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MONSTER MASHUP JAPANESE POPULAR CULTURE
FROM THE 18TH CENTURY TO THE 21ST
Glynne Walley UO Portland Workshop
August 19, 2016
Tōfu Boy (Tōfu kozō) • A yōkai (monster, spook, etc.) • Appears on dark, rainy nights and offers
you tofu (or steals your tofu) • Big head, sometimes only one eye • That’s all… • First appears in late 18th century – popular
in illustrated fiction, comic books, etc. • Urban legend? • Marketing gimmick? • Comic book character
The Boss of the monsters, the Overlooker, appears and summons all his spooky cronies.
The Boss’s grandson, Bigheaded Boy, threatens tofu-peddlers on drizzly nights so he can bring back a block.
From: Bakemono chakutōchō (Monsters, Reporting for Duty) • 1788 • Illustrated by Kitao
Shigemasa • A kibyōshi
(“yellowback) • Visual-verbal
sequential narratives: comics
• Mass printed and sold – very popular
• Some for children, some for adults
My points: • Japanese popular culture does not begin
with modernity • Modern Japan: post-1868 • “Early Modern Japan”: 1600-1868
• Early Modern Japan has popular culture
• “Traditional” culture not monolithic, unchanging
• Modern-contemporary Japanese popular
culture draws on early modern Japanese popular culture • re-uses genres, tropes, characters,
stories • deploys them as critiques of modernity
• Geisha, samurai, etc. • Monsters
• yōkai 妖怪 • bakemono 化物 Above: Tōfu Boy statue on Mizuki
Shigeru Road, Sakai-minato, Tottori
Early modern popular culture? • Urban commercial culture
• Centered in Edo (Tokyo), Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya, etc. • Cash-based, driven by urban commoner merchant class (bourgeoisie)
• Print culture and media • Woodblock printing meant mass production of books and prints • No newspapers, but broadsides • National distribution through booklenders (mobile pay libraries) • Not-quite-universal literacy
Early modern popular culture? • Performance culture and media
• Kabuki theaters in major cities – several companies, supported by ticket sales
• Traveling and local troupes in countryside
• Supported by print media – souvenir prints, review books, “novelizations,” etc.
• Early modern popular culture: • mass, not elite • mediated by print • commercial • urban, quasi-national
What kind of stories? • Romance, tragedy, comedy, history, parody, fantasy, crime • Horror
• Ghosts • Monsters • Gods/demons/wizards • Shape-shifting animals • Animate objects • i.e., yōkai
Early modern monsters in context – 1 • As horror
• Example: Yotsuya kaidan (The Yotsuya Horror) • Kabuki play, premiered 1825 • Samurai Iemon and wife Oiwa
• Iemon poisons Oiwa so he can marry up
• Disfigures her face, later she dies
• She comes back to haunt him • Lantern transforms into her
face • Horror
• Vengeful female ghost • Wicked samurai
• Stage play, but story repeated and spread through prints and books
• Left: Arashi Rikan II as Iemon, by Hokuei, 1832
Early modern monsters in context – 2 • As object of inquiry
• Philosophical – do they exist? • Historical/literary – where are they written
about? • Taxonomical/philological – how many are
there and what are they called? • Early modern encyclopedic impulse
Illustrated Night-Parade of a Hundred Monsters (Ezu hyakki yagyō) (4 vols.), 1776-84, by Toriyama Sekien • Above: ubume (ghost of woman who died in
childbirth) • Right: tanuki (real animal, shape-shifter,
trickster)
Early modern monsters in context – 3 – As figures of fun • Fairy-Tale Monsters board game (Mukashi banashi bakemono sugoroku),
Ichijusai Yoshikazu, 1858 • note shape-shifted tanuki, Oiwa lantern, Tōfu Boy
Early modern monsters in context – 3 – As figures of fun • Kuniyoshi’s tanuki prints (ca. 1842)
Tanuki • “raccoon dog,” like badgers • real animals • in legend, shape-shifting tricksters • reputed to have large, malleable scrota…
Early modern monsters in context – 4 – As vehicles of satire or parody • Kuniyoshi’s prints parody common
occupations • Bargeman • Fortune-teller
Early modern monsters in context – 4 – As vehicles of satire or parody
Bride of the Monster! (Bakemono no yomeiri) • or: The Monster Takes a Bride? • or: Bridezilla! • 1807 comic book by Jippensha Ikku, ill.
Katsukawa Shun’ei • Archetypal marriage story: arranged
marriage, betrothal, ceremony, childbirth • Common theme in children’s
storybooks – preparation for later life • The twist: they’re all monsters
• Left: • Bride and groom exchange last toast on
wedding night • Who’s the boy at right? Tofu Boy? • Sexual symbolism abounds…
Childbirth scene • In a graveyard (because monsters) – but is new mother dead? • Midwives bathing baby
• “Midwife” homophonous with monster ubume… • Physician prescribing medicine – but is it useless?
Baby’s first shrine visit scene • Priest is an animated scepter – kind of monster • He chants – “purge, purge your purses” – punning harau (expel evil
spirits) and harau (pay) • Satire on money-grubbing priests…
Modern uses of early modern monsters – 1 • The Yotsuya Horror – horror • Example:
• Dir. Nakagawa Nobuo, 1959 • (Eng. “The Ghost Story of Yotsuya,” etc.) • Fairly faithful version of play • (No lantern, though) • link to trailer
• The vengeful woman ghost is huge in J-horror • The Ring • The Grudge • etc.
Modern uses of early modern monsters – 1 • The Yotsuya Horror – horror
• Example: • Kuime (“Over Your Dead Body”) • Dir. Miike Takashi, 2015 • Starring Ichikawa Ebizo, kabuki actor • Interweaves two stories
• actors rehearsing stage version of Yotsuya kaidan
• same actors having an affair, he kills her, she haunts him – like play characters…
• link to trailer
• Traditional story è gender/archetypes?
Modern uses of early modern monsters – 2 • Mizuki Shigeru (1922-2015) • Manga author/artist • Best known for use of yōkai, i.e.,
“traditional” monsters
Mizuki Shigeru • Best known for a children’s-manga character:
• Ge-Ge-Ge no Kitarō ゲゲゲの鬼太郎 • “ge” is a grossing-out sound (“Eww,
Kitarō”?) • Gege (from “Shigeru”) was author’s
childhood nickname • Kitarō is a boy who lives in a graveyard
and associates with monsters • His father is a disembodied eye,
bathes in a soup bowl, sometimes hides in Kitarō’s empty left eye socket
• His friends include traditional monsters and modern
• If kids send a letter by Monster Mail asking for help, Kitarō helps
• Hugely popular – everybody knows Kitarō • 5 different anime series (1968, 1971,
1985, 1996, 2007) • Example: title sequence of 1996
version
• Kitarō reminds us of the old, grimy, broken, smelly underside of high-tech modern Japan
• Kitarō represents an escape from modernity?
• Early modern monsters as the return of the repressed?
Modern uses of early modern monsters – 2 • Later started researching and
cataloging traditional monsters • Compendium of Japanese
Monsters (Nihon yōkai taizen), 1994, rev. and expanded 2014
• 895 entries! • Monsters as object of knowledge?
Folklore? history?
Modern uses of early modern monsters – 3 • Studio Ghibli – anime
• Miyazaki Hayao (b. 1941) • Takahata Isao (b. 1935)
• Pom Poko (Heisei tanuki gassen ponpoko), 1994 • Dir. Takahata
• Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), 2001 • Dir. Miyazaki
• Two alternative interpretations of Mizuki’s use of yōkai
Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), 2001 • Dir. Miyazaki
• Alice in Wonderland refraction
• Chihiro, adolescent girl • Moving to a new suburb • On the way family stops at
abandoned amusement park • Parents are turned into swine • Chihiro transported to alternate
world, has to save them • She’s put to work at a public
bathhouse patronized by monsters and gods
• (clip from DVD)
Miyazaki and yōkai • few actual traditional monsters, but traditional setting • conflates gods and yōkai • takes place in Tokyo suburb • persistence of ancient spirituality in modern Japan?
Pom Poko (Heisei tanuki gassen ponpoko), 1994 • Dir. Takahata
• Environmental fable
• Colony of tanuki are threatened by spreading suburbs
• They organize to attack construction workers using shape-shifting skills
• (clips from DVD)
Takahata and yōkai • also takes place in Tokyo suburb • modern Japan threatens ancient ways • yōkai as site of resistance to modernity? standing athwart history yelling
“stop”? • yōkai as eco-terrorists?
For modern popular culture, early modern monsters offer: • genuine horror • laughs • knowledge of the past • connection to the past • alternative to the present