Osaka University Knowledge Archive : OUKA · This paper by analyzing representative texts in...
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TitleHow the “South”Has Been Constructed? :Imaginary Africa of the JapanesePopular/Juvenile Literature and Comics
Author(s) Yokota-Murakami, Takayuki
Citation 言語文化共同研究プロジェクト. 2015 P.83-P.92
Issue Date 2016-05-31
Text Version publisher
URL https://doi.org/10.18910/57361
DOI 10.18910/57361
rights
Note
Osaka University Knowledge Archive : OUKAOsaka University Knowledge Archive : OUKA
https://ir.library.osaka-u.ac.jp/repo/ouka/all/
Osaka University
How the “South”Has Been Constructed?
一一-ImaginaryA企icaof the Japanese Popular/Juvenile
Literature and Comics一一
Takayuki Yokota-Murakami
Representations of Africa began to appear rather late in the imagination of Japanese
in their modern history. Extremely few references are found in the scientific/intellectual
discourse in the early modern period (in Meiji). They first appeared in popular
literature in the last decade of the nineteenth century1. This fact itself attests to the
objectification of Africa on the part of the Japanese, their negligence to it or their
“Ori en talizing”of it: Africa has been, from the beginning, relegated to the margin of
cultural discourse and invoked only when the Japanese culture has needed the “Other”
to consolidate itself.
This trend continued for decades to come. In the post-WWII period, it came to find its
arena in the new emerging discursive field of comics (manga). One of the most popular
texts of this kind is Keizo Shimada' s comic epic, Boken Dankich1・(Dankichithe
Adventurous [1933-39]. The work has been recently criticized for its discriminatory,
Orientalistic description by the Japanese scholars in history, Cultural Studies,
anthropology, Area Studies, etc. The theorization of the colonial representation of the
South (the South Pacific islands under the Japanese military occupation) and critique of
its political implication has been largely investigated. Boken Dankichihas been subject
to such a critique.
However, Bok,θ'fl Dankich1・isan ambiguous representation of the “South”in that
extensively incorporates Africa with the descriptions of the indigenous, half-naked
Black inhabitants, the legendary “cannibals," elephants, alligators, and so on. The artist
indiscriminately fuses the representations of Africa and the “South.”
The recent Japanese Cultural Studies, however, ignores such fusion of two different
images within the same text and criticizes Boken Dankichi simply in the context of the
colonial objectification of the “South.”In this way it erases Africa from the critical
perspective, whereby reproducing, within the academic discourse, the totalizing,
indiscriminate, hence, discriminatory representations of Africa in popular imagination.
1 Shunro Oshikawa's Shin Mhon to (The New Japanese Islands, 1906) is the representative of such
works
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This paper by analyzing representative texts in popular culture explores the political,
problematic“unconscious”of the Japanese African/Asian Studies per se vis-a-vis its
perception of Africa.
Fig. 1. Terashima Ryoan.防白kansansθ'JZUθ.
The knowledge about Africa in Japan was quite underdeveloped, naturally because of
its geographic remoteness and of the lack of cultural/social relationship.
Africa was largely a terra incognita. The authoritative encyclopedia F予告kansansθI zuθ
hardly makes any reference to it in the geographical section (fig. 1).
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f
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Fig. 2-3. Fukuzawa Yukichi. Siθ'kai kunizukushi.
After the termination of the isolation policy of the Shogunate in 1854 and the
Reformation of 1868, there was radical change in this paucity of information. A flush of
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geographical and cultural knowledge was conveyed by the Enlightenment thinkers. The
most prominent of them was Yukichi Fukuzawa, who published, on the basis of such
information, Si.θ'kai kunidsukushi (The Nations of the World) of 1872 (fig. 2-3). In this
book one whole volume is dedicated to Africa, not less, in volume, than the discussions
on Europe, America, and Asia. Fukuzawa’s description was on the whole objective and
quite detailed. It is, however, occasionally, marred by stereotypical idea that Africa is a
dark, uncivilized continent (cf. the illustration to the section on Africa in fig. 3). Such an
idea was to be the base of understanding Africa in the successive years.
As the space is limited, let me just give a brief sketch of the few landmark works in
the formation of the knowledge about Africa in the Japanese cultural discourse after
Fukuzawa, with emphasis on the texts from the popular culture.
The major impetus in exciting the interest in Africa was, just like in the other parts of
the world, the “adventures”of David Livingstone and Henry Stanley. Stanley’s In
Dark,何 tAfricawas translated into Japanese and published as early as 1893 (fig. 4-5).
...
N
Fig. 4-5. Ankoku Afurika.
In its wake many popular reportages were published in those days, concerning
Livingstone and Stanley in popular magazines and publications for juvenile readership
(Fig. 6).
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Fig. 6. Afurika naichi: Sutanr,θi tank,θ'nfikki.
For instance, in 1906 the then enormously popular writer Shunro Oshikawa
published an adventurous novel, entitled Shin Nihon to, in which the hero attempts to
form a union of the colored peoples as against the white races with Madagascar as the
base of the united force.
When the comic artist Keizo Shimada published a highly popular comic series,
Bok,θ'fl Dankich1・(TheAdventures of Dankichi-boy) in the juvenile magazine Shonθ'fl
kurabu (Boys' Club) in 1933-39, the author had, thus, a stock of imagination on Africa
which consisted of these foregoing texts.
Fig. 7. Afurika: mitsurin noの:a.
There is no concrete reference in this comic series that the scene is in Africa, but the
identity of the concealed geography (that it is really taking place in Africa) is evident
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from the context. The magazine had serialized and was serializing many popular series
featuring Africa. For instance, Afurika mitsUI力1no oja (The King of African Forests)
was serialized in the magazine in 1933 in parallel with ThθAd Viθ'ntur,θsofDankichi(Fig.
7). There were other series concretely referring to Africa. It is clear that ThθAd Viθ'ntur,θ8
of Dankichihad a generic relationship with these narratives on Africa. The mysterious,
unknown tropical land was evidently Africa
Of course, there are explicit references to Africa as a geographical topos, too. Readers
see elephants, crocodiles, lions, hippopotamuses, giraffes, etc., all, naturally, firmly
associated with imaginary geography of the Japanese (fig. 8-11).
Fig. 8-11. Boken dankichi.
Once again some of these images are attributable to the descriptions in the previous
cultural texts. For instance, Ryukei Yano published an adventurous novel, Ukishiro
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mono五ratari(TheTale of the Battleship Ukishiro) in 1890, which was to become a classic
of juvenile fantasy. The comic artist, Keizo Shimada was probably very familiar with
this work. Some of the illustrations from the novel are also reminiscent of those in Thθ
Adventur,何 ofDankichi. Compare, for instance, fig. 9 with fig. 11
Fig. 11. Yano Ryukei. [是ishiromono五ratari.
Now, the story of ThθAd Viθ1ntur,θs of Dankichi is typically Orientalistic, to the point of
being flatly racist. The land of black people is depicted as uncivilized and barbarian. The
Japanese boy with his civilization is to teach them, to enlighten them, and eventually to
govern them. Domesticate the native tribes and reign over them is the popular
imagination, also observed, for instance, in Yano's Ukisihro mono五ratari(fig. 13).
Fig. 12. Bok,θ'fl Dankichi.
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Fig. 13. Yano Ryukei. Ukishiro mono五ratari.
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Fig. 14-16. Boken Dankichi.
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For this purpose, Dankichi builds schools, post-offices, hospitals, etc. V¥弓iathe teaches
is Japanese alphabets, though, but this is not to arouse suspicion. They should work
perfectly fine with native Blacks. And this may not be just a juvenile fantasy, as the
Imperial army did force Japanese language in its occupied territory during the V¥内問I.
The black people do not even have personalities. Originally, they do have personal
names, but those are Banana, Pineapple, Coconut, etc., names devoid of humanity. But
the hero is not even content with such common names. Since those black people appear
identical to Dankichi without distinction, he decides to name them by numbers and write
the numbers on the bodies to distinguish them. The black people are not humans, but
robots with model numbers like R2D2.
Fig. 16. Ibid.
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Fig. 17-18. Ibid.
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Dankichi and the Japanese in general are conceptualized as“white people”vis-a-vis
blacks. In an orientalist construction of identity, the Japanese use the black to construct
a superior self-representation as a white.
Criticism, naturally, has been directed at such Orientalistic and colonialistic
problematic of the work. And as criticisms of Japanese imperialism, those critiques tend
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加 attributethe implied thematic in the series, ThθAdventur,何 ofDankichi, to the actual
militaristic activities of the Imperial Army. In more concrete terms, those criticisms
commonly suggested that ThθAd Vi印 tur,何 ofDankichi was actually a metaphor for the
Japanese southward expansionist intention, having little to do with Africa. Some hold
that the model for the hero Dankichi is a certain Koben Mori, who went to Micronesia in
1892, remained there permanently, married a local woman, and eventually became a
chieftain of the tribe. This fact is often quoted as the proof that ThθAd Viθ1ntur,θs of
Dankich1・isreally about the South Pacific.
Furthermore, it has been pointed out that the author mixes the features of other
geographic areas as well such as orangutans and tortoises, native to the South-Eastern
Asia into the supposedly African landscape. As a matter of fact, the author in his
memoire mentions the fact that the Islands in the Southern seas had become the
Japanese territory just when he was producing the work and that the public opinion was
supporting the southward move of the Japanese Empire, suggesting that Thθ
Adventur,何 ofDankichi was in fact taking place in Micronesia. A postcolonial critic, such
as Minato Kawamura, argues, on the basis of such evidences, that ThθAd Viθ1ntur,何 of
Dankichi was simply a work embodying the Japanese imperialistic desire for the
Southern Pacific.
Such postcolonial criticisms, although they are certainly valid to some extent, is
problematic in that, by revealing the “real”signified of the world of Dankichi, they make
Africa in the work stand for something else, something other than Africa, thus doubly
Orientalizing Africa. The signified Africa in the work, supposedly signified by
stereotypical signifiers such as black people, cannibals, barbarians, wild animals and
tropical plants and so on, is not Africa. Africa is thoroughly devoid of signifieds.
F時.19. Ukishiro monogatari.
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I argue that Africa is signified in such cultural texts as ThθAd Viθ'ntur,何 ofDankichi
however partially and however Orientalistically. And it is the duty of the critics to
excavate Africa that is hidden, but that is eventually signified. As an example, I go back
to E母I旨JiiI’omono五ratari(The Tale of the Battleship Ukishiro) which may have served as
an inspiration for Thθ Ad Viθ'ntur,何 ofDankichi and which, as such, has a definite
intertextual relationship with the comic. The original intent of the heroes of the tale is
to establish an independent country in Africa, near Madagascar, that would support the
Japanese Empire. The colonialistic gaze for Africa, thus, did exit in a literary
imagination. Fortunately, Japan did not colonize Africa. But it could have and it would
have if it had been capable. In spite of the heroes' initial intention, however, the tale ends
unfinished after the narrative about the warfare in New Guinea. The planned part about
colonization of Mozanbique was never written. But what is left unsaid is not equal to
what is not there. Replacing Africa in cultural discourse of Japan with the Southern
Pacific as the real referent can thus be a problematic, highly ambivalent act of
postcolonial criticism. We should be, instead, endeavoring to explore the meaning of
Africa in those popular texts before reducing it to the other colonized objects.
Bibliography
Fukuzawa, Yukichi. Siθ'kai kuni dzukushi. Reprint. Tokyo: Nihon kindai bungakukan,
1968.
Kawamura, Minato. Nanyo/Karafuto no Nihon bungaku. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1994.
Shimada, Keizo. Bok,θ'fl dankichi. Tokyo: Kodansha 1967.
Terashima, Ryoan.防公kansansθ'l zuθ. Reprint. Tokyo: Tokyo bijutsu, 1970.
Yano, Ryukei. Ukishiro mono五ratari. Meiji NiJうonbungaku Zθinshu. Vol 15. Tokyo:
Chikuma shobo, 1970.
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