JAPAN STUDIES REVIEW Volume Twenty 2016 Interdisciplinary Studies of Modern Japan Steven Heine Editor Editorial Board John A. Tucker, East Carolina University Yumiko Hulvey, University of Florida Matthew Marr, Florida International University Ann Wehmeyer, University of Florida Hitomi Yoshio, Florida International University Copy and Production María Sol Echarren Jennifer Beaty Michaela Prostak Rebecca Richko JAPAN STUDIES REVIEW VOLUME TWENTY 2016 A publication of Florida International University and the Southern Japan Seminar CONTENTS Editor’s Introduction i Re: Subscriptions, Submissions, and Comments ii ARTICLES Performing Prayer, Saving Genji, and Idolizing Murasaki Shikibu: Genji Kuyō in Nō and Jōruri Satoko Naito 3 Nihilism and Crisis: A Comparative Study of Yu Da-fu’s Sinking and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s Rashōmon James Au Kin Pong 29 Pivot Towards China: Japan’s Renewed Security Strategy in Asia Tony Tai-Ting Liu and Ren Mu 53 Reviving the Power of Storytelling: Post-3/11 Online “Amateur” Manga Shige (CJ) Suzuki 71 Japan’s New English Education Reform Plan: Advance (or Step Back) to 1904 Yuki Takatori 93 “The Creature Disappears for Our Convenience”: An Analysis of Murakami Haruki’s “Elephant Vanishes” Masaki Mori 115 ESSAYS George Kennan’s Influential 1905 Depiction of Korea as a “Degenerate State” and Japan as its Gracious Savior Daniel A. Métraux 141 A “Normal” Japan and the Externalization of China’s Securitization Zenel Garcia 157 BOOK REVIEWS Japan 1941: Countdown to Infamy By Eri Hotta Reviewed by Daniel A. Métraux 181 3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan By Richard J. Samuels Reviewed by Daniel A. Métraux 184 Haruki Murakami and Postmodern “Japan”: The Culture of Globalization and Literature By Miura Reiichi Reviewed by Kazutaka Sugiyama 187 CONTRIBUTORS/EDITORS i EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION Welcome to the twentieth volume of the Japan Studies Review (JSR), an annual peer-reviewed journal sponsored by the Asian Studies Program at Florida International University Seminar. JSR remains an outlet for publications related to Southern Japan Seminar events that encourages submissions from a wide range of scholars in the field. The 2016 issue features six articles with varied interdisciplinary topics. In “Performing Prayer, Saving Genji, and Idolizing Murasaki Shikibu: Genji Kuyō in Nō And Jōruri,” Satoko Naito provides an analysis of the dramatizations of the often-overlooked text Genji kuyō tan and the different portrayals of Murasaki Shikibu. Next, in “Nihilism And Crisis: A Comparative Study of Yu Da-Fu’s Sinking and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s Rashōmon,” James Au Kin Pong provides a philosophical view of the pervasiveness of nihilism as an authentic literary response to crises in Southeast Asia, exemplified in twentieth-century Chinese and Japanese texts. Tony Tai-Ting Liu and Ren Mu’s “Pivot Towards China: Japan’s Renewed Security Strategy in Asia” studies the implications of foreign politics and security issues relating to Japan’s new strategy to remain cautious over China’s rise. Shige (CJ) Suzuki’s “Reviving the Power of Storytelling: Post- 3/11 Online ‘Amateur’ Manga” surveys the function of graphic storytelling in two examples of manga that originated after the March 11 disasters in Japan. In “Japan’s New English Education Reform Plan: A Step Back to 1904,” Yuki Takatori questions the teaching establishment and government initiatives of Japan’s reform efforts that have neglected a vital aspect of the curriculum for decades involving the old-fashioned syntactic analysis known as the “Five Sentence Patterns” (Gobunkei). Finally, Masaki Mori in “The Creature Disappears for Our Convenience”: An Analysis of Murakami Haruki’s ‘Elephant Vanishes’” offers a literary analysis of the different versions of this original Japanese text by Murakami Haruki and its English translation to deconstruct its divergent Kafkaesque attributes. This issue also features two essays. Daniel A. Métraux’s “George Kennan’s Influential 1905 Depiction of Korea as a ‘Degenerate State’ and Japan as its Gracious Savior” focuses on the reports made by an American war correspondent who geared American foreign policy in favor of Japan’s takeover of Korea during the Russo-Japanese War. The second essay by Zenel Garcia, “A ‘Normal’ Japan and the Externalization of China’s Securitization,” delves into Sino-Japanese politics and security relations as Japan’s successful securitization of China has led to several important developments among Southeast Asian neighbors. There are also three book reviews, with two by Métraux. The first, on Eri Hotta’s Japan 1941: Countdown To Infamy, pertains to Japan’s role during Pearl Harbor, and the other, on Richard J. Samuels’s 3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan, explains the political changes after the March 11 catastrophe in Japan. Lastly, Kazutaka Sugitamao reviews Miura Reiichi’s Haruki Murakami and Postmodern “Japan”: The Culture of Globalization and Literature about the cultural trend of globalization in Murakami’s novels. ii This year’s Japan Studies Review is supported by the Japan Foundation Institutional Support Grant for a collaborative project called The South Florida Partnership in Japanese Studies (SFPJS) Housed at Florida International University. FIU Asian Studies Program greatly appreciates their contribution. Re: Submissions, Subscriptions, and Comments Submissions for publication, whether articles, essays, translations or book reviews, should be made in electronic formats, preferably Word for Windows via email attachment (please inquire about other formats). The editor and members of the editorial board will referee all submissions. Annual subscriptions are $35.00 (US). Please send a check or money order payable to Florida International University to: c/o Steven Heine, Professor of Religious Studies and History Director of the Asian Studies Program Florida International University Modesto A. Maidique Campus, SIPA 505 Miami, FL 33199 Professor Heine’s office number is 305-348-1914. Submissions for publication should be sent to [email protected]. Visit our website at http://asian.fiu.edu/jsr. PDF versions of past volumes are available online. All comments and feedback on the publications appearing in Japan Studies Review are welcome. ISSN: 1550-0713 Articles PERFORMING PRAYER, SAVING GENJI, AND IDOLIZING MURASAKI SHIKIBU: GENJI KUYŌ IN NŌ AND JŌRURI1 Satoko Naito University of Maryland, College Park Introduction The Murasaki Shikibu daraku ron [lit. “Story of Murasaki Shikibu’s Fall] tells that after her death Murasaki Shikibu (d. ca. 1014) was cast to hell.2 The earliest reference is found in Genji ipponkyō [Sutra for Genji] (ca. 1166), which recounts a Buddhist kuyō (dedicatory rite) performed on her behalf, with the reasoning that the Heian author had been condemned to eternal suffering in hell for writing Genji monogatari [The Tale of Genji] (ca. 1008). Though Genji ipponkyō makes no explicit claim to the efficacy of the kuyō, its performance is presumably successful and saves the Genji author. In such a case the earliest extant utterance of the Murasaki-in-hell story is coupled with her subsequent salvation, and the Genji author, though damned, is also to be saved.3 It may be more accurate, then, to say that the Murasaki Shikibu daraku ron is about Murasaki Shikibu’s deliverance, rather than her fall (daraku). Through the medieval period and beyond, various sources recounted the execution of kuyō rites conducted for The Tale of Genji’s author, often initiated and sponsored by women.4 Such stories of Genji kuyō 1 Author’s Note: I thank those who commented on earlier versions of this paper, in particular D. Max Moerman, Hauro Shirane, and Rebecca Copeland. 2 This is also phrased as Murasaki Shikibu dagoku/dajigoku ron/setsu (legend/story of Murasaki Shikibu in hell). In such stories her spirit is either in hell or unable to attain salvation. 3 This notion of the already saved is reminiscent of the discourse on female salvation. For example, Hōnen (Genkū, 1133–1212), credited with founding the Jōdokyō (Pure Land sect), declared the inherent sin of being female but also provided the nenbutsu chant as a way to get to the Pure Land. Thus, women are “always already saved.” In the case of Genji kuyō, Murasaki being female only aggravates her sin of writing Genji. 4 Genji kuyō appear to have been conducted primarily by women until the late fifteenth-century. On the role of women and the development of Genji 4 SATOKO NAITO underscore a preoccupation with notions of mōgo (falsehoods) and kigo (spurious phrases) and anxieties regarding the production and consumption of fiction, particularly those that display ambiguous morals like The Tale of Genji.5 These texts can together be called Genji kuyō tan, or stories of prayers for Genji.6 This paper discusses dramatizations of Genji kuyō by focusing on the seventeenth-century jōruri bunraku play Gōshū Ishiyama dera Genji kuyō [Ishiyama Temple in Ōmi Province: Genji kuyō] (1676), popularly attributed – though likely erroneously so – to the famed playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1725). I situate the jōruri within the long tradition of Genji kuyō tan, particularly as it relates to the fifteenth-century nō play Genji kuyō, to trace the varied portrayals of Murasaki Shikibu.7 Unlike the nō and earlier Genji kuyō texts, Gōshū Ishiyama dera Genji kuyō has not hitherto received much scholarly attention, but the text manifests a crucial development in Genji kuyō tan and the discourse on Murasaki Shikibu. Despite its reliance on the Genji kuyō convention that originated alongside the Murasaki-in-hell narrative, in the jōruri the Genji author is kuyō especially as sōshi narratives, see Koida Tomoko, Hotoke to onna no Muromachi: monogatari sōshi ron (Tokyo: Kazama shoin, 2008): 333–354. 5 Mōgo and kigo are two of the Buddhist ten evils (jūaku). For discussions and translations of various texts that address Genji kuyō, rendered ‘Genji obsequies,’ see Reading The Tale of Genji: Sources from the First Millennium, eds. Thomas Harper and Haruo Shirane (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015): 177–206. 6 The phrase Genji kuyō tan is first used by Toku’e Gensei, “Kokuseki ruishobon ‘Genji kuyō sōshi’ o megurite,” Biburia 64 (1976), 17.