. 1 There is a rich diversity of apocalyptic visions in popular narratives from ancient folk stories to Hollywood disaster films: natural catastrophes; climate and ecological change causing famines and plagues; and political misrule, such as oppression and genocide, nuclear warfare, and chemical and biological warfare. Although many of these scenarios are realistic or even inspired by actual events, modern apocalyptic narratives are typically highly imaginative, and include such tropes as astronomical objects crashing into Earth; artificial intelligence run amok; and attacks by extraterrestrials. The beginning happened long ago, but the end of the world/universe is correlative to the idea of personal death. This is why apocalypse survives in fiction while genesis has already died; apocalypse is highly malleable; we can create infinite varieties of apocalypse and imaginations of the end, death, and what we are, reflecting various time periods and places, and fiction can reflect a sense of crisis more realistically and perhaps more compellingly than can science. Apocalypticism has been one of the most powerful cultural themes in the West because of the long Judeo-Christian tradition. Even as Christianity qua religion has lost its dominance in the modern West, the apocalyptic imagination still thrives in political movements as well as in culture: literature, film, and art. Apocalypticism, however, is not a phenomenon exclusive to Judeo-Christian thinking. For instance, it is widely found in myths and folklores in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific Islands,2 there is a clear apocalyptic 2 Examples of apocalyptic movements in non-Judeo-Christian religious traditions include Zoroastrianism in ancient Persia; Mahdism in premodern Islam; Maitreya faith in East Asia; the “cargo” cults of the South Pacific and the Ghost Dance movement of North America. See Kenelm Burridge, New Heaven New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities (New York: Schocken, 1969). Eschatologies in non-Western tradition are also discussed in detail in Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return: or, Cosmos and History , trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971). Japanese eschatological folklore is studied in Miyata Noboru, Sh ūmatsukan no minzokugaku (The Folklore of Eschatology) (Tokyo: Chikuma 2 vision in Hindu mythology, and apocalyptic flood myths predating the story of Noah exist(ed) in many parts of the world. 3 Apocalyptic themes in Japanese culture can be observed not only in the Buddhist notion of cyclical life but also in premodern legends which describe natural disasters such as major earthquakes and the subsequent recreation of communities.