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Red Guards and Salarymen: The Chinese Cultural Revolution and Comic Satire in 1960s Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2015

Erik Esselstrom
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Abstract

This article explores how Japanese comic artists represented the early years of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in popular print culture, especially lowbrow comic magazines. It posits that Japanese cartoonists in their role as both purveyors of everyday humor and keenly observant social commentators employed the imagery and rhetoric of the Red Guard movement to critique the conservative social and economic order of Japanese corporate culture during the late 1960s era of high-speed growth; moreover, it contends that there was a surprisingly receptive audience for such criticism among the rank-and-file “salarymen” of the urban Japanese middle class. Finally, the precisely informed humor found in these comics also suggests that their target audience possessed detailed familiarity with contemporary events on the continent and interpreted those events through a deeply embedded cultural framework of ambivalence concerning modern Chinese society.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , November 2015 , pp. 953 - 976
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2015 

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References

List of References

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Marotti, William 2013. Money, Trains, and Guillotines: Art and Revolution in 1960s Japan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Mittler, Barbara 2012. A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
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Sasaki-Uemura, Wesley 2001. Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
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Smits, Gregory 2006. “Shaking Up Japan: Edo Society and the 1855 Catfish Picture Prints.” Journal of Social History 39(4):1045–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, M. William 1989. “Goemon's New World View: Popular Representations of the Opening of Japan.” Asian Cultural Studies 17:69–83.Google Scholar
Tillack, Peter 2011. “My Car, My Life: Kuroi Senji's ‘Running Family’ as Ideology Critique for an Economistic Era.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 71(2):235–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toby, Ronald 1986. “Carnival of the Aliens: Korean Embassies in Edo Period Art and Popular Culture.” Monumenta Nipponica 41(4):415–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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Yoshiaki, Yoshimi 2009. “Senryōka Nihonjin no Chūgokukan, 1945–1949” [Japanese views of China during the American Occupation, 1945–1949]. In Nit-Chū kankeishi no shomondai [Issues in the history of Japan-China relations], ed. Michihiko, Saitō, 191–221. Tokyo: Chūō daigaku shuppanbu.Google Scholar
Hikotarō, Andō 1966. “Pekin nikki” [Peking diary]. Chūō kōron (October):214–32.Google Scholar
Hikotarō, Andō, Ei, Muramatsu, and Minoru, Takeuchi 1966. “Bunka daikakumei—Hakai ka, kensetsu ka” [The great Cultural Revolution—Destruction or creation?]. Chūō kōron (November):162–77.Google Scholar
Ryū, Kitayama 1966. “Aka wa kakumei no iro” [Red is the color of revolution]. Shūkan manga Sandee, September 28, 20–25.Google Scholar
Hidezō, Kondō 1968. Untitled cartoon. Manga: Miru jikyoku zasshi (July):31.Google Scholar
Testurō, Mori 1966. “Yakekuso Kōeihei” [The desperate Red Guard]. Doyō manga, October 7, 26–33.Google Scholar
Takeshi, Morikuma 1966a. “Seikai bōchōseki” [Spectator seat for the political world] cartoon series. Seikai ōrai (October):117.Google Scholar
Takeshi, Morikuma 1966b. “Seikai manga ōrai” [Political world comics] cartoon series. Seikai ōrai (September):117.Google Scholar
Masateru, Moriyoshi 1966. “Shizukanaru tonchin kakumei” [The quietly absurd revolution]. Shūkan manga Sandee, September 28, 14–19.Google Scholar
Ryōsuke, Nasu 1966. Untitled cartoon. Mainichi shinbun, May 2, evening edition, 2.Google Scholar
Fuyuhiko, Okabe 1966. “Sumashicha irarenai” [Don't put on airs] cartoon series. Shūkan manga Sandee, October 5, 43–44.Google Scholar
Sōichi, Ōya et al. 1966. “Ōya Sōichi kōsatsugumi no Chūkyō hōkoku” [The Ōya Sōichi investigative team report on communist China]. Sandee Mainichi, October 20, 20–123.Google Scholar
Sadao, Shōji 1966. “Howaito karaa Kōeihei” [White-collar Red Guards]. Shūkan manga times, October 1, 20–27.Google Scholar
Sandee, Shūkan Manga 1966. “Sarariiman Kōeihei” [Salaryman Red Guards]. September 28, 13–31.Google Scholar
Yoshiji, Suzuki 1966. “Kōkyū sakaba kaihō banzai, bijo bishu mina waga shoyū” [Liberate the high-class bars! Beautiful ladies and good drink belong to us all!]. Shūkan manga Sandee, September 28, 26–31.Google Scholar
Fusao, Takata 1967. “Kōeiehi to no 100 nichi” [100 days with the Red Guards]. Sandee Mainichi, January 1, 122–25.Google Scholar
Minoru, Takeuchi 1966. “Kaku Matsujaku no jiko hihan to Bunka Kakumei” [Guo Moruo's self-criticism and the Cultural Revolution]. Asahi Jaanaru, May 22, 12–19.Google Scholar
Yū, Yamauchi 1966. “Shōka no jidai: Bunka Kakumei to Kaku Matsujaku” [A time for hymns of praise: The Cultural Revolution and Guo Moruo]. Gendai no riron 35:22–37.Google Scholar
Tsutomu, Yanagi 1966. “The Red Girl Story 赤衛兵 Akaeihei” [The red girl story—Red Guards]. Shūkan manga times, October 15, 63–67.Google Scholar
Ryōhei, Yanagihara 1966. “Shōten” [Laughter point] cartoon series. Heibon panchi, September 12, 3.Google Scholar
Taizō, Yokoyama 1966a. “Chūgoku gihyō” [China satire] cartoon series. Shūkan Asahi, October 15 (special issue), 31.Google Scholar
Taizō, Yokoyama 1966b. “Chūgoku gihyō” [China satire] cartoon series. Shūkan Asahi, October 15 (special issue), 75.Google Scholar
Taizō, Yokoyama 1966c. “Hoi hoi kun” [Mr. Careless] cartoon series. Shūkan Asahi, September 9, 57.Google Scholar
Taizō, Yokoyama 1966d. “Pū san” [Mr. Pū] cartoon series. Shūkan Shinchō, September 3, 29.Google Scholar
Taizō, Yokoyama 1966e. “Tokuhain gihyō” [Special correspondent satire] cartoon series. Manga dokuhon (November):112.Google Scholar
Taizō, Yokoyama 1966f. “Tokuhain gihyō” [Special correspondent satire] cartoon series. Manga dokuhon (December):72.Google Scholar
Avenell, Simon 2010. Making Japanese Citizens: Civil Society and the Mythology of the Shimin in Postwar Japanese Society. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimihiko, Baba 2010. Sengo Nihonjin no Chūgokuzō: Nihon haisen kara Bunka Kakumei—Nit-Chū fukkō made [Postwar Japanese views of China: From Japan's surrender until the Cultural Revolution and normalization of Sino-Japanese relations]. Tokyo: Shinyōsha.Google Scholar
Kimihiko, Baba 2015. Gendai Nihonjin no Chūgokuzō: Nit-Chū kokkō seijōka kara Tenanmon jiken tennō hō-Chū made [Contemporary Japanese Views of China: From the normalization of Japan-China relations until the Tiananmen incident and imperial visit]. Tokyo: Shinyōsha.Google Scholar
Cook, Alexander C. 2010. “Third World Maoism.” In Mao: A Critical Introduction, ed. Cheek, Timothy, 288–312. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Alexander C., ed. 2014. Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dirlik, Arif, Healy, Paul, and Knight, Nick, eds. 1997. Critical Perspectives on Mao Zedong's Thought. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International.Google Scholar
Dower, John 1999. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, Louise 2013. “Drawing Sexual Violence in Wartime China: Anti-Japanese Propaganda Cartoons.” Journal of Asian Studies 72(3):563–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fogel, Joshua 1996. The Literature of Travel in the Japanese Rediscovery of China, 1862–1945. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Fogel, Joshua 2014. Maiden Voyage: The Senzaimaru and the Creation of Modern Sino-Japanese Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garon, Sheldon 2000. “Luxury Is the Enemy: Mobilizing Savings and Popularizing Thrift in Wartime Japan.” Journal of Japanese Studies 26(1):41–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gayle, Curtis Anderson 2009. “China in the Japanese Radical Gaze, 1945–1955.” Modern Asian Studies 43(5):1255–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, Timothy 2002. Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Havens, Thomas R. H. 1987. Fire Across the Sea: The Vietnam War and Japan, 1965–1975. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jitsugyō No Nihonsha Hyakunenshi Hensan Iinkai 1997. Jitsugyō no Nihonsha hyakunenshi [The 100-year history of Jitsugyō no Nihonsha]. Tokyo: Jitsugyō no Nihonsha.Google Scholar
Koschmann, J. Victor 1997. “Mao Zedong and the Postwar Japanese Left.” In Critical Perspectives on Mao Zedong's Thought, eds. Dirlik, Arif, Healy, Paul, and Knight, Nick, 342–64. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International.Google Scholar
Jie, Liu and Shin, Kawashima, eds. 2009. 1945-nen no rekishi ninshiki: ‘shūsen’ o meguru Nit-Chū taiwa no kokoromi [Historical consciousness in 1945: Toward a new dialogue concerning Japan and China at “war's end”]. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press.Google Scholar
Jie, Liu and Shin, Kawashima 2013. Tairitsu to kyōzon no rekishi ninshiki: Nit-Chu kankei 150 nen [Confrontation and coexistence in historical consciousness: 150 years of Japan-China relations]. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press.Google Scholar
Marotti, William 2009. “Japan 1968: The Performance of Violence and the Theater of Protest.” American Historical Review 114(1):97–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marotti, William 2013. Money, Trains, and Guillotines: Art and Revolution in 1960s Japan. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Mittler, Barbara 2012. A Continuous Revolution: Making Sense of Cultural Revolution Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center.Google Scholar
Ross, Kristin 2002. May ‘68 and Its Afterlives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sasaki-Uemura, Wesley 2001. Organizing the Spontaneous: Citizen Protest in Postwar Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Shimoda, Hiraku 2013. “Memorializing the Spirit of Wit and Grit in Postindustrial Japan.” In Japan since 1945: From Postwar to Post-Bubble, eds. Gerteis, Christopher and George, Timothy, 242–56. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Slobodian, Quinn 2012. Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Smits, Gregory 2006. “Shaking Up Japan: Edo Society and the 1855 Catfish Picture Prints.” Journal of Social History 39(4):1045–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steele, M. William 1989. “Goemon's New World View: Popular Representations of the Opening of Japan.” Asian Cultural Studies 17:69–83.Google Scholar
Tillack, Peter 2011. “My Car, My Life: Kuroi Senji's ‘Running Family’ as Ideology Critique for an Economistic Era.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 71(2):235–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toby, Ronald 1986. “Carnival of the Aliens: Korean Embassies in Edo Period Art and Popular Culture.” Monumenta Nipponica 41(4):415–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ueno, Chizuko 1995. “Kigyō senshitachi” [Corporate warriors]. In Danseigaku [Men's studies], eds. Teruko, Inoue, Chizuko, Ueno, and Yumiko, Ebara, 215–16. Tokyo: Iwanami shōten.Google Scholar
Van Wolferen, Karel 1989. The Enigma of Japanese Power. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Yoshiaki, Yoshimi 2009. “Senryōka Nihonjin no Chūgokukan, 1945–1949” [Japanese views of China during the American Occupation, 1945–1949]. In Nit-Chū kankeishi no shomondai [Issues in the history of Japan-China relations], ed. Michihiko, Saitō, 191–221. Tokyo: Chūō daigaku shuppanbu.Google Scholar