The AAS Conference - Religion Goes Pop

I and others of the Samurai Archives community have been attending the Joint AAS-ICAS (The Association for Asian Studies and the International Convention of Asia Scholars) conference currently being held in Honolulu. I have been to many, many lectures over the past four days, and only really now have time to start sorting through my notes to report on what I've seen.  So while the conference is still on, and after, I'll try to update everyone.  LtDomer will also be posting here, so keep an eye out for posts from both of us over the next few days.  I'll start off, well, at the start.  After getting up at an ungodly hour and grabbing a bus to the convention center and meeting up with LtDomer, we went our seperate ways for the first seminar.  I opted for Session 32: Religion Goes Pop: Manga and Religion in Post-1995 Japan to start things off, and it was an interesting subject. Not my regular area of interest, but it was interesting nonetheless.

It started off with Rebecca Suter of the University of Sydney presenting Creative Misreadings of Christianity in contemporary shojo manga. This lecture studied manga that take place during the late 16th and early 17th century, which is a timeframe that I am definitely interested in.  The main subject was portrayals of Amakusa Shiro, both of Makai Tensho fame and as the leader of the Shimabara Rebellion, in shojo manga. Sort of a young, feminized girlie version of what most people know as the demonic resurrector  of Miyamoto Musashi and other historical figures to take on Yagyu Jubei. Amakusa Shiro was apparently considered magical, and among other things could make doves appear from his hands - obviously a useful skill for an undead demon.  The manga in particular that became the subject of this lecture was Amakusa 1637, about a girl who, during the Kobe earthquake of 1995, somehow slips back in time to the Shimabara rebellion, and gets mistaken for Amakusa Shiro (I must have missed what happened to the real Amakusa Shiro in the manga - was he squashed by the girl's farmhouse?) - and uses her skills with a katana, a cellphone and as a Christian to save the day and prevent the violence of the rebellion.  All in all a whacked out concept, but fitting for manga I guess.  Suter's thesis (and I'm going purely by memory and notes here) is that these manga show a few things - 1. that the Japanese sort of idealize a strange unrealistic hybridized pseudo-American version of reality, and 2. that the Japanese have no real concept of Christianity as a religion, but maybe more as a kewl foreign thingy (case in point, "exotic" Japanese weddings done in a church with gaijin priests).  All in all an interesting lecture.

The second lecture was done by Mark MacWilliams, who spoke on Healing Humor—Nakamura Hikaru’s Seinto oniisan (Saint Youngmen).  Another interesting subject, this one tackled the use of Jesus and the Buddha in a lighthearted, non-religious capacity in manga.  I had never heard of this manga, but apparently Jesus and the Buddha are roomates in a suburb of Tokyo, and just hang out doing regular stuff, and good-natured hijinx ensues (did I just hear someone say WTF?).  Now, these manga apparently don't actually have any religious over or undertones, but still portray the sort of morality that Jesus or the Buddha stands for, and people read this manga, and feel better about themselves and life.  I guess the point here is that spiritual healing can be done via these religious figures outside of any actual religious context - in other words, watching Jesus and the Buddha navigate day to day life like any other regular Joe (Taro?) can be an inspirational thing.

Moving along to the third lecture done by Erica Baffelli, University of Otago, New Zealand, it was titled New Religions in/and manga, and this one was fascinating.  It detailed the use of manga to help explain and introduce "new religions" (read: cults).  Among others, Aum Shinrikyo (I  believe they also went by "The Light of Truth) used these manga, and I was treated to images of the stringy bearded, greasy haired cult leader Asahara Shoko on the cover of these manga.  I was in Japan during the Sarin gas attacks, and remember well the news images of this chubby blind guy who looked homeless bouncing up and down trying to fly, and to see him on a manga is pretty humorous (The only humor to be found in an otherwise bad situation).  My first immediate thought was that I bet you could pull in a ton for these Asahara Shoko manga on eBay- my second thought was to find myself a copy, but sadly, no cult manga on eBay today.  That aside, there was also mention of an Aum Shinrikyo cartoon that was comedically remixed with the Evangelion theme song, which I was able to find on YouTube, but admittedly I enjoyed the Doraemon version way more.

And, lastly, a very interesting lecture by John A. Shultz of Kansai Gaidai University titled Squiggly Seichi: Pilgrimage Rendered in Manga and Manga Pilgrimage, (I apparently missed what a squiggly seichi is) which essentially compared religious pilgrimage in Japan (typified by the pilgrimage to the 88 temples of Shikoku originally undertaken by Kobo Daishi), to the pilgrimages that crazy otaku manga fans undertake to visit places that show up in their favorite manga.  Basically, otaku spend a lot of time pinpointing real-world locations they find in manga, then they dress up as the character depicted in said manga, and proceed to make a pilgrimage to all of the places that they were able to find in the manga that have real-world counterparts.  I guess they then take pics flashing the peace sign, and go home.  This is apparently similar to people who dress as Kobo Daishi and travel the 88 temples (not sure if they dress "as" Kobo Daishi, or just wear religious garb.  And presumably some do neither, but anyway).  All in all, for this first seminar, I essentially just needed something to fill space since nothing particularly jumped out at me, and it was worth it.

Maeda Keiji, Stephen Hayes, and The Last Samurai: Pop Culture’s Impact On Historical Studies

One of the best features of the Samurai Archives Citadel is that it’s designed to be inclusive. Virtually anyone with an interest in pre-20th century Japanese history can fit in comfortably there. There are a lot of sites that take up positions at either end of the spectrum-ranging from hardcore academic lists such as PMJS (Pre-Modern Japanese Studies) to historically bereft video game, martial arts, and movie boards. The Citadel can accommodate the members of both. This lets the members with a greater degree of historical knowledge have a place to enjoy themselves with off-the-wall topics, while allowing ‘entry level historians’ a venue to get a firm grounding in ‘real’ history. The dual nature of the Citadel is reflected by the Samurai Wiki (an online source which is recommended to students by many University professors and high school teachers) and the 10 Common Samurai Misconceptions, a section which all new members are encouraged to read. As might be imagined, occasionally the newer members put forth arguments and positions that they support with baggage from their initial interests-be it video games, manga, anime, chambara, martial arts, or half-baked philosophy books. Usually, these musings fall into one of several pop culture categories:

1. The Modern Sammyrai-would be modern day followers of Bushido and the tenets of the Hagakure, pledging to live their lives by the way of the sword in an honorable manner.
2. Ninjer-see above, but substitute ‘ninja’ for ‘samurai’. These people believe the outrageous claims and false histories given by such ‘masters’ as Ashida Kim and Stephen Hayes.
3. Christian Sammyrai-those who place an inordinately large focus on Christian Samurai, and greatly overestimate the impact they had on Sengoku Japan.
4. Gamers-whether tabletop or video, gamers sometimes display an obsessive need to have everything neatly categorized, and show blind faith in the historical accuracy of their favorite pastimes. This can be seen most readily in the person of Maeda Keiji, a very minor samurai whose major claim to fame was being related to Maeda Toshiie-but a character that is regarded by many gamers as being one of the most significant figures of the age due to being portrayed as such in the ‘Sengoku Musou’ video game series.
5. Manga, Anime, and Other Fiction-much like video gamers, they can get too caught up in fictional worlds and believe that these works truly present things the way they were. The Shinsengumi (a group which is fascinating on its own merits) is a favorite topic for wild enhancement and crazy speculation.
6. Jidai-geki programming-a particularly virulent strain of misinformation-situations, objects, and personages glimpsed in chambara films and period dramas are quoted as facts when discussing historical events. The television miniseries ‘James Clavell’s Shogun’ and the film ‘The Last Samurai’ are likely the most notorious examples of this.

Of course, this doesn’t mean just because a person reads manga, watches samurai movies, practices Japanese martial arts, or plays video games that they can’t also have a solid base in historical knowledge-many of the most well versed Citadel members have a major interest in these fields. However, when some nonsensical thread shows up authored by a person who will defend their position to the death, it usually sprouts from one of the pop culture influences listed above-usually leaving the regular members wondering if having an inclusive site is a such a great idea after all. This begs the question-does pop culture have a valid role in aiding the study of history? Specifically, does popular entertainment bring any value to the field of pre-20th century Japanese history?
There’s a strong precedent of pop culture coloring the world of Japanese history. Many would be surprised to learn that much of what we accept as Japanese history in the West is actually pop culture. Edo period playwrights, novelists, musicians, and artists all produced fanciful works that over time became accepted as the truth. Early Western historians drew heavily on these sources and presented them as fact. Perhaps the best example of this is the story of The 47 Ronin, where virtually everything one can read on the subject in the West is based on a puppet play, kabuki drama, or novel. Only in the last five years or so have Western scholars taken a serious look at the event, disregarding secondary sources and attempting to reconstruct the event with contemporary accounts. The state of modern scholarship in the West is excellent-with copying machines, faxes, and the internet all aiding in making primary sources and rare documents readily available to scholars all over the world. However, general histories and surveys still rely primarily on decades old work. The majority of popular samurai author Stephen Turnbull’s works have been based on secondary Edo period manuscripts that discuss Sengoku and earlier events (to his credit, Turnbull’s research has become increasingly involved as better sources have become more accessible). Even in Japan, works produced for the general public such as the Rekishi Gunzou series rely heavily on Edo and Meiji period works for their information-and that information can be as misleading and false as anything found in the mythical war tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Here, it becomes obvious that pop culture was ingrained into Japanese history long before Western historians took an interest in it.
Moving along to modern pop culture, there are rare examples of it that actually do interject a learning element into their presentations. In the yearly NHK Taiga dramas, there are short segments at the beginning and end of the presentations giving historical background to the goings-on. A popular subgenre of video gaming that is beginning to show up in Japan involves historical quiz programs that are presented in the form of a game (there are current efforts touching on the Sengoku and Edo eras and beyond, with an emphasis on the arts, politics, and personalities). Video game publisher Koei (Sengoku Musou, Nobunaga No Yabou, Kessen, etc) is known for including extensive historical dictionaries, factual biographies, period artwork, and other features that are designed to show gamers the historical truth behind the fantasy. The video game Yoshitsune Eiyuden Shura has a huge historical section that would easily be the equal of any introductory college text. Many movie releases on DVD have extras on the discs that delve into the events or time period that the film covers (although many times these are also sensationalized and somewhat inaccurate accounts, such as the extras on The Last Samurai DVD). Animeigo’s Samurai Cinema label included historical liner notes with VHS releases, which now are included on the DVD itself. Some manga and anime releases follow these examples as well. Tabletop gaming (or computer simulations) is perhaps the most serious source of historical information among popular entertainment. Some releases are more along the lines of simulations than actual games. They feature meticulously researched maps, unit counters, and rules that cover practically every facet of period warfare. I t could be argued that playing one of these efforts would teach more about the nature of samurai warfare on a tactical level (including the importance and difficulties of command and supply) than would a book covering the same subject. Note that we’re not talking efforts such as Samurai Swords (Milton Bradley) or Shogun: Total War (Electronic Arts), both of which feature healthy doses of fantasy to make for a more exciting gameplay experience. Rather, we’re talking more about products like GMT’s RAN game, the Takeda series of PC games, and any number of Japanese tabletop simulations such as those published in Game Journal and Command Magazine Japan. One interesting facet of this historical element embedded in pop culture is that many Japanese products that are translated into English ‘lose’ this element. Koei games released in the United States routinely do not include the historical dictionaries. Taiga dramas many times drop the ending historical bumpers. This may be because it is believed that the users of these products overseas are only interested in the entertainment value and will have no real interest in Japanese history, or as a cost cutting/revenue producing measure (not having to pay for someone to translate the dictionary, or using the time gained from cutting the bumpers for extra commercials).
So it seems that there is a minimal learning value imbedded in many sources of ‘samurai pop culture’. However, I believe their real value lies in instilling a desire to learn more about Japanese history and culture. For all the misconceptions, falsehoods, and brutal misuse of the Japanese language in James Clavell’s Shogun (either the novel or miniseries), it has probably been more influential in turning Westerners towards a serious study of Japanese history than any other work. The Last Samurai, an excellent action film which is rife with historical inaccuracies, has had a similar effect. Martial arts, anime, manga, video games-at some point, most every user of these will become curious and want to learn more about the truths that lie behind them. While many don’t like the answers they find and prefer to remain with their dearly held illusions (usually martial artists that can’t believe their dojo doesn’t really have a 1000 year old history, or that the ninja techniques they use have all been invented in the last 20 years), others go on to develop a solid grounding in many areas of Japanese history-be it political, military, cultural, or economic. Films, games, and other works of fiction are also excellent jumping off points, introducing new avenues to explore and questions to be answered. The planned ‘Samurai 101’ forum on the Samurai Archives hopes to help many of the curiosity seekers and newbie historians along as they make the transition from fantasy to serious study.
There is a place for pop culture in the world of academia. Used correctly, these fonts of entertainment can not only impart rudimentary facts and information but also help guide their users to more involved and appropriate sources. Rather than incurring scorn and ridicule, they should be seen as a tool in stimulating an interest in Japanese history. Judging from the fact that there are far, far more people involved in the study of Chinese history than Japanese, this can only serve to bring some much needed fresh blood into the field. While it can be frustrating for long-time forum members to see neophytes extol the virtues of Bushido, haggle over who would win in a fight (samurai vs. ninja/knight/professional wrestler/etc), or claim to be harboring centuries old ninja secrets, just remember: we all had to start somewhere, and it was probably at a point just as ridiculous. Now you’ll have to excuse me-I’m going for Izumo Okuni’s 5th weapon in Sengoku Musou, and that fringed parasol is proving to be tough to get…