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The Darkness in the Forest: Themes of the Films of Miyazaki Hayao

“I was determined not to create a manga that people would read while they were eating soba noodles.”  (In reference to Nausicaa, Valley of the Wind, Miyazaki quoted in Schodt, 1996, 278)

In my first year of teaching, I had four classes of Year 8s (and one of Year 7) in an outer suburban, high migrant high school.  Having struggled most of the year, with high spirited students who generally had a low commitment to learning a language (Japanese) to which most of them had little affinity, there were finally a couple of periods in that first year, where I really grabbed the students’ attention.   Those periods were when I showed them the animated movie, My Neighbour Totoro or Tonari no Totoro (1988).  More than I could manage with my albeit earnest teaching, this movie, directed by Miyazaki Hayao was able to transport these students to Japan, telling them a simple story of childhood, to which they could relate.  At the same time, this story introduced the students to an idea of spirituality and imaginativeness, in a context of a rich natural world, to be enjoyed.  After seeing this movie, my world was also enlarged, as I gradually managed to see and admire more and more Miyazaki classics and made sure when a new one came out, that I saw it as well.

Animator and director, Miyazaki Hayao was born in 1941.  Japan was occupied by the United States four years later in 1945.  He grew up with three brothers and a mother who had a long term illness.  Miyazaki graduated in 1963 from Gakushuuin University’s Department of Politics and Economics, having been a member of a children’s literature study group (Schodtt, 1996). After graduation, Miyazaki joined Toei Animation, and started drawing Wanwan Chushingura, until the end of 1979, when he directed The Castle of Cagliostro (Miyazaki, 1984).  In this essay, I will briefly discuss Miyazaki’s upbringing and career and then will attempt to delineate four themes which emerge in his compositions.  These themes are Environmentalism, Shintoism and spirituality, Japanese cultural distinctives and lastly ‘the joy of flight’. I could have chosen a few other themes, such as feminism, but for the sake of this essay, I have reduced my scope to these four areas.

 According to Schodt (1996), Miyazaki’s drawing is reminiscent of French comics, bringing to mind French master Jean “Moebius” Giraud.  Often, Miyazaki’s anime have portrayed medieval Europe, or sometimes central Asia, reflecting his wide reading of Western literature.  The protagonist,  Nausicaä, of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) is so-named after the woman in Homer’s Odyssey who saved the shipwrecked Ulysses, although there are also traces in this animation of Old and New Testament themes and ancient Greek and Norse myths (Schodt, 1996). 

The genres of Hayao Miyazaki usually include science fictional elements and are often interwoven with other genres, as evidenced in Nausicaä and Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), such as fantasy, comedy and romance (Cavallaro, 2006).  Cavallaro states that one of the stand-out traits of Miyazaki is the ability to ensure that his characters are thoroughly individuated and distinct.  Bertha (Kiki’s Delivery Service, 1989), Old Sophie (Howl’s Moving Castle) or Uncle Pom (Laputa, Castle in the sky, 1986) would never be confused, despite the fact that all are elderly characters with apparent affinities. 

The first most obvious theme, however, in Miyazaki’s animations has been one of treasuring the environment.

Environmentalism

‘[When walking in Shakujii park, near Toei Studios]…I thought the trees were so beautiful.  I also realized that Japan is beautiful when there are no people around. Japan became ugly because its population grew…’

-Miyazaki interviewed by Hiroaki Ikeda, Roman Album, My Neighbour Totoro, June 3, 1988, (in Cary and Schodt, 2009, 357).

‘…for me the deep forest is connected in some way to the darkness deep in my heart.  I feel that if it is erased, then the darkness inside my heart would also disappear and my existence would grow shallow.’  (Miyazaki quoted in Cary and Schodt, 2009, 360). 

Miyazaki’s environmental concern is about much more than a sense of necessity, or to enable humans to survive.  Rather, it grows out of his other main theme, namely spirituality or relatedness to the world.  When he speaks of ‘darkness’ in his heart in the quote above, this is not darkness or evil in a classic Greco-Western sense, but rather a sense of spirituality.  For the gods/the divine are found in darkness.   A Shinto ethic considers the environment a living collection of interconnected beings worthy of respect (Odell and Le Blanc, 2009). 

The afore-mentioned Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which symbolised Miyazaki’s break through into the animation world, is at heart an environmentally themed movie.  This film shows consequences of global pollution and groups of people who are not taking responsibility for the environment.  It opens as follows:

1000 years have passed since Earth succumbed to pollution generated by the very nations we now inhabit.  Most of the Earth is covered by the highly toxic Sea of Corruption. (Odell and Le Blanc, 2009, 57). 

The environment and the giant insects portrayed here, bring to mind Frank Herbert’s Dune (Schodtt, 1996).  The two protagonists in this movie, Nausicaä and Kushana are both aiming to rid the world of the toxicity present in the environment.  However, they have alternative approaches.  Nausicaä seeks the answer by studying, learning about the environment and being a part of it, while Kushana is aiming to obliterate the toxic waste and all that represents it (Odell and Le Blanc, 2009). 

Unsurprisingly, Japanese culture also appears in Nausicaä in understories, myths and esoteric Buddhist themes (Schodt, 278, 1996).  Originally, Nausicaä was developed by Miyazaki as a manga, or comic strip.

  Miyazaki did not initially intend or believe that this manga would be animated, but in 1983, he was offered the opportunity anddirected the film and made Nausicaä so detailed and dense that the artwork was similar to an engraving. It was a complex story of the likes that few anime or manga had previously achieved.  Miyazaki was very aware that in Nausicaä he aimed to produce a film which would not reflect a clear, logical development, but might rather ‘impart a vastness that we might not fully understand…’ (Miyazaki quoted in Cary and Schodt, 2009, 337).   The box office success of Nausicaä, in March 1984, resulted in the formation of Miyazaki’s animation company, Studio Ghibli. 

Nausicaä was set in the Muromachi era of Japan (1392-1573) and depicted a struggle between nature (gods of the dark forest) and humans, cutting down the forest for fuel.  The end of this movie was a standoff, instead of a happy ending.  There are references in Nausicaä to nuclear holocaust, alternative energy and wind power, linking to the fears of modern Japan (Schodt, 1996).   

Some of the themes Miyazaki has worked with include reminders of our interconnections to the earth and with each other, reminders that greed and materialism defeat us (Callis, 2010).  Anyone who has watched Spirited Away (2001), is drawn into a Japanese inspired world of spirits and gods.  This is a mystical rendering of a story said to be a Japanese “Alice in Wonderland”.  

My Neighbour Totoro also draws on respect for the environment leading to harmony and reward.  Grave of the Fireflies (also 1988), shows the impact of war on the environment.  There are signs of environmental decline in some of Miyazaki’s films, including Pom Poko (1994) and the recent film Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea (2008). Odell and Le Blanc (2009) note some conflicts or cross purposes, however, in Ghibli films. For example, in Laputa: Castle in the Sky, the mining village is seen as good because of its community work ethic, when the residents are actually evidently stealing from nature.  Nausicaä is an environmentalist, who uses a flying machine to get around.  In Princess Mononoke (1997), the women working at the factory are viewed as good community workers, although they are producing weapons and iron that put them in conflict with the forest and nature (Odell and Le Blanc, 2009). 

Shintoism and spirituality

I didn’t intend to make her a Joan of Arc and I wanted to get rid of any religious undertone.  But in the end it became a religious picture with that scene [after Nausicaa dies and is held up by the ohmu] … I do like animism.  I can understand the idea of ascribing character to stones or wind.  But I didn’t want to laud it as a religion.  That is why Nausicaa isn’t Joan of Arc.

-Miyazaki Hayao, “Nature is both Generous and Ferocious”, Roman Album, Nausicaa Valley of the Wind, Tokuma Shoten, May 1, 1984, in Carey and Schodt, 2009.

Miyazaki’s thoughts on the character of Nausicaä above show an effort to avoid particular religious intentions, although he also can see that it is hard to avoid.  Japanese mythology and spirituality is nonetheless an important theme in Miyazaki’s films, indicated by customs and culture referred to within the animations.  For example, kami spirits in Priness Mononoke and obake spirits in Pom Poko.  There are metamorphic kitsune and tanuki (Foxes and badgers) (Odell and Le Blanc, 2009). 

The heroine in Nausicaä, despite the Homerian name, was inspired by Japanese mythology, in a tale from the Heian period (AD 794-1185), about a strange insect loving princess (Schodt, 1996).   She is a ‘princess who loved insects and …after coming of age, delighting in watching such things as caterpillars metamorphosing into butterflies…According to the stories, at a time when most girls like her would have shaved off their eyebrows and stained their teeth black, she kept her teeth white and her eyebrows black and looked terribly odd.” (Miyazaki, 1982).

In the context of this spirituality and as noted above, Miyazaki dislikes the Western dichotomy of light versus dark.  This is a simplistic discussion, believes Miyazaki.  Rather, the gods are in the darkness, usually in the forest or mountains.  Therefore, the Japanese venerate certain forests and natural objects, and consider many places to be off limits and sacred. 

A sense of what is Japanese has also driven Miyazaki, despite his frequent compositions on non-Japanese topics.   

Japanese distinctiveness (日本人論　nihonjinron)

Whilst the above term might be taken within Japan to be a very nationalistic sentiment, Miyazaki has actually through his work reclaimed this as something different.  Miyazaki relates how he gradually came to realise Japanese culture was not actually closed and isolated, but was actually related in various ways, for example to the Bhutanese and Nepalese who like fluffy, sticky rice, as well as related to other places with broadleaf, evergreen forest.  In opposition to the idea of nihonjinron, or in a new definition, his work has shown an essential human condition and diversity.

‘My culture went far beyond the idiotic Japanese who started the war, beyond Hideyoshi Toyotomi who invaded Korea, and beyond The Tale of Genji that I detested.’  (Interview, June 3, 1988 with Hiroaki Ikeda in Cary and Schodt, 2009, 358). 

Miyazaki deliberately made a very Japanese movie, in Tonari no totoro, or My Neighbour, Totoro.  This movie included a combination of locations including Sakuragaoka, Kandagawa River where he grew up and the landscape of Tokorozawa where he currently lives (Carey and Schodt, 2009, 350).  Miyazaki says that the totoro creatures in the movie are ‘goblins of the transitional phase when Japan hadn’t become entirely modernized’.  (Carey and Schodt, 2009, 355).  This movie considers modernisation but also harks back to an earlier time in Japan in its depiction of a rural hamlet.  Some have said that this movie is encouraging nostalgia, but Miyazaki was emphatic that this was not the aim.  ‘…I didn’t make this film out of personal nostalgia for that time’ (Carey and Schodt, 2009, 355).  At the same time, he was not interested in returning to the ghosts and spirits of old mythology, such as Shigeru Mizuki, a manga author known for tales of horror and ghosts.  He imagined that a cat goblin turned into a bus, making the cat-bus.  This cat-bus from My Neighbour Totoro, is, today, a well known symbol of Miyazaki’s, holding pride of place in the Ghibli Museum in Tokyo, an enormous soft toy for children to scramble over. Miyazaki in this way transformed old goblin symbols into a modern but still Japanese mythological ideas. Miyazaki made the film, aiming to encourage a spirit of playfulness, hoping that children would be encouraged to look ‘under their houses and to look in the thickets behind shrines’.  Perhaps it is also this playfulness which instigated the final theme as an ongoing part of Miyazaki’s work. 

The joy of flight

Miyazaki: “I personally find airplanes cool and I love flying scenes.”  (Cary and Schodt, 2009, 341)

Flying is the final theme which I will briefly explore by reference to Miyazaki Hayao’s films.  This flying obsession perhaps started as a child. Miyazaki’s father worked at Miyazaki Airplane and Hayao began to develop a love for flying machines (Odell and Le Blanc, 2009).  He drew what he saw but also imagined new forms of aviation.  As a result, flying machines are found in Conan, the Boy in Future (1978), The Castle of Cagliostro and in Laputa: Castle in the Sky.  Also, Howl’s Moving Castle, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Totoro, The Cat Returns (2002), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Tales from Earthsea (2006) and Spirited Away.  To take one example, in Majo no takyubin, or Kiki’s delivery servi, Kiki, the 13 year old protagonist, has a special skill, the ability to fly through the air.  

The four areas briefly introduced from Miyazaki’s oeuvre of work are of course, interwoven and undoubtedly interpreted variously.  Miyazaki himself has noted that it was not until his thirty’s that he developed an environmental appreciation and awareness and presumably his emphases and ideas have developed and changed as well.  He has a sense that concern for the environment is only appropriate springing from a transcendence of the earth.  His interests in children’s literature and wide reading of Western classics have informed his portrayal of Japanese and other subjects, and enabled a fine portrayal of the human condition, which has been appreciated around the world.  At the same time, his sense of the child’s perspective and playfulness expressed in flying machines have metaphorically enabled his detailed animations to not only take off but soar.

Bibliography

                        Callis, Cari, ‘Nothing that happens is ever forgotten’, in Josef Steiff and Tristan Tamplin, (2010) Anime and Philosophy: Wide eyed wonder, Chicago, Carus Publishing Company.

Cavallaro, Dani, (2006) The Anime Art of Hayao Miyazaki, Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland and Company Inc., Publishers.

                       

Hairston, Marc, ‘The Reluctant Messiah: Miyazaki Hayao’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind Manga’, 173-184, in Toni Johnson-Woods (ed), (2010) Manga: An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives, New York, The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc.

Heinricy, Shana, (2010), ‘Take a Ride in the Catbus’, in Josef Steiff and Tristan Tamplin, Anime and Philosophy: Wide eyed wonder, p 1-11, Chicago, Carus Publishing Company.

                        Miyazaki, Hayao (March 30, 1984), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind Guide Book, Tokyo, Tokuma Shoten, in Beth Cary and Frederik L. Shodt (transl), (2009), Starting Point, Hayao Miyazaki: 1979-1996, San Fransisco, Studio Ghibli Inc.

                        Miyazaki, Hayao, (September, 25^th, 1982), Animage Comics; Wide Edition Nausicaä Valley of the Wind, Vol. 1, Tokyo, Tokuma Shoten, in Beth Cary and Frederik L. Shodt (transl), (2009), Starting Point, Hayao Miyazaki: 1979-1996, San Fransisco, Studio Ghibli Inc.

            Schodt, Frederik L., (1996) Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga, Berkeley, Stone Bridge Press.

Shaw, Daniel M.P., (2005), ‘The Way forward? – Shinto and a 21^st Century Japanese Ecological Attitude’, Dissertation submitted in part completion of the MA in Values and the Environment, Lancaster University.

The myth of homogeneity in Japan and the invisibility of the‘部落民[1]burakumin’.

 

Figure 1: From the Japan Times, by Chris Mackenzie,  Jan 20th, 2009 (Priestly, 2009).

Since the time of the Meiji emperor and modernisation in the late nineteenth century, Japan has experienced rapid change.  Socially, the move from feudal to industrial society, including great change for the 侍samurai class, resulted in changes for the peasants of Japan too.  Some considered that Japan became a classless society by the twentieth century with an homogenous and thoroughly ‘Japanese’ middle class (Mouer and Sugimoto, 1986). 

Certainly, for an outsider, the social breakdown of Japan can be perceived to be largely middle class and people from one place to another not dissimilar.  However, by considering the group of people known as 部落 buraku post-war, and later the more non-descript　同和地区 dowa chiku, it is possible to demonstrate that such homogeneity is not actually the situation for all Japanese people.  Scratch a little further under the surface and you can see that the Japanese are actually as varied and diverse in background as just about any national group in the twenty first century.  

It is no surprise that even the reforms of the Meiji late nineteenth century era did not result in equal human rights for all citizens of Japan.  The indigenous Ainu, and the minorities of Chinese, Korean or Brazilian background peoples are other socially discriminated groups in Japanese recent history. In this essay, though, I will illustrate the diversity of Japanese society by reference to the (originally low caste) group known as the burakumin.  This essay will consider the origins of the buraku, a range of views about this group, including an experienced ‘invisibility’, the variety of names used, current levels of discrimination, and finally a potential resolution to the problems experienced.

The origin of the buraku:  ‘穢多Eta’, the ‘unclean’ 

So where did this social grouping, later known as dowa mondai or burakumin, emerge from?  Who are this group and how many live in Japan?  This issue emerged from a very particular understanding of purity and impurity from times past.  穢れ(汚れ[2]) Kegare is a reference to impurity, which is caused by coming in touch with ‘death’ or ‘impure’ arts, such as leather work and eating animals.  According to Jansen (2000), the hereditary eta were the largest historic subcaste group.  They were popularly associated with death and defilement.  Occupations included slaughtering, tanning and fashioning leather, executions and disposals of corpses.  Buddhism had a role in this understanding of purity, with this notion of kegare, as pollution, or impurity.  People who had been touched by kegare were to be avoided.  This attested to the ‘un-touchability’ of certain groups within Japanese society from historic times (Amos, 2011).  Prior to the Meiji Restoration, this people group were known as 穢多eta, literally, “filthy mass”.  As time went on, they were called other names.

The Meiji restoration instigated a formally structured pattern of separate identity, including the separation of farmers and samurai, and registration of the population at the Buddhist institutions (Jansen, 2000, 122).  On August 28^th, 1871, the Council of State put out an ‘Emancipation Edict’, “The titles of Eta and 非人 Hinin shall be abolished; and henceforth the people belonging to these classes shall be treated in the same manner both in occupation and social standing as the common people (平民heimin)”  (Emily Reber, 1998; Ito, 2005).   However, at the time, there were up to 21 incidents of riots, and Ito has outlined a massacre of burakumin (though they would not have been known by this name at the time) in Okayama Prefecture in 1873, two years following the proclamation (2005)[i].  

Thereafter, despite the ‘Emancipation Edict’, discrimination continued in the realms of marriage, housing, social behaviour and occupation.  An invisibility, or avoidance and corresponding taboo within Japanese society, was projected on the buraku, whilst their settlements tended to cluster at the outskirts of villages and towns. 

Post world war II, the only use of the term eta, was for anonymous decrying or persecution of the buraku groups.  Officially, the term for areas where the buraku could be found was again to change to be often called abstractly, ‘同和地区dowa chiku’ (discriminated area), or sometimes still buraku or burakumin.  Dowa mondai, meaning ‘discrimination problem’, dispelled the old names and could be said to devalue the problem to be invisible. Dowa chiku is an idea rooted in the idea of national integration, ‘unnaming’ those seen as socially different (Amos, 2011).  

In 1965, a Deliberative Council Report acknowledged considerable discrimination, including poverty, prejudice and neglect of civil, social and economic human rights (McLaughlan, 2003). Following this in the 1970s and 1980s, conditions in buraku areas improved as a result of ‘Special Measures Legislation’, which included extensive funding. 

Current views on the buraku

Post war, the dowa mondai label served to make this problem less visible in society, and gradually the buraku[ii] or burakumin terms have been used less and less within Japan, becoming taboo in a similar way to the more slanderous eta.  Therefore, when a May 17, 1996 official report from the government on the status of buraku mondai, called for a 部落開放基本労　buraku kaihou kihon rou, or Fundamental Law for Buraku Liberation, the Japanese Communist Party and two thirds of the Liberal Democratic Party stated their opposition to this law.  Their considered reasons were the following:

‘1. There is no more discrimination

2. If a law concerning buraku discrimination is passed, discrimination will always remain.’  Others said at the time: ‘This type of law which specially entitles burakumin to reap certain government benefits antagonizes the citizens in general’ (Reber, 1998).

This contradictory statement is testament to the reasons for the continuing invisibility of this problem in Japanese society.

Changing titles: same discrimination

Should you mention the name burakumin today in Japan, it is quite possible that the person you meet will have little to tell you about them.  It may be that it is perceived as an embarrassing or even offensive topic (Emily Reber, 1998), in the mode of the responses to the suggested liberative law above.  Because buraku are physically indistinguishable from other Japanese citizens, and many people consider that the majority of discrimination has been removed, it is not uncommon to believe this problem would disappear completely if only people would stop talking about it.

寝た子はそのまま。Neta ko wa sono mama ‘Don’t wake a sleeping baby’

The above proverb sums up this way of thinking.  To not wake a baby, as in the above familiar Japanese saying, is to ignore and do nothing about buraku mondai and in this way to avoid any problem (Reber, 1998).  Unfortunately, this has not reduced discrimination.  Instead, a high level of misunderstanding regarding the history and identity of buraku has resulted.

Similar to the Australian experience where expectations that immigrants should ‘assimilate’ into society are common, in Japan, buraku have been expected to ‘integrate’, or forgo their own identity and become a part of greater Japanese society.  The assumption is that the buraku experience is not ‘inferior’ or ‘not good enough’, especially if their ancestry is made known.  Actually, a place where people are unable to announce their ancestry without concern for negative reactions or issues as a result, is a place where discrimination is apparent (Reber, 1998).  Integration in this context is at the cost of individual and buraku identity.  It would seem that there is a need for a reclamation of the buraku name and identity.

21^st Century buraku discrimination

Discrimination continues into the twenty first century.   Buraku discrimination includes human rights violations such as slanderous graffiti, marriage discrimination and employment discrimination (Burakukaiho 2004 and Teraki and Noguchi, 2001, cited in Takuya Ito, 2005).  In 2001, McLaughlan conducted research in a buraku in Osaka, interviewing 21 residents who had experienced prejudice and discrimination.  Nineteen out of the interviewees thought that the problems of prejudice would not be solved in the following one hundred years (2003). 

In May 2003, when Uramoto Yoshifumi, researcher and activist at the Buraku Liberation League (BLL), received numerous packages in the mail marked ‘pay on delivery’, followed by dozens of handwritten postcards in Japanese, some containing threats such as: ‘For an eta, Uramoto is pretty arrogant. I’ll kill him’ (Amos, 2011).   Eventually, the protagonist of these letters and packages was caught and tried. 

The 2008 Academy Award winning, Japanese film, “Okuribito” or “Departures” (Rojiro Takita) did not explicitly name burakumin, but it is the story of an out of work young man, who, in a country town, overcomes his fear of death and works in a job which would once have been only done by buraku people.  His work as an assistant in a funeral home is considered shameful to family and friends.

 Figure 2: 

Another fascinating example of the prevalence and/or sensitivity to this discrimination emerged recently upon Google Earth’s culturally unconsidered publishing of a map in relation to buraku neighbourhoods.  Google Earth caused a furore in Japan, by posting maps to its historical online section in 2008 (see Figure 2 for an example from Osaka), sourced from the University of California, and a collector, David Rumsey.  There was a considerable backlash to Google Earth, due to the subsequent revelations of burakumin areas in Osaka and Tokyo (Huffington Post, 2-5-2009).  By identifying some areas as burakumin using the offensive term eta, Google was potentially contributing to discrimination, because people who live in a particular area of Osaka could be identified by their address as burakumin. This would potentially lead to workplace and marital discrimination, and other social ostracism.  In the end Google removed the maps.  A neighbourhood near Asakusa, for example, was identified in these maps as an ‘Eta’ village. Figure 2: A David Rumsey map, overlaid over a Google Map of Osaka (Woodblock, 1806), accessed online, 24th July, 2012.

Different views about the ‘Dowa’ or ‘Buraku’ problem?

Solutions to this level of discrimination are controversial.  The two major liberation groups have been consistently in conflict with each other.  Whilst the BKD or 部落開放同盟　buraku kohei domei, have had aggressive strategies of publicity and confrontation, the　Zenkairen (All Japan Federation of Buraku Liberation) has since the 1970s preferred to avoid conflict and take a softer approach.  Whilst the BKD has frequently said that the Zenkairen does not believe in a problem, this is not actually the case.  Reber talks of the need for the two groups to be more conciliatory and to work together for the cause of the buraku.  In effect, in some cases, the government has only recognised buraku under the BKD banner and therefore other buraku people have missed out on equal participation in new initiatives.  Perhaps there is a middle road and the two groups can learn from each other.

Some would prefer the problem to disappear, but the owning of a heritage, history and identity is a braver path to the future.  How then, is it possible to reclaim the heritage of the visible buraku?

Reclaiming a buraku heritage  Figure 3

It is the taiko drums of Japan (Figure 1 and 3) that suggest this path to the future.  Recently, Japan’s taiko drums have come to symbolise more than a rallying call to the Japanese to be patriotic.  They have come, in themselves, in some parts of Japan, to represent this (sometimes) proud minority, the burakumin.  This is, of course, because the making of the taiko drums is a leather work, which is a work undertaken by the burakumin peoples.  Japan’s famous taiko drums, made with leather, were originally, of course, made by the lower caste group, the burakumin, or eta, those who had to deal with animal skins and dead animal parts.    Today, the Naniwa buraku community in Osaka celebrates its history by an avenue lined with showcases of leather production and taiko drums, as well as seats shaped like taiko.  The road leads to the Osaka Human Rights Museum, where the human rights struggle, which the buraku community has participated in, is celebrated (Ian Priestly, 2009).  Also, positively, the physical environment of many buraku areas, including apartments and schools have been improved considerably, benefitting from special funds from the government. 

The buraku liberation league has supported attempts to reclaim the name, buraku, although its cause was not helped early this century when one of its main leaders was linked to ヤクザ yakuza gangster[3] corruption (Johnston, 2006).  Still, the buraku name is certainly more visible in Osaka.

The Future

Whilst the Meiji restoration made moves to deal with the discrimination problem, outlawing in name a general class of people, other names emerged and the discrimination problem evolved and changed over time.  Strongly held views on kegare, or impurity have remained strong in the 21^st century and taboos about the buraku people have continued to reverberate into discrimination.  The goal of the Buraku Liberation League in particular, has been to restore a sense of pride amongst the burakumin, that their history is actually of importance and that staying silent (and shameful) about it is not the only response.  It is to be hoped that the buraku people and groups can develop a sense of unity in this reclamation of visibility in Japanese society, transcending history.  A sense of pride for the buraku people is shown by the avenue of taiko drum, a belief in human rights and a shared consciousness with other oppressed minorities around the world.  Rather than simply disappearing, perhaps the buraku will come to represent Japan’s new future.

REFERENCES

      Amos, Timothy D., (2011), Embodying difference: The making of Burakumin in Modern Japan, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press.

      De Vos, George, William O Wetherall and Kaye Stearman, (1983), Japan’s Minorities: Burakumin, Koreans, Ainu and Okinawans, 3^rd Edition, London, Minorities Rights Group.

      Goto, Masaru, Portraits of Japan’s Outcaste People, www.masarugoto.com, accessed, 31^st July, 2012, includes downloadable pdf file.

      Huffington Post, (2^nd May, 2009), ‘Old Japanese maps on google’, accessed online 24^th July, 2012.

     

      Ito, Takuya, (October 31^st, 2005), ‘Cooperativeness and Buraku Discrimination.’     Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, Discussion Paper 5, http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/

      Jansen, Marius, (2000), The Making of Modern Japan, London, Harvard University Press.

      Johnston, Eric, (2006), ‘Activist’s arrest lays bare yakuza’s ties with burakumin’, Japan Times online, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20060713f1.html, accessed 17^th August, 2012.

      McLaughlan, Alastair, (January 31, 2003) ‘Solving Anti-Burakujumin Prejudice in the 21^st Century: suggestions from 21 Buraku Residents’, Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese studies, Discussion Paper 1, http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/

Mouer, Ross, and Yoshio Sugimoto, (1986) Images of Japanese Society: A Study on the Structure of Social Reality. London and New York, Kegan Paul International.

      Priestley, Ian (January 20, 2009), ‘Breaking the silence on burakumin’, Japan Times Online, accessed 13^th July, 2012.

      Reber, Emily A.S., (1998), ‘Buraku mondai in Japan: Historical and Modern Perspectives and Directions for the Future: From the perspective of an American Researcher’, Dowa Mondai Kenkyuu: 20 (45-62), Osaka, Osaka City University.

      Rumsey, David, ‘Japanese Historical Maps’, (2002) http://www.davidrumsey.com/japan/view.html, accessed 31^st July, 2012, University of California.

 

 

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[1] On first introduction of a Japanese word, for the purposes of this essay, I have included Japanese Kanji, as this is a useful reference point for those who have Japanese/and to some extent Chinese proficiency. Because many of these words are taboo as I have mentioned, it is not possible to input the phonetic reading into a Japanese keyboard and automatically produce the Kanji, rather you need to input the kanji one at a time.

[2] There are two possible kanji for the same reading.

[3] However, many slanderous links have been made to yakuza over the years, and a quick scan of internet sources pulls these up, which are very often unverified.  Eg. http://factsanddetails.com/japan.php?itemid=634&catid=18, accessed, 18^th August, 2012.

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[i] “They made the captured Burakumin prostrate themselves and write letters of apology. They persistently chased the Burakumin who tried to escape to a nearby mountain. When they found the Burakumin on the mountain, they killed them with bamboo spears and pushed a woman, who was carrying a baby on her back, off the mountain. Eighteen people were killed, and thirteen people were injured, 263 houses were burnt down, and 51 houses were destroyed in the riot. From a social psychological perspective, such a crowd is called an 'aggressive mob' (Abe 1977: 128-151). When the farmers started rioting, they sent letters to other farmers who did not participate in the riot. This was a forceful demand for 'cooperativeness'. Under these circumstances, can the discriminators still assert that is the Burakumin who are 'dreadful', that 'the Burakumin attack in a group', or that 'the Burakumin are unpredictable people'? In fact, the dreadful people are not the Burakumin themselves but the people who project their shadow onto the Burakumin”. (Ito, 2005)

[ii] Buraku was an administrative term for a ‘neighbourhood’,  which came to be a reference to areas of low-caste groups post-war.

Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis 2011

Earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis hits Japan

On the 11^th March, 2011, an immense earthquake off the coast of northern Japan precipitated a large scale crisis, not only in terms of the ensuing tsunami, but also due to the events which unfolded over the following days in relation to a related nuclear fallout crisis at a series of nuclear plants at Fukushima, north of Tokyo. This third element of the crisis clearly had national, regional and international implications, entailing a rethink of the use of nuclear power around the world.  In a report of this length, I can only hope to examine a few of the relevant factors and issues. My focus will be on the nuclear fallout issues, and a particularly ‘Japanese’ or Asian attitude towards these, rather than the impact of the actual tsunami.  The debate about nuclear energy continues to rage in relation to a much heralded and already emerging world crisis of energy. The economic implications of NOT using nuclear energy are immense, not least for Japan, which post 2011, has suffered con-currently from economic recession and malaise. Recently, Japan has again opened one of its fifty nuclear reactors (In Ohi, 1^st July, 2012).

Nuclear energy has always been controversial and it is, therefore, hard to find a view which is not either strongly for or strongly against the use of this energy source.  In Japan, too, the only country in the world where nuclear bombs have been used, this kind of disaster has extreme connotations. The public has rallied strongly against nuclear power use since March 2011. 

Soon after the disaster, Takashi Hirose wrote a best seller in Japan, entitled “Fukushima Meltdown” (2011). Hirose is stridently anti-nuclear power, but in a country which also experienced the devastating nuclear ravages of war, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it is not surprising that voices such as his have been well regarded.  原発震災Genpatsu shinsai, (literally nuclear power plant earthquake disaster) is a word which a professor at Kobe University has used since the 1970s and Hirose has seized on this to describe what had occurred in Japan in 2011. Hirose is particularly pessimistic about nuclear energy, as can be seen from the following sample short section of his writings: 

‘If you ask, “Will Japan still be here in ten years?”, I have the evil foreboding that he answer might be, “There is a very strong chance that it will not”….In the future there awaits an unknowable, vast dark age.  I don’t want to contemplate its form, but it is the fear of a genpatsu shinsai syndrome brought about by movements of the earth that no human knowledge can control.

Today this evil foreboding has become a reality and is getting worse day by day…’ (Hirose, 2012, 15).

Despite the reach of voices such as Hirose’s, it seems that nuclear fallout will not prevent Japan from again using nuclear power.

The World Energy Council in March 2012 put out a report in regards to nuclear energy (Holloway, 2012).  This report said that a number of Western powers have ceased their nuclear power development, but countries such as China and India are continuing to develop their facilities, though perhaps taking more care. 

Unsurprisingly, plants were closed quickly after the disaster for cautionary reasons across China, Korea and Europe.  One hundred and forty three nuclear plants are to be found in Europe, and it is not surprising that the news from Japan has had an immediate impact on nuclear development here.[i] As is widely known, Germany quickly decided to shut down its oldest reactors over a three month period, and to phase out all nuclear power by 2022.  Germany itself has changed direction significantly, in this sense, with this disaster seen to represent the dangers of reliance on nuclear energy. At the same time, as I will note, other countries have not synonymously followed.

Prior to Fukushima, Japan was the third-largest provider of nuclear energy in the world, with a plan to increase to 53% of the world’s nuclear energy by 2030.  This no longer appears to be the case, with a retraction in Japan from development. As already noted, Europe has also reduced development slightly.  However, China and India look to continue future significant expansion in nuclear power development.  These two nations will continue to add 197 and 64 reactors respectively (Holloway, 2012).  Also, previous French president, President Sarkozy of France on 27^th June, 2011, announced a 1.43 billion dollar investment of nuclear power, saying, “there is no alternative to nuclear energy today” (‘Fukushima fallout…’, 2011). 

Figure 2 Energy Production, Kuo, 2011.

At the centre of the Japanese incident was an economic imperative to provide an energy source, as gas and coal fired energy sources dwindle (figure 2, Energy production).  At the same time, risk management, which is a big industry in itself, did not provide a successful management strategy for a disaster such as the tsunami unleashed in March, 2011.  To what extent was this the fault of the company, or the fault of government, for not regulating appropriately?  Is this something which could only be expected to happen in Japan, or is it a potentiality in other places or in other Asian countries? An apposite question here is how groups involved can ensure that the economics and the safety features of energy production such as nuclear power plants are not mutually exclusive.  Firstly then, it is worth considering the interest groups particularly close to this issue, and then to take a look at the evolution of events on the 11^th March, 2011, especially in relation to Fukushima.

Representing the pro-nuclear power side of interest groups regarding this issue was the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), who managed the power plant.  Tellingly, TEPCO, on the 28^th February, prior to the disaster, submitted a report admitting falsified inspection and repair reports including 30 components of the nuclear plants (Kuo, 2011).  Other interest groups included the Japanese government and the media, who had an interest in public safety and education. Economic concerns were also most probably also dominant in the government’s attempts to control the development of this issue. In a world where nuclear power is controversial, media interest was, however to prove to be significant to the development of this issue.

Media reaction

Hirose argued that the first piece of spin from TEPCO, the media and the government was the argument that the ongoing effects of nuclear fallout were unable to be predicted.  More concise and scientific discussion may certainly have assisted in allaying the public’s fears.  Also, Hirose (2012) believes that the media in conjunction with TEPCO, misled the public.  For example, they overplayed, he says, how unnatural an event the tsunami itself was.  He notes that although TEPCO argued that the tsunami of 2011 was of ‘unimaginable height’, at 38.9 metres at highest point, measured on Omoe Peninsula, Iwate prefecture, in fact, in 1896, a tsunami was observed in the same prefecture with a height of 38.2m.  After the 1933 Showa Sanriku Earthquake, a height of 24.4m was measured and in 1993, a tsunami of more than 30m hit the Okushiri Island (Hirose, 2012, 30).  Whilst the earthquake itself may have been an extremely rare event, considering its magnitude, the size of the waves was not unprecedented, or unimaginable. 

At the same time, unsurprisingly, the media played up the nuclear aspect of the disaster.  Adam Burgess (2011) noted that the story of the tsunami became a lesser story to that of the radiation from Fukushima, when he argued that in fact there were very few casualties of the nuclear radiation.  In particular, in Japan, with the strong memories of the nuclear fallout following Hiroshima and Nagasaki, any nuclear catastrophe is sure to be feared greatly by the people.  It is true, as well, that the international media made this a major focus of their reporting of the events in Japan.

The Unfolding of Events

The magnitude of the initial earthquake, which was centred about 130 km out to the Pacific Ocean, east of the city of Sendai, was 9.0 on the Richter scale.  This would make it the fifth earthquake since 1900 of magnitude 9.0 or higher (USGS, Earthquake Hazards Program).  Figure 1 from NASA shows a pre and post-tsunami image, graphically illustrating the reach of the tsunami, on the coastline of northern Japan, from Fukushima to northern Sendai. In this region, there was inundation of over four kilometres inland of sea waters.  The waves which hit coastal settlements along the Japanese coast wielded significant damage and there will clearly be a long period of rebuilding necessary for those affected.  The death toll was also high. 

The initial unfolding of events on March 11^th, 2011, was highly unpredictable.  The earthquake released a tsunami which inflicted heavy damage on coastal communities north of Tokyo, in particular to the three prefectures of Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate.  On Friday afternoon, the world watched television images showing waves roaring inland in Japan and pushing aside heavy objects such as trucks as if they were toys (Fackler, 2011).  The Japanese news media in the early days reported that the death toll could rise to be more than 1300 people.  There was no electricity and no water for many people in shelters.   Business reports of the impacts quickly estimated that 86418 businesses and 311934 employees had been impacted and 209 billion dollars’ worth of sales volume lost, across 715 industries (D&B, 2011 Impact Report).  It is the ensuing nuclear fallout that I will now examine.  It was thought by some commentators that even the megalopolis itself, Tokyo, might be forced to evacuate to escape such nuclear fallout.

Meltdown and social networking

Late on March 11, the news of a potential partial nuclear meltdown of a nuclear plant in Fukushima began to come through.  In association with the three prongs of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown, in the hours after the earthquake, 177 million tweets were sent, and 572000 new Twitter accounts were created (Tucker, 2011).  In the end, three reactors experienced complete meltdown and several hydrogen explosions occurred in the subsequent days (Gioetta Kuo, 2011).  It is possible that the social networking reaction is a particularly Japanese response.  It is also likely to be true that this is a particularly twenty first century response to this kind of event.  Rather than relying on news reports, and in a cynical attitude to the typical media forms, people used social networking such as ‘Twitter’, to keep themselves informed of developments.  At the same time, of course, social networking itself may function in a reactionary way, responding to rumours and innuendo.  Pragmatic use of social networking, though, enables networks of acquaintances, friends and colleagues to respond to urgent issues, quickly and effectively.  In the case of nuclear fallout, these networks were able to provide a lot more information than other media, which is what people desired. 

So what of the government response?  The Kan administration, represented by Chief cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, was initially a frequent spokesperson for the government, but the government was itself reliant on the operator, TEPCO, or Tokyo Electric Power.  At the same time, TEPCO is more recently reporting that the government handled things badly and did not make good decisions at the time. 

In response to the crisis at the time, the Japanese government constantly revised guidelines regarding the nuclear fallout. As a result, a crisis of lacking public confidence became evident (and possibly drove more people to seek information from other sources, such as social networking). Tucker (2011) argues that to the government failed to predict some of the potential consequences of the disaster, such as the possibility of increasing radiation levels in local milk, vegetables and seawater and that Tokyo’s drinking water would also see a ‘radiation spike’.

When these things were reported by the media, without any prediction from TEPCO or the government, there was a resulting panic and concern.  The Japanese government then moved to expand the evacuation area around the nuclear plant from 10 to 20 kilometres.  Further implications of this uncertainty included the mass migration of expatriates out of Japan, and within Japan, as well as a huge fall in tourism for Japan.  Many expatriate foreigners quickly removed themselves from Tokyo, to either a city further away, such as Osaka or even returning home overseas.  The French government, ironically (in its support of nuclear energy power), promptly advised its citizens to leave Tokyo.  At the same time, Japanese businesses suffered enormous blows, based upon the loss of business and of course the impacts of the tsunami’s physical devastation.

The likelihood of future radiation events

The nuclear radiation issue has been continuously monitored since the meltdown event. Like nuclear irradiation experienced in Chernobyl, the impact will continue to be monitored and it is likely to become clearer over the next 30 to 50 years. As for this accident, TEPCO is currently claiming that it was government ineptitude, rather than the company’s stance which caused considerable public confusion following the disaster (Hiroko Tabuchi, June, 2012).  Currently too, as the government aims to reopen the first two reactors following the disaster, in Oi, some experts have called for a re-examination of the safety level of the plant, considering a fault line which lies beneath it.

Conclusions

In a world where nuclear power continues to be a reality, especially with its perceived efficiency, there is a need for checks to be held between the dangers of fallout and the economic advantages.  However, the very ‘Japanese’ or ‘Asian’ response to the crisis of nuclear fallout in Japan included a lack of confidence in government assurances.  The media was also mistrusted by the Japanese public and that was reflected in this case by the greater dependence of the public on twitter and other social media.  Nuclear radiation continues to be a much misunderstood topic, and there is a need for a greater level of dialogue between both sides, nuclear proponents and anti-nuclear campaigners, for the sake of public safety.  Whilst the nuclear industry has for many years argued for the safety of plants around the world, this incident belies that claim.  It has caused the industry around the world to take breath and to re-evaluate. 

Nevertheless, the economic imperative, with ongoing greenhouse implications of changing climate, also continues to impact this issue.  There are, of course, conservationists who believe that nuclear energy has a great future.  Nuclear energy continues to be seen as a cheap alternative to carbon rich energies.  It is to be hoped that this incident would ensure that future development is appropriate and is not “Simpson-esque”, remembering the Springfield nuclear power plant in “The Simpsons” cartoon, which was mis-managed and accident prone. The memories of those in Japan will certainly limit the developments allowed by its government, whilst China and Korea and other Asian countries will likely continue down the nuclear energy track. At the same time, Australia continues to hold the line that any nuclear power is only used for scientific research, whilst selling uranium on a large scale to Asia. It is without doubt that the economic considerations must not overplay the importance of environmental and social impacts for the future.

REFERENCES

            Dun & Bradstreet, (April 5, 2011) Impact Report of Japan Earthquake and Tsunami: Preliminary Business Impact Analysis for High Impact Areas of Japan, D&B.

            Burgess, Adam, (2011), ‘Fukushima Fixation: The Media Focus on Radiation Risk in Tsunami-stricken Japan’, European Journal of Risk Regulation; 2011, Vol. 2 Issue 2, p209-212, 4p, University of Kent, Canterbury.

            Fackler, Martin, (12^th March, 2011) ‘Japan Tsunami: Toll could rise to more than 1,300’, New York, The New York Times.

            ‘Fukushima Fallout fails to dim nuclear’s long-term prospects’, (2011), Power Engineering International 19 (8), 72-72, 74, 76. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com

            Hirose, Takashi, (May, 2011), translated by Douglas Lummis, Fukushima Meltdown, Asahi Shinbun Publications, Tokyo: #298.

           

Holloway, James, (March 14^th, 2012), “Despite Fukushima disaster, global nuclear power expansion continues”, accessed, June 12^th, 2012, arstechnica.com, Scientific Method/Science and Exploration.

            Kuo, Gioetta (2011), ‘Nuclear Energy after Fukushima’, World Future Review; Winter2011, Vol. 3 Issue 4, p35-37, 3p.

            Tabuchi, Hiroko (June 20^th, 2012), ‘Nuclear Operator in Japan exonerates itself after report’, New York Times, retrieved, 2^nd July, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/asia/tepco-operator-of-fukushima-exonerates-itself-in-report.html?_r=2. 

Tucker, P. (2011).  ‘My first meltdown: Lessons from Fukushima’, The Futurist, 45 (4), 14-16., retrieved from http://search.proquest.com. 

USGS, Earthquake Hazards Program, accessed, 2^nd July, 2012, http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/.

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