Category: Article

Jon Holt

Introduction

In Umezu Kazuo’s masterpiece horror manga My Name is Shingo (Watashi wa Shingo, 1982–1986), the boy Kondō Satoru and the girl Yamamoto Marine explore a bleak near-future Japan, which seems eerily prescient. Factory workers are laid off in favor of robotic production. Families are torn apart because of mechanization in the workplace. Children and adults are mutually alienated from each other, never seeing eye to eye. What is produced in the manga is “Marilyn Monroe,” a friendly metallic automaton with an iconic American face that develops artificial intelligence (consciousness) through the kind interactions with the children. Unfortunately, the more self-aware Monroe grows, the more it wants to physically change the world around it, inadvertently putting those human friends into harm’s way.
Borrowing Natsume Fusanosuke’s formalist manga analysis method of “compression and release,” I will argue that Umezu visualizes bodies’ coming-of-age and additionally how his manga shows bodies, even robotic ones, to be the root of all consciousness. In Umezu’s upside-down and seemingly cruel logic, in order for one to grow mentally, the body must be first subjected to unspeakably horrific trauma. Umezu frames the liminal bodies of the children and robot characters with visual layouts that show their bodies transcending their physicalities; through his panel frames, Umezu shows them manifest consciousness in a way only possible for manga as it is a visual-and-textual artform. Umezu’s drawings and panels create a space where the reader enters into a world of pure and cold materiality but exits with a new kind of ontological awareness of one’s place in Japan. Salvation in this dark manga is only possible if his characters come to grips with the imperfections in their Japanese bodies. Then, by extension, so too will his readers sense their own possible redemption in an otherwise fallen world.

At first glance of Umezu’s visual storytelling, such ontological depths would seem impossible. The purpose of this essay is to argue that Umezu achieves that nonetheless. My Name Is Shingo accomplished something unusual for a manga; that is, through his framing of body parts (rather than faces), Umezu caused the reader to perceive the ontological development of a thinking and feeling being, even though that being happened to be a robot. To this end, I show that a careful analysis of any sophisticated manga will allow us to uncover the basic philosophical position of the narrative. Being a visual text, a manga’s phenomenological perspective must be determined through the way that bodies are depicted and framed. Faces are central, of course, but in Umezu’s works hands and feet often take precedence in demonstrating one’s awareness of oneself and one’s own body. Umezu created a manga with the power to demonstrate how consciousness arises in even the most unlikely of bodies and in the most unlikely of places and he did so through the most unlikely of artforms: horror manga.

The Unbelievable Origins and Direction of My Name Is Shingo

Originally published in Shōgakukan’s Big Comic Spirits (hereafter BCS) and running for four years from 1982 to 1986, My Name Is Shingo was a huge hit for Umezu Kazuo, although by this time he was almost guaranteed to be successful in any storytelling venture.[1] As manga historian Kure Tomofusa writes, Shingo was an “incredible gamble” that Umezu and his BCS editor took. The manga series began in the magazine’s inaugural issue and, in effect, worked as the headliner and magnet to get readers to buy and keep buying BCS. However, because Shōgakukan was only publishing it twice a month, they risked losing their audiences to other rival weekly comics (Kure 2000: 326–327). Despite this real concern, Shingo turned out to be a great success. It was a riveting story, even though no one understood the meaning of the Shingo’s title until at least two years into its run.

While the identity of the eponymous watashi (“I”) of Watashi wa Shingo (“I Am Shingo”) remained a mystery, Umezu focused the first third of his story on the life of the sixth-grader Satoru. This initial arc follows the humdrum days of Satoru and his middle-class family with a solid mother and hard-working father. They are a typically average Japanese family for the 1980s. However, their lives take a sudden turn when Satoru’s father’s workplace, a parts manufacturer, begins to use two automated robots to help speed up production. Within a few days, the robots (Vivian) Lee and (Marilyn) Monroe quickly prove to the factory owner that he need to only rely on the automatons to meet his production quotas. Their naming by the factory owner, which seems like an afterthought, is nonetheless sardonic. The darkly humorous joke of these blocky robots being marginally humanized by being dressed up with life-size cardboard images of America’s cinematic sweethearts seems to be lost on all the Japanese characters. Not the sharpest tools in the shed, those workers soon are all laid off except Satoru’s father, who is tasked with robot maintenance. This gives Satoru special access to the robots and a computer that can be used to “teach” Monroe and Lee sight- and sound-recognition to improve their manufacturing capability. But Satoru instead uses the computer to communicate with the more receptive one of the two robots, Monroe, who gradually learns to recognize Satoru’s face and form. In doing so, this robot becomes conscious of itself in relation to the Other: the young human friend.

All while this is happening, Satoru makes another good friend at a nearby school, this time a girl named Marine.[2] Marine has a Japanese mother and British father, and, unfortunately, her parents have decided that they will soon relocate England, though before that happens, she accompanies Satoru to the factory. Marine too learns how to communicate with Monroe and gets the robot to recognize her.

The early part of this series spends a great amount of time developing and depicting relationships between boy and girl and between Monroe and Satoru. Satoru, albeit a child, becomes a mature, conscious individual through his relationship with his Other, Marine. Sadly, it becomes increasingly more difficult for the children to see each other, let alone for them to visit Monroe. Their impending separations cause all three to take rash actions. Monroe senses the children’s youthful excitement and heightened emotions. This causes the robot to develop a need for the children, its own Other, as well as a human-like consciousness.

In a typical Umezu twist, though, the seemingly kind robot makes a series of violent and dangerous moves that endangers the lives of Satoru and Marine, while trying to help them maintain their love for each other. The saga of their love stretches across the entire span of the manga, even as the setting shifts between Japan and England. However, their love story reaches a crescendo around one-third into the series when Satoru and Marine act on their belief that the only way to make their love real is to dramatically and publicly take a leap of faith.

High Points, Near Climaxes, and Ungrounded Feet

In one of the series’ high points, Monroe instructs the children to leap off the top of the Tokyo Tower, explaining that this is the only way they can “marry” and “have children.” For the robot, a leap of faith from a 333-meter height will allow the three to remain as the “family” of three, with Monroe as the couple’s child. Satoru and Marine trust Monroe so strongly that they do not realize that they are being urged to commit suicide. Umezu never pulls any punches in his works; even his cutest and most innocent characters can be brutally massacred or be made to inflict unspeakable, ugly violence on others.

These two sixth-graders, united in their precocious love for each other, make a self-assertion of their identity as they leap off the tip of the Tokyo Tower. This act is called their “leap over” (tobi-utsuri) in this manga and this is the youths’ leap of faith that will enable them to become “married” and earn the right to keep their “family” together. In this scene, Umezu illustrates the youths’ self-realizations, not through their words or faces, but through their feet. Through repeated, minimal panels, he marks their existential lift-off by only showing their two sets of feet and their launching point, a school backpack to provide an extra footing. Thus, in Umezu manga, the body is the site through which a person manifests authentic self-awareness and identity; only if the body puts thought into action, will the Self become real (Figure 1).

In terms of its impact in the history of manga, Shingo very much reflects the current fads as well as the future of mature comic-book storytelling. Kure placed this work squarely as an archetype in the “fifth period” of Japanese manga history he theorized. The “fifth period” corresponds to the years from 1979 to 1986, when the multiple magazines containing Young in the title (albeit for adult men) and four-panel comics took the industry’s centerstage. Shingo arrived at a time when school-age love comedies were at their zenith, and although Shingo features the youthful romance of two elementary school-aged kids, theirs was a sprawling drama that surprised its audience in the way it connected their love to unsavory elements of an advanced and scientific civilization such as Japan’s (Kure 1997: 196–197). Whereas Shōgakukan’s BCS and Shūeisha’s Young Jump had their target audiences in men in their post-high-school years, their competitor Young Magazine of Kōdansha generally targeted a slightly younger audience (Kure 1997: 197). Given this fact, it is even more remarkable that BCS would feature Shingo with six-graders as its protagonists, which underscores Umezu’s unusual ability to make such compelling heroes out of children even for adult audiences.

Another aspect of Shingo as a forerunner in the industry is its sheer scope, painting a what-if scenario about the future of Japan, where there is rampant anti-Asian and Japan-bashing hate; where Japan’s industrialization becomes increasingly mechanized; where families become more and more broken and dysfunctional; and, where the individual struggles to make meaning out of life. Natsume Fusanosuke suggests that BCS succeeded because of the pioneering concept of its editor-in-chief, Konishi Yōnosuke, to create “for manga a new realm of the quasi-novel (a bridge between mass-media and pure literature novels)” (Natsume 2018: 78 [Natsume 2021: web]).

Even though its protagonists are two children and a bulky robot, Shingo is a very sophisticated narrative which treads even into the realm of philosophy, rephrasing its own form of Descartes’ cogito, “I think, therefore I am,” into something more personal: “I think, therefore I am Shingo.” With this context of the history of the manga medium in mind, it is therefore not that surprising that Umezu could conceive of and produce a manga with school-age characters that could open up ontological questions. Although the children’s leap into the unknown cannot be the climax of this multivolume series, this early episode previews the possibilities of self-realization for character types normally thought to be too immature or unequipped to do so.

Reading Monroe’s Cogito Moment in Umezu’s Compressed and Released Frames

The visual design and layouts in this manga are quite advanced and certainly indicate a kind of peak in Umezu’s career, which began in the 1950s. Umezu tends to pack his page with six to eight panels, almost forming a tight nine-panel “grid,” employed by his American contemporary, Steve Ditko, known for Amazing Spider-Man (1962–1966) and Doctor Strange (1961–1965) (Wolk 2009: 239). Furthermore, Umezu often employs simple layouts with iterative panels that repeat the same image only to show seconds passing by in the flow of time in “moment-to-moment” panel transitions.

Named by comics theorist Scott McCloud in his seminal study, Understanding Comics (1993), “moment-to-moment” or “type one” sequences usually do very little to help the narrative, as the duration of the depicted time is too short to push the plot forward. Instead, one would expect a truly dynamic artist to use other, more sophisticated panel-transition types to take advantage of the comics’ ability to engage the reader imagination. McCloud defines comics as “closure.” According to him, when “comics panels fracture both time and space,” it is closure that “allows us to connect these moments and mentally construct a continuous, unified reality.” To McCloud, “comics is closure” (McCloud 1993: 67).

However, Umezu uses such minimal “moment-to-moment” sequences for maximum dramatic effect. There is something so beautiful, so calculated, so horrific in these snapshots in Shingo. And his panel sequences are best understood not only as “type one” but also as “type-five” or “aspect-to-aspect” panel transition type that emphasizes mood or feeling over plot (79). Such momentary and moody panel sequences are skillfully employed by Umezu to show the awakening of a new kind of conscious subject. Put it another way, Shingo depicts ontology emerging on the page for the reader to see. Batman, with only its whams! and pows!, seems pitiful by comparison.

If one were to use McCloud’s categories to analyze Umezu’s techniques to bring ontology to the comics page, one must acknowledge their potential problems in relation to manga and I have done so elsewhere (Holt 2022: 50–51). Because McCloud heavily emphasizes sequentiality of panels, often in two-panel sets, some argue that such an approach does not apply to manga, as they function within grander single-page or even double-page layouts. Umezu specialist Takahashi Akihiko in his Umezu Kazuo-ron (Theory of Umezu Kazuo, 2015) does so, but then tries to compensate for McCloud’s failings by creating his own special category of panel transitions. In order to better explain Umezu’s art, Takahashi demands a “seventh” type of panel transition, the “iterative” (hanpuku), on top of McCloud’s six transition categories.[3] Too slow or too subjective to match McCloud’s “moment-to-moment” panel sequences, Umezu’s “iterative” panels depict, according to Takahashi, “time that functions as a kind of moment-to-moment type but cannot be considered action-to-action as these images feature instead a kind of nuance and mentality” (Takahashi 2015: 243). In other words, Umezu repeats panels to build psychological tension and force the reader into the mind of the character. For Takahashi, the “pure nuance” seen in the “iterative” type can be viewed as what McCloud calls “moment-to-moment,” which requires “very little closure” but fails to show things “happening in concise, efficient ways” (McCloud 1993: 76). However, I have questioned Takahashi’s need to create additional categories (Holt 2019: web), and I further suggested a radical re-application of McCloud’s “six types” to allow for a more fluid and productive parsing of manga panels (Holt 2022: 51).

Given that a McCloudian analysis is not enough to ascertain the mood of ontological self-awakening, an alternative approach pioneered by Natsume Fusanosuke should be utilized to elucidate the epiphanic moments in Shingo. Natsume, who developed “manga expression theory” with others in the 1990s, offers an additional way to understand how manga is created and how it can be read. In the most important chapter of his Manga wa naze omoshiroinoka (Why manga is so interesting, 1997), Natsume describes how manga artists during the 1960s would “compress” (asshuku) and then “release” (kaihō) the panels, often stretching them horizontally, vertically, or both. This process of shrinking the panels creates an effect of psychological closeness to the subject in the panel. As the camera zooms in and we get closer to the character’s face or eyes, we often feel tension in this claustrophobic zone.

In a key scene (Figure 2) in Shingo, where Monroe develops consciousness, Umezu repeats and compresses the first panel eight times, driving the reader closer to the “psychology” of the robot. The sequence of repeated panels that focus on the robot’s manipulator hand is very important, as the body of this mechanical being, particularly its grasper, reveals its thought. Through the repeated and static images, Umezu gives life to both heavy robotic arm and cold

mechanical pincer. As the panels condense and speed up, the reader senses that Monroe’s mechanical parts are becoming self-aware. In Umezu manga, agency is first and foremost self-awareness of one’s own body, as seen in the previous example of the children with their feet conveying their choice to leap over into adulthood. By repeating and focusing more intensely on the robot’s body, Umezu’s panels force the reader to understand that the narration that accompanies these static images is the emancipated mind of Monroe.

According to Natsume, if the successive frames condense on the shapes therein, they force the reader to attune psychologically to those bodies inside them. As panels compress down the page, there is a sense of weight associated with these tight frames. We also will tend to read such compressions very fast and thus they can increase reading tempo.

 

Usually, after compressing panels in the top and middle of the page, an artist will release the bottom panel with at least a horizontal stretch (Figures 3 and 4). This panel will thus open up, release the tension, and provide the reader time to linger and take in things a bit more “objectively.” From Figure 2, one must assume Umezu will release after his tight nine-panel compressed sequence, and indeed he does with Panel A on the following page (Figure 5). In other words, we get closer to and deeper into Monroe’s mind. That alone makes us uncomfortable, but the sequence also overwhelms the reader with its speed. What will be the release of this monstrous merger with a mechanical mind? The answer is given on the following page’s larger release panel.

 

Natsume writes that when such releases follow a well-planned series of compressions, manga gets so interesting (1997: 147). A skilled manga artist can set up a good tempo of compressed, smaller panels and then, the reader’s field of vision will vastly open up on both the right and left sides as the frame stretches horizontally. The reader cannot help but feel a sudden openness or liberation. Additionally, if in that larger panel “the character in the panel is drawn small, [it further] accentuates that horizontal sense of release” (Natsume 2021: web).

As one turns the page, the initial panel opens up putting Monroe in the larger space of the factory setting (Figure 5). The final predicate from the extended monologue is the verb iimasu (“they say”). There is closure. The Marilyn Monroe cut-out, of which the face has been partially burned from an earlier accident, is now more visible. We are invited to linger over this larger liberated panel and see it more objectively. Monroe is the machine and the machine bears part of Marilyn Monroe’s vivacious sexuality (if somewhat maimed). All is dark and bright, but nothing is truly clear. This release allows the reader time to rest, to reflect, to think. In fact, that is exactly what Monroe is doing, pausing on the predicate that marks her (yes, her) story as belonging to another. To be sure, this is a moment of existential crisis, even if a bulky robot is having it.

Usually, manga artists will compress on a human character’s face, sometimes drawing up against the eyes or the ears, to approximate our journey to the mind of the character. For Monroe, Umezu does draw us closer to the sham face of Marilyn Monroe, but he also brings us closer to machine parts on the factory belt. Monroe’s “mind” consists of these machine parts, which are extensions of herself. Her “body” and narration fuse in these tightly compressed panels. She is aware. Her “body” shows it. Natsume’s logic of classic manga composition makes it clear how this extended sequence of consciousness and awakening can be understood in the context of these other dreary scenes of a factory floor devoid of any human actor. The title of this work is My Name Is Shingo, but the identity of Shingo has not been revealed. Instead, we know only that the machine has begun to think: My Name Is Monroe might have been a better title at this point.

The scene on these two pages—a mere two out of the seven-hundred pages at this point—demonstrates the motto of the series: “Miracles can happen to anyone once, but when it does happen, nobody notices.” The miracle is Monroe’s obtaining her consciousness through her manipulation of her body. In Figure 2, Umezu slowly spreads out her narrative over eight visually similar panels: “With me then putting together the motor, I first time I felt myself being conscious, so … they say [to iimasu]” (Umezu 2000: 67–68). All the panels in this sequence are drawn in a very Umezu-esque style. The scratched out circular marks form a frame within the panel (koma) frame, one that Umezu typically uses for a kind of spyglass refocusing on a character, a technique borrowed from his work in girls’ manga.^[4] This sketchy, wavy, and unstable spyglassing of Monroe could be one of two things: 1) someone is watching another person; or 2) it refers to someone (usually the depicted subject) thinking about themselves. When Monroe says to iimasu (“they say”) as the final predicate of her sentence in Figure 5, we know that she is speaking to the reader from a distant, later point in time. Yet her view of her self-origin is hearsay and therefore mediated by another. If being is always mediated by another, who mediates the manga? Are we the “nobody,” an equally disembodied non-self that notices the miracle of this nobody robot’s awakening?

Release from Visual and Verbal Frames

In Kyōfu eno shōtai (Invitation to Fear, 1996) a collection of essays where Umezu reflects on his works, he looks back on the creation of Shingo, commenting upon the narrative style he chose for this series. Umezu wanted some unknown, unseen force seeing the action and its seeing to be felt. “I settled on the narration style,” he writes, “because I wanted it to feel like the persons themselves were seeing themselves” (Umezu 1996: 61). This is precisely why Monroe is depicted in those spyglass circle frames within the square border frames. She is seeing her body become “herself.” The typical manga square frame panel is the mediation of the Other, whereas the visual frame functions as the verbal frame “they say.” Both the visual and verbal frames determine narratives, which will be beyond the control of the characters within the visual or verbal predicate. However, Monroe is capable of owning her body; she is capable of resistance against this universal, human, totalizing manga force, the frame (koma), as her body is not completely declared by the invisible human narrator.

This may be one of the reasons why Shingo is so compelling and so horrific. Umezu insinuates to the reader that they do not have full control. By taking ownership of her narrative, Monroe is intimating that she is becoming more and more like her reader, the nobody. The ultimate horror in this manga sinks into the reader once they identify themselves with Monroe, the unattractive and murderous robot protagonist. The interaction between the depicted and the onlooker becomes complicitous. Monroe’s consciousness can only be fully realized by the reader injecting themselves into the body of this thinking robot, no matter how ugly, scary, or seemingly inhuman she is.

Judith Butler in Gender Trouble writes of the hard binary between mind and body, but also of the twisted ontological prerogative of the Subject (usually male) mind to even escape the Otherness of the body (and the Feminine).

In the philosophical tradition that begins with Plato and continues through Descartes, Husserl, and Sartre…the mind not only subjugates the body, but occasionally entertains the fantasy of fleeing its embodiment altogether (1990:17).

In the scene presented above, Monroe understands that one can never obtain the subject position, especially if one is a woman or a minority, because ontology has been and always will be essentially a part of the regime of the phallocentric signifying economy. The sentence-final “they say” that marks Monroe’s speech could be interpreted as a way to draw attention to the hegemonic forces that seemingly shape our world—it cannot be sheer chance that the factory owner donned the robot with a cardboard cut-out of America’s cinematic sweetheart and sexpot. Butler writes, “Paradoxically, the reconceptualization of identity as an effect, that is, produced or generated, opens up possibilities of ‘agency’ that are insidiously foreclosed by positions that take identity categories as foundational and fixed” (Butler 1990:201). Therefore, she suggests a strategy of “repetition” as a part of “critical task” to challenge gender norms, categories of constructed identity, and the trap of ontology. Framing and reframing these repetitive sequences, Umezu has Monroe “locate strategies of subversive repetition enabled by those constructions,” and “affirm the local possibilities of intervention through participating in precisely those practices of repetition that constitute identity and, therefore, present the immanent possibility of contesting them” (Butler 1990:201).

Figure 6 shows the robot actively dispensing with the gender identity given to her. Monroe disposes of the bulky cardboard cutout in the tight sewer tunnel either as an act of survival or as a preliminary act of self-redefinition. Notice how the act itself is punctuated with meaning onomatopoeia baki (snap!) and basha! (splash!) all in compressed panels that then release into a newly liberated being.

As the reader transitions from the last panel of the right-side page (Figure 6) to the first panel of the left-side page (Figure 7), they will notice that the picture is repeated except for the addition of the thought bubble of the robot, “I am Shingo,” to the latter. This Shingo, we will learn, is entirely self-titled, generated from the synthesis of his first two human contacts: Marin 真鈴 and Satoru 悟. The two-character names Shingo 真悟 consists of shin, which is the Sinitic reading of the first character of Marin’s name, and go, the Sinitic reading of the character for Satoru. Importantly, Shingo is a common Japanese name for boys. One could argue this is a kind of a Butlerian Japanese robot doing his own kind of “gender trouble” to synthesize his new being. Shingo resists those hegemonic forces of the phallocentric signifying economy by reconstructing his gender from the pieces available to him in the sewers of underground Tokyo.

It is possible to consider that Umezu’s character enacts its own kind of “gender trouble” to disrupt norms or to at least question the naturalization of sex, bodies, and humanity. In Umezu’s manga, there is always the question of what it means to be a Japanese person, such as “Are there categories of Japaneseness that are naturalized?” and “Who is allowed to be Japanese and who is not?” Along these lines, we may ask, “Can Monroe, a factory automaton that was made in Japan but has an American face, be Japanese?” and “What is required of Monroe to become Japanese?” Because “there is no possibility of agency or reality outside of discursive practices that give those terms [of gender] the intelligibility that they have,” according to Butler, the task now becomes “to displace the very gender norms that enable the repetition itself” (1990: 203).

Empathetic Release or Repetition of the Status Quo?

Thus far, we have explored the phenomenon of the repeated panel in Shingo, which creates questions, fear, or discomfort about our assumptions of the body—anyone with a body can also have consciousness. For the final part of this paper, I will discuss how a connection with the body of the Other could generate either community-building acts of empathy or on the contrary something quite the opposite.

There is “the danger of empathy becoming a condescending reaction” and a “means to reinforce the dominant position and even superiority of the privileged,” as Eszter Szép summarizes in her Comics and the Body (2020:15). Szép argues that the very nature of the materiality of comics can generate empathy or a shared sense of vulnerability between the reader and the artist (she uses the term “drawer”). Vulnerability, she notes, “allows for an ethical encounter with the Other” and this encounter can “also happen via the way embodied practices around comics allow performing vulnerability” (2020: 9). Drawing on the concept of the vulnerability of “shared precariousness” from Butler’s Precarious Life (2004), Szép posits that comics “can be the site of ethical encounters” because they “can articulate the primary experience of vulnerability by the very lines by which it was drawn” (2020: 22).

Without discounting Szép’s argument for vulnerability, I shall also emphasize the importance of empathy, as it operates just as well in comics. If handled well, empathy can also help us think how we can honestly face each other in order to make better sense of our world. Leslie Jamison, in The Empathy Exams, similarly defines empathy as a kind of dialogue:

Empathy isn’t just listening; it’s asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires knowing you know nothing. Empathy means acknowledging a horizon of context that extends perpetually beyond what you see…Empathy means realizing no trauma has discrete edges. Trauma bleeds (2014: 5).

As Monroe-turned-Shingo schleps his robot-self through the underground sewers to find his old friend Satoru and his new friend Miki, a mysterious being confined in an infant-like body in a playpen, another question emerges. Can and should outcasts like Shingo and Miki ever be human? Apparently, their friendship in mutually shared pain and loneliness is what allows them to be legitimated as human, as seen in a couple of breathtaking sequences from the end of the third story arc known as “Consciousness.”

To discover their true place in the world, Shingo seeks an empathic connection with Miki, a fellow alienated, suffering being, who happens to live in Satoru’s old apartment, directly above Shingo’s sewer location. Importantly, Miki appears only as a disembodied voice. Thus, Shingo and Miki share much in common in how they are visually and verbally depicted in this manga. Seemingly destined to be forever isolated in this story, Shingo finally finds a true Other with whom he can gain real empathy.

In fact, there are many breathtaking and problematic scenes of empathy drawn in the pages of Shingo at this point. One of the queerest and the most exciting is Monroe’s transformation into Shingo. This happens through a series of phone calls and later in-person dialogues with Miki, whose parents moved into Satoru’s apartment after the boy and his family broke up following the Tokyo Tower incident. In yet another series of highly charged, repetitive panels, which depict Miki’s mother’s hand bringing the phone receiver to Miki, Umezu brilliantly visualizes the outcasts’ bond, showing empathy growing with intense focus and magnification on the page—a large release of a double-page spread (Figure 8). Their phone call, the site of their empathetic mutual acknowledgement, demonstrates how empathy, according to Jamison, can be an acknowledgement of a “horizon of context that extends perpetually beyond

what you see.” Unable to see each other, they can only rely on the phone call enabled by the mother. Precisely because they know nothing of each other, they can empathize and share their vulnerabilities. “I am Miki,” she first says. “I am Shingo,” responds he (Umezu 2000:294–295). However, this exchange is fraught with danger, because the terms of their engagement create categories of identity and gender, namely, “I,” “Miki” (a female name), “Shingo” (a male name).

In the next double-page spread (Figure 9), where their long-overdue encounter is depicted, they voice their latest category in chorus: “You too must be human!” Natsume explains the rationale for this double-page spread as their mutual self-discovery and empathy that constructs a very uncomfortable objectivity. In this scene, Shingo, using his self-aware mechanical grasper, penetrates past the protective crib veil into the vulnerable zone of Miki. As an adult-like being trapped in an infant-like body, Miki’s vulnerability is laid bare to the probing Shingo, the male-like actor. In a seemingly unified voice (the word balloons have no arrows to indicate the speakers), they together confirm each other’s humanity. Umezu depicts these epiphanic moments in two two-page spreads, highlighting a sense of something liberated, something objective, and something to linger over (to use Natsume’s terms). Nevertheless, because Miki’s body is subsumed within the frames and only Shingo’s pincer is visualized, priority is given to the male actor. Armed with his new freedom and newly acquired agency, Shingo now repeats an act of alienating the Other, Miki. In doing so, he rejoins the phallocentric signifying economy and announces, “Then, I too am Human!!” in the following page (Umezu 2000:324).

As the first narrative arc of the series comes to a close, one must ask if any ontological possibilities remain in Umezu’s story. Does Umezu pose a negative critique of that dominating force, particularly from a Japanese point of view of alterity? On the one hand, peeling off Marilyn Monroe’s cardboard cutout image, Monroe the robot enacts a kind of gender-trouble that destabilizes the self-versus-other binary. Monroe could be said to create “gender trouble” and redefine herself (Monroe) as himself (Shingo). On the other hand, instead of displacing norms, Monroe/Shingo might have reinstated and reinforced those norms. Does Umezu use his manga to further push the agenda of what Butler calls the “phallocentric signifying economy,” seen across cultures that only serve to hide hegemonic forces behind invisible barriers of “naturalization”? By becoming Shingo, the newly-gendered robot might reaffirm an order inherent in heterosexual norms. These norms require compulsory heterosexuality, procreation, and establishing families. These things are required even if the actors only have liminal, undeveloped, mechanical, or even incorporeal bodies. Perhaps the most horrific aspect of Shingo is that even an outsider like Shingo with his non-normative body might reinscribe and reframe the very laws that the children helped the robot to transgress. Such is the terrifying tragedy that Umezu generates in his manga. Japanese can only leap off the Tokyo Tower or dress up as Marilyn Monroe in order to realize one’s own agency in otherwise stultifying social economy.

However, My Name Is Shingo must instead be read as a bold challenge to ontological assumptions about the subject, about gender, and about race. We can never escape those assumptions, but we can deal with them better if we read the spaces between ourselves and others more carefully and skillfully. Perhaps even a murderous robot in Japan can suggest some means of emancipation from gender and cultural norms. There is great irony in Monroe/Shingo’s final enunciation as the page closes down from the previous releases into a smaller one-page compression, fraught with claustrophobic tension as the focus is on the ugly pincer of the robot that exclaims “I too am human!!” (Umezu 2000:324). Gaining his humanity, the once-enlightened Shingo has been reborn as a dangerous and even sad mockery of the human. There can be no redemption for Shingo, because any “human” redemption is fraught with self-contradictions.

The rest of the narrative will follow the separate adventures of Satoru, Marin, and Shingo as they traipse all over Japan and other parts of the world, but they never find true connections like they once did in the Japanese factory. Umezu’s My Name Is Shingo shows that freedom for the self is difficult to hold onto as we enter human (Japanese) society, but perhaps we should remember the original connections we had with others before we matured. Those pre-naturalized and pre-human feelings might afford us a way to hold onto our authentic selves. Umezu visually imagines the selfhood we possess before our bodies are integrated into a larger unified being called human society. It is only when we find others who are similarly displaced, marginalized, and alienated, might we then imagine an escape from of the horrific world that was, for Umezu, Japan in the 1980s.

Notes

[1] The story ran from the April 30, 1982 (inaugural) issue of BCS through September 1, 1986. Only a year into its serialization, Shōgakukan began to publish the collected stories in trade paperback in a ten-volume set from 1983 to 1986. It was reprinted again in a six-volume set in 1996; again, in 2000 in a seven-volume smaller bunko set (the version I will use for this paper). A thicker four-volume set was published in 2003. Its latest version is the 2009, 2010 BCS UP! six-volume series. Full bibliographic details can be found in Takahashi, Umezu Kazuo ron, p. 432. Shingo’s multiple reprintings attests to the great popularity of this series. A recent exhibit of his works from January to March 2022 in Tokyo further speaks to the recognition of Umezu. There, Shingo was greatly featured with a component (“Zoku-Shingo” [Shingo-Continued]) that celebrated the manga’s long life. The exhibit ran from January 28 to March 25, 2022, in Tokyo’s high-end Roppongi Hills at Tokyo City View tower.

[2] Her name in Japanese is Marin and is written in English at one point as “Malin” on a party banner, but the name quite possibly is a pun on the “Marilyn Monroe,” the robot character soon to dominate the story.

[3] McCloud’s “six types” of panel transitions are “moment,” “action,” “subject,” “scene,” “aspect,” and “non-sequitur” (74).

[4] For a full discussion of this special type of panel layout, one that is heavily influenced from his days as a shōjo manga artist, see Holt (2019).

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.

Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso, 2004.

Holt, Jon and Elsa Loftis. “Unexpected Wins: Curating Comics and Teaching Manga from the Dark Horse Comics Collection.” In Comic Books, Special Collections, and the Academic Library, edited by Brian Flota and Rachel Miller. New York: ACRL Publishing, 2023.

Holt, Jon. “Type Five and Beyond: Tools to Teach Manga in the College Classroom.” In Handbook of Research on Exploring Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom, edited by Jason DeHart. New York: IGI Global (2022), 46–63.

Holt, Jon. “What You See Is What You Get: Visualizing Hypocrisy in Umezu Kazuo’s Manga Cat-Eyed Boy.” ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies 10:2 (2019), https://imagetextjournal.com/what-you-see-is-what-you-get-visualizing-hypocrisy-in-umezu-kazuos-manga-cat-eyed-boy/.

Jamison, Leslie. The Empathy Exams: Essays. New York: Graywolf Press, 2014.

Kojéve, Alexandre. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel. Translated by James H. Nichols, Jr. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969.

Kure Tomofusa 呉智英. “Essei: ‘Ai wa kyōki’—Gendai Nihon manga no chōten” エッセイ：「愛は凶器」―現代日本マンガの頂点. In Umezu Kazuo 楳図かずお, Watashi wa Shingoわたしは慎吾, Volume 1, 326–330.

Kure Tomofusa. Gendai manga no zentaizō 現代漫画の全体像. Futabasha, 1997.

McCloud, Scott. Mangagaku: manga ni yoru manga no tame no manga riron マンガ学：漫画によるマンガのためのマンガ理論. Translated by Shiina Yukari 椎名ゆかり. Fukkan, 2020.

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Northampton: Tundra Publishing, 1993.

Natsume Fusanosuke. “The Functions of Panels (Koma) in Manga.” Translated by Jon Holt and Teppei Fukuda. Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies 21:2 (2021). Web. http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol21/iss2/holt_fukuda.html.

Natsume Fusanosuke 夏目房之介. Fūun manga retsuden: ima yomu manga 116-satsu 風雲マンガ列伝：いま読むマンガ１１６冊. Shōgakukan, 1999.

Natsume Fusanosuke. Manga wa naze omoshiroi no ka: sono hyōgen to bunpō マンガはなぜ面白いのか：その表現と文法. NHK Library, 1997.

Natsume Fusanosuke. “Taniguchi Jirō wa motto hyōka sareneba naranai 谷口ジローはもっと評価されねばならない.” In Taniguchi Jirō: Egaku yorokobi谷口ジロー：描く喜び. Heibonsha, 2018, 76–79.

Natsume Fusanosuke. “Time to Re-Evaluate Taniguchi Jirô’s Place in Manga.” Translated by      Jon Holt and Teppei Fukuda. The Comics Journal (August 12, 2021). Web.       https://www.tcj.com/time-to-re-evaluate-taniguchi-j

Szép, Eszter. Comics and the Body: Drawing, Reading, and Vulnerability. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2020.

Takahashi Akihiko 高橋明彦. Umezu Kazuo ron 楳図かずお論. Seikyusha, 2015.

Umezu Kazuo楳図かずお. Kyōfu e no shōtai 恐怖への招待. Kawaide Shobō Shinsha, 1996.

Umezu Kazuo. Watashi wa Shingo (My Name Is Shingo) わたしは慎吾. Shōgakukan Bunko, 2000. 7 volumes.

Wolk, Douglas. Reading Comics. New York: De Capo Press, 2007.

Sakamoto Kiyoe

Lecture from Dartmouth workshop, December 2021

(Click "Watch on YouTube" if you'd like the video to play in a separate window)

Well then, everyone, let's welcome Professor Sakamoto.

I am Sakamoto. Thank you for the introduction and thank you for having me. I’ll share my screen.

00:50 - Great. Today I am going to speak about ningyō jōruri bunraku 人形浄瑠璃文楽　(traditional Japanese puppet theatre), a form of Japan’s traditional performing arts that has continued from the early modern period to the present day. Today I will discuss “embodiment,” such as how the puppets in theater are manipulated and to what extent the bodies of puppets can or cannot recreate the human form. This talk will focus on the puppet’s legs. 01:25

01:29 There may be people here today who do not know much about ningyō jōruri, so I want to explain a bit about what it is and about controlling puppets, such as the change from using one puppeteer to using three puppeteers, and what kind of form puppets have and the differences between male and female puppets. Then I’d like to explain the “embodiment” of the area below the knees, two terms known as the hagi 脛 (calves) and sune 脛・臑 (shins).

02:06 As for ningyō jōruri theater, it was registered in 2009 as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage–the three performing arts: noh, ningyō jōruri, and kabuki are all registered–but almost all puppet theater around the world is performed for children. Japan’s ningyō jōruri is a performance art intended for adults and this is one of its distinct characteristics.

02:39 Furthermore, since it’s an art that emerged in Osaka it’s still mainly performed there today, though it’s also performed in national theaters in Tokyo. Still, it’s fundamentally an art rooted in Osaka.

03:00 This image is of ningyō jōruri. In the present day typically three people manipulate one puppet’s body. Here, to the side of the person behind the puppet—this person, whose face is showing next to the head of the puppet, is known as the omozukai 主遣い (head puppeteer). They control the head and the right hand. They wear tall geta and the stage comes to about here, but the puppet can still be seen.

The other two people cover their faces and serve as kuroko 黒子 (stage assistants). This person on the right side, who controls the left hand, is called the hidari-zukai 左遣い (left puppeteer) and the person whose legs are all you see here is the ashi-zukai 足遣い (leg puppeteer) who controls the legs. The entire body of the puppet is moved through these three people. 03:51

In this photo, only the omozukai is showing his face and this kind of puppeteering is called dezukai 出遣い (unhooded performance). But there is also the sannin dezukai 三人出遣い (three-person unhooded performance) way of performing, where all three of the puppeteers have their faces showing. There are also instances when the omozukai becomes a kuroko, covering his face on stage.  04:10

04:12 This is how a large puppet is managed with three people. As for what jōruri itself is, today jōruri is seen as a general term for advancing a story through a melody. The one who narrates the jōruri tale is the chanter, known as the tayū, who typically narrates the voices of all of the characters by himself. 04:45

04:46 There is also shamisen music incorporated but the shamisen is not simply accompaniment. Rather, it serves to set the tone of the scene together with the story being performed by the chanter.

05:04 Together these are called the sangyō 三業 (three professions), divided into the three roles of the puppeteers, the chanter, and the shamisen. This is how ningyō jōruri bunraku is performed. 05:16

05:18 I mentioned that this puppet is very large and through moving the puppet it’s possible to convey a variety of very particular emotions.

05:30 This facial area is known as the kashira 首 (head). There are some eighty types of puppet heads, but I won’t be talking about those today, focusing instead on the puppet’s legs.

05:45 Of the jōruri that are performed there is a type known as jidai-mono 時代物 (historical plays). This is the main type of ningyō jōruri bunraku drama. It typically features historical subjects or legendary figures such those from The Tale of Genji or The Tale of the Heike that everyone in the audience would know even if the characters were in a brand-new story. Usually, historical plays are five acts. This is the principal kind of performance.

06:25 In contrast, there’s also sewa-mono 世話物 (domestic plays) genre on current events for the audiences in the Edo period.

06:35 For example, the boy next door committed a murder, or came into money, or there’s been an affair. These are the subjects of domestic plays that were a newly added genre to jōruri and these two genres of historical and domestic plays are said to be the two pillars of early modern drama.

06:58 In addition to these two types, there are also programs focused on the dance and michiyuki 道行 (journey) performances, known as keigoto or keiji 景事 (spectacle plays) that emphasize musical and dance elements.

07:13 Broadly speaking, ningyō jōruri bunraku is divided into these three themes.

07:24 This is an image published in the Edo period of the stage of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s Sonezaki shinjū 曽根崎心中 (Love Suicides at Sonezaki). This was the very first of the early modern domestic plays that emerged. You probably know of Love Suicides at Sonezaki, but it’s the story of the double suicide of the lovers Ohatsu and Tokubei.

7:47 Over here Ohatsu is on pilgrimage to Kannon sites. We can see that a puppeteer named Tatsumatsu Hachirōbei is maneuvering Ohatsu with his hand under the hem and inside the puppet.

8:06 On the right side, the shamisen player and the chanter are seated in a line and here we can see that Chikugo no jō of Takemoto Gidayū’s house is the one who is the main narrator. Next to him there is someone named Takemoto Tanomo. They are narrating the michiyuki portion together.

08:28 As for whether there are single-person puppets anymore like the one seen here, today there are no longer protagonists controlled by one puppeteer, but among early puppets there were those called tsume ningyō ツメ人形 (side puppets) controlled with only one person’s hand beneath the robe.

8:45 On this puppet of Ohatsu there are no legs, but not because she’s a female puppet. Rather, it’s because she’s a tsume ningyō, which is handled by one person.

08:57 From the early days, puppeteers worked with single-person puppets, but puppets of men, called tachi-yaku, had legs early on and the style was that two people (an omozukai and someone handling the legs) would control the puppet.

09:17 Female puppets were done with no legs.

09:25 There are many theories as to why three puppeteers came to be used, but typically it’s said to be linked to the play Ashiya Dōman ōuchi kagami 芦屋道満大内鑑 (A Courtly Mirror of Ashiya Dōman).

09:41 This story incorporates the mysterious birth of the diviner Abe no Seimei. A fox turns into the Princess Kuzunoha and saves Abe no Yasuna, who takes her as a wife, and Abe no Seimei is born. But when the real Kuzunoha appears, the fox entrusts Seimei to Kuzunoha and Yasuna, returning to Shinoda forest. In the fourth act of this play, this woman in the palanquin is the real Princess Kuzunoha and the one sitting next to her is Abe no Seimei.

10:20 He’s called Abe no Dōji at the time. In this image, Kuzunoha and the young Seimei are being saved by the lowly attendants called yakko 奴.

10:33 This yakko’s name is Yokanbei and the other palanquin-bearer is a fox who shapeshifted into a yakko. Here, the one on the left, the burly servant, is actually the fox that copied the appearance of Yokanbei and he’s called himself Yakanbei, punning on the word yakan, meaning “fox.”

11:15 This figure in the background is the female fox, disguised as Kuzunoha. She has the other fox, Yakanbei, save Kuzunoha and the young Seimei when they were being attacked by a group of bad guys.

11:40 Since the two men face the audience and they need to form a mirror image, with Yakanbei bearing the palanquin with his left arm while Yokanbei does the same with his right arm, this is said to be the origin of the puppet being manipulated by three puppeteers. So the explanation is that there needs to be someone to handle Yakanbei’s left arm, that is, the third puppeteer.

12:01 In this scene the servants are also revealing very large legs. This is the first play where three-person puppets were used and they also bare these vigorous, manly legs.

Now, let us spend a few minutes watching how puppets are actually manipulated by three people.

12:44 Today puppets are categorized into tachi-yaku 立役, onna-gata 女方, and kokata 子役. Tachi-yaku is a general term for the roles of men, roles other than that of female onna-gata puppets or child kokata puppets. Onna-gata are, as the name suggests, the female puppets, and as you can see, the difference is that the onna-gata has no legs, whereas the tachi-yaku does have legs.

13:18 All male role puppets come with legs, unless they are the tsume ningyō.

13:25 First, in order to demonstrate that the male protagonist tachi-yaku is an important figure, he is handled in such a way as to make the movement of the legs clear by opening the legs widely and striking poses.

13:37 Whether they are a warrior or a townsperson, a performance gains a lively feeling from decisively handling the puppet’s legs.

13:44 On the other hand, the puppets of women do not have legs, so you can see that the scale–this combined area–bulges out and expands a little, and this area is called the fuki ふき (turned back hem). Through the skillful movement of the fuki one is able to convey a feminine refinement.

14:12 Also even though female puppets don’t have legs they often do poses like kneeling.

14:17 For this the ashi-zukai makes a fist inside the kimono and makes it look as if there are knees. Thus, the puppeteer conveys femininity by creating an impression of legs under the kimono.

14:35 I’d like to take a moment to look at the puppet here. I’m going to change screens to please wait a moment.

15:02 Okay. This is a female puppet. The puppet is moving gracefully and the hem area is manipulated like legs so you understand that they’re moving.

15:27 If you remove the kimono, they’re moving the doll like this. Using their fingertips the ashi-zukai conveys the image of walking using the legs–well, the hem.

15:38 Moving the “legs” is done by moving one’s fingers this way.

16:03 Okay. I’d like to show one more female puppet standing knee position. Please wait a moment.

16:22 It looks as if the leg is inside the kimono but under this is the puppeteer’s clenched fist.

16:36 With this he’s made a standing knee form.

16:42 Now I’d like to compare it to the tachi-yaku puppets.

17:08 He’s striking a pose. The ashi-zukai also makes the noises of the feet.

17:32 I think the puppet’s gestures are expressed very skillfully here.

17:38 Okay, well, I will go back to my slides.

17:54 Okay. Do female puppets never have legs? Here I’ll talk a bit about how occasionally some of them do. This is the Tenmaya Tea House scene from Love Suicides at Sonezaki. Tokubei is hidden under the floorboard and it’s the scene where he conveys to Ohatsu that they’ll kill themselves, performing love suicides (shinjū) together.

18:21 And over here actually Ohatsu has a leg. If you look at this part, you can see just a bit of Ohatsu’s ankle.

18:31 The ankle is attached only for this scene, where Tokubei brings her ankle to his throat and gestures to his lover that he is prepared to die.

18:50 Ohatsu’s puppet appears without legs for all the other scenes.

18:56 Furthermore, this is a spectacle play called Ninin kamuro 二人禿 (Two Girl Attendants to a Courtesan) and it has two cute girls who are employed by a courtesan. These young attendants, called kamuro 禿, will become courtesans in the future. These two kamuro come out and play hane-tsuki (Japanese badminton) and enjoy themselves. Their puppets do come with legs.

19:22 They also have tall clogs known as pokkuri 木履. These pokkuri have a very tall platform and they come out wearing them.

19:30 Having these legs makes them appear very lovely and in order to convey this they come out wearing pokkuri. So the kamuro puppets, too, have legs attached.

19:44 There is also a character known as Otsuru who appears in the work Keisei Awa no Naruto 傾城阿波鳴門 (The Infant Pilgrim) as a girl who is going on a pilgrimage. This image on the right is not from the Bunraku Theater’s website. But similar to the kamuro, the girl on a pilgrimage also comes with legs to indicate her youthful charm and vibrancy.

20:15 That said, not all female puppets on a pilgrimage appear with legs attached. This is from Act 8 of Kanadehon chūshingura 仮名手本忠臣蔵 (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers) at the “Bridal Journey” act. Kakogawa Honzō’s wife Tonami and daughter Konami are heading to a place near where Konami’s fiancé lives and they see Mt. Fuji as they’re traveling. But even though they are outdoors in this scene they still have no legs because they are of elite samurai class, while Otsuru is a commoner.

20:46 So although the girl on a pilgrimage had legs attached to her puppet while traveling, there are none on these elite women.

20:57 Additionally, the well-known character from the Tales of the Heike, the shirabyōshi dancer Shizuka, does not have legs, even though she is not a highborn figure (Note: this is probably because Shizuka is an archetype of mature feminine ideal, as Yoshitsune’s favorite concubine).

21:02 Non-elite women can have legs even if they are adults. There is the Chikamatsu Monzaemon play Heike Nyogo-no-shima 平家女護島 (The Heike and the Island of Women). In the “Kikai-ga-shima 鬼界ヶ島” (Island of the Devil’s Realm) act there is a female diver named Chidori and she has legs.

21:21 The Heike and the Island of Women is also based in the Tale of the Heike’s episodes on Shunkan’s exile, which was adapted into the noh play Shunkan 俊寛, among others. The noh play is based on the “Kikai-ga-shima” act of this puppet play.

21:34 Chidori, who is not a character that appears in the Heike, is a fisherwoman/diver who catches shellfish and such from the sea to make a living.

21:48 In this play, Chidori became the wife of the courtier Naritsune, who had been exiled to the island of Kikai-ga-shima along with Shunkan. When Naritsune talks about his wife Chidori and tells Shunkan how she dives into the ocean to catch shellfish, he does so in an explicit and erotic way.

22:10 Her legs also come up, saying that she “catches red clams and holds them between her thighs.” This emphasizes that she’s a diver—a woman with alterity—and as the name of the Kikai-ga-shima act is also known as “The Diver’s Dialect” and “The Diver’s Farewell” act, Chidori is the central figure.

22:36 Chidori is depicted as an exotic being who speaks “the diver’s dialect.” The jōruri audience watching this play would speak the Osaka dialect with the Kansai pitch-accent, given that it’s an Osaka stage. But Chidori’s is different; her utterances are narrated with the slightly exotic Kyushu pitch-accent.

23:04 There is a scene where the pardon ship has arrived and Naritsune is to return to Kyoto, the capital. Because she cannot join him, she stamps the ground and laments. This gesture to express extreme frustration is called ashi-zuri. It’s this scene on the right. I am not sure if we can say that Chidori has legs so she can do the ashi-zuri per se. It’s more significant that her legs entail Chidori’s exotic alterity.

23:30 Given that Chidori is a barefoot diver and performs ashi-zuri, she’s different from the aforementioned kamuro.

23:48 This is the dancing number from a spectacle play called Dango-uri 団子売り (The Dumpling Sellers). In this there’s the wife O-usu and the husband Kinezō and they are pounding mochi together.

24:07 O-usu has legs attached because she is a dumpling seller, a commoner, and also because she dances along with her husband. Evidently, it’s typical that the audience only see onna-gata’s ankles or below, as opposed to the male puppets, who reveal their legs up to the knees or higher.

24:37 In other words, for a female puppet, there is no showing the calves and there is absolutely no showing thighs.

24:48 Even when female puppets come with legs, including calves and thighs, they’re just sticks and not made to look like realistic parts of the legs. They are not effective in visually conveying women’s legs. Women’s calves are either expressed through words or suggested by shapes of the kimono (created by the ashi-zukai’s hands).

25:09 From here I’m going to talk about calves (hagi) and shins (sune). As I stated previously, these terms refer to the area below the knee. Though both words have existed since premodern times, today we no longer use hagi alone though it is used as part of the compound fukura-haki 脹脛 (lit. plump calves).

25:38 Generally, the calves are the fleshy, soft part of the back of the leg, while the shins are the front area with bone. Both are part of the lower leg but their roles are very different.

25:55 So the supple part is the calf and the hard part is the shin.

26:06 Looking at calves next, Tosa nikki 土佐日記 (Tosa Diary) provides an example from the classical period. Tosa Diary is a story of traveling by boat from Tosa in Shikoku to return to the capital of Kyoto.

26:21 Occasionally the passengers lodge at a port and rest, and when they arrive at a place called Murotsu there’s a scene where the women bathe with their clothes on.

26:36 They show their entire calves as they’re bathing and it depicts calves as a suggestive spectacle.

26:45 In the Kokin wakashū 古今和歌集 (Collection of Japanese Poems of Ancient and Modern Times), too, there is a poem where it’s written that the poet shows his calves to cross the heavenly stream.

26:53 The term tsuru-hagi 鶴脛 (crane legs) appears. This refers to showing legs by hiking one’s kimono up, which makes legs look graceful like the legs of a crane.

27:10 There’s also the kohagi form of the kimono, which is a little shorter than tsuru-hagi but also suggests making one’s calves look elegant.

27:25 It’s actually the story of Kume the Hermit from Konjaku monogatari-shū 今昔物語集 (A Collection of Tales from Times now Past) that created a kind of iconic image of calves. This episode is also mentioned in Tsurezuregusa 徒然草 (Essays in Idleness).

27:40 The hermit sees a woman doing laundry with her calves entirely exposed—that’s this scene here. It depicts Kume the Hermit seeing the whiteness of the woman’s calves, losing his ability to fly, and then crashing.

28:00 Since the medieval period, hagi therefore implied women’s white calves and, as with the depiction of the hermit’s loss of his powers, they came to be seen as alluring.

28:15 Well then, what about ningyō jōruri? Here I’m discussing Komochi yamanba 嫗山姥 (The Mountain Hag with Child), a puppet play by Chikamatsu.

A former courtesan known as Yaegiri describes a fellow courtesan as wearing a white kimono and also having her calves exposed. So her calves are described in words, with the woman turning and revealing her bare calves.

28:50 In actuality, her calves never appear on stage. In the play Honchō Nijūshi-kō 本朝廿四孝 (Japan's Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety), too, to describe the psyche of a traveling woman, the narrator uses the imagery of “calves of snow.”

29:00 In another play, Hidaka-gawa iriai zakura 日高川入相花王 (Sunset Cherry Blossoms on the Hidaka River), Anchin and Kiyohime—Anchin is a monk and Kiyohime is the daughter of a government official—after she realizes that Anchin does not lover her, she chases after him to the Hidaka River. The narrator remarks, “as she pursued him with a single-minded woman’s heart, she even gradually exposed her calves.” Because she cannot cross the river as a woman, she turns into a serpent to pursue Anchin in her infatuation.

29:23 Here the calves are narrated using this phrase of “gradually exposing her calves,” though this does not mean that we can see the calves of the distraught Kiyohime and in fact she appears in the play as a woman without legs.

29:45 Her hair is disheveled but we can’t see her legs and they’re only suggested in words.

29:52 As with the term tsuru-hagi, women’s calves (hagi) are associated with those of a crane, but in ningyō jōruri, this idea is not represented visually, with the lower part of the legs from below the knee being absent for female puppets.

30:11 In contrast, for sune (shins), they appear in phrases like doro-zune 泥臑 (muddy shins) or sune o itameru 臑を痛める (to walk laboriously [until one’s shins ache]).”

In the Tanshū tete-uchiguri 丹州爺打栗 (Great Chestnut of Tanba) play, Kinpira, the son of Sakata no Kintoki, drinks his father’s lifeblood and, as a result, Kinpira is reborn as a man with shins 100 times stronger than before.

30:40 Here the term “shins” appears used in relation to men. When it’s used for women it’s usually for elderly women.

31:05 Finally, looking at the play Natsu-matsuri Naniwa kagami 夏祭浪花鑑 (The Summer Festival in Naniwa), it says “I want to break the arms and shins of that shop manager!”, showing that the shins are the hard, bony area of the leg and become the direct object of verbs like “to smash” or “to break.” Again, sune normally refers to the shins of men.

31:27 Sune also often refers to the shins of men when they’re bared.

31:35 These are gauntlets and shin guards, armor attached to protect the body during a battle.

31:45 The sune-ate 脛当て, or shin guards, are armor for the area below the knee but only for the front side.

31:56 Among male characters otoko-date 男伊達 are particularly masculine. A typical otoko-date is Danshichi Kurōbee from Natsu-matsuri Naniwa kagami and he often shows off his shins, which are bared in order to demonstrate how very manly he is. He is depicted as that kind of character.

32:17 The otoko-date is cast as a heroic figure who saves the weak. Even though it represents a commoner, the otoko-date embodies a powerful man who would be an ally and his shins are shown to imply his masculinity.

32:34 In this scene, Danshichi is washing off the blood of the villain he has just slayed and his entire legs are being shown.

32:42 For men the legs are shown more often than not. But it’s men of the commoner class who tend to expose their entire sune. Albeit not warriors, such masculine men are very chivalrous people and routinely and firmly show off their legs to the audience.

33:03 Would there be any men of the warrior class who expose their sune? This is a comedic character named Sagisaka Ban’nai. A retainer of Kira Kōzuke-no-suke, Sagisaka appears in The Treasury of Loyal Retainers. He is a bit of a goof and plays a comic relief role.

33:34 The character comes out like this, exposing his shins. At the knee area he has these thin pieces of cloth attached known as sanri-ate 三里当て, an accessory that in and of itself suggests this is an absurd character.

33:58 So this indicates that, in the case of a man of the warrior class, the shins are shown on a comedic character.

34:08 Now, I would like to recap what I have explained in this lecture, which centers on the legs of jōruri puppets. In the history of the Japanese language, the term hagi, as seen in its traces in the word fukura-hagi, denotes only the supple area of the leg with muscle, and sune refers to the bony front side of the leg that, like an arm, can be subject to breaking.

34:36 In ningyō jōruri, hagi are associated with the white and supple part of a woman’s legs. They are not shown on stage but are always hidden under kimono, being only described with words.

35:01 In contrast, sune are the actual body parts revealed on stage, as men of the commoner class often expose them. Depending on the role, there are differences in whether male puppets show their sune or not.

35:12 If a heroic otoko-date character shows his shins to the audience, it is a sign of his mightiness, whereas if it’s a warrior that does that, he is likely a humorous character.

35:30 I also spoke of how female puppets typically do not have legs. The exceptions I introduced are the kamuro girls, the young commoner-class woman on a pilgrimage, and the diver-woman Chidori.

35:48 When legs are used, depending on the part of the leg as well as the status and gender of the character, the meanings of the legs can change.

36:08 With this I’ll end my talk. Thank you very much.

Springboard Japan Translates (Vol. 2): “CorpoRealities in Japan”

Sachi Schmidt-Hori

1. Introduction

Since the first issue of Springboard Japan Translates, “Kinship and Labor,” came out in the summer of 2021, many things have evolved and changed about this platform. Yet here it is—the second issue of Springboard Japan Translates! This time, I have chosen the theme of “CorpoRealities in Japan” and will present a variety of voices, perspectives, and images pertaining to the notion of corporeality, as it is broadly conceived and represented in literary and visual media or experienced by people in society. I hope that these collective voices, perspectives, and images will help us think of the not-so-straightforward relationship between our selfhood and our physical existence in the world—what is perceived as our corporeality.

We are meaning-making creatures, and it is only human nature for us to make assumptions and judgements when we first encounter our fellow humans. And we do so based primarily on visual cues. Granted, as educated adults living in wealthy countries, we have been taught that it’s wrong to judge a book by its cover and beauty is only skin-deep. We also know that lookism, racial profiling, body-shaming, the politics of “passing,” etc., are all serious issues in our societies. But it is also true that our effort to raise awareness on these issues makes us hyperfocus on the corporeality of others and our own.

Speaking of our own corporeality, it’s important to note that because we cannot see how we exist in the natural environment, our self-image is inevitably mediated by the implicit and explicit feedback we receive from others. A mirror, a camera, or even a camcorder cannot capture a “real” and comprehensive picture of how we appear to others. In essence, our face and our name exist for others for the purpose of identifying us. Our face is the fleshy counterpart of our name, and our name is the linguistic counterpart of our face. In tandem, these signifiers function as our ID, though we are not the sum of our face and our name.

Those of us living in highly industrialized, democratic societies are constantly juggling two conflicting ideas about the body. On the one hand, we think that our physical body is extremely sacred and must be dignified and protected at all times. Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that the English language treats “-body” as a shorthand for “human,” as in somebody, anybody, nobody (cf. “-thing”). On the other hand, we think that the body is vulgar and grotesque, as well. We refuse to be equated with our body, which is purportedly a mere vessel that contains something loftier like our personhood, mind, intellect, and virtue. We think our rational, cultured mind possesses and controls our body, not vice versa.

I have always been fascinated by the conventions of how premodern Japanese literature communicates the relative age, gender, socioeconomic class, and even personalities and dispositions of fictional characters to the audience through describing their physical traits. Not only did the people in premodern Japan tend to judge a book by its cover, but they also believed in the circular logic of “a lowly man looks lowly, so if a man looks lowly, he must be lowly.”

Along these lines, people in premodern Japan also believed that changing a person’s exterior caused an internal—and fundamental—change. For instance, in medieval times, aristocratic ladies who entered into the nunhood usually cropped their trailing hair at the shoulder length instead of shaving their heads like male priests. Yet some highborn nuns took the full tonsure right before their deaths. Back then, women were thought to have transformed into men by assuming a male hairstyle, as the Sun Goddess Amaterasu and Empress Jingū did so, according to the mytho-histories of Japan. By shaving their heads, nuns, too, acquired the status of a male priest, which supposedly increased their chances of attaining rebirth into the Pure Land. Another example is the concept of becoming an adult. Today, one’s legal status instantly switches from minor to adult when one reaches a certain, somewhat arbitrarily chosen age. Outside of the legal framework, we posit that a child gradually grows into an adult according to the biological clock. In premodern Japan, however, a child became an adult by undergoing a coming-of-age ritual, which usually accompanied modifications of his or her appearance (hairstyle, makeup, clothing) and personal name. If becoming an adult hinged on such corporeal transformations, not altering one’s corporeality meant never entering into adulthood. Thus, in medieval Japan, those who were born into the outcast class permanently remained nonadults, even when their bodies became wrinkly or they hair turned white.

In December 2021, I organized a workshop “Embodiment: Representations of Corporeality in Texts and Images of Japan” at Dartmouth College. Due to the pandemic, some participants joined via Zoom, including the guests of honor, Professor Kanechiku Nobuyuki (Waseda University), who gave a wonderful online poetry workshop, and Professor Sakamoto Kiyoe (Japan Women’s University), whose keynote lecture titled “The Calves and the Shins of the Bunraku Puppets” is shared on this platform.

Two additional contents in this issue were born out of the “Embodiment” workshop, as well. One is Prof. Jon Holt’s (Portland State University) paper on Umezu Kazuo’s horror manga Watashi wa Shingo: “I Am a Japanese Body, My Name Is Shingo: Umezu Kazuo’s Fleshy and Mechanical Bodies.” In this essay, Holt discusses how a bulky and innocently violent robot acquires something akin to human consciousness and how Umezu conveys this chilling process by zooming into the robot’s corporeality.

The other is a post-workshop conversation “The Three-Way Girl Talk: Sachi’s Conversation with Japan Studies Scholars Kimberly Hassel and Junnan Chen.” At the workshop, Dartmouth graduate Kimberly Hassel, now assistant professor at the University of Arizona, presented her paper titled “Digitizing Women’s Worlds: Gender, Participatory Culture, and ‘New’ Mediatic Assemblages in 5G Japan.” Kimberly’s kōhai and PhD candidate at Princeton University, Junnan Chen, gave a paper on the relationship between the hypermediated urban environment and the coding of femininity in late 1960s and 70s Japan through an analysis of Oshima Nagisa’s film, The Man Who Left His Will on Film (1970). Though we looked back on the workshop to a degree, we mostly shared with each other what we had been up to since the workshop. Our conversation shines a light on some of the things that many graduate students and early-career faculty, especially women and minority, experience but don’t necessarily openly discuss. Ultimately, this conversation provided us with an opportunity to reiterate our mutual admiration and support for each other’s career.

Two items are corporeality-related essays that were written independent of the Dartmouth workshop. Prof. Yoshikai Naoto (Doshisha Women’s University) contributed a short piece on kaimami, a literary device that normally takes the form of a man’s peeking at a noble lady and his subsequent courtship for her. This highly romantic, elegant trope of the Heian courtly tales can be easily misconstrued as illicit perversion by modern readers and, indeed, Prof. Yoshikai talks about the challenge of explaining the aesthetics of kaimami to his well-meaning international students. In any case, what’s most significant about this short essay—I should also note that Prof. Yoshikai has a monograph on this topic (Kaimamiru Genji monogatari: Murasaki Shikibu no shuhō o kaiseki suru [2008])—is that kaimami is not so much about the mundane action of looking per se. Rather, this literary trope evolved from the ancient belief in Japan that seeing was a quasi-magical, causative force, similar to uttering words (kotodama).

The second non-workshop-related piece is a Japanese translation of an essay by Prof. Vyjayanthi Selinger: “War without Blood? The Literary Uses of a Taboo Fluid in Heike Monogatari,” originally published in Monumenta Nipponica (2019). Prof. Selinger makes a compelling case as to why the Tale of the Heike goes to such great lengths to avoid mentioning blood, unlike many other military epics of Japan. I am very excited to be able to share this eye-opening essay with Japan scholars who do not have easy access to the original piece in English. I would also like to thank Prof. Bettina Gramlich-Oka, the editor-in-chief of Monumenta Nipponica, for giving us permission to translate “War without Blood?” and share it on Springboard Japan Translates.

The second issue of Springboard Japan Translates is missing one work, an essay that was going to be written by the late Mark Bookman. The photographer Peter Weld kindly provided captions for Mark’s photos he took as well as a short remark on the photoshoots. I have been working on a bilingual essay collection, Why Study Japan? (Bungaku tsūshin, 2023), to which Mark contributed an essay before his untimely passing. I will quote myself from the epilogue of the edited volume:

Regrettably, I must share extremely sad news with my readers. Mark Bookman, who authored “My Life as a Disabled American in Japan: Intersectional Barriers and Inclusive Imaginaries,” passed away on December 16, 2022. The last time I saw Mark was August 2022. That day, I arrived at Odaiba Marine Park station of the Yurikamome Line. One year had passed since the conclusion of the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics (which was delayed for one year due to the pandemic), the area looked eerily quiet. My photographer friend Peter Weld and I went to visit Mark’s apartment in the futuristic Odaiba neighborhood to discuss a collaborative project for the “Springboard Japan” website. I remember clearly that it was a particularly hot and humid day and that Mark, Peter, Mark’s caregiver (a Nepali gentleman whose name I cannot recall), and I constantly switched back-and-forth between English and Japanese. Even though the windows of Mark’s apartment were shut, and the air conditioner was on, the cicadas’ cry reverberated across the entire place and the four of us kept wiping the sweat off our faces. I never dreamed that this was going to be the last time I would see Mark in person. Four months later, he departed this world at age 31. Japan Studies lost a talented young scholar-educator-activist who was truly beloved and respected by so many people.

I would like to thank everyone who helped with the “CorpoRealities in Japan” issue of Springboard Japan Translates. In addition to the authors/speakers/photographer of the original pieces, I received assistance with translation, editing, among other things, from Prof. Vyjayanthi Selinger, Prof. Paula Curtis, Ms. Saki Hirozane, Mr. Jason Saber, Mr. Yuanhao Chen, and, last but not least, my wonderful husband Roy Schmidt.

『スプリングボード・ジャパン・トランスレイツ』第２号「日本の身体観」刊行によせて

シュミット堀佐知

はじめに

２０２１年の夏に『スプリングボード・ジャパン・トランスレイツ』の第１号「家族と労働」を世に送り出してから、瞬く間に２年の月日が流れ、このプロジェクトにもさまざまな変化が訪れました。当初は２人で始めたプロジェクトでしたが、現在は、私が単独のディレクターとして運営しています。本業の合間を縫っての作業なので、蝸牛の歩みではありますが、やっと第２号「日本の身体観」(CorpoRealities in Japan)をお届けできることになりました。今回は、文学・演劇・映画・漫画などにおける人物の「肉体」「姿」「装い」やロボットの「本体・パーツ」の表象、そして人々が社会で生きていく上で体感・体験する「からだ」に纏わる声・視点・イメージを紹介します。これらの声・視点・イメージを通して、私たちが「自己」と「外観」の複雑で多義的な関係性に気づき、考えるきっかけになればと思います。

人間は世の中のあらゆる事象に意味や価値を付与したがる生き物であり、私たちは他人に遭遇した際、その未知の誰かがどのような人間であるか、無意識のうちに憶測してしまいます。その憶測の根拠は主に視覚情報です。先進国で育ち、よい教育を受けた私たちは、人を見かけで判断しないという社会性を身に付けます。そして、容姿（顔・体型）に基づく差別、racial profiling (特定の人種グループを標的にした捜査や、特定の人種グループを事前に排除する雇用のシステム)、passing（トランスジェンダーの人や、複数の人種グループに属する人が、特定のグループのみに属すよう判断されること）の問題について学んだりします。しかしながら、そのような問題への意識を高めようとする努力は、私たちが自分や他人の身体性に過度な注意を払ってしまうという、逆説的な結果ももたらしています。

自己身体観を考える上で重要なポイントは、私たちは、自分の「真の姿（外見）」を知り得ない、ということです。従って、私たちの抱く自己身体観は、他者が私たちに直接的もしくは間接的に送って来る、さまざまなフィードバックを元に形成されているのです。私たちは鏡を見なければ、自分たちの顔を見ることはできませんし、たとえ鏡を使ったとしても、その顔は左右が逆になっているだけでなく、誰かにカメラを向けられた時のように、多少緊張感を伴った表情をしています。言わば、私たちの顔と名前は、単なる私たちの所有物ではなく、他者の利便ために存在しているものだと言えます。顔写真は名前の身体版で、名前は顔の言語版で、この２つが一緒になると、私たちの「身分を証明」してくれる便利なツールになります。でも、実際は、私たちは「顔プラス名前」だけの存在ではありません。

現代社会に住む私たちは、「からだ」というものについて、全く相反する２つの考えを抱いています。まず、私たちは人間の体を神聖なもので、常に尊厳を以って扱い、保護されるべき存在だと考えています。人間と身体を同一視する考えは、英語のsomebody, anybody, nobodyという語にも表れています（cf. something, anything, nothing）。その一方で、私たちが肉体を賤視し、グロテスクなものだ考えていることも事実です。肉体は、より高尚な精神・知性・倫理観などを納めるための「容器」とされ、自己を身体と同一視することは憚られます。「理知的」で「洗練された」精神が、「直感的」で「原始的」な肉体を所有・操縦しているようなイメージを抱く人は多いかもしれませんが、肉体が精神を所有・操縦していると考える人は非常に少ないでしょう。

日本古典文学の作品を読むと、登場人物の年齢・性別・社会階級・性格などは、たいていその容貌や衣服の描写によって読み手に伝えられています。昔の人々は、実際に、自らの衣服や髪形や装飾品などによって、自分たちの身分を明示していましたし、他者の気質・知性・能力などを外見で判断することが悪いなどとは、まったく思っていませんでした。「卑しい人は、卑しい外見をしている」だけでなく、「あの人は外見が卑しいから、内面も卑しいに違いない」という循環論法も文学作品から読み取れます。

「あの人は外見が～だから、内面もそうだ」をさらに一歩進めると、「外見を変えると内面（本質）も変わる」になり、実際、前近代の人々は、そのように考えていたようです。例えば、昔の貴族女性は出家をしても「尼削ぎ」と呼ばれるおかっぱ頭で済ませる場合が多く、頭を剃る人は少数派でした。しかし、そのような高貴な出自の尼さんでも、臨終の直前に剃髪をする人は、少なからず存在したようです。その背後にあるのは「変成男子」という概念で、成仏が難しいと考えられていた女性でも、男性に変身すれば、成仏できると考えられていたようです。女性が男性に変身する方法は、ずばり、髪を男性用の髪型に変えることで、記紀神話にも、アマテラスや神功皇后が、「みずら」という男性の髪型を結うことによって、一時的に男性性を獲得した様子が書かれています。臨終間際の尼さんたちが真似た髪型は、「坊主頭」つまり完全剃髪です。そして、女性の剃髪を「男に成す」と表現する記録も残っています。

もう一つ例をあげると、「大人になる」という概念があります。現代社会では、法律で（かなり恣意的に）定められた特定の年齢に達すると、誰もが一夜にして未成年者から成人に変身します。法律上の「未成年・成人」の区別は二者択一ですが、通常は、子どもから大人へのゆるやかな変化は、生物学的発達であると考えられています。法的身分と生物学的発達に共通しているのは、人間は生きている限り、本人や家族の意思とは無関係に、不可避的に成人する、という考えです。しかし、前近代の日本では、「大人」というのは、通過儀礼によって獲得する地位でした。儀式に参加し、その過程で髪型・化粧・衣服・名前などを大人のそれに変え、子どもは成人とみなされたのです。逆を言えば、「河原者」と呼ばれる、社会の周縁に属していた人々は、通過儀礼を経ることはなく、白髪の老人になっても「わらわ」「童子」と呼ばれる、子どもでも大人でもない身分の人々でした。

日本古典文学を研究していると、現代・西洋的な身体観が普遍的ではないことがよくわかります。そこで、「からだ」の問題をより学際的に、より広い歴史的なスパンで考える機会をもちたいと思い、２０２１年１２月、ダートマス大学にて“Embodiment: Representations of Corporeality in Texts and Images of Japan”というワークショップを開催しました。パンデミックのため、主賓である早稲田大学の兼築信行先生・日本女子大学の坂本清恵先生と、遠方からの発表者はズームでの参加でしたが、過去にダートマスで開催した対面でのワークショップに決して引けを取らない、実り多き会になったと思います。兼築先生は短歌創作ワークショップを担当して下さり、受講者に作歌の歓びを味わう貴重な機会を与えてくださいました。坂本先生は「文楽人形のハギとスネ」という非常に興味深い基調講演をしてくださいました。その映像は、講義内容の英訳と一緒に本サイトに掲載されていますので、是非、授業などでも活用ください。

坂本先生の基調講演以外にも、このワークショップから派生したコンテンツがあります。１つはジョン・ホルト氏（ポートランド州立大学）による論文「『わたしは真悟』：楳図かずおの描く日本(人)の肉体と機械仕掛けのボディ」です。ホルト氏は、モンローと呼ばれる、残虐性を秘めた工業用ロボットが、人間の自我にも似た意識に目覚めるプロセスを描写する際、楳図がどのようにその機械仕掛けの「ボディ」に迫り、表現するのかという点を、さまざまな理論を応用しつつ、解説してくれています。

もう１つは、ワークショップの半年後に行われたズーム女子会の会話に基づく「日本研究女子鼎談――シュミット堀佐知、キンバリー・ハッセル、ジュナン・チェンによる日本研究をめぐる『よもやま話』」です。ワークショップでは、ダートマスの卒業生であり、２０２２年秋からアリゾナ大学の助教授に就任したキンバリーさんは、現代日本における女性たちのSNS文化についての論考を発表してくれました。そして、キンバリーさんのプリンストン大学院の後輩であるジュナン・チェンさんは、大島渚の『東京戦争戦後秘話』の分析を通じて、映像を媒介した都市空間と６０年代後半～７０年代の日本における女性性表象の関係について論じてくれました。この鼎談の中で、私たちはワークショップを振り返りつつも、話の中心は、ワークショップ以来の近況です。アメリカのアカデミアという、精神的・肉体的タフさが要求される環境において、大学院生・助教授・准教授という立場の差はあれ、マイノリティ女性が経験しがちな、さまざまなチャレンジについて、オープンに話しています（非建設的な愚痴ではありませんよ）。この会話を通じて、もともと親しかった３人の絆は一層強いものになったように感じます。是非ご一読を。

ワークショップ関連ではない、「身体観」に関するエッセイも２本所収しています。１つ目は、同志社女子大学の吉海直人先生による「垣間見」に関するものです。現代日本語でも、「垣間見る」という動詞として馴染みのある概念ですが、吉海先生の考察によれば、垣間見を文学作品の重要な装置に昇華させたのは、かの紫式部なのだそうです。平安時代の貴族女性は几帳や御簾や扇子で常に顔を隠していたので、男性がそのような姫君の姿を物陰からちらりと見ただけでも、大事件だったのかもしれません（もっとも、平安時代の貴族が実際に「垣間見」を行っていたかは疑わしいので、あくまでも物語の装置として考えるのがよいでしょう）。しかしながら、現代人にとっては、垣間見は「プライバシーの侵害」「のぞき」など、否定的な評価を招きがちです。吉海先生によれば、特に海外からの留学生に、垣間見の美的感覚を分かってもらうのは難しいのだそうです。吉海先生は既に『「垣間見」る源氏物語―紫式部の手法を解析する』（2008）という研究書を出版なさっているので、興味のある方は、是非そちらもご覧いただきたいのですが、垣間見を正しく理解する上で一番重要なポイントは、前近代日本において、「見る」という行為は一種の呪術的な力を秘めており（これは発話行為が言霊を発動させるという考えに似ています）、垣間見もそのような伝統の流れを背景にしている事でしょう。

２つ目は、２０１９年に『モニュメンタ・ニッポニカ』誌に掲載された、ワイジャヤンティ・セリンジャー氏の研究論文の日本語訳「無血の合戦？：『平家物語』における血穢と血の表象」です。セリンジャー氏は、中世・近世日本で成立した多くの軍記物語の中でも、『平家物語』が例外的に血への言及を避けているという不可解な現象を取り上げ、深い考察をもとに、その謎を繙く説を展開しています。セリンジャー氏の評論のような、優れた人文学研究が出版されても、多くの日本の研究者にとって、英語の学術論文を入手したり読破したりするのは、簡単ではありません。今回、「無血の合戦？」を本サイトで提供できることになり、とても嬉しく思います。翻訳を許可して下さった、『モニュメンタ・ニッポニカ』のベティーナ・グラムリヒ＝オカ編集長にも御礼申し上げます。

『スプリングボード・ジャパン・トランスレイツ』第２号に寄稿が予定されていたにも関わらず、実現できなかったエッセイがあります。それは、去年の暮れに急逝した、マークブックマン氏のものです。そのエッセイとペアで掲載する予定だった、ブックマン氏の日常を記録する一連の写真は撮影を終えており、本サイトには、それらの写真を、カメラマンのピーター・ウェルド氏によるキャプションと、ウェルド氏が寄稿してくれた短い文章と一緒に掲載することにしました。私は文学通信から今秋出版予定のバイリンガル・エッセイ集『なんで日本研究するの？』の企画・編集を担当しており、マークさんはそちらのプロジェクトにも参加して下さっていました。以下は、私が執筆した『なんで日本研究するの？』のエピローグの一部です。

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最後に、残念なお知らせがある。「アメリカ人障害者として日本で暮らすこと」を寄せてくれたマーク・ブックマン氏は、本書の完成を待たず、２０２２年１２月１６日、帰らぬ人となった。マークと最後に会ったのは、２０２２年の８月である。その日私は、ゆりかもめの「お台場海浜公園」駅に降り立ち、東京オリンピック・パラリンピックから１年が経過してすっかり閑静になった駅周辺を見回しながら、彼のアパートを訪れ、「スプリングボード・ジャパン」ウェブサイト上での企画について打ち合わせをした。窓を閉め切っているにも関わらず、蝉の声がアパート一面に鳴り響き、屋内で座っているだけでも汗が滲んでくるような猛暑日だったことと、マーク、カメラマンのピーター・ウェルド氏、マークの介助者であるネパール人男性と私の４人の打ち合わせが、英語と日本語の混ざった会話で行われたことをよく覚えている。まさか、この日が、マークとの最後の対面になるとは、夢にも思っていなかった。この日から約４か月後、マークは３１歳の若さでこの世を去ってしまった。さまざまな人々の期待と尊敬と憧れを背負い、研究・教育・社会運動のすべてにおいて、若きリーダーとして活躍し、家族と友人たちに深く愛されていた彼の急逝は、悔やんでも悔やみきれない。

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『スプリングボード・ジャパン・トランスレイツ』第２号「日本の身体観」を完成させるにあたり、多くの人々の力を借りました。コンテンツを提供して下さった方々はもちろん、翻訳や編集、その他の作業を補助して下さった、以下のみなさまにも、厚く御礼申し上げます（順不同・敬称略）：

ワイジャヤンティ・セリンジャー
ポーラ・カーティス
弘實紗季
ジェイソン・セイバー
陳元鎬
ロイ・シュミット

Following is the English translation of: HABUCHI Ichiyo. "Shohyō: Chinen Ayumu-cho Yancha-na ko ra no esunogurafii: Yankii no seikatsu sekai o egakidasu." Kazoku shakaigaku kenkyū 31.2 (2018): 197-198.

*For citations, please use the original publication.

HABUCHI Ichiyo. “An Ethnography of ‘Yancha Kids’: Describing the World of Yankii (Seikyūsha, 2018) by CHINEN Ayumu.”

Translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda

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Up until now, I had believed that the category of yankii (delinquent youth), like that of otaku (subculture fanatics, usually male) and fujoshi (female anime/manga fans, usually interested in “Boys Love” genre), was a self-imposed one (Sacks 1979). This book has prompted me to reconsider the validity of this view.

The book is based on author Chinen Ayumu’s ten-year qualitative research project on a group of young people designated as yancha (mischievous kids) by their teachers at X high school in Osaka prefecture. In this book, Chinen surveys the pre-existing research on yankii studies and divides it into three types: (1) ethnographic research that presents “yankii-ness as youth culture” from the perspective of the in-group; (2) socio-educational research that represents “yankii-ness as student culture”; and (3) poverty studies research that presents “yankii-ness as socioeconomic culture.” Each of these types of studies, Chinen argues, shows how the “yankii group” is regarded as a representative of a certain culture (chapter 1).  

Along with previous research on the subject, the author acknowledges that there is a certain value in paying attention to the similarities within the yankii group and in clarifying its  tendencies. However, the focus of this book is on the group’s heterogeneity. Chinen describes and analyzes the everyday practices of yankii that are established within different dynamics that play out in multilayered ways across different spaces, such as that of the ‘media street,’ the school, as well as the social environment. In this description, the author places particular emphasis on the differences and socio-economic hierarchies that emerge between members of the yankii group. So then, who are the yancha kids (Chapter 3)? The yancha kids at X High School employ non-linguistic means to show that they are yancha. Mostly they show this through their attitude, or by having a record of deviant behavior. The author analyzes how yancha kids use the interpretive frame of inkyara (editor’s note: this is an abbreviation of inki na kyarakutaa, which literally means “quiet/socially awkward characters”), that is, exhibit their dominance over the inkyara kids to demonstrate their relationship to different kinds of masculinity. There is no indication in this case study whether the delinquent youth consciously identify themselves with the term yancha. However, the author explains that yancha kids express themselves to distinguish themselves from inkyara kids by taunting and bullying them as well as by applying interpretive frameworks to position themselves vis-a-vis the inkyara.  

According to Chinen, the school is like a magnetic field for yancha kids’ everyday practices (Chapter 2). Here, the author interestingly points out that yancha kids do not entirely subvert the values of school culture. They generally find it important to graduate from high school and display a positive attitude toward the teacher. But rather than lending itself to regular school attendance, in some cases, that positive attitude ends up having the opposite effect when kids become distanced from school. It seems that the main reason yancha kids stop going to school is due to family and economic problems. 

Among yancha kids, there are those who grow up in an economically disadvantaged household, and those that do not. Chinen takes as an example three kids who grew up in economically impoverished households and analyzes their families as well (Chapter 4). In regards to previous research on families and poverty, it has been pointed out that Japanese society relies too heavily on the family to provide care. However, the family cannot be taken as serving merely an instrumental function in this regard, but also an expressive function. Within this expressive function, there is a demand for identity upon which the author shines an analytical light. In so doing, Chinen points out that, for yancha kids living with the reality of being from poor families, their identity in relation to their families is relative and constantly in flux. Additionally, the author describes how, for those who are raised in poor families, their identities are lacking inconsistency, which tends to be recognized by those around them.  

As the author repeatedly points out, among the youth designated as yancha kids, there exist “societal rifts” created by their varying economic and familial situations. Such “societal rifts” between more fortunate and less fortunate youths are even more clearly observed and described in the context of the labor market (Chapter 5). Among the yancha kids who appear in this book, 8 out of 14 dropped out of high school. The major reason for this was the worsening conditions of their day-to-day environment that often resulted in deviant behavior, which then led to the youth being sent to juvenile reformatories and detention centers. From the perspective of the yancha kids, the main reason for their dropping out of school was the worsening conditions of their everyday environment. However, whether or not they dropped out of high school did not fully determine their job situation afterward. Rather, whether or not yancha kids were able to find a “job with prospects” depended more on how incorporated they were into their local network. This is where the “societal rifts” become discernible among the young people perceived as yancha kids. 

The book shows how, concretely speaking, whether or not yancha kids were able to secure a stable living situation (i.e. whether or not they had relatively stable family relationships) as they moved from school to the workforce was a very important resource in their ability to choose their job. Access to parental “inherited capital,” in other words, differences in the environments in which they grew up and differences in past experience, is argued to be an important factor in yancha kids’ livelihood after they graduated or dropped out of school. This is explained as part of the process through which the “injustices in relationality” distribute social relations and capital.

This is an excellent book that makes full use of qualitative research methods to describe the heterogeneity and plurality of yancha kids. It succeeded in showing the process of how yancha kids move from the school to the workplace, as well as the variety of lifestyles among them. However, although I agreed with the book’s depiction of the complex and often contradictory lifeworld of the yancha kids, as a reader I was left wanting to know something that was not addressed in the text: namely, how do yancha kids understand themselves, and how do they categorize themselves? And what do they think about teachers and those around them referring to them as yancha kids? While I agree that they establish their position at school by distancing themselves from the figure of inkyara, is it the case that they think of themselves as yancha types? If yancha is not a self-imposed category, but rather a category imposed on them by adults, then it might be possible to conduct an analysis of the so-called labeling theory as well (though it’s a rather old theory). 

Perhaps it is because teachers and others around them refer to these youth as yancha, that the category known as yancha exists at all. In order to affirm their own identity, the young people engage in delinquent behavior such as bullying the inkyara, thereby determining their role and position within the group. This process, suggested by Chinen, is not just an interpretive one but a conceptual one. If engaging in deviant behavior essentially confirms their position within the group, then perhaps the reference group is equivalent to the abstract notion of “yancha kids.” 

It is also very interesting to see how the identity of the yancha kids changes alongside their own growth as well as changes in their environments. I was intrigued by the important finding that yancha kids’ inconsistency in their self-identity is linked to being from a poor family. When the inconsistency of these youths’ identity is recognized by those around them, it is possible that this undermines their ability to build relationships that offer them support. As a reader, I agree with the author’s suggestion that non-family members should offer support to poor families in a way that allows yancha kids to maintain their identification with their own families. I highly recommend reading this well-researched work.

***

Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, PhD.
Writer, teacher and translator. Dr. Kuroda received her PhD in Japanese from UC Berkeley in 2018, after which she became a postdoctoral fellow at the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University (2018-2019). Born in Tokyo, raised in Texas, she currently lives in Boston.

黒田ホフマン理沙 (文学博士)
ライター・教育者・翻訳者。２０１８年、カリフォルニア大学バークレー校にて日本文学博士号を取得し、その後一年間、ハーバード大学ライシャワー日本研究所で、ポストドクトラルフェローを務める。 東京生まれのテキサス育ちで、現在はボストンに在住。

Following is the English translation of: SAWAGUCHI Keiichi. "Shohyō: Maeda Naoko-cho Chiiki sangyō no seisui to kazoku hendō no shakaigaku: Sangyō jikan, sedai, kazoku senryaku." Kazoku shakaigaku kenkyū 30.2 (2018): 264–265.

*For citations, please use the original publication.

SAWAGUCHI Keiichi. “The Rise and Fall of Regional Industries and the Sociology of Family Change (Kōyō Shobō, 2018) by MAEDA Naoko.”

Translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda

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In contemporary Japan, how do distinct family structures manifest themselves in different regions and how are they sustained over multiple generations? Maeda’s book takes up this topic directly and grapples with it through ambitious research. As the author herself notes at the beginning of the book, the topic of regional characteristics of the family is an important one for many Japanese sociologists and they have tackled this issue through interdisciplinary analyses. While acknowledging the importance of this question, however, I suspect that most sociologists would hesitate to become the authoritative voice by offering their own theoretical explanations and empirical research to address the issue. 

The first half of Maeda’s book provides those of us who are interested in the regional diversity of the familial forms with an important overview of the pre-existing studies. In it, the author challenges the fact that the field of sociology of the family in Japan has interpreted the effects of modernization and industrialization on the family as absolutely monodirectional and linear. The first three chapters, framed as the “Theory Section,” mobilize the theories and opinions employed in the fields of industrial sociology and regional sociology of Japan as well as household economy studies (a subfield of family history) in Europe and the US, in order to investigate the connections between regional industries and family strategies. Based on these fruits of the pre-existing research, the author argues that the industrial development of Japan has been polyphyletic and that, when it comes to the acquisition of labor force, different regions employed different strategies.

For instance, it is widely acknowledged that the rate of women’s employment by age varies by region. According to the author, that is an effect of the various regional characteristics of industrial structures, such as the speed of industrial progress and how dependent they are on household manufacturing systems. Moreover, based on variables such as the rate of women’s employment by age and the rate of cohabitation of three generations in different prefectures, the author categorizes the entire country into six clusters, and this geographical distribution of the clusters is vividly illustrated on a map of Japan. I was surprised at the intellectually stimulating output that was obtained from this simple analysis.

In this book, the region that Maeda pays attention to consists of central Japan’s inland prefectures, or the “central cluster,” including Gifu prefecture. This central cluster spreads out in the area characterized by a form of industrialization particular to the locale; despite the critical role that women have played in earning money, as well as the comparatively high rate of cohabitation of three generations (which would normally enable the young mothers to work outside the homes while their mothers or mothers-in-law care for their children), the employment rate of women in their early 30’s is lower than the national average. 

Gifu city, the subject of this book’s empirical research, underwent development in the 1960’s by producing women and children’s clothing. What sustained this industry was the labor provided by local women in the form of naishoku (home work) and married couples’ small businesses. The author’s strong interest is in understanding the relationship between housewifization in urban areas and the advance of home work by married women in Gifu city. In garment making, which requires a high degree of skill, experienced workers were sought after, and skilled workers were able to receive high wages. As a result, in Gifu city, families employed the strategy of maintaining the three generation households, wherein the mothers-in-law continued to engage in sewing work at home, while the wives/mothers of the young children would take on the housework. Thus, families in Gifu city standardized this unique division of labor between the generations. 

In depicting this family strategy involving regionally specific industrial structure and labor, Maeda outlines three research questions for the purposes of conducting empirical research on women of child rearing years in modern day Gifu city: 1) What is the relationship between the employment rate of women of child rearing years and multi-generational cohabitation? 2) How does the expansion or contraction of industry influence the life course of the two generations of women living together? 3) What is  the relationship between individual strategies and familial strategies regarding inter-generational division of labor? In order to address these questions, the author draws on sample surveys that used random sampling, interviews with mothers of young children who are living with their parents or in-laws, as well as data collected from newsletters at local job centers geared toward those who are seeking employment through naishoku.

There are a number of interesting findings in chapters 4 through 6 of the book, which fall under the heading of “Empirical Section.” In the 4th chapter, based on a sampling survey of women in Gifu city, the author analyzes whether or not couples live with parents, and if so, whether on the husband’s or the wife’s side, as well as the determining factors involved in employment. Whether the couple lives with the husband or the wife’s parents depends on the amount of resources the couple has, including the husband’s line of work and level of education. For instance, the author remarks on a particular form of division of labor unique to Gifu city: if a woman’s husband is employed in the manufacturing or security industries, the couple is more likely to live with his parents and the wife focuses on child rearing.

In Chapter 5, the author uses data drawn from domestic workers’ newsletters as well as interviews to show how, because naishoku was well-suited to the structure of the modern family, it proved indispensable to supplying local industries with labor power. For married women, the advantage of naishoku was that they could do it while also prioritizing housework and school events. The author shows how, within the busy life of the family involved in the sewing industry, labor between husband and wife as well as between the generations was divided in a flexible way. Chapter 6 describes the division of labor between the mother-in-law and the wife: while the mother-in-law works, the wife focuses on raising the children, and when the children become old enough, then the wife takes up employment once again. The findings show how these conditions establish a complementary work relationship between the two women. For the families involved in the sewing industry in Gifu city, this kind of work strategy was to their economic advantage: since both generations shared the belief that the mother should raise the children while they are young, they were able to establish this work relationship. 

One of the excellent aspects of this book is that it carefully demonstrates how familial strategies changed with the times. Using Hareven’s concept of industrial time and family time, the author explains how industrialization arose in this region, as well as how patterns of women’s work and family strategies changed over time. Following the rise and fall of the apparel industry (industrial time), women’s in-home labor through naishoku and self-employment came to an end within one generation.  

Women of child rearing age who participated in the interview complained about high expectations and low pay in their part-time workplaces. At the same time, they had a positive evaluation of the work done by women of their parents’ generation, whose income was higher and had more flexible working conditions that could adapt to the needs of the family. 

From interviews with the mothers of young children, it became obvious that they were looking to improve their careers and re-enter the workforce while being conscious of the timing (Family Time) of their mother-in-law’s retreat from employment. Whether or not the women are able to smoothly establish a complimentary work relationship when their mothers-in-law retire depends on the timing of their own marriage (individual time). Making this adjustment becomes more difficult as more and more women delay their first marriage.

The author regrets that the interviews are limited to women who are focused on childrearing and live with their husband’s parents, and that there has not yet been a study on the older generation engaged in domestic paid work (i.e., naishoku or home business). I look forward to the fruits of the author’s next research project. That being said, the empirical section of this book successfully utilizes both qualitative and quantitative data to clearly depict the family strategies. Reading this section of the book recalled for me the importance of the contextual paradigm that Andrew Abbott emphasized in his book, Department and Discipline: Chicago Sociology at One Hundred. In order to understand family strategies and their position in time and space, it is absolutely necessary to reconstruct the specific context by combining a variety of materials and data through consistent, careful work. One of the reasons that most researchers have hesitated to make headway on this topic is because a thick monograph, such as Maeda’s book under review, which requires much time and energy, is still the most suitable form for providing a detailed description and a fully convincing interpretation of the phenomena. I hope that this monograph will provide a new stimulation to other sociologists of the family and researchers working in related fields, inspiring them to conduct similarly excellent research on other regions as well.

***

 

Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, PhD.
Writer, teacher and translator. Dr. Kuroda received her PhD in Japanese from UC Berkeley in 2018, after which she became a postdoctoral fellow at the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University (2018-2019). Born in Tokyo, raised in Texas, she currently lives in Boston.

黒田ホフマン理沙 (文学博士)
ライター・教育者・翻訳者。２０１８年、カリフォルニア大学バークレー校にて日本文学博士号を取得し、その後一年間、ハーバード大学ライシャワー日本研究所で、ポストドクトラルフェローを務める。 東京生まれのテキサス育ちで、現在はボストンに在住。

Following is the English translation of: ONODE Setsuko. "Shohyō: TATSUMI Mariko-cho Ikumen janai 'chichioya no kosodate": Gendai Nihon ni okeru chichioya no otoko-rashisa to <kea to shite no kosodate>," Kazoku kankeigaku 30 (2019): 79-80.

*For citations, please use the original publication.

ONODE Setsuko. “‘Men’s Child-rearing’ Performed by Non-ikumen Men: Fatherhood Masculinity and ‘Child-rearing as a Form of Care’ in Contemporary Japan (Kōyō Shobō, 2018) by TATSUMI Mariko.”

Translated by Benjamin Burton

Translator’s note:

Ikumen is an abbreviation of “ikuji o suru menzu” (men who participate in child-rearing), which was coined as a pun on the popular slang term ikemen (an abbreviation of “iketeru menzu,” which means “good-looking men”) in which men puns on the English word “men” and men (面; “mask” and “face”).

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Since the year 2000, there has been a growing body of research in many fields that has investigated fathers’ involvement in child-rearing. This includes research on the sharing of household chores, men’s studies, research on work-life balance, and more. Much of this research has suggested that long working hours is the major factor that limits a father’s involvement in child-rearing. However, the impact of gender norms on fatherhood has not been addressed in depth. In her work, Tatsumi takes up this issue by focusing on how masculine gender norms impact fathers’ involvement in child-rearing. This book is based on Tatsumi’s doctoral dissertation and it is comprised of four chapters with a conclusion.   

The first chapter provides an overview of government policies and preexisting (published) research on fatherhood in postwar Japan. This chapter establishes the book’s research perspective and hypothesis. In the wake of the “1.57 shock,” the government proactively initiated policies to support fathers’ involvement in child-rearing. Beginning with the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare’s “Ikumen Project” in 2010, there were three stages of policy initiatives that lasted until 2017.

Tatsumi also problematizes the fact that “child-rearing” had yet to be defined. To define “child-rearing,” she applies care theory to ‘parent involvement in child-rearing’ from the perspective of a child’s needs. She then calls this “child-rearing as care” and defines it as the “reciprocal actions of the parent, who addresses the physical and emotional needs of the child, who is entirely dependent upon the parent, and the relationships constructed as a result.” 

Next, the author establishes two gendered perspectives on the father. One is “breadwinner masculinity” based on the norms of corporate society. The other is “intrinsic masculinity” based on men’s physical characteristics. Combining these with a “child-rearing as care” paradigm, Tatsumi presents eight paradigms of paternal involvement in child-rearing.

Chapters 2 through 4 use data to investigate the theories proposed in chapter 1.

In chapter 2, Tatsumi analyzes depictions of fatherhood and gender norms in magazines for parents with young children. These magazines depict ikumen success stories in which fathers, while still performing the breadwinner role, transform from “reluctant male caregivers” to “willing male caregivers” of their children. However, while the magazines depict fathers participating in the “child-rearing as care,” their roles tend to be differentiated from that of the mother. Fathers are described as doing “manly child-rearing,” which fulfills their responsibilities as both fathers and men. The chapter thus shows a paradox in which gendered divisions of labor become more acute the more fathers become involved in child-rearing. Chapter 3 uses data from testimonials about paternity leave and child-rearing published by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare as part of the Ikumen Project. Tatsumi analyzes the discourse of these testimonials using a “reciprocal model of public/private spheres and gendered divisions of labor.” The chapter focuses on the fathers’ places of belonging (ibasho). The father crosses public (occupational or regional) and private (the home) boundaries. At home, the father negotiates with the mother to establish his own role in child-rearing. In the occupational sphere, the father takes paternity leave to establish his own space as an ikumen. However, Tatsumi argues that to practice “child-rearing as care,” the father as an individual must change, as well as be recognized and understood by those in his surroundings.

In chapter 4, Tatsumi analyzes interviews with nine fathers engaged in child-rearing to investigate their relationship with public/private gender norms. Although the fathers practiced “child-rearing as care,” their working style quantitatively impacted how much they could do. The masculine breadwinner ideology that pervades the occupational sphere has a strong impact not only on fathers, but also mothers, who act as gatekeepers in the domestic sphere. The chapter illustrates how fathers must adjust their working styles and adopt consistent and proactive roles in child-rearing in order to fully realize, both qualitatively and quantitatively, “child-rearing as care.”

In the final chapter, Tatsumi takes in the preceding analysis into account to argue that the occupational sphere, in particular, with its persistent emphasis on breadwinner masculinity, negatively impacts the ability of fathers to perform “child-rearing as care.” This is the dilemma facing modern Japanese fathers engaging in “child-rearing as care” and its connection to gender norms. To combat this issue, Tatsumi argues that the occupational sphere must transform labor in a way that supports those who are in charge of providing care.

One strength of this book is its consistent focus on analyzing the gender norms behind the “breadwinner” concept. It establishes the father as a “boundary crosser” by using a “reciprocal model of public/private spheres and gendered divisions of labor.” One of the book’s major contributions is using empirical data to effectively communicate how the breadwinner masculinity model constrains the father, their workplace, and the mother, even when fathers are proactively involved in child-rearing.

However, there are three issues I would like to address. The first has to do with the notion that father involvement in child-rearing is an inherent good for both the individual and society. I take issue with this. While I share the author’s problematization of the gendered distribution of labor, I question the idea that it is simply good for fathers to be involved in child-rearing when there is an increasing diversity of human relationships being constructed in our day.

The second point concerns the notion of child-rearing. The author posits that the definition of child- rearing thus far has been that of direct care of the child, which Tatsumi rejects for not being scholarly enough. Hence, she defines child- rearing from the perspective of the child’s needs (unless it pertains to the realm of financial support or socialization of the child). It seems to me that Tatsumi’s definition is not generalizable, however. Whereas this book defines the concept of child-rearing based on the theory of “care as social justice,” this particular theory is conceptualized in connection with the nation and its systems. Thus, it makes me wonder if it is appropriate for Tatsumi to exclude societal aspects of parenting from this theoretical framework (again, with the exceptions of financial support for and socialization of the child). Furthermore, a child’s needs can vary greatly. Perhaps this is only my overthinking but discussing child-rearing solely from the perspective the child’s needs evokes images of a mother who is utterly at the mercy of her child, an issue taken up in fields that explore the stress of child-rearing.

Thirdly, Tatsumi argues that finding a place of belonging outside of the workplace can prompt a father’s participation in “child-rearing as care.” Thus, there must be changes in working styles that better support the father’s role as a caregiver. There must be an intervention against the ideology of breadwinner masculinity in the occupational sector to make this a reality. My question here is: who is the subject of this radical change of gender norms in the occupational sphere? How should one understand the father’s own conscious attempt at changing his gender role? I myself have conducted research on the role of fathers in child-rearing. I analyzed interviews using Amartya Sen’s potential capacity approach, which emphasizes the “functions (lifestyles/ways of being)” that are a result of an individual’s wealth and particular characteristics. One finding was that fathers have negotiating power as proactive agents. I look forward to seeing how future analyses can elucidate what kinds of proactive choices fathers can make to overcome the dilemmas brought up in this book.

A strong, critical message is embedded within the book’s title: ikumen do not overcome gender norms.  The author describes her own experiences of pent-up frustrations while raising her child, and how that brought her to conduct this research. These concrete experiences add a visceral quality to her investigation of ikumen. Thus, while it is a work of research, it is also imbued with the reality of child-rearing throughout. With this in mind, this book comes highly recommended to the wide variety of individuals who are interested in issues regarding child-rearing and development.

***

Benjamin Burton
Japanese language instructor at Seattle University and the Seattle Japanese Language School. Mr. Burton received a B.A. and M.A. in Japanese language and literature from Portland State University and an M.A. in Japanese Applied Linguistics from the University of Washington. His research interests include manga studies, language play, and second language acquisition.

ベンジャミン・バートン
シアトル大学・シアトル日本語学校日本語講師。ポートランド州立大学にて日本文学の学士号と修士号を取得。修士論文のテーマは小林多喜二の作品のマンガ翻案。その後、ワシントン大学にて日本語応用言語学の修士号を取得。修士論文のテーマは外国語習得におけるランゲージプレイの活用。

Following is the English translation of: YOSHIKAI Naoto. “Furuta Masayuki cho Heian monogatari ni okeru jijo no kenkū (Kasam Shoin, 2014)"Nihon bungaku 63.8 (2014): 104–105.

*For citations, please use the original publication.

YOSHIKAI Naoto. “Book Review: A Study on Female Attendants in Heian Vernacular Tales by FURUTA Masayuki.”

Translated by Sachi Schmidt-Hori

Translator’s note:

A menoto is often translated as “a wet nurse.” However, menoto is a lifetime appointment that lasts far beyond the task of breastfeeding the nursling. Further, in reality, a menoto may not have breastfed her young lord/mistress for a variety of reasons. The derivative term of menoto is menotogo (lit. a menoto’s child), which is commonly translated as a “foster sibling.” However, a “foster sibling” erases the hierarchical structure of a noble person and his or her menotogo. Due to these discrepancies, it is problematic to equate menoto and menotogo with “wet nurses” and “foster siblings,” respectively. For this reason, I will simply use romanized forms of the terms.

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It has been almost twenty years since I proposed conceptualizing “menoto studies” in my Heianchō no menoto-tachi: Genji monogatari e no kaitei (The menoto of the Heian period: Steps towards the Tale of Genji, Sekaishisōsha, 1995: 1997). After this, Nitta Takako published the masterwork Eiga monogatari no menoto no keifu (The menoto’s lineages in the Tale of Flowering Fortunes, Kazama Shobō, 2003) and my second menoto book came out: Genji monogatari no menoto-gaku (A menoto study of the Tale of Genji, Sekaishisōsha, 2008). I would not go so far as to say that these three books made research on menoto extremely popular, but it is discernible that an increased number of scholars have recently tackled this topic. Among them, I was particularly looking forward to the work of two young scholars: Ikeda Daisuke and Furuta Masayuki. Now that Furuta has published a monograph, I was very curious to find out how he would adopt, critique, and/or further what I have written thus far.

I excitedly received this book—but its title puzzled me. My proposal of establishing “menoto studies” was premised on the necessity of distinguishing menoto from the various live-in employees at the households of Heian elites. By practicing what I preached, I made an important discovery, too. That is, I recognized the pattern where Heian tales tend to depict menoto as more loyal to their lords/mistresses than general ladies-in-waiting (nyōbō) are. Focusing on subcategories of characters has been effective for Toyama Atsuko’s Genji monogatari no rō-nyōbō (Old ladies-in-waiting in the Tale of Genji, Shintensha, 2005) and Kanie Kiyoko’s studies on me-no-warawa, which separated girl attendants from their adult counterparts. Because I assumed Furuta was on board with the idea of separating menoto from other female attendants, it was a surprise for me to see this book analyzing a wide range of serving people under the blanket term of “female attendants” (jijo).

Now, let us take a look at the table of contents:

 

Introduction: Female attendants depicted in Heian tales

Part I: Aspects of female attendants and variations in their depictions

Chapter 1: Hikaru Genji’s relationships to his female attendants

Chapter 2: Borderlines between “adult” and “child” attendants

Chapter 3: The differences between the notion of meshiudo (concubine-attendants) and the protagonist of the Diary of Izumi Shikibu 

Part II: Female attendants’ “support” (ushiromi) of their lords/mistresses

Chapter 1: Positions and prospects of female attendants’ “support” of their lords/mistresses in Heian literature

Chapter 2: The menoto Shōnagon’s “support” of Murasaki during her childhood

Chapter 3: Transformations of female attendants in the Tale of Sagoromo

 Part III: Relations between menoto and their families

Chapter 1: Menoto who serve at the imperial court

Chapter 2: Lineages of the menoto families in the Tale of Genji

Chapter 3: Relationships between birthmothers and menoto

 Part IV: Menotogo’s roles and their contributions

Chapter 1: Definitions of menotogo during the Heian period

Chapter 2: Lady Yūgao’s menotogo in the Tale of Genji

Chapter 3: The two Ukon of the Uji chapters of the Genji

Chapter 4: Ben no Kimi’s position in the Uji chapters

At first glance, this table of contents gives us the bird’s-eye view of a concise study on female attendants depicted in Heian tales. Yet the latter half of this book turns out to be what should be called a study of menoto and menotogo. Although the first half focuses on female attendants in general, the various dimensions thereof (e.g., adult attendants, meshiudo, ushiromi, surrogate mothers) that Furuta discusses also pertain to menoto and menotogo. For instance, Lady Murasaki’s menoto, Shōnagon, is an adult attendant and she provides ushiromi to her mistress, as well. The reason why I aimed to theorize the menoto as an independent category is because I realized much of the pre-existing research on ladies-in-waiting was actually examining menoto and menotogo, unbeknownst to these studies’ authors themselves. Despite the intervention I proposed in my two books, Furuta seems to have reverted back to the old ways. From my personal standpoint, even the first half of this book can be sufficiently presented as a part of a menoto study. I think that Furuta’s decision to use the overarching lens of “female attendants'' made this book seem out of focus.

Furthermore, calling this book a “study on female attendants” results in unnecessary contradictions with the contents thereof. For example, it comes off as strange for Furuta to include an analysis of Koremitsu, a male menotogo of Hikaru Genji. The same goes with the many “surrogate mothers” who are not female attendants but Furuta nonetheless includes in this book.

I am fully aware of the importance of various subcategories of female attendants; not just menoto but also a female attendant who is kin of her lord/mistress. Through my own work on menoto, I came to discover that the blood-kin-attendant typically functions as the protagonist’s close confidante, someone who is as loyal as her menoto. That said, I suspect that Furuta thinks focusing on menoto may be too limiting, as he is particularly interested in a character—Akogi in the Tale of Ochikubo—who is certainly not a menoto. Because the Tale of Ochikubo is a so-called “stepchild narrative” whose protagonist does not have a menoto, which fuels the stepmother’s abusive behavior. Nonetheless, it is possible to incorporate Akogi into the broader discussion on menoto. For instance, the absence of the protagonist’s menoto can be an effective perspective to employ. (I must say that Akogi is atypical even as a female attendant, too).

As for Furuta’s analysis of meshiudo, it alludes to the well-known research by Abe Akio and others, but he has omitted the work by his contemporary, Ikeda Daisuke. Because these two young scholars share many research interests, I wish they would actively engage with each other’s work.

In this piece, I have reviewed Furuta’s book from the perspective of someone who advocated for menoto studies. I would ask the reader to forgive my rather critical comments; it is all because I sincerely hope that menoto studies will continue to develop and expand. In closing, I must mention that this book includes the author’s articles that were originally published in the top-tier journals such as Nihon bungaku and Chūko bungaku. I am also aware of Furuta’s other projects, including those on the Tale of Genji and waka poetry. He is clearly a rising star of the literary studies of premodern Japan texts and I look forward to his continuous contributions to our field.

本文は以下の書評エッセイの日本語訳である: Hastings, Sally. “Beyond the Confines of Motherhood and Home: Recent Studies of Japanese Feminisms.” The Journal of Asian Studies 78.4 (2019): 929–936.

＊引用の際は、原文のページ番号を参照のこと

サリー・ヘイスティングス「書評エッセイ 育児と家事という垣根を越えて: 日本におけるフェミニズムの最新研究」

ジュリア・C・ブロック・加野彩子・ジェームズ・ウェルカー編『日本のフェミニズムを再考する』(Rethinking Japanese Feminisms, University of Hawai’i Press, 2018).

加野彩子著『日本のフェミニスト論争: 性・愛・労働をめぐる闘争の一世紀』(Japanese Feminist Debates: A Century of Contention on Sex, Love, and Labor, University of Hawai’i Press, 2016).

アン・ザカリアス=ウォルシュ著『私たちの組合・私たちの自己: 日本のフェミニスト労働組合の勃興』(Our Unions, Our Selves: The Rise of Feminist Labor Unions in Japan, ILR Press, 2016).

翻訳者：堀川暢子

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１９８０年代以来、日本の女性に関する書籍は豊富に出版されてきた。しかし、それらの多くは、日本の女性全てを単一のカテゴリーとして扱うか、現実の女性の行動や思考よりも、女性の表象について考察するものが中心であった。また、国家政策の標的としての女性について書かれたものも多い。このような状況において、「フェミニズム」または「フェミニスト」という語を表題に持つ日本研究書が、２０１６年から２０１８年という短い期間に、三冊も相次いで出版されたことは、驚くべきことである。これらの研究書は、日本の女性たちが自身を定義し、自らのために行動するための努力が、真剣に受け止められていくであろうことを示すものである。この三冊の本は、どれも「日本のフェミニズム」に焦点を当てているが、その内容は大きく異なるため、三冊を併せて読むことによって、フェミニズムという概念が内包する多くの論点や、フェミニズム研究の多様性や、フェミニスト活動家による成果を発見し、読者に提供する上での難しさなどを見て取ることが出来るだろう。

これらは、一冊一冊異なる方法で、日本の女性たちの声に耳を傾け、それを紹介している。ジュリア・ブロック、加野彩子、ジェームズ・ウェルカーによる『日本のフェミニズムを再考する』 は、１５人の寄稿者による論文集であり、労働組合の結成や文学作品の執筆から、ジェンダー理論を扱う論文の日本語への翻訳活動まで、様々なフェミニズムのあり方を教えてくれるものである。また、加野の『日本のフェミニズム論争』 は、学術的・商業媒体的・政治的な立場の論客たちによる、フェミニズムをめぐる論争をとりあげたテクストを、さらに考察した研究書である。いうまでもなく、これらの声は、必ずしも女性が発したものとは限らない。著書『私たちの組合・私たちの自己』の中で、アン・ザカリアス=ウォルシュは、彼女のプロジェクトに参加した、男女の活動家たちの運動を解説した上で、活動家自身が、自分たちの体験について語った言葉を記録・紹介している。この三冊は、日本について英語で書かれた本であるため、おのずとトランスナショナル的な性質をもち、また、いずれも、トランスナショナルおよび越境的な事象を、積極的に扱っている。しかしながら、アプローチの仕方が非常に異なっているため、主題や、引用された学術文献は、意外にも重複が少なく、三冊全てに登場する、歴史上の人物や現今の活動家はいないようである。

共通して引用されている研究者も、少数であり、三冊全てに言及されているのは、メアリー・ブリントン、アンドリュー・ゴードン、サリー・ヘイスティングズ、金井淑子、ヴェラ・マッキー、バーバラ・モロニーだけである。そのように、文献・方法論・結論などの面では、それぞれ独自性を見せつつも、日本のフェミニズム運動が直面した困難な道のりに関しては、どの本も一致団結している。皮肉なことに、三冊に共通して現れる数少ない人物の一人は、石原慎太郎 (１９３２～) である。１９９９年から２０１２年まで、東京都知事を務めた石原氏は、制度化された女性差別のさらなる継続を目指す「保守派男性政治家たちの顔」としての立場を担った人物である。例えば、石原氏は２００１年、ある女性誌のインタビュー中、「生殖能力を失った後でも生きているババア」は「無駄」で「罪」だと発言した。ザカリアス=ウォルシュは、この言葉を、著書の冒頭の題辞として使っており、バーバラ・ハートリーも同じ発言に言及している。加野によれば、フェミニズム運動への敵対心から、石原氏は、政治力と扇動的なレトリックで、ジェンダーフリー政策を推進していた公的女性機関を閉鎖した上、諮問委員会のメンバーであるフェミニストたちを総入れ替えしたという。また、キャサリン・ヘンマンは、森喜朗前首相が２００３年に日本の低出産率について演説した際、「子供を産まなかった女性は公共福祉の恩恵を受けるに値しない」と発言したことを引用し、フェミニズムの敵は、保守的な男性政治家なのだという見解を、強固なものにしている。２０１２年以来、首相を務めている安倍晋三氏は (編集注: ２０２０年に病気を理由に辞任)、石原氏や森氏と同じ政党に属する政治家であるが、彼は女性が能力を発揮できる社会づくりを促進する政策を提案したものの、ここに取り上げた三冊の本では、非常に懐疑的にとらえられている。

『日本のフェミニズムを再考する』 は、様々な分野の研究者が集まって開催された、２０１３年のエモリ―大学での学会に端を発して作られた本である。所収された論文は、「政治運動と運動家たち」「教育と雇用」「文学と芸術」「境界線」という、それぞれフェミニストたちの関心事を反映した、四つのセクションに分類されている。近現代日本において、女性作家の存在は顕著であったにも関わらず、女性の文芸創作活動に関心を払っているのは、三冊のうち、本書だけである。

この本が題に「feminisms」という複数形を用いているのは、フェミニストを称する女性たちが一枚岩ではないという事実を認識してのことである。ヒラリー・マクソンは、母性主義と「平等の権利を求めるフェミニズム」(equal rights feminism) の間にある矛盾を指摘し、日本の女性たちが、１９５０年代に開催された「日本母親大会」において、どのように母性を政治力に変換したのかということを表現するために、「母性中心フェミニズム」(matricentric feminism) という用語に落ち着いた。ウェルカーは、１９７０年代のウーマンリブ運動が、レズビアンを除外していたことについて論じており、さらに、レズビアンのコミュニティ内において、同性に惹かれることを意識して育った者たちと、イデオロギー的な理由から、自分をレズビアンであると認識した女性との間に生じた緊張感についても解説している。また、「クリティカル・トランスナショナル・フェミニズム」(CTF) を提唱するセツ・シゲマツは、学術分野としてのフェミニズムや国家フェミニズムだけではなく、ジェンダー間の平等を優先するリベラル・フェミニズムからも距離を取っている。彼女は１９７０年代のウーマンリブ運動は、「急進的な日本のフェミニズム」(radical Japanese feminism) のモデルであり続けてきたと述べている。そして、「日本のフェミニズム」(Japanese feminism) という概念を受け入れる一方で、それが西洋の言語で研究されたり表象される際には、「人種化された認識論」(racialized epistemologies) の観点からも吟味されなければならないと論じる。さらに、CTFは、西洋の文化的帝国主義に対する異議申し立てとしての思想であり、有色人種女性の活動・第三世界のフェミニズム・ポストコロニアル・フェミニズムのもたらした成果の上にうち建てられた概念であると説明した上で、シゲマツは、CTFが、フェミニスト間の暴力・権力・攻撃や抑圧の可能性を認識し、また、非西洋に属する植民者としての日本の歴史が、どのように日本のフェミニズムを形成してきたのかを考察することの重要性を強調する。

『日本のフェミニズムを再考する』所収の論文には、クィア・スタディーズの文脈からフェミニズムの理想を考察し、「男性/女性」という単純な二項対立を乗り越えるものもある。サラ・フレデリックは、山川菊栄 (１８９０～１９８０) が、エドワード・カーペンター (１８４４～１９２９) の著作の翻訳を通して、ジェンダーというカテゴリーの複雑さを指摘していると述べる。ウェルカーの論考は、７０～８０年代のウーマンリブ運動を扱っている。活動家たちは、もともとレズビアン女性を運動に含めようとはしていなかったが、最終的には、リブが日本のレズビアン・フェミニズムの発展やレズビアン・コミュニティの形成に貢献したことを論じている。キース・ヴィンセントは、文学研究者の竹村和子 (１９５４～２０１１) が、フェミニズムやクィアの思想をアメリカから日本へ移入する際に果たした、重要な役割について詳細している。

また、我々読者は、本書の各章を通じて、特定の活動家たちに関する、豊富な知識を得ることもできる。例えば、ヒラリー・マクソンの第二章は、社会主義者の山川菊栄の思想や、「日本母親大会」を組織した人々の、フェミニスト運動家としての活動について考察している。ブロックの章は、戦前の日本における男女共学制度を扱っているが、同時に教育家の小泉郁子 (１８９２～１９６４) の思想や活動についての研究でもある。ソ・アキ (第十三章)は、在日韓国・朝鮮人女性による、女性解放運動の歴史を振り返り、近年注目を集めている従軍慰安婦問題が、在日女性の直面した抑圧、つまり性別・国籍という二重の差別構造に関する、新たな認識を生む契機となった点について論じている。

また、これまでフェミニスト・アートであると見なされて来なかった芸術作品を、フェミニスト的視座を用いて分析する研究もある。例えば、大正シック創出において重要な役割を果たした画家・イラストレーターの高畠華宵 (１８８８～１９６６) は、レスリー・ウィンストンによれば、伝統的なジェンダー規範に挑戦した人物であり、フェミニスト・アーティストとして認識されうるという。高畠は作品の中で、性別に基づく行動規範を否定し、「男性的」な特徴をもつ女性や、「女性的」な特徴を持つ男性を好んで描いた。このように、彼は、ジェンダーと身体の関係を、自然な因果の結果とするような考え方に抵抗した画家なのである。ヘンマンの章は、桐野夏生を扱っている。桐野は、フェミニスト作家として見なされることは少ないものの、筆者は、彼女が女性登場人物に自身の生き方を語らせることによって、フェミニズム活動に貢献していると論じている。ハートリーは、有吉佐和子 (１９３１～１９８４) と曽野綾子 (１９３１～) という、フェミニスト作家としてほぼ認識されない二人を分析し、家父長制の権威が女性を従属させてきた歴史の 、雄弁な目撃者として位置づけている。国家フェミニズムに対し、際立った抵抗を見せた曽野について、このような取り上げ方をした研究は珍しいと言える。

ナンシー・ストーカーとクリス・マクモランそれぞれによる章は、女性の仕事は家事・育児だとする世間一般の常識を退けるものである。ストーカーの論によれば、かつて花嫁修業の一環としてみなされていた華道は、戦後、女性が生計を立てるための技術を提供する伝統芸能になっただけでなく、師範となった女性たちは、華道界の家父長制文化を抑制することに貢献したという。一方、マクモランは、伝統的な宿泊施設である旅館を、女性解放の場の一つとして分析している。女性が、家族制度の束縛を受けることなく、(妻が無償で行うべきであるとされている) 家事労働を提供し、その対価として住居や食事を得られる場が旅館なのだ。華道の実践者や旅館の中居さんたちは、自らを「フェミニスト」であるとは意識していないかもしれないが、この二篇の論文は、日本のフェミニズムを再考するという作業が、日本の女性の生活を新しい視点から捉えなおすことから始まるという見解を示唆する好例である。

山口智美による第四章は、フェミニズム運動への「敵対者」についての調査であり、伝統的家族制度を揺るがす思想や、同性愛に反対する保守的宗教団体が、融資・組織・計画を行った政治運動について報告している。同時に、山口は、識者としてのフェミニストが、敵対者について無知であることを批判しており、男女共同参画社会基本法 (１９９９) の目的が不明瞭であるとする、反フェミニストの主張にも、共感を示している。地方の町村において、東京などの大都市を規範とする前提が、人々の反感を招いてきたように、フェミニスト研究者が地方の講演会に招かれるなど、エリートの女性ばかりが脚光を浴びてきたことも反感の原因であり、基本法不支持の大部分が、草の根的組織の成果であるという点も、山口によって指摘されている。

『日本のフェミニズムを再考する』の結論において、編者の一人である加野は、この研究書の柔軟性と限界について見解を述べている。それによれば、本書は、女性だけでなく男性の執筆者も寄稿している上、異性愛規範に基づく見解のみならず、クィア的見解も取り上げ、また、フェミニズムの支持者だけでなく、その反対者に関する考察も行っているいう点で包括的であるとする。また、本書の原点となった２０１３年の学会において、基調講演を行った一人である上野千鶴子は、講演中、日本のフェミニズム運動の出発点は１９７０年代であると述べたという。しかし、この本の執筆者たちの多くは、それより数十年前に活動していた、岸田俊子 (１８６１～１９０１)、福田英子 (１８６５～１９２９)、山川菊栄、平塚雷鳥 (１８８６～１９７１) などの運動家たちにも言及しているのだ。加野は、結論の中で、我々が日本のフェミニズムの未来に楽観的であるべきか悲観的であるべきか、という問いかけをした上で、基調講演者たちの中で、長期的な視野を持つ歴史学者の方が、現在を研究する社会学者よりも楽観的であったと指摘する。

次に加野の単著『日本のフェミニスト論争』 の書評に移る。本書では、１９世紀から現在までの日本における性・ジェンダーをめぐる論争を通して、日本のフェミニズムを探求している。この本の副題が表すように、加野は「女性の幸せを問う」という観点から、性・愛・労働の分析を試みており、大多数の章は、性 (貞節・売春・ポルノグラフィ)、生殖 (中絶・避妊・優生学)、労働 (母性保護・主婦業、雇用) の三つの主題をもとに編成されている。結婚と母性を独立した章として持たないこの本の構成は、特別な効果をもたらす結果になったと加野は言う。彼女は、昨今の国家フェミニズムと、それに対する反発についての議論をもって、この本を結んでいる。

加野は、性を扱う章で、１９１０年代の貞節と売春に関する論争、１９５６年に撤廃された合法売春の是非をめぐる論争、１９８０年代の性の商品化についての論争を取り上げている。生殖についての章は、経済的困窮・優生学・自然・女性として生きることの複雑さ、という四つのテーマを通して、人工妊娠中絶に焦点を当てている。加野は、「言説上の」(discursive)、「商品化された」(commodified)、「制御された」(controlled)、「適合した」(congruent) など、日常ではあまり用いられない言葉で、性や生殖を分析している。「愛」は本書の副題に現れるが、この語は、性についての章で三回、そして上野千鶴子が「ロマンチックな愛は徹底的にイデオロギー的なものである」と批判したときに一回、現れるのみである。安田皐月 (１８８７～１９３３) と平塚雷鳥は、「性は愛と結びついていなくてはならない」と主張したフェミニストの声として、唯一の例である。

愛というテーマが、より大きく取り上げられているのは、労働に関する章である。雇用機会均等法 (１９８５) の文言をめぐる議論に焦点を置いたこの章は、日本において、長年、「全ての女性は潜在的な母親である」という前提に基づいて、政策立案が行われてきたことを指摘する。２０世紀初頭の母性保護論争に始まり、１９５０年代の専業主婦の役割をめぐる論争を経て、昨今の雇用均等についての論争へと、加野はこのテーマの歴史的展開をたどっている。１９４７年に制定された新憲法は、両性の平等な権利を保障し、同年の労働基準法も、「同一労働・同一賃金」を規定した。にも関わらず、産業と福祉に関する戦後の政策は、「一家の稼ぎ手である男性」と「専業主婦」から成る家庭を支援するために設計されてきたのだ。１９７９年、日本は国連の「女子に対するあらゆる形態の差別の撤廃に関する条約」へ批准し、より多くの国民女性が、専門的職業に従事できるよう、法改正をしなければならなかった。その結果、１９８５年、国内外からの圧力に対処する形で制定されたのが、雇用機会均等法なのだ。その雇用機会均等法の文言をめぐる論争は、女性労働者の継続的な保護を支持する人々と、平等の実現のため、それらの保護を撤廃しようとする人々の間で起きた論争であった。

この法律は、女性の雇用を妨げる障害のいくつかを取り除いたものの、母親に対する社会的期待を変革するものではなかった。著者によれば、日本の母親が社会に期待されているのは、子供が学校で使う道具に名前を書いたり縫い付けたり、豪華な弁当を準備したり、保育所からの依頼で家庭での活動を記録したり、家族の世話という愛情表現をしたりすることなのだ。加野はさらに、日中に開かれる保護者会への出席など、母親への期待が、フルタイムの勤務形態とは全く相容れないという状況についても詳述している。この章は、国が、母親や主婦としての女性の役割を支援すべきか、そうであるならどのように支援すべきか、また生殖に関する労働はどのように補償されるべきかという、重要な問いを投げかけている。

本書の最終章は、１９９９年の男女共同参画社会基本法の文言とともに、この法が「弱い男よりも強い女を優先する」ものだとして巻き起こった反論を扱う。この法律とよく結び付けられる「ジェンダーフリー」という用語 は、フェミニストの教育家や運動家たちの間から、独自に生み出されてきた概念であるが、保守主義者たちは、特にこの用語に対する強い嫌悪感を表明したという。著者は「ジェンダフリー」という概念が、日本社会の厳格な性規範によって抑圧されている、様々な集団を団結させるキーワードになりうるとしており、同時に、この概念への反発を、異性愛者中心主義を再強化しようとする言説の高まりと関連付けている。

加野は、なんらかの概念を分析に用いる際、慎重にその定義を提示した上で、その通時的・国家的・国際的文脈を明らかにする。そして、英語と日本語の学術文献に通暁している著者は、他の研究者が提唱する議論の枠組みに自論を位置づけ、読者がフェミニズムを、グローバルな現象として理解するための手助けをしている。本書の参考文献リストは、(その言語を読めることが条件ではあるものの)、日本のフェミニズムについての文献を、更に読み進めるためのロードマップとなっている。本書の最大の貢献は、日本のフェミニズムを、西洋のそれの不完全版としてではなく、多種多様なフェミニズムの中の有効な一形態として扱っていることだ。著者は、社会の期待どおりに生きていられる限りは、日本の女性たちは概して幸せだとする一方、母親業と賃金労働を両立することの困難な状況についても指摘している。また、昨今、研究者の関心はジェンダーから社会的階級へと移って来ているが、加野は、この転換により、弱い立場にある男性の苦境が、貧困女性の存在を隠蔽する状況が生まれる可能性を危惧する。

最後の書評に移ろう。「フェミニスト労働組合」 は、ザカリアス=ウォルシュの『私たちの組合・私たちの自己』 の副題に現れる言葉であるが、これは少し誤解を招く言葉かもしれない。本書は、国際交流基金のCenter for Global Partnershipの助成金によって２００４年から２００６年までの期間に行われた 「国際草の根交流プロジェクト」(p. xiii) に関する、詳細かつ、称賛に値するほど自己批判的な報告である。このプロジェクトは、著者とその共同研究者たちが、女性のための労働組合である女性ユニオン東京と協働して実施したものだ。女性ユニオン東京は、１９８０年代以来、伝統的な企業組合の外で発展した、コミュニティ・ユニオンや個人会員で構成された組合の一例で、日本の他の女性組合と同様に、フェミニストの原理に基づく運営を目標としたフェミニストたちによって創設された。「フリーランス労働運動家」を自称する著者は、自分の興味の対象は「資本主義への抵抗」としての労働組合であり、組合員のフェミニズムではないとしている。そして、日本の女性たちが、社会の様々な場面で強いられている服従に対して立ち上がり、組合を組織したことを称賛する一方で、フェミニスト原理が著者の想定する「最も効果的な労働組織化」を妨げているとも述べている。

著者と共同研究者たちは、「来日した西洋人たちが、歩みの遅い日本人を教育する」という図式が長年に渡って存在しており、それが、植民主義的な主従関係を継続させている可能性についても認識している。このように、西洋が日本を見下ろすという図式の危うさを自認しているにも関わらず、ザカリアス=ウォルシュは、日本が「間違いなく、工業化した国の中で、最も頑強に男女平等に反抗する社会である」(p.163) と書き、日本を「進歩の遅い国」であると位置づけている。日本の「時代遅れのジェンダー関係」(p. 2) という書き方は、日本が従うべき足並みの速さというものが自明に存在すると著者が前提していることを示唆する。著者はさらに、日本の女性の労働状況が、彼女自身の母親や祖母の時代に似ていると述べ、日本はアメリカに比べ、二世代分遅れていると位置づけている。言うまでもなく、職場における男性の発言を、アニメ『原始家族フリントストーン』の主人公・フレッドのそれに喩えるのは、日本のジェンダー観は他国に何千年も立ち遅れていると拡大解釈するものだ。また、自分の知り合いである活動家たちを、「初代運動家」(p. 155) と呼んでいるが、これは、明治時代の女性労働者たちによる抵抗運動など、日本の労働運動家たちの歴史を否定する行為である。ザカリアス=ウォルシュは、日本について引用した学術文献については、しっかりとした理解を示しているが、彼女が、エリサ・フェイソン、グレンダ・ロバーツ、パトリシア・ツルミなどの研究成果を参照していないのは残念である。

しかしながら、ここに挙げた三冊のうちで、一般女性が直面する、職場での問題やフェミニスト活動家の日常生活についての知識を、最も詳しく我々に提供してくれるのも、本書なのである。この本には、フェミニスト活動家が電話応対したり、ホットラインを交代で受け持ったり、法的文書を取り寄せたり、ロビー活動をしたり、雇用主との交渉をしたり、法廷へと向かう組合員に付き添ったりする様子が、克明に記録されている。前述の『日本のフェミニズムを再考する』では、労働問題にあまり紙数が割かれていないことを考えると、そのような情報はいっそう重要になってくる。加野が『日本のフェミニスト論争』で言及しているように、１９８０年代以来、「パート労働」と「家事」という、二つの過小評価された仕事を担うことは、多くの日本の女性にとっての現実であり続けた。女性ユニオン東京が設立されたのは、まさに、働く女性たちが直面する、職場での問題に取り組むためであったのだ。

女性ユニオン東京で働く二人の運動家の伝記的な記録は、彼女たちの草の根的労働組織の努力が、かつてのウーマンリブ運動や、６０～７０年代の反政府・反戦運動のように、社会に根付いていることを明らかにしている。そのうちの一人は、学生時代、大学の卒業条件を満たすよりも、ストライキに参加することを選んだと言い、かつて工場労働者であった、もう一方の女性は、労働組合での活動を契機として、成田空港建設に反対する闘争に取り組むようになったそうだ。この二人の女性は、東京全国一般労働組合全国協議会を通じて知り合ったという。伝統的な組合が、女性の労働問題に無関心であることに耐えかね、また、左翼運動に参加する中で経験したセクハラに腹を据えかねて、二人は女性ユニオン東京の設立に参加したのである。

ここに挙げた三冊が、すべて大学出版局から出版されたという事実は、日本のフェミニズムが、学術的研究の対象となる、価値あるテーマとして、十分に確立されたことを示している。ヘンマンが指摘しているように、日本国内の商業ベースメディア (時にその一部が国外にも流出してしまうのだが) は、非常に野心のある女性を、それだけで極悪人であるかのように報じたり、「子どもを産まないという選択が、女性の身体に及ぼす悪影響」などといった、非科学的な説を報じたりしている。そのような状況を鑑みると、厳密なリサーチに基づいた研究書の出版は、とても重要だ。これらの論考は、日本の社会問題の原因を、何でもかんでも「悪質な母親」に帰する前時代の文献や、日本のキャリアウーマンを「孤独で可哀想な存在」と一方的に断定する、昨今の出版物などに対抗するものである。

そして、大学出版局から刊行されていることを考慮すると、三冊の内容が、フェミニストたちの活動以上に、理論や思想を重視しているという点も頷ける。加野自身も、演劇と文学の専門家だが、『日本のフェミニズムを再考する』 に寄稿した執筆者の過半数は、文学者か史学者である。もし、より多くの政治学者や社会学者が寄稿する本であったら、おそらくここまで概念には重点が置かれず、代わりに数字データが重視されていたであろう。しかし、日本のフェミニズムについて書かれた本は、常にその背後に、ある「数字」がひっそりと潜んでいる。それは、日本の女性を取り巻く環境を、相対的に数値化する国際的指標のことだ。加野とザカリアス=ウォルシュはどちらも、世界経済フォーラムのジェンダーギャップ指標を引用している。２０１４年の数字を見ると、日本は、女性の「経済活動」と「政治参画」両方の項目で順位が低かったことが分かる。加野は、これらの数字を考察する際には、日本が高順位を誇る、「長寿」「健康」「教育水準」「裕福さ」といった項目を含む、人間開発指数のような、他の指標と考えあわせる必要があると指摘する。そのような社会の特徴は、日本の育児環境や公共交通機関が優れている事と同様に、男性のみならず女性にとっても有益なのだ。

公選職の頂点が、石原氏や森氏のような保守派男性によって牛耳られている状況が、フェミニズムにとって有害であることは、これら三冊の研究書が合意する点だ。しかし、女性がより生きやすい社会を実現するために、女性議員の数を増やすことは重要であるが、いずれの著者もこの点を検討していないのは、驚きである。加野は、１９７５年の、国際婦人年連絡会設立における、市川房枝 (１８９３～１９８１) や他の国会議員の果たした重要性を認め、また１９９９年の基本法を草案した功績を、土井たか子 (１９２８～２０１４)・堂本暁子 (１９３２～)・猪口邦子 (１９５２～) など、女性政治家たちに帰している。しかし、国会議員を務めた、それ以外の多くの女性たち―神近市子 (１８８８～１９８１)・高良とみ (１８９６～１９９３)・奥むめを (１８９５～１９９７)・田中寿美子 (１９０９～１９９５) など―は、活動家や思想家や作家として、申し訳程度に触れられるのみで、彼女たちが官職に就いていた時のことは言及されていない。フェミニストの千葉県知事である堂本氏は、山口の論文で言及されるが、それは知事としての功績に関することではなく、県議会に提出した、ジェンダーフリー条例を可決できなかったことについてなのである。

これら三冊の研究書は、フェミニストたちが何十年にもわたって繰り返してきた論争、つまり、日本やそれ以外の国々で、女性たちが日々直面している困難を、どのように改善して行くべきなのか、という議論を描き出している。日本の多くの議員たちにとって、両性の平等を保障した１９４７年の新憲法、１９８５年の男女雇用機会均等法、１９９９年の男女共同参画社会基本法など、一連の法整備を進めるためには、公然と女性蔑視発言をする政治家の所属政党の協力や、時には蔑視発言者のリーダーシップを求めたりすることも、必要であったのだ。よりよい未来を実現していく上で、加野は、労働時間の短縮、雇用形態の柔軟化、保育施設の充実、そして、母親への期待度をもっと現実的なものにすることの必要性を挙げている。このような実践的な目標や、平等・包摂・帝国主義への反省といった理想を実現するには、社会の変化だけでなく、依然として男性が独占している政治制度内での妥協が必要とされるだろう。いうまでもなく、より多くのフェミニスト女性を、権威ある官職に選出できるのであれば、それに越したことはない。

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堀川暢子
ワシントン大学シアトル校アジア言語文学学科日本文学博士課程に在籍中。専攻は日本古典文学。現在、江戸時代の比丘尼御所で皇族出身の尼によって創作された漢詩の研究をしている。

Nobuko Horikawa
Doctoral student (Japanese Literature) at the Department of Asian Languages and Literature, the University of Washington, Seattle. Ms. Horikawa’s research centers on the Chinese poetry composed by princess-nuns who resided in imperial convents (bikuni gosho) during the Tokugawa period.

本文は以下の書評の日本語訳である: McLelland, Mark. “Intimate Japan: Ethnographies of Closeness and Conflict ed. by Allison Alexy and Emma E. Cook.” The Journal of Japanese Studies 46.1 (2020): 286–291.

＊引用の際は、原文のページ番号を参照のこと

マーク・マクレランド「書評 アリソン・アレクシー＆エマ・E・クック編『親密な日本：親近感と葛藤のエスノグラフィー』」

翻訳者：シュミット堀佐知

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『親密な日本』の編者が述べているように、「親密感 (intimacy)」は学術研究のテーマとして近年よく扱われるようになってきたのものであり、その事実は、この言葉をタイトルに含む書籍や論文が増えてきていることからも明らかである。日本における親密な人間関係を扱う研究書としては、本書は決して先駆者ではない。例えば、リーバ・ファイアーの『Intimate Encounters: Filipina Women and the Remarking of Rural Japan』(２００９)、ゲリー・リュープの『Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900』(２００３)、そしてゲネロ・カストロ＝バスケスによる『Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan』(２０１７) などがなどが既に出版されている。また、これまでの研究対象は、異性間の親密性が中心であったが、同性間の親密な関係を扱うものも、顕著になってきている。日本における女性同士の親密性を扱う文献には、少女文化の研究書も含まれている。２０世紀初頭の少女雑誌・小説の分析に始まり、今世紀のBLコミュニティやBLファン活動の考察にいたるまで、少女文化研究の成果はトモコ・アオヤマ＆バーバラ・ハートリー編『Girl Reading Girl in Japan』(２０１１) に詳しい。

日本語で発表される研究においても「intimacy」がキーワードになってきているようだ。例えば、小山静子・赤枝香奈子・今田絵里香による『セクシュアリティの戦後史: 変容する親密圏・公共圏』(２０１４) の英語の副題は「Intimate and Public」なのである。しかしながら、評者が取り上げる『親密な日本』は、占領下の日本 (１９４５～１９５２) における異性愛関係への考え方の変化から、２０００年初頭のメディア表象分析中心の研究まで、半世紀にもわたる、日本人の親近感とその変化を扱っている点において、優れている。また、２０世紀後半を通じての、同性間の親密さ (特に女性同士の友情と恋愛) の表象もよく分析されている。

『親密な日本』の編者は、その序章の中で、英語の先行研究の中で扱われてきた、さまざまな「親密性」という概念と「intimacy」を表す日本語のことばを考察する。しかし、現代に生きる人々のエスノグラフィーの多くがそうであるように、この序章は親密性という概念が、２０世紀という流れの中でどのように変化してきたかというような解説には乏しい。また、クィア・ゲイ・トランス・バイというアイデンティティを持つ人々に関わる親密性の考察も、十分とは言えないだろう。異性愛の枠組みを超えた関係性を扱った章は、既存の男女二項対立に当てはまらないと感じる日本人が使うようになってきた、Xジェンダーという性カテゴリーに関する、S. P. F. デールの「ジェンダーアイデンティティ・欲望・親密性」のみである。一冊の論文集に、すべての義務を負わせることはできないものの、最近、東京のいくつかの区や地方自治体が、公的な同性パートナシップ制度 (もちろん同性婚ほどの権利拡張でははないが) を導入しつつあることを鑑みると、この論集が、同性間の親密性への詳細な分析を欠いているのは残念である。本書を読むと、バブル崩壊後の経済的な不安の中で、日本の異性愛者たちが、夫婦の絆を再考すべく、常に頭を抱えているということが、よく伝わってくるが、日本のレズビアン女性やゲイ男性という、バブル崩壊に関係なく、常に不安定な生活を強いられてきた人々が、どんな苦労をしているかについては、寄稿者たちは多くを語ってくれないのだ。

川原ゆかりの「教室外の生徒たち」という章は、９０年代のティーンエイジャーの性愛に対する意識を扱うもので、東京とその近郊にある、四つの高校に通う子供たちが共有する言説を分析する。この論文の長所は、生徒たちの社会階級と性別が、いかに彼ら・彼女たちの「性愛のルールブック」の内容選択に影響を与えるかという点に注目しているところである。川原の調査は、進学校に通う生徒ほど、現在の人間関係をあまり重視しない傾向にあり、進学・就職への展望が、子どもたちの性行動に歯止めをかけているという事実を明らかにした。

川原が調査した、生徒たちの性愛に関する言説には、避妊・望まない妊娠・人工中絶に対する不安が、はっきり読み取れる。避妊というテーマは、シャナ・フルハン・サンドバーグの論考「現状維持と恋人への信頼/依存」でも扱われている。周知のように、日本では、避妊経口薬の使用は制限されており、避妊手段の主要なものは、コンドームと膣外射精である。日本人女性が、これらの避妊手段に対し、どう感じているのかを調査した結果、避妊経口薬について詳しい女性が、非常に少ないことが明らかになった。サンドバーグの調査に参加した女性のうち、唯一の避妊経口薬使用者は、ピルを入手することの大変さ (定期的な婦人科の検診を要する) を強調した。日本では、避妊は男性の責任と見られることが多いのだが、サンドバーグが話を聞いた女性の中の数人は、膣外射精を含む避妊行動を、恋人男性の「頼りがいと愛情深さ」の指標だと考えていることが分かった。つまり、これらの女性は、自分の恋人が、避妊をきちんと遂行することが「思いやり・意思疎通」の証であるととらえているのだ (p. 64)。

先行研究によると、日本では「夫婦」を実用的で、時にはビジネス取引のような人間関係と見る傾向にあり、配偶者は第一に「子供を産んで育てるためのパートナー」だと考えられることが多いという。ローラ・デールとビバリー・アン・ヤマモトによる「恋愛と性愛―恋人から夫婦関係へ」という論文を読むと、そのような考えが、現代でも変わってないことがわかる。「夫婦間の恋愛感情は、あまり期待されず、もし恋愛感情が継続すれば、それは幸運なおまけ」(p.  75) なのである。日本における結婚観の主流は、夫婦の役割分業を重視するもので、夫は一家の稼ぎ手であり、妻は「主婦業というよりは母親業」(p. 76) を担う存在とされる。デールとヤマモトは、この論考の中で、母親業ではなく、男性との恋愛や性愛を優先する「非典型的な女性」に焦点を当てている。その「非典型的な女性」たちの中には、「あえて結婚できない男性と恋愛関係を持つことによって、妻に課される、家族の世話やその他の様々な責任という、忌むべきものを、回避しつつ、異性との親密感を維持している」(p. 83) 人もいるという。

しかしながら、２１世紀日本における夫婦の愛情表現に関する、アリソン・アレクシーの考察が示すように、旧来の男女役割分業を規範にする夫婦関係は、パートナーシップに基づく婚姻関係の形に移行しつつあるようだ。この「どんな愛の言葉をささやく？」と題された章によれば、現代の日本人の若者は、親の世代ほど言葉による愛情表現に抵抗を感じていないそうである。アレクシーの調査では、２０００年以降に出版された結婚や恋愛のアドバイス本は、パートナーへの愛情を定期的に言葉で表現することをこぞって奨励しているという。これは「一世代前の夫婦関係とは真っ向に対立する観念」と言えよう (p. 93)。筆者が指摘するように、「男は外、女は内」という、強固な男女役割分業に基づく、戦後ベビーブーマー世代の結婚観は、夫婦間のコミュニケーションの欠如を生み、お互いに依存する関係でありながらも、夫婦別々の社交的・情緒的な活動を営むという状況をもたらした。その反省として、近年、夫婦や恋人である男女間の言語コミュニケーションが推奨されているわけであるが、これは日本人 (特に男性) にとって「言うは易く行うは難し」であるようだ。

桑島薫は「主人はいい人―私を殴らないときは」と題された章で、家庭内暴力 (DV) という深刻な問題を扱っている。筆者が示すように、離婚という不名誉なレッテルと、シングルマザーの経済的自立困難という構造的な問題のため、暴力的な夫と別れられない女性が多く存在しているのだ。この論考の最も重要な指摘は、DV被害者のためのシェルター職員が、女性の様々な感情や葛藤を整理する手助けをし、その結果、「『自分への愛情』だと思っていた夫の行動や言動が、実は管理・束縛に過ぎない」(p. 124) ことに気づくことがしばしばあるという事実である。

親密性という観念につきまとう、強固な男女役割分業は、エマ・E・クックのよる「権力、親密性、非正規雇用」の中でも分析されている。クックは、日本人男性が結婚に期待するイメージは、女性のそれよりも「伝統的」な傾向にあるという。しかし、長引く経済不況下において、非正規雇用労働者として働く男性にとって、男女役割分業は「厳しい現実」以外の何物でもない。「男性性の象徴」(p. 131) の中心的な部分を担う、「一家の稼ぎ手」としての役割を果たすことが不可能な状況は、一部の男性にとって、は大きな劣等感の原因にもなりうるからである。クックが述べているように、女性にとっても、経済不況は深刻な問題である。賃金労働によって、家計への貢献を期待される妻たちは、帰宅してからも、夫に労りという「感情労働」を提供しなければならないからである。

本書所収の論文は、女性の経験や感情に焦点を当てているものが多いが、エリザベス・マイルズの「男として生きることと、親密感という負担」は、親密性と男性性形成の関係を分析している。他の寄稿者と同様、マイルズも、一般的な日本人夫婦間の男女役割分業 (とくに「男は外」という考え方の重要性) と、男性が経済不況下で感じるプレッシャーについて言及しているが、この章ではさらに、一家の稼ぎ手としての重圧に上乗せされた、「コミュニケーション能力」(p. 157) という男性への期待についても考察している。つまり、父親の世代とは違い、現代日本の男性たちは、かつて女性の役割だとされていた「感情表現」という役割を分かち合わない限り、「理想的な」夫候補として、結婚市場を生き残ることが難しくなってきたのである。

また、大人の異性愛関係を扱った研究が多数を占めるのに対し、キャサリン・E・ゴールドファーブの章は、養親と養子の親密性について書かれている。ゴールドファーブの主要な議論は、以下のようなものである。近代以前の日本では、養子縁組が一般的かつ頻繁に行われていた。しかしながら、戦後、医学的な理由付けなどにより、親子間の血のつながりを特に重視する言説が市民権を得、それにつれて、養子縁組に対する偏見が助長されてきた。そして、日本人の中には、他人の産んだ子を愛することは不可能だと信じている人もいる。

日本文化という枠組みを超て、日本人と中国人、日本人とオーストラリア人の異性愛カップルの親密感を考察しているのは、この本の最後の二章である。チグサ・ヤマウラの「世間並みに仲良しな夫婦関係を目指す」と題された論文は、日本人男性と中国人女性を対象とした結婚斡旋サービスを扱っている。ヤマウラが掘り下げるのは、商業的な有料サービスにすぎない結婚斡旋所が、「愛」という近代の要請に応えなくてはいけないという、困難な現実である。また、ダイアナ・アディス・タハンの「日本人・オーストラリア人家族の絆、葛藤、経験」という論文は、日本人の妻とオーストラリア人の夫の間に生じがちな、文化上の誤解について考察している。顕著な誤解の一つは、日本文化における (特に添い寝によって培われる) 母子密着に関するものである。親子が川の字になって寝るのは、自立精神を重視するオーストラリア文化に反する慣習であり、夫婦間の親密感の障害にもなるとされる。

この論集の最後を飾るのは「フィールドワークを振り返る」と題された章である。その中で、寄稿者の全員が、エスノグラファーの直面する苦労―調査対象者たちに、私的生活の詳細を他人 (研究者) に語らせる事の難しさ―について語っている。『親密な日本』の重要な功績は、エスノグラフィーという研究方法によってもたらされたと言っても過言ではない。編者の二人がこの最終章で書いているように、「エスノグラフィーというメソッドを介したすべての研究は『親密性』を要請する」(p. 236) のである。研究者の一人一人が、調査対象者と深い信頼関係を結び、非常に個人的で、時には心の傷に関わる経験まで語ることのできる環境を整える努力をしたからこそ、この本は、読者の心をつかむことを可能にしたのである。調査に協力してくれた、様々な社会階級・年齢・文化背景をもつ男女の多様な考え方や行動は、「均質的で典型的」な日本人像などというものが存在しないことを、我々に再確認させてくれる。援助交際やセックスレス夫婦、草食系男子など、センセーショナルな日本人・日本社会のトレンドを常に追い求めている西洋の商業メディアの現状を鑑みると、この点は、繰り返し強調するに値する。『親密な日本』は、貴重な研究論集である。これは、日本に住む人々の複雑で重層的な現実を詳細に語ってくれる本であり、日本研究者やジェンダー・セクシュアリティ研究者の必読書となるべきものである。