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The People's Police: The Tokyo Police Museum's Version of History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Chelsea Szendi Schieder
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A bright orange character stands at the entrance of the Tokyo Police Museum. Arms outstretched to welcome visitors, “Piipo-kun” embodies the ideal of the Tokyo Police as the people's police; resembling an anthropomorphized mouse, he has big eyes, big ears, and an antenna sprouting from his head. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police adopted this fantastical mascot character in 1987. An explanatory placard notes that Piipo-kun's large eyes see into all corners of the world, his big ears catch the voices of the city's residents, and his antenna allows him to tune into all the movements in society. “Piipo,” is a combination of the English words “people” and “police;” he is a manifestation of the contemporary ideal of the “people's police,” in which the “people” and the “police” are melded. All human activity is subject to his control (visual, aural, and even antennal). He greets museum visitors with open arms just outside the entrance. Piipo-kun suggests a completely benign police subject, open and in touch with the local population.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 44 , November 2015 , e2
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Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2015

References

Notes

1 The suffix “kun” indicates that Piipo is male.

2 These often go by the term ‘yuru kyara' (wobbly characters), coined by cultural critic Miura Jun in 2004 in response to the many mascots created to promote agencies, localities, and events. See Debra Occhi, “Yuru Kyara Humanity and the Uncanny Instability of Borders in the Construction of Japanese Identies and Aesthetics,” Japan Studies - The Frontier, n.d., 7-17.

3 The rise of military manga in Japan also strives to portray military organizations with a “cuddly, depoliticized image,” as Sabine Frūhstūck shows. See Sabine Frūhstūck, “AMPO in Crisis? US Military's Manga Offers Upbeat Take on US-Japan Relations,” (https://apjjf.org/-Sabine-Fruhstuck/3442/article .html) The Asia-Pacific Journal, 45-3-10, November 8, 2010.

4 Many major cities, and some smaller ones, also have police museums. Some examples include the New York City Police Museum, the City of London Police Museum, Paris's Musée de la Préfecture de Police, the Beijing Police Museum, Hong Kong's Police Museum, Singapore's Police Heritage Center, Cairo's National Police Museum, and Sao Paolo's Museum of the Civil Police. The International Police Association list of police museums in the United States includes 21 police museums in California alone. “Museums.” (http://www.ipa-usa.org/?page=Museums) International Police Association. July 2016. Accessed November 1, 2015.

5 “Keisatsuchō no ‘keisatsuhakubutsukan' ga ōpun” [Metropolitan Police Department opens its ‘Police Museum'], Mainichi shinbun, July 14, 1994. p.

6 Umemori Naoyuki. “Modernization Through Colonial Mediations: The Establishment of Police and Prison System in Meiji Japan” (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2002). 30.

7 Ibid., 31.

8 “Hanzai-bu ga kaishō, seikatsu anzen-bu ni” [The anti-crime bureau renames as the lifestyle safety bureau], Asahi shinbun, Feb. 2, 1995.

9 Donatella della Porta, “Social Movements and the State: Thoughts on the Policing of Protest,” in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, ed. Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Zald Mayer (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 65.

10 Yoshimi Shunya reduces it completely to a media event Shunya Yoshimi, Posuto-Sengo Shakai [Post-Postwar Society], Shiriizu Nihon Kingendaishi 9 (Iwanami shinsho, 2009).

11 Patricia G. Steinhoff, “Death by Defeatism and Other Fables: The Social Dynamics of the Rengō Sekigun Purge,” in Japanese Social Organization, ed. Takie Sugiyama Lebra (University of Hawaii Press, 1992); Yoshikuni Igarashi, “Dead Bodies and Living Guns: The United Red Army and Its Deadly Pursuit of Revolution, 1971-1972,” Japanese Studies 27, no. 2 (September 2007): 119-137.

12 Yukiko Sawara, “The University Struggles,” in Zengakuren: Japan's Revolutionary Students, ed. Stuart Dowsey (Berkeley: The Ishi Press, 1970), 138.

13 Takazawa Kōji, Takagi Masayuki, and Kurata Kazunari, Shinsayoku nijûnenshi: hanran no kiseki [A Twenty-Year History of the New Left: Miracle of Revolt] (Tokyo: Shinsensha, 1981), 117.

14 House of Representatives, Plenary Session. April 17, 1969. Comment #20. Accessed July 5, 2015. “Kokkai kaigi kiroku shisutomu (Diet Debate Records System.” 66/27.

15 For more on such support groups active both in the 1970s and today, see William Andrews, “Trial Support Groups Lobby for Japanese Prisoner Rights, Fight to Rectify Injustices,” Japan Focus 12, no. 21 (May 25, 2014).

16 Hiroshi Harada, Aru keisatsukan no showa seso shi [Showa History as Told by a Policeman] (Tokyo: Soshisha, 2011), 135.

17 House of Representatives, Budget Committee. November 1, 1958, Comment #66. Accessed July 5, 2015. “Kokkai kaigi kiroku shisutomu (Diet Debate Records System).” Session 30/5.

18 House of Representatives, Local Administration Committee Public Hearing. November 4, 1958, Comment # 4. Accessed July 5, 2015. “Kokkai kaigi kiroku shisutomu (Diet Debate Records System).” Session 30/2.

19 House of Representatives, Plenary Session. November 30 1959, Comment # 4. Accessed July 5, 2015. “Kokkai kaigi kiroku shisutomu (Diet Debate Records System).” Session 33/13.

20 See Chelsea Szendi Schieder, “Coed Revolution: The Female Student in the Japanese New Left, 1957-1972” (Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University, 2014).

21 For Hamaya's photographs and historical context see Justin Jesty, “Tokyo 1960: Days of Rage & Grief,” (http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/tokyo_1960/anp2_essay01.html) MIT Visualizing Cultures, 2012.