A Cultural History of

Late Meiji Japan

Empire and Decadence

Alistair Swale
A Cultural History of Late Meiji Japan
 Alistair Swale

A Cultural History of
Late Meiji Japan
Empire and Decadence
Alistair Swale
University of Canterbury
Christchurch, New Zealand

ISBN 978-3-031-43645-1    ISBN 978-3-031-43646-8 (eBook)

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For Yurika, Ryū and Sascha
with deepest gratitude to
Professor Kimura Masaaki
 Foreword

This work builds on a previous body of research in various ways. And

indeed the plan for the book came into shape after writing and publishing
two articles that convinced me that there was a bigger project to under-
take. The first, “Gesaku and the Renegotiation of ‘Civilization and
Enlightenment’ through Illustrated News”, published in Japan Forum
(Vol. 34, no. 5 (2022), explored the manner in which literary practitio-
ners, gesakusha, who were continuing to be profoundly influenced by pre-­
Meiji conventions, were finding fruitful avenues of collaboration with
practitioners of visual art, particularly woodblock prints (nishikie) and
practitioners in performative arts such as rakugo and kōdan. Without exag-
geration, they revolutionized print culture in Meiji Japan, so that the
ostensibly ‘low brow’ illustrated newspapers such as the Tokyo Eiri Shinbun
became the model for minor newspapers, ko-shinbun, to essentially drive
their publishing ‘betters’, the major newspapers, o ̄ -shinbun, to radically
revise their editorial practices and target a new kind of readership. The
second article, “Public Speaking and Serialized Novels: Kōdan and Social
Movements in Early Meiji Tokyo”, published in Japanese Studies (Vol. 41,
No. 3) in 2021, consolidated some of the points made in the previous
article and confirmed that the intersection between literature and perfor-
mative arts was indeed intrinsic to the evolution of ‘modern’ Japanese lit-
erary culture. This intersection has already been covered to great effect by
Seth Jacobowitz in his exceptionally insightful work on Meiji literature.
This work simply takes some of those discussions a step further and
explores what he rightly suggests is the blind spot of commentary on later
Meiji cultural history—the elements that don’t deal with Empire.

vii
viii FOREWORD

Examining the disaffected elements in Meiji culture is not simply a mat-

ter of examining the usual dissidents—Socialists and Anarchists who made
themselves very prominent targets for state sanction and persecution.
There were others, and I have tended to gravitate to the rather flamboyant
example of Miyatake Gaikotsu, who engaged in a patently ‘decadent’ tra-
jectory—celebrating human individual desire and articulating the readily
relatable ennui that would resonate with a populace that was reeling under
the demands of empire—let’s call it ‘empire fatigue’. The costs to ordinary
Japanese citizens of pursuing and supporting the objectives of the grand
project of the Imperial Japanese state were demonstrably becoming intol-
erable by the time of the Russo-Japanese War. The violence unleashed at
the announcement of the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth on September
5, 1905, was not merely a quibbling over the terms of a document but an
outpouring of profound disillusionment with the government, and its
incapacity to understand simple commonly held human concerns. One
focus that this work aims to address is how Japanese popular culture devel-
oped under this profound strain. If the Japanese people were not only
thinking about empire and the imperial project in late Meiji Japan, what in
fact were they thinking about? What did they enjoy? How did they make
life bearable and meaningful?
On the other side of the ledger, and unfortunately there does seem to
be a rather binary dimension to the cultural and political ecology of this
period, there is the question of how political authorities, including persons
and institutions engaged in cultivating social influence on the cultural level
to counter those tensions, sought to rationalize and legitimate increas-
ingly repressive and at times brutal punishment of recalcitrant activists and
non-conformists. It seems they could not help themselves. This also builds
on an earlier work of this author that attempted to examine the Meiji
Restoration as not so much a grand project of ‘modernization’, but rather
an ingenious attempt to play at modernization according to notions of
Westernization, while ensuring that the business of state and the priority
of maintaining national security would be carried out with conservative
priorities. It was an essentially regressive political project but none of it
was an easy sell for the domestic populace or the domestic intelligentsia. It
inevitably led to dissatisfaction amongst the more nationalist minded pro-
ponents of Japan’s future development who felt that too much had been
compromised. It would also inevitably fail to satisfy elements within the
new national polity who felt that the new dispensation would hold out
opportunities of hitherto unavailable avenues of political participation.
 FOREWORD ix

This was the conundrum posed for the Meiji elite; they struggled to
resolve it, and they were punished in turn. Having said all this, the energy
and creative genius of the artistic and literary figures of the late Meiji
period indicate a remarkable resilience and many of the most celebrated
writers of the modern period that emerge in this era, Natsume Sōseki in
particular, come out looking profoundly insightful and credible.
I am grateful for the assistance I have received in producing this work.
The ongoing support of colleagues at the International Research Centre
for Japanese Studies, particularly Professor Takii Kazuhiro, has been
instrumental in enabling me to develop the concept of this book towards
fruition. I would like to acknowledge the very generous and professional
support provided by the editorial team at Palgrave Macmillan, who have
been instrumental in providing feedback that improved this work and have
been also very patient with some of the delays that emerged in the process
of its completion.
Finally, I remain deeply grateful to my mentor at Kyoto University,
Emeritus Professor Masaaki Kimura for his ongoing counsel and encour-
agement. Thanks are also due to my colleagues at the University of
Canterbury who graciously assisted in making the one year research fur-
lough in Japan from 2019 to 2020 possible. And, of course, there is the
long-standing debt I owe to my immediate family who have variously tol-
erated my absences, either while overseas or even in person when I have
been engrossed in this work. A special mention is also due to my father-in-­
law, Emeritus Professor Arai Ken, who, given the scope of dealing with
such a broad concern of interests related not only to Japan but to East Asia
more generally, provided advice and feedback that proved immensely
instructive and encouraging.

Japanese Programme Alistair Swale

University of Canterbury,
Christchurch, New Zealand
 Contents

1 Introduction: The Genesis of Late Meiji Culture  1

2 The Constitution and Latent Anarchy 27

3 The Cultural Impact of the Sino-Japanese War 61

4 Fin de Siècle Japan 95

5 The Russo-Japanese War—The Dark Victory127

6 Meiji Twilight159

7 Conclusion191

References197

Index 207

xi
 List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Ochiai, Yoshiiku, Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun, No. 191, published
October 1874. (Courtesy of the International Research Centre
for Japanese Studies, Kyoto) 9
Fig. 1.2 Arai Yoshimune, Eiri Jiyū Shinbun, 1884, 31 July. (Courtesy of
the National Diet Library of Japan) 14
Fig. 2.1 Kokkai Gahō, No. 1, published July, 1890. Courtesy of
theNational Diet Library of Japan, Tokyo 32
Fig. 2.2 Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, illustration from Sanyūtei Enchō’s A True
Tale from Kasanegafuchi (『眞景累ヶ淵』), as published in the
Enchō Zenshū, Vol. 1, Shuyōdō, 1926. (Courtesy of the National
Diet Library of Japan) 37
Fig. 3.1 Nakazawa Toshiaki, “Our Forces Storming the Defences Above
Port Arthur” 「日清戦争威海衛ニ於我軍激戦ス」, 1995.
(Courtesy of the National Diet Library of Japan) 74
Fig. 3.2 Kobayashi Kiyochika, “Our Navy Attacking and Sinking the
Chinese Fleet on the Yellow Sea” 「我艦隊於黄海清艦撃沈之
図」. (Courtesy of the National Diet Library of Japan) 76
Fig. 4.1 Image from Asakura Rosan’nin, Musume Gidayuū, Hifumikan,
August 1895. (Courtesy of the National Diet Library of Japan) 107
Fig. 4.2 Frontispiece of Taiyō, No. 1, 28 December, Hakubunkan, 1894.
(Courtesy of the National Diet Library of Japan) 112
Fig. 5.1 Senji Gahō, 10 June, 1904, Kinji Gahōsha. (Courtesy of the
International Research Centre for Japanese Studies, Kyoto) 138

xiii
xiv List of Figures

Fig. 5.2 Frontispiece from Engei Gahō, July 1907. (Courtesy of the
International Research Centre for Japanese Studies, Kyoto) 154
Fig. 6.1 Image from Kotoku Ippa Daigyakujiken Tenmatsu(『幸徳一派
大逆事件顛末 』Miyatake Gaikotsu, ed., Ryūginsha, 1946.
(Courtesy of the National Diet Library of Japan) 160
Fig. 6.2 Image from Ishigami Kinya, Jōyū Jōshi (『女優情史』),
Jitsugetsusha, 1929. (Courtesy of the National Diet Library of
Japan)176
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Genesis of Late Meiji

Culture

February the 11th, 1889, marked a great step forward in Japan’s march
towards the status of a ‘civilized nation’ as it formally became a
Constitutional monarchy. But it was also marred by an act of extraordinary
violence—Mori Arinori, the Minister for Education, was preparing to
leave his residence to travel to the palace when an unexpected visitor
arrived requesting to see him. The young man, upon seeing Mori descend
the stairs, immediately attacked the Minister, delivering the eventually
fatal wounds before being himself killed by Mori’s bodyguard. This
Minister of State was assassinated on a day that should have most emphati-
cally underscored a grand achievement of the Meiji government—a con-
stitutionally based representative system of government that was intended
to reinforce Japan’s credentials as an equal amongst the world powers.
The ostensible motive for the assassination was an alleged act of indiscre-
tion at the Ise Shrine a year earlier, which was construed as an insult to the
Imperial Household. The assassin was not without public sympathy, his
funeral attracting more attendees than Mori’s.1 This combination of events
was reflective of the profoundly contradictory nature of Japan’s seemingly
meteoric trajectory of modernization and progress. Japan was to go on to
consolidate social and political advances, but on the domestic front there
lurked a persistent contradiction between the greatness of Empire, and the
apparent unwillingness of the populace to stay completely in step with
their rulers.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
A. Swale, A Cultural History of Late Meiji Japan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43646-8_1
2 A. SWALE

Even so, with the first elections to the Imperial Diet held the following
year, it made 1890 a major watershed in modern Japan’s development. It
ushered in a new basis for interaction between the rulers and the ruled, as
well as consolidating the foundations of the Meiji nation state. It would
also indirectly facilitate the development of the fiscal capacity to pursue the
buildup in military strength that would lead to two wars of empire, the
Sino-Japanese War of 1894—95 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904—05.
The period from the 1890s to the early twentieth century also witnessed
the flourishing of the Meiji Bundan, the literary establishment that would
include illustrious novelists such as Natsume Sōseki, Mori Ō gai, Shimasaki
Tōson and Higuchi Ichiyo, along with poets such as Masaoka Shiki and
Yamada Bimyō (to name just a few).
On another level, however, there was an intensification of the antago-
nism between officers of state hailing from or associated with the Satsuma
and Chōshū clans, and those who did not enjoy oligarchical patronage.
The drive behind the Peoples’ Rights Movement in the 1880s towards
obtaining representative government had immense frustration with the
‘closing of the political shop’ at its core. Ironically, the fulfilment of the
promise to establish an Imperial Diet took the impetus out of one of the
most glaring instances of institutionalized disenfranchisement but, as
Andrew Fraser’s excellent scholarship on the early Meiji Diets attests,
there were a multitude of antagonisms deeply entrenched in the political
factions that emerged in the Diet, as well as a number of practical admin-
istrative procedures that needed to be ironed out before the parliamentary
system could be characterized in any way as a success.2
While the Peoples’ Rights Movement of the 1880s could be said to
have not exactly lived up to the high-minded political ideals that had been
articulated with reference to radical political thought in Europe and the
United States, it was nonetheless a valuable period of training. Political
speech-making, though initially something of a craze, nonetheless gave
some of the nation’s finest minds, both men and women (albeit less com-
monly), opportunities to find their place in the new political culture of a
centralized nation state. They learned how to harness popular media to
inveigh on the government’s at times ham-fisted attempts to push through
blatantly self-serving or deeply unpopular policies. The attempt by Kuroda
Kiyotaka in 1881 to sell off the holdings of the Hokkaido Colonization
Office at a minimal rate to a Satsuma colleague, Godai Tomoatsu, was
exposed and thwarted when details were leaked to the press. In the late
1880s, the attempt by Ō kuma Shigenobu in league with Satsuma and
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 3

Chōshū oligarchs to push through highly watered-down reforms of the

extraterritorial judicial system led to his attempted assassination. It was not
just the detail of that particular policy that led to such an outburst of vio-
lence. There were also highly catalytic media events such as the coverage
of the sinking of the postal ship Normanton which resulted in the drown-
ing of all non-Western passengers and, more gallingly, the exoneration of
the British captain and crew.3 This fueled a palpable fury with regard to the
ineffectual initiatives of the government to rectify the deficit in contempo-
rary international legal arrangements. The disaster was even dramatized in
a zangiri-mono kabuki play entitled Sanpu Gokō Utsusu Gendo ̄ (三府五港
寫幻燈) —A Lantern Shining on the Events of Five Ports in Three
Prefectures—which had the two leading roles played by Ichikawa Danjūrō
and Ichikawa Sadanji. Productions such as this were a weapon of criticism
that the government, no matter how aloof and secure as an oligarchy,
could not dismiss or ignore with impunity.
Beneath the foment of political activism and controversy of the 1880s,
there was also a profound transformation occurring within the domestic
media landscape. What initially began with a continuation of the distinc-
tion between the government-aligned ‘major newspapers’ (o ̄-shinbun) and
the relatively populist ‘minor newspapers’ (ko-shinbun) was shaken up pro-
foundly. Following the political crisis of 1881, which led to the broad
expulsion of non-Satsuma and Chōshū political figures, a range of osten-
sibly politically inspired newspapers sprang up in quick succession, most
notably the Kaishin Shinbun affiliated with Ō kuma Shigenobu’s Kaishinto ̄,
and the Jiyu ̄ Shinbun that was affiliated with the Itagaki Taisuke’s Jiyūto ̄
(Okitsu, 1997). Accompanying some of these publishing initiatives was
the arrival of ‘partner’ illustrated newspapers, in particular the Eiri Jiyū
Shinbun which recruited the nishikie genius Tsukioka Yoshitoshi as the
primary illustrator.4 Meanwhile, the Chōya Shinbun, which ostensibly
aimed to retain a certain neutrality, also established an illustrated newspa-
per vehicle, the Eiri Chōya Shinbun. The Yomiuri Shinbun did not emulate
these other publications but began to set a new standard for timely, factual
reportage and indeed demonstrate that the erstwhile association of ko-­
shinbun with content “only fit for women and children” was increasingly
inaccurate. By the end of the 1880s, the process of what Tsuchiya Reiko
has described as “mid-sizing” of newspapers was more or less complete,
with the former ō-shinbun coming to increasingly resemble ko-shinbun in
format, and an increasing percentage of staff at both ko-shinbun and
4 A. SWALE

illustrated newspapers coming from relatively highly educated back-

grounds.5 It is clear that even within the world of popular print culture,
including magazines and newspapers, persons of considerable prestige in
terms of their education and shizoku background (e.g. Yano Ryūkei and
Suehiro Tetchō) were beginning to play a more proactive role in both the
management of newspaper production and the generation of printed con-
tent through their own writing.6
This matrix of the emerging print culture, while entailing the increased
integration of more respectable institutions and personnel, was nonethe-
less quite emphatically partaking of a cultural current that at its core
included a certain decadence. By decadent I mean that there was an aver-
sion to adhering to the narrative of “civilization and improvement” being
promoted by the government and establishment figures. It also drew on
an intuitive affinity with indigenous sources of inspiration as opposed to
imported Western models of expression and content. The continuity of
the gesaku literary traditions in Meiji Japan has been well-covered more
recently,7 and although the Peoples’ Rights Movement did incorporate a
notion of progress in relation to the promotion of a representative system
of government inspired by Western nations perceived as being the epitome
of civilization, there was increasingly a discernable resistance to slavish
adoption of Western models both culturally and politically. By the late
1880s, the national essentialism (kokusuishugi) espoused by Kuga Katsunan
and Miyake Setsurei, the founders of the magazines Nihon and Nihonjin,
respectively, was channeling a deeper undercurrent of ambivalence towards
the ostensibly ‘Westernizing’ government led by the Satsuma and Chōshū
oligarchy (Nakanome, 1993). These magazines were of course of a more
high-brow and intellectualizing disposition, but there is much to be said
for the persistence of native sources of inspiration for popular culture as
well. The first editor of the Eiri Chōya Shinbun, Asano Kan, actually
lamented in print in 1886 that the serialized novels modelled on more
‘elevated’ Western content were in fact not particularly popular—readers
were clamouring for content that was based in Japan and based on gesaku
genres, ninjō-banashi (romances) and crime stories in particular.8
Even so, a palpable change occurred in the late 1880s as a series of
rather arcane novels that blended Japanese perspectives into Western con-
texts appeared. Yano Ryūkei’s Keikoku Bidan (Illustrious Tales of
Statesmanship) depicted the heroic deeds of the leaders of ancient Thebes
and Tōkai Sanshi’s equally successful Kajin no kigu ̄ (Unexpected Encounters
with Beauties) depicted a romance between a Japanese man and two
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 5

women in contemporary America. The writing style was highly Sinified

and Yano Ryūkei in his introduction to Keikoku Bidan, used the classical
Chinese term haishi shōsetsu (稗史小説) to refer to the object of their
‘improving’ efforts, the depiction of history in fictionalized form.9 From a
broader perspective, however, these works were symptomatic of a fluid
and dynamic working out of a tension between domestic and external
influences, and we should not underestimate the degree to which indige-
nous cultural proclivities were winning out. While many are familiar with
the movement to integrate written and spoken styles of expression in
Japanese (genbun itchi 言文一致), it is worth noting the perpetuation of a
profoundly hybrid mode of expression gazoku setchū (雅俗折衷), literally
the admix of the elegant with the crude, is of abiding significance and
perhaps underappreciated (an important exception is Twine, 1991).
Indeed, setchū is arguably the more generalized characteristic that per-
vades the currents of popular culture in the mid to late Meiji period, and
it is my contention that amongst the cultural currents of the time the
persistence of a distinctly decadent strand was evident.
To describe this strand as “decadent” naturally invites a number of
comparisons with European decadence. Without wishing to suggest that
this was yet another adaptation of a Western trend, it is worth carefully
outlining some of the representative instances of “decadence” in both
Europe and Japan, with the prospect of identifying social and economic
factors held in common, as well as factors that indicate a significant
divergence.
Decadence in Europe divides into some fairly distinct regional trajecto-
ries but can be plausibly linked on the basis of a set of preoccupations with
aestheticism, eroticism, mischievous playfulness and occasional morbidity.
Decadence defies simple definition but it is still possible to detect varying
combinations of these traits in a number of offshoots and adaptations. The
literary scene of mid-nineteenth-century France providing some of the
earliest and perhaps most readily recognizable instances of the genre with
Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal (1857) and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary
(1856).10 A fresh impetus in visual art was furnished by Baudelaire’s
Belgian friend, Felicien Rops, who came to prominence in the 1860s.
Thereafter we can identify a number of strands that share the similar pre-
occupations. Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley unmistakably accentuat-
ing the aestheticist and macabre traits in their writing and art, while in the
United States Edgar Allan Poe also edged towards the macabre.11 French
art and letters evolved towards Symbolism while in the German language
6 A. SWALE

the trend veered towards a form of Nihilism, most notably in the writing
of Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885), which in turn eventually
found a literary counterpart in Franz Kafka’s short-story writing and a
distinctive visual style in the fin de siècle work of Vienna’s Gustav Klimt.12
Overall, then, there is no common time frame for these strands of
Decadence—France clearly provides some of the earliest instances, with
anglophone writers and artists coming to the fray some thirty years later.
German-speaking Decadence, if we can speak of such a thing, emerges
most strongly within the context of the Austro-Hungarian sunset of
empire. What provides a clue to finding some unifying connection is per-
haps the fact that the Decadent ‘impulse’ seems to become sharpened in
the wake of a major social upheaval or a traumatic national event that leads
to a loss of prestige or certainty. France had no shortage of events to spur
such impulses—beyond those most wide-ranging upheavals endured
through the French Revolution and the ensuing Napoleonic era, France
was again shaken by revolutions; the July Revolution of 1830 which led to
the ascension of the House of Orleans and the February Revolution of
1848 which led to a Second Republic that was ultimately usurped by Louis
Napoleon as the Second Empire.
In the German-speaking regions of Europe, Bismarck’s nation-building
proceeded apace from the 1860s onwards, culminating in the Prussian
victory over France in 1871. Clearly not a national catastrophe for
Germany as an Empire, far from it, but it was certainly a rather lean time
for liberalism and engendered a turbulent phase of kulturkampf. At the
same time, the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s fortunes and orbit of influence
was incrementally and decisively diminished by century’s end. The case of
England provides perhaps the most difficult instance to associate with
national upheaval but it can be said that the 1880s in the United Kingdom
(UK) were dominated by two trends—the intractable problem of resolv-
ing the question of Home Rule for Ireland and the dismantling of earlier
shibboleths of a profoundly conservative social order; the right for married
women to own property was granted, education for children below the
age of ten became obligatory and there was a substantial expansion of the
male electoral franchise. As the procession of novels produced by Dickens
from the 1840s onwards reflects, the Great Britain of the 1870s had come
a considerable way from its rather squalid and brutal urban culture of the
early Victorian cities to embrace a certain civility—but a dark undercur-
rent persisted nonetheless.
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 7

In each of the foregoing cases it is evident that there is, at the very least,
a transitioning from one order to another, with the degree of overt
upheaval being greater or less in each instance. Applied to Japan, the cor-
relation is not difficult to make. The Meiji Restoration was precisely the
supplanting of one social order with another, and there were plenty of
pockets of social and cultural resistance that continued to attempt a con-
testation of that new dispensation. It was not complete, however, until the
emergence of a generational shift to those who were the first to directly
experience only a Meiji regime and only know the Edo legacy ‘after the
fact’. The artists, writers and performers who were to become creatively
active from the late 1880s onwards produced what I would suggest could
be described as a first wave of Japanese decadence. We do see a palpable
vigour in a later form of literary and artistic output from the late Meiji to
Taisho periods, and it would seem that this is the result of the impact of
intensified industrialization, the development of a self-aware working class
that clamoured for enfranchisement and an even more concentrated
urbanization—this we might describe as the grounding for a second wave
of decadence. The pronounced eroticism, ennui and occasional predilec-
tion for the grotesque in Taisho literature is well-noted, and even attrib-
uted with a readily acknowledged decadence.13 It should not, however,
obscure our awareness of the earlier phase.
One of the few articles to address the notion of decadence in the Meiji
period to date in some detail is that of W. Puck Brecher, “Useless Losers:
Marginality and Modernization in Early Meiji Japan”. The “useless losers”
sobriquet is chosen carefully in that losers were indeed often persons who
had literally lost out through the dismantling of the Tokugawa system of
patronage following the Boshin War of 1868. The useless were those who
either suddenly found that they had literary and/or artistic proclivities
that were no longer in demand and were struggling to adapt to new media
platforms as well as expectations grounded in the promotion of “civiliza-
tion and enlightenment”.14
There was no shortage of examples in more or less every facet of artistic
endeavour. In literature, the likes of Mantei Ō ga and Kanagaki Robun
continued to write in a style consonant with gesaku preoccupations—a
mixture of frivolity, humour, as well as tales of romance, crime or the
supernatural. Their response during the 1870s was to engage in pointed
satire inveighing against the faddism of bunmei kaika. Ō ga is famed for his
Akire Gaeru (Frog Fed Up with Modernity) and Kanagaki produced
Agura Nabe (Tales Heard Around a Pot of Beef). The likes of Takabatake
8 A. SWALE

Ransen attempted to write in a more seriously moralistic tone, albeit

within the kanzen cho ̄aku (“reward good, punish evil”) frame of Edo liter-
ary conventions.15 Narushima Ryūhoku was perhaps the most spectacu-
larly decadent of the early Meiji literati who were disenfranchised through
the Restoration, penning a subdued account of being cast into the periph-
ery of society in Bokujō inshi den (Biography of a Recluse on the Sumida
River). It nonetheless included a fair amount of reference to seeking the
diversions of Yanagibashi pleasure quarters and otherwise finding amena-
ble diversions.16
With regard to traditional woodblock print-making, we have already
noted how Yoshitoshi and Yoshiiku, found ways to have their skills back in
demand by providing dynamic and impactful full-colour woodblock prints
for the nishikie shinbun that came into vogue as companions to such main-
stream newspapers as the Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun and the Yūbin Hōchi
Shinbun. Chelsea Foxwell has produced academic commentary on how
this media phenomenon burgeoned in the mid to late 1870s and notes
that the tenor of the content was more often attenuated towards the ris-
qué, lurid, violent or supernatural.17 Certainly the shinbun nishikie treated
the most exciting and talked-about incidents of the day, covering every-
thing from grisly crimes to the escapades of notorious characters around
town. Yoshiiku’s style was typically dynamic and well-suited to his forte of
depicting violent action, a notorious murder incident or a public ruckus,
but as the next image illustrates he was also adept at depicting scenes of
debauchery such as (in Fig. 1.1) the depiction of a young man who is in a
sexual liaison with two sisters and ties their mother to a post to taunt her.
In contrast to Yoshiiku’s dynamic and more impactful coloration,
Yoshitoshi tended to accentuate the aesthetic qualities of the image, even
when depicting salacious topics such as adultery or the instances of the
supernatural.
In parallel with them there is also Kobayashi Kiyochika who emerged
from a rather idiosyncratic background—he had formerly been a samurai
in the Bakufu forces during the Boshin War but then devoted himself to
nishikie following the Restoration. It is rumored that he received extensive
tuition from Charles Wirgman, the founder of Japan Punch and long-time
resident of Yokohama.18 Kiyochika, as we shall see in later discussion, was
not as wedded to the sensational topics that Yoshiiku and Yoshitoshi were
drawn to, and neither was he attempting to ‘cash in’ on the popularity of
nishikie shinbun. His works were, on the whole, more meditative and still,
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 9

Fig. 1.1 Ochiai, Yoshiiku, Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun, No. 191, published
October 1874. (Courtesy of the International Research Centre for Japanese
Studies, Kyoto)

with an inclination towards landscapes and the depiction of night skies or

panoramic views of the countryside.
To these nishikie artists we might add two highly regarded painters of
the late Edo period that also figure in Brecher’s account—Awashima
Chingaku and Kawanabe Kyōsai.19 Chingaku followed a familiar pattern of
10 A. SWALE

initially retiring into relative reclusiveness to emerge as an avid experi-

menter with Western art, while Kyōsai was a somewhat legendary
Bohemian who combined extraordinary indifference to social convention
with a prolific output of wild and often grotesque depictions of monsters,
ghosts and occasionally pornographic content.20 Kyōsai famously kept an
“illustrated diary” (暁斎絵日記) in which he spontaneously recorded
social events, happenings or things that simply came to mind. He fre-
quently depicts the company he keeps in caricatures, and it is apparent
from the foregoing that he had Western acquaintances, including the
recurring figure of the architect Josiah Conder. He was, in any case, an
extraordinarily gifted draughtsman with a fertile imagination and a strong
sense of playfulness and mischief.21
While Brecher’s commentary certainly is persuasive in terms of present-
ing these figures as, in most cases, relatively disillusioned and disenfran-
chised, the fact remains that a good proportion of them eventually reached
a point where they were able to find a new place within Meiji society and
culture, and it was one that could be surprisingly lucrative and viable. As
already noted, Yoshitoshi succeeded in landing extremely well-paid work
with the Eiri Jiyu ̄ Shinbun, collecting as much as the equivalent of a senior
editor’s salary, and Narushima Ryūhoku established one of the leading
newspapers of the time, the Chōya Shinbun, along with its sister publica-
tion the Eiri Chōya Shinbun.
Kawanabe Kyōsai, despite an extremely anarchic lifestyle, managed to
carve out a solid career as a social caricaturist. At the same time, all three
of the artists referred to above died prematurely and it is broadly agreed
that it was the impact of the strain of crossing from the cultural milieu of
the Edo period to the new social and cultural dispensation of the Meiji
period that contributed to physical and mental deterioration. Yet they all
left an impact in their respective fields and, more importantly, paved the
way directly and indirectly for their heirs to take up the challenge afresh.
There is one major point of qualification that needs to be made, how-
ever, before we consider a continuation of the legacy of these ‘proto-­
decadents—namely that the nature of what was generated through their
influence was conditioned in amalgam with the other currents of influence
and social impacts that they were subjected to and was therefore pro-
foundly hybridized. That is to say, although they refashioned themselves
from within the tradition of a milieu that was deeply imbued with the
proclivities of gesaku and other cultural conventions of the Edo period,
those proclivities and conventions were not continued in an unrecon-
structed or unaltered form.22 The best example is perhaps furnished, again,
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 11

by the transition from expertise in nishikie to sashie illustrations. This

entailed a transition from full-colour woodblock techniques to litho-
graphic productions, and a reworking of an understanding of visual impact
based on colour as opposed to a visual impact constructed out of mono-
chrome. Nothing exemplifies the skill of a nishikie artist adapting to the
sashie format more than the ability to evoke water effects or represent light
purely through the textures and contrasts created in one colour.
The second point to accentuate is that the coterie of writers, performers
and artists that would become increasingly active from 1890 onwards
were definitively products of Meiji Japan, born on or around the time of
the Restoration. Their education was part of the new model, nationally
integrated system, and the linguistic conventions were far more stream-
lined than had been experienced by their predecessors. That is not to say
that they were ignorant or indifferent to those precedents, but neither
were they constrained by them. This too was profoundly hybrid and at
times highly ambiguous, despite the best efforts of the Meiji bundan to
regulate standards of literary taste.
The publishing phenomenon that most clearly connects the transfor-
mation of print media in the 1880s to developments in the 1890s was
arguably the serialized newspaper novel (tsuzukimono). Driven by writers
of gesaku proclivities, these serialized, often illustrated ‘novels’ initially
emerged amongst the ‘minor newspapers’ of the late 1870s, but then saw
widespread appropriation within newspapers of various political stripes
through the Peoples’ Rights Movement of the 1880s. “Political novels”
produced amidst the turbulence of early political activism evolved in turn
towards a bewilderingly diverse array of topics and themes—from romances
set in foreign lands to historically based tales of heroism and crime thrill-
ers. These have been broadly covered in existing scholarship with an
emphasis on their relation to the development of more serious literature in
the mid-Meiji period.23
An important adjunct to this genre of output was the inclusion of sashie,
illustrations drafted by some of the leading exponents of nishikie prints but
nevertheless rendered purely in black and white. When discussing the
leading exponents of nishikie and sashie in the early to mid-Meiji period,
Yoshiiku and, Yoshitoshi stand out but it is their legacy through their dis-
ciples that is also noteworthy. These figures have been given increased
scholarly attention in recent times, with Yoshitoshi finally receiving the
level of in-depth treatment that was clearly merited with Sugawara
Mayumi’s timely biography (Sugawara, 2018). There is, however, rela-
tively limited coverage of Yoshiiku except for scholarship focusing on his
12 A. SWALE

early foray into nishikie shinbun with Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun and his role
as primary sashie illustrator for the Tokyo Eiri Shinbun which he set up with
Takabatake Ransen in 1875. By the late 1880s, Yoshiiku had in fact dimin-
ished a considerable amount of his attention to nishikie and sashie prefer-
ring to devote his acumen and energies to newspaper publishing and
occasional illustrative collaborations. He also did not take as many disci-
ples as other practitioners continued to do, this being in stark contrast to
Yoshitoshi who was quite extraordinary in his accumulation of personal
acolytes.
To date, there remains something of a gap in the discussion of the inter-
change between the writers of serialized newspaper novels and sashie art-
ists. An important recent exception is the work of Bassoe (2018) who has
built on recent Japanese scholarship to explore the interrelation of illustra-
tions to the early works of Izumi Kyōka.24 It perhaps may come as some
surprise to find that Izumi regarded the illustrators as integral to the artis-
tic enterprise; they were not adornments or accoutrements but partners in
a totality of artistic expression. And he was not alone—when examining
the serialized material and the illustrative work produced alongside it in
other cases, there are any number of instances where the artist and writer
would quite literally commune over the story before deciding on the final
form of the work. Given that the production of serialized material had a
degree of time pressure around it due to newspaper deadlines, it cannot be
assumed that this was a particularly drawn-out process. Nonetheless, the
Japanese case studies to date suggest that, in the first place, both writers
and artists spent a considerable amount of time in each other’s company
socially, and the compass of their socializing incorporated persons from a
broad array of backgrounds—print makers with kabuki play writers, rakugo
exponents with newspaper entrepreneurs, on occasion also foreign artists
working and living in Japan. These gatherings would almost certainly
incorporate discussion of the latest ideas for compositions or projects, with
in all probability impromptu renditions given to test the response of those
in attendance. At the same time, it emerges that a number of the persons
in attendance would be adept at more than one specialization, and in par-
ticular it appears that in some cases even writers of serialized novels made
a point of sketching scenes from their stories to pass on to the artist who
would then draft and produce the final illustrations.
There are a number of disciples of Yoshitoshi that stand out as meriting
closer attention from the late 1880s to 1890s. In particular, Arai
Yoshimune, Migita Toshihide and Mizuno Toshikata. Their rise followed
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 13

in the wake of Yoshitoshi’s lucrative ‘residence’ at the Eiri Jiyu ̄ Shinbun

which enabled him to expand his coterie of disciplines substantially. To
these we would add of course Kiyochika who presents a more independent
trajectory of development which nonetheless does ultimately converge
with the aforementioned figures in the mid-1890s with the trend for pro-
ducing nishikie in celebration of Japanese victories during the Sino-­
Japanese War.25
Toshihide, Toshikata and Kiyochika will be discussed further in relation
to the boom in nishikie depictions of the Sino-Japanese War in the ensuing
chapters, but for the sake of illustrating how the extraordinary leap from
polychrome nishikie depictions to monochrome sashie was successfully
negotiated, it would be instructive to view the early output of Arai
Yoshimune, who worked closely with Yoshitoshi at the Eiri Jiyu ̄ Shinbun,
and is widely regarded as one of his most eminent protégés at the time.
Yoshimune had been one of the first to enter into an apprenticeship with
Yoshitoshi in the late 1870s but with Yoshitoshi entering into particularly
straitened circumstances in the early 1880s, he was forced to find an alter-
native arrangement and he ended up inheriting the Yoshimune title as the
second in line to Utagawa Yoshimune (the first). Yoshimune reunited with
Yoshitoshi joining the Eiri Jiyū Shinbun in 1882.
There were two aspects to Yoshimune’s technique that seem to be par-
ticularly outstanding, the first being a talent for composition. The images
are not only inventively integrated as sashie into the newspaper text, but
also depicted with an inventive manipulation of space and perspective. In
one instance (Eiri Jiyu ̄ Shinbun, 1884, 22 August), he depicts fire fighters
battling a house fire but they are both enveloped in smoke and one of
them is falling from a building roof while being watched from behind. The
enveloping of the figures in the surrounding smoke is at first a bit disori-
enting but there is a moment when everything falls into place and you
recognize the nature of the event being depicted. Once the image is
‘decoded’ it has a rather ingenious effect of creating a sense that the fire-
man in the foreground is indeed plummeting, almost coming forward off
the page, with the rather narrow column that the illustration occupies
accentuating the up-down flow.
The other particular talent displayed by Yoshimune is his capacity to
depict lighting effects in difficult contexts, such as in the darkness of night
or even under water. One of his most ingenious compositions depicts a
room at night and in an adjacent frame the appearance of a ghost in the
14 A. SWALE

room (Eiri Jiyū Shinbun, 1884, 2 March). It demonstrates a rather clever

combination of two perspectives, one in which a ghost appears as a lumi-
nescent presence floating in the darkness, contrasted with the adjacent
view that depicts the interior of the room which is illuminated by a small
lantern that reveals a folding screen in the dark.
A further difficulty confronted when transitioning from polychrome to
monochrome is the depiction of violent scenes that entail blood. In a full-­
colour nishikie bright red is used, quite copiously in some instances, to
create a lurid and appalling impact. In sashie that is not an option. The
convention that Yoshimune adopts is to depict spilled blood as solid blocks
of black. In Fig. 1.2, the male in the frame is a jilted lover who takes

Fig. 1.2 Arai

Yoshimune, Eiri Jiyū
Shinbun, 1884, 31 July.
(Courtesy of the
National Diet Library
of Japan)
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 15

‘revenge’ on the unfortunate woman who has fled from him. The grue-
some scene is accentuated by the positioning of the head on a ledge, which
makes it possible to illustrate blood trickling down the wall to the floor. A
similar principle is at work in another work where blood flowing down the
right leg of a criminal being executed is used to the same effect (Eiri Jiyu ̄
Shinbun, 1884, 3 May). This approach to depicting such content, inciden-
tally, has a distinct resonance with the manner in which Beardsley depicts
the head of John the Baptist in his Salome series of images appearing a
decade later.
The ingenuity displayed by Yoshimune is displayed to varying degrees
more generally in the mass circulation newspapers that enjoyed consider-
able success based on the wedding of serialized novels with sashie illustra-
tions, the Yamato Shinbun and Miyako Shinbun being two cases in point.
These publications were established in the late 1880s by the veteran pub-
lishing innovators San’yūtei Enchō, Kanagaki Robun and Jōno Saigiku
and were consistently successful—remaining in publication right up until
World War II. The Miyako Shinbun was the brainchild of Kanagaki who
initially named it Konnichi Shinbun. It started with an emphasis on the
arts and performance but eventually was restyled as the Miyako Shinbun
and became an evening edition newspaper featuring illustrated serialized
novels in addition to diverse articles and updates on the performing arts.
The Yamato Shinbun was established in 1886 by Jōno Saigiku but likewise
developed from an earlier publication, the Keisatsu Shinpō. It had a broader
focus on popular entertainments as well as the performing arts and became
noted for the inclusion of rakugo or ko ̄dan performances of San’yūtei
Enchō and Shōrin Hakuen that were transcribed and then published as
illustrated serialized novels (Tsuchiya, 1999, 45–63). For the remainder of
the Meiji period, this blend of content in both publications was to prove
highly popular and formed the basis for a continuity of expertise associ-
ated with the production of sashie throughout that period.
Japanese graphic art produced from the later stages of the 1880s to the
close of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 has been characterized in
most commentary as a ‘last flowering’ of ukiyoe and nishikie. Certainly
there was a marked change in emphasis with regard to how such artistic
output was published, with illustrations (sashie) accompanying serialized
novels in newspapers far outstripping more conventional nishikie which
tended to be produced to depict topical events soon after they had
occurred. At the same time there was also a refinement of techniques of
representation, whether in purely black and white illustrations, or the
16 A. SWALE

more traditional nishikie medium, that incorporated more ‘realistic’ depic-

tions of human figures and lived spaces, and this was due to some extent
to the influence of Western artists residing in Japan as well as the impact
of photography. It is certainly the case that formally wrought nishikie
retained a certain cachet compared to illustrations, primarily because the
production values were often higher (although that could not always be
guaranteed for nishikie either). We should query how new visual tech-
niques were being developed and ask who was refining them best. The
period from the late 1880s leading up to the Sino-Japanese War was in fact
a golden-age of illustration and we may be surprised to discover that the
nishikie depicting the war with China that garnered the most praise were
crafted by artists with substantial sashie experience—Toshihide and
Toshikata to name two—including visual devices that in some cases be
traced back to discipline of working in black and white for ten years
or more.
The foregoing overview of the matrix of several branches of artistic
practice—literary, visual and performative—suggests a more dynamic basis
for evaluating the currents of social and cultural development continuing
into the late Meiji period. Apprehending these currents requires some
careful nuancing—the overwhelming tumult of the factional conflict
besetting the new constitutional government and the ongoing toxicity of
frustrations related to extraterritoriality tend to subsume other dimensions
of both social and cultural development. Indeed, with the commencement
of hostilities between Japan and China in 1894, a pattern of rapid military
expansion is set in train that reinforces the priorities of government and
adds impetus to the increasingly antagonistic position in relation to Russia.
With so many momentous developments, the cultural bedrock of
post-1890 Japanese society can tend to be obscured, and I would suggest
that indeed it has been obscured given that there are relatively few inte-
grated accounts of social and cultural developments for this period with
attention tending to converge on the emerging political system, interna-
tional relations, and of course the newly emergent literary elite.
There are nonetheless several sources of historical commentary to date
that are relevant to this concern. Peter Kornicki’s Meiji Japan: Political,
Economic and Social History, a four-volume edited collection of significant
academic essays, is a major exception that provides some detailed perspec-
tives in a thematically organized manner.26 Even so it is clearly the work of
disparate academics with disparate intellectual concerns. Andrew Gordon’s
pioneering scholarship on the emergence of labour relations from late Edo
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 17

to Post-war Japan has provided detail and depth on that aspect of Japan’s
modern development (Gordon, 1985). His A Modern History of Japan
also makes a substantial attempt to provide a more holistic account of the
social and cultural undercurrents of the era albeit with a broad compass,
“from Tokugawa times until the present” (Gordon, 2003). In Japanese
scholarship, Maeda Ai stands out, quite apart from his concerns with liter-
ary history, as making a number of important contributions to our under-
standing of the emergent culture of silent reading and its relation to the
education of academic elites.27
At the same time, as Andrew Gordon notes, there is the burgeoning of
the urban population as an additional 10 million people in the Japanese
population congregate increasingly in urban centres while the countryside
through domestic and international migration takes a slight decline.
Through the expansion in particular of silk and cloth manufacture, along
with other factory-based modes of production, a population with a close
network of daily lived spaces emerges while not yet having the cultural
products that will articulate their new awareness of community.28 To this
can be added a perhaps tangential factor, but one that is arguably more
significant than realized—the emergence of the first generation of elites
who were born on or around the Meiji Restoration and therefore have no
experience of the pre-Meiji social order. The new academic elite who were
now nurtured through either prestigious private academies such as Keiō
Gijuku or the state-funded High Schools and the Preparatory School for
Tokyo Imperial University were also beginning to take a fresh interest in
the world of letters, either as avid consumers of serialized novels or aspir-
ing writers themselves.
In tandem with the development of a new intellectual elite, there was
also the emergence of a new class of urban labourer, the shokkō (職工).
These were a category of citizens without precedent with no direct lineage
to the former caste system. They were more often than not the impover-
ished who had migrated from the countryside following the “Matsukata
deflation” of the 1880s. With the successful denouement to the Sino–
Japanese War in 1895, substantial resources were being poured into
expanding Japan’s still relatively nascent industrial base. It would be
tempting to categorize this class as a working class on a par with the kind
of working class witnessed in Europe and the United States, with similar
political aspirations. However, as T. C. Smith’s brilliantly nuanced analysis
makes clear in “The Right to Benevolence: Dignity and Japanese Workers
1890–1920”, agitation such as it occurred in this early phase of
18 A. SWALE

development was couched more in the language of being accorded a cer-

tain moral acknowledgement as the shokkō endeavoured to better them-
selves and prove their worth in the service of Empire.29
And finally there is the class of urban disaffected drawn variously from
the displaced rural population or the disenfranchised shizoku. The disaf-
fected persons from rural backgrounds are relatively easily understood—
failure to find constant employment, the ignominy of lowly
occupations—however, the amalgam of discontent from the lower-class
former shizoku was a somewhat more heterogenous affair. At root many
continued to deeply resent the outcome of the Restoration if they had
come from clans that were not aligned with Satsuma or Chōshū but it
could be related to a number of frustrations—quite apart from the loss of
stipends, there was the resentment at the apparently overweening
Westernization pursued by the government in all facets of life. There was
the still raw resentment at the ‘betrayal’ of heroes such as Etō Shinpei and
Saigō Takamori and the ‘scandalous’ refusal to preserve Japan’s national
honour by invading Korea in 1873—given a fresh impetus with the burn-
ing down of the Japanese Legation in Seoul in 1884. Regardless of the
particular flavour of resentment being espoused though, there was a com-
mon sobriquet for that class of ruffian or potential political terrorist—the
sōshi (壮士). They would increasingly vent their anger at the government
and any elites deemed too ‘compromised’ by their attachment to Western
values and practices, while their patriotic fervour would be directed toward
the service of one figure, the person of the Emperor (Siniawer, 2011,
pp. 43–51).
The crucial nexus of contradiction in the late Meiji period was indeed
this intersection between fervour for the Emperor and empire, with out-
right ruffianism and at times untrammelled hedonism brewing not far
beneath the surface. As will be illustrated in the ensuing chapters, there
were cadres of political activists of various stripes who actually combined
promotion of patriotism and conservative interests, with relatively scant
regard for the background of those who came along to serve those inter-
ests. It is ironic indeed that one of the most effective planks in the intelli-
gence networks that underpinned Japan’s soft war before the breakout of
full war with Russia was the network of brothels that had been established
in the Eastern theatre, at times with the explicit collaboration of right
wing associations such as the Genyōsha and high-ranking sympathizers
within the military. A movement to ameliorate the position of women held
in prostitution, initially spearheaded by the Salvation Army but later taken
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 19

up by domestic activists in Japan, would find support of sorts from various

quarters—but there was never any suggestion of abolishing prostitution
itself. Indeed, as Kuroiwa Ruikō’s rather infamous naming and shaming in
the pages of the Yorozu Chōho of public officials who were notorious for
having relations with ‘kept women’ (often with illegitimate offspring)
indicated, the moral compass of the elite was never particularly sharply
elevated from the inclinations of the masses who were routinely extolled
to exercise moral probity in the service of nation-building and the promo-
tion of ‘civilization’. Itō Hirobumi, a prime minister in successive cabinets
of the late Meiji period, was notorious for his predilections for drink and
pursuing women, to the extent, as will be covered hereafter, he was char-
acterized in the Kokkei Shinbun of Miyatake Gaikotsu as the modern Meiji
incarnation of the hero in Ihara Saikaku’s famous Edo period novel, The
Man Who Loved Love (『好色一代男』).
Yet, this tension masks to some extent a more human and relatable
trajectory in the evolution of popular entertainment and popularly con-
sumed media during the period in question. The aforementioned genre of
public political speech-making, Seidan, actually led to the establishment of
new performative forms, particularly sōshi shibai, which were the first
attempts by public performers to transpose the medium of political protest
into a mode of popular entertainment. As will be illustrated in more detail
in the ensuing chapter, Kawakami Otojirō, a somewhat provincial bit-­
player in the People’s Rights movement, capitalized on early successes to
provide the public with a new theatrical form that had energy and nov-
elty—shaking the foundations of accepted notions of theatrical practice
and the appropriate handling of contemporary themes in popular theatre.
Moreover, during the Sino-Japanese War nishikie woodblock print artists
of various stripes, along with their publishers, utterly inundated the mar-
ket with content of divergent technical and aesthetic merit, but in so doing
nonetheless galvanized the public consciousness and gave it a certain ‘fes-
tive’ edge despite the desperateness of the times.
It was precisely at this time that what might be characterized as the
birth of ‘modern Japanese literature’ came into being, with the usual attri-
butions of somewhat mythic influence to Tsubouchi Shoyō’s writings to
that enterprise. In the following chapter, considerable attention is given to
the activities of Ozaki Koyō and his collaborators in the Ken’yōsha society
which established a fine example, through the Garakuta Bunkō magazine,
of the possibilities of publishing material that presented intelligence and
wit, along with a high degree of irreverence, combined, nonetheless, with
20 A. SWALE

serious social and cultural awareness and literary aspirations. The talisman
work of Ozaki, The Golden Demon (『金色夜叉』), was indeed in some
sense a distillation of these energies into one iconic novel that presented a
new kind of youth hero—a student, impecunious, desperately in love, but
finding that the only way to get ahead in this new Meiji society was to
become a money-fixated ‘demon’. It was, from a literary perspective,
highly idiosyncratic, and still to this day struggles to find resonance with a
Anglophone readership, but its significance was enormous. As was the
work of one of his ‘disciples’, Izumi Kyōka, who took idiosyncratic but
highly sensual aesthetics in early modern Japanese literature to a new level.
He likewise presents something of a conundrum for both translators and
a non-Japanese readership. The avenues by which such writers found
interactions with popular culture were nonetheless surprising. As we will
see in Chap. 3, the adoption, for example, of one of Izumi Kyōka’s works
by Kawakami Otojirō for the follow-up to his colossally successful Nisshin
Sensō, speaks volumes regarding how synergies between exponents of lit-
erature and performative arts persisted—indeed as a continuation of ten-
dencies evident from well before the Meiji Restoration.
As will be examined in further depth in Chap. 4, Japan entered a rather
intriguing parallel in cultural developments in other parts of the globe. At
the same time that Japan, as with many of the European powers, was con-
solidating colonial acquisitions and indeed contemplating next moves for
potential future expansion, the domestic cultural scene was caught up in
the early stages of the development of mass entertainments that exhibited,
in some cases, a decidedly hedonistic if not decadent orientation. Tokyo in
particular became the focal centre of these phenomena but they could
have their roots in that other dynamic cultural hub—Osaka—or even as far
afield as northern Kyushu. But Tokyo was almost always the final object
for the success of a career in letters, arts and entertainments. The metro-
politan audience of Tokyo was a more urbane and, to some degree, more
literate entity, comprised of a more self-conscious amalgam of the workers,
artisans, and students already alluded to. Various aspects of popular enter-
tainment will be reviewed in this chapter but perhaps the most representa-
tive and intriguing was the phenomenon of women’s gidayū. Drawing on
a repertoire of tales that were initially compiled early in the 1700s by
Takemoto Gidayū (1651–1714), the late Meiji incarnation of the tradi-
tion had emerged from Kyoto and Osaka and rather surprisingly took
Tokyo by storm. That process is discussed further in Chap. 4 but suffice to
highlight that the key to women’s gidayū, or tare gidayū’s success was a
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 21

combination of visual novelty—the performers would be attired in classi-

cal male formal attire—and the women themselves were strikingly attrac-
tive. The segment of the Tokyo populace most smitten by these
performances was the young male audience, particularly the students
attending universities or other institutions of higher learning in the
metropolis. They formed fan clubs, swore undying love to their favourite
performer, and were not averse to rowdy ‘crowd participation’ or even
brawling with other students. Officialdom was horrified, and various edi-
torials ‘tut-tutting’ at the poor behaviour were trotted out with censorious
admonitions and exhortations to curb the phenomenon.
The fin de siècle period covered in Chap. 4 also witnessed the apogee
of the tabloid press, particularly as exemplified by the likes of theYorozu
Cho ̄hō and Niroku Shinpō. They would from time to time join in the cho-
rus of disapproval for the latest instance of student or urbanite misconduct
but at the same time they more or less revelled in reporting scandal and to
fan moral panic with news of the latest horrific murder case or example of
sexual degeneracy. The early 1900s also saw the emergence of a particu-
larly successful satirical publication, the Kokkei Shinbun, which under the
editorship of Miyatake Gaikotsu would enjoy burgeoning circulation and,
unsurprisingly given the at times ribald content, the constant attention of
the official censors. What distinguished it from most other publications
was its combination of wit and commentary on contemporary affairs, with
a penchant for very directly calling out persons in high places who were
discovered to have engaged in corruption or abuse of power. Other news-
papers were apt to accept ‘inducements’ to refrain from such reportage
and the Miyatake made it his business to call out these publications and
their editorship in no uncertain terms.
If the fin de siècle had been characterized by exuberance, excess and
hedonism, the shadow of impending war with the Russian Empire was
bound to cast a pall over the popular mood. By mid-1903, with the
Russians reneging on a pre-agreed staged withdrawal from Manchuria, the
minds of those in government were sharpening their focus on how an
armed conflict with Russia might pan out. Moreover, with the Trans-­
Siberian railway being near completion in the next three to four years, the
window for action was narrowing. But in addition to the government
solidifying its position with regard to the threat of Russian expansion there
was an intensification of official measures to clamp down on what were
perceived as critical internal threats, and they were explicitly identified as
the emergent social movements of Feminism and Socialism (or more
22 A. SWALE

extreme notions of Anarchism), along with more pronounced advocacy of

the primacy of personal choice and personal fulfilment in sexual relations.
These were increasingly branded as injurious Western ideological influ-
ences that posed a direct threat to indigenous Japanese traditions and the
fabric of the Meiji nation state. It is this intensification of official and unof-
ficial attempts to repress these ‘threats’ while also aiming to prosecute the
war to a successful denouement that forms a key focus of Chap. 5.
So far as the cultural impact of the Russo-Japanese War is concerned,
there were continuities in the manner with which writers, artists and per-
formers responded to the conflict—woodblock prints continued to be
produced in substantial quantities, noted authors such as Mori Ogai and
Kunikida Doppo continued to follow the conflict in the field and produce
diverse literary responses while patriotic theatrical productions, both in
tradition kabuki and the “new theatre” (Shingeki) enjoyed enthusiastic
receptions. But unlike the previous war of 1894–1895, there was not the
broad popular consensus in favour of the war against Russia, and as
astounding casualties mounted, not even persons as illustrious as General
Nogi Maresuke were immune to direct criticism for the painfully slow
progress in the first year. As will be covered in more detail in the ensuing
commentary, there was also the emergence of newly sombre modes of
public performance. On the one hand, there was the naniwa-bushi of
Tōchūgen Kumoemon (1873–1916), a recitative genre of story-telling
performance which relied on a staple of historical tales of military bravery
and honour, such as Chūshingura (the tale of the loyal forty-seven rōnin).
At the same time, there was the enormous popularity of performances by
Bitō Itchō (1847–1928), the content of which was derived from the
military-­themed kōdan repertoire. These performances were consonant
with the tenor of mourning that stemmed from the mounting count of
the war dead, but they were also in fact patronized and promoted by high-­
ranking government officials and military figures, along with nationalist
private associations that saw this ‘reform’ of popular entertainment a vital
complement to more overt political activism.
The end of the Russo-Japanese War, though nominally a victory for the
Japanese Empire, and a dire humiliation for the Russian counterpart,
nonetheless did not lead to the outpouring of optimism and energy wit-
nessed following the resolution of the Sino-Japanese War in 1895. The
terms of Treaty of Portsmouth, announced on the 5th of September 1905,
included no reparations from the Russians—a facet that immediately
ignited public indignation and intense opprobrium for the government.
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 23

On the evening of the day of the announcement, a public protest orga-

nized at Hibiya Park in Tokyo erupted into a savage riot, taking three days
to quell and requiring the declaration of martial law on the 6th of
September.
The final years of the Meiji period covered in the final chapter could be
characterized as a period of intensifying contradictions and intractable
problems with no simple solutions. The social unrest that broke out in the
Hibiya riots was not a one-off. Exactly a year later, similar outbreaks of
violence and riot visited the capital as a series of protests at the scheduled
raising of metropolitan train service fares spiraled into similarly chaotic
and shocking episodes of mayhem. This was compounded by unrest at
some of Japan’s most iconic centres of heavy-industrial production, most
famously at the Ashio Copper mine which also saw a major outbreak of
violent rioting in 1907. On the political front, initial attempts to offer
something of an olive branch to the Socialist Movement under the pre-
miership of Saionji Kinmochi fell into disarray as factional infighting
between those advocating political engagement and those advocating vio-
lent revolution spilt into public stand-offs. The so-called Red Flag Incident
of the 22nd of June, 1908, put paid to any possibility of rapprochement
between political activism and government. At a social gathering of vari-
ous factions of Socialists and Anarchists at the Kinkikan theatre to cele-
brate the release from prison of the broadly supported leader Yamaguchi
Koken, the initially cordial proceedings dissolved into a rather raucous
unfurling of banners and chanting of Anarchist slogans by representatives
of the more activist factions. Police were on the scene immediately and
several arrests of high-profile activists were made, including several leading
Feminists such as Kanno Sugako. This was a watershed in turning political
activism towards insurrection, with several of the figures involved in the
incident later arrested for their alleged plot to assassinate the Meiji
Emperor in 1910. In the end, twelve of the accused, including the
Anarchist intellectual and feminist Kanno Sugako, were sentenced to
death and executed.
On the external front, Japan’s relation with Korea which it had practi-
cally taken governmental control over in the wake of the Russo-Japanese
War morphed into a predictable predicament of making choices about
what kind of coercive subordination would be feasible. The answer of
course was that no coercive relationship with the Korean people and gov-
ernment would work—hatred would only deepen, and that was indeed
what happened. As if to underscore the futility of a ‘constructive’ colonial
24 A. SWALE

policy, Itō Hirobumi, the former Governor-General of Korea (or Chōsen

as it was referred to by the Japanese government at the time), was assassi-
nated at the Harbin train station in October of 1909. In the event, the
more aggressive factions within the Japanese military, in a manner some-
what prescient of future tendencies, succeeded in forcing the move toward
annexation in 1910.
Two years after the annexation of Korea, the Meiji Emperor, who now
ruled over a colonial dominion that included what is now modern Taiwan
and Korea, passed away at the relatively young age of sixty on the 30th of
July, 1912. He purportedly was suffering from several chronic health
issues including diabetes and kidney failure. The passing of the Emperor
was duly noted in the international press and it was in most cases with
genuinely warm admiration that the obituaries commented on the extraor-
dinary achievements of Japan in the course of the forty-four years of his
reign. The Meiji period was rounded off with the astounding response of
General Nogi Maresuke to the death of the Emperor—he performed rit-
ual suicide along with his wife on the same day as the funeral, the 13th of
September, 1912. This added a note of astonishment to the final events
surrounding the end of the Meiji epoch.
So it was indeed a rather diverse and complex tapestry of social and
cultural forces that was emerging during the period under review in this
volume. There was a new urban culture coming into being and within it a
number of trends were coalescing, some of which were highly innovative
but there were also others that were deeply retrospective. It also bears
emphasizing that even while there was a fair degree of tumult throughout
the second half of the Meiji period, there was also a freshness of energy
and even downright playfulness. In Chap. 2, we will focus on two initia-
tives—those of the disciples of Yoshitoshi as they refined their skills in
sashie illustrations in popular newspapers and, in parallel, the satirical bent
of writers such as Miyatake Gaikotsu who brought an astonishing fearless-
ness and humour to the business of critiquing contemporary society. This
relatively subversive cultural animus would seem to require a name, and
accordingly I have put forth the notion of decadence in counterbalance to
the modernizing and empire-oriented discourse of civilization.

Notes
1. Swale (2000, 183).
2. Fraser (1995, 8–36).
 1 INTRODUCTION: THE GENESIS OF LATE MEIJI CULTURE 25

3. Swale (2009, pp. 160–162).

4. For the most comprehensive account of Yoshitoshi’s career and impact on
the community of artists in late Meiji Japan see Sugawara Mayumi, Tsukioka
Yoshitoshi Den: Bakumatsu Meiji no Hazama ni, Chuō Kōron Bijutsu
Shuppan, 2018.
5. Tsuchiya (2002, 183–185).
6. Mertz (2003, 212–213).
7. Foxwell (2018), Swale (2022). To this can be added Daniel Poch’s
Licentious Fictions: Ninjō and the Nineteenth-Century Japanese
Novel (2020).
8. Rinbara (1993, 42–43).
9. Rinbara (ibid., 44–45), Yamada and Rinbara (2003, 550–551).
10. McGuinness (2000, 1–18).
11. Beckson (1981, pp. i–xxi).
12. Krobb (2004, 547–562).
13. Amano (2013).
14. Brecher (2012, 803–817).
15. Brecher (ibid., 809–811); see also Jones and Inouye (2017), for
translations.
16. Brecher (ibid., 808), Fraleigh (2016).
17. Foxwell (op. cit., 47–51).
18. Brecher (op. cit., 811–812).
19. Brecher (ibid, 812–813).
20. Buckland (2013, 259–276).
21. Satō (2011, 324–341).
22. Swale (2022, 1–8).
23. Mertz (2003), Marran (2007), Saito (2012), and Fraleigh (2016).
24. Bassoe (2018) is one of a remarkably limited set of scholarly writings on
Izumi Kyōka despite his significance.
25. Keene (1971, 161–166).
26. Kornicki (1998).
27. Maeda (2004, 223–233).
28. Gordon (2003, 94–103).
29. Smith (1998, 587–613).
 CHAPTER 2

The Constitution and Latent Anarchy

The promulgation of the Meiji Constitution was a national showpiece for

“civilization and progress” and regardless of how things transpired on the
day and thereafter, it was by any measure a momentous turning point in
Japan’s modern development. Yet, as was outlined in Chap. 1, a number
of profound transformations had already been set in train in the world of
popular culture and mass media that, in certain regards, were already set-
ting the parameters for all future developments. We have seen the emer-
gence of the new ‘mid-sized’ newspapers, along with the integration of
pre-Meiji literary and cultural practices into the mainstream, reflected in
not only the profile of publishing personnel but the hybridity of the con-
tent that was being circulated broadly through serialized novels. This was
a formidable matrix of popular expression and interaction, and so it should
not surprise us that the emergence of these phenomena was also accompa-
nied by the establishment, in 1887, of the Peace Preservation Ordinance.
The Peace Preservation Ordinance consisted of seven articles, each with
rather draconian implications. Apart from variously designating the targets
of the Ordinance as secret associations and assemblies, or published mate-
rial injurious to the public peace, the most significant aspect was the degree
to which the metropolitan police were given powers of discretion to iden-
tify persons or places to restrict, with added discretion with regard to the
penalties as well. Article 4 was the most severe in that it gave the police the
authority, in consultation with the Home Minister, to compel persons
identified as participating in offending practices to absent themselves from

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 27

Switzerland AG 2023
A. Swale, A Cultural History of Late Meiji Japan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43646-8_2
28 A. SWALE

the central area of Tokyo to a point outside the radius of 3 ri, approxi-
mately 12 kilometers, from the Imperial Palace. In the first iteration of the
implementation of Article 4, the persons identified were given little or no
warning of the expectation that they were to comply immediately or face
incarceration.1
The Ordinance coincided with a rather palpable change of tone and
energy in contemporary urban culture in the late 1880s. As already alluded
to, this period saw the advent of a new young readership schooled within
the Meiji education system as well as journalists and writers who went
through those same educational institutions. It was not that this genera-
tion would supplant veterans such as Kanagaki Robun and Jōno Saigiku
but they would be the ‘fresh blood’ to make the new mediascape, which
had indeed emerged with their input and influence, it would be their very
own and they would be the ones to drive it forward.
As if to announce the presence of this new generation with an astound-
ing combination of daring and recklessness, Miyatake Gaikotsu published
a highly provocative satirical cartoon on the day the Emperor bestowed
the Constitution on the people of Japan. It illustrated the scene of the
Emperor presenting the Prime Minister, Ito Hirobumi, with a copy of the
august document but with the Emperor depicted as a skeleton. A particu-
larly harsh punishment was meted to Miyatake who was imprisoned for
3 years and 8 months.2 Following release, Miyatake was to go on to
become an extraordinarily prolific publisher of unashamedly frivolous con-
tent along with writing sharp lambasting critiques of figures within the
government and even one of the most venerable denizens of civilization
and enlightenment, Fukuzawa Yukichi. In certain regards, Miyatake can
be regarded as the flag-bearer for the nascent ‘decadence’ of the late
Meiji period.
Miyatake developed as a maverick publisher and essayist in the years
preceding his famous escapade, but he was by no means alone. The early
works of James R. Morita (1969) and Peter Kornicki (1982) have dealt
with the emergence of the Ken’yūsha, a coterie of literary-minded young
men who had studied at Tokyo University, and who also initiated what is
generally recognized as the first journal series dedicated primarily to liter-
ature—Garakuta Bunko, established in May of 1885. It was a significant
initiative in the world of letters, yet anything but conventional in terms of
its content and distribution. Its core members included Ozaki Kōyō
1867–1903), Yamada Bimyō (1868–1910), Ishibashi Shian (1867–1927)
and Maruoka Kyūka (1865–1927) and the first series of eight publications
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 29

were all hand-written and only circulated amongst the members. Then
there was a further series of eight publications (November 1886–February
1888) that were conventionally printed but still only retained for the
members. Finally, from May of 1888 to October 1889, a total of twenty-­
seven issues were published and sold to the public. 3
As Morita’s outline of the output of the Garakuta Bunko suggests,
there was a noted reluctance to exclude any kind of literary output, be it
nonsense verse such as dodoitsu (versified limericks), satirical sketches or
ghost stories. Morita is very much on the nail when he suggests that this
was a very modern incarnation of the gesaku literary ethos, and there was
little or any inclination to dabble in politically themed novels or adapta-
tions of Western classics. Perhaps somewhat paradoxically, Morita suggests
that the members of the Ken’yūsha were unconcerned with establishing a
literary aesthetic for the novel and indeed lacked a seriousness of purpose.
He even goes so far as to suggest that “What is conspicuously absent from
Garakuta Bunko is a literary ideal”.4 I would suggest that there was a very
clear conception of an aesthetic ideal and there was also a very pronounced
aspiration to make a statement about where Japan’s literature should be
going. It was a profoundly retrospective view of literary aesthetics in the
sense the group imbibed so heartily the joie de vivre and diversity of out-
puts so typical of the pre-Meiji gesaku ethos.5 There was a very palpable
thumbing of the nose at attempts to rework Japan’s literary aesthetic
through adaptation of Western literary models.
As the leading figure amongst the core members, Kōyō from time to
time issued ‘announcements’ that would set out the Ken’yūsha’s ‘policies’
and aims. They were invariably pun-laden and amusing, and at times satiri-
cal in the attitude towards the more ‘elevated’ (i.e. Westernized) attempts
at promoting serious literature. The youth of the members belied a quiet
determination to see that if the ‘novel’, or indeed Japanese literature as a
whole, was to become ‘serious’, it would not be based on prescriptions
rooted in external cultural models, which of course had the inevitable
cachet of being associated with ‘civilization and progress’. In December of
1886, prior to Garakuta Bunko going fully public, Kōyō penned an ironic
set of ‘Regulations’ for the Ken’yūsha, but instead of using the standard
characters for kisoku (規則) for regulations, he adopted the first character
for gesaku which can also be pronounced gi, hence the title was Ken’yūsha
Gisoku (硯友社戯則). This is an ingenious pun that also pointedly states
the society’s literary ideal. The announcement stated (boasted?) that the
publication would include novels, comic prose, rakugo, riddles and “akkō
30 A. SWALE

zōgen” (悪口雑言), a Miscellany of Bad-mouthing.6 Two years later, in

the first issue of the publicly issued Garakuta Bunko, the Ken’yūsha posted
a formal ‘Code’ (shasoku, 社則) that stated rather tellingly:

This Society wishes to help develop literature in Japan. Therefore we would

not reject either dodoitsu, amorous words based on actual love, or kyōku –
mean words based on whatever you saw or heard;…7

So an emphatically indiscriminate commitment to earlier popular literary

and performative traditions was indeed the precise point of their literary
aspirations, and it was being expressed in a manner that was mischievous,
witty and quite explicitly critical of the ‘official’ ideal of promoting ‘civili-
zation’ in all things.
Peter Kornicki’s later commentary on the output of this group and its
relations with contemporary senior figures such as Tsubouchi Shōyō has
gone a long way to provide something of a corrective for the view that the
Ken’yūsha were not serious in their pursuit of literary ideals or indeed that
they disregarded the admonitions contained in Tsubouchi’s The Essence of
the Novel. Kornicki is at pains to emphasize that Tsubouchi was well aware
of the output of the Ken’yūsha and was actually supportive of the more
promising members whose works were beginning to be sought after in
other publishing vehicles. A chief instance is when the publisher Yoshioka
Tetsutarō visited Kōyō in late 1888 with a view to persuading him to write
the first of a new series One Hundred New Works (『新著百集』) and
upon receiving agreement requested Tsubouchi to write a preface for the
work. Understandably, Tsubouchi requested the opportunity to review
Kōyō’s work, Irozange, which was to be the first instalment. Yoshioka
politely refused citing the need for complete confidentiality prior to
release. Tsubouchi did not flinch, and proceeded to submit an effusive
endorsement of the publishing initiative and to speak fulsomely of his
appreciation for the writing he had seen of Kōyō’s in the Garakuta Bunko.8
The period under consideration saw a ‘shaking out’ of preconceptions
regarding what constituted ‘proper literature’. Two scholars have contrib-
uted to clarifying the nature of that process. Seth Jacobowitz, in his
Writing Technology in Meiji Japan: A Media History of Modern Japanese
Literature and Visual Culture (2015) traces continuities with regard to
how decidedly pre-Meiji traditions such as Kōdan and Rakugo were find-
ing a new life through new media technologies that facilitated
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 31

unprecedented accuracy in transcription and dissemination based largely

on the refining of short-hand techniques in Japanese. Daniel Poch, in
Licentious Fictions: Ninjō and the Nineteenth-Century
Japanese Novel (2020), has taken things further by taking the trope of
ninjo ̄ and tracing how this too finds a new life in the hands of diverse writ-
ers and critics in the late nineteenth century. Both scholars are rather
scathing of the rather simplistic characterization of the influence of
Tsubouchi Shōyō’s Essence of the Novel. Jabobowitz states, quite provoca-
tively, but nonetheless accurately, that there are few figures among the
Meiji intelligentsia who have had their work and impact oversimplified and
mischaracterized. Poch gives this further nuancing by accentuating the
essential conundrum of the time—capturing emotion and speech ‘as it is’
in literature while somehow retaining a concern that it would not be an
exercise in presenting human relations, particularly romantic relations, as
simply an exercise in personal gratification. Everyone shared the challenge,
Shōyō included, and there was no clear pathway ahead.9
Accordingly, the attempts to resolve that conundrum were diverse
indeed. Ozaki Kōyō in time took things head on in Golden Demon (serial-
ized 1897–1902), which depicts the futility of romantic aspirations in an
age of utilitarian self-promotion and money-grabbing (the climactic scene
entails the hero being rejected by the woman he loves who opts for a more
socially and financially advantageous match). His disciple Izumi Kyoka
embraced the supernatural, ghosts in particular, as vehicles for engaging
with intense personal emotions and thereby rejecting the positivist prem-
ises of the drive for “Civilization and Enlightenment”. Natsume Soseki,
after a detour through engagement if shaseibun (literary sketches with a
strong Sinifind influence) finally settled on his idiosyncratic riposte—I Am
a Cat (1905–1906) —the perfect response to the problem of the indi-
vidually ‘authentic’ voice of an author.
Ultimately, the Ken’yūsha’s move to rename Garakuta Bunko as Bunko
signaled a renewed focus on producing serious literary works, but it was
not sustained for a considerable amount of time. This did not necessarily
signify the demise of the Ken’yūsha’s members or indeed the futility of
having a society magazine—a number of more weighty and inclusive mag-
azines were beginning to appear and the members of the Ken’yūsha
slipped smoothly into a new milieu where their work was in most cases
enthusiastically welcomed. It signaled the beginning of a much more pro-
tracted and at times uncharted trajectory of experimentation and refur-
bishing of existing traditions.
32 A. SWALE

We have seen that some of the veterans of gesaku-oriented literature

and traditional performance were driving ahead with new formats of illus-
trated newspapers—the Miyako Shinbun established by Kanagaki Robun
and the Yamato Shinbun established by Jōno Saigiku being the primary
examples. There was also a proliferation from this time of illustrated maga-
zines, gahō (画報), one of the most representative being the Fūzoku Gahō.
As the ensuing image illustrates (Fig. 2.1), these included lively and varied
illustrations and were intended to be accessible for a very broad audience.

Fig. 2.1 Kokkai Gahō, No. 1, published July, 1890. Courtesy of the National
Diet Library of Japan, Tokyo
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 33

At the same time, there was a new force emerging in literary magazine
publishing and it was eventually to become one of the most respected and
established publishing houses in modern Japan—Hakubunkan (博文館).
Strictly speaking, Hakubunkan was established in 1887 but in fact it
was the latest incarnation of a publishing venture initiated by Ō hashi Sahei
(1836–1901), a veteran entrepreneur who had an already significant pro-
file with his publishing house that bore the family name. 1887 marked a
significant change of direction and it was to be overseen by his son Ō hashi
Shintarō (1863–1944) who took up the mantle and forged the publisher
into a powerhouse of literary and cultural magazine publishing in the late
Meiji period (it remains one of the largest and diverse publishers even to
this day). The flagship publication for Hakubunkan was Nihon Taika
Ronshu ̄ and it was to draw contributions from a very broad range of con-
tributors—from veteran Meirokusha scholars to contemporary leading
lights of the Nativist kokusuishugi movement and indeed the likes of the
literary Ken’yūsha membership alluded to above. According to Asaoka
Kunio, the publication layout was visually styled rather blatantly in emula-
tion of the contemporaneous Kokumin no Tomo which was edited by
Tokutomi Sohō (1863–1957), but it did not share the stridently pro-­
popular rights and liberalism of Tokutomi’s editorial stance. The very
naming of the publishing house mirrored the first name of the prime min-
ister, Ito Hirobumi, which could be read as “hakubun” in the alternative
on-yomi pronunciation.10
Ō hashi Shintarō’s impact on the trajectory of the new publication was
palpable from the start. When conferring with his father over the merits of
establishing a specialist publication in two new fields, one dealing with
religion and another aimed primarily at women, Ō hashi Shintarō argued
as follows:

Even though the perspectives put forth in articles in each of the respective
journals will have their merits, a too specialized focus will attract few readers
and sell fewer copies. On account of these things the publications will also
be expensive and not really suited to the general reader. For these reasons we
should gather the articles together in one magazine, lower the price and
endeavor to sell as many copies as possible. If we do that, then we will be
making a much better contribution to society.11

Nihon Taika Ronshu ̄ was precisely the exemplar of this model and from
the 1890s in particular it went through a number of iterations in layout
34 A. SWALE

and composition of content with the aim of expanding the readership and
sales as much as possible.12
From its early inception, Nihon Taika Ronshū was also known to repro-
duce from time to time material from other publications without permis-
sion from the author or publisher. This eventually came to a dramatic end
in 1894 when Hakubunkan was sued by the Kokka Gakkai (国家学会), an
academic association based in the law faculty at the Imperial University in
Tokyo. In February of 1894, Nihon Taika Ronshū published the text of a
speech that had been given by Konoe Atsumaro to the Kokka Gakkai in
November of the previous year. It had been transcribed at the time and
published soon after in the journal of the association, Kokka Gakkai Zasshi
(『国家学会雑誌』). The text of the reprint in Nihon Taika Ronshū was
essentially the same in content albeit rendered in the “desu/masu” regis-
ter as opposed to the more austere tenor of the original speech. The suit
could be brought against Hakubunkan due to the promulgation in 1893
of statutes that protected copyright, the Hankenhō (版権法). This was
new terrain for all publishers in Japan and the case would serve to reset the
tenor of editorial attitudes towards appropriation of material form other
publishing sources. In the end, after rather intensively apologetic lobbying
from Hakubunkan, the matter was resolved with a full apology published
simultaneously in both the Nihon Taika Ronshū and the Kokka Gakkai
Zasshi.13
The denouement of this episode did not have a direct impact on the
continuity of the publication as such but it did mean the end of unauthor-
ized reprinting of content from other publications. Moreover, as Asaoka
argues, the composition of the editorial staff at Nihon Taika Ronshū had
evolved to the point where they had substantial ties with the literary world
and could increasingly procure bespoke content for the publication.14More
significantly, Hakubunkan by this stage actually developed a very broad
stable of publications which could be categorized in three ‘constellations’.
The first we might style as being oriented towards commentary on broadly
social interests: apart from Nihon Taika Ronshū, already discussed, there
was Nihon Shōgyō Zasshi (『日本商業雑誌』) which dealt with commerce,
Nihon Nōgyō Zasshi (『日本農業雑誌』) dealing with agriculture, Nihon
no Hōritsu (『日本之法律』) dealing with legal affairs, and a publication
aimed at women’s issues, Fujo Zasshi (『婦女雑誌』). In 1895, these
would be amalgamated into one publication, Taiyō (『太陽』), which
would become one of the most popular and influential publications of the
late Meiji period.
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 35

A second ‘constellation’ was much more clearly aligned with purely lit-
erary interests: Bungei Kyōshinkai (『文芸共進会』), Sekai Bunko (『世界
文庫』), Meiji Bunko (『明治文庫』), Itsuwa Bunko (『逸話文庫』) and
Shunka Shūtō (『春夏秋冬』). At the same time as the establishment of
Taiyō, these would also be amalgamated into a single title, Bungei Kurabu
(『文芸倶楽部』), which rapidly established itself as one of the central
publishing organs of the Meiji literary elite, the Meiji Bundan.
Finally, there was a constellation of publications that were broadly ori-
ented towards a youth audience: Nihon no Shōnen (『日本之少年』),
Yōnen Zasshi (『幼年雑誌』), Gakusei Hitsusenjō (『学生筆戦場』),
Shōnen Bungaku (『少年文学』) and Yōnen Tamatebako (『幼年玉手
箱』). These too were amalgamated at the same time as Shōnen Sekai (『
少年世界』).15
So Hakubunkan went from being a successful publisher and purveyor
of popular titles in Nagano to become one of the most pivotal and influ-
ential players in mass-produced popular print media in the early to late
1890s in Meiji Japan. Certainly at the core of their success was the acumen
to identify untapped audiences and provide an avenue for expression and
reception. At the same time they had the commercial nous to realize that
in the long term niche publications could not survive. Their corralling of
these several currents of popular and literary interest into flagship amalga-
mations was a stroke of genius—and certainly formed the bedrock of their
latter success that even has vestiges to the present day.
Perhaps one aspect of their astuteness that stands out is their identifica-
tion of an audience that was emergent but also in a state of flux. Just as the
Ken’yūsha had emerged from the ranks of the Imperial University, there
was in fact an increasingly significant cohort of young students, men and
women, who were engaged in their publications and were not only keen
to ‘consume’ as readers but also to generate content to contribute. The
emergent phenomenon of the “student” —literate, passionate, and not
always a “good subject” of the Emperor—was in fact increasingly to
become one of the most defining elements of late Meiji culture. From the
perspective of the ‘official line’, students were supposed to be devoted to
their studies and not engaging in any material that was not related to their
specialization. In point of fact, from the 1890s onwards the problem of
“extracurricular reading” (kagai yomimono, 課外読み物) amongst stu-
dents began to receive serious comment amongst educationists and
expressions of deep concern from within the Education Ministry.16
36 A. SWALE

One of the key contentions of this chapter is that this broad strand of
literary output and consumption was very much at the heart of literary
developments in the early to mid-1890s. It was centred on serialized nov-
els published in mass-circulation publications such as the aforementioned
literary magazines or newspapers that specialized in such content, − the
Yamato Shinbun, Miyako Shinbun, and to perhaps a lesser extent the
Yomiuri Shinbun. It modifies significantly the perception that the intel-
lectual commentary and literary output of writers such as Tsubouchi
Shōyō and Futabatei Shimei was the core driver of literature during this
period, and places writers and illustrators of a distinctly hybrid set of liter-
ary and artistic proclivities alongside, if not to the fore. The essential dif-
ficulty is that this output is not ‘endorsed’ by proponents of ‘civilization’
or ‘empire’, either within government or amongst the government aligned
literati, but produced by persons whose output was routinely regarded as
suspect and unworthy of serious minds. Part of this is due to either per-
ceptions of negative associations with deeply ‘backward’ literary tenden-
cies from late Edo gesaku. At the same time, and with some irony,
deprecations were hurled at this material based on the fact that there was
a seemingly increasing frivolity in the content of such literature, in that it
drew on loose translations of Western classical or popular literature, or
became increasingly infected by the fad for “detective novels”. This does
present something of a conundrum, in that, on the one hand, this new
vein of literature was excessively retro, and, on the other hand, it was
increasingly faddish and obsessed with novelty.17
This is not quite the contradiction that it seems, particularly if we con-
sider the possibility that, for the first thing, gesaku predilections did not in
themselves preclude a capacity to transpose certain conventions into new
material, and for the second thing there may well have been more “method
in the madness” of running to everything from Shakespeare to Conan-­
Doyle to do precisely that. One might describe it as a hybrid literary enter-
prise—but I would prefer to characterize it as a synthesis of forms where a
new strain emergences with relative consistency, albeit with a number of
variations. It is the first stage in the establishment of a self-consciously
decadent literary movement, − decadent in the sense it cannot be accom-
modated within the aims of a civilized high culture, and neither do the
proponents of the material regard it as their business to convince their
detractors otherwise. In the following section, I will undertake do demon-
strate the transition with a few key examples.
One of the first hugely popular works to be presented in the pages of
the Yamato Shinbun was a transcription of a Sanyūtei Enchō classic, an
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 37

earlier tale of the supernatural (怪談, kwaidan) that was restyled and per-
formed as A True Tale from Kasanegafuchi (『眞景累ヶ淵』). It was a
tale of supernatural calamities visited upon the descendants of a man who
killed a money lender to expunge his debts (for an illustration from the
work produced by Yoshitoshi see Fig. 2.2). In the preface to the work that
was in due course published as a stand-alone work in 1888 Enchō feigns

Fig. 2.2 Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, illustration from Sanyūtei Enchō’sA True Tale
from Kasanegafuchi (『眞景累ヶ淵』), as published in the Enchō Zenshū, Vol. 1,
Shuyōdō, 1926. (Courtesy of the National Diet Library of Japan)
38 A. SWALE

despair that something as retrospective as a kwaidan could command such

interest:

From today I am presenting a kwaidan, a tale of the supernatural, despite

the fact that some might say that such tales have become greatly denigrated
and therefore not often performed. The mere mention of such tales leads
people to point out that there are no such things as ghosts and that accounts
of the supernatural are simply the result of people being afflicted with ner-
vous disorders. For such reasons esteemed exponents of civilization and
progress despise kwaidan. However, even though for some time now these
tales have been held in such low regard, in the current situation we find that,
contrary to expectations, these seemingly antiquated tales are regarded as
fresh and lively to the ear.18

This set the tenor of a realization that certain elements of the pre-Meiji
literary tradition remained pertinent and popular for a broad array of read-
ers—the tropes of gesaku literature were not going anywhere. Contrast
this with the publication in 1890, again within Yamato Shinbun, of a seri-
alized novel by Jōno Saigiku entitled Sannin Musume (『三人令攘』).19
Meanwhile, at the Miyako Shinbun, there were some subtle transforma-
tions afoot and they had a great deal to do with the editorial input from
Kuroiwa Ruikō. Ruikō was quick to spot the appeal of the fresh new set-
tings and plot twists that were being afforded by adapting Western mate-
rial and he embraced the policy of incorporating such material with gusto.
His particular forte, however, was to be the development of a particular
genre of literary output, the detective novel, exemplified for example
by Kettō no Hate (『決闘の果』). He pursued this line until he parted
from the editorial staff at the Miyako Shinbun in 1892 and established
another hugely significant newspaper aimed at the general public, the
Yorozu Chōhō. There, Kuroiwa carved out a distinctive niche as an adapter
of Western literary texts, particularly detective fiction, into vernacular
Japanese for the masses.
If we take an overview of the foregoing examples, the first, Kasanegafuchi
by Sanyūtei Enchō is emphatically and actually unapologetically rooted in
pre-Meiji tropes, the second, Sannin Musume by Jōno Saigiku, is based on
Shakespeare’s King Lear but is transposed essentially into Meiji Japan,
with the characters bearing Japanese names and an elaborate set of titles
and positions consonant with the elite of contemporary society. The third
example, Kettō no Ka by Kuroiwa Ruikō, had Japanese names and titles,
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 39

but was set in France, almost inviting the reader to indulge in an impos-
sible fantasy. What links them all is a gesaku sensibility, with a retained
proclivity with dokufumono, ninjōbanashi and kanzenchōaku, and some
entertaining exposition on the accoutrements of civilization in Europe
thrown in for good measure.20
The question of the literary merit of such output does arise, and has
indeed come up in commentary to date, with most verdicts falling towards
the negative. But as some recent scholarship on Sannin Musume has
argued, and I think correctly, there is a literary ingenuity in terms of the
manner in which the components have been put together despite the
incongruity, and the prose itself is in places well-finished and highly evoca-
tive by gesaku standards. Where it ‘fails’ of course is in relation to the lack
of resemblance to Western conventions of authorship and the reliance on
material from exogenous sources.21
There has been a preoccupation in commentary on early modern
Japanese literature with the emergent psychology of the Japanese novel in
terms of the consciousness of self, of individual authorship. However,
what these foregoing outputs emphatically imply is not the forging of an
authorial consciousness but the emergence of a common sensibility, one
synthesized from a variety of sources that make no sense in their combina-
tion if you expect them to cohere like the thoughts of an actual person, or
writing about the actual world. It is, after all, fiction, and the sensibility is
profoundly communal,—it is indeed a shared realm of imagination that
transcends the preoccupations of the here and now while aiming to speak
to it nonetheless. Various tropes from Edo traditions pre-exist the literary
act, while at the same time tropes appropriated from Western sources are
often predetermined and not up for easy renegotiation—what makes the
literary acts of writers engaging in the production of these works new and
remarkable is the literary act of synthesizing the varied tropes into a world
that somehow feels plausible, and indeed entertaining. It is a very different
kind of authorship within a very distinctive cultural milieu and for a very
distinctive readership. 22
This is not to suggest that there was no development at all of a sense of
individual authorial voice or consciousness amongst contemporary writ-
ers, or that they were not engaged in depicting the actual world (after all
that is indeed the preoccupation of the “Naturalist” authors), but if we
focus only on those things we lose a great deal of the picture. For example,
we could consider I Am a Cat by Natsume Sōseki as a key early expression
of a definitive and distinctive authorial voice—and that would of course be
40 A. SWALE

correct. However how much better to see the links between gesaku tropes
of using animals as the protagonists of a novel in the former, or to acknowl-
edge the distinctly counter-authorial ploy of using the foil of a cat rather
than one’s purely adult perspective as the spring board for the narrative.
Neither of these facets should surprise us given the foregoing.23
One other figure whose career should also give us pause to reconsider
the nature of the literary community emerging in late nineteenth-century
Japan is Fukuchi Gen’ichirō. Fukuchi is renowned as one of the early edi-
tors behind the rise of the Tokyo Nichi-nichi Shinbun, a legend amongst
the leading figures of the early Meiji press. Paradoxically, however, he left
the editorial office of that newspaper in 1888 and never returned to jour-
nalism again. This was indeed a quite astounding turn of events in one
sense and James Huffman relates that it was due to a decisive change in the
political climate and the culture of popular press at the time. Fukuchi was
decidedly reluctant to take up the Minken side as most other publications
had done and this left him few options. What he did next is intriguing but
also highly instructive—he dropped journalism for writing about contem-
porary performing arts and literature while himself embarking on an
astonishingly prolific output of scripts for kabuki plays and serialized nov-
els. He took the pen-name Ō chi (桜痴). On top of this he was a key figure
in providing broad translations of the English sources that would be used
by other writers who had no direct knowledge of the source texts—this
being the case with Jōno Saigiku’s adaptation of King Lear, Sannin
Musume.24
Another figure meriting particular attention is Miyatake Gaikotsu—
alluded to earlier for his Quixotic parody of the Emperor in the guise of a
skeleton. There is not a great deal of scholarship available in English on
this journalist, writer and publisher but as the ensuing pages should reveal
by and by, he is perhaps the person who most accurately personifies the
decadent riposte to the Meiji government and its attempts to mould the
populace into a compliant and Emperor-revering citizenry. Gaikotsu was
born with the name Kameshirō in 1877, one year before the Restoration
and was the fourth son of a village headman, sho ̄ya (庄屋), in the vicinity
of Takamatsu within the former Sanuki no Kuni, now Kagawa Prefecture.
While not of a samurai background, his family would have had substantial
means and indeed the young Kameshirō was entered into the local school
to study the classics and later joined the Takamatsu Eigi Juku in 1878 to
further an evidently classical education. Kameshirō was a capable student
but was evidently distracted by the content of contemporary satirical
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 41

magazines such as Marumaru Chinbun and Kibi Dango which he avidly

collected. It was after a stint studying in the juku that he abruptly dropped
his classical studies in 1880 and returned to his home near Takamatsu.
The following year, he set out to join his brother in Tokyo and there,
while undertaking further study, began to write contributions for some of
the less than ‘scholarly’ publications that he had come to admire. In 1883,
he returned to Takamatsu and set up a publishing company although the
projected works, eighteen in all, never actually went to print. The follow-
ing year he legally changed his name to Gaikotsu, which literally meant
skeleton, basing the change on the fact that the “Kame” in his original
name referred to a turtle which had an exoskeletal physiology. In 1885,
aged 19, he had formed a serious relationship with the daughter of a sam-
urai family in Takamatsu, Nishimura Fusako, and despite opposition
within the family married her and set out with 500 yen to return to Tokyo
and reside with his older brother Kiheiji.25
From 1886 Miyatake began to look into writing and publishing in ear-
nest. After establishing the publishing house, Hichamucha Sha, he pub-
lished the Hichamucha Shinbun, which was immediately censored and
closed down due to its content being classified as detrimental to the pub-
lic. Hichamucha (屁茶無茶) was a play on the term for things being in a
complete mess, muchakucha (無茶苦茶), but it retained only the mucha
and preceded it with Hicha wherein the hi was the character for a fart. His
connections with local writers and publishers nonetheless blossomed and
he began to accrue something of a reputation for wit combined with an
intense drive to succeed. In 1887, the year of the promulgation of the
Peace Preservation Ordinance, he set about publishing, with evidently
greater care to avoid censorship, his first major foray into satirical publica-
tion—theTonchi Kyōkai Zasshi (『頓知協会雑誌』).26 Translating this
title is not altogether straightforward as the word Tonchi does not have a
ready parallel term in English. It denotes someone who is clever, perhaps
even a bit of a trickster, who finds ingenious ways to get ahead in life.
Perhaps in some ways a sobriquet for Miyatake himself. The publication
was a resounding success, securing an initial print run of 4000 copies,
which was produced in several additional print runs in haste to meet popu-
lar demand. By 1888, Miyatake was at twenty-two a successful publisher
and had amassed a considerable degree of wealth—money that he did not
hesitate to lavish on a rather hedonistic lifestyle.27
There are a number of factors behind the success of this new publica-
tion—and some of the clues can be gleaned from a comparison with Tonchi
42 A. SWALE

Kyōkai Zasshi’s renowned predecessor, Marumaru Chinbun. The first

thing to note about the predecessor is that it ran into quite a few pages
more than a typical four-sheet illustrated newspaper, and that it was packed
with an array of content that was organized to a familiar format in every
issue. During the period that Tonchi Kyōkai Zasshi was being produced,
Marumaru Chinbun maintained the same frontispiece that could be said
to resonate with the visual style of the British publication Punch. This was
followed by a table of contents and the order was almost invariably as
follows:

酒蛙説(shа̄setsu) An editorial purportedly articulating the

thoughts of a “drunken frog”.
珍報(chinpō) A series of news snippets of a more seri-
ous nature.
狂画 (kyōga) A hand-drawn cartoon often with an English
language title and caption that was reframed by
the ensuing cartoon to apply to contemporary
developments in Japanese society.
和漢蘭 (wakanran) Poems composed in Chinese with kanbun
annotations, often followed by “mad poems”
(kyōka 狂歌) and/or Japanese limericks
(dodoitsu都々逸).
出放題 (dehōdai) These were riddles or puzzles submitted by the
readership with answers from previous issues
presented.
英和対訳 (eiwa taiyaku) A page where short passages of English would
be presented with a Japanese translation in the
adjoining column.
内外奇談 (naigai kidan) Stories of happenings of an odd or amusing
nature from within Japan or from overseas.
是難題 (kore nandai) A corner where topics would be pitched to the
readers to respond to. Although literally mean-
ing “This is a difficult topic” and is also a pun
for the colloquial way of asking “What’s this”.28

The end of each issue was rounded off with another topical cartoon and
the advertisement section.
Tonchi Kyōkai Zasshi by contrast had a more polished look to it—the
illustrations were of a much higher quality—on a par with publications
such as the Eiri Jiyū Shinbun or Jiyū no Tomoshibi (indeed some of the
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 43

illustrations seem to have been repurposed from those publications which

featured the work of either Tsukioka Yoshitoshi or his disciples). The con-
tent was more anecdotal and had a stronger cynical edge whether depict-
ing scenes or events from within Japan or from overseas, or referring to
episodes from ancient history. Contributions were accepted from mem-
bers and there was content transferred from other publications, such as the
Konnichi Shinbun and even Marumaru Chinbun. Initially, the format was
relatively open but by the tenth edition there was clearly a grouping of
content based on whether they were general anecdotes from far and wide
or more topical comments on recent contemporary happenings. There
was very little in the way of topical poetry or limericks. While Marumaru
Chinbun was consistently aiming for amusement and entertainment that
drew on the wit and skill of contributors who submitted compact bon
mots, poems or limericks, with occasional mischievous but very indirect
pokes at contemporary Japanese politics and society through cartoons,
Tonchi Kyōkai Zasshi was in a sense more subtly subversive. The fact that
the magazine had a title that suggested an august assemblage of the great
and the good behind it was in a sense a parody of the self-important public
associations that sprang up to promote cultural or social causes.
As it turned out, Tonchi Kyo ̄kai Zasshi did have the support of a number
of important persons—amongst the membership list published in the first
issue there can be found a member of the Prefectural Assembly, Postmasters
and Civil Servants, along with an array of persons engaged in commerce
and business. Perhaps more significantly, Miyatake had both Kanagaki
Robun and Sanyūtei Enchō in the membership. And by the seventh issue,
Miyatake had secured a contribution from no less a notable literary figure
than Tsubouchi Shōyō. At root Tonchi Kyōkai Zasshi had a tenor that was
more clever than simply amusing, and it would seem that it was very much
a relatively well-read audience that would be drawn to the content. This
would include the new cohort of university students that were beginning
to become a more prominent feature of urban life. The anecdote of two
Oxford students discussing classical Greek drama (Sophocles and
Aeschylus) and then being corrected by a scholar who happened to be rid-
ing in the same carriage (and also had the original texts in his bag) would
appeal to precisely that readership.29
Miyatake’s sense of mischief was also reflected in occasional visual gags
that were arcane but nonetheless captivating. The frontispiece would be
restyled from time to time and the content would often take the Tonchi
moniker and apply it in some absurd manner. For example, there was a
44 A. SWALE

phase where the figure on the front page was styled Tonchi Lad (頓知
郎)—as if there could be such a thing—followed thereafter by Tonchi Lass
(頓知嬢). As time went on there were specially commissioned illustrations
that would venture into the absurd. For example, an illustration of a shrine
that had a sign “Tonchi Shrine” at the entrance, or another that depicted
women in a bath-house—visually provocative in one sense and seemingly
unconnected until the eye alights on the sign “Tonchi Bath-house” (頓知
の湯). 30 Another indication of Miyatake’s quick-witted, if random, flour-
ishes is an illustration that depicts a scene from a serialized novel where an
English expat is attempting to force a Japanese woman to become his
mistress. In the centre of the image, a woman is bound up and being
remonstrated by the Englishman. On the left side there is the face of a
young boy peering through a window at the scene. On the next page, on
the reverse of where the boy’s head would be on the preceding page, there
is a depiction of the same boy outside the house peering in as if the same
moment was being viewed by a passerby outside.31
Perhaps the fundamental appeal of the publication was its sheer breadth
and diversity of topics, with plenty of references to episodes and anecdotes
from overseas, including Persia and China as well as the West, as well as a
very broad reach in terms of historical setting. As one early commentator
remarked in a contemporary newspaper, the Sakushin Nippō, “There could
be no-one who would fail to be amazed at the extraordinarily comprehen-
sive array of intriguing stories that come from East and West and cover the
ancient past to the present” (Tonchi Kyōkai Zasshi, No. 3, in Yoshino, Ed.
1993, p. 110). The success of the publication may well have been intoxi-
cating and it was perhaps sheer over-confidence that led Miyatake to
embark on the folly of satirizing the Emperor on the day that he was to
present the Constitution to the Japanese people. Commenting in later
years, he felt that the offence could only be construed as provocative and
he certainly did not conceive of it as something that would lead to his
being convicted and incarcerated.
Initially, Miyatake engaged legal assistance to attempt to repudiate the
charges, but they were in any case upheld and he was sentenced to three
years’ imprisonment with no allowance made for the eight months he had
already spent in gaol. He was transferred to the prison facility on Ishikawa
Island where, as might well be anticipated, he established associations and
friendships that would remain with him for the rest of his life, including
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 45

the publisher Seki Hironao. His wife returned to her parents’ home, thus
terminating the marriage.32
One year following the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution the first
elections to both the House of Representatives were conducted. The elec-
torate was extremely limited, being based on a taxation rate that would
ensure that only the relatively financially secure would be eligible for par-
ticipation in the election. There was plenty of fodder for satirical depic-
tions in the likes of the Marumaru Chinbun particularly as representatives
from throughout the country including the more remote and rural elec-
torates brought ‘yokels’ into the august arena of political deliberation.
The House of Peers was of course limited to members of the peerage, the
composition of which the Satsuma and Chōshū controlled through rec-
ommending appointments to the Emperor. From this time, significant
transformations in political culture were beginning to emerge through the
implementation of a limited but nonetheless meaningful form of ‘repre-
sentative government’.
Through the conducting of elections and the formation of the first
political parties, a configuration of party political alignments based on
relative support or relative animosity toward the government of the
Satsuma/Chōshū oligarchy emerged. This was no major surprise, but the
nature of political agitation and the bounds on political activism were
redefined. Siniawer (2011) has adeptly outlined how agitation and activ-
ism metamorphosed in the figure of the sōshi, the term for activists who
were first given the nomenclature during the foment of the Peoples’
Rights Movement of the 1880s, but who later came to be synonymous
with ruffians and fixers who could be relied on to add muscle and intimi-
dation to political gatherings. As Siniawer notes, the shift from outright
direct violence and threats to life and limb gave way to a politics of intimi-
dation as so ̄shi realized that the establishment of representative politics had
dispersed the locus of power and there was now more value in being able
to intimidate and manipulate an ongoing member of the assembly rather
than to have a particular politician dead.
A parallel shift occurred in the manner in which the government
responded to political dissent, including that of the press. There had of
course been fairly draconian policies in place during the People’s Rights
Movement that ensured that ‘problem’ journalists and writers could be
exiled from Tokyo, or in some cases subject to incarceration. These were,
on the whole, still relatively benign compared to the severity of punish-
ments following the promulgation of the Constitution, as Miyatake’s
46 A. SWALE

punishment duly demonstrated. The thinking was that now that Japan had
an Imperial Constitution, as promised, there should be no dissent or activ-
ism directed at the Imperial government—that should not be tolerated
under any circumstances.
The major newspapers, ranging from the general broadsheets such as
the Chōya Shinbun, Yomiuri Shinbun and Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun to the
more literary illustrated newspapers such as the Yamato Shinbun and
Miyako Shinbun, covered the business of both Houses when in session.
Even the Miyako Shinbun ran daily updates and commentary for both
Houses separately. There was something of a nervous hiatus as journalists
and writers surveyed the post-promulgation environment and gauged the
limits of official tolerance for critical or morally questionable content. A
significant shift occurred in the period from 1890 to 1892 Kuroiwa Ruikō,
the leading member of the editorial team at Miyako Shinbun, began to
draw on a variety of texts from primarily French sources that were in
essence detective novels or mystery pieces that were loosely reworked into
a Japanese milieu with Japanese protagonists. They featured a proliferation
of scenes and props from contemporary Western society which of course
added to their interest for a Japanese readership. As Saito Satoru has
argued, however, Kuroiwa was a past master of employing Western sources
for political novels in the mid-1880s and he made a prominent contribu-
tion to the production of fictional material that was nonetheless a thinly
veiled critique of contemporary Japanese politics.33 It is reasonable to
draw a line of continuity into the early 1890s and construe Kuroiwa’s
gambit as part of a hitherto successful mode of producing material that
could not be classed as politically sensitive as such, but had the potential
for social commentary mixed with stories of criminals and scoundrels
being tracked down by a wily sleuth. Kuroiwa also in novels such as Yūzai
Muzai (1888) demonstrated the capacity for detective novels to entwine
the narrative with the foibles of adultery and duplicity and the processes of
legal proceedings in court. As already mentioned, Kuroiwa left the Miyako
Shinbun in 1892 to establish the Yorozu Chōhō. Saito again astutely notes
that although perceptions of Kuroiwa and the Yorozu Chōhō are strongly
coloured by associations with detective fiction, there was in fact a gradual
moving away from the emphasis on that genre and a more explicit raking
through the misdeeds of contemporary elites, businessmen and other
notables, ironically all in the name of promoting moral standards. 34
As for Miyatake Gaikotsu, he was eventually released in October of
1892 and immediately returned to journalistic and literary activity. It goes
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 47

without saying that he was deeply embittered by the experience of prison

and his initial attempts at regaining his earlier success were not altogether
fruitful. He produced a succession of magazines that had only one first
issue and were then abandoned. It would be fair to say that although the
content was essentially satirical, Miyatake was nonetheless working
through his anger and bitterness. The Bunmei Zasshi (『文明雑誌』) was
of substantial length and covered a broad range of topics that could con-
ceivably be related to the theme of civilization. There was a thinly veiled
cynicism about ‘civilization’ and ‘progress’ as it continued to be promoted
within the country by the government but Miyatake had not completely
lost his sense of humour or eye for mischief.35 Even so, the format of the
earlier Tonchi Kyo ̄kai Zasshi was not revived—there was no anecdote-­
telling and there were fewer high-quality sashie illustrations. It is tempting
to conclude that Miyatake had no intention of establishing a continuing
periodical publication and that would seem to be reasonable given that he
had just been released from internment and could expect keen attention
from the government and censors.36 Arguably, it was perhaps better to
close down a publication before the repressive apparatus of state was fully
activated. It might also explain why there was no attempt to include any-
thing that would be serialized—illustrated novels being a case in point. In
any event, the content and the diversity of topics suggest that Miyatake
was exploring new ways of packaging his distinctive outlook.
The Bunmei Zasshi was actually a collection of four subdivided “maga-
zines” which follow a brief introduction and discussion of civilization and
then proceed to progress thematically from psychology, (Shinri Zasshi, 心
理雑誌), to wit (Tonchi Zasshi, 頓知雑誌), to beauty (Bimyo ̄ Zasshi美妙雑
誌) and thence to morality (Dōtoku Zasshi道徳雑誌). Shinri Zasshi is a
broad discussion of psychology that draws on Japanese, Chinese and
Western sources and establishes a framework for the next three ‘issues’—
thought (意) corresponding to Dōtoku Zasshi, wisdom (智) corresponding
to Tonchi Zasshi, feeling (情) corresponding to Bimyo ̄ Zasshi. The discus-
sion of psychology almost has a feel of a philosophical treatise and Miyatake
seems eager to display familiarity with a variety of texts and terms, includ-
ing material taken from diverse English sources such as Samuel Smiles and
Herbert Spencer. The psychology section is rounded off with some rather
arcane observations about certain human foibles such as the tendency to
fall asleep during the day and people immediately attempting to put things
back into their original form when they break them.37
48 A. SWALE

Tonchi Zasshi is clearly labelled in English as “WIT SCIENCE” and

presents a detailed table of contents that is not actually followed up in the
ensuing pages. As with the preceding section, the proposed Wit Science
table commences with definitions of key terms, key distinctions between
different manifestations (e.g. passive and active forms of wit, individual
and social forms of wit), as well as its relation to feeling and morality more
generally. The remainder suggests discussing wit as a basis for various
modes of action along with an outline of the methods requisite to get the
most out of one’s wit, through abilities either naturally possessed or
actively cultivated. What Miyatake does proceed to present before pro-
ceeding to the Bimyō Zasshi is a very detailed exposition on his crime of
disrespect for the Emperor and the process of conviction and incarcera-
tion. Miyatake is at pains to stress that his crime was not one of evil intent
(目的上ノ犯罪ニアラズ) but of mistaken methods (方法上ノ犯罪ナル).
This is followed by an apologia of sorts explaining why he took the name
Gaikotsu even though it might be perceived as an act of disrespect to his
parents. On the following page he also writes an open letter to the former
members of the Tonchi Kyōkai, which acknowledges the gravity of the
circumstances of the magazine’s closure and the impact on the members.38
The section on beauty in Bimyō Zasshi is relatively brief and inconse-
quential—apart from defining beauty in a conventional relation to the
beauty of a woman, Miyatake goes on to discourse on how beauty is not
based on skill or lack of skill, nor the achievement of an abstract ideal, but
the process of working out an action, sometimes in a manner that takes us
away from what we are normally regarded as capable of doing. He gives
several examples, including the Japanese language presentations of rakugo
by Henry Black which Miyatake values precisely because Black was work-
ing in another language and in a performative idiom not from his own
culture. The final ‘magazine’, Dōtoku Zasshi, goes through the familiar
process of creating a taxonomy of morality using both Western and
Japanese sources before discussing the potentially positive relation between
a questioning attitude and morality. Miyatake also presents the conun-
drum of distinguishing the good from the bad, as well as the difficulty of
doing the thing that one knows one should do. He even quotes St Paul’s
lament from Romans 7:15 “For the good that I would I do not: but the
evil which I would not, that I do”. Miyatake rounds off the Dōtoku Zasshi
with an extended discourse on “The Special Character of Our Nation”,
wherein he avers that no-one fails to love their own country (implying that
it applied to Miyatake himself as well) and that the recent interaction
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 49

between the West and Japan had prompted the Japanese to become more
acutely aware of the country’s “beautiful essence” (美風国粋).39
Consequently, the Bunmei Zasshi is a rather puzzling mix of commen-
tary and reflection, quite erudite in places while also mildly playful in oth-
ers. At root, it would seem that Miyatake was aiming to come straight with
his readership—acknowledging the significance of what he had got himself
into, the gravity of the consequences and the need to make apology where
apology was due, meanwhile presenting himself as a serious thinker who
was as eager to see the nation prosper as anyone. As such, it is rather
uncharacteristic when compared to his other published outputs but it was
almost certainly a necessary gesture if he wanted to re-engage in writing
and publishing. We get a taste of the more familiar Gaikotsu in an adden-
dum to the Bunmei Zasshi entitled Methods for Surprising People (Hito wo
Odorokasu Hō, 「人を驚かす法」). This reads more like a manifesto that
lays out explicitly the virtues of the eccentric person (奇人) vis-à-vis the
‘normal person’ (常人). His thesis is that the promotion of civilization
needs eccentrics as much as conformists—indeed he argues that progress
without the eccentric’s capacity to surprise is quite impossible. While char-
acterizing the eccentrics and the normal persons as interrelated through
the allegory of longitude related to latitude Miyatake suggests that the
end of the ordinary person is happiness, while the end of the eccentric
person is the improvement of civilization (奇人ノ目的ハ文明 常人ノ目的
ハ幸福). After a characteristic discourse on the distinction between posi-
tive and negative modes of generating surprise through unconventional
conduct (i.e. not generating surprise just for surprise’s sake), he relates this
to the nature of change in nature and the physical world which, he sug-
gests, always draws change from the odd or unexpected elements.
Ultimately, after enumerating an array of persons from Western history
that have been unconventional or eccentric but contributed to civilization,
Miyatake argues that in Japan it can also be those who are eccentric or
unconventional but nonetheless retain a strong moral compass that have
much to offer through their non-conformity. It is, in sum, a declaration
from Miyatake that he had no intention of abandoning his interest in the
odd or the arcane, or modes of communication that might shock or sur-
prise his readers. In fact, he was almost arguing that it was his duty to
do so.40
We can be reasonably sure from Miyatake’s future output that he did
not subscribe to a conventional sense of morality but he did maintain a
keen sense of awareness of injustice be it exhibited through the arbitrary
50 A. SWALE

use of government power or the scandals and corruption evident among

the ‘great and good’ who were readily able to be exposed in their hypoc-
risy. As a close to home example, not long after his release Miyatake remar-
ried and discovered that his father-in-law was in financially straitened
circumstances. He also discovered that his father-in-law was in fact the
blood brother of a member of the aristocratic Hosokawa family (he had
been adopted out as a child with a promise of a stipend before the
Restoration but that undertaking was not fulfilled following the abolition
of the feudal clan system in 1871). Miyatake began to publish indignant
opinion pieces intended to shame the Hosokawa family into honouring
their obligations and he even contemplated a legal case. He found an ally,
for a time at least, in Kuroiwa Ruikō who ran several pieces in his Yorozu
Chōhō under the title of “The Hosokawa Incident”.41
By the beginning of 1894, a new ecology of print media had taken
shape and it was evident that the coalescence of illustrated serialized con-
tent in newspapers and magazines, whether drawn from kōdan or rakugo,
or produced as original or adapted Western content with a strong infusion
of gesaku sensibilities, would continue to hold the attention of a relatively
well-read audience. Kuroiwa’s venture with the Yorozu Cho ̄hō was similar
in most regards but by 1894 it was apparent that the serialized detective
fiction was holding down only approximately half a page of the entire
content of an issue, with the second and third pages being dedicated to
commentary on trivial misdemeanors or scandals in the government.
Every issue would almost without fail have an ‘update’ on the latest hap-
penings in the brothel district of Yoshiwara, to which would be added
shocking stories added as they came to hand, such as an account of the fate
of some employees of a Japanese company being captured and eaten by
cannibals in New Ireland.42 Even so, Kuroiwa also maintained a strong
interest in social issues, for example a report on the cruelty meted out to
the parents of some burakumin citizens which is notable for its concern
for social equality. By contrast, the production values of the Yamato and
Miyako newspapers remained of particularly high quality and the serialized
content retained a significant proportion of the output. While the Yamato
Shinbun maintained a stronger focus on the arts the Miyako Shinbun went
on to consolidate coverage of current affairs and developments of national
and international significance in terms of commerce, culture and politics.
The Yamato Shinbun’s ongoing interest in following the performing
arts was also reflective of an ongoing passion for theatre amongst the
Japanese public and it would be a grave oversight not to include
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 51

commentary on the changing cultural status of that other major popular

performing art, kabuki. In comparison to rakugo and kōdan, kabuki had a
steeper challenge to overcome official disapproval through its association
with frivolity and immorality, both on and off the stage. With the promul-
gation in 1872 of the Three Article Educational Constitution (Sanjō no
Kyōken, 三条の教憲), the government stipulated three cardinal principles
that would guide education, namely:

–– Respect for the ancestral deities and love of country

–– Clarification of heavenly principles and human conduct
–– Reverence towards the Emperor43

This was to be applied to all persons producing material for public con-
sumption so that gesakusha artists and nishikie artists would have to desist
publishing in their hitherto familiar formats. Fortunately, by the end of the
1870s, through the efforts of pathfinders such as Takabatake Ransen and
Ochiai Yoshiiku, a relatively effective refashioning of the traditional asso-
ciation could be found in providing nishikie shinbun editions for major
newspapers such as Tokyo Nichi-nichi Shinbun and the Yubin Hochi
Shinbun. Ransen and Yoshiiku went on to establish one of the first ‘minor’
newspapers with black and white sashie illustrations, the forerunner of the
latter newspapers running illustrated serialized novels as we have been dis-
cussing above. For kabuki, the road to finding a space of rehabilitation
amongst government-approved arts was more fraught. Kabuki in a com-
pletely un-refashioned form, either in terms of the classical content or the
mode of presentation was perceived as being incompatible with a civilized
nation, particularly when compared to contemporary Western models of
theatrical production. On the one hand, kabuki lost audiences to other
modes of public entertainment, including the fad for public speech-­making
in the early 1880s and did not readily have avenues for providing the nov-
elty that the public craved. Attempts were made to even develop kabuki
performances that looked more like a Western-style production. At one
point zangiri-mono were penned and performed making reference to con-
temporary events and developments, one in particular covering the sink-
ing of the postal ship Normanton which lost all Japanese passengers while
the English crew were rescued unscathed. These were fleeting experiments
that produced no long-term changes.44
The breakthrough in establishing kabuki’s status as a serious art form
came in the 1880s and the figure at the centre of that success was the actor
52 A. SWALE

Ichikawa Danjūrō (the Ninth). After a period of itinerant performances

around the country Ichikawa returned to Tokyo in 1881 and enjoyed the
firm patronage of Morita Kanya, a theatre impresario who had established
a modern-styled theatre for kabuki in 1878, the Shintomi-za. This new
theatre had a Western layout with seats and gas lighting and had also been
the venue for presenting Japanese theatre to foreign dignitaries, amongst
them Ulysses S Grant, the former US president in 1879. Certain members
of the government, particularly Inoue Kaoru the Foreign Minister, were
pursuing a policy of attempting to impress the foreign diplomatic corps
with entertainments and social occasions, particularly at the Rokumeikan
which was built for precisely such events. They were also keenly aware of
the need to be able to present a form of theatre that would impress foreign
guests—and Ichikawa was at the forefront of promoting a genre of kabuki
play, katsureki (活暦), which dealt with historical themes with heroic main
characters. Through the combined support of Morita Kanya and Inoue
Kaoru, Ichikawa was eventually able to perform before the Emperor in
April of 1887. In 1889, the Kabuki-za was opened in Tokyo and Ichikawa
became its inaugural Director. Another kabuki theatre was opened in
1893, the Meiji-za and Ichikawa performed along with other leading
actors at the opening. As already alluded to, Fukuchi Gen’ichirō was
highly active in promoting a ‘new and improved’ kabuki, including the
writing of plays, and it was Ichikawa that was his main contact in the the-
atre world and to whom he gave his unwavering support until Ichikawa’s
death in 1903. As Kurata Yoshihiro notes, Ichikawa was not necessarily the
most dynamic or engaging of actors—he was not given to expressive
movement and preferred classical kanbun terms that would sound erudite
but not be familiar to all in the audience—but he was single-minded in his
determination to promote kabuki under his tight personal control, even to
the extent of insisting against broad opposition that women could in cer-
tain instances play female parts when the edict forbidding mixed troupes
of actors was abolished in August of 1890. On top of this, Ichikawa was
apparently a person of near impeccable discretion in his personal life, being
involved in no marital scandals and not even being much inclined towards
drinking.45
In stark contrast to the rise of Ichikawa Danjūrō to unchallenged hege-
mony over the world of kabuki through strong official and commercial
patronage, there was another genre of performance, that was to make a
flamboyant appearance in the late 1880s that was distinguished by its
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 53

broad popular support and capacity to break the mould of the highly con-
strained art forms that persisted from the late Edo period. This new
genre grew out of the turbulent foment of the People’s Rights Movement
that saw a surprisingly vibrant outpouring of energy into publications such
as the Eiri Jiyū Shinbun, Jiyū no Tomoshibi and the Eiri Cho ̄ya Shinbun, all
established in 1883 and tending to feature adaptations of Western tales of
political activism and heroic deeds that were exquisitely illustrated by
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and acolytes such as Arai Yoshimune and Migita
Toshide. In parallel with this phenomenon there was the proliferation of
events that featured political speech-making (Seidan 政談). These were
often predictably dedicated to excoriating the government and extolling
the rights of common citizens but they also had considerable overlap with
pure entertainment, especially as they on occasion adopted the format of
offering the audience the opportunity to propose topics that the speech-­
makers would have to extemporize spontaneously on. It should not sur-
prise us then that performers of popular entertainment would engage in
the political movement with gusto, especially as the mid-1880s saw
unprecedented poverty generated through the deflationary policies of the
Finance Minister Matsukata Masayoshi.46
The single most successful proponent of adapting popular entertain-
ment into a new theatrical art form was Kawagami Otojirō. Born in
1864 in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Kawagami moved at a relatively young age of
thirteen to Tokyo where he embarked on a career of performance. The
People’s Rights movement saw him establish a reputation as a Seidan per-
former using the stage name Jiyū Dōshi (自由童子, literally “child of free-
dom”). From these performances there gradually emerged a genre of
theatrical performance termed variously as Sōshi Shibai (壮士芝居) or
Shosei Shibai (書生芝居). Sōshi in the period prior to the promulgation of
the Constitution referred to dedicated proponents of political reform and
did not have the associations with thuggery that emerged in connection to
Sōshi in the 1890s. Hence, Sōshi Shibai were performances that corre-
sponded profoundly with the content and aspirations of the People’s
Rights movement. They were not formalistic in the manner of traditional
theatrical forms; indeed they had a more naturalistic bent even though the
standard of performance could be variable to say the least. Shosei Shibai
featured performances of the new model students, both young men and
women and would tend to feature on the newly established campuses of
Tokyo and Kansai. Kawakami dropped the earlier stage name and as head
of his own troupe performed around the Kansai region at minor theatres.
54 A. SWALE

In time, he established a home base at Shinkyōgoku in Kyoto. The perfor-

mances of this Shingeki were topical, political and laced with wry
humour—more significantly, they began to draw crowds of a magnitude
that kabuki performances could only hope to emulate.47
Kawakami’s most significant break came with his penning and perfor-
mance of a song Oppekepe, a compact but passionate piece denouncing
the ruling class who entertained Geishas and lived a life of luxury while
ordinary people suffered enormous hardship. The term “oppekepe” had
more of a rhythmic function than a semantic message and it bookended
the song at the beginning and end. It would be anticipated that the audi-
ence who were increasingly familiar with the song and knew the words
would join in at these junctures. The lyrics would alter to some extent
from performance to performance but the tenor of both the commentary
and invective would be consistent. Here is a translation of one perfor-
mance that was recorded some time later in Kawakami’s career, but it reso-
nates with earlier records of his performance:

Nothing works out quite as planned

It’s just the way of the world
We’re lucky to have a bit of rice at hand

Ah, oppekepē oppekepeppō peppoppō

Today hard times are just getting harder

Poor people just keep on getting poorer

But you shade your eyes with a tall silk hat

Gold rings on your finger, gold watch on a chain
You bow and scrape before the powers that be
Blow your money on geishas and servants
Pile up the rice in your private storehouse

Think you can take it as a present in the next world?

When you get to hell and stand before Lord Emma
Maybe you think a bride will send you to heaven?

Do you really think so?

I don’t think so

Oppekepē oppekepeppō peppoppōi!48

 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 55

The great test for the viability of this new theatre form in the broader
country would come when Kawakami took his troupe to Tokyo in 1891.
After two very brief individual forays previously, Kawakami and his troupe
performed in March of that year an adaptation of the political novel by
Yano Ryūkei, Keikoku Bidan (経国美談) at the Tsuta-za in Yokohama. It
was a great success. On the 20th of June the troupe performed at the
high-profile Nakamura-za a play Itagaki-kun Sōnan Jikki that lionized the
leader of the Liberal wing of the People’s Rights movement. The season
was extended and then extended again so that the troupe held the theatre
for seventeen days. They returned to the same theatre from 31st July until
15th August and reprised their rendition of Keikoku Bidan, again to great
acclaim.49
It was hard for commentators to know how to characterize this new
mode of performance as it moved from formal story-telling to humour, to
sword fights with bamboo swords and sung accompaniments to the action.
What was clear was that this form of performance had actualized a new
theatrical genre, and even the editor of the magazine Kabuki Shinpō
opined that Kabuki was currently as ossified as the former Bakufu and that
Kawakami had brought “Black Ships” to the world of the theatre (a refer-
ence to Perry’s astounding visit to Edo in 1853). Not everyone was
impressed by the new theatre form, and a sharply critical article appeared
in the issue of Nihon for September the first that lambasted Kawakami’s
work and labelled the performances as “the greatest poison under heaven”.
Nihon was of course the premier vehicle for the promotion of kokusui-
shugi, or “national essentialism”, which promoted indigenous culture and
traditions while lamenting the impact of Western influences. The article
had no major impact on the reception of Kawakami’s troupe and in time
even dignitaries from the aristocracy and government began to attend per-
formances. The 1890s saw Kawakami rise to the peak of popularity and he
even married into a well-connected family through the offices of Kaneko
Kentarō, an elder statesmen of the Meiji government and also a fellow
former denizen of Fukuoka. Ever eager to explore new frontiers in theatre,
he departed for France in 1893 for a two-month sojourn to observe the
theatre scene there first-hand.50
Shingeki was known increasingly as Shinpa (新派) the “new school” as
opposed to the classical “old school” (旧派) of Kabuki. The parallel trajec-
tories of their development during this period reveal starkly the ongoing
56 A. SWALE

chasm between government-sponsored cultural initiatives and the more

organically evolving modes of performance and communication. Whether
looking at the new print culture or the newly emergent theatre, they both
invariably had at their core a debt to a decidedly pre-Meiji cultural ethos
while nonetheless adapting that content to the new media platforms of the
illustrated newspaper and magazines, along with ostensibly Westernized
performance spaces. The flourishing of Shingeki also underscored that the
drivers of these innovations could emerge from unexpected sources—out
of Fukuoka via Kansai to Tokyo in the case of Kawakami for example. The
reaction of cultural purists to certain of these innovations was perhaps
predictable—there was certainly a subversive undercurrent that made
defenders of authority uneasy. While it would be hard to classify this sub-
version in the majority of cases as decadent in some extreme sense, there
is a certain iconoclastic vitality and even latent eroticism that underscores
those dimensions of human experience that a newly urbanized public
eager for entertainment and tropes of identification would latch onto.
Miyatake Gaikotsu was the most emphatic and bold dabbler in topics and
content that was liable to get him into major trouble, as indeed it certainly
did. He emerged from that experience chastened, but as the ensuing chap-
ters will demonstrate, in some ways he was just getting started.

Notes
1. Mason, R. H. P., “Changing Diet Attitudes to the Peace Preservation
Ordinance, 1890–1892” in Fraser, Andrew, R. H. P. Mason, and Philip
Mitchell. Japan’s Early Parliaments, 1890–1905: Structure, Issues, and
Trends. Routledge, 1995, 91–120. See also Huffman, 1997, 160–167, and
Rubin, 1984, 15–31.
2. Yoshino Takao, Miyatake Gaikotsu Den, Kawade Shobō Shinsha, 2012,
42–58. This is arguably the most authoritative account of Miyatake
Gaikotsu’s life penned by Miyatake’s nephew, the son of his elder sister.
Yoshino has been pivotal in editing and publishing Miyatake’s works.
3. Kornicki (1982, 58–94).
4. Morita. J.R., “Garakuta Bunko”, Monumenta Nipponica, 24 (3),
1969, 222.
5. Morita recognizes the gesaku lineage, − “Was not Garakuta bunko a late
variety of the gesaku…” but seems to conclude that that makes it therefore
somehow non-serious or non-literary. Morita, ibid., 222–223.
6. Morita’s analysis is detailed, and has been referred to extensively here, but
it is perhaps surprising that he does not alight on this fairly clear visual pun
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 57

that signposts the group’s gesaku proclivities. “Miscellany of Bad-

mouthing” is my translation.
7. Garakuta Bunko, No. 1 (May 1888), 14. Translation as per Morita, ibid.,
223. For a comprehensive review of dodoitsu in relation to Meiji period
bunmei kaika see Okazaki Hajime, Kaika Dodoitsu: Bunmei Kaika no
Mangekyō, Bunka Shobō Hakubunsha, 2012.
8. Kornicki (op. cit., 25–42; 95–96).
9. Jacobowitz discusses, particularly in Chapter 7 “Regime Change”, the
intersection of three “constellations” of oratory, literature and print out-
put. He also notes the largely misguided interpretations of Tsubouchi
Shoyō’s Essence of the Novel, noting his evidently positive estimation of the
supernatural and romantic genres of pre-Meiji literature as well as the posi-
tive role of short-hand transcription of performances of material based,
however loosely, on those genres. He also is largely affirming of Maeda Ai’s
scholarship which discussed precisely such continuities. See Jacobiwitz
(2015, 171–194). Regarding Poch’s commentary see Poch (2020,
120–148).
10. Asaoka (2003, 201–214).
11. The original text is: 「而して各雑誌の記事主張は何れも尊重すべきもの
なるも、餘りに専門に偏して読者少なく、発行部数少なき為に、其価
比較的に高く、為に何れも広く一般に読ましむるには適せぬ。故に若
し各雑誌の主張なる記事を一雑誌に集め、価を廉にして数多く発行す
る こ と に 努 め ば 、 必 ず 世 を 益 す る こ と が 多 か ら う 。 」 Asaoka
(ibid., 206).
12. Ibid., 206–209.
13. Ibid., 209–213.
14. Ibid., 209–212.
15. The collection of essays edited by Suzuki Sadami in Zasshi “Taiyō” to
Kokuminkokka no Keisei (Shibunkaku, 2001) does indeed focus on Taiyo ̄
magazine but two essays in particular provide broader perspectives on the
Hakubunkan publishing house, particularly Suzuki Sadami, “Meijiki Taiyo ̄
no Enkaku, oyobi Ichi”, 3–39, and Yamaguchi Masao, “Meiji Shuppankai
no Hikari to Yami – Hakubunkan no Kōbō”, 115–152.
16. Meguro (2022, 95–104).
17. One of the most detailed and comprehensive reviews of Kuroiwa Ruikō’s
role in the promotion of the detective novel genre and the subsequent
impact on the evolution of the novel is provided by Saito Satoru in Detective
Fiction and the Rise of the Japanese Novel, 1880–1930, Harvard University
Asia Centre, 2012, particularly pages 60–110.
18. Translated from the original introduction, San’yūtei Enchō Shū, Meiji
Bungaku Zenshū, Vol. 10, Chikuma Shobō, 1971, 212.
58 A. SWALE

19. See Kondō (2019, 25–55).

20. Silver (2004, 191–205).
21. Kondō (op. cit., 25–55).
22. Regarding Maeda’s discussion of the emergent Meiji readership see Maeda
(2004, 223–233).
23. Matsubara (2020, 47–62).
24. Kondō (op. cit., 37–38).
25. Yoshino (2012, 70–90).
26. Ibid., 38–41.
27. Ibid., 110–116.
28. Refer for example to the table of contents for Marumaru Chinbun pub-
lished 5 January 1888 which is replicated a year later in the 12th January,
1889, edition.
29. Kanagaki Robun appears amongst the list of subscribers in the first issue
Tonchi Kyōkai Zasshi, No. 1, Yoshino, Ed. 1993, 37. The story about the
Oxford students appears just before the list of subscribers, 33–34.
30. Miyatake Gaikotsu,Tonchi Kyōkai Zasshi, No. 13, Yoshino, ed. 1993, 447.
31. Miyatake, ibid., 267–268.
32. Yoshino (Op. cit., 117–119).
33. Saito (op. cit., 65–87).
34. Ibid., 108–110.
35. Bunmei Zasshi is reproduced from the original in Yoshino, T. (ed.) Bunmei
Zasshi/Tonchi to Kokkei Hoka, in Miyatake Gaikotsu Kono Naka ni Ari,
Vol. 22, Yumani Shobō, 1995, 65–144.
36. Yoshino (op. cit., 119–128).
37. Miyatake (1995, Vol. 22, 66–83).
38. Ibid., 83–90.
39. Ibid., 96–102.
40. Ibid., 111–135.
41. Yoshino (op. cit., 128–136).
42. Yorozu Chōho,̄ May 23, 1894.
43. The original Japanese is「三条の教憲」:敬神愛国、天理人道を明らかに
する、皇上の奉載」. See also discussion of Jōno Saigiku and Kanagaki
Robun’s「著作道書き上げ」(1872) in興津要, 1997, 40–42, 62–64.
44. Swale (2009, 160–163).
45. Kurata (1980, 60–72).
46. The author has discussed this nexus between Seidan and popular culture in
“Public Speaking and Serialized Novels: Kōdan and Social Movements in
Early Meiji Tokyo.” Japanese Studies 41, no. 3 (2021): 343–360.
47. Kurata (op. cit., 98–99), Saya (2011, 74–81).
 2 THE CONSTITUTION AND LATENT ANARCHY 59

48. This translation by David Noble can be found in Saya (ibid., 75–76). There
is a record of an earlier version in Kurata’s account of Kawakami’s rise in
fame and apart from the opening stanza it is largely the same in terms of
references to gold jewellery, geisha, and attempting to bribe one’s way out
of hell.
49. Kurata (op. cit., 99–108), Saya (ibid., 77–78), Keene (1971, 156–161).
50. Kurata, ibid., 109.
 CHAPTER 3

The Cultural Impact of the Sino-Japanese

War

In Chap. 2, the focus was very much on the internal dynamics of popular
culture and the response of the literati and artists to government initiatives
aimed at national ‘improvement’. By 1893–1894 an internal resolution of
sorts had been attained and there was a certain clarity about how the vari-
ous artistic and literary practices, and indeed the various media that were
adopted and adapted to convey that content to the public, were integrated
with each other and formed a coherent albeit diverse whole. By this time,
the newly established House of Representatives and House of Peers had
been through a series of upheavals and mis-starts, but they were more or
less stable and functional enough to be regarded as a limited success. Make
no mistake, while newspapers like the Miyako Shinbun would run detailed
commentary on the business of both Houses, they were not averse to
lampooning their goings on in their giga (戯画) cartoons with satirical
commentary on the side.
However, while these domestic developments were progressing there
was quietly building up a set of complications and tensions in Japan’s rela-
tions with China and Korea as the conflict with China over who would
have de facto control over Korea’s internal affairs intensified. It culmi-
nated in a full-scale war—the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. The
lead up to the Sino-Japanese War was not a foregone conclusion, but there
had been ample instances of proxy conflict between Chinese and Japanese
aligned parties in Korea for over a decade, as well as direct conflict in lim-
ited instances where the Japanese or Chinese governments dispatched

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 61

Switzerland AG 2023
A. Swale, A Cultural History of Late Meiji Japan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43646-8_3
62 A. SWALE

troops to support their respective client groups. Following the Restoration

in 1868, the Japanese government initiated diplomatic contact with the
Korean court in Seoul as representatives of the new Empire of Japan. The
very notion of Japan being an Empire distinct from the Qing Dynasty was
anathema and the approach was rebuffed. This was ostensibly the incident
that drove certain factions within the new government to call for an armed
incursion into Korea to avenge the perceived ‘insult’ (viz. Seikanron, 征韓
論). Not much came of this until Ō kubo Toshimichi and most of the
senior leadership embarked on the Iwakura Mission in 1871, which visited
the United States and the major countries of Europe with the aim of rene-
gotiating the unequal treaties that granted extraterritorial rights to these
nations. Left in charge as caretakers, Saigō Takamori along with Etō
Shinpei and Gōtō Shojirō, began to plan in earnest for a military expedi-
tion. Saigō had been the military brain behind the success of the Restoration
forces in the Boshin War and although likely not indifferent to the risks
inherent in such a gambit nonetheless did not deter more eager propo-
nents such as Etō Shinpei.1
When Okubo returned in 1873, he was appalled at how far the plans
had proceeded and promptly cancelled any thought of carrying them out.
As something of a gesture of consolation, an expeditionary force was sent
to the South East coast of Taiwan in April 1874 to exact revenge on the
indigenous Paiwan tribe who had killed almost the entire crew of a Ryūkyū
vessel that had shipwrecked there in 1871. The expedition was significant
in two major ways, first in that the shipwrecked sailors were characterized
as Japanese subjects even though the Ryūkū Islands had not been formally
recognized as part of Japan. It was significant in a second regard in that
Japan called the Qing Dynasty out on its assertions that Taiwan was part
of its jurisdiction. If that were indeed the case, then it was incumbent, the
Japanese government argued, that the Chinese government apprehend
the tribesmen and exact punishment. As it turned out, the Chinese gov-
ernment refused to do so, and refused claims for reparations to boot. The
outcome of the expedition was that the military adventurists got some-
thing of their wish fulfilled, while China ultimately ended up capitulating
to the Japanese demands for reparations. So Japan’s relations with China
and Korea had been off to a very bad start indeed from the beginning of
the early period.2
As it turned out, the Korean court did ultimately relent and sign a trad-
ing accord with Japan in 1876, the Ganghwa Treaty, but there were com-
peting factions at the court of King Gojong and these factions had rather
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 63

different conceptions of the pace and degree of reform needed to refur-

bish the nation’s administration, finances and military. From 1879, Li
Hongzhang, one of the Qing government’s most capable and influential
statesmen, encouraged King Gojong to embrace reform after the Chinese
pattern, with the added explicit emphasis that Korea would continue to be
a vassal state of the Qing court. In May of 1882, a Treaty of Peace, Amity,
Commerce and Navigation was signed between the Korean court and the
United States government but the Chinese were adamant that Korea
should not be a signatory without acknowledgement of its tributary status
in relation to the Chinese court. Consequently, reforms of a limited nature
were pursued but they had not been particularly successful on a funda-
mental financial and social level, and following a completely botched
attempt to pass off payment of the military with inedible provisions rather
than rice, there was a major military mutiny that broke out on 23rd July
in Seoul. Mutineers stormed the main prison releasing recently arrested
soldiers and political prisoners and thereafter stormed various government
buildings and the residence of Lieutenant Horimoto Reizō who they
killed. The Japanese abandoned the Legation which was burned to the
ground and eventually the Minister and Legation guard were able to
retreat with several casualties via ship to Nagasaki.3
The Chinese government dispatched 4500 troops to quell the rebellion
and the Japanese government sent a naval force and substantial ground
force to Seoul. In the Treaty of Chemulpo of the 30th of August, 1882,
Japan was given a formal apology, permission to station troops at a lega-
tion that would be rebuilt, along with reparations. This saved face for the
Japanese to some extent but in practical terms China now had the upper
hand in the Korean court and would go on to consolidate influence. A
final humiliation came for Japan when in 1884 it actively took sides with
the instigators of the Kapsin coup d’etat which was pursued by the reform-
ist faction in the court. King Gojong was captured and entrusted to
Japanese custody while the reformers aimed to establish a new govern-
ment based on more progressive and egalitarian lines. The Chinese sent
troops to intervene and the coup failed with considerable casualties
amongst the forces at the Legation. The following year, Itō Hirobumi sent
another naval force with an army detachment and succeeded in reestab-
lishing diplomatic ties with Korea with reparations again secured for dam-
age received. Unlike the previous time, however, Itō Hirobumi negotiated
with Li Hongzhang the Treaty of Tianjin (31 May), which established an
arrangement where neither China nor Japan would station troops in Korea
64 A. SWALE

and they would only dispatch troops in future with prior formal notifica-
tion beforehand.4
This stabilized the situation on the Korean peninsula as well as relations
between China and Japan for some time, but there were always simmering
tensions. In 1886, there was a riot in Nagasaki allegedly instigated by
Chinese sailors who were ashore during the repair of some Chinese naval
vessels. In 1889, the Korean government closed down the export of soy
beans to Japan after a bad harvest year—the unilateral cancellation of
export contracts was not taken to kindly by importers in Japan who then
sued exporters in Korea.5
Commentary in the mass circulated newspapers and magazines appeared
constantly throughout the early 1890s, usually with a negative character-
ization of the Qing government. There was also a concerted amount of
coverage appearing in magazines aimed at Japan’s youth—more often
than not having the term Shōnen in the title. As mentioned in Chap. 2,
the publisher Hakubunkan had a substantial array of youth or child-­
oriented publications, Nihon no Shōnen (『日本之少年』) and Yo ̄nen
Tamatebako (『幼年玉手箱』) being of particular note. These continued
separately until integrated into Shōnen Sekai (『少年世界』) in January of
1895. The other main publications of the genre at the time were Shō
Kokumin (『小国民』) and Eisai Shinshi (『穎才新誌』). The tenor of
these publications was educational and didactic rather than purely enter-
taining and so they had a significant role in shaping young citizens’ per-
ceptions of the world.6
In terms of providing commentary on contemporary Korea, Shō
Kokumin was easily the most proactive, followed by Eisai Shinshi. From
December of 1889 to February of 1890 the Shō Kokumin serialized one of
the earliest accounts of Korean social conditions that were penned by an
officer of the US Navy and it was entitled in Japanese Chōsen no Chisō
(「朝鮮の馳走」).7 There remains some controversy over the accuracy of
some of the details contained therein but it was clearly a noted source of
information and coloured understanding of contemporary Korean society.
The articles focused initially on the position of outcast female entertainers,
kisaeng, but also ventured to present a general commentary on the posi-
tion of women and girls in general (Ō take, 2003, 77–103). Although
Japan at this time was by no means egalitarian in the treatment of women,
the depiction of girls being separated off at an early age and forbidden to
leave the home would have come across as regressive. If there was one
aspect of the ethos for the condition of women in Korea that was
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 65

commended, it was the strict observance of complete fidelity of wives to

their husbands, to the point that even after death they would not remarry
but remain constantly attentive to the husband’s grave. There is a sympa-
thetic yet distinctly patronizing tenor to the commentary—Korea is rou-
tinely depicted as backward and uncivilized, and serves as a pivot to assert,
of course, that Japan was far more advanced and civilized. Even so, there
were also instances where a more purely educational function was pursued
as in the 18th November issue of Shō Kokumin in 1892, which introduced
readers to the fundamentals of Korean language and Hangul.8
An event that was not only diplomatically inflammatory but also under-
scored the narrative that Korea was uncivilized was the assassination of a
former leader of the 1884 Kapsin coup d’etat, Kim Ok-gyun, in March of
1894. Kim Ok-gyun had succeeded in escaping Seoul after the abortive
coup and was resident in Japan under the protection of the Japanese gov-
ernment. Nevertheless, he was lured to Shanghai and was assassinated by
an agent of the Korean government. The act was committed in the inter-
national sector of the city and not within the precinct of the Japanese
Legation so there was no direct violation of Japan’s diplomatic jurisdiction
but the act was perceived as a direct assault on Japanese diplomatic pre-
rogatives and the fact that the Chinese government permitted the assassin
to accompany the body of Kim Ok-gyun back to Seoul was taken as com-
plicity of the Chinese government in the incident.9 Upon repatriation of
Kim Ok-gyun’s body, it was dismembered and displayed publicly through-
out the realm—this too was regarded as disgraceful and indicative of Korea
being uncivilized. An article on the fate of Kim Ok-gyun was included in
the 15th May issue of Shō Kokumin entitled “Korea’s Barbarism” (「朝鮮
の野蛮」) and complete with a rather graphic illustration of what was
done to the corpse in public.10 The overall tenor of the perception of con-
temporary Korea is perhaps epitomized in the following quote from the
article:

Given that Korea is a neighbouring country, our country has taken pains to
engage in steps to encourage improvement but the rather barbaric tenden-
cies never seem to abate. This stubbornness will probably not be redressed
before the country reaches a demise. They cannot afford to wait another
fifty years – it is truly unfortunate but the lack of magnificent achievements
in this country is largely due to self-inflicted harm that cannot be averted.11
66 A. SWALE

Ironically, with the formal commencement of hostilities with China in

August of 1894, the emphasis turned to a more intensively instructive
approach. In August, the magazine Shōnen En (『少年園』) published a
ten page article “Conditions in Korea”, which was significant for its length
and its comprehensiveness. The article had fourteen sub-topics that intro-
duced Korea’s history, geography, cultural practices (including weddings
and funerals) as well as the institutions of the monarchy and administra-
tion. It was something that even an adult readership could make ample
reference to. As if to outdo Shōnen En, from December 1894 to June of
the following year Shō Kokumin published an even more comprehensive
series of articles in ten instalments under the title “Scenes from Korea”
(「朝鮮見物」).
To be sure, the paternalistic narrative about Korea evident in publica-
tions aimed at the young was further amplified in material aimed at the
adult public. But what needs to be remembered is that the Sino-Japanese
War was indeed a war with China and not against Korea per se. Their
attempts to characterize Japan’s moves prior to full conflict as an attempt
to ‘rescue’ Korea from the Chinese by forcing the country into a path of
reform and change that was closer to the Japanese model did of course
imply stronger influence from Japan. The Tonghak Rebellion that broke
out in April of 1894 and continued until May of the same year was inspired
by a religious sect that had resonances with Christianity but retained a
shamanistic dimension as well. It was initially aimed at the highly corrupt
administration of Jo Byeonggap in the province of Gobu where particu-
larly egregious cases of corruption and exploitation had become rampant.
After successfully deposing Jo Byeonggap, the movement came to blows
with the Joseon government and actually enjoyed considerable military
success. By May, the movement had begun to run out of impetus and it
was becoming apparent that a military intervention from China might be
imminent—this brought the government and rebel forces to the table and
a peace agreement, the Treaty of Jeonju, was signed on 7th May. The
uneasy peace was tipped into a crisis when the Korean government
requested military assistance from the Qing government which sent in a
force of approximately 2700 troops. In accordance with the Convention
of Tientsin, there should have been advance notice of this mobilization
and technically there was but with no obvious intention of taking Japanese
objections as something that should preclude the move in the first place.
The Japanese, in any case, decided that a military response would be made
on their own part and from the 9th of June Japanese warships began
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 67

arriving in Pusan and Chemulpo and from the 12th of June a substantial
body of 8000 Japanese troops began landing at Chemulpo. By the 25th,
the government was deposed and a replacement progressive and pro-­
Japanese regime established.12
It is generally believed that initially Li Hongzhang did not think that a
military confrontation would ensue, but developments on the ground and
on sea led to a precipitous conclusion. The Japanese government pro-
posed a joint resolution to the shape of the new government—this would
never be accepted by the Chinese government and so no diplomatic solu-
tion was realized. The Chinese began to reinforce their troops on the Bay
of Asan. The decisive clash that triggered the war occurred on 25th July
when the Yoshino, Naniwa and Akitsushima of the Imperial Japanese Navy
intercepted reinforcements on their way to Asan. The Chinese battleship
Tsi-yuan with a gunship escort, the Kwang-yi, were guarding the entry to
Asan as the Kowshing, an English merchantman under lease to the Chinese
government and escorted by the gunboat Tsaokiang approached to trans-
fer 1100 reinforcements. The Japanese formation drove off the Chinese
escort and the Kowshing was instructed to follow the Japanese ships to
port—the Chinese on board refused to comply and there was an uneasy
period of negotiation as the Japanese attempted to negotiate the release of
the English captain and crew. In the event, the Japanese navy fired on the
Kowshing and it sank. A considerable proportion of the English crew along
with the Captain were rescued but it was a nearly run thing in terms of
causing a major rupture with the English. It was, fortunately for Japan,
accepted in Britain that the Chinese had ‘mutineered’ and taken over the
vessel, leaving the Japanese with the avenue of legitimate use of force.
Thus commenced the Sino-Japanese War, which was formally declared on
the first of August, 1894.13
This was now a full-on conflict and not the business of children’s maga-
zines. As already mentioned, there was a major realignment of commen-
tary in the mainstream press and in popular culture which swung behind
the prospect of a potentially disastrous confrontation with China. Most
foreign commentators and diplomats gave Japan a very low chance of
coming out of the conflict without serious harm. Most Japanese commen-
tators seem to have been fully aware of that assessment and the reality of
how enormous the military challenge in front of the nation would be. The
course of the conflict diplomatically and militarily requires little further
embellishment as it is well-covered in the existing academic commentary.
But the account of how the experience of the war had a fundamentally
68 A. SWALE

transformative impact on national consciousness, particularly in relation to

the content of popularly circulated literary and artistic output, is perhaps
less well-covered.
One relatively comprehensive discussion of the cultural dimension to
the build-up to conflict, as well as the cultural legacy, has been penned by
the doyen of Japanese literary studies, Donald Keene.14 It is an extended
chapter covering some 50 pages and gives an outline of the historical con-
text before giving a survey of the response to the war across a number of
media platforms and artistic genres. Keene notes that the perception of
Chinese culture was in fact overwhelmingly positive even right up until
the breaking out of hostilities, with China’s regained strength in naval
forces duly noted (e.g. as seen during the war with France from 1883 to
1885). Chinese emissaries were welcomed amongst the Japanese govern-
ment elite, many of whom were well-versed in Chinese classics and enjoyed
the opportunity to engage in social exchanges that entailed sharing eru-
dite classical quotes or penning complimentary verses in classical Chinese.
However, with the commencement of hostilities, the tendency to
denounce the Chinese as ‘enemies of Progress’ and Japan as an ‘agent of
Civilization’ became more strident. As conflict intensified and land battles
ensued, the familiar contempt among the Japanese for forces that are pre-
pared to surrender rather than fight to the bitter end came to the fore,
with even the sight of Chinese prisoners of war marching through Tokyo
while eating as they went evincing particularly sharp criticism. This did not
culminate in the repudiation of respect for Chinese classical learning but
rather a discourse that the Chinese had failed to remain worthy bearers of
the legacy.
The curious dichotomy that emerges, at least from Keene’s perspective,
is the role of established literary figures, Mori Ō gai, Kunikida Doppo and
Masaoka Shiki, in being involved quite directly in observing the conflict,
either as military personnel (as in the case of Ō gai) or as correspondents.
Yet in so far as any prospect of a ‘serious’ literary response was concerned,
very little was produced. Kunikida in fact indulged in fairly facile enthusi-
asm and unmixed patriotism when his series of letters to a “Beloved
Brother” were published after the war.15 A patriotic endorsement of
Japan’s role in the war was all but the default response for most members
of the literati—even Uchimura Kanzō, who would distinguish himself as
one of the minority of intellectuals who opposed the war with Russia a
decade later, came out in support of Japanese actions and characterized
the war as indeed a “righteous” one. In justifying the war over the Korean
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 69

peninsula he rather curiously evoked the precedent of Saigō Takamori’s

Seikanron which was based on a ‘principled’ resistance to Western
Imperialism and a moral imperative to act on Korea’s behalf to resist
Chinese hegemony and set out on a progressive path toward progress and
civilization.16
In parallel with literary responses to the war, there were also the pub-
lishers and artists behind the production and sale of polychrome nishiki-e
which gave the public a constant stream of dynamic depictions of Japanese
heroism and Chinese fecklessness. The Japanese soldiers were almost
invariably imbued with the kinds of heroic virility often associated with
poses found in earlier depictions of kabuki performances or famous war-
rior figures, while the Chinese were commonly depicted as relatively anon-
ymous, sharing highly stylized features based on a derogatory perception
of ‘typical’ Chinese facial features and almost invariably running away or
dead. Popular newspapers such as the Yomiuri played a key role in whip-
ping up public fervour through initiatives such as a patriotic song contest
or by serializing melodramatic depictions of heroism. 17
This character of the literary and artistic response to the war should not
surprise us, particularly if we consider the precedents for communication
through the popular press in the preceding two decades. From the
mid-­1870s, the first “minor newspapers” such as indeed the Yomiuri and
the Tokyo Eiri Shinbun emerged and although they did not enjoy the kind
of tacit endorsement from the government as with “major newspapers”
such as either the Yūbin Hōchi or Tokyo Nichi-nichi newspapers, they suc-
ceeded in carving out a niche and a mode of operation that set them up to
outperform their ostensibly more respectable counterparts. The key expo-
nent of nishikie-derived illustration techniques adapted to newspapers,
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, produced a quite extraordinary array of disciples who
were initiated in the late 1880s and then ultimately figure as key exponents
of nishikie depicting the war in the mid-1890s, Migita Toshihide
(1862–1925) and Mizuno Toshikata (1866–1908) being the most emi-
nent (Swale, 2022, 568–600).
In contrast to the popularized and jingoistic content of newspaper
reportage and nishikie illustrations, there were also two publications that
were established in the first months of the war which focused on factual
accounts of the course of the conflict and they went on to become highly
successful. The first was the Nisshin Sensō Jikki (『日清戦争実記』),
which was published by Hakubunkan with the first issue appearing on the
30th of August, 1894. It ran for fifty issues before being closed down
70 A. SWALE

following the successful outcome of the war in January of 1896. Following

close behind there appeared the Nisshin Sensō Zue, (『日清戦争図会』),
which was published from the 25th of September 1894 and ran to ten
monthly issues until it likewise was wound up in July of 1895. Nisshin
Sensō Jikki was more comprehensive expanding from the initial 104 or so
pages to 130 pages from the tenth issue onwards whereas the Nisshin
Sensō Zue was shorter at around 30 pages per issue but with a stronger
emphasis on visual presentation.18
Both publications were distinct in that they tended to include photo-
graphs, often of the officers in command of the forces or the ships involved
in naval encounters, along with scenes from the battlefield or of Japanese
troops in situ. There were no photographs of actual fighting as the techni-
cal capacity of contemporary photographic equipment would not lend
itself easily to deployment in the heat of battle. This is where the nishikie
depictions had the advantage—they could place the view right in the midst
of the fighting right up close beside the Japanese heroes. If we take the
respective accounts of the Battle of the Yalu River which occurred on 17th
September 1894, Nisshin Sensō Jikki presented photographs of each of the
main component vessels of the fleet with a detailed account of the progres-
sion of the battle using diagrams of the ships and their movements. Nisshin
Sensō Zue featured a more condensed account with full-colour illustra-
tions, including a large kuchie by Shimazaki Ryūu which depicted the
Japanese navy in the heat of battle. Another aspect relevant to the impact
of nishikie is the manner in which the viewer engages with the image. In
the case of a photograph, an image is presented as taken by the ‘dead eye’
of the lens—it provides incontrovertible evidence of a place and the ele-
ments assembled therein but a nishikie entailed the use of imaginative
devises to enable concise depiction on the part of the artist and a process
of decoding and recoding on the part of the viewer. There was, as Harada
Kei’ichi points out, a ‘silent pact’, or at least a tacit understanding, between
the artist and viewer which underpinned the experience of creating and
viewing the image.19 This is not to suggest that a similar relation between
a photographer and viewer cannot occur but at this point of time it is clear
that photographs were being employed for information rather than aes-
thetic effect.20
One particular point to note with regard to the impact of these wartime
publications is the degree to which they both exhibit a strong visuality. As
was exemplified in the World Wars of the next century, the war effort of
any nation when engaged in total war with full mobilization of its forces
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 71

and resources is reinforced profoundly when the populace is subjected, to

the point of saturation, with visual representations of actions and events in
the war. Without this reinforcement, there is only text and statistics—
abstractions in the minds of many whereas the visual image captures the
imagination, provoking strong emotional responses and promoting a will
toward action. This is not to suggest that the likes of Nisshin Sensō Jikki
and Nisshin Senso ̄ Zue were the main component of this—it was the full
package of everything from cartoons to postcards and nishikie, along with
the above, which achieved that saturating effect.
Donald Keene does discuss the output of nishikie and their remarkable
popularity during the war, some individual prints enjoying runs of up to
100,000 copies, but he focuses primarily on Kiyochika and seems to con-
cur with some commentators that the nishikie were generally of dubious
aesthetic value and were largely destined to be superseded by photography
over the next decade.21 The degree to which nishikie were somehow enjoy-
ing their last swan song in popular culture is perhaps debatable but, in any
case, if we examine the relative numbers of journalists (shinbun kisha, 新聞
記者), artists (gakō, 画工) and photographers (shashinshi, 写真師) who
were accredited with the army during the conflict, they amount to 114, 11
and 4 persons, respectively. The Japanese government was keenly aware of
the value of having journalistic coverage from the field as indeed it had
found in previous conflicts including the Taiwan Expedition of 1874 and
the Seinan War of 1877, and showed considerable foresight in formalizing
the process whereby such reporters and commentators could be ‘embed-
ded’ with the forces and placed under the jurisdiction of a particular unit’s
command.22
The number of journalists was actually remarkably high, with regional
newspapers being as proactive in securing accreditation as the main news-
papers of the large urban centres in Kantō and Kansai. There were only
four photographers and they entered the fray towards the end of 1894.
With eleven artists, loosely described, we do not see a correlation with the
volume of prints that would soon ensue. The main reason is that nishikie
artists were quite happy, and indeed quite adept in taking written accounts
along with occasional photographic images and letting their imaginations
do the rest. As the Yomiuri Shinbun in its 9th August issue described the
initial situation, “[f]rom the outbreak of the war, publishers of illustrated
popular literature suddenly became intensely busy in fighting to produce
new works, to the extent that it felt like being in the midst of a battle-
field”.23 Based on Harada’s research, which is comprehensive but does not
72 A. SWALE

claim to be exhaustive, there were approximately twenty particular artists

active in producing nishikie prints from within the established lineages of
traditional ukiyoe art who were producing works for the main publishing
houses of the Tokyo and Osaka regions, with an almost exact balance
between the two regions (nine publishers for Tokyo, eight for Kansai).
Amongst the various stables of nishikie practitioners, it was that of
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi that had a prominent place at the time, Yoshitoshi
having no less than seven disciples (of particular note, however, were
Migita Toshihide and Mizuno Toshikata).
Amongst the remainder of the artists, the ones that have maintained a
particularly positive critical reception are Yōsai Nobukazu (1872–1944),
Ogata Gekkō (1859–1920), and of course Kobayashi Kiyochika
(1847–1914). Even so, there were an extensive number of practitioners
who could not be tied to the prominent ukiyoe lineages and as an example
we could take the output of the Nisshin Sensō Zue published by Tōyōdō
which presented 120 nishikie in all but with only Gekkō being one of the
‘recogized’ artists. There were, incidentally, two of the established artists
who had previous experience of producing nishikie to depict the Seinan
War of 1877, Toyohara Kunichika (1838–1912) and Adachi Ginkō
(1853–1902).24
So the picture that emerges is that there was in fact a bewilderingly vast
array of artists ready to take up the challenge of imaginatively connecting
the Japanese populace with the events that were occurring on the ground
in Korea. There was also a highly developed infrastructure of publishing
houses with national reach that would ensure mass production and mass
consumption almost instantaneously. Some of the more artistically repu-
table contributions by the likes of Kiyochika naturally deserve to be high-
lighted, but the sheer abundance and pervasiveness of the material is the
main point and it should be noted that even at that upper level the field
was more diverse than the most praise-worthy artists.
There were of course different phases in the character of this response,
in terms of content and relative quality, that ebbed and flowed in relation
to the course of the war. In the very initial stage, there was a rather explo-
sive outpouring of relatively ‘cheaper’ content, involving lesser-known art-
ists and with lower production values, which nonetheless set the initial
tenor of the national response to the commencement of hostilities. As
already noted, outright conflict between China and Japan began with an
unplanned naval battle on the Bay of Asan on the 25th of July, which
resulted in the sinking of the Kowshing and the entire loss of the Chinese
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 73

reinforcements on board. This was followed on land by the successful

landing of troops near Asan on the 27th of July and the routing of the
Chinese forces stationed nearby at Seonghwan. By the next day the
Chinese forces were routed, and by the end of the 29th the city of Asan
itself fell. At this stage, a formal declaration of war had not even
been made.25
Over the next few weeks, a wave of effusive reportage in newspapers
and lionizing illustrations in nishikie bombarded the public who were
struck with the euphoria of a previously inconceivably emphatic military
success at the very outset. The ‘big three’, Yōsai Nobukazu, Ogata Gekkō
and Kobayashi Kiyochika, were not featuring prominently yet. The com-
positions appear rushed and cluttered in some cases, or they rely of the
earlier pre-Meijii conventions for depicting battles where a main heroic
figure, more often than not on a horse, would be at the centre of the com-
position with supporting troops to the right and cowering foes to the left.
Harada notes the proliferation of rather implausible scenes, for example a
commander of a Japanese field gun battery remaining on horseback, or a
naval officer marshalling sailors in a gun position with a sword drawn—
flourishes for visual effect rather than relevant to the practical demands of
operations. A particularly effective example of how the inclusion of horse-
men could transform a scene is provided by Toshiaki’s “Our Forces
Storming the Defences Above Port Arthur” (日清戦争威海衛ニ於我軍激
戦ス, Fig. 3.1). It would arguably be unlikely that horses would have been
used to storm the steep terrain, but the two horsemen anchor the scene
and form a dramatic contrast to the harbour in the distance.
Their impact, as even Lafcardio Hearn who observed the reaction first-­
hand at the time was to note, was to fan a near delirium of patriotic fer-
vour—the Japanese people, who until this time may rightly have felt
ambivalent about the wisdom of having gone to war with China, now felt
no qualms in extolling the virtues of the Imperial Army and Navy, and
unreservedly excoriating the Chinese.26 Fukuzawa Yukichi enthusiastically
endorsed the war and its civilizing potential in the Jiji Shinpō, Tokutomi
Sohō of the Kokumin no Tomo completed his transition from tireless
champion of People Rights to enthusing about the victories and the vir-
tues of Japan’s forces. Even Itagaki Taisuke, the former leader of the most
vociferous People’s Rights political party, the Jiyūtō, dropped any sense of
ambivalence and enthused as effusively as the rest. It was a pivotal moment
where the nation dared to believe it was in fact not just going to be a ‘wor-
thy opponent’ but an unstoppably glorious and courageous force destined
74 A. SWALE

Fig. 3.1 Nakazawa

Toshiaki, “Our Forces
Storming the Defences
Above Port Arthur” 「
日清戦争威海衛ニ於我
軍激戦ス」, 1995.
(Courtesy of the
National Diet Library
of Japan)

to mete out stiff justice to the Chinese.27 It was perhaps historically one of
the most significant inflection points for the evolution of national con-
sciousness during the Meiji period, but it surely also encouraged the
Japanese populace to indulge in a premature triumphalism. If that
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 75

triumphalism had been thwarted, it might well have gone down as a salu-
tary lesson in chastisement, but when it was rewarded with further victory,
it had the potential to become a poisonous source of intoxicating
self-delusion.
From the formal Declaration of War on the 1st of August the main
business of resolving the war on land and sea ensued. The first major blow
was the occupation of Pyongyang on the 16th of September after an
intense two-day barrage and assault by the Imperial Japanese Army. As if
in a kind of parallel with the previous engagements there was a near simul-
taneous encounter at sea. The Chinese government had been aiming to
deliver reinforcements by sea to the north at the Yalu River under the
cover of the main Chinese naval force, the Beiyang Fleet. After initially
succeeding in landing some 4500 troops, the Beiyang Fleet was attacked
late on the morning of the 17th by the Combined Fleet of the Japanese
Imperial Navy. By the end of the day, eight out of ten of the principal ves-
sels of the Beiyang Fleet had been either seriously damaged or sunk—the
balance of power on the sea had swung decisively toward the Japanese.
The Chinese regrouped north of the Yalu River, their task now being to
defend Chinese home territory. The Japanese army struck north for
‘Mukden’ (modern day Shenyang) with a second group pressing across
the Yalu River near the coast and aiming to press into the Liaodong
Peninsula—the ultimate goal being the port of Lüshun (later known as
Port Arthur). Following the landing of the Second Corps on the peninsula
on the 24th of October, the Japanese proceeded to besiege Lüshun, which
eventually fell on the 21st of November.28
The array of nishikie artists that were engaged in the depiction of this
phase of the war was now very much replete with the masters along with
the more commercially oriented opportunists. Gekkō depicted the storm-
ing of the battlements of Pyongyang in the first major land engagement,
while Kiyochika devoted the greater part of his attention to the naval bat-
tle at the Yalu River. Apart from the higher quality of draftsmanship exhib-
ited by both artists there was more thought given to composition and
perspective. This was particularly the case with Kiyochika who added his
distinctive ability to evoke ambient light at dusk and in the night-time. To
this we could add his sheer ‘out of left field’ inventiveness, such as his
dramatic capturing of the moment a Chinese battleship was sinking from
an underwater perspective in The Sinking of Two Qing Naval Vessels by our
Forces on the Yellow Sea (我艦隊於黄海二清艦ヲ撃チ沈ル之図, Fig. 3.2).
76 A. SWALE

Fig. 3.2 Kobayashi

Kiyochika, “Our Navy
Attacking and Sinking
the Chinese Fleet on the
Yellow Sea” 「我艦隊於
黄海清艦撃沈之図」.
(Courtesy of the
National Diet Library
of Japan)

To these should be added the works of Migita Toshihide and Mizuno

Toshikata. Toshihide excelled at the depiction of battle scenes, either
‘right in close’ battle moments or depictions of significant group actions
such as the storming of Lüshunkou. His capacity to imbue his figures, and
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 77

indeed every element in the frame, with a vibrant intensity was distinctive
and would have provided a ready source stimulation and interest for a
routine member of the public. Close observation regarding the draftsman-
ship and composition indicates more than an interest in cheap thrills—his
works are generally well-thought out and well-rendered pieces. He was
also one of the principle nishikie artists who excelled in depicting particu-
lar heroic figures and episodes, such as Captain Matsuzaki Nao’omi, one
of the first casualties of the war who fought on regardless of receiving a leg
wound, or the young bugler who continued to his last breath—eventually
attributed as the act of Private Kiguchi Kohei.29
By contrast, Toshikata’s work was less action-driven but retained impact
nonetheless. He shared with his master Yoshitoshi a delicate sense of line
and colouration which, in combination with the elements of mis en scène,
could make the movements of the figures seem quite balletic and the over-
all composition in terms of perspective feel remarkably cinematic. The
depiction in “Our army capturing Pyongyang” (「我軍平壌ヲ陥ル之
図」) makes the Japanese soldiers appear to almost dance, while in “Five
Japanese Sappers in the Jincheon region drive off more than a hundred
Chinese soldiers” (「鎮川地方ニ五名ノ日本工兵清兵百余人ヲ撃退」),
the battle scene revisits the hackneyed trope of Japanese soldiery chasing
off the feckless Chinese while also presenting, on closer examination, an
ensemble of five Japanese soldiers who as a group reveal a remarkable har-
mony of movement. Another piece, “Our army breaks through the ram-
parts of Pyongyang” (「平壌攻撃我軍敵塁ヲ抜ク」), looks as though it
could have been shot with a panoramic camera lens, with the energy of
movement stemming from the composition of moving figures through
the terrain from right to left rather than relying on the evocation of indi-
vidually dynamic movements.30
One further image which really does encapsulate Toshikata’s knack for
composition is “A depiction of the Imperial Navy firing near the island of
Haiyang” (「海洋嶋附近 帝国軍艦発砲之図」), which achieves the dif-
ficult task of turning a grouping of sailors around a naval cannon firing a
salvo into a dynamic and impactful image with all the elements within the
frame. It is not just that Toshikata uses the smoke and fumes of gunfire to
evoke the moment of detonation but the manner in which the gun itself
sits as a hypnotically monstrous black feature that draws all figures around
it to it. The gun crew seems transfixed and each expresses some sense of
anticipation combined with grim determination. These figures are con-
trasted with two officers who stand apart in an almost casual repose to the
78 A. SWALE

right—detached, in control. There is a strong visual pull from the gun that
sets off a sense of drama in the surrounds, − it is again almost photographic
in the nature of its intensity.
What arguably gave the likes of Toshihide and Toshikata something of
an edge in the development of techniques for creating more innovative
forms of tension and impact was, ironically perhaps, their substantial expe-
rience in illustrating serialized novels. These sashie illustrations were of
course not in colour, but therein lay the very particular discipline of learn-
ing to evoke subtleties of light and shade, intensities of form, movement,
and texture based on ever more thoughtful composition and blocking of
figures rather than relying on colouration for impact.
In the course of the conflict heroes would come to be celebrated in
song—jingoistic and sentimental to be sure, but avidly adopted by the
public. Saya Makito, drawing on the scholarship of Horiuchi Keizō, alights
on the motif of “The Valiant Sailor”, which was the title of a song turned
out by the poet Sasaki Nobutsuna based on contemporary newspaper
reports. It was initially based on a Jiji Shinpō report of 6th October that
covered the Battle of the Yalu River and described how a dying sailor,
wounded and close to breathing his last, asked his commanding officer if
the Dingyuan had been sunk yet. Upon being assured that the Dingyuan
was near destruction he smiled and encouraged his comrades to “go and
get them”. As Saya goes on to detail, the sailor was not initially named but
was most likely Sailor Third Class Miura Torajirō of Matsushima. But he
also goes on to relate that there were in fact as many as three sailors that
could have fit that ‘final death’ scenario—Sailor Second Class Tagami of
the Hiei, Sailor First Class Satō Chōsaku of the Itsukushima, and
Hashiguchi Kojirō of the Akagi. The tales of heroism were thus based on
a degree of factuality but increasingly infused with more generic narratives
with more composite hero-figures.31 What applied to “The Valiant Sailor”
on sea, equally applied to the patriotic figure of the bugler’s death on land.
The tale of the valiant bugler was derived from events at the outset of the
land war in late July of 1894 at the ford of the Ansong River during the
Battle of Songhwan. Ultimately the bugler would be identified in school
textbooks as Kiguchi Kohei the soldier who led the charge and continued
to hold the bugle to his lips despite being shot. The initial reports however
named him as Shirakami Genjirō whose feats were described in the Tokyo
Nichinichi Shinbun of 9th August (he was explicitly named again the fol-
lowing month in the Tokyo Nichinichi as well as in a 21st September article
in the Yorozu Cho ̄ho ̄). In any event, the episode was turned into a war song
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 79

entitled “The Bugle’s Echo” by an army musician attached to the Imperial

Guards, Kikuma Yoshikiyo. Eventually, it emerged in an article published
by the Yomiuri Shinbun on 20th of August, 1895 that although Shirakami
had fought and died at the Battle of Songhwan, it was in fact Kiguchi
Kohei who was the actual bugler. This did not immediately allay confusion
as Shirakami had already been celebrated in word and song as the valiant
bugler for a year and that perception would continue until the early 1900s.
Saya refers to the scholarship of Nishikawa Hiroshi who went so far as to
suggest that in fact it was highly likely that Shirakami drowned crossing
the river while Kiguchi was also almost certainly killed instantly by a bullet
to his chest. The “valiant bugler” was potentially another composite ficti-
tious hero.32
With the fall of Lüshun, the most emphatic statement of Japanese victory
had been made, short of marching on Beijing itself. The remainder of the
war centred on consolidating gains on the Liaodong Peninsula and the area
around Mukden to the north. This phase of the conflict ushered in a relative
calm in the tenor of visual commentary, most singularly epitomized by
Kiyochika with his pensive and deeply ambient evening and night-time
scenes that were of troops and personnel away from direct fighting at the
front. Perhaps the most representative examples are the famous works
by Kiyochika, one which depicts a solitary officer atop a hill gazing down on
an enemy encampment below (我斥候鴨緑江附近に敵陣を窺ふ圖), along
with another which depicts the Japanese army encampment at night with
groups huddled around fire in the dark and the red cross of a hospital tent
being illuminated in the background (冒榮口嚴寒我軍張露榮之図). There
is an elegiac if not pastoral turn in the nature of his treatment of the war—
victory is at hand, and so reflection seems to be in order.
The formal cessation of the war came on the 30th of March 1895 and
the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on the 17th of April. It provided for
the ceding of the Liaodong Peninsula, Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to
Japan.33 One further change that occurred in the visual representation of
the war from this point is the manner in which the Chinese are depicted.
The Chinese soldiery had been, almost without exception, hitherto
depicted with angular jaw lines, jutting cheeks and garish facial expres-
sions. This took an attenuating turn and both Toshikata and Toshihide
went so far as to depict the defeated Admiral of the Beiyang Fleet, Ding
Ru-chang, in his last moments before committing suicide to atone for the
disaster. In particular Toshihide, who actually was rare in not always
depicting Chinese soldiers as grotesque or cowards—indicated
80 A. SWALE

considerable sympathy for the disgraced Admiral who is depicted bearing

an expression of profound bitterness and regret (『清国北洋艦隊於威海
衛全滅遂提督丁汝昌我海軍敵不能於官宅自殺図』). This event actually
did much to ameliorate Japanese perceptions of the Chinese sense of hon-
our in war, and in some ways it presaged a return to a less hysterical and
jingoistic attitude towards the Chinese.
One of the other perhaps unanticipated by-products of the war was its
impact on popular erotic art, or shunga (春画). Certainly shunga as crafted
and circulated in the pre-Meiji period did not survive in the same mode of
popular consumption, especially given that such material was explicitly
banned by the early Meiji government by Ordinances that proscribed
‘uncivilized’ practices from mixed public bathing to urinating in public.
But as with almost every other aspect of Edo culture, there were avenues
of perpetuation that were pursued even if by relatively isolated individuals.
The figure who stands out as being one of the most unabashed ‘standard-­
bearers’ for erotic art was Kawanabe Kyōsai (1831–1889) whose highly
inclusive and notorious heavy-drinking salon included the greater part of
the gesaku and nihikie artist fraternity, and also occasionally saw the par-
ticipation of foreign visitors to Japan such as the British architect Josiah
Conder who admired Kyōsai and studied under him during the last part of
his life in the 1880s. As already noted, the government during the 1880s
was depicted as publicly moralistic and authoritarian but privately disso-
lute and hedonistic. The Rokumeikan, which had been built as a show-­
piece venue to entertain foreign dignitaries was also notorious as a hot-bed
of debauchery and womanizing. Kyōsai had penned a number of sketches
depicting contemporary elite women and men in the latest fashions of
Western attire posing in front of ornate Western buildings. He also took
the same figures and depicted them engaged in sexual acts in extremely
graphic detail, very much in poses resonant with earlier shunga images.
These sketches were not publicly circulated but their existence would have
been known to his immediate friends and acquaintances.34
The advent of the Sino-Japanese War gave an unexpected impetus to
the resurgence of shunga as, very much unofficially, it was thought that
erotic images would form some sort of diversion for troops in the field. It
is here that nurses, who had hitherto been the emblem of Japan’s signing
up to internationally recognized institutions of ‘civilized war’, became a
pervasive theme of erotic images circulating amongst the soldiery. These
were not shunga in the sense of entailing reasonably high production val-
ues and adopting Edo period visual conventions—they were a much more
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 81

tawdry and low-brow approximation. This was a rather arcane sub-genre

of visual media at the time, and although it could not be taken seriously as
art it does constitute a notable component of the evolving visual culture of
the late Meiji period. It should not be forgotten that this was precisely the
moment when the fine arts in Japan were not only grappling with the
rather thorny issue coming to grips with new techniques such as oil-­
painting, but also the rather perplexing convention of high art in the West
to depict women in the nude. On the one hand, following such visual
conventions would signify adhering to the ‘higher’ artistic standards of the
West, yet it was patently contradictory to the more generalized drive in the
earlier part of the Meiji period to stamp out any suggestions of public
immodesty or lewdness.
As seen in the preceding sections, the popular perceptions of the war,
its causes, progress and outcomes, were profoundly shaped by visual
media, and although photography had definitely become part of the array
of technologies on offer to capture the war in its several phases, it was the
traditional nishikie which far and away had the stronger grip on the popu-
lar imagination and this medium succeeded in galvanizing national senti-
ment and solidarity to an unprecedented degree.
Alongside the foregoing visual art, theatrical performance also under-
went a radical transformation and succeeded in harnessing popular senti-
ment in novel and intense ways. As outlined in the previous chapter, there
were two streams of theatre emergent in the early 1890s, the reinvigorated
traditional kabuki theatre led by Ichikawa Danjurō and Ogata Kikugorō
(often referred to in a kind of short-hand as “Dan-Kiku”) and the new
theatre rooted in So ̄shi Shibai which was led by Kawakami Otojirō. As
already mentioned, Kawakami resolved to visit France early in 1893 and
he did not waste time seeking out the theatres that were at the forefront
of popular entertainment. There were several reports that made their way
back to newspapers in Japan, particularly the Chūō Shinbun, which pro-
vide some detail of what he saw and where he saw it. Of particular note is
his viewing of a battle re-enactment at Le Théâtre du Châtelet (Chūo ̄
Shinbun, 1893, May 24th) which apparently featured scenes from the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. There were some 400 soldiers on
stage, fourteen horsemen and the scene was replete with the sound of can-
nons thundering, the sound of a hail of bullets and artificial smoke. It is
actually not altogether clear whether it was the Franco-Prussian War or
not, − there was in fact another play on at the time entitled Michel Strogoff
co-written by Jules Verne and Adolphe D’Ennery, that seems the more
82 A. SWALE

likely bet but, in any case, it was an experience that completely trans-
formed Kawakami’s perception of what was possible on the stage. The
response of the audience in terms of spontaneous emotional outpouring
and expressions of patriotism were also duly noted.35
A further play that would have more immediate resonance for Kawakami
with East Asia was another long-standing favourite of the Parisian public,
The Capture of Peking (La Prise da Peking), again by Adolphe D’Ennery.
This depicted the combined operations of the French and British in 1861
to punish Chinese breaches of diplomatic agreements leading to the occu-
pation of Beijing, the denouement of the Second Opium War. But the
scene that apparently most bowled him over was a scene that dealt with
the hallucinogenic effects of opium and depicted female nymphs emerging
out of the mist to dance on a water pond covered in lotus flowers (Chūo ̄
Shinbun, 1893, May 26th; Saya, 2011, 77–83).
Kawakami was back in Japan by the 30th of April and apparently kept a
low profile for some time. He broke the silence with an enigmatically
entitled Igai (意外, Unexpected), which opened at the Asakusa-Za in
January of 1894. It was apparently based on another Adolphe D’Ennery
work, Mère at Martyre, and introduced Japanese audiences to the Western
convention of darkening out the entire theatre and focusing attention
purely on the stage through lighting. This was followed by an even more
successful Mata Igai (又意外, Unexpected Again) and even Mata-mata
Igai (又々意外, Unexpected Yet Again) which was apparently an adapta-
tion of King Oedipus (Kurata, 1980, 109–110).
By the time war was declared on the 1st of August, Kawakami was well-­
ready to adapt his Parisian experiences for the local audience. The work he
ventured to put in front of the censors was entitled simply The Sino-­
Japanese War (Nisshin Sensō, 『日清戦争』) and did not encounter major
difficulties in gaining approval. This was in stark contrast to public senti-
ments about the kabuki theatre, where the thought of ‘uneducated’ actors
playing the parts of officers and generals was regarded as potentially deni-
grating. Kawakami’s play had been crafted to avoid depicting Japanese
officers, the main characters being a reporter, Hirata Tetsuya, his female
counterpart, Haruta Shigeko, along with some low-ranking Japanese foot-­
soldiers, Katō Kiyotarō and Konishi Kōzō, and a fellow journalist named
Mizusawa. After Hirata Tetsuya and Haruta Shigeko are taken prisoner
near the front, the only high-ranking figures to appear are officials of the
Chinese court, including Li Hong-zhang and the Chinese Emperor.36
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 83

Although not following the plots of either Michel Strogoff or La Prise de

Pekin directly there are plenty of sequences and motifs that justify the
conclusion that not only were these works influential, they were also in
some instances quite closely followed. Hirata provides an ideal foil for the
audience’s identification in that he is not a military officer, but he is edu-
cated, resourceful and patriotic. He meets Shigeko as she becomes
embroiled in the conflict and is separated from her parents. Hirata takes
her under his wing and she travels with him as his ‘older sister’. The two
soldiers appear as a contrast to the main hero and heroine, initially exhibit-
ing a tendency to be fractious but through hardship and near death
becoming inseparable. When Shigeko discovers that her parents are dead,
she joins the medical corps as a nurse with the Red Cross. The interplay in
the original between two reporters at a telegraph station near the front in
the French is used for light relief but not in Kawakami’s adaption—
Mizusawa meets a grim end. After both Kawakami and Shigeko are cap-
tured they are taken to Pekin where they are interrogated and beaten.
They refuse to do obeisance to the Chinese Emperor and Hirata gives the
Qing court a lecture in international law and its obligations. Hirata and
Shigeko manage to escape but Hirata is shot upon reaching the Japanese
front lines.37
Overall, the adaptation fits more with Japanese conventions of exem-
plary patriotic conduct and the relationship between Hirata and Shigeko,
though clearly of an obliquely erotic nature is kept well in check, and they
do not live happily ever after. Shigeko also provides an opportunity to
present to the Japanese public phenomena that would have been relatively
unfamiliar to the home audience—references to the Geneva Convention,
the Red Cross and of course female nursing staff on or near the battle-
front. The script for the play had been foreshadowed in the Yamato
Shinbun from 24th August until 4th September. The ensuing season at the
Asakusa-Za ran for weeks and enjoyed sustained popularity throughout.
By contrast, the attempts of the “Dan-Kiku” school to join in were
both belated, commencing in November of 1894, and were not crowned
with popular success. A play entitled Kairiku Renshō Asahi no Mihata (『
海陸連勝日章旗』) —Successive Victories on Land and Sea, Our Glorious
Flag of the Rising Sun—penned by no less that Fukuchi Gen’ichirō, was
something of a flop. To be fair, critical responses to Kawakami’s work
amongst theatre reviewers had not exactly been enthusiastic, perhaps pri-
marily because they did not know what to make of it, but even commenta-
tors who were more inclined to endorse kabuki as a traditional art form
84 A. SWALE

had to concede that Kawakami had captured the popular imagination and
been catapulted into the cultural stratosphere by comparison.38
As it turned out Kawakami did not remain confined to military themes
in his productions but the earlier success with Nisshin Senso ̄ formed the
basis for his next foray into the development of his theatre style into a
distinctive genre of Shinpa, the “new school” of theatre setting itself apart
from kabuki or Kyūha, the “old school”. It was an initiative that was defin-
itive in capturing the symbiosis between newspapers, literary writing and
theatre. In November of 1894 Izumi Kyōka published in the Asahi
Shinbun a serialized form of one of his earliest short stories, Giketsu
Kyōketsu, (『義血侠血』, Loyal Blood, Valiant Blood). The editorship of
the Asahi Shinbun had been taken up by Izumi’s mentor Ozaki Kōyō and
this enabled him to provide an avenue of publication for his protégé. At
some point in the following year Kawakami alighted on this story and
resolved to use it as the basis of his next major production. In November
of 1895, the customary preliminary notifications of what was in store were
made in the Miyako Shinbun but no explicit reference to Izumi’s work
being the basis of the play was made even though its title Taki no Shiraito
gave a fairly clear indication of where the original idea had come from.
Ozaki immediately intervened and insisted that Izumi (and by extension
the interests of the Asahi Shinbun and himself) be given due acknowl-
edgement. Without full resolution of the dispute the play premiered in
December of 1895 and was an immediate success. It featured the ill-fated
romance of two star-crossed lovers, Shiraito, a female entertainer who spe-
cialized in conjuring, and Murakoshi Kin’ya, an impecunious coachman
who aspired to become a lawyer. Shiraito provides Kinya with a stipend to
live on and pays his tuition fees, but at the last hurdle she is robbed and so
resorts to breaking into the house of a wealthy benefactor who she ends
up inadvertently killing during the botched attempt to steal money. The
newly minted Kinya is brought in as the prosecuting lawyer in the case and
when Shiraito confesses to the murder in court she is in turn sentenced to
death. Kin’ya, distraught and inconsolable, kills himself—the scene was
apparently cleverly contrived to have Kin’ya, played by Kawakami, instantly
transformed back to the guise of a coachman, whereupon he draws a pistol
and shoots himself.39
Reviews of this play, even that of the Asahi Shinbun, were largely posi-
tive and as Cody Poulton persuasively demonstrates it was the pivotal
moment when Shinpa came of age and set the mould for future naturalis-
tic modes of theatrical production, ultimately forming the basis of Japanese
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 85

approaches to cinematic production, as will be covered in ensuing chap-

ters.40 It is also important to acknowledge that this production was very
much something that emerged out of the highly innovative phase of
experimentation and adaptation that Kawakami had undertaken during
the Sino-Japanese War.
As a contrast to the meteoric success of Kawakami, there was the rather
sobering string of misfortunes that afflicted Miyatake Gaikotsu. He was
mortified at the manner in which so many illustrious figures of the world
of letters, the arts and journalism were so quickly won over to a slavish and
uncritical support of the war, and he was not at all inclined to ‘cash in’ by
producing the kind of cringe-inducing jingoism as evidenced by the likes
of Kunikada Doppo. His personal financial circumstances became increas-
ingly straitened as the conflict ensued. Earlier in the year, on the 7th
of April, his first and only child with his partner Yayo was born, a boy they
named Tenmin (天民, literally meaning “the people of heaven”, and signi-
fying Miyatake’s belief in the sanctity of the common people). In order to
support his family he was forced to move his household back to his par-
ents’ home near Takamatsu where it was also thought that Yayo could
obtain some respite while his parents could dote on their grandchild.
Various ventures to take on editorial work, which had worked quite well
in the past, came to nothing. And as if things could get no worse, his son
passed away in July of 1895, aged just over a year old. This was indeed
Miyatake’s darkest hour and he could not escape the sense that he had yet
again brought profound misfortune to those he held most dear.41
Prior to the death of his child with Yayo, he had embarked in May of
1895 on a reprise of what had been the tried and true model for popular
entertainment, a miscellany of commentary and humorous illustrations
laced with wit and satire, and it was a magazine entitled Tonchi to Kokkei
(『頓知と滑稽』). It ran to seven issues in total, the final issue appearing
on 10th November, 1895. As such, its content seemed to resonate with
his earlier successful sortie into publishing with the Tonchi Zasshi—the
issues were typically divided to two broad divisions “Tonchi” and
“Kokkei”, with the obligatory advertising section at the end. The content
was provided by a number of contributors and it seems there were no top-
ics out of bounds, including a pseudo-erudite treatise on the merits of
doing away with urination and defecation (Tonchi to Kokkei, No. 1, 5th
May 1895).42 The sixth and seventh editions had supplements added enti-
tled Meiji Tengu ̄, with a completely thinly disguised evocation of the phal-
lic connotations of the Tengū nose, which is unmistakable given that the
86 A. SWALE

first supplement commences with a discourse on the fact although the

characters for “yin” (陰)and “yang” (陽) are opposites, they can both be
used in Chinese compound character words to describe male genitalia.
Each supplement was rounded out with a list of the good and the great
characterized as the ‘Tengū’ of their field—Fukuzawa Yukichi was
described as the “Kaika Tengū”, Itō Hirobumi as the “Kempō Tengū”,
and the theatre impresario Morita Kan’ya described as the “Money-­
lending Tengū”.
There is no obvious reason why this publication failed other than that
the content was perhaps disconsonant with the mood of the public at the
time. Yes, the war with China had been successfully concluded, and there
was a sense that things were about to get substantially better for all
Japanese, but this was clouded by the intervention in the terms of the
Treaty of Shimonoseki by France, Germany and Russia, who effectively
vetoed the ceding of the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan. It was a time when
the classical literary phrase gashin sho ̄tan (臥薪嘗胆) became current in the
popular imagination signifying a reluctant willingness to tolerate an unac-
ceptable situation (literally “lie on firewood and swallow bile”) but imply-
ing that this would entail appropriate revenge being exacted in due time.
This was in a sense exactly what was attained through the war with Russia
less than ten years later. As for Taiwan, which had been formally ceded to
Japan and not contested by the Western powers, this was not simply
handed over to the Japanese government—an expeditionary force had to
be dispatched to placate the Han Chinese and indigenous inhabitants who
wanted no part of being incorporated into the Japanese Empire.43
Japan’s achievement as an imperial power by the end of the conflict had
garnered considerable prestige for the country overseas, despite the out-
come of the Triple Intervention, but it would be useful to contemplate
some of the domestic developments in technology and culture that were
shaping urban experiences in the major urban centres. Taking a slightly
longer-term view from the early 1890s to the period following the end of
the Sino-Japanese War in 1895, there were several strands or themes that
kept reoccurring and being consolidated during this period. First of all,
there was the introduction and gradual mass-dissemination of new tech-
nologies. Perhaps the bicycle is a highly representative example of this.
Although introduced and employed by members of the Japanese elite
classes since the 1970s, it was not until 1889 that more user-friendly and
financially more accessible models became available. The impact was not
instantaneous but it was palpable. In the early 1890s the national postal
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 87

service began to adopt bicycles for delivery of mail, making their utility
amply evident to all. But there were also moments of moral alarm sounded
when it became apparent that young people, even young women, were
picking up the new, highly emancipatory machines. As William Steele has
outlined in his excellent commentary on the role of the bicycle in trans-
forming late Meiji society and beyond, the bicycle was actually building on
a prior application of bicycle technology in the form of the Jinrikisha, with
the numbers of such vehicles burgeoning—100,000 by 1875 in Tokyo
and peaking thereafter by the mid-1890s to some 210,000 vehicles nation-
wide. They could be used for even relatively long excursions between the
metropolis and outlying areas in Yokohama, taking about as long as a
horse-drawn vehicle and entailing none of the cost.44 Jinrikisha drivers
were accordingly a dominant feature of the urban scenery, and figured as
at times a rough and ready element in street life and also somewhat ‘over-­
represented’ in arrests at times of social unrest. Even so, the bicycle had
arrived and there was even a bicycle association formed by the end of
the war.
The telephone was another technology that was to become more ubiq-
uitous as time went on—introduced in limited circumstances from the
1870s onwards, it had become more accessible for private service by the
1890s and by the time of the Sino-Japanese War there were public tele-
phone booths dotting the downtown area. In parallel there were a number
of more novel technologies introduced, such as the elevator housed within
the Ryo ̄unkaku (凌雲閣) a twelve-storey tower in Asakusa, which was rou-
tinely used as an exhibition space for goods and gadgets sourced from
around the world. The war also saw the introduction of canned goods,
indirectly a result of logistical developments necessitated during the con-
flict, and the more pervasive entertainments afforded by advances in cin-
ematic projection technology.
There were popular entertainments that continued to burgeon as well.
Baseball had been introduced since the 1870s but by the 1890s had come
to be an established feature in public events, along with, somewhat sur-
prisingly perhaps, the emergence of rowing as rather elevated sporting
fixtures held amongst the major universities. Such popular events and
spaces were profoundly tied up with the intensification of not only mass-­
circulated newspapers and magazines, but also the establishment of the
first advertising agencies—consumerism was here to stay and there were
entities that developed precisely the expertise needed to capture the urban
markets. There were also the first explorer-adventurers who captured the
88 A. SWALE

popular imagination—Major Fukushima Yasumasa’s trans-Siberian solo

expedition from Berlin to Vladivostok commenced in 1892 and took a
year and four months to complete, igniting feverish coverage and hagiog-
raphy. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and his horses
were donated to the Ueno Zoo where they became a popular tourist
attraction. A crowd of more than 40,000 attended a public event in Osaka
welcoming him back as a hero on the 25th of October. On the domestic
front there was even a celebrated attempt in 1895 by a meteorological
researcher, Noguchi Itaru, to send an expedition to climb Mt. Fuji and
conduct experiments over the winter. The team of approximately eighteen
personnel, including Noguchi’s wife, were unfortunately forced to descend
from the mountain in December. From time to time there were other
more arcane entertainments such as beauty contests featuring geisha and
events involving exceptional feats of human endurance such as eating
contests.45
One less well-known series of advances in Japan in this period relates to
improvements in responding to medical crises such as outbreaks of cholera
and, occasionally, plague, along with gradual advances in the identification
and treatment of tuberculosis. In many cases, these advances were intro-
duced from overseas, with German research success featuring prominently
in news reportage. It is during this period that X-ray technology was also
implemented following successful experiments conducted by Wilhelm
Röntgen. But there were also domestic successes produced by Japanese
researchers who began to establish themselves with novel discoveries.
Chief among them was Kitasato Shibasaburō (1853–1931), a physician
and bacteriologist trained at Humboldt University in Berlin, who attained
international recognition for his role (along with other researchers) in
identifying the pathogen that causes the bubonic plague during an out-
break in Hong Kong in 1894. His connection with Robert Koch also led
to new initiatives to explore vaccine cures for cholera and tuberculosis
in Japan.
One final public controversy that warrants returning to in more detail
is the previously alluded to debate regarding nudity in fine art. Since the
1870s, there had been ordinances promulgated to curb modes of behav-
iour that were regarded as ‘uncivilized’, mixed bathing and urinating in
public being primary instances of such undesirable public conduct.
Ironically, as awareness of the conventions of Western fine art became
more well-known, there emerged a contradiction in the sense that ‘seri-
ous’ art on a par with that of the civilized West would of necessity entail
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 89

the depiction of the human form, more often than not the female form, in
explicitly naked poses. In October of 1887, Ernest Fenellosa, in league
with Okakura Tenshin and leading Japanese nihonga artists Kano Hōgai
(1828–88) and Hashimoto Gahō (1835–1908) established a fine arts
academy, the Tokyo School of Fine Arts. It became a central vehicle for
promoting a new conception of Japanese fine arts, including those employ-
ing Western techniques of painting. At the same time, Fenellosa was also
pivotal in promoting the preservation of traditional Japanese arts and so it
could not be said that it was a purely Westernizing exercise.46 Even so, the
rather uneasy balance between adopting Western aesthetic conventions
such as the nude in fine art and vestiges of profoundly conservative atti-
tudes to women and their sexuality continued unabated.
In April of 1895, a particularly sharp controversy arose when a noted
nihonga artist Kuroda Seiki (1866–1924) exhibited a near full-length
female nude entitled Chōjō (朝妝 or “Morning Toilette”) standing in front
of a mirror with the reflection revealing a clearly discernable genital area.47
It was presented at the Fourth National Industrial Exhibition in Kyoto
and was in fact a work that had been completed some years earlier while a
student studying painting in France. One of Georges Bigot’s most well-­
known and indeed humorous caricatures from the time depicts the public
display of the painting to the general public with the viewers, from men
and women to children, making a baffled inspection of the work from very
close up. For his own part, Kuroda remained unapologetic and had the
support of other more progressive artists who had come from a similar
background.48
The Japan that emerged following the war and embarked on a new
wave of national development rooted in progress would also witness
darker events that would give pause to unbridled optimism. There were
several major outbreaks of cholera and influenza (including the 1891
influenza outbreak that took the life of the Interior Minister, Sanjō
Sanetomi), along with the tsunami disaster of 1896 which inflicted mas-
sive devastation and loss of life on the Sanriku coast of north-eastern
Japan. There were also aspects of Japan’s external colonial activities that
reflected badly on the Imperial government. Primarily there was the assas-
sination of the Korean Consort to the King, Queen Min, carried out under
the direction of the diplomatic envoy to Seoul, Lieutenant General Miura
Gorō. International outrage led to his recall within weeks but the damage
to Japan-Korean relations in the long term was incalculable.49 There was
also the less than smooth or effective pacification of Taiwan, which was
90 A. SWALE

plagued by military set-backs, including the death of Imperial Prince

Kitashirakawa-no-miya Yoshihisa who died of malaria following the land-
ing of forces in Taiwan on 29th May, 1895 . Corruption amongst govern-
ment officials was also rife, with the dismissal of High Court Judge Takano
Takenori making the pages of newspapers back in Japan in October of
1897 and signifying the depths of official corruption.50
Yet for the Japanese subject, one of the single greatest takeaways from
the victory in the Sino-Japanese War, regardless of all the variety of light
and shade in the national experience, was the consolidation of the sense of
unity as Japanese citizens and the enhancement of the prestige of the Meiji
Emperor. Following the victory over the Chinese at Lüshun, the sense of
impending victory became prevalent. On the 9th of December, 1894, a
public event to celebrate the capture of Lüshun was held at Ueno Park. It
was organized and sponsored under the auspices of the Tokyo municipal-
ity in association with the leading financial and mercantile interests in
Tokyo. It commenced at 9 in the morning and was attended by the Crown
Prince as the Emperor, and indeed the entire parliament and government
had been temporarily relocated to Hiroshima for the duration of the con-
flict. The Emperor and Empress were represented through large photo-
graphs that were wrapped in purple bunting. Following the arrival of the
Crown Prince, Kawakami Otojirō’s troupe launched into a performance of
scenes from their iconic Nisshin Senso ̄. This was followed from 10:30 with
a series of addresses by the Crown Prince and other dignitaries. This part
of the festivities was wound up by noon, but it would soon be followed at
1:00 by a memorial service for the war dead. This too was only one stage
in the build-up to what for the public was the ‘main event in the evening’,
a re-enactment of the sinking of China’s finest battleships, the Zhenyuan
and the Dingyuan, at the Battle of the Yalu River. This was to be carried
out from 5:00 pm on the Shinobazu Pond and commercial sponsors
ensured that an actual torpedo was used to sink the second battleship
before it broke apart in a blaze of firework explosions. The response of the
crowd, which was estimated to be in excess of 60,000, was predictably
fevered and ecstatic. There was an element of mayhem as the mass of men
women and children attempted to disperse and wend their way home.51
If the Ueno Park was something of a watershed in the degree to which
the public could be brought together en masse for public celebrations of
Empire, this was to be eclipsed even further by the triumphal return of the
Emperor Meiji to Tokyo on the 30th of May, 1895. The Emperor was
scheduled to arrive at Shinbashi Station at 2:00 pm and make a procession
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 91

via Hibiya Avenue and Kasumigaseki to the Imperial Palace. Arriving on

schedule at 2:00, the entourage, which included every key Minister of
State and the Chiefs of Staff for the Army and Navy, made its way along
the thronged route which included a passage through a 110-metre long
triumphal arch that was thirty meters high and festooned with flags and
banners. The crowd resounded with cries of “Long Live the Emperor”
and “Long Live the Empire!”. By the time the procession arrived in the
governmental office precinct of Kasumigaseki, the depth of the crowd had
increased substantially, bolstered by students from leading universities.
The Emperor travelled in an open carriage and in this way made his per-
son, dressed in full military uniform, the accessible embodiment of the
national military fervor and patriotic celebration. The entourage entered
the Palace via the Sakurada Gate at approximately 2:45.52 As this account
demonstrates, Empire was now in the blood of every Japanese citizen, and
the Emperor was more than ever the unambiguous unifying figure of
national unity.

Notes
1. Swale (2022, 579–584), Eskildsen (2019, 63–67).
2. Eskildsen (ibid., 123–131).
3. Duus (1995, 49–65).
4. Paine (2003, 93–95).
5. Ibid., 95–96.
6. Kaneyama (2020, 15–35).
7. The name of the American author is unclear, rendered as 「チャールズ チ
ェイレーロング」 in katakana with only the first name being
decipherable.
8. Ō take (2003, 77–84).
9. Paine (2017, 18–20).
10. Kaneyama (op. cit., 9). Contemporary reportage on the assassination fea-
tures in Suzuki (1995, Vol. 5, 106–108).
11. Quoted from “Korea’s Barbarism” in Sho ̄ Kokumin (May 15th issue of
1894), 34–35, see Ō take (op. cit., 92).
12. Paine (op. cit., 132–135).
13. Paine (op. cit., 20–21).
14. “The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95 and its Cultural Effects in Japan” in
Shively (ed.), 1971: 121–175.
15. Keene (1971, 121–124).
16. Uchimura was a baptized Christian who had studied at Amherst in the late
1880s. Upon his return he had hoped to take up a position as a teacher but
92 A. SWALE

came into intense criticism for his refusal to bow reverently to the image of
the Emperor or the Imperial Rescript of Education. See Saya (2011, 18–23).
17. Keene (1971, 133–140). See also Judith Fröhlich’s “Pictures of the Sino-
Japanese War of 1894–1895.” 2014, 214–250 which includes coverage of
content published in China as well as Japan.
18. Okamura Shigako, Nisshin Sensō wo egaita zasshi – Nisshin Sensō Jikki to
Nisshin Senso ̄ Zue no bijuaru hyōgen, in Kokuritsu Kokkai Toshokan Geppō,
No. 611, 2012.2, pp. 12–20.
19. Harada Kei’ichi, Sensō wo Tsutaeta Hitobito – Nisshin Sensō to Nishikie wo
megutte in Bungakubu Ronshū, Bukkyo Daigaku Bungakubu, 2000, 1–15.
20. Donald Keene goes so far as to suggest that none of the photographs of the
wartime period had “the least artistic interest”, Keene (op. cit., 162).
21. Keene even suggests that the demise of the ukiyoe (presumably nishikie
included) is marked quite precisely at the point where the Yomiuri
announced a drastic fall in sales following the declaration of victory, Keene
(ibid., 161).
22. Harada (op. cit., 2).
23. 「日清の事変起こりてより、都下の絵草紙屋は大いに忙しく新絵出版
を競つて恰も戦場の如くなるが、…」, quoted from Ukiyoe Jiten (『浮
世絵辞典』) by Yoshida Eiji in Harada, ibid., 3.
24. Harada (ibid., 4–8), Keene (1971, 161–166).
25. Paine (op. cit., 21–22).
26. Hearn (1896, 71).
27. Keene (op. cit., 126–133).
28. Paine (op. cit., 26–36).
29. Keene (op. cit., 143–154).
30. Ichimura (2013, 108–123).
31. Saya (2011, 52–57).
32. Ibid., 57–67.
33. Paine (op. cit., 36–38).
34. Yamaguchi Seiichi & Oikawa Shigeru (ed.s) Kawanabe Kyōsai Gigashū,
Iwanami Shoten, 2015. One of the most significant collections of Kyōsai’s
works, including shunga, are held in the Israel Goldman Collection,
London, UK.
35. Kurata (1980, 108–109).
36. Saya (op. cit., 87–88). For contemporary reportage see Suzuki (1995, Vol.
5, 168–169.
37. Ibid., 88.
38. Ibid., 82–90).
39. Cody Poulton, “Drama and Fiction in the Meiji Era: The Case of Izumi
Kyōka”, Asian Theatre Journal, 1995, Vol. 12, No. 2, 285–288.
40. Ibid., 280–306.
 3 THE CULTURAL IMPACT OF THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR 93

41. Yoshino (2012, 139–140).

42. Miyatake Gaikotsu, Miyatake Gaikotsu Kono Hana ni Ari, Vol. 22, 157.
43. Paine (op. cit., 37–40).
44. Steele also notes that the horse was of course typically the preserve of the
most high-ranking of aristocrats and government officials — the jinriki-sha
was filling a rather niche gap indeed.
45. Jiji Shinpō, 18th and 21st January , 1893; Osaka Mainichi Shinbun 26th
June, 1893, regarding public reception. The account of the expedition to
maintain a meteorological team on the summit of Mt. Fuji can be found in
Tokyo Asahi Shinbun, 19th October, 1895; its unsuccessful conclusion, Jiji
Shinpō 26th December, 1895. William Steele’s excellent study of the adop-
tion of the bicycle can be found at: Steele, M. William. “The Speedy Feet
of the Nation: Bicycles and Everyday Mobility in Modern Japan.” Journal
of Transport History 31, no. 2 (2010): 182–209.
46. Satō (2011, 44–47).
47. In 1906, amongst the enormously popular screenings of katsudō shashin
there were other variations such as tableau vivant performances, katsujinga
(活人画), and on one occasion a final session was appended that presented
a nude woman. The stage was specially rearranged with red and white
bunting and special lighting, presented with some degree of fanfare and
musical accompaniment. It caused a predictable sensation and caused pre-
dictable moral consternation, not in the least because it was particularly
popular among young men and women. It was described in detail within
the magazine Nihon (May, 23, 1906) which in turn excoriated the event.
48. For recently published collections of Bigot’s works with commentary see
Shimizu Isao (ed.) Bigō Nihon Sobyōshu ̄, Iwanami Shoten, 1986, and
Shimizu Isao (ed.) Bigō ga mita Nihonjin: Fūshiga ni egakareta Meiji,
Kōdansha Gakujutsu Bunkō, 2011. Regarding Kuroda Seiki see Satō
(2011, 248, 264–266).
49. Paine (op. cit., 46–47).
50. Miura’s unsanctioned move essentially demolished the pro-Japanese sup-
port at Court in Seoul and drove the Korean aristocracy and elites more
firmly towards allegiance with Russia. Paine, ibid., 41; Jiji Shinpō, 6th
October, 1897 & Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun, 8th October, 1897. For origi-
nal text see Suzuki (1995, Vol. 5, 216–219).
51. Saya (2011,109–114).
52. Ibid., 114–118.
 CHAPTER 4

Fin de Siècle Japan

In the decade following victory in the Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese

public, quite unsurprisingly, continued to be enamoured with the contin-
ued celebration of victory in war and the feting of particular Japanese
martial virtues and the Japanese spirit. The success of Kawakami’s Nisshin
Senso ̄ during the war was duly noted by practitioners of kōdan and rakugo
and it led to a pronounced reorienting of the themes of recitations, par-
ticularly in ko ̄dan, towards accounts of military exploits and heroism from
the recent conflict. New technologies such as the moving image of katsudo ̄
shashin were also co-opted to provide popular entertainments that depicted
scenes of overseas military conflicts (indirectly reinforcing Japan’s status as
a military power) as well as curiosities and amusing scenes from around
the world.
At the same time, the financial dividend of victory in the war with China
gradually became palpable as the government increased the ratio of fiscal
expenditures on military-related industries to a staggering 30% as opposed
to the already substantial 10.5% for the period before the war. 1 It led to
an expansion of the labouring class and a new cultural ecology coinciding
with the new social configuration being bedded in. As T.C. Smith illus-
trates in his incisive study of the emerging working class, the shokko ̄ (職工),
there was a class of worker with marginalized status living in relatively
precarious circumstances in the urban centres, particularly Tokyo and
Osaka. This class was developing a collective consciousness with a procliv-
ity with certain modes of entertainment and even a drive for

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 95

Switzerland AG 2023
A. Swale, A Cultural History of Late Meiji Japan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43646-8_4
96 A. SWALE

self-improvement but as Smith convincingly argues, the driving force for

improvement of treatment in the workplace and, by extension, a degree of
dignity as citizens and subjects in common with the remainder of society,
was not so much indicative of an emergent proletarian consciousness, but
the adaptation of an existing conception of relations based on moral obli-
gation and benevolence. Andrew Gordon’s The Evolution of Labor
Relations in Japan: Heavy Industry 1853–1955 (1985) largely bears out
Smith’s thesis and adds further detail regarding the changing dynamic of
the management of skilled labour, particularly the movement from the
decentralized sourcing of technicians through off-site bosses (oyakata) to
a more organically integrated in-house mode of training apprentices which
included providing accommodation and catering for education. Naturally,
as will be discussed in further detail later in the chapter, the influence of
Socialist and Anarchist thought from Europe would become more pro-
nounced and proliferate in the early twentieth century but both Smith and
Gordon encourage a tempering of inclinations to draw too many direct
parallels with the rise of working class movements in Europe and North
America. 2
While there is little to add to both Smith and Gordon’s account of
evolving labour relations, there would still seem to be space to outline the
further reworking pre-Meiji cultural traditions and a profoundly enhanced
matrix of mass-produced and mass-consumed popular entertainments for
all classes of urban citizens. Huffman’s recent Down and Out in Late Meiji
Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2018) very thoroughly outlines the
patterns of acclimatization, domestication and ultimate self-improvement
that became possible even for the lower levels of the working class in
Tokyo. And while there is again little to add to that depiction of urban life
for the poor, there is perhaps still space to sketch out the stage for the
broader population where the press and popular entertainment came to
have a new pervasiveness, and we find that the last vestiges of the Edo
cultural legacy are played or reworked into new forms that enable meta-
morphosis into the heart of daily urban life in a more generalized sense.
In particular, the final legacy of the three key strands of Edo tradition
that find new life in the mid-Meiji period merit further consideration—
namely theatre (Shinpa and Shin-Kabuki), performative traditions such as
rakugo and kōdan, along with recitative musical forms of performance
such as gidayu and naniwa-bushi, and of course the ever-evolving ‘novel’
with occasional sashie illustrations or kuchi-e. A distinction is being made
here between the canon of pure literature associated with the Meiji
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 97

Bundan, and the kinds of fiction that were populating mass circulation
newspapers, the likes of the Miyako Shinbun and Yamato Shinbun, publi-
cations continuing to have a significant impact on reading tastes. The
Yorozu Cho ̄hō, the newspaper established by Kuroiwa Ruikō in 1892 was
becoming increasingly set as the go-to source for gossip and scandal. It has
had scholarly attention from Huffman and Aoyama, but in this chapter we
will focus also on the contributions from major left-wing figures such as
Uchimura Kanzō, Kōtoku Shusui and Sakai Toshihiko and the emergence
of a rift over support for military interventions from 1900 onwards. 3
Another dimension to social and cultural change was the transforma-
tion of the cohorts of students that were being produced throughout the
country. As one of the leading scholars on the origins and development of
the educated classes in Meiji Japan, Takeuchi Yō, demonstrates, the late
1890s saw the emergence of a new class produced through proliferating
Middle Schools throughout the Empire, with a concomitant expansion of
the system of High Schools that were established to cater to the aspiration
of ‘getting ahead’ through education. Prior to the Sino-Japanese War
there had in fact been two regions that had predominated in the mainte-
nance of High Schools, − Yamagata and Kagoshima, in essence the
Prefectures that corresponded to the two leading clans behind the
Restoration, Chōshū and Satsuma respectively. This may seem to have
been the result of the political impact of those two former clans on educa-
tion policy but Takeuchi argues persuasively that this was in fact not just a
reflection of political connections but also the result of pre-existing lega-
cies of higher education, the Meirinkan being the precursor of the High
School system in Yamagata, with the Zōshikan being a precursor to the
High School system in Kagoshima. 4
Toyama Masakazu, whose career was profoundly intertwined with the
development of the higher education system, was acutely aware of the
significance of this situation—the High Schools were the conduits for
admission to Tokyo University and the aforementioned regions were sub-
stantially ‘over-represented’. Toyama had held a succession of professorial
posts at the various stages of the development of what was to become the
Tokyo Imperial University, ultimately not only becoming the head of that
institution but also a Minister for Education under Itō Hirobumi in his
third cabinet in 1898. His tenure was short-lived but he was to nonethe-
less attempt to leave his mark on the national discussion on how to address
the impact of this predominance on the High School system. After resign-
ing toward the middle of 1898, he made a visit the following year to two
98 A. SWALE

relatively large and well-populated prefectures, Niigata and Nagano. In

Niigata he made a three-hour speech that outlined his concerns that a
prefecture as populous as Niigata had as yet not established a High School.
He even presented figures that quantified the degree to which the prefec-
ture was under-represented within the national cohort of students emerg-
ing from Tokyo University. He followed this visit with a similar presentation
in Nagano—in both cases the response was enthusiastic and the prefec-
tures began to lobby vigorously both within the prefecture and in the
capital for assistance to realize that aspiration. As it turned out an addi-
tional High School was established, but it was in Kagoshima, ostensibly to
reinstate the Zōshikan within the national system (the clan influences were
not able to be so easily negated after all). In late 1899, Toyoma published
his observations and policy prescriptions in The Future of Clan Factions
(Hanbatsu no Sho ̄rai, 『藩閥之将来』) which appeared shortly before his
death the following year. 5
Toyama was not to live beyond 1900 and did not see his advice or lob-
bying have a substantial impact on the development of the national higher
education system. Even so, changes did gradually emerge and they did so
despite the seeming dominance of the schools in Yamagata and Kagoshima.
It was that very proliferation of Middle Schools that made the difference
as, quite distinctly from vocational institutes or teachers’ training schools,
the new model Middle School had a relatively generalized curriculum
(Japanese, Kanbun, a foreign language, History, Geography, Chemistry,
Physics and Mathematics) with an emphasis on more abstract learning. It
had one primary function—determining who would be the elites to enter
High Schools (and thereafter the national universities). From approxi-
mately 1900 to 1910, the number of aspirants to enter High Schools
expanded by three- to fourfold. By the time of the lead up to the First
World War, the country saw a broad proliferation of graduates from High
Schools in most regions with an eighteen-fold increase from the early
1890s, this in turn creating a burgeoning of the number of students aspir-
ing to enter further education in the gradually expanding network of
imperial universities. 6
A further dimension of these trends to note is the increase in the pro-
portion of women who were entering the education system. Though not
significant as a percentage of the overall total there was a noted expansion
of female participation and it was facilitated in no small part by the estab-
lishment of institutions of higher learning exclusively for women by mis-
sionary associations. These same associations were also active in promoting
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 99

the well-being of women more generally, either through the establishment

of publications aimed purely at a female readership, such as the Fujin
Shinpō (『婦人新報』), or social activism to promote monogamy and
emancipate women from prostitution. Arguably chief amongst these asso-
ciations was the Japan Christian Women’s Association (日本キリスト教婦
人矯風会), which published Fujin Shinpō and is still active today, known
in Japan as the Kyōfūkai (矯風会).
As recounted in Chap. 3, Miyatake Gaikotsu’s experience during the
Sino-Japanese War was unfulfilling and negative, as well as crowned with
the profoundest of personal tragedies with the death of his infant son
Tenmin. The ensuing years were unfortunately no better—Miyatake took
up a licence to become a purveyor of books and stationery in 1896 but
next year his mother fell seriously ill and Miyatake was forced to return to
his home town. She died soon after he returned on the 7th of June. Apart
from the obvious emotional impact, as Miyatake and his mother had been
very close, there was an immediate impact on the avenues for financial
support that had constantly been made for him through his mother’s
ongoing support, despite all the notoriety that Miyatake had garnered
throughout his earlier career.
Two months after his mother’s death Miyatake seems to have embarked
on something of a reset in his personal affairs and publishing ambitions.
He established a publishing association to produce the Kotto ̄ Zasshi (「骨
董雑誌」), which led to the sporadic production of themed instalments.
In June of 1898, he also formally married his partner Yayo and during the
following December he placed a prominent advertisement in the Yomiuri
newspaper announcing the impending publication of a new magazine
Kotto ̄ Kyōkai Zasshi, which duly appeared in January of 1899. Four instal-
ments were produced in total but the publication was an abject failure. To
boot, Miyatake had incurred the unfathomable debt of 4000 yen, more
than fifty times what would have constituted a well-off official’s annual
salary. This included a debt of 150 yen owed to one of Miyatake’s best
friends and confidantes, Seki Hiranao, who had stumped up the funds to
advertise in the Yomiuri. This was a colossal disaster and Miyatake took
the desperate measure of fleeing from Japan to the newly subdued Taiwan
where he aimed, rather Quixotically it might seem, to establish himself as
a chicken-farmer. 7
The farming venture, perhaps rather predictably, did not fare well, and
while based in Taipei Miyatake could not resist applying himself to pro-
ducing material for publication. Of particular note was a contribution to a
100 A. SWALE

new magazine produced in October of 1899, Karyū Suishi (『花柳粋

誌』). Under the pen-name Yūtei Haijin, (有底盃人, literally “a confident
drinker”), he contributed a piece entitled “Shunga Monogatari” (「春画
物語」) which rather squarely brought up the topic of pornographic lit-
erature and its universal appeal. It was arguably problematic enough that
Miyatake broached a topic that was bound to attract the attention of cen-
sors and other guardians of public morality, but he took it to the next level
by suggesting that erotic literature had a long-standing appeal not only
across any number of cultures throughout history, but also across all ranks
and classes, suggesting that aristocrats were as much into this material as
anyone else, which of course implied that even someone as august as the
Meiji Emperor himself would be no different. Miyatake did in fact have it
as a matter of principle that the Emperor was a human like any other and
would not baulk at that interpretation. Predictably, his article was lam-
basted in more auspicious outlets such as the Taipei Nichi-nichi Shinbun,
where he was condemned as a person with utterly degenerate tastes and an
inveterate disrespect for the Imperial household. 8
The detour into chicken-farming and brief dalliance with controversy in
print while in Taiwan came to an end after five months—Miyatake cut his
losses yet again and decided to return to Japan in February of 1900, albeit
to the relative safety of Osaka where those he owed money to were at a
distance. After his return he made ends meet initially by being an itinerant
salesman of lithographic prints as well as acting as an occasional proof-­
reader and manager of advertising accounts for the Osaka Shinpōsha. The
Japan that Miyatake was encountering at the turn of the century was some-
what altered in its journalistic culture from ten years before. The prevalence
of muck-raking and scandal-mongering hid a darker trend towards the
peddling of influence and offering of favourable reportage in return for
money, so that in fact the majority of newspaper concerns could be classed
as having become to a greater extent client-publications of the well-to-do
and the elites, goyō shinbun (御用新聞). Miyatake resolved to embark on a
publishing crusade that would “not bow to authority or get into bed with
wealth and power, neither indulge in blackmail or engage in intimidation”.
This was the beginning of a major turning point for Miyatake personally as
well as the tenor of ‘low-brow’ journalism in Meiji Japan. 9
Within just under a year of having returned to Japan, Miyatake released
in January of 1901 the first issue of what would become one of his most
successful publishing ventures ever, the Kokkei Shinbun (「滑稽新聞」). It
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 101

was premised on a complete commitment to no holds barred forthrightness

and confrontation, but also tempered by only going after the figures that
Miyatake would say fairly deserved it, while also employing his signature eye
for the humorous or satirical barb. He wrote under the pen-name Ono
Murao (小野村夫), which was based on the name of his birthplace, Ono
Mura. His editorial policy would have serious consequences as his publica-
tion came under the hostile scrutiny of censors and public prosecutors.
During the newspaper’s eight-year run Miyatake would be imprisoned
twice, his various associates a total of three times, the newspaper itself would
be ordered to delay publication four times, cease publication three times
and be subjected to thirty fines. An early target of his magazine that got the
publication into legal trouble was the printing of a contribution that com-
mented on the scandalous circumstances of Yosano Tekkan, the founder of
the literary magazine Myōjō (「明星」). The magazine was dedicated to
new trends in poetry and included work from up and coming poets such as
Kitahara Hakushū and Yoshii Isamu, along with an array of newcomers.
Myōjō was at the vanguard of a new literary movement that championed a
particularly fervent romanticism—an orientation that would not have been
welcomed by conservative cultural commentators. The reputation of the
publication was also compromised in part by the fact that Yosano had
become involved with two women who were contributing to the magazine,
one of whom, Hō Akiko, he would later leave his wife for and marry (later
becoming recognized as the eminent poetess Yosano Akiko). The literary
community was somewhat scandalized by this development and an anony-
mous pamphlet, Bundan Shōmakyō (「文壇照魔鏡」), was circulated in
March of 1901 that excoriated Yosano Tekkan for his immoral conduct. 10
This was picked up on in the April edition of Kokkei Shinbun under the
title “Sleaze Within the Literary Establishment” (「文壇の淫風」). It was
actually little more than a short parody of the poetic style of a poem by Hō
Akiko that had been published in Myōjo ̄. The poem was a fervent and
untrammelled expression of erotic passion by a woman, rather provocative
for the time, but it was also ripe for satire. To Miyatake’s surprise Kokkei
Shinbun was subject to a notice from the prosecutor’s office accusing the
newspaper of offending public decency. It was based on the assumption
that Kokkei Shinbun had lifted material directly from Myōjō and reprinted
it, the piece in Myo ̄jō being something that had itself been subject to a ces-
sation notice. The nature of the parody is hard to translate into English
but some idea of how it worked can be found in the following translation
of the opening stanza:
102 A. SWALE

まくりあげて早く○○てきみ○て君.
ふりすてますかどぶに落ちしを.
妾はもふ○○ますが○○ますか.
Lift up my hem, hurry up and ○○ me, ○me, you.
Would you cast me off and leave me to fall into the mud?
This mistress would ○○, would you still ○○?

The satire ingeniously employs fuseji (伏字,「○」) which were usually

employed to cover a word that a person could infer the meaning of with-
out it being explicitly stated. It could be used for any topic or term that
was likely to attract the ire of the censors but in this case it is used to pro-
vide a blank space for the reader to imagine the erotic or sexual acts that
they ‘might be’ referring to. 11
In any case, Kokkei Shinbun was alleged to be guilty of having deliber-
ately flouted a suppression order. Somewhat baffled by the notice, Miyatake
visited the office of the prosecutor to enquire about the basis of the allega-
tion. He was informed that they had not actually seen the original Myōjo ̄
material and had simply assumed that what Kokkei Shinbun had printed
was lifted verbatim. The officer in charge of the matter even had the nerve
to ask Miyatake to send a copy of the Myōjo ̄ magazine to make it possible
to compare the two publications. Miyatake was incensed, and did not hesi-
tate to expose the buffoonery of the handling of the affair. The charge of
breaching public decency against Kokkei Shinbun proceeded to court and
Miyatake was duly acquitted. However, as an act of retribution a new
charge of breaching public decency was levelled at the newspaper for an
illustration accompanying a serialized novel in the same issue which
depicted a priest flirting with a young woman. The image was by no means
explicit but it yet again led to a court case. This time the court found
against the newspaper and it was fined 20 yen. 12
What Miyatake did next was indicative of both his determination to
neither be cowed by censorship nor refrain from printing content that was
sharply satirical and bound to garner more official opprobrium. In ensuing
issues of the newspaper (from the tenth volume to be precise) Miyatake
established a regular column that was themed around Itō Hirobumi’s
well-known predilection for womanizing. With a variation on a theme that
always referred with faux deference to “Marquis Itō”, the column would
be given such titles as “Marquis Itō’s Views on Beautiful Women”,
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 103

“Marquis Itō’s Trouble with Beautiful Women” and so on. The illustra-
tion employed within the text was the figure of the woman who had been
in the earlier image of a priest flirting with a woman that had been the
basis of the newspaper being fined for indecency. It was a case of when the
government ‘went low’, Miyatake would strike lower. Miyatake realized,
correctly as it turns out, that the more the government took the trouble
to make his life difficult, the more he had something to write about and
lampoon. He discovered that ‘doubling down’ was the key to future
success.
Consequently, the Kokkei Shinbun was beginning to look somewhat
immune to suppression through censorship but that was naturally too
good to be true. It perhaps came as no surprise that the police began to
call in advertisers in the newspaper and caution them against continuing
to patronize the publication. In July of 1902, an angry denouncement of
the police’s actions appeared in the thirty-second issue of the newspaper
and was followed by an even stronger excoriation in the thirty-fourth
issue. The member of the editorial team responsible for the articles,
Miyoshi Yonekichi, was charged with a criminal act of insulting public
officialdom and after conviction was incarcerated in the Horikawa
Penitentiary. Miyoshi was the son of a wealthy family that resided in the
Edobori area of Osaka which was very close to the Kokkei Shinbun offices.
Miyoshi by this time had become Miyatake’s right-hand at the publication
and so this was a keenly felt blow indeed. 13
Two weeks after Miyoshi entered the penitentiary Miyatake was sum-
moned to the office of the Prosecutor at the Osaka District Court, Tezuka
Tarō, who informed Miyatake that the decision to charge Miyoshi had
been made while he had been away on vacation and without his approval.
He promised to overturn the conviction and release Miyoshi, requesting
however that in future the newspaper would curb its inflammatory ten-
dencies. Miyatake was doubtful of the Prosecutor’s intentions but Miyoshi
was released within 24 hours. Following Miyoshi’s release, Miyatake had a
choice to either accommodate the request of the Prosecutor or return to
his usual modus operandi—he chose the latter, revealing the entirety of his
interaction with the Prosecutor and lambasting officials that attempted to
cajole the relatively defenseless into compliance, as well as the kinds of
journalists that went along with such officials. 14
Entering into 1903, the tussle between Kokkei Shinbun and the censors
continued unabated. New topics and targets emerged including Noguchi
104 A. SWALE

Shigehira, the founder of a major pharmaceutical company that had made

him one of the wealthiest businessmen in the Kansai region, if not Japan.
The Kokkei Shinbun ran an article alleging that a particular medicine for
lung-related illnesses was in fact ineffectual and a con, to which Noguchi
responded with a law suit for defamation. As the court proceedings played
out the newspaper included a regular section updating the situation and
appending a small illustration of a decapitated head on a pillory with a sign
attached reading “The Charlatan Noguchi Shigehiro”. In the fifty-first
issue of the newspaper, Isono Shūsho, a leading figure in the literary estab-
lishment specializing in Chinese poetry, was depicted in the act of peeping
into a women’s changing room at a bath-house, which he had allegedly
been caught in the act of doing. The newspaper was fined 50 yen for, yet
again, offending public decency.
Itō Hirobumi continued to be subject to ridicule, this time depicted as
the Meiji incarnation of Ihara Saikaku’s Edo-period lothario in the novel
The Man Who Loved Love, to wit Meiji Ichidai Kōshoku Otoko. 15
Producing derogatory material involving the super-wealthy, political
leaders and members of the literary establishment was a constant theme
and it ensured that the newspaper maintained a loyal readership. At the
same time, however, a major complication was brewing on the horizon,
and that was the increasingly explicit talk of an impending military con-
frontation with Russia. Since the Triple Intervention by Russia, France
and Germany at the end of the Sino-Japanese War there was an undercur-
rent of continued resentment towards the three protagonists in the move
but it was Russia, which had come to encroach increasingly on Korea in
the Far East via Manchuria, that was shaping up as a particular object of
enmity. France, Germany and England all had misgivings about Russian
aims for expansion in the Far East and elsewhere but it was England in
particular that gave Japan diplomatic cover from interference through the
establishment of a formal military alliance in January of 1901. Co-operation
in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion in China over the previous year had
cemented trust in Japan as a diplomatic and military partner and although
the alliance was localized to refer to matters in the Far East, it would form
the basis for more comprehensive agreement from the end of the Russo-
Japanese War to the end of the First World War and, for a time, into the
early 1920s. 16
These diplomatic developments would certainly have emboldened
commentators within Japan and indeed on 26th June, 1903, a clique of
seven eminent academics at the Tokyo Imperial University published a
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 105

memorandum in the Tokyo Asahi Shinbun addressed to the then Prime

Minister, Katsura Tarō, arguing explicitly for the initiation of war with
Russia as soon as possible. The Minister for Education, Kikuchi Dairoku,
contacted the President of the University to demand a formal caution to
the professors but no particularly significant disciplinary action was taken
and indeed the professors were in fact articulating a view that was becom-
ing increasingly accepted and prevalent in the wider population. Amongst
mainstream newspapers the winds of anti-Russian sentiment were intensi-
fying with Nihon, Yomiuri Shinbun and Ho ̄chi Shinbun all coming out in
support for the idea of military confrontation. The Yorozu Chōhō and
Mainichi Shinbun were exceptional in their direct disagreement with the
professors’ statement. But as Kuroiwa Ruikō was to discover, not explicitly
supporting the notion of war with Russia would have consequences for
the newspaper’s circulation and indeed there was an instant decline in the
wake of the criticism of war advocates. The Yorozu Chōhō had amongst its
editorial staff the Socialists Kōtoku Shūsui and Sakai Toshihiko, along
with the Christian Uchimura Kanzō who all variously criticized the Tokyo
Imperial University academics and the advocacy of conflict. The argument
against war in the case of Uchimura was primarily based on a consideration
of the inhumanity of war but in the case of Kōtoku Shūsui and Sakai
Toshihiko, it was the fact that most of the people that would be most
directly impacted and affected would be the poor and lower class citizenry
while the wealthy and elites would suffer relatively little. 17
From the spring of 1903, even the Kokumin Shinbun under Tokutomi
Sohō, which had always styled itself as the defender of the common citi-
zen, began to quietly realign its editorial stance in support of the Katsura
Cabinet position which favoured war. As for the Yorozu Chōhō, the end of
any attempt to maintain an anti-war stance came with the expiry of a
Japanese-government stated ‘deadline’ for Russia to remove troops from
Manchuria by 8th of October. Kōtoku, Sakai and Uchimura were quietly
ushered out of the editorial line-up at Yorozu Chōhō and they duly left the
newspaper. In November of 1903 Kōtoku and Sakai founded the Heimin
Shinbun, which became an isolated voice amongst contemporary newspa-
pers in opposition to military conflict. Uchimura published anti-war pieces
in the theologically titled magazine “Studies of the Bible” (Seisho no
Kenkyū, 「聖書之研究」) which he had established in 1900. As for
Miyatake, he continued in the same vein of baiting the usual targets but
also established a section in the Kokkei Shinbun entitled “Nichi-Ro
Shinbun” (「日露新聞」) during the build-up to war that satirized some
106 A. SWALE

of the more ludicrous or excessive instances of fervour for war with

Russia.18
While the impetus toward military conflict with Russia was gaining
momentum, there were other cultural developments that indicated a more
hedonistic inclination within certain quarters of urban society, and it was
to originate from outside Tokyo. Just as Osaka had become the haven for
Miyatake Gaikotsu to re-establish himself in publishing with the Kokkei
Shinbun, and Kawakami Otojirō had established Shinkyōgoku in Kyoto as
the platform to launch his foray into the new model of Shinpa theatre,
there was at the same time a new phenomenon within popular culture that
had its roots in Osaka and it was to emerge as one of the most subversive
forces in the field of entertainment, − women’s gidayū. Gidayu ̄ (義太夫)
had its origin in the recitative jōruri (浄瑠璃) story-telling pioneered by
Takemoto Gidayū (1651–1714) in the early Edo period. It became part of
the staple accompaniment for the puppet theatre, bunraku, and the stan-
dard repertoire for performance of gidayū stemmed from this legacy.
Women’s performance in the genre prior to the Meiji period was limited
but the Restoration saw the prohibition of women performing on stage in
public rescinded, which thereby ushered in an opportunity for women to
establish a new niche within public performance. At approximately the
same time as women had begun to figure in events that featured political
speech-making (seiji enzetsu), with Kishida Toshiko becoming a house-
hold name as a serious exponent of public speaking, there were two expo-
nents of gidayū, Takemoto Kyōshi and Takemoto Tōgyoku, who had
attained fame in Osaka and decided to embark on a full shift to Tokyo with
their acolytes en masse in 1885. From modest beginnings, 1887 was their
‘break-out’ year and women’s gidayū, otherwise known as musume gidayu ̄
or onna gidayu ̄, became a significant feature within the popular entertain-
ment scene of Tokyo. Both Kyōshi and Tōgyoku were in their thirties but
their disciples were substantially younger. There were of course standards
to maintain in terms of performance but there was clearly a degree of nov-
elty of female performers that drew crowds and it was not merely inciden-
tal that the spotlight was increasingly on young and attractive performers.
Kyōshi had also been the originator of what became the common practice
of wearing hakama and the wide shouldered kataginu that was ostensibly
the guise of male performers, so there was another layer of subversiveness
to the performance (see Fig. 4.1). The genre was not without its detrac-
tors as well, in that the perception of gidayū performers was several ranks
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 107

Fig. 4.1 Image from Asakura Rosan’nin, Musume Gidayū, Hifumikan, August
1895. (Courtesy of the National Diet Library of Japan)

below that of kabuki artists or ko ̄danshi. The term tare gidayu ̄ (女義太夫)
タレ

was a derisive epithet employed by critics and even used in mainstream

newspapers. Naturally enough, onna gidayu ̄ did not exist in a vacuum, and
there was a burgeoning number of male gidayu ̄ performers such as
108 A. SWALE

Takemoto Koshiji (1836–1917, later Settsu Daijō) who also enjoyed con-
siderable success and fame. Male performers still outnumbered the women
in performance and both the male and female gidayu ̄ were in turn out-
numbered by geigi (芸妓) who performed with shamisen. 19
By 1887, there were 571 male performers, 425 female performers and
1588 geigi registered in Tokyo, but things were about to be shaken up by
the arrival in November of that year of a twelve-year-old prodigy from
Osaka, Takemoto Ayanosuke. Apart from possessing a fine voice,
Ayanosuke also ramped up the masculinization of her appearance by tying
her hair in the manner of a man and not wearing facial cosmetics. She was
by all accounts a striking person to watch perform and her popularity went
from strength to strength so that by 1891, and aged just 17, she was
broadly recognized as the leading exponent of women’s gidayu ̄ in Tokyo.
She was the object of news reports and gossip, and enjoyed a level of
celebrity that was not dissimilar to the kind of adulation that teen idols
might experience in the twentieth century. According to Kurata Yoshihiro,
she was adept at manipulating the young men in the audience, wheedling
them for money as long as possible before leaving them dangling when
their sources of funds dried up. She would write to the newspapers to ‘set
the record straight’ which would be duly printed to be avidly lapped up by
her fandom. On the whole she was not regarded as morally on a par with
the geigi who were involved in sexual entertainment and in fact her popu-
larity continued beyond the Sino-Japanese War and throughout the 1890s
so that in 1897 she was still confirmed as one of the most popular per-
formers in Tokyo. The extraordinary popularity of women’s gidayū was
even commented on wryly in the press, as in an article appearing in the
Miyako Shinbun on the twenty-first of September, 1898, which remarked
that Deden-kai (essentially Gidayū Associations— “deden” was an ono-
matopoeic reference to the sound of striking the strings of a shamisen) had
proliferated exponentially. It joked that even the cats of Nihonbashi had
succumbed to “deden fever”—apparently one could be found rambling
the words of a passage from the famous Yūgaodana. Even so, just as the
popularity of women’s gidayū seemed to be at its height, on the 15th of
June, 1898, Ayanosuke made a sudden announcement during a perfor-
mance that she was about to retire—she was about to marry and it consti-
tuted a very sudden denouement to a stellar gidayu ̄ career. 20
During the 1890s there were other aspects of women’s gidayū that
indicated that trouble was brewing. From 1892, there emerged a schism
between a traditionalist faction, the Sei-ha (正派) and a more adaptive
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 109

faction, the Mutsumi-ha (睦派). 21 It was the latter faction that trended
towards prosperity but it did not diminish the stand-off between particular
traditionalist exponents and their allied theatre owners and impresarios.
By the time of Ayanosuke’s retirement, there had also emerged a rather
boisterous culture amongst the women’s gidayū fandom. In the post Sino-
Japanese War environment, young male students from relatively presti-
gious institutions as Waseda University and Keio University took to
establishing fan clubs, or ren (連), for various performers. The performer
who took over as the leading figure in women’s gidayū was Takemoto
Kyōshi, a disciple of the previous performer of the same name from the
1880s, who quickly attracted an avid following—her fan club referred to
itself as the Kikyōren (輝京連). Her followers would abandon all sense to
waste inordinate sums of money, lose their dignity and in some cases even
take their own lives as part of the fervour that became directed at her. She
was vilified in some quarters for these effects which, to be fair, were more
the responsibility of the fans than Kyōshi herself. 22
In time, behaviour that started out as fairly playful audience participa-
tion during the lead up to climactic passages of the performance known as
sawari where young men would either clap in rhythm with the perfor-
mance or take to tapping everything from cigarette trays and utensils
together, evolved into more full-blooded verbal interventions including
chants of “dō suru, dō suru” (“how will you do it? how will you do it?”
This grouping became collectively known as the Dō Suru Ren and became
associated with increasingly appalling conduct that either targeted female
performers away from their performances, petty criminal activities of theft
of patrons and all-out brawling in theatres. On the 11th of August, 1900,
Kuroiwa Ruikō took the unusual step of publishing an editorial in the
Yorozu Cho ̄hō very sternly criticizing the conduct of such students, lam-
basting them as “a moral scourge”, “degenerates” and “a threat to soci-
ety”. 23 Given the newspaper’s reputation for doing a stock in trade in
scandal and impropriety amongst elites, this was a rather extraordinary
departure into social commentary aimed at the conduct of youth. There
was heightened attention from the government and the metropolitan
police and this went some way to curbing the excesses.
In late 1901, another combination of female gidayū performers,
Toyotake Shōnosuke and her sister Shōgiku (eleven years old and fifteen
years old, respectively) arrived in Tokyo from Osaka and initiated another
resurgence in the popularity of musume gidayu ̄. As before, the ardour of
young male students continued to be aroused and indeed Kurata Yoshihiro
110 A. SWALE

highlights the case of the future novelist Shiga Naoya (1883–1971) who
in his diary at the time recorded being profoundly love-struck and attend-
ing performances with extraordinary frequency. Nonetheless, he had the
good sense to curb his fervour in the interest of taking care of his studies
and eventually took a more dispassionate view of the performances
(Kurata, 1980, 152–155). As already remarked, there was also the sober-
ing prospect of a seemingly military conflict with Russia and this would
have induced a certain degree of sobriety on the entire population.
From as early as 1897 there was official commentary from within the
Ministry of Education regarding the problem of regulating the conduct of
young students, with the term gakusei fūki mondai (学生風紀問題) coined
for the new social malaise. As already discussed, the student population in
the capital had burgeoned significantly and its members were a distinctive
social force in their own right. This was underscored by the fact that when
the surplus of gidayu ̄ performers attempted to take their performances to
the regions they had relatively limited success—the students of Tokyo
were a distinct part and precondition of very distinct cultural phenomena.
As the research of Meguro Tsuyoshi has discussed, there were a number
of policy papers circulated within the Ministry of Education from 1897
onwards and they focused more generally on the “extra-curricular” read-
ing of young students, by which they tended to generally associate with
the new trends in novels. Meguro traces this disdain for novels to the pre-­
Meiji traditional contempt for any form of literature that wasn’t part of the
formally endorsed canon of the “Four Books and Five Classics” (四書五
経). The haishi shōsetsu (稗史小説) was the early Chinese body of historical
works that were based on material collected by minor officials from unof-
ficial sources outside of government and anything that resembled or reso-
nated with that lineage of ‘fiction’ could not be taken seriously. In the late
Meiji period, it was perhaps unsurprisingly that it was the new trend in
novel writing that highlighted actual social conditions and aspired to a
more naturalistic depiction of human affairs that came in for particular
criticism. The novelists seemed happy to have their main protagonists
fraught with moral defects and it seemed requisite that a literature appro-
priate to a civilized nation should have a literature fit to a more exalted
moral purpose. 24
The criticisms contained in these policy documents were of course
artistically speaking unrealistic and certainly not viable if a writer wanted a
contemporary readership but since the Rescript on Education in 1890
there was a concerted effort in various quarters, both within the Ministry
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 111

and without, to endeavour to promote a broadly Confucian conception of

the role of the arts. As we saw with the case of Kawakami Otojirō’s suc-
cessful theatrical productions, publications such as Miyake Setsurei’s
Nihonjin could be relied on to take a dim view of any decadent Western
influence that seemed likely to encroach on Japan’s “national essence”
(kokusui, 国粋) and the former member of the Meirokusha, Nishimura
Shigeki became instrumental in promoting Confucian values through his
highly influential association, the Nihon Kōdo ̄kai (日本弘道会) which pro-
duced a widely bought manifesto on Japanese morality, Nihon Dōtokuron,
in 1892.
So the disdain for this “extra-curricular’ literature was palpable and sus-
tained, and there was, unsurprisingly, reference to the phenomenon of
young students spending too much time visiting theatres as well. The
magazine Taiyo ̄ regularly carried commentary on the question of the
defects of contemporary novels, in particular the tendency towards a cer-
tain “decadence” (daraku, 堕落), as seen in articles such as “Taste in
Novels” (「小説の趣味」appearing in the April 5th edition in 1899), but
it also took the relatively liberal editorial line of calling for the proper edu-
cation of young persons through the promotion of more wholesome lit-
erature from an early age whereby they might attain the right faculties of
discernment to develop a better taste in literature. It should be added that
‘literature’ in this context, indeed the “taste in novels” was not limited to
purely printed media—the content of novels, as has already been demon-
strated, was profoundly interrelated with all other artistic practices from
the visual, to the recitative, musical and the theatrical. Later articles in
Taiyō discussed further what an appropriate diet of reading might be for
pre-adolescents, with noted emphasis on British juvenile classics such as
the muscular and rugged adventure of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe or the
more harmlessly playful but also adventurous Jungle Book by Rudyard
Kipling. Again, whether this was a realistic response to the problem of
“decadence” or not was another matter, but it was a theme that held
attention toward the end of the 1890s and beyond (see Fig. 4.2 for an
example of the frontispiece). 25
As Taiyo ̄ weighed on moral debate in relation to literature, one article,
interestingly enough, also extolled the virtues of an ‘ideal’ family—a father,
a mother, and dutiful children (of a not determined number). As Meguro
notes, such a family was far from what contemporary families looked like,
and the further you went up the social hierarchy the less likely it was that
this would be the case. This had been a long sticking point in Japan’s drive
112 A. SWALE

to be considered ‘civilized’ in domestic matters in a manner similar to the

West. From the early Meiji period, the custom of wealthy men maintaining
a mistress (mekake), not at a discreet distance but even living under the
same roof with the ‘illegitimate’ children domiciled alongside those of the
married couple, became a source of embarrassment. Mori Arinori wrote to
condemn the practice in the Meiroku Zasshi and famously undertook to
marry in a contractual marital relationship that flouted traditional

Fig. 4.2 Frontispiece of Taiyo ̄, No. 1, 28 December, Hakubunkan, 1894.

(Courtesy of the National Diet Library of Japan)
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 113

conventions of commitment that permitted either of the parties to termi-

nate the arrangement according to their free will. The wedding was wit-
nessed by none other than Fukuzawa Yukichi. The marriage unfortunately
did not weather the test of time, but, on a sanguine note, it is perhaps
unsurprising that relations between men and women were not easily or
quickly renegotiated in the wake of the Restoration. Divorce was in fact
relatively easy to effect in Japan for a woman and so that was not the pri-
mary issue—the problem was the more fundamental one of how a woman
could exist and support herself outside of a marital arrangement, obviously
even more perilous if offspring were involved. There was also the rather
invidious tradition of young girls and women being sold into prostitution,
often to pay off the debts of the parents. This presented an even more har-
rowing predicament for women as the arrangement was often practically
impossible to reverse. 26
And so it is curious indeed that the turn of the century in Japan was
marked by the rather unlikely confluence between a moral campaign to
take on the plight of prostitutes and the power of the scandal-driven press.
Research has been devoted to various phases of the reform of marital insti-
tutions and the position of prostitution in modernizing Japan, with par-
ticular emphasis on the Emancipation Edict of 1872, which formally freed
prostitutes from their existing arrangements and de facto slavery. This was
perhaps predictably not an abolition of prostitution but a reset which rear-
ranged the mechanism for legalized prostitution to be co-ordinated
through registration at local law enforcement agencies. Botsman has
argued persuasively that, despite the continuation of prostitution, the
Edict was not a totally meaningless gesture but actually reframed the legal
parameters of prostitution and made it possible for future initiatives to
challenge the status quo. 27 It took a further fifteen years or so but things
did come to a head by the late 1890s. The movement to promote the
voluntary relinquishing of roles as prostitutes indeed stemmed from legal
actions that were undertaken in the late 1890s which were duly covered in
the main by low-brow publications such as the Yorozu Chōhō. In a move
that was arguably in some regard opportunistic, the popular press
embarked on a campaign to champion the rights and freedoms of prosti-
tutes, Shōgi (娼妓), who were endeavouring to escape the profession but
were finding it nearly impossible despite having the theoretical legal
recourse to do so.
As already noted, there had already been a substantial influence in the
public commentary on women’s affairs and the promotion of publications
114 A. SWALE

aimed at women through the activities of missionaries associated with the

World Women’s Christian Temperance Movement (WWCTM) which was
deeply associated with the aforementioned Kyōfūkai. An international
organization that was to take things to a new level of activism was the
Salvation Army, which sent its first high-ranking officer, Henry Bullard, to
set up a branch in Tokyo in 1895. 28
Academic commentary on the activities of the Salvation Army in Japan
has been relatively scarce but the scholarship of Hayashi Yōko has done a
great deal indeed to fill the gap in our understanding of what was actually
a quite momentous and convulsive period of activism. Botsman has already
made the observation that there was a fine line not to be crossed in terms
of dismissing the activities of such external agents as imperialistic initiatives
to colonize Japanese culture and, likewise, merely create Japanese clones
to perpetuate their impact. It assumes that there were no otherwise sensi-
tive, intelligent and concerned citizens who wanted to take the opportu-
nity to assist their fellow humans and to do so despite a seeming external
impetus. Hayashi’s research has very skilfully navigated through that haz-
ardous terrain to establish two major conclusions—yes, the Salvation
Army was a pivotal influence in driving emancipation activism in Japan for
prostitutes, but it was also not a one-way initiative with Japanese figures
playing the most decisive role in how things played out on the ground in
practice. Her key contention is that, if anything, the personnel of the
Salvation Army in Japan did not have the level of bilingual capability and
in-depth knowledge of local circumstances to be remotely effective in
directing operations in a hands-on fashion. Their chief contribution, she
argues, was to take lessons from earlier initiatives in Ceylon to establish
refuges for the women that they were aiming to assist—the provision of a
physically safe haven was what made the definitive difference in determin-
ing whether a woman could successfully extricate herself from the clutches
of a vengeful brothel-owner or not. 29
The impact of the invigorated campaigning to promote the rights of
prostitutes emerged over time as the officers of the Salvation Army
employed tactics that had proven to be effective in other contexts. In par-
ticular, there was the use of publications that either publicized the group’s
activities and successes, such as The Deliverer or All the World, or the likes
of War Cry, which provided material to promote the cause and also pro-
vide information on how to gain assistance. The most controversial activi-
ties were to step inside the confines of actual brothels and attempt to
distribute copies of these publications—in the Japanese context the War
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 115

Cry title was rendered as Toki no Koe (「ときのこゑ」). The local chap-
ters of the Salvation Army were ably supported by the likes of Henry
Burrell and women such as Inie Newcombe who coordinated information
and resources out of Tokyo, but they were joined by enthusiastic converts
such as Yamamuro Gunpei and Satō Kieko. Moreover, the local Japanese
adherents developed networks beyond the urban centres and began to
have an impact even in the countryside. 30
The attempts to take the campaign directly into the businesses engaged
in prostitution led to predictable physical conflicts with the owners and
their clientele and so it was more often than not that it was the male mem-
bers such as Burrell and Yamamuro who were engaged in this aspect of
things, Yamamuro being severely wounded in one encounter. These activi-
ties gained a wide audience in both the established and less elevated press
outlets, with the plight of women seeking to escape virtual slavery first
attracting sympathy and the deeds of the members of the Salvation Army
garnering respect. Things came to a peak in the period 1899–1900 as the
organization managed to establish its first women’s refuge in Tokyo. This
level of support was one of the primary means by which the Army could
make a tangible difference and as women found a means to escape, there
was slowly but surely a take-up that provided tangible results. Satō Kieko
married Yamamuro Gunpei in 1899 and thereafter became the main offi-
cer superintending the running of the refuge. By 1901, the activities of the
Army were being reported in England as a great success with a photo-
graph of “Girls of Our Tokio Rescue Home”. 31
One of the newspapers that made a particular point of following the
emancipation movement and the activities of the people working to assist
prostitutes aspiring to get out of the profession was the Niroku Shinpo ̄ (『
二六新報』). It was a reincarnation of a previous publication of the same
name which had folded five years earlier at the end of the Sino-Japanese
War. Under the editorship of Akiyama Teisuke, the newspaper was looking
to re-enter the highly competitive fray of low-brow publishing—setting
itself against the likes of the Yorozu Chōhō and the Yamato Shinbun.
Examining the coverage of this newspaper provides a number of insights
into how this deeply controversial social issue became a driver of public
debate. In the editorial of the 5th September issue entitled “Enraged over
Issues of Human Rights and Freedom”, the newspaper makes one very
significant distinction for the readership—their campaign was not about
abolishing prostitution, which was likely to be impossible at any rate. The
key phrase was jiyū haigyō (自由廃業), the freedom to leave the
116 A. SWALE

profession, not do away with it altogether. Even the local officers of the
Salvation Army were aware of this tension and in English the term “free
cessation” was coined to accentuate the aim of providing sanctuary for
women who needed assistance to get out of prostitution. Certainly the
ultimate aim of both the WWCTU and the Salvation Army would be in
principle to abolish prostitution but it is informative that it was, just as
Hayashi argues, the domestic populace who were impacting on the agenda
rather than an unreconstructed domestic British perspective being
imported and implemented from the outside.
The staff of the Niroku Shinpō were also not content to simply report
the events unfolding but also become personally involved. On the sixth of
September they visited the establishment in the new Yoshiwara precinct,
where two prostitutes, referred to as “Ayaginu” and “Nakamura Yae”, had
been petitioning unsuccessfully to be released from their contracts and
had enlisted the support of the newspaper. The women had in fact been
set upon and beaten up after a large crowd of ruffians broke into the
brothel they were situated in with the police doing little to intervene.
Akiyama himself went to the local police station and demanded that the
police act—the pressure worked and the superintendent of the police sta-
tion gave permission to his officers to use force to secure the release of the
women. They were successfully rescued and the article describing the dra-
matic events ends with a reference to cheers that went up outside the
building where the women were transferred— “Hooray for freedom!!
Hooray for the Niroku Shinpō!!”. 32
The campaigning of the Niroku Shinpō needs to be understood, then,
as part of the evolving discourse of rights and freedom that had been core
to the anti-government movements of the 1880s. By now, however, it was
focused on a more generalized sense of indignation and indeed a sharp-
ened sense of moralism that would be directed at ‘deserving’ miscreants.
Akiyama arguably took his cue from Kuroiwa Ruikō who in a rather stun-
ning editorial move prior to the reappearance of the Niroku Shinpō issued
a series of exposés on the private familial arrangements of the ‘good and
the great’. The campaign was given the theme of chikushō (蓄妾) which
literally referred to “keeping a concubine” but was also a pun on the hom-
onym that denoted a lowly animal. One example of an exposé aimed at no
less a figure than Mori Ō gai ran as follows:

Mori Ō gai, residing as Lieutenant General Mori Rintarō at Hongō

Komagoma Sendagi Chō 21 Banchi, became deeply attached to a woman
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 117

Kodama Seki (32 years old) whom he had known since the age of eighteen
or nineteen…. Although hoping to make her his wife proper he was unable
to do so due to his mother’s objections. Even so、 his mother was aware of
the depth of his feelings for her and recommended that he keep the woman
as a concubine and, in order to avoid contact with the affairs of the house-
hold, the woman was in fact permitted to stay with his mother Nami
(60 years old) at the nearby address of Sendagi Bayashi Chō 11 Banchi,
supported thereafter with funds provided by his mother. 33

It would be hard to see exactly where the public interest in revealing

the details of mistresses and illegitimate offspring might lie, but it makes
more sense when one recalls that the personnel of government were
acutely aware of how foreign dignitaries tended to perceive these sorts of
arrangements, or how they might even be picked up by the foreign press
as evidence of widespread immorality. It had its uses because it made these
elites, predominantly Satsuma and Chōshū affiliates squirm uncomfort-
ably, which in turn fed an appetite for schadenfreude amongst the public.
The series of exposés was extraordinarily ad hominem and played a part in
Kuroiwa being labelled a “viper” (mamushi) by Miyatake Gaikotsu. The
campaign by Akiyama in the Niroku Shinpō did not have quite the same
aims as the exposés referred to above but they exposed the degree to
which the police, key representatives of authority, were in the pockets of
thugs and racketeers, and it enabled the newspaper to burnish an aura of
moral superiority, albeit in this case more generalized.
As something of an auxiliary illustration of how status and morality
played out in the public arena, there was also the rather distinctive experi-
ence of Kawakami Otojirō and his wife Sada, who had in fact been a rather
illustrious geisha from the mid-1880s to early 1890s before meeting
Kawakami and being smitten by him. She had in fact once been the mis-
tress of no less than Itō Hirobumi. When she met Kawakami, she dumped
her erstwhile paramours and committed to supporting him in his meter-
oric rise to stardom and theatrical success. She was supportive of him as
dutiful wife all through the heady years of the initial successes and the even
more astoundingly successful performances staged during the Sino-­
Japanese War. The success of Nisshin Sensō and other productions, already
described in Chap. 3, formed the basis for his ambition to open his own
theatre, the Kawakami-Za, which was duly opened on 6th June, 1896. 34
But Kawakami was not a naturally careful manager of finances and had
well and truly overspent the substantial income and taken on
118 A. SWALE

extraordinary debt to establish the Kawakami-Za. The shine began to fall

away on the success of his plays and increasingly debtors became clamor-
ous for restitution, with eventually personal possessions being forcibly
taken as security. Kawakamai’s response to this was to double-down and
become even more ambitious. In 1898, he ran for parliament, to the sur-
prise of everyone including his wife Sada. His campaigning was lavishly
staged and ran up even greater costs. The campaign drew the very unwel-
come attention of Kuroiwa Ruikō, the “Viper”, and Kawakami’s lowly
background and scandals from the past were published extensively in the
Yorozo Chōhō with scathing denigrations of Kawakami by Ruikō himself.
The campaign was a dismal failure, and Kawakami was forced to sell the
Kawakami-Za, one of the most modern in Tokyo. 35
What happened next was somewhat resonant with the response that
Miyatake Gaikotsu made when faced with financial disaster—Kawakami
and Sada fled Tokyo by boat and made their way West along the southern
coast of Honshu. The inexperienced couple almost perished at sea during
the voyage and they had no particular plan beyond simple making their
way to Kobe. They arrived on 2nd January, 1899, and were not shadows
of their former selves in physical appearance. They attempted to organize
performances but it would take weeks for them to recover. It was at this
juncture that they met Kushibiki Yumindo, a theatrical impresario who
specialized in staging, installing and presenting performances of Japanalia
in the United States. He persuaded them to take up the offer of travelling
to the United States and conduct a performing tour. They set sail with a
troupe of nineteen persons on 30th April, and after arriving in San
Francisco, debuted on 25th May. Kushibiki was clear that if the tour were
to succeed, it would be Sada the former geisha who would need top bill-
ing. Coming up with the stage name “Sada Yacco” (her first name com-
bined with Yakko, her former name as a geisha), Sada was informed that
she would be the star attraction. She performed the dance from the classic
kabuki play, Musume Do ̄jōji, which entailed a grief-stricken young woman
who returns to the temple where her lover was murdered and gradually
transforms herself into a serpent. Perhaps to Kawakami’s consternation, it
was this element in the performance that received the most enthusiastic
reception, and this illustrious geisha was readily compared to the contem-
porary leading English actress, Ellen Terry, or the internationally renowned
Sarah Bernhardt. Unfortunately, that was as good as it got at first, with
Kawakami frittering income on expensive accommodation and entertain-
ments before realizing that the manager that Kushibiki had assigned them
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 119

was incompetent and indeed had absconded. Hardship after hardship

ensued and it was almost Kawakami and the troupe’s utter demise. Their
fortunes changed somewhat once they arrived on the east coast and while
based in Boston they were able to recoup some of the enthusiastic recep-
tion they had enjoyed in San Francisco. This success was tempered by the
deaths of two young onnagata actors they had brought with them, one
from excessive use of painkillers, the other from a brain haemorrhage and
excessive drinking. After a further season in New York and Washington
DC, the troupe eventually sailed for England in April of 1900 where they
remained for two months. They had met none other than Sir Henry Irving
and Ellen Terry in Boston, and Kawakami had so impressed Irving that he
received a letter of introduction.
The sojourn in London began much slower than was hoped, but with
positive support from General Kamimura of the Japanese Legation and
Arthur Diosy of the Japan Society, doors began to open and after a modest
start Kawakami and Sada Yacco became instant celebrities. They were ulti-
mately even to perform before the Crown Prince Edward along with a
host of noble and wealthy dignitaries. This was followed by a highly suc-
cessful season in Paris where they were supported by the famous American
actress and dancer Loie Fuller who had a residency at the Exposition
Universelle. She was an established performer in Paris and well-connected,
as well as being a budding impresario. She arranged for performances by
the troupe, with of course a particular focus on Sada Yacco, to commence
from July. The response was ecstatic as she had refined her performance
considerably during her initial sojourn in the United States and she won
plaudits for the increasingly wild girl in Musume Dōjōji, gradually remov-
ing kimono layers until she was a disheveled banshee and then finally col-
lapsing in death. The contracts with Fuller were renewed month after
month and to early November, after which the troupe set sail to return to
Japan, arriving on 1st January, 1901. 36
There is a great deal to unpack in assessing both the successes and cul-
tural impact of Kawakami and Sada Yacco in the United States and Europe.
The first thing to note is the fin de siècle fever for all things Japanese,
which was more evident the further eastward they travelled. The pinnacle
was undoubtedly Paris where Art Nouveau was in its apogee. This of
course did not constitute a serious interest in Japan or actual Japanese
culture, but a highly idealised and mystique-laden conception of the
Orient in general and Japan in particular. The geisha was synonymous with
this delicacy and mystique, as well as the allure of an undercurrent of
120 A. SWALE

sensuality. Sada Yacco herself spoke clearly of the differences in the cultural
mores for women in Japan and the West, quite openly expressing envy for
the relative status of women and freedom of association. But she was also
careful not to completely puncture the fascination that her performances
generated. Even while in the United States, David Belasco dramatized a
one-act play entitled “Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan”, which was
derived from a retelling of “Madame Chrysanthème,” a French novel by
Pierre Loti. The play followed them to London where Puccini saw it and
decided to pick up the storyline for his opera. In all these incarnations the
quietly intense beauty and smouldering passion of the heroine culminates
in a tragic final death—Sada Yacco’s forte to a tee. One person who failed
to be impressed was in fact Sarah Bernhardt herself, who found Sada
Yacco’s performances abhorrent—but she was very much in the minority
(the critic Max Beerboem would later write that he would place Sada
Yacco ahead of Sarah Bernhardt). In any case, both Kawakami and Sada
knew that they were not presenting purely authentic traditional Japanese
theatre but highly stylized vignettes that prioritized action and movement
over dialogue and recitation. Apart from Sada Yacco’s death scenes, there
were performances of hara-kiri which awed and fascinated the audiences.
Prior to returning to Japan the troupe signed another contract with Fuller
for another season commencing in June of the following year. 37
In contrast to the gap between perceptions of Japan and whatever
authenticity the performances made by the troupe may have had, Kawakami
and Sada found a new ‘home’ of sorts in Paris precisely because they them-
selves were scions of the demimonde. In fin de siècle Paris, perhaps more
than anywhere in Europe, there was the daily intersection between those
of wealth, artists of all stripes, performers and persons of high office, and
this was palpably intertwined with the world cheap theatres, brothels and
various places of ill-repute. It was the epitome of decadence, and it suited
Kawakami and Sada Yacco perfectly well. Their return to Europe in June
of 1901 was a literal tour de force, feted at every stop, mounting raptures
at Sada Yacco’s performances and the added bonus of interacting with
even more significant artistic figures, Isadora Duncan the budding dance
performer, Pablo Piccasso, who produced a sketch impression and of
course Giacomo Puccini, who followed the troupe gleaning whatever
essence of Sada Yacco he could to complete his characterization of the
heroine in his opera Madama Butterfly. After the giddy whirlwind of tour-
ing both Kawakami and Sada knew full well that their celebrity in Europe
would not translate back in Japan. They would not forget that even with
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 121

illustrious patrons such as Ito Hirobumi, there was a thin line protecting
them from being shielded from vilification and contempt at home. Sada
bought land to settle in the countryside near the sea while Kawakami
began to contemplate ways of reforming theatre in Japan. 38
Apart from the foregoing overview of some of the salient trends in
popular entertainments, literature and particularly notorious scandals, it
would not be possible to comment on the developments at century’s end
without referring to some of the major developments in industry and poli-
tics. As already alluded to, the reparations from China secured in 1895
were very assiduously devoted to the expansion of Japan’s industrial capac-
ity. There were of course major private initiatives such as the Shibaura
Engineering Works, the Tokyo Ishikawajima Shipyard, the Yokohama
Dock Company, and Mitsubishi’s shipping company the Nihon Yu ̄sen
Kaisha. These were variously financed through the concentrated wealth of
zaibatsu such as Mitsui, Sumitomo and Mitsubishi. As Andrew Gordon
demonstrates, however, the great engines of development in terms of pro-
moting training of workers to handle new industrial technologies lay very
much with government-owned enterprises such as the Yahata Ironworks,
Nagasaki Ironworks and the Yokosuka Shipyard. These provided a conduit
for the transfer of personnel and skills out of these facilities and into pri-
vate enterprise.
The government was aware of the need to have a very accurate grasp of
how this new industrial capacity was developing and accordingly a series of
detailed reports. The Shokkō Jijo ̄ report of 1902 was compiled by a team of
researchers that covered the numbers of private and publicly owned com-
panies in each branch of industry and included the numbers of workers
both female and male in each facility. It was in certain regards an enlight-
ened initiative as particular attention was paid to the situation of women
in factories and how their conditions of work and accommodation could
be improved. As intrepid journalists such as Yokoyama Gennosuke were to
report, the situation for workers financially was precarious for the most
part and the male working class was unruly and given to reckless spending
of wages on drinking, gambling and womanizing. They were also often
ill-disciplined, as Gordon summarizes:

Japanese workers of this era were neither keen on taking orders nor enthu-
siastically committed to their jobs, and persuading them to submit to the
discipline of factory labor was no easy task; it was far from accomplished by
the turn of the century. 39
122 A. SWALE

This culture was compounded by an artisanal approach to organizing

training which engendered de facto guilds for each specialization. A work-
er’s primary obligations were to an oyakata boss rather than the immediate
manager or superintendent and in some cases the oyakata was not on site
at a particular factory but still maintained a network of acolytes within the
industry.
A further burgeoning issue in relation to industry was a very modern
one—the problem of pollution. A particularly prominent case was the envi-
ronmental impact of the Ashio copper mines, which under Furukawa Ichibei
had grown from accounting for around a quarter of national production of
copper in 1877 to exceeding 40% by the late 1880s. Sulphuric acid was used
to refine out the copper and this was the primary cause of water contamina-
tion, which had a severe impact on agriculture as well as physical well-being.
Arsenic was also produced as a by-product and contributed to the broad
array of illnesses and premature deaths. Tanaka Shōzō, the local member of
parliament from 1890 onwards, was a vigorous campaigner on behalf of his
constituents in the area and he regularly protested vociferously about the
dire impacts of the mine and the government’s relative indifference in the
Diet. In 1896, a major flood had spread slag from the mine throughout the
countryside and devastated crops and generated widespread health prob-
lems. Tanaka renewed his pressure on the Minister of Agriculture and
Commerce, Enomoto Takeaki, in 1897 the Minister was forced to establish
a committee to investigate the impacts of the mine. This led to the issuing
of the Third Mine Pollution Order which was ostensibly intended to
improve the management of industrial waste. The Furukawa’s, and indeed
the workers on site, were reluctant to comply with any measures that would
curtail the profitability of the mine but considerable sums were invested to
implement improvements in the management of industrial waste. Even so,
evidence of a significant turn-­around was slow in coming. 40
In February of 1900 activists from the countryside surrounding the
mine marched on Tokyo from Tochigi and aimed to force the government
into a response. A major confrontation occurred at a bridge crossing at
Kawamata in Gunma Prefecture. Some sixty-seven farmers were arrested
and approximately a hundred persons, both farmers and police, were seri-
ously wounded. The arrested farmers were arraigned for trial, and fifty-­
one of them were charged with sedition and incitement to riot. The trial
lasted until December of 1900 and in the end twenty-nine were convicted
of the lesser charge of resisting officials with the remaining twenty-two
being found innocent. The defendants appealed and in the ensuing appeals
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 123

process in the Tokyo Court of Appeals the scope of the reviewing of evi-
dence was greatly expanded to encompass conditions at Ashio. The entire
court was transported to see conditions first-hand and the coverage in the
mainstream media was substantial and strongly sympathetic to the farm-
ers. The trial, unsurprisingly, took considerably longer to conduct and in
March of 1902, all but three of the farmers on trial were acquitted. 41
This was a major victory for the protesting farmers and demonstrated
that if a trial became infamous enough it would become subject to that
secondary trial in the ‘court of public opinion’ once it garnered the right
level of media coverage. A further incident that occurred during this pro-
cess and achieved considerable notoriety was the attempt by Tanaka Shōzō
to take the unprecedented step of presenting a petition in person to the
Emperor directly. In October of 1901 Tanaka had already resigned from
parliament in disgust, and in one last desperate act to have an impact on
events he rushed the Emperor’s carriage as it was en route to the House of
Peers on the 10th of December. He was immediately apprehended before
he could go anywhere near the carriage—the event did have an impact
though as it was broadly covered by the newspapers. The government, for
its part, chose to release Tanaka with no further action citing his alleged
‘insanity’. They would also know that any attempt to punish Tanaka legally
would have led to yet another very public platforming of a critic of the
government. 42
The woefully inadequate response of the government was symptomatic
of a broader dysfunction that might well be attributed to the bedding in
of a new system of representative government. The two houses of the
Imperial Diet had factions that were variously aligned or opposed to the
government which itself was dominated by scions of Satsuma or Chōshū.
As at 1890 there were no pre-existing ideological orientations such as
those of the Conservatives or Liberals in England to draw on to establish
political organizations that could count on being coherent and organized
as a political force within the parliament. In the lower house in particular,
there was a tendency towards destabilization and disruption and despite
the relative hiatus during the Sino-Japanese War when the minds of all citi-
zens were focused on a national goal, there was no sign that a basis for an
orderly conducting of business in the Diet with a party in power and other
parties constituting a loyal opposition was in the offing. There was, of
course, the persistent presence of the Jiyūtō under Itagaki Taisuke, but this
was no Liberal Party after the British model and was grounded more in
anti-Satsuma/Chōshū resentments rather than a coherent policy platform.
124 A. SWALE

Okuma Shigenobu founded a rival party, the Shinpoto ̄ (‘Progressive

Party’), in 1896 but this too was based more on that grouping of disaf-
fected Anglo-oriented liberals that had been purged from government by
Itō Hirobumi in the 1881 and was very much centred on the person of
Okuma himself. 43
In 1898, however, a rather momentous political event occurred. The
Jiyu ̄tō and the Shinpotō merged as the Kenseitō and achieved a landslide
victory in the August elections. Okuma became the first non- Satsuma/
Chōshū prime minister of the country since the founding of the constitu-
tion. The startling success was relatively short-lived—Itagaki withdrew
from the coalition alleging that the distribution of portfolios in cabinet
had favoured the Shinpotō members—by November of 1898 the govern-
ment of Okuma Shigenobu had fallen apart and the party formally split
into two factions, the New Kenseito under Itagaki and the Kensei Hontō
under Okuma. In an ironic turn, the Kensei Hontō threw its weight behind
the new government led by Chōshū oligarch Yamagata Aritomo. The next
major shift came in 1900 when Itō Hirobumi, already three-time prime
minister of Japan, incorporated the New Kenseitō into a new party, the
Rikken Seiyu ̄kai, which claimed a substantial majority in the Diet and ush-
ered Itō into his fourth premiership. The Seiyūkai was to become the
dominant force in parliamentary politics from 1900 to 1921 and although
primarily conservative in orientation it participated in support for
Constitutional Reforms in the early Taishō period. 44
The period that has been under review in this chapter has arguably been
overshadowed by the two momentous wars that occurred either side. It is
evident that there were equally momentous transformations on the domes-
tic social front, with agitation for improvement of the conditions for
women, including of course those engaged in prostitution, being very
much to a publicly supported campaign as indeed was the case with the
aforementioned agitation against environmental pollution at the Ashio
mine. In the realm of popular entertainment, Osaka demonstrated time
and again that it was capable of generating modes of performance, such as
gidayu ̄ that were partly rooted in traditional arts but also highly innovative
in terms of presentation and the handling of the now substantial audi-
ences. Some components of those audiences, such as the cohort of univer-
sity students, signalled a transformation in the nature of performer and
viewer relations, as well as the scale and scope of cultural consumption in
Tokyo. But what perhaps characterizes the period more significantly than
anything else was the degree to which the likes of Miyatake Gaikotsu,
 4 FIN DE SIÈCLE JAPAN 125

Kuroiwa Ruikō and Akiyama Teisuke could use print media to really shake
up things and explore the darker underbelly of contemporary society. In
the case of Miyatake with more often than not humorous results, while in
the case of Kuroiwa and Akiyama having more iconoclastic and socially
transformative impacts. This was an epoch where decadence, whether
found in high places or low, came to have a new resonance on the public
sphere, with officialdom having no option to demand compliance in the
name of “civilization” or “empire”.

Notes
1. Paine (2017, 42).
2. Gordon (1985, 17–50), Smith (1998, 193–218).
3. See Tierney (2015, 90–95). More recently, there is a very substantial
monograph that has been produced by Oku Takenori, Kuroiwa Ruiko:̄
danjite Ri no tame ni arazaru nari, Mineruba Shobō, 2019; regarding the
upcoming conflict with Russia, see 329–343.
4. Takeuchi (1999, 43–84).
5. Ibid., 87–94).
6. Ibid., 95–101).
7. Yoshino (2012, 140–144).
8. Ibid.,144–145.
9. Ibid., 147–148.
10. Ibid., 148–149.
11. Miyatake Gaikotsu, Kokkei Shinbun, No. 4, April 8th, 1901, as
per Akasegawa. G. and Yoshino T. (Eds.). Reprint of Miyatake Gaikotsu,
Kokkei Shinbun, Chikuma Shobō, 1989, 46.
12. Yoshino (op. cit.,149–151).
13. Ibid., 152–155.
14. Ibid., 156–157.
15. Regarding hostile characterizations of Ito Hirobumi as a Meiji ‘man who
loved love’ (「明治好色一代男」), the see Kokkei Shinbun of 20th August,
1903, no. 55 in Akasegawa Genpei & Yoshino Takao (ed.s), Kokkei
Shinbun, Vol. 2, Chikuma Shobō, 1989, 310–311.
16. Paine (op. cit., 51–52).
17. Tierney (op. cit., 96–114).
18. Yoshino (op. cit., 159–163).
19. Coaldrake (1997, 13–28), McQueen Tokita (2015, 99–104).
20. Kurata (1980, 160–162). See also contemporary reportage in Suzuki
(1995, Vol. 5, 245–247) and regarding the student audiences the Tokyo
Asahi Shinbun of 4th of March as reproduced in Nakayama (1982, Vol.
13, 225).
126 A. SWALE

21. Kimi Coaldrake in Women’s Gidayū and the Japanese Theatre Tradition
refers to these factions respectively as the Authenticity Faction and the
Friendly Faction. See Coaldrake (op. cit., 13–24).
22. Kurata (op. cit., 162–163).
23. 「腐敗々々、青年道心の大腐敗。危険々々、社会風教の大危険」is the
original text.
24. Meguro (2014, 21–24).
25. Ibid., 24–26.
26. Botsman (2011, 1323–1347).
27. Ibid., 1327–1330.
28. Hayashi (2019, 35–42).
29. Hayashi (ibid., 42–60).
30. Hayashi (ibid., 42–50); also see Yamamoto Miki, 2015, “Yamamuro
Gunpei Heimin no Fukuon oyobi, Kyūseigun Shozō Gentōyō Gurasu
Suraido ni miru Kindai Nihon ni okeru Ningen Kyōiku to Shūkyō – Taishū
to Kirisutokyō to no Deai wo meguru Ichi Kōsatsu”, Ningen Kyōikugaku
Kenkyū (3), 73–81.
31. Appearing in The Deliverer October 1901, 57. For contemporary reports
from the Japanese press on the activities of the Salvation Army see
Nakayama (1982, Vol. 11, 120–122 & 140).
32. Niroku Shinpō, 6th of September, 1900. The exact words were 「自由万
歳、二六新報万歳」. See Suzuki (1995, Vol. 6, 180–183).
33. Published inYorozu Choho ̄, July 9, 1898. Marquis Daionji was reported to
keep more than one concubine and several figures named had multiple
children with their concubines. See original text in Suzuki (1995,
Vol. 6, 63–65).
34. Downer (2003, 56–73).
35. Ibid., 77–81.
36. Ibid., 149–180.
37. Ibid., 160–186.
38. Ibid., 187–207.
39. Gordon (1985, p. 27).
40. Ibid., 37–38.
41. Ibid., 351–383.
42. Ibid., 376–380.
43. Sims (2001, 80–85).
44. Ibid., 85–90.
 CHAPTER 5

The Russo-Japanese War—The Dark Victory

Prior to the full-scale confrontation with Russia, there were, as we have

seen, plenty of rumblings in all manner of media and in all quarters of the
intelligentsia and the arts that foretold the inevitable necessity of that con-
flict. The popular culture of urban centres such as Tokyo and Osaka had
displayed a propensity to accommodate frivolity and faddism, if not out-
right decadence, yet this was being slowly but surely countered by con-
scious efforts on many fronts by invoking the ethos of bushidō and “love
of country”, aikokushin (愛国心). Public figures such as General Nogi
Maresuke, who had attained fame and glory through his successful storm-
ing of Port Arthur in 1894, went on following retirement to actively pro-
mote bushidō in the public consciousness and indeed training academies
for martial arts boomed in the wake of the successful Sino-Japanese War.1
One profoundly ironic event occurred prior to the conflagration
between Japan and Russia and that was the fact that during the Boxer
Rebellion in 1900 they had been joint members of the international expe-
ditionary force that was sent to Beijing to quell the revolt. It contained
forces from eight countries—Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands,
the United States, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Russia and Japan. Japan had
played a pivotal role in several engagements prior to relieving the besieged
Legation quarter in Beijing, had in fact supplied the largest number of
troops out of all the nations involved, and was party to the ensuing diplo-
matic resolution which saw the Qing government obliged to remunerate
all eight nations through staggeringly punitive reparations.2 Japan’s

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 127

Switzerland AG 2023
A. Swale, A Cultural History of Late Meiji Japan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43646-8_5
128 A. SWALE

participation in the expedition confirmed in the minds of many, indeed the

national populace, that Japan had ‘joined the club’ of the Great Powers,
that it was more or less a “civilized nation” on a par with the West. A Jiji
Shinpō editorial entitled “Taking the Lead in the Eastern Century” was
published on the first day of the new century, and spoke confidently about
Japan’s new place in the world order. It added some further bold predic-
tions as well:

At the same time as Japan reaches the beginning of 1901 and celebrates the
two thousand five hundred and sixty-first revisit of spring since its inception,
the international measure of years is shifting from the world of the nine-
teenth century to the new world of the twentieth century. […]Japan is now
established as a power in the East and last year during the Boxer Rebellion
we were included among the allied powers and that gave considerable
weight to our credentials in a short space of time.
Now that Japan has finally been admitted to the company of the Great
Powers, it can from this very day begin showing its true colours. We should
acknowledge that we are on the cusp of a new age, and as many people now
opine, the nineteenth century was the stage for the West, but the twentieth
century will be the stage for the East.3

The editorial even goes on to predict, perhaps rather presciently indeed,

that China would eventually rebound and become the leading market in
the world, the only thing hampering this being the corruption of the gov-
ernment and administration. In any event, the salient observation, and
one that underscores a major difference in the premises of the war with
Russia as opposed to the preceding war with China, was that Japan was
acting as an equal power. This may not have been quite the perception of
the Western powers but so far as the Japanese people themselves were
concerned membership of that club had been dearly earned and Japan
would act accordingly. It also created certain kinds of expectations of
greatness and obligations to sacrifice all to achieve it. So whereas the war
with China felt like a moment where Japan could ‘try its hand’ as a plucky
newcomer on the international stage, the upcoming war with Russia was
an altogether much more weighty and onerous prospect. Another aspect
of the editorial to note is the fact that Japan was, regardless of membership
of the club, nonetheless an “Eastern” nation, part of the broader Sinitic
civilization and having interests distinct from those of the West. At the
time of the Boxer Rebellion, publications like Nihon actively sympathized
with resentment towards Christianity and even called for the repression of
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 129

Christian missions in Japan while promoting a proper patriotism, that is,

aikokushin.
Aikokushin was a theme that was to increasingly colour popular culture
and popular entertainments in the run-up to the Russo-Japanese War.
Prior to the emergence of naniwa-bushi as an overwhelming popular sen-
sation through the performances Tōchūken Kumoemon, who excelled in
promoting patriotism through recitations based on the tale of the forty-­
seven ro ̄nin, there was a significant precursor in the war-themed kōdan
performances of Bitō Itchō (1847–1928). Bitō Itchō (original name Bitō
Shin’ya, 尾藤新也), hailed from Kyūshū and was born into a samurai fam-
ily of some wealth and status. In his youth, he had studied classical court
music, gagaku, but following the Restoration he joined the Imperial Army
and even participated in the Taiwan Expedition of 1874. Following his
return, he resigned from the army and aimed to set himself up in business.
These plans were disrupted with the outbreak of the Seinan Rebellion in
1877 and Bitō threw his lot in with Saigō Takamori. At the cessation of
that conflict, he was arrested, tried and imprisoned. As a person of a samu-
rai background, it was the epitome of humiliations and there were many in
the same position who found themselves dispossessed of a means to make
a living or being thoroughly disowned by even blood relatives. Bitō took
the unusual step of committing himself to honing skills in the perfor-
mance of kōdan, a move that was reacted to with utter chagrin by his fam-
ily. Acutely aware of the shame entailed in becoming a performer given the
status of his family, Bitō had himself registered as a common citizen, hei-
min (平民), and embarked on a career that would ultimately be crowned
with remarkable success.4
Bitō’s specialty was the militarily themed gundan (軍談), which should
not altogether surprise us given his background of military service and
experience of warfare. He became notably successful in his home region of
Kyūshū and following the Sino-Japanese War he relocated in 1898 to
Osaka where he garnered considerable fame for his renditions of an
account of the recent conflict in the Nisshin Sensō Dan (『日清戦争談』).
His major ‘break’ in Tokyo came in July of 1902 when he performed a
newly penned account of the Japanese army’s exploits during the suppres-
sion of the Boxer Rebellion, entitled Hokushin Jihen Dan (『北清事変
談』), “An Account of the Northern Chinese Incident”. The performance
was picked up by the Tōkyō Asahi Shinbun which enthused over the quality
and impact of Bito’s performance which featured a striking voice and
included, rather unusually, the accompaniment of a shamisen. His style of
130 A. SWALE

performance was variously referred to as Shin Kōdan (「新講談」) or Shin

Gundan (「新軍談」), a new school of kōdan that was entirely novel and
evoked overlaps of association with naniwa-bushi. It was in this regard that
Bitō was undoubtedly setting the scene for Tōchūken Kumoemon’s highly
successful naniwa-bushi performances following the Russo-Japanese War.5
The performances of Hokushin Jihen Dan clearly struck a chord with a
broad swath of the population, and indeed Bitō himself was explicit in his
aim of trying to reach as many people as possible, including the less literate
and the less educated (「無教育の人」). Bitō became quite wealthy and
even set up a foundation that provided scholarships for the less fortunate
to attend university. In trying to fathom the extraordinary appeal of Bitō’s
kōdan, apart from the quality of the performances and their novelty, there
was now a substantial proportion of the population who had relatives—
husbands, brothers, sons, and uncles—who had fallen or been severely
wounded in either the Sino-Japanese War or the more recent Boxer
Rebellion. The writer and future collaborator with Tōchūken Kumoemon,
Miyazaki Tōten, commented, “When the audience hears the esteemed
Bitō sing [of their sorrows and loss], they feel consoled”.6 By the time of
the immediate prelude to the war with Russia, Bitō’s reputation was so
firm as to lead to his being invited to perform before the Emperor him-
self—a remarkable outcome for a former renegade samurai turned
kōdanshi.
Bitō was evidently a talented and impactful performer, but it should
also be noted that he accrued considerable patronage in high places, par-
ticularly the military. In as early as 1898, the decorated veteran of the
Sino-Japanese War, Major General Kawakami Sōroku (1848–1899) com-
mended Bitō’s performances and referred to him as a kyōiku gunjin, an
“educating soldier”, to highlight the positive educational aspect of his
performances. And as a former scion of Kyūshū it is little wonder that his
career would be closely followed by the likes of Miyazaki Tōten who had
deep contacts with the increasingly active Gen’yōsha, which was based in
Kyūshū and which included a rather extensive number of secret members
in the upper echelons of the military.
Kawakami Sōroku was an enthusiastic supporter of more clandestine
and, at times, ruthless acts of espionage and subterfuge. In 1897, he
ordered Captain Hanada Nakanosuke (1860–1945) to embark on a covert
operation in Manchuria and Siberia in the guise of a Buddhist missionary
with the false name of Shimizu Shōgetsu. As Ō hama Tetsuya depicts in
quite startling detail, there was a network of brothels operating with
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 131

predominantly Japanese women strung out across the region from the
Philippines in the south up to Taiwan and across to Hong Kong and
Shanghai and thence all the way through Beijing and Mukden up to even
Vladivostok. It was tacitly acknowledged as an important basis of network-
ing and communications which would prove, especially in the lead up to
the war with Russia, to be an invaluable source of intelligence. Particular
prostitutes were trained to efficiently lure their clients to divulge sensitive
information or the brothels were able to use their knowledge of their cli-
ents’ public positions to engage in extortion. Hanada was something of a
maverick and particularly outspoken in his criticisms of the government’s
soft-pedalling in its dealings with Russia. Hanada spent two years based in
Vladivostok developing his spy network and gathering intelligence from
far-flung corners of Siberia, Manchuria and Mongolia. He was adamant
that a war was inevitable and that the war, when it came, would not just be
a set of strategic operations but a fight to obliterate the enemy (kes-
sen, 決戦).7
The clandestine network established and fostered under Hanada would
prove highly useful in the long term but Hanada chafed with other heads
of staff and resigned in a fit of pique. By 1901, he was back in Tokyo and
focusing on establishing an association, the Hōtokukai, which aimed to
promote patriotism and morality. He referred to the Japanese people as
the shimin (士民), literally “warrior people”, and lamented how degener-
ate they had become. Aiming to promote respect and loyalty to the
Emperor, he wrote “Our pressing need at this time is to cleanse our war-
rior people of their current degenerate ways and replace this with a reso-
lute fighting spirit focused on our enemies”. Being fervently averse to the
factionalism of clan politics he also spoke of the need to supplant the love
of home village (kyōdo, 郷土), with love of country. The likes of military
personnel such as Hanada welcomed the emergence of performances such
as the new kōdan of Bitō Itchō and the naniwa-bushi of Tōchūken
Kumoemon with enthusiasm. These were modes of communicating with
the masses that would turn out to be highly effective in inculcating a fer-
vent patriotism. The fact that Bitō and Tōchūken came from socially prob-
lematic backgrounds made little difference—after all, Hanada, amongst
others, had no qualms about employing prostitutes in the national cause.
The glue that held everything together and gave actions ultimate meaning
was aikokushin.8
In a parallel development with the broad regional network outlined
above, there was the emergence of a social movement that led to the
132 A. SWALE

establishment of the Patriotic Womens Association or Aikoku Fujinkai (愛

国婦人会) in February of 1902. The initial establishment of the organiza-
tion was led by Okumura Ihoko who had accompanied a Buddhist delega-
tion from the Higashi Honganji temple to observe conditions first-hand
during the Boxer Rebellion operations. She was appalled at both the bru-
tality and immense suffering caused by the war and was acutely aware of
the impact that the conflict was having on the soldiers and ultimately their
families back home if they were killed or wounded. She sought the patron-
age of auspiciously high-ranking women and, at the establishment of the
Association, it was the wife of the eminent aristocrat Iwakura Tomosada,
Iwakura Hisako, who was the inaugural president. The Association aimed
to establish local chapters throughout the country to support women who
had lost male family members in war. Okumura Ihoko was an assiduous
campaigner throughout Japan and from the initial membership of just
under 19,000 it ballooned to a staggering membership of 435,000 by
1905. Okumura was also acutely aware of the suffering of ordinary people
in the wider East Asian region and saw the Association as having the
potential role of providing charitable assistance overseas as well. The first
overseas chapter was established in Manila by the former head of the
Nagasaki branch in February of 1903. It later became involved in the
amelioration of living conditions for women throughout the Asian region
by establishing branches in places throughout East Asia. These offshore
Aikoku Fujinkai had an altruistic social mission that in one sense comple-
mented the social activism for the emancipation of prostitutes in the late
1890s. This, however, was a home-grown movement and was tinctured
with a much more explicit commitment to patriotism and promotion of
Japanese values. Ironically, it came to act as a kind of auxiliary to what had
been established through the activities of Hanada Nakanosuke, but it
aimed to bring some uprightness to the spread of the Japanese Empire
while attempting to provide dignity for the unfortunate women who were
working in that network. It was an astonishing contrast to the darker activ-
ities of figures associated with the military or the Gen’yōsha. The work of
the Associations was rightly celebrated given the caliber of patrons within
the homeland which included members of the Imperial family and the
wives of members of such illustrious aristocratic families as the Iwakuras.9
In the meantime, the Japanese government in 1901 had succeeded in
nominally negotiating with Russia a withdrawal of troops from Manchuria.
It was to be done in stages and indeed the first stage was scheduled for
October of 1902. But unease about Russian long-term objectives
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 133

remained. Given that the Russian Empire had consolidated its presence in
the area northwest of Korea by leasing the Liaodong Peninsula from
March 1898, it was evident that the strategic aim would likely be to link
up between Siberia and the peninsula via Manchuria—a monumental land
acquisition that would have huge significance for the balance of power in
East Asia. Not even the Western powers could countenance that prospect
and that is precisely why Britain was particularly eager to create a bulwark
against Russian expansionism through the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of
Alliance which was concluded in January of 1902. This was greeted with
great enthusiasm within the media and amongst the public in general—it
confirmed Japan as having become worthy of the support of a power that
up until this time had preferred to keep other powers at arm’s length in
“splendid isolation”. This was a major turnaround from previous diplo-
matic policy and did signal that Japan was not without support from other
quarters amongst the powers.10
Although the Anglo-Japanese pact of January 1902 led to an intensify-
ing of antagonism and to a potential ‘renewing’ of the Triple Alliance
between Russia, Germany and France, in April Itō Hirobumi travelled to
Europe and met his counterparts in St Petersburg. Negotiations still
seemed to be proceeding with some hope of resolution and in October the
first phase of the withdrawal of troops from Manchuria occurred as
planned. However, thereafter the mood seemed to harden within the
Russian government and by March of 1903 the Foreign Minister and the
Tsar were discussing sending reinforcements to Manchuria. In July of
1903, Russian troops crossed over the Yalu River at Yongamp’o to set up
a new base inside Korea and made it clear that the prior agreement was
unlikely to be complied with. When the deadline for the final phase of
troop withdrawals came and went without compliance, a grim realization
began to dawn on those commenting on affairs in the media, and indeed
amongst the general public, that a compromise was unlikely to be effected.
From the 9th of September, negotiations had been transferred from St
Petersburg to Tokyo and from October a series of proposals and counter-­
proposals were sent back and forth from one party to the other.11
On the 21st of December, the Japanese government presented its third
and “final” proposal—the Russian government responded on the 6th of
January with a third counter-proposal that gave recognition to limited
influence by Japan in Korea. On the 13th, the Japanese government pre-
sented what it regarded as its absolutely final offer and it included an ulti-
matum. Just as the Russian government was in the process of formalizing
134 A. SWALE

and submitting a response to Japan’s last proposal and ultimatum, the

Imperial Council on the 4th of February formally resolved to end negotia-
tions and commit to going to war with Russia. On the 6th, diplomatic ties
with Russia were severed and the Combined Fleet of the Imperial Japanese
Navy set forth from the port of Sasebo.
An attack by the Combined Fleet on Port Arthur was made on the 8th
of February and took the Russian Fleet by surprise. Torpedo boats were
used to particularly good effect and inflicted damage on several of the
larger Russian vessels including two battleships. Even so, the Japanese fleet
was in range of the large artillery emplacements on the hills above the
harbour which inflicted serious damage, forcing the Japanese navy to pull
back. During this operation, the Japanese laid mines in strategic locations
aiming to block lines of exit from the harbour. At the same time, as the
naval assault commenced, forces of the Japanese Imperial Army were
landed at Incheon and had as their objective the occupation of Seoul. War
was formally declared by the Japanese Emperor on the 10th of February.
The response from the public was ecstatic. There had been considerable
unease within the public prior to the commencement of hostilities, not
least of all because, as it had become so apparent that an all-out conflict
was likely, there were major falls in the Japanese stock market. Indeed the
Western commentary was tending to predict that if it came to a full-scale
war, Japan would almost certainly come out the worse. The declaration of
war, issued as a personal statement of the Meiji Emperor, certainly pro-
moted the perception that the decision was a personal one of the mon-
arch. The Emperor stated that he had not wished for war to come but the
Russian Empire had left Japan with no other option. In downtown areas
of Tokyo such as Hibiya and Ginza, large crowds thronged and marched
along exclaiming “banzai” enthusiastically while bearing lanterns with
patriotic inscriptions.12
Predictably, the outbreak of war led to intense anti-Russian sentiment
and unfortunately the target for that antipathy was Russians who had
already had a long-term relationship with Japan and of course the ‘Nikolai
Cathedral’ (formally known as the Holy Resurrection Cathedral) which
had been built in Chiyoda Ward in 1891. It was rumored to be full of
Russian spies and the government had to intervene to ensure that random
acts of violence were not directed at the church or its members. The gov-
ernment was in fact acutely aware that the war with Russia could easily be
characterized as an attack on a Christian nation by a non-Christian one.
On the 19th of February, the Internal Affairs Ministry issued a stern
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 135

public warning against persecuting Russian or Japanese adherents to the

Orthodox Church, even going so far as to say that the war with Russia was
not a war against all Russian people. In a surprising move, the government
also took pains to avoid generating perceptions that it would crack down
on dissent regarding the war from the likes of Socialists and Christians,
being ever eager to present Japan as liberal and enlightened as opposed to
the despotic regime of Russia. Obtaining a positive perception of Japan
amongst the international community was just as important as making
gains on the battlefield given that Japan would need to secure loans and
securities to fund the campaign. Between the 11th to the 13th of February
the United States, Britain, France, China and Germany all declared neu-
trality but there was a way to go in enlisting more active support.13
Accordingly, on the 24th of February, the veteran statesman Kaneko
Kentarō, was dispatched to the United States. Being well-versed in
American affairs and being personally acquainted with President Theodore
Roosevelt, he was an ideal choice for so important a mission. Kaneko him-
self was fully aware of the stakes and privately confided that he knew Japan
might well come out as the defeated party in the conflict. Securing a sym-
pathetic view of Japan from at least some of the major powers, particularly
the United States and Britain, was a vital long-term objective.14
It is not intended here, incidentally, to give a blow by blow account of
diplomatic developments or the progress of particular military actions, but
in order to appreciate the longer-term impact of the war and its legacy for
ordinary Japanese citizens the enormity of the conflagration and the
increasing losses entailed in the siege and final storming of Port Arthur
bears some relating in detail. It is of course the most immediate cause of a
particularly dark undercurrent of grief that seemed to pervade popular
perceptions of the war, even in the midst of celebrating victories, as well as
the profound resentment that erupted when diplomatically Japan’s case
was perceived by the Japanese public to be treated unfairly.
The arena of conflict that turned out to be most pivotal was indeed
Port Arthur. Neutralizing the Russian Pacific Fleet was necessary not only
to ensure that there were no threats to the maintenance of logistics
between the Japanese homeland and the continent, but there was also the
additional possibility that the Russian Empire would send its Baltic Fleet
to the Far East, and if the two fleets were to combine, Japan would lack
superiority. A number of successes were achieved in the land campaigns—
the First Army had victories against the Russian forces near Pyongyang in
early April and Japanese forces went on to cross the Yalu River on the
136 A. SWALE

norther frontier of Korea after a protracted operation from the 25th of

April until the final “Battle of the Yalu River,” which concluded on the 1st
of May. On the 13th of April, two Russian battleships were badly damaged
by Japanese mines with the flagship Petropavlovsk sinking with all hands,
including the Admiral of the Fleet Stepan Makarov. These victories would
be celebrated enthusiastically at home but not everything went Japan’s
way. The third and final unsuccessful attempt to blockade Port Arthur
ended on the 3rd of May. On the 15th of May, two Japanese battleships,
the Hatsune and the Yashima, struck Russian mines off Port Arthur and
sank. Port Arthur remained difficult to break.15
The conducting of conventional operations to attack the Russian forces
was accompanied by more covert operations far behind the enemy lines.
One such operation was launched out of Mongolia and had the aim of
destroying rail infrastructure and disrupting supply. In early 1904, a series
of detachments were formed with a view to organizing sabotage opera-
tions out of a base that was set up in the capital of the Qaračin tribe’s
domain in Mongolia (now Inner Mongolia), where from the plan was to
simultaneously wreak havoc on the railway network. It was audacious and
ambitious, and would have had a significant impact if successful. In early
April, Yokogawa Shōzō led a detachment from the Qaračin capital to
Qiqihar in Siberia, which had historically been a major trading link between
China and Russia. They arrived in Qiqihar on the 11th of April and
attempted to demolish a bridge to the West of the city the next day. The
attempt was unsuccessful and two leaders of the detachment, Yokogawa
Shōzō and Oki Teisuke were apprehended and then taken to Harbin,
where they were executed. Their fate was widely reported in the media
and they were feted as national heroes—it did in any case much to consoli-
date anti-Russian sentiment among the public and confirm the national
commitment to the conflict.16
As with the previous war with China, there were instances of heroic
exploits and deeds of self-sacrifice that were latched onto and used to gen-
erate celebrated war heroes. One of the first “divine fallen”, gunshin (軍
神), to be lionized was a sailor named Hirose Takeo who died during the
second attempted blockade of the harbour on 27th of March. He had
penned a particularly poignant and stoic poem contemplating his likely
demise and it became something of a sensation. Unlike the previous major
war of 1894–1895, however, not all commentators were quite as eager to
be completely uncritical of how the war was being sold to the public. In
fact Natsume Sōseki, for instance, was openly sceptical of the merits of
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 137

Hirose’s poem and even some of the motivations behind having written it
in the first place.17 The sheer scale of the mobilization meant that young
men were being torn from their home towns and villages from one end of
the empire to the other—for many it was the first time to experience a
major metropolis before embarking on the troop ships that would take
them to the battle zones. The exhilaration of being cheered by flag-waving
citizens and choruses of “banzai!” was tempered by the poignancy of leav-
ing their rural homes for quite possibly the last time. An awareness of this
would most likely have been acute among the body of young soldiers as
well as the elderly in the crowd who knew all too well what lay in store.
And there were no special circumstances for even the well-connected and
higher-ranking officers. On the 26th of May, the Second Army conducted
a full-frontal attack on the Russian positions at Nanshan to the north of
Port Dalny and Port Arthur and in this engagement Nogi Katsusuke, the
eldest son of General Nogi Maresuke, was killed.18
Apart from the feting of heroes and noble deeds, there was of course
the continued generation of patriotic commentary along with the penning
of military songs and the production of colour illustrations—compared
with the previous war of 1894–1895, this war did have certain parallels.
Although there was not quite the mass fervour for colour woodblock
prints that kept both artists and publishers flush for the duration of the
previous conflict, it is nonetheless surprising the degree to which the prac-
tice continued, and some of the same artists remained to the fore—
Toshihide, Toshikata and Kiyochika chief among them. As some
commentators have noted, there were even instances where the stances of
certain notable heroes or the composition of previously ‘successful’ depic-
tions of action from the previous conflict were more or less replicated.19
This should not surprise us entirely, as it had always been part of the ethos
inherent to popular culture and literature to routinely mine precedent for
inspiration, to indicate respect or highlight a depth of continuity. There
was also an unsurprising parallel in the manner in which popular theatrical
productions were generated with great success as well.
Mori Ō gai and Kunikida Doppo also reemerged with significant roles
in the war period. Ō gai was once again seconded to the war front as a
high-ranking medical officer and on this occasion penned a literary work,
Verse Diary, that has attracted some scholarly attention but has not become
a widely read or acknowledged addition to his oeuvre. Aoyama Tomoko
has highlighted the influence of the travel diary genre of diary that has its
roots in Heian literature, noting that Ō gai was carrying a copy of the
138 A. SWALE

Man’yōshu during his sojourn on the battlefield and had penned the
‘verses’ in yamato kotoba. Kunikida Doppo did not travel to the front but
he was nonetheless active on the home front as editor for the The Wartime
Graphic (Senji Gahō), a publication adapted by the owner Yano Ryūkei (a
veteran of Meiji newspaper publishing) from an existing illustrated news-
paper Kinji Gaho ̄ (see Fig. 5.1). Sakai Yū has noted Kunikida’s earlier stint
as arch-patriot during the Sino-Japanese War but argues persuasively that
he had privately come to regret the jingoism and was indeed hoping to

Fig. 5.1 Senji Gahō, 10 June, 1904, Kinji Gahōsha. (Courtesy of the International
Research Centre for Japanese Studies, Kyoto)
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 139

aspire to something more constructive and humane. With copious illustra-

tions provided by the eminent artist Kosugi Misei, Kunikida walked a
subtle line between support for the war and a nuanced appreciation of its
human cost.20 The author who did make it to the front apart from Ō gai
was Tayama Katai, the famed “Naturalist” writer who would following the
war produce some of his most well-known works, The Quilt (1907) and
Country Teacher (1909). Again Aoyama notes the rather stark contrast
with Ō gai’s highly literary response to the war—Tayama also wrote a
record of his experience but it was clear that he was quite overwhelmed by
the intensity of the experience and the enormity of what one might only
try to grasp in fleeting fragments of observation (Aoyama, 1999, 60–70).
Apart from the Senji Gahō, which ran from February 1904 to November
1905, there were several other heavily illustrated gahō magazines that
sprung up either as special editions separate from a parent publication or
as completely freshly minted publications. The publisher Hakubunkan
produced an offshoot of the Nichiro Sensō Jikki, which was entitled Nichiro
Sensō Shashin Gahō and it ran from April of 1904 to December of 1905.
Another leading publisher, Fuzanbō, produced the Gunkoku Gaho ̄ run-
ning from April 1904 to October of the following year and the publisher
Jitsugyō no Nihonsha issued the Seiro Shashin Gachō which ran from
August of 1904 to February of 1906. Together, these four titles were the
most prolific and successful but they were complemented by a number of
other titles including Tōyōdō’s Seiro Zukai produced as a special edition
separate from the parent title Fūzoku Gahō and the more niche Shōnen
Shashin Gaho ̄ (Ikubunsha), and Nichiro Sensō Gaikoku Gahō (Kinji
Gahōsha), among many others. The success of these publications was in
some cases extraordinary—the first edition of the Senji Gahō sold 50,000
copies while the Nichiro Sensō Shashin Gaho ̄ sold a staggering 335,000
copies through twenty-three print runs.21
The appeal of these publications stemmed from the combination of
copious photographic images, reproduced as either lithographs or copper
plate prints, with more traditional multichrome nishikie woodblock prints.
As Ishihara Wasaburō, one of the editors of the Gunkoku Gaho ̄ opined, the
images drafted by an artist “depicted the affairs of the world as a form of
poetry produced through the interaction of the brush and the artist’s
imagination” while a photographic image “depicted things of the world as
they actually exist”. It was not so much a matter of one being inherently
superior to the other but that there was a kind of distinct functionality that
would appeal in differing ways. The artistically produced sketch had a
140 A. SWALE

distinct resonance that appealed to imagination while the photograph

gave people a direct impression of circumstances on the ground. The war
was in a sense a “great tumultuous drama” (daikatsugeki, 大活劇) that the
public were eager to see presented to them in multiple ways. It is true that
the woodblock print did not garner quite the same proportion of visual
representations compared with the previous war with China but this rep-
resents the result of a number of subtle influences and impacts rather than
a down-grading of their merits altogether. One primary impact came from
the transformation of image production technology—it was simply more
cost-effective to have images produced in one place by essentially one set
of technicians when compared to the rather distributed and diverse pro-
duction process entailed in the production of the woodblock print where
the initial draft of the artist would be turned into a carved woodblock by
an expert carver and then individually run off in a printer’s workshop. The
second factor was the fact that those who had beloved relatives fighting
and dying overseas put a premium on tangibility and verifiable records of
conditions as they actually were on the front. They would never get a
physical keepsake and so the more ‘veracious’ the depiction the better.22
This demand for visual veracity was reflected in the works of a number
of nishikie artists. Kiyochika has already been noted for his almost photo-­
real attention to lighting and form. This style was more generalized by the
time of the war and there were others who were able to emulate his dis-
tinctive perspective. As with the previous conflict with China, the works of
Migita Toshihide figure as being of a high order in terms of graphic detail,
colouring and composition. He was joined by his fellow disciple of the
Yoshitoshi stable, Mizuno Toshikata as well as Toshikata’s own disciple
Kaburagi Kiyokata. But there were new names appearing, most notably
Ryūa(柳蛙), Kyōgo (耕漁), and Gessan (月三), along with the Otake
brothers, Kunimi and Takeba. There were in fact an extensive number of
woodblock artists contributing to the illustrated magazines discussed
above but the tendency now was to feature woodblocks at the beginning
of the publication as kuchie (口絵), a frontispiece of sorts for the remain-
der of the material to be presented.23
There were some new tendencies that emerged in relation to the con-
tent and composition of woodblock prints of this period. First of all,
because there was so much action going on between the Japanese and
Russian navies, naval engagements featured much more significantly than
the previous conflict with China. There were also more dynamic depic-
tions of Japanese and Russian sailors combatting on the decks of ships,
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 141

which was not altogether inconceivable given the occasional direct skir-
mishes between torpedo boats and other smaller vessels. Searchlights used
in night encounters also feature and they provide a dramatic point of con-
trast in the composition or even literally spotlight action within the frame.
Kiyochika continued to feature naval encounters in imaginative ways,
either depicting the results of an engagement with exploding or burning
ships in the twilight, or depicting action beneath as well as above the water
as seen in his “Our Torpedo on Target to Make a Direct Hit on a Russian
Battleship in the Great Naval Battle of Port Arthur” (旅順ノ大海戦ニ我
水雷命中スル露艦之図). Another significant characteristic is the manipu-
lation of perspective. In many of the depictions of land battles there were
of course the more conventional large-scale encounters between two sets
of attacking forces from left and right with a climactic encounter in the
centre of the frame. What stands out in contrast to these scenes though is
the number of occasions where the figures are Japanese soldiers grouped
facing away from the viewer toward the enemy, either as an artillery place-
ment or a detachment preparing to charge, so that one is given the feeling
of being in the setting and witnessing the events unfold in situ. One final
salient trend was the tendency to choose cavalry forces as the main figures
within the image. Unlike earlier woodblocks that would tend to have a
single figure in a climactic moment of striking down an enemy, there were
a number of prints that depicted cavalry charges. This was slightly disin-
genuous as even foreign correspondents noted that the Japanese forces
had limited reserves of cavalry and were forced to rely on massed infantry
charges, often with heavy casualties. From an artistic perspective, however,
massed horses in a charge provided an opportunity to present a level of
intensity and spectacle that was hard to let pass. Ohara Koson’s “Our
Army’s Charge at the Intense Battle of Jiuliancheng” (九連城蛤膜塘之激
戦我軍大捷) is highly representative and Kiyochika also provides us with
one of the best examples with his “Advance of the Konoe Artillery
Brigade” (「近衛砲隊之進軍」).
In addition to domestic attempts to create a visual record of the conflict
through a combination of traditional media and more recently developed
printing techniques, there was also considerable interest from European
and American publications. Chief of these would be The Illustrated London
News and The Graphic in England, along with L’illustration in France, and
there were a number of lithographs that were reprinted in Japanese publi-
cations. It is arguable that the trend towards creating a sense of in situ
observation was in some regards fostered through observation of the
142 A. SWALE

visual style of these illustrations, and it is noteworthy that a large number

of images, even when produced in Japan, would be accompanied by a
translated caption in English. In point of fact, the Senji Gaho ̄ even had
“The Japanese Graphic” inserted in its masthead, so there was no small
degree of awareness of the English language precedents.
As for how the foreign press viewed the conflict, it would be accurate
to say that there was keen interest across the board—this was the first
major armed conflict between two similarly armed modern fighting forces.
There would if nothing else be ‘lessons to be learned’. Initially in Britain
there was a degree of trepidation as there were, quite understandably, con-
cerns that the newly minted alliance with Japan would see England directly
embroiled in the conflict or at loggerheads with France. As it turned out,
the declarations of neutrality from all parties held and the home audience
in Europe was presented with detailed commentary and richly illustrated
depictions of the war supplied by a sizable contingent of correspondents
who had been dispatched to the theatre of war. As Alexander Nordlund
has described in one of the few detailed discussions of foreign commen-
tary on the war, the British press was broadly sympathetic towards the
Japanese—as one might well expect given the alliance—but there was also
a degree of bafflement and incomprehension. Nordlund highlights how
the case of Japan’s becoming capable of taking on one of the Western
powers through having adopted Western technology and military organi-
zation made it indeed ‘one of the club’ but the ethnicity of the Japanese
made it also something that was intuitively hard to fathom. This was
indeed, as he argues, counter-factual to the conventional modes of
Orientalist discourse that casts the Far East as populated by despotic and
cruel traditionalist regimes incapable of modernization. What emerged,
rather paradoxically was an ‘othering’ of both the Japanese and the
Russians, with the Russian imperial regime tarnished with negative asso-
ciations of despotism and bureaucratic incompetence. As for the Japanese,
there was an acknowledgement that they were indeed militarily competent
but the prevalence of the evocation of martial spirit based in Bushido was
in part admired, the feeling being that in fact Western European nations
had become ‘soft’ in the intervening years of burgeoning industrial and
commercial power. At the same time, the sheer ferocity of Japanese attacks
on land engendered a certain unease—this was a combination of ‘civilized’
and ‘uncivilized’ that some felt ought to be viewed with caution.24 There
was also increasing criticism of the manner in which the Japanese Imperial
Army resorted to the totally unimaginative tactic of conducting frontal
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 143

daylight assaults on heavily defended machine-gun positions, invariably

with catastrophic loss of life (the irony of course is that these lessons were
not learnt at all well by the British army in the conflict that erupted a
decade later).
The engagements on land that were to prove extraordinarily costly and
without precedent up until that point, followed the successful occupation
of the port of Dalny north-east of Port Arthur in late May. The Japanese
Third Army began disembarking at the port on the 6th of June and pre-
pared to make the arduous push towards Port Arthur over land. It was
soon after this development that the Tsar decided on the 20th of June to
rename the Russian Baltic Fleet the Second Pacific Squadron and dispatch
it to the Far East. On the 23rd, the Russian fleet at Port Arthur attempted
to break out and sail for Vladivostok but was thwarted by the Japanese
navy. A land siege was laid on Port Arthur from the 30th. In early July, the
Japanese Government made efforts to develop a peace proposal and sound
out the willingness of the Russian Government to negotiate. Elsewhere,
the Japanese army continued its push towards Liaoyang in Manchuria and
thereby cut-off rail links to the peninsula. The attempt to broker a peace
was fruitless and on August 20th the attempt by the Third Army to take
the hills surrounding Port Arthur to the East commenced. It ended in
very limited gains with the loss of some 16,000 killed and wounded caus-
ing General Nogi to pause and regroup. Seeing the futility of repeating
attacks on the same hills to the east, Nogi receiving advice from General
Kodama shifted focus to include a hill to the north-west of the port desig-
nated as “203-meter Hill” as it afforded a direct line of sight on the port.
A second major assault was undertaken on the 29th of October but this
too ended in failure and entailed massive casualties on the Japanese side.
After a brief respite the attack was renewed in earnest on the 26th of
November and 203-meter Hill was successfully taken on the 5th of
December. This operation also entailed massive casualties, but with this
strategic coup the fate of Port Arthur was sealed and the Second Pacific
Squadron was still only traversing the West coast of Africa. From 203-­
meter Hill the Japanese artillery could direct artillery fire on the town and
vessels in the harbour. Lieutenant General Anatolii Stessel, the commander
of the port decided to surrender on the 1st of January 1905, and the fol-
lowing day the port was occupied by the Japanese.25
So Port Arthur was captured, and seemingly a major strategic victory
had been achieved but it had come at an enormous cost. In this phase of
the conflict during the second half of 1904, the scale of the carnage and
144 A. SWALE

futility of repeated large-scale attacks was not lost on the home front.
General Nogi, previously the hero of the capture of Port Arthur in the
Sino-Japanese War had his reputation severely tarnished, to the extent that
there were instances of vocal criticism and citizens tossing abusive missives
into the precinct of his residence in Tokyo. Morale amongst the troops in
the field was not impervious either. A high-ranking army surgeon, Tsuruta
Teijirō, maintained a record of his experiences in A Diary of Service in the
Russo-Japanese War Campaigns (『日露戦争戦役』) and details how he
witnessed not only the appalling rates of death and maiming but also dealt
with the cases of soldiers reporting unfit for duty for a variety of reasons.
Not only were there soldiers presenting with the common afflictions of
dysentery, beriberi and symptoms of syphilis and gonorrhea, but an
increasing number of soldiers were appearing who had clearly inflicted
wounds on themselves to avoid service. His principle means of telling the
difference was the circumference of the exit wounds and traces of powder
burn at the entry point. He noted that as the second attack on Port Arthur
commenced in late October of 1904 the number of soldiers with self-­
inflicted wounds increased dramatically and came to include officers
as well.26
Foreign commentators on the prosecution of the war were apt to take
the loud and vociferous evocations of the Bushido spirit and its hold on
the minds of Japanese soldiers at face value with little questioning of its
pervasiveness. It certainly was true that the repeated spectacle of Japanese
soldiers unflinchingly sallying en masse towards the enemy positions with
apparently scant regard for their own lives left a marked impression. And
as the record of prisoners of war taken suggests—there were approximately
79,000 Russian prisoners of war taken by the Japanese as compared to
under 3000 Japanese prisoners of war taken by the Russians—the Japanese
fought to the end with little thought of seeking quarter. At the same time,
however, it should be noted that the Japanese took, by almost all accounts,
extremely good care of the Russian prisoners of war under their ward.
Japan had established a branch of the Red Cross and trained a corps of
Red Cross nurses who were seen to parade down the streets of Tokyo
before embarking to field hospitals. The commitment to this care was
regarded as imperative for Japan presenting itself as the civilized party in
the conflict, and certainly any opportunity to depict the Russian soldier as
unruly or violent to civilians wasn’t missed. As the war situation with Japan
deteriorated and morale amongst the Russian troops began to evaporate,
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 145

there were indeed significant lapses in discipline leading to drunken vio-

lence and robbery, particularly on the part of the Cossacks.27
As for the home front, Lafcadio Hearn was to comment on the Japanese
civilian population as being remarkably cheerful and positive during the
course of the hostilities, noting of course that evidence of the toll was
being seen increasingly on the streets of Tokyo. The fact is that there was
something of a sombre pall that fell onto the home population as was evi-
denced by the precipitous decline in attendance at Sumo wrestling tourna-
ments. These typically attracted sell-out crowds and enjoyed a lively
coverage from the press, including blow-by-blow illustrated accounts of
final bouts between great rivals in which the tournament victor would be
decided. With the advent of war, these were dialed down somewhat and if
we were to take the case of the Miyako Shinbun and the Yamato Shinbun
as two contrasting instances, it could be said that while the Miyako
Shinbun continued to run serialized novels and commentary on theatre
and popular entertainments, the Yamato Shinbun took a decidedly sub-
dued turn.
From even as early as middle of 1903, the Yamato Shinbun began to
step back from illustrated novels, the quality of the illustrations being pal-
pably quite cursory, and then by the end of 1903 non-existent altogether.
From the commencement of war there appeared small portraits of com-
manding officers in the Imperial Army or Navy or images from the war
front. The tendency was to prefer photographs. By mid-1904, there
appeared a series of vignettes which featured widows of fallen servicemen
with an accompanying outline of the circumstances in which their loved
ones had died, heroically of course, and the stoic resignation and devotion
to duty of the bereaved. The tone was indeed somewhat funereal. So while
entertainments continued after a fashion, there was never a sense that the
dreadful impact of the war was never too far away.28
One of the entertainments that civilians felt was perfectly acceptable in
a time of war was the simple venturing out into one of the parks in the city.
Hibiya Park was particularly popular and the cherry blossom season of
Spring 1904 saw citizens throng to such places for the innocent pleasure
of promenading and gathering with friends and family. This was also partly
reflective of a shift in government thinking about the merits of popular
amusements for the general population. Initially a somewhat novel idea, it
had become accepted that a working week with a modicum of respite was
in fact highly conducive to a more healthy and productive citizenry who
in turn might be less inclined towards disgruntlement and resentment
146 A. SWALE

towards the government. In August of 1905, the government even erected

a band rotunda in Hibiya Park where military bands performed on either
a Saturday or a Sunday. This was later followed by performances of Western
music including operatic music although it was met to some extent by
incomprehension by many spectators who found the music entirely unfa-
miliar and alienating. It was, in any case, a replication of the kind of scene
played out in the capitals of Europe and was regarded as part and parcel of
Japan being on a par with their Western counterparts.29
Not all developments in popular entertainment were completely deaf to
the very human need for moments of levity and humour. One quite
remarkable development, which certainly did not conform to the broader
social sobriety, was the emergence of a new comedic form that had its
roots in the entertainment culture of Osaka. Soganoya Gorō (original
name Wada Hisaichi) was born in Osaka in 1877 and originally trained in
Kabuki performance under Nakamura Sangorō. After debuting in 1893,
he continued to hone his craft but by 1902 he had become somewhat
disillusioned with a career in kabuki and in 1903 he teamed up with a fel-
low stable-mate, who changed his performance name to Soganoya Jūrō,
and together they formed the “Soganoya Brothers Comedy Duo”. After
performing with great success in Osaka they transformed their comedic
act to Tokyo in 1904 and, rather surprisingly, made a great hit performing
material that used the war as its basis. This collaboration was to have long-­
term significance as together they established a tradition that formed the
basis for a new comedy style, shinkigeki (新喜劇) which eventually
morphed into the famous Shōchiku Shinkigeki established in 1948 follow-
ing the Second World War.30
One of the other major innovations in popular entertainment was of
course cinema, or “moving photographs” (katsudō shashin活動写真) as
they were known. Initially introduced in Kobe in 1892, there was an
immediate fever of interest and slowly but surely equipment for creating
and projecting such images was disseminated amongst the public that
could afford them. By the Russo-Japanese War there were a number of
places where films were exhibited, but given the times almost all of the
content was related to the ongoing war. Nonetheless, this would serve as
an important foundational phase for ensuring that the grip of cinematic
images on the popular imagination would be strong and indeed after the
cessation of war the move to gradually develop more domestic and non-
military themed content prevailed. Sound recording devices also enjoyed
considerable popularity at this time. Initially introduced in the late 1880s
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 147

and even demonstrated to members of Cabinet including Itō Hirobumi,

Inoue Kaoru and Mori Arinori at the Rokumeikan in 1889, the technol-
ogy of “sound storing devices” (chikuonki, 蓄音機) became established
and slowly spread. In October of 1903, the shop Tenshōdō in Ginza
began to import and sell cylinder records and playing devices from the
United States. Locally recorded content began to emerge as well, includ-
ing performances of gidayu ̄, gunka (military songs) and rakugo.31
By the time of the winding down of hostilities in June of 1905 and the
commencement of peace negotiations mediated by President Theodore
Roosevelt, the range and variety of media employed to depict contempo-
rary developments had diversified markedly. The emphasis had come to be
on actual scenes witnessed in person by correspondents and, perhaps again
in emulation of what was being seen with foreign artists following the
conflict at the front, Japanese artists began to adapt their skills to make
sketches and paint watercolour scenes in situ—material that was lapped up
by the press at home. There were a number of highly trained artists sup-
plying this material such as Miyake Katsumi、Kubota Kinsen and Ishikawa
Kin’ichirō but there was also a welcoming of the works of skilled amateurs
or even servicemen on the front. A particularly significant case was a
sequence of sketches by a Lieutenant Kōno Michiyoshi who fell at the
battle for Liaoyang and had his works published posthumously in the
November edition of Nichiro Sensō Shashin Gahō. What unified all these
visual outputs was a commitment to a more personal and intimate per-
spective, along with a willingness to adapt artistic techniques to the
demands for easily reproduced lithographs. This meant that subtly but
surely the aesthetics of woodblock prints were retained to some extent,
particularly in terms of composition and the depiction of human forms,
but this was transposed to a new idiom of representation. Perhaps one of
the most indicative instances of how this fusion was emerging can be
found, for instance, in Koyama Shōtarō’s poignant treatment of the image
of Japanese cavalry in “Patrolling the Banks of the Yalu River”(「鴨緑江
畔偵察の図」). Koyama was trained in Western artistic techniques but the
manner in which the moon is partially subsumed amongst night-time
clouds at the top centre and casts down a bright path of light from the
midground of the river to the foreground where a group of mounted cav-
alrymen are grouped in a conference over a map lit by a torch, reflects
rather typical aesthetic conventions of nishikie composition. It is also
highly reminiscent of the kinds of treatment of a night scene and the skill-
ful deployment of light found in the work of Kiyochika.32
148 A. SWALE

The progress of the war from 1904 through to early 1905 was accord-
ingly marked with a sense of elation at the fall of Port Arthur but also
tinged with grief. Unfortunately, the war was far from over. From January
into February the armies to the north-east set to a military confrontation
that had been unprecedented in human history. There were over half a
million soldiers altogether on both sides arraigned over a 150-kilometer
front. It was prescient of the scale of conflict that would be seen in the
First World War made possible by nearly universal conscription, the logis-
tics of mass-production of munitions and the development of mass trans-
port by rail. It has accordingly been characterized in recent research as
“World War Zero”.33 By the time that the Imperial Japanese Army was
turning its attention toward the north, the Trans-Siberian railway had
been completed and the commander of the Russian forces General Alexei
Kuropatkin now had a Second Army group under the leadership of General
Oskar Gripenberg. From the 20th of January until the 29th, Gripenberg
launched a surprise massed assault on the Japanese lines at Sandepu. It
almost succeeded but ground to a halt with Kuropatkin ordering
Gripenberg to withdraw with no major advantages gained in the engage-
ment. There were 16,000 casualties on the Russian side to Japan’s 10,000.
The Japanese were able to reinforce themselves and on the 20th of
February launched their own attack on Mukden. The front was some 80
kilometers long and the Japanese pressed in on the left and right. Fearing
encirclement, the Russians withdrew on the 10th of March with the loss
of some 90,000 dead and wounded.34
The fall of Mukden might well have signaled the end of the war for all
intents and purposes, but the lines of supply via Siberia continued to flow
and the renamed Baltic fleet was nearing the theatre of war. The Tsar was
not inclined to accept defeat and calculated, perhaps with some justifica-
tion, that Russia could simply win out over time through a prolonged war
of attrition with superior availability of resources. The decisive moment
did come, however, when the Second Pacific Squadron under Admiral
Zinovy Rozhestvensky attempted to pass through the Straits of Tsushima
en route to Vladivostok on the 27th of May. In a famous naval encounter,
the Japanese Imperial Navy under Admiral Tōgō annihilated the Russian
fleet—all battleships lost and only three smaller vessels making it to
Vladivostok. This startlingly complete victory did much to enhance the
prestige of the Japanese forces and change the complexion of any consid-
eration of future continuation of the war. The news of the victory at
Tsushima was greeted ecstatically at home and even President Theodore
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 149

Roosevelt of the United States thought it was an astounding statement of

Japanese military prowess. Still in contact with Baron Kaneko Kentarō, he
enthused at the significance of the outcome and warmly congratulated his
old friend.35
When President Roosevelt proposed a mediated peace settlement, there
was an appetite on both sides to engage in earnest. During protracted
negotiations at Portsmouth in the United States, it also became apparent
over time that Japan probably had just as much to lose by attempting to
protract the war—the reserves had been spent and resources were
stretched. The issue of paying an indemnity was the main sticking point.
The Russian negotiators remained staunch, making concessions over geo-
graphic spheres of influence but refusing outright to countenance an
indemnity. The Japanese government reluctantly accepted the terms.
In the case of Russia, it was already clear that the disastrous course of
the war was having a cataclysmic impact on domestic politics, with brutally
suppressed marches such as the Bloody Sunday of the 12th of April and
the famous mutiny of the battleship Potemkin soon after paving the way
for the eventual coup of 1907. What happened in Tokyo was almost
immediate and unexpectedly savage. With the announcement of the terms
of the Treaty of Portsmouth on the 5th of September 1905, a protest was
called for at Hibiya Park that evening. As the mass of citizens gathered at
the Park, they found it barricaded closed and protected by police officers.
The assembled crowd turned into a riotous mob and began to rampage
through the city centre, targeting police boxes, government buildings and
anything that could be linked to either Russia or the United States that
had brokered the agreement. Martial law was declared the next day and
the rioting suppressed.
In his essay, “Social Protest in Imperial Japan”, Andrew Gordon has
presented a highly accessible and nuanced account of the riot. Focusing on
the illustrated magazines that had sprung up during the Russo-Japanese
War, such as the Senji Gahō (『戦時画報』), he also highlights the specific
issue released by the same publisher as a special issue dealing with the riot,
the Tōkyō Sōjō Gaho ̄ (『東京騒擾画報』) on the 18th of September 1905,
just under two weeks after the event.36 Through a deft analysis of the visual
records, photographs and graphic illustrations by roving reporters, along
with a careful review of records regarding arrests and incidents, Gordon is
able to provide an insight into the fact that perhaps the most immediate
spark for the unrest was not just anger towards the persons involved in
negotiating an immensely dissatisfying peace settlement, but the act of the
150 A. SWALE

authorities to attempt to close down Hibiya Park as a venue of protest. In

the public mind, the park was synonymous with a constitutional right to
express the views of the people and to barricade it shut was incensing in
the extreme.37 It should also be recalled that parks such as Hibiya Park and
Ueno Park had also been focal points for national solidarity, celebrations
and commemorations during both the wars, and there was a genuine sense
of ownership as a people.
Gordon highlights what had in fact become a tension between, on the
one hand, a combination of nationalist fervour and an unqualified rever-
ence of the Emperor, and a profound distrust and disregard for officers of
state on the other. The then prime minister, Katsura Tarō, was vilified not
only for being the leader presiding over the debacle of the Treaty, but also
a typical oligarch who was known to be routinely consorting with a geisha,
Okoi, who was his more or less live-in mistress. The fact that the buildings
targeted for attack were the residences of the Home Minister and Okoi,
not the residence of the Foreign Minister, suggests a venting of simmering
hatred for the officers of state immediately presiding over the population
on the home front. Police stations we attacked and set alight, as were
approximately three quarters of the police boxes in the city. One other
facet of the riot that Gordon uncovers is the possibility that it included a
broader cross section than the arrest figures suggest. The overwhelming
number of arrests were of persons from trades and assorted artisans, fol-
lowed closely by laborers and then a variety of smaller percentages of rick-
shaw drivers, students and others. The visual record of the riot in the case
of both photographs and sketches depicts persons dressed rather well for
‘low lifes’ and there were also women included even though theoretically
they were legally forbidden from participation in political activities and
protests. This was a societal event rather than a moment where the lower
classes were running amok. Kunikida Doppo, the editor of the Senji Gaho ̄,
was reported to have mused when gazing over the rooftops of the city
with pockets of fire and smoke rising here and there that maybe a revolu-
tion had in fact begun.38
In the event, calm was restored to the city. The final aspect of the riot
that Gordon discusses is the self-image of the population, one grounded
in an intense wish to find validation in the notion that Japan had indeed
become a modern, civilized nation like those in the West which was also
combined with an acute anxiety that somehow it was not going to be vali-
dated. The frontispiece of the To ̄kyō So ̄jō Gaho ̄ was aesthetically quite
sophisticated, presenting a stylized cross section of metropolitan figures
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 151

running in single file across the top, with an image accentuating the mod-
ern cityscape beneath. The Japanese nation, as a people beginning to share
a unified view of themselves, had arrived, and was beginning to assert itself
against the old ‘business as usual’ approach of the Meiji state.39
In one sense, the intensity of the feeling released at that moment was
entirely understandable. Yes, Japan had secured control over the Korean
peninsula, the south of Manchuria and the southern half of Sakhalin but
by September of 1905 the reality of how much the Japanese people, from
every corner of the country, had suffered and how much the country had
taken on and, more importantly, would need to continue to bear finan-
cially as a result of the war was acutely felt. For the citizenry, a redrawing
of the international ‘zones of influence’ was cold practical comfort for
domestic privations and the burden of increased taxation, both of which
would continue for some time. On another level, it is possible that perhaps
there was a gnawing irritation at the continued evocation of empire, bush-
ido and the nobility of sacrifice which was a thin mask for the fact that the
only sector of society that seemed to benefit were elites. Yes, the empire
was growing, but there was at this juncture little to commend it to the
rank and file.
Apart from these rather intense demonstrations of internal contradic-
tion and strain, there were, at the same time, certain aspects of urban life
that were beginning to fall into place and would in fact become integral to
a particularly modern Japanese milieu. Baseball, from relatively modest
beginnings, was emerging as part of the fabric of the annual sports calen-
dar, with a derby between the teams of Keiō Gijuku and Waseda University
becoming a new feature, and Waseda even sent its baseball team in June of
1905 to play against Stanford (Nihon, June 28, 1905; Kokumin Shinbun,
June 28, 1905). The supporters, in a manner not disconsonant with the
customs of expressing support even in the post-war period, became noted
for the intensity of their conflict with each other. The following year, the
third of a series of games scheduled to be played between Keiō and Waseda
was postponed indefinitely given concerns that the event could lead to an
outbreak of violence between the supporters of the two teams.40
In the world of urban retail there were some of the first department
stores being established, with traditional kimono merchants such as Mitsui
Gofukuten (三井呉服店) and Shirokiya(白木屋), establishing new multi-
storey premises, the latter boasting a new glass shop front. Mitsui
Gofukuten renamed itself as Mitsukoshi in December of 1904 and
Shirokiya would become the forerunner of the Tōkyū Hyakkaten. They
152 A. SWALE

were joined by Daimaru (大丸) and became known as the ‘big three’ in
downtown Tokyo.41 These commercial concerns, though obviously a tar-
get for vandalism during rioting, were nonetheless in part regarded as of a
piece with Japan’s progress and civilization, and were often described as
evidence of such in newspaper reports. Other notable milestones were the
establishment of the Morinaga store which specialized in the sale of con-
fectionaries, especially chocolate.42
The epoch of the Russo-Japanese War was a period of extraordinary
turmoil and change but if we were to perhaps seek a thread of continuity
within the performing arts and the popular tastes in entertainment then
the meteoric rise and sustained success of Tōchūken Kumoemon’s perfor-
mances of naniwa-bushi merit sustained attention. The career of Tōchūken
Kumoemon straddled either side of the Russo-Japanese War and reveals
the interaction of various strands of performance, particularly kōdan and
gidayū, and a process whereby a rather unlikely champion of national
morality and the Bushidō spirit emerged.
Tōchūken Kumoemon was from an unambiguously lowly background
having been born on the 25th of October, 1873, into a family of itinerant
exponents of the street performance genre deroren saimon. This was a
story-telling mode of sung performance with the recitation accompanied
by the shaking of a staff with jangling metal attachments. In 1887, his
father, Yamamoto Shigekichi, led the family to set up in one of the three
main slum areas of Tokyo, Shin’ami-chō, which had a strong association
with itinerant performers. Two years later, his father died and the young
Kōzō, as he was then known, embarked on a career as a performer of
naniwa-bushi. Naniwa-bushi was distinguished from deroren saimon by
the fact that it was accompanied by a shamisen player who would punctu-
ate the performance of the main artist with calls of encouragement and
responses. These performances were also increasingly being housed in the
yose theatres typically employed by kōdan and rakugo performers and
indeed the repertoire reflected an increasing affinity with the kōdan mate-
rial. In October of 1891 the authorities in Tokyo issued an edict that
closed down the street stalls used by the saimon performers, forcing many
of them to reassign themselves as exponents of naniwa-bushi.43
From 1889, the young Kōzō had become the disciple of Mikawaya
Baisha and by 1896 he was established enough to take the name Shigekichi
II based on the name of his father. From this time, he became intimate
with Baisha’s wife Ohama who was one of the finest shamisen players in
Tokyo. In February of 1898, they eloped to the Kansai region causing a
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 153

major scandal. There, taking the name Tōchūken Kumoemon, he per-

formed at the yose of Kyoto and Osaka. Following the death of Baisha,
both Kumoemon and Ohama returned to Tokyo in March of 1900. At
one performance held in Shiba on the 23rd of March, a rather fateful
meeting occurred as Miyazaki Torazō, known in fact more widely by his
pen-name Tōten, introduced himself. Tōten who hailed from Kumamoto
and had been active in China fomenting political agitation in support of
Sun Yat-sen, had become active since 1900 as a journalist for the Niroku
Shinpō but had since also developed a desire to take up naniwa-bushi.
Soon after, Tōten became a formal disciple of Kumoemon.
Things did not go smoothly for Kumoemon from this point—he strug-
gled to support himself and his partner, encountering competition from
fresh young performers such as Naniwatei Aizō who had developed an
ardent following based on his vocal prowess and good looks. Kumoemon
decamped to Kansai yet again in late 1902 and thence to Tōten’s home
base in Kumamoto. Tōten remained in Tokyo for another year before also
capitulating to the pressures of being in financial straits. Even so, the con-
nection with Tōten was to have fateful consequences. While in Kumamoto
Kumoemon developed associations with local eminent figures, thanks to
Tōten’s introduction which included members of the Genyōsha, the right-­
wing activist association. Tōten had also introduced Kumoemon prior to
leaving Tokyo to Koga Renzō, a rising bureaucrat who would eventually
become the head of the police bureau within the Home Ministry. He was
an avid believer in the utility of naniwa-bushi in countering the decadent
and ‘effeminate’ tastes of the modern citizenry.44
Ironically, after Tōten returned to Kumamoto in July of 1903, the pair
had a major falling out. Tōten found the incessant gambling, drinking and
womanizing of Kumoemon rather too much to bear even for himself, and
so there was a parting of the ways. By this stage, however, Kumoemon had
the attention of the local audience and, more importantly, the kinds of
patronage that could open doors in high places. From 1903 on to the
duration of the war, Kumoemon consolidated his fame and began to focus
almost exclusively on the ‘Forty-seven Rōnin’ stories, the Akō Gishi (赤穂
義士) tales, or Gishi for short. By the end of 1906, Kumoemon sensed that
maybe the time was ripe to venture back toward Tokyo and see how far he
could re-establish himself. After a successful stint in Kansai, including
quite remarkably a performance in Kobe before a member of the Imperial
family, Princess Arisugawa, Kumoemon’s entourage set out for Tokyo and
in June of 1907 made a dazzling debut at the Hongō-za (see Fig. 5.2 for
154 A. SWALE

Fig. 5.2 Frontispiece from Engei Gaho,̄ July 1907. (Courtesy of the International
Research Centre for Japanese Studies, Kyoto)

a striking photographic portrait of Kumoen from this period). His perfor-

mance, which entailed setting up screens with Akō Gishi -related motifs
and his own costume resonant with early Restoration shishi (志士), had
immediacy and impact, as Kumoemon apparently had a very strong and
sonorous voice and could sustain notes to extraordinary lengths due to
having perfected the technique of inhaling through his nose while still
vocalizing. The shimasen accompanist, Ohama, was kept concealed behind
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 155

a screen, which further focused attention on Kumoemon exclusively (it

has also been suggested that this was to protect Ohama from reproachful
staring). The crowning achievement was a performance at the Kabuki-za,
the bastion of cultural conservativism, from 15th July, 1912.
What was the secret to Kumoemon’s success? Clearly a combination of
raw talent and charisma mixed with commercial savvy and influential
patronage played their part. But as Hyōdō suggests with reference to a
critic’s assessment in the November issue of Engei Kurabu, the simple fact
was that Kumoemon presented powerful stories that resonated with the
concerns of ordinary people and did so in a way that was easy to under-
stand and listen to. There was of course the ongoing irony that Kumoemon
was purporting to be ‘educating the masses’, and that he could even claim
lineage to a samurai family, which was in fact fictitious. He was something
of a conundrum in that, so far as his personal background and daily dissi-
pations were concerned, he could not be considered as a paragon. Yet his
was one of the most stunning achievements of the late Meiji period, in that
he almost single-handedly transformed naniwa-bushi into the dominant
performance genre, supplanting to a considerable extent the previously
ubiquitous kōdan and gidayū. Following the death of the Meiji
Emperor, he continued to experience huge success, earning as much as
83,000 yen in 1913. This was, unfortunately the prelude to a rather steep
descent towards his demise. He was notoriously bad at handling his money
and when he finally succumbed in 1916 to the tuberculosis that had
claimed his partner Ohama in 1914, he was mired in debt and had few
personal possessions.45
Consequently, while the government would, quite justifiably in certain
regards, see this as an era of “popular disturbances” (minshū sōjo ̄ki, 民衆騒
擾期) it was nonetheless the case that the beginnings of a new form of
confidence in the urban populace was beginning to emerge and even
amongst the poorer sectors of that population glimmers of improvement
and progress were beginning to be sensed. As Huffman outlined in the
chapter entitled “The Sun Also Shone: Embracing Life” (2018), there
were an increasing number of amusements that city dwellers of all stations
could enjoy. There were the promenades near long-established places of
congregation such as Yasaka Shrine in Osaka or Asakusa Temple in Tokyo,
or the new places of relatively inexpensive entertainments such as the con-
cert stand in Hibiya Park, the zoological garden at Ueno Park and of
course the Ryo ̄unkaku tower and its precincts already alluded to. If there
was a sector of Japanese society that was doing it particularly hard it was
156 A. SWALE

the population of the rural regions, as would be underscored in the Great

Northern Famine of 1905–1906. Otherwise, the stage was set for a fur-
ther decade (covered in the ensuing chapter) where rambunctious citizens
of various backgrounds occasionally flexed their collective muscle to the
consternation of the authorities, while consolidating self-awareness and
aspirations that were beginning to become increasingly strident and poten-
tially capable of transforming Japanese society.46

Notes
1. Ō hama (2003, 78–88).
2. Zachmann (2009, 154–156).
3. Jiji Shinpō, 1st of January, 1901. For original text see Suzuki (1995, Vol. 7,
10–11).
4. Kurata (1980, 136).
5. Ibid., 116–130.
6. Ibid., 136. Specifically in Japanese「尾藤先生に歌はれば本暴だ」.
7. Ō hama (op. cit., 108–109).
8. Ibid., 101–120.
9. Ibid., 90–97.
10. Paine (2017, 49–54).
11. Ibid., 55–57.
12. Ō hama (op. cit., 121–125).
13. Ibid., 125–126.
14. Ō hama (ibid., 132–134), Paine (op. cit., 54–55).
15. Ō hama (ibid., 125–126).
16. Ibid., 115–120.
17. Ō hama (ibid., 99–100); for a more generalized discussion of pessimism
and ambivalence pervading popular sentiments, see Shimazu Naoko’s
“Patriotic and Despondent: Japanese Society at War, 1904–5.” The Russian
Review (Stanford) 67, no. 1 (2008): 34–49.
18. Ō hama (ibid., 140–141).
19. A quite remarkable collection of digitized materials has been assembled
and presented publicly on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Vizualizing Culture platform; in connection with woodblock prints as they
evolved from the Sino-Japanese War through to the Russo-Japanese War
note John Dower’s Throwing of Asia series, 2008, as sourced at: https://
visualizingcultures.mit.edu/throwing_off_asia_01/index.html.
20. Sakai (2021, 797–824).
21. Kōgo (2013, 80–83).
22. Ibid., 87–89.
23. Ibid., 83–87.
 5 THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR—THE DARK VICTORY 157

24. Nordlund 2015, 28–46.

25. Ō hama (op. cit., 145–150), Paine (2017, 66–67).
26. Ibid., 142–145.
27. Ibid., 161–165.
28. Yamato Shinbun had a palpably high-quality illustrated newspaper on a par
with the Miyako Shinbun, but the gradual departure from elegantly illus-
trated serialized novels and a rather funereal ambiance.
29. Kurata (op. cit., 179–180), Aoki (2004, 233–247).
30. Murakami (2013, 1–15).
31. Kurata (op. cit., 196–197).
32. Kōgo (op. cit., 86–91).
33. See Steinberg, John W. and David Wolff. The Russo-Japanese War in Global
Perspective: World War Zero. Vol. 29, Brill, 2005.
34. Paine (op. cit., 49–50 & 67–68).
35. Ibid., 69–71.
36. See Andrew Gordon, “Social Protest in Imperial Japan: The Hibiya Riot of
1905” The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Volume 12, Issue 29,
Number 3 for an open access reproduction of the original MIT Visualizing
Cultures essay.
37. Gordon (2012, 1–10).
38. Ibid., 10–34. For some of the most comprehensive coverage of the riot see
the September 6th edition of the Tokyō Asahi Shinbun as reproduced in
Nakayama (1982, Vol. 12, 486–489).
39. Ibid., 35–41.
40. Jiji Shinpō, November 12, 1906. For original reportage see Suzuki (1995,
Vol. 7, 117–121).
41. Regarding Shirokiya’s development see Hōchi Shinbun July 25, 1903 and
regarding Mitsui Gofukuten’s transformation into the Mitsukoshi store see
Chūgai Sho ̄gyo ̄ December 14 1904.
42. See Ho ̄chi Shinbun September 14, 1903 and Jiji Shinpo ̄ March 14,
1906. See Suzuki (1995, Vol. 7, 55–58).
43. This account is largely based on Hyōdō and Smith’s “Singing Tales of the
Gishi: “Naniwabushi” and the Forty-Seven Rōnin in Late Meiji Japan.”
published in Monumenta Nipponica 61, no. 4, (2006), 459–508. It is itself
a translation based on material originally published by Hyōdō in Japanese,
“Koe” no kokumin kokka, Nihon (NHK Bukkusu, 2000).
44. Hyōdō and Smith (ibid., 490–494).
45. Ibid., 483–490, 501.
46. Regarding both the Hibiya riot and urban amusements see Huffman,
2018, 160–185. Regarding the development of Ueno Zoo see Miller, Ian
Jared. The Nature of the Beasts: Empire and Exhibition at the Tokyo Imperial
Zoo, University of California Press, 2013.
 CHAPTER 6

Meiji Twilight

The final years of the Meiji period would see the aspiration toward Empire
reach a defining watershed. It was the result of a stage-by-stage process of
eliminating external competitors over the previous two decades and then
moving in to take control. With China no longer the power it was when at
war fifteen years earlier, and Russia also now taken out of play, Japan
moved to formally annex the Korean Empire. Itō Hirobumi concluded an
arrangement in 1905 through the Japan-Korea Treaty whereby Korea
became a Protectorate of Japan. Itō continued to maintain a strong inter-
est in the management of the Protectorate and, although initially not in
favour of annexation, eventually acquiesced. His assassination on the 26th
of October 1909 accelerated the direction of events and on the 22nd of
August, 1910, a second Japan-Korea Treaty formalized the demise of the
Joseon Dynasty and Korea’s subjugation to direct Japanese rule.
In one sense, the clear fulfilment of an imperialist ideal that can be
traced to the advocacy of invading Korea in 1873 had been realized. But
just as the Russo-Japanese War had not generated unmixed enthusiasm for
war and the aims of the Meiji state, there were ructions on the domestic
front that were to reveal themselves with dramatic clarity. In the same year
of Korea’s annexation, police uncovered what they regarded as a nation-­
wide ring of conspirators who were planning to assassinate the Emperor
Meiji. Following initial arrests in May of 1910, a bewilderingly broad array
of alleged activists, ranging from Buddhist priests to intellectual figures
such as the anarchist Kōtoku Shūsui and his feminist common-law wife

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 159

Switzerland AG 2023
A. Swale, A Cultural History of Late Meiji Japan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43646-8_6
160 A. SWALE

Kanno Suga were taken into custody. The trial continued into January
1911 and on the 18th all but two of twenty-six persons arrested were sen-
tenced to death. An Imperial Edict spared twelve but the remaining
twelve, including Kōtoku and Kanno were executed thereafter (see Fig. 6.1
for a set of portraits of the persons executed).1
The High Treason Incident, as this series of arrests, prosecutions and
eventual executions came to be known, had deeper roots in a more

Fig. 6.1 Image from Kotoku Ippa Daigyakujiken Tenmatsu(『幸徳一派大逆事

件顛末 』Miyatake Gaikotsu, ed., Ryūginsha, 1946. (Courtesy of the National
Diet Library of Japan)
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 161

profound gap between the government’s imperial programme and the

sentiments of the public. The Hibiya Riot of September 1905 revealed
with stark clarity the degree to which this gap had already become
entrenched and potentially intractable at the beginning of the new cen-
tury. A profound transformation was afoot and the ensuing decade would
indicate that if anything the schism would intensify rather than be
attenuated.
There were three strands to the social causes that might be considered
pivotal to the intensification of this disjunct. The first was the continued
movement to ameliorate the condition of prostitutes in particular and
women more generally. Before Kanno Suga became the apparently would-
­be assassin of the Emperor, she had been involved in the domestic branch
of the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement and engaged in both on
the ground activism and activism through print media, becoming a lead-
ing editor in newspaper publishing. A second movement was rooted in an
intensified interest in Socialist and Anarchist thought. This stemmed from
simmering disaffection amongst a working population that was increas-
ingly drawn into a broader array of labour, with workers in heavy industry,
particularly mining, chafing at the conditions of employment and erupting
into violent protest. The Ashio Riot of 1907 is well-documented but there
were several other instances that also garnered national attention. The
third movement was more specifically cultural and can perhaps be sum-
marized as a drive to legitimate private pleasure and desire as opposed to
the traditional imperatives to subject these things to family and state. This
found adherents amongst a newly insurgent feminism, with a Japanese
‘Blue Stockings’ movement emerging that was represented by such colour-
ful figures as Hiratsuka Raichō, who explicitly argued for the right of
women to seek sexual pleasure on their own terms as well as become fully
enfranchised members of the political system. More broadly, in the realm
of literature, writers of the Naturalist school, such as Tayama Katai and
Shimazaki Tōson, along with Neo-Romanticist coevals such as Tanizaki
Jun’ichirō and Nagai Kafū, commonly articulated, despite stylistic differ-
ences, a perspective that broadly endorsed and validated individual interi-
ority and experience while acknowledging, if not embracing, sensuality
(apart from The Broken Commandment of 1906 which dealt with the fate
of a school teacher from a burakumin background, Shimazaki Tōson’s
later works would tend to confirm that characterization). Natsume Sōseki,
while not affiliating with either of these movements burst onto the literary
scene with two highly idiosyncratic novels, I Am a Cat (1905) and Botchan
162 A. SWALE

(1906), which also distinguish themselves as highly effective novels resting

on the fulcrum of a quirky individual narrator.
During the Russo–Japanese War, Yosano Akiko had penned the famous
poem Kimi that exhorted her brother not to die a senseless death in the
name of the Emperor. It was extraordinary for its forthrightness and pre-
dictably landed her in enormous trouble with the authorities and with the
public who were incensed at such a brazen challenge to the patriotic mood
of the times. Yosano was also the author of the highly influential collection
of tanka poems, Tangled Hair (Midaregami, みだれ髪), which was pub-
lished in 1901 and became something of a beacon for independent and
free-thinking women. One such woman that would almost certainly have
read Yosano’s work and be inspired by it was Hiratsuka Raichō
(1878–1942), who was to become increasingly prominent in the post
Russo-Japanese War period as an advocate of a radically feminist pro-
gramme of social activism. She was born into the wealthy Tokyo family of
a high-ranking bureaucrat and attended the prestigious Japan Women’s
University (日本女子大学) from 1903. She read widely in continental phi-
losophy and took a literary interest in the work of Henrik Ibsen, particu-
larly A Doll’s House (1879), a play depicting the predicament of an
unhappily married woman. Before taking the pen-name Raichō, “thun-
derbird”, in 1911, she was Hiratsuka Haru and came to rather dramatic
public attention in 1908 when she absconded with her married teacher,
Morita Sōhei. She had left her home late at night on the 21st of March
and was discovered by a policeman two days later with Morita in the
mountains of Tochigi Prefecture north of Tokyo apparently on their way
to attempt a “love-suicide” (shinjū, 心中). The incident was a cause célè-
bre not least on account of the couple being regarded as supposed exem-
plars of modern well-educated and well-to-do citizens, as well as the fact
that Morita was a protégé of Natsume Sōseki. After a rather cursory report
of the basic facts of the incident in the 23rd March edition of the Jiji
Shinpō, a more detailed account was produced by the To ̄kyō Asahi Shinbun
on the 25th, which described the incident step by step as it had unfolded
and the personages that were involved when they were taken into custody
after being discovered. The affair was dismissed as a high tide example of
the contemporary cultural movement that encouraged young people to
pursue sexual gratification, seiyoku manzokushugi (「性欲満足主義」).
This was followed by a personal retort from Hiratsuka herself in the pages
of the Yorozu Chōhō on the 27th of March. The article initially relates how
Haru’s mother and an intermediary from Morita’s side, Okabe Keiichirō,
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 163

had travelled to Tochigi to retrieve the pair, returning the following day to
Tokyo and staying the night away from the family home. The next day,
Okabe’s wife met Haru’s father to explain the situation and he indicated
that there was no need to send Haru away to another household. The fol-
lowing morning, Haru returned to the family home with her mother.
Haru consented to be interviewed by a journalist from the newspaper and
was forthright in her response:

The reason I left my home was to act in a manner consistent with my own
mind. Others have even threatened to kill me to repress my ideas. But I
don’t care if I have to die as a result of not changing my convictions.2

The newspaper was not actually completely on her side either, as they
simultaneously published the content of a letter that Haru had sent to
Morita which she had apparently sought to have disposed of by a univer-
sity friend before it fell into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, Haru had
become the focus of a popular fascination in the press that fixated on the
young woman’s exceptional beauty and intelligence while simultaneously
expressing revulsion at her bold rejection of traditional social norms.
At approximately the same time as the foregoing incident unfolded
there was another public event covered in the press that revolved around
the manner in which the modern Japanese woman should be idealized—
Japan’s first national beauty contest. The contest was originally initiated
by the Jiji Shinpō in response to an invitation from the Chicago Tribune
to participate in an international competition that was received in
September of 1907. The public call for participants specified that the ini-
tial selection would be through submission of a photograph and no woman
who was employed in either theatre or other low-brow entertainments
would be permitted to enter. The prizes were a combination of prize
money and diamond jewellery.3
Over 200 submissions came in and the adjudicators who were to select
the finalists were artists from backgrounds in Japanese and Western paint-
ing, kabuki onnagata actors, along with a photographer and even an
anthropologist. There were thirteen in all and the panel was announced
on the 1st of January 1908. The final adjudication occurred on the 29th
of February and the winners of the first three prizes were announced on
the 5th of March. The first place was given to a Miss Suehiro Hiroko, the
sixteen-year-old daughter of the mayor of the city of Kokura in northern
Kyūshū (announced in the Jiji Shinpō, 5 March, 1908). It turned out that
164 A. SWALE

the young woman who won first prize was also a student enrolled at the
elite Gakushūin University, an institution reserved for the offspring of
families with particularly elevated social backgrounds, and the President of
the University was none other than General Nogi Maresuke. The response
from the university administration upon hearing of the participation in the
competition was to have her expelled for misconduct. The Jiji Shinpo ̄,
though mindful of the implications of challenging so august an institu-
tion’s decision, nonetheless insisted in its pages that participating in the
competition entailed no misdeed or moral misconduct whatsoever and
criticized the head of her Faculty, Matsumoto Gentarō, for not even agree-
ing to meet representative of the newspaper to discuss the matter.4
The contrast between these two episodes is instructive in that it high-
lights the almost unfalteringly censorious treatment of women and the
potential toxicity of attempting to negotiate the public sphere in any other
capacity than as the dutiful daughter, wise mother or good wife within the
family. But as the case of Hiratsuka Raichō also indicates, attempting to
resist or even point blank refuse to coalesce with the social programme
entailed making some decisions potentially impacting on future prospects,
including the choice between life and death.5
In parallel with the kinds of social peril set in store for non-conformists
in matters related to gender and family, there were also the rather draco-
nian controls and penalties reserved for activists in the socialist or anarchist
movements. And often the fate of feminists and political activists over-
lapped and merged. A particularly representative example is provided by
Kanno Sugako and her involvement in the Japan Socialist Party. Initial
attempts to establish an explicitly Socialist political party, such as the Social
Democratic Party (Shakai Minshu ̄tō, 社会民衆党), which was set up by
leading figures including Kōtoku Shūsui and Katayama Sen in May of
1901, were immediately proscribed and outlawed. In 1906, with the pass-
ing of the baton of the premiership to Saionji Kinmochi, a compromise of
sorts was reached where a Socialist party based among more moderate
activists would be accommodated.
The Japan Socialist Party was established in late January of 1906 and
involved moderates such as Tazoe Tetsuji who advocated social change
through parliamentary processes. But alongside him were the likes of
Kōtoku Shūsui who continued to advocate a more revolutionary and vio-
lent programme of activism. Within months, the radicals came into open
conflict with the moderates in the movement and the party split into fac-
tions. After a year in existence, the party was formally circumscribed and
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 165

legally abolished. In March of 1907, not long after the party’s dissolution,
Yamaguchi Koken published an article excoriating the traditional feudal
family system in the Heimin Shinbun, which led to him being charged
with a breach of the Newspaper Ordinances and receiving a three-month
jail sentence. He was released on the 18th of June and it was planned to
have a welcoming party at a cinema, the Kinkikan, which was situated in
the Kanda district of Tokyo. The event, which was in fact a joint gathering
of both the moderate and radical factions together, was held on 22nd
June. But after the initial words of greeting from the editor of the Heimin
Shinbun, Ishikawa Sanshirō, were made, the members of the radical fac-
tion unfurled flags that variously declared their allegiance to Anarchism
and Social Revolution. They began to shout “Banzai for Anarchism” and
sing the revolutionary anthem of the radical movement. As a scuffle broke
out to take the flags from the radicals, police lying in wait intervened and
a number of attendees, including four women, were arrested.6
Variously referred to as either the Kinkikan Incident or the Red Flag
Incident, the ensuing trial of those arrested led to the conviction of lead-
ing radicals such as Ō sugi Sakai and Sakai Toshihiko with sentences rang-
ing from one to two and a half years. The female members, including
Kanno Suga, were variously found not guilty or released after being
detained for several days. It was a pivotal event that led to a decided hard-
ening of the governmental attitude to Socialism—Saionji’s cabinet
resigned soon after and the premiership shifted to a more conservative
leadership under Katsura Tarō on 12th July, 1908. Just as significantly, it
hardened the outlook of Anarchists and Feminists who increasingly saw
that revolutionary and violent action would be the only way to resist the
government and change society. As already alluded to, Kanno Suga would
later go on to be convicted in the High Treason Incident and be executed
thereafter, and this experience of arrest and incarceration was undoubtedly
formative of her perceptions of what constituted legitimate activism.7
It is possible to characterize the activities of such activists and the con-
sequences for their actions as part of the foibles of an intellectual elite, but
in fact there was a deeper malaise in social relations that was driving such
disaffection. If we return again to 1906, there was a proposed raising of
the price of train fares in Tokyo that sparked a major outpouring of pro-
test. The train services in Tokyo, which were run by three main compa-
nies, had applied to obtain permission from the Governor of the city to
raise fares. On the 8th of March it was announced by the Governor in the
Tokyo Asahi Shinbun that fares would rise from 3 to 5 sen with a
166 A. SWALE

discounted fare of 4 sen available for students and workers up until seven
in the morning. It was an increase of over 60% and drew instant howls of
indignation.
The Japan Socialist Party organized a public demonstration at Hibiya
Park on the 11th of March and drew a sizeable crowd. Large flags with
“Oppose the Rise in Train Fares!” were unfurled and at one o’clock,
Yamaji Yakichi (later Aizan) addressed the throng. Three leading Socialists
including Sakai Toshihiko were deputized to go around the head offices of
the three train companies in the city and present the resolutions of protest
that were ratified at the demonstration. With no positive response from
either the train companies or the municipal government there was a larger
demonstration on the 15th of March at Hibiya Park, but this time the
radical Socialists were much more to the fore and they unfurled red flags
and beat drums while chanting slogans. The resolutions of the previous
meeting were more or less repeated and then after the main demonstra-
tion was wound up the radical Socialists proceeded to the Town Hall and
the offices of the train companies, again unfurling large red flags, beating
drums and chanting their demands. The protestors were joined by ordi-
nary citizens and now stones were being thrown and windows broken.
Leaders of the Socialist protest group were arrested and later tried in
court, but found not guilty, indicating that it was in fact a more general-
ized segment of the urban populace that was involved in some of the most
violent incidents.8
The next major initiative came in early August when it was suddenly
announced that on the 16th the three companies had applied to be per-
mitted to be amalgamated into one new company, the Tokyo Tetsudō
Kaisha, and that the rise in the fare would be from 3 to 4 sen. This still
constituted a rise of over 30% and seemed non-negotiable. The response
from the Japan Socialist Party on the 10th of August was to announce that
they would enforce a boycott on the trains from the day that the new fare
regime was implemented. There was a period of calm until a major protest
gathering was scheduled to be held on the 5th of September, the anniver-
sary of the Hibiya riots of the previous year. On the day, special additional
detachments of police were deployed and by two in the afternoon it was
estimated that 10,000 people, mostly students and workers, had assem-
bled. At approximately 2:30 the head of the organizing committee,
Matsumoto Chiwaki, who had also been a leading figure behind the riots
the year before, made his entrance to the park. Matsumoto was a flamboy-
ant figure who evolved from working as a journalist to becoming an
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 167

advocate of alternative medicines and also agitating aggressively against

the outcome of the Treaty of Portsmouth. Sporting a mixture of Japanese
and Western fashion accessories, he addressed the crowd and made it clear
that there was a choice between repeating the rampage of last year or,
waiting for what he understood to be an undertaking from government to
intervene and address the issue by the 11th of the month. There was
clearly an itching within the crowd to engage in destructive acts but he
somehow managed to convince the crowd to disperse peacefully and wait
patiently until the appointed day.9
But in fact many were not prepared to wait and later in the evening
mobs began throwing stones at trains and yelling at people to get off.
After being turned away from attacking a train belonging to the Kaitetsu
Line by police officers, the mob headed for the Ginza precinct and began
to attack any train that came their way, pelting them indiscriminately with
a hail of stones. Eventually, the mob forced a train to stop causing the pas-
sengers and driver to flee in terror (Tokyo Asahi Shinbun, 6th of September,
1908). There was a blind fury as elsewhere train carriages were set upon,
windows smashed and in some cases set on fire. The Jiji Shinpō detailed
how a mob moved from Ginza to Shinbashi and set upon a Toden train
bound for Ueno. According to the report, a policeman on the scene
warned the passengers to flee just in time and within moments it was
pelted with stones, and whatever else was to hand, before being pushed off
the rails and overturned. There were shouts of banzai and yells of encour-
agement to keep going. The police, apart from a few significant exceptions
(one member of the kenpeitai fired shots in the air) showed relative
restraint, knowing full well that any act of overt violence would only fuel
the riot.10
A number of trains were unable to run the following day and it led to
rickshaw drivers attempting to price-gouge commuting workers. Many
refused their exorbitant demands and so they didn’t do as well as they
thought they would. In any case, on the 12th, the announcement was
made that the fares would forthwith be 4 sen and, to add insult to injury,
a special transfer ticket would also need to be bought to move from one
line to another. This led to major misunderstandings and disruption on
top of everything else that had come before.
The outcome of the disturbance was that several ring leaders were
arrested, including, with some irony, Matsumoto Chiwaki who was tried
and sentenced to three year’s prison. For the government’s part, the
Home Ministry under Hara Kei made it abundantly clear that suppression
168 A. SWALE

was now the official priority and activists would need to resign themselves
to being subject to political harassment and constraints of various kinds.
More importantly, however, was the fact that the mayhem unleashed on
the evening of the 5th of September, 1905, and a year later in 1906 was
not solely the result of party political agitation but a more fundamental
transformation of the cultural landscape that centred on workers and, per-
haps somewhat paradoxically, the student population who were often from
a better-off background as well. Demographically speaking, there were
several new strata of the population that were becoming increasingly
empowered and energized, and they had an independent power to chan-
nel disaffection and, at times, outright insurrection. As already discussed
in relation to the culture of students flocking to Onna Gidayū in the late
1890s, students were capable of generating a particular version of public
disruption, but workers were a class of citizenry that presented even more
distinctive prospects of activism and social disruption.11
The event that was the most iconic instance of workers pursuing redress
for injustices and improved working conditions occurred at the Ashio
mine in February of 1907. Situated to the West of Utsunomiya, the capital
of Tochigi Prefecture, it was one of the largest in scale in the country, and
the site, which housed as many as 35,000 inhabitants, was a full township
with a town hall, post office, police station, as well as shops, theatres and
brothels. Approximately 23,000 inhabitants were employed in some
capacity by the mining company. There were three main pits at Honzan,
Tsūdō and Kodaki and there were approximately 1200–1500 workers per
pit that actually did the physical work of digging and dislodging the ore
that would then be loaded onto electrically powered ‘trucks’ which ferried
the ore to the surface. These were the workers that were at the core of the
revolt.12
Conditions within the mines were predictably dark, dirty and danger-
ous, and well-documented by pioneering journalists such as Matsubara
Iwagorō. What compounded this unpleasantness was a system of organiz-
ing workers based on lodges or hanba (飯場), essentially dormitories with
a mess hall where groups of single workers would be domiciled under the
supervision of a lodge boss. The lodge bosses were in charge of not only
allocating rations and managing recruitment but also organizing rosters
and administering payment of wages. They were, somewhat paradoxically,
not paid as well as other workers but this they made up for with bribes
extracted from the workers who were forced to be sycophantically defer-
ential to these overlords. This pattern was replicated underground where
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 169

the supervisors likewise had direct influence over the work done by indi-
vidual workers and they too extracted brides for favourable treatment.
This routinized humiliation was certainly a major factor in worker resent-
ment and was further exacerbated by the practice of being provided with
only cheap imported rice (called “Nanking rice”) and, in the case of injury
or illness for more than three days, no rations at all.13
Such conditions were ripe for activists to come in and create associa-
tions aiming for the betterment of working conditions and elevation of the
status of workers. One of the first such activists who achieved notable suc-
cess who moved to the Ashio mine was Nagaoka Tsuruzō. He had been a
miner most of his adult life and during that time he converted to
Christianity and eventually became a missionary. In December of 1903, he
took up lodgings at one of the pit lodges on the basis of the “brother-
hood” system that gave shelter and food to travelling workers from other
areas. Nagaoka stayed for as long as possible on that basis and then joined
the mining workforce. Though initially not having much success he found
that by holding events where he presented a show of “magic lantern”
slides, he was able to address the assembled crowd and convince them of
the need to organize to redress grievances. The Greater Japan Workers
Association (Dai Nihon Rōdō Dōshikai or Do ̄shikai 同志会 for short), was
set up in April of 1904. The aims of the association were not simply to
obtain better conditions from the employers but, in part reflecting
Nagaoka’s Christian background, to establish a basis for mutual aid and
support for the injured or sick. Nagaoka’s impact on the miners in terms
of organization was positive and noteworthy but it did not last more than
a year. He was issued with a restraining order from the Ashio police station
on the 7th of May, which radically curtailed his capacity to engage in pub-
lic meetings or even be involved in the organization of the Do ̄shikai. On
top of the restraining order, Nagaoka had also courted disapproval due to
taking a mistress into his household in the guise of a cook. The ensuing
void was filled by another activist, Minami Sukematsu, who visited Ashio
from the Yūbari mine in Hokkaido the following year and eventually
established an Ashio branch of the Greater Japan Society of Devotion to
Japanese Labour (Dai Nippon Rōdō Shiseikai or Shiseikai 至誠会 for short)
in December of 1906 after moving there with his wife. The Shiseikai, in
contrast to the Do ̄shikai, was not oriented so much towards mutual sup-
port but rather focused more directly on improving wages and the quality
of rations. Both Nagaoka and Minami had close ties with contemporary
Socialists such as Sakai Toshihiko and Nishikawa Kojirō at the Heimin
170 A. SWALE

Shinbun, as well as personal acquaintance with Katayama Sen, the interna-

tionally active Communist. But it is noteworthy that the union movement
was not driven by these political activists but mineworkers themselves and
although the office of the Heimin Shinbun was visited by the authorities
after the riot, there was no evidence that they had a part in organizing the
actions in Ashio.14
In the lead up to the riot during February of 1907, there was a rather
murky jockeying amongst the Shiseikai, the lodge heads and the brother-
hood associations that were composed primarily of workers independently.
Even Nimura’s celebrated scholarly account of this phase describes a
foment of unrest about wages and working conditions but also creates the
impression that there was also a tussle between these entities about who
would take the lead to wrestle concessions from the mine owners, the
Furukawas. The Shiseikai were in fact in the process of being marginalized
and it is possible that when the rioting did commence, it was partly an
attempt to encourage action that did not enable the Shiseikai to take the
lead. In any case, on the 5th of February, a shift of over a thousand miners
at the Tsūdō pit downed tools in the morning and began to attack the
supervisor’s shed and the guard posts underground. When the supervi-
sor’s shed was vacated it was blown up with dynamite. The group eventu-
ally congregated at the entrance to the mine and meted the same treatment
to the inspectorate office at the entranceway. The mines were in fact dot-
ted with the offices of supervisors or patrolmen whose job was to routinely
monitor the operation of the mine and snuff out any signs of disruptive
behaviour. On the first day, that was more or less the extent of the action
and it was considered that possibly that was the end of the matter. On the
next day, however, the pattern was repeated but this time the miners ven-
tured above ground to pelt rocks at symbolically offensive offices and the
residences of officials. This too subsided and even Nishikawa Kōjirō who
had been dispatched to cover the events was to remark that he was sur-
prised at the relative restraint of the miners. Day 3 was yet another matter,
as this time the mob swelled considerably and went on a rampage, target-
ing not only the head of the mine, Minami Teizō (no relation to Minami
Sukematsu), but also policemen who were attempting to intervene. To
cap it off, a storeroom with inflammable oils was set ablaze and then the
storeroom that housed explosives was set on fire igniting massive explo-
sions. The ensuing pandemonium set the backdrop for an all-out spree of
brawling and looting. Minami Teizō had managed to hide before being
too roughly treated when the mob came to his residence but when he was
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 171

spotted attempting to escape he was captured and then endured a rather

severe beating. A particular contempt was reserved for Minami because he
was the quintessential Meiji bureaucrat—appointed not based on experi-
ence or expertise but on connections. Army personnel were called upon
late on the afternoon of the 7th but by the time they had arrived the next
day the riot had already subsided.15
So the Ashio Revolt of 1907 is an event that can be discussed in terms
of classical notions of class warfare—a nascent proletariat that was learning
to rise up and take its place in the international movement of Socialist
emancipation. Yet this particular revolt in fact exemplifies the ways in
which this event coalesced in some ways with this perception but nonethe-
less also completely epitomized a very particular Japanese experience of
‘modernization’. As already outlined in Chap.5, there was actually a
dynamic emerging in the mine where in fact a certain sector of the work-
force were actually in receipt of relatively steady streams of income and
were wont to embark on a rather libertine existence which swung from
payday to payday. The outbreak of violence was of course in response to
claims against the management regarding mine conditions but also a dem-
onstration of the power to make demands, not least of which was the
demand to be not treated as second-class citizens. As James Huffman
adeptly illustrated in his work on the sub-classes of Meiji Tokyo, the
underlings of the working class were increasingly engaged in a process of
habilitation where they came to gradually resemble, step by step, the aspi-
rations of the more elevated middle class citizenry. But they were not
clearly acculturated, certainly not given opportunities in education beyond
the most rudimentary levels.16
Government surveys of factories and factory conditions initiated at the
turn of the century intensified following the Ashio Riot, and a significant
alteration in the social arrangements around work was brought about by
an increase in the relatively paternalistic provision of accommodation and
education by companies for their workers, rather than outsourcing the
organization of recruitment, payment and accommodation to the lodges.
It was arguably the genesis of a practice that would form the basis of life-­
long employment that attracted overseas attention in the post–Second
World War period.17
In the wake of the Ashio riot, there were over a 160 convictions but
Naraoka and Minami were found innocent. This was indeed a worker-­
driven incident and it was successful in obtaining concessions in wages and
the power of lodge heads to act with complete independence was curtailed
172 A. SWALE

to some degree by integrating the modes of handling wages and rations

more firmly within the administration of the company. The pattern of
revolt was replicated at other mines at Besshi in Ehime and Yūbari in
Hokkaido later in the year with similar characteristics and outcomes.18
Newspaper coverage of the unrest was thorough and, although not
unsympathetic to the miners, nonetheless gave off a sense of revulsion at
the ferocity of the riot at its worst point. Naturally, it compounded the
perceptions of unruliness within the working class, something that had
been etched into the consciousness of the urban population during the
Hibiya riot and the train fare rise riot of the previous two years. But there
was also a broader anxiety that was stoked through reportage on crime of
various degrees of seriousness, from petty theft to gruesome murders.
One particularly notable criminal incident was the arrest and later con-
viction of an alleged serial killer, Noguchi Osaburō in May of 1905.
Noguchi was originally born with the surname of an Osaka industrialist
Takebayashi Yūki but shifted to Tokyo with his mother in 1886 to pursue
further study. He enrolled at the Tokyo University of Foreign Languages
to study Russian in 1899. While boarding in Tokyo, he became acquainted
with a woman Noguchi Sae, the sister of a well-known classical Chinese
poet Noguchi Neisai. In 1901, he moved in with the Noguchis and in
time took on the surname of his common-law wife Sae. In 1902, he was
forced to leave the university due to continuing failed exams but he
resorted to forging a fake graduation diploma to deceive his family. In
December of 1904, he fell out with his brother-in-law and left the Noguchi
home. His situation was financially perilous.
The arrest the following year was primarily for the murder of a pharma-
cist Tsuzuki Tomogorō who Noguchi had killed after luring him to with-
draw money for a bogus investment scheme. But it was soon apparent that
he may well have been behind the unexplained death of his brother-in-law
three days before the murder of Tsuzuki, and possibly even the mysterious
murder and mutilation of an 11-year-old boy, Kawai Sosuke, in March of
1902. The theory was that Noguchi had removed the flesh of the buttocks
of his victim in the superstitious belief that he would be able to concoct a
remedy for the leprosy that his brother-in-law was suffering from. Noguchi
was arrested on the 29th of May and just under a year later convicted of
Tsuzuki’s murder on 15th May, 1906. He received the death sentence,
which was carried out on 2nd July, 1908.19 The trial and conviction was
closely followed in the press and Noguchi even struck up an unlikely
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 173

correspondence with the anarchist Ō sugi Sakae who came to visit com-
rades at the same prison where Noguchi was incarcerated.
Another murder that captured intense public attention was the
Debakame Incident which occurred on 22nd March, 1908. Sachida Enko,
the 25-year-old wife of a telephone exchange manager, was attacked on
her way home from a public bath around nine o’clock in the evening and
when she did not arrive home her family initiated a search. Her body was
discovered in a vacant lot near the bath house where she had been raped
and strangled to death. Newspapers reported a series of attacks that had
occurred in the area since the previous November, and as many as six sepa-
rate women had described being followed by two men who variously
attempted to overpower the women and drag them to a secluded location.
In the event, the police arrested a 35-year-old gardener, Ikeda Kametarō,
who was known to be a Peeping Tom frequenting the bath house. It is
thought that Ikeda had protruding teeth, “deba” (出歯), and this was
combined with the “kame” from his name to coin the popular name for
the incident. As a result of this incident deba was turned into a verb debaru
(出歯る) and used to describe any kind of lewd or perverted behaviour.
Given the precedent of several incidents involving two men working
together to attack women, as well as misgivings about the validity of
Ikeda’s guilt amongst the local community, there was considerable debate
about the innocence of the suspect in the press. In the event, he was con-
victed of rape and murder in August of 1908 and received a sentence of
life imprisonment. This was, rather unusually, commuted to 13 years on
appeal.20 Upon his eventual release, Ikeda gave public lectures about his
experience and he was even the subject of a popular song.
The foregoing incidents became major media sensations and fueled a
public fascination with moral torpor while also generating something of a
moral panic about conditions in the metropolis of Tokyo. The safety of
women was an increasingly salient theme in news commentary and the
cohort of male students in the capital figured yet again in these accounts
of misdemeanors. A club was even formed amongst certain male students
which made it its mission to target female students travelling to and from
their places of study. They would follow them and call out proposals to
become more ‘intimate’, even on occasion following women to their dor-
mitories and throwing unsubtle messages over the walls for the women to
find. Things had become so bad that finally a women-only train was
174 A. SWALE

established so that female students could travel unmolested—the problem

of groping on trains had become that serious.21
The issue of immoral conduct was not limited to male students, as there
was increasing anxiety regarding young independent women becoming far
too casual in their conduct with their male counterparts, and there were
several articles produced which laid out appropriate rules of deportment
for women, such as that they should never visit a young man’s apartment
alone or, wherever possible, only meet men with a chaperone and have
contact with the male students only in public places. Naturally, the Ministry
of Education also continued to sound the alarm about the problem of
“degeneracy” (daraku, 堕落) within the student body.22 A further sensa-
tional incident involving a young woman centred on the daughter of a
well-to-do family in Osaka whose daughter named Kiyoko had clandes-
tinely left the family home and travelled to Tokyo to take up study against
the family’s wishes. She was apparently a young woman of extraordinary
beauty, but with little money and no family to support her she soon fell
into prostitution. She also became interested in Christianity and so within
a short time she became known as “Bible Kiyoko” and was a noted figure
within the sex trade in Tokyo. When news of her reputation reached
Osaka, the horrified parents engaged a lawyer to arrange extracting her
from her employment arrangement and relocate her back to her home.23
There were, furthermore, other spheres of activity where women were
entering the public mainstream with greater independence and opportu-
nities to succeed in areas where they hitherto had not been permitted to
venture into. One instance that was highly symbolic of this transition was
the reform of theatre to accommodate female actresses—the tradition of
female roles in ‘serious’ theatre still being very much the province of male
actors in kabuki and there being a thinly veiled assumption that to be a
woman in theatre was tantamount to being engaged in the demimonde or
worse. From 1906, at the instigation of the literary association, the Bungei
Kyōkai「文芸協会」, which included luminaries such as Tsubouchi
Shōyō, a call was made for the establishment of a national academy to train
actors in the more ‘realistic’ style of drama as seen in the West—this was
termed “new theatre” or Shingeki (新劇). Kawagami Otojirō, who had
moved into staging of Shakespearean productions such as The Merchant of
Venice and Hamlet over the previous five years, was also integral to this
initiative. The academy began its intake that year and the artistic move-
ment garnered influential patrons.24
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 175

In 1908, again at Kawakami’s behest, an academy specifically for women

was established. There were approximately a hundred applicants, and fif-
teen were accepted, among them Mori Ritsu the daughter of the noted
lawyer Mori Hajime. The public response was dismay but in an interview
with the Yorozu Chōhō she stated, “It is utterly disappointing that persons
who take up the profession of actor are regarded as being of low class and
generally held in contempt by the public.” She also expressed a determina-
tion to persevere in her chosen path regardless of the opprobrium she
might encounter. Over the ensuing period, young well-educated women
continued to enter the academy including graduates of the Miwata High
School, which prompted Principal Miwata Masako to lament it as indica-
tive of the “evil social trends of the times”. On the 1st of March, 1911, a
brand new national theatre, the Teikoku Gekijō (帝国劇場), was opened
with fanfare and was the fruit of long-standing patronage politicians such
as Itō Hirobumi and Kinmochi Saionji as well as industrialists such as
Shibusawa Ei’ichi and Ō kura Kihachirō.
One of the first performances was a performance of ballet, The Waltz of
the Flowers from Swan Lake, which in Japanese was entitled Furawaa
Dansu (「フラワー・ダンス」). The performance by twenty young
women was witnessed by a full house with intense bemusement. In
November of 1911, Tsubouchi’s Association sponsored an eight-day sea-
son of a potentially controversial play, A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (the
play that had been regarded as iconic to feminists such as Hiratsuka
Raichō). The lead was played by Matsui Sumako, a graduate of the wom-
en’s acting academy who by now was also an instructor at the academy.
She had gained acclaim for her role in Hamlet in March earlier the same
year and the latest production proved to be successful albeit provocative
(see Fig. 6.2). She would go on to become something of a legend of early
modern theatre, establishing a troupe with her second husband and tour-
ing extensively within the country. The actresses who emerged during this
period garnered enormous popular interest, particularly amongst young
women who began to idolize actresses just as much for their appearance as
their artistic abilities. Matsui Sumako was even somewhat notorious for
employing plastic surgery to enhance her appearance and developed a new
line for her popularity by issuing recordings of her singing.25
As the foregoing parade of crime, misdemeanors, fads and celebrity
entertainment continued from the end of the Russo-Japanese onwards,
there was of course the steady and seemingly inexorable advance of the
Japanese Empire’s moves to incorporate Korea within its orbit. From the
176 A. SWALE

Fig. 6.2 Image from

Ishigami Kinya, Jōyū
Jōshi (『女優情史』),
Jitsugetsusha, 1929.
(Courtesy of the
National Diet Library
of Japan)

outbreak of war in 1904, the Japanese Imperial Army had occupied the
Korean peninsula, and signalled the intent to implement ‘reforms’ to
transform Korea on the Japanese model. The implications of this were not
fully clear until after the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth in early
September of 1905. The Treaty forced Russia to recognize Japan’s claim
to having paramount interests on the peninsula and on the 17th of
November, the Japan–Korea Protectorate Treaty was signed and it formal-
ized the status of Korea as essentially subject to tacit Japanese govern-
ment. In January of 1906, the Korean army was disbanded save a
thousand-man garrison in Seoul and the police were informed that their
jurisdiction had now passed to a Japanese gendarmerie. Some elements
within Korean society used the moment of transition to pursue a reform
agenda but the rankling of Japanese hegemony was acute and there were
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 177

guerilla bands that arose that attacked symbolic institutions of occupation

and engaged in armed attacks on Japanese forces. Insurgents who were
arrested were quickly tried and publicly executed, with the details of these
severely repressive measures reported to the home audience in Japan.26
A potentially highly embarrassing episode occurred in June of 1907
when US President Theodore Roosevelt called for a second international
conference at the Hague in the Netherlands. The first Hague Convention
of 1899 had in fact been convocated in 1899 at the behest of Tsar Nicholas
II and aimed to formalize matters such as the rules of war on sea and land
as well as conventions for the appropriate treatment of prisoners and the
circumscription of certain weapons such as poison gas. The second Hague
Convention of 1907 entailed expanding articles dealing with combat at
sea as well as establishing a process for international arbitration among
combatant nations, although this would only be submitted to voluntarily.
It was, in any case, an important forerunner of the League of Nations and
the United Nations. The Korean Emperor Gojong secretly sent three
emissaries to the Convention to create public debate about the legality of
the Japanese Protectorate. They were denied the floor and in desperation
one of the delegates committed suicide at the Convention. The Japanese
government’s response was to force Emperor Gojung to abdicate on the
17th of July in favour of an heir chosen by the Japanese, Sunjong. On the
24th of July, a second Japan–Korea Protectorate Treaty was concluded
that gave the Japanese Resident-General, Itō Hirobumi, the authority to
conduct the affairs of state, including the appointment and removal of
high-ranking officials.27
The mood within the Japanese Imperial Army was to move towards full
annexation—something that in fact Itō did not agree with. Even so, he
formally approved plans to annex Korea on the 10th of April 1909, but
was then forced to resign by the army on the 14th of July. Itō remained
active in the region and on the 26th of October he was assassinated in
Harbin by a Korean activist who shot him six times as he was boarding a
train at the station. He was not killed outright but succumbed to his
wounds soon afterwards. The following year, on the 22nd August, the
Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 was signed by the Korean Prime Minister, Ye
Wanyong, and the Japanese Minister for the Army, Terauchi Masatake
who became the first Governor-General of Korea.
The expansion and consolidation of empire abroad was accompanied
by a slow and unrelenting drift towards repression at home as well.
Miyatake Gaikotsu, who was no stranger to official oversight and
178 A. SWALE

restrictions found himself once again the target of legal prosecution, this
time with the threat of imprisonment. At the beginning of 1904, just
before the Russo-Japanese War was about to break out, Miyatake pro-
duced an article in the 65th issue of Kokkei Shinbun that outlined the
details of a bribery scandal that involved a local police official, Ogi Kinsabu,
who allegedly took a bribe to cancel the permit of one transportation
company and issue it to another. The article suggested that the Osaka
District Prosecutor knew the details but had not acted on the information.
The response was immediate—Miyatake was charged under the criminal
code with the offence of impugning the honour of a public official. The
judgement in the ensuing court case found Miyatake guilty and sentenced
him to a month’s imprisonment. Miyatake appealed and while still out on
bail continued to fuel the controversy in print. This led to a further charge
and, given that it was a repeat offence, he was sentenced to an additional
three month’s imprisonment on the 23rd of March. The appeal over the
first charge was rejected on the 22nd of April and Miyatake was clearly
bound for another stint in prison. By all accounts Miyatake was resigned
to the likelihood of this outcome and even held a going-away party two
days before he was scheduled to enter the Horikawa Prison in Kyoto,
which he referred to as his ‘holiday residence’.28
By this stage, Miyatake had a solid team of editorial assistants and writ-
ers who ensured that the Kokkei Shinbun continued to be published and
to enjoy, if anything, an increased popularity. One of the assets of the
magazine was that it also possessed a coterie of highly skilled illustrators
such as Yamamoto Yasujirō who trained within the Kanō school of tradi-
tional Japanese painting and Maeno Kazuhiro who was trained in the
nishikie lineage of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Their illustrations often graced the
front cover of the magazine and they were often ingenious in the concept
as much as they were skilfully wrought. The other staple of the magazine’s
cover was photographs of attractive young women.29
Following his release on the 5th of August, 1905, Miyatake came up
with the idea of finding instances of other publications that had done what
he had done but hadn’t been prosecuted for. This was an act of goading
officialdom but not committing any legal offence. When the war with
Russia finally concluded the Kokkei Shinbun joined almost all other publi-
cations in condemning the Portsmouth Treaty and characterizing the pro-
visions as deeply insulting. The 103rd edition of 5th September containing
a particularly scathing and sarcastic depiction of the outcome of the delib-
erations was in turn officially suppressed and withdrawn from sale. On this
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 179

occasion, several other publications, including the Yorozu Cho ̄hō and the
Ho ̄chi Shinbun had their production circumscribed from that date. The
outpouring of support for these publications was so great that by
November the bans had been rescinded and publication could recom-
mence. This was a major victory for the Kokkei Shinbun and other publica-
tions, but it was almost certainly not going to be the final word or act from
the government in attempting to suppress criticism through the press.30
From March of 1906, Miyatake changed gear somewhat, disbanding
the directly owned Tokyo-based operation and giving it over to another
publisher, Tōkyōdō. In November he joined a Socialist ‘research group’
which contained a number of local Socialist thinkers and even one of his
closest lawyer friends, Hino Kuniaki. The following March, the group
became involved in the failed attempt to set up a magazine sponsored
between the research group and the Heiminsha, briefly known as Kassatsu
(『活殺』).31 On the first of June 1907, Miyatake invested 5000 yen of
his personal fortune into a new publication Osaka Heimin Shinbun and
from that time the Kokkei Shinbun published the editorial of the new pub-
lication’s editor, Morichika Unpei, in its own pages. Going into 1908,
Miyatake was clearly developing interests elsewhere and was also tiring of
having to continually put out legal fires to keep the publication afloat. The
edition published on the 10th of October, No. 173, was labelled the
“Suicide Number”, and announced the end of the Kokkei Shinbun. It
garnered huge public interest and by the end of the print run had sold
above 60,000 copies. As it turned out, it was not the complete end of the
Kokkei Shinbun legacy as publication under a new editorship commenced
in early November under the title Osaka ̄ Kokkei Shinbun and it would
continue to run for approximately two more years.32
Miyatake was a remarkable figure in that he managed to negotiate the
whirlpools and shallows of publishing at the time while ostensibly enjoy-
ing himself immensely and giving a lot of public figures who deserved it
considerable grief. He also embraced what people were thinking and feel-
ing on the street—he knew that ordinary people needed humour as a
release and that there was always an audience for the witty and subtly
erotic content. The Kokkei Shinbun frequently acknowledged that people
had sexual interests, commentating on the new concept of relations based
in the Western concept of rabu (ラブ, i.e. “love”) and daring to depict
women as being interested in sex, including one front cover illustration
180 A. SWALE

that featured photographic vignettes of young women with thought bub-

bles containing photos of athletic young men.33
One of Miyatake’s final literary sorties in the late Meiji period was to
publish “A History of Obscene Customs” (Waisetsu Fūzokushi, 『猥褻風
俗史』) in April of 1911. It was in fact a relatively serious overview of dif-
fering conceptions of obscenity and sex through different stages of history
and across various cultures culminating of course in a comparison of the
West and Japan. It was in one sense innocuous and merely pointed out
what moral conservatives did not wish to acknowledge—that all people
have an interest in sex and sexuality and it is ludicrous to attempt to cir-
cumvent this by official dictates. Miyatake particularly laments that the
traditional words for male and female genitalia, dankon (男根) and inmon
(陰門) were being discouraged from being used with the more neutral
seishokki (生殖器) preferred in public communication—one government
official advocating the use of the Sanskrit terms in katakana. Miyatake
highlights how sexual themes and icons were an integral part of Japan’s
pre-Meiji culture, with copious instances of where they appeared in Shinto
shrines and featured in festivals.34 Waisetsu Fūzokushi also signaled a bur-
geoning interest of Miyatake in more academic pursuits, and indeed it is
from the end of the Meiji period that he became more active as something
of an amateur archivist, eventually becoming noted for traversing the
country in search of increasingly rare published materials, including news-
papers and magazines, that had fallen out of circulation or were being
discarded. He would eventually become a founding member of the Meiji
Bunka Kenkyūkai which included Yoshino Sakuzō, Osatake Takeki and
Ishii Kendō.35
Even so, the tide of resentment from conservative cultural forces was
mounting and it would be concerted responses from various quarters, the
police, the Ministry of Education, the Home Ministry and various legal
institutions, that would target more vigorously the political movements of
Socialism, Anarchism and Feminism. They were targeted, on the one
hand, because they drew adherents who were increasingly prepared to
counter the government through violence. They were also targeted
because they all shared strong links in terms of promoting individual free-
dom and the right to personal pleasure—this was a challenge to the narra-
tive that a citizen’s greatest obligation was to subsume their personal life
in the service of the Emperor and nation. Anything inimical to that would
become the focus of concerted official action to forcibly suppress and
destroy it.36
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 181

Accordingly, the High Treason Incident of 1910 was the apogee of

suppression of ‘dissident’ activities within the country. While there were
indeed figures involved who were following a Socialist or Anarchist pro-
gramme, and that programme included recourse to violence against the
monarchy, the aims and impact of the arrest, prosecution and execution of
the twelve was very much an emphatic blow in the service of a culture war.
In the period prior to the rounding up and arrest of the suspects, there
were commentators in the leading newspapers and influential magazines
such as Taiyō that sounded alarm at the nefarious influence of Western
thought and the need to return to a nation-focused morality. After the
conviction and execution of the twelve ‘traitors’, these expressions of con-
cern became at once more shrill and intense. Inoue Tetsujirō, famous for
his treatise on the Imperial Rescript on Education published in 1891,
which advocated reverence for the Emperor and devotion to the nation,
had already been vocal in his condemnation of foreign influences that
undermined respect for the traditional familial system and reverence for
ancestors. In the November issue of Taiyō he argued, referring explicitly to
Kōtoku Shūsui, that adopting Socialist thought was a betrayal of one’s
country. He even went so far as to state that Naturalism, as expressed in
contemporary literature, was just as bad even though it might seem innoc-
uous on the surface. In this way, Inoue had in a sense established the basis
for identifying ‘thought crimes’.37
The other “ism” singled out for opprobrium was “individualism”.
Figures such as Ō tsuka Yasuji, a Professor specializing in aesthetics at the
Tokyo Imperial University, and Toda Kaiichi who taught economics at
Kyoto Imperial University, published opinion pieces in Taiyo ̄ that placed
individualism and Socialism on the same level as being noxious to Japanese
society. In January of 1912 Kawakami Hajime, at that time merely an
Assistant Professor at Kyoto Imperial University, summed up the mood of
the times as one where the majority of Japanese citizens saw service to the
Japanese nation as trumping all other priorities, necessitating that any
other credo, from Socialism to Anarchism to Individualism, could in no
way be tolerated. In the same month, the Minister for Education stated in
the January 26th edition of the Tokyo Asahi Shinbun that he was “over-
whelmed with concern” and felt an urgent need to restore “health to the
people’s thinking” by promoting the Imperial Rescript on Education.
There were increasingly strident calls to penalize persons who continued
to advocate pernicious foreign schools of thought and to root out offend-
ing publications from within libraries.38
182 A. SWALE

Overall, then, the effect of the High Treason Incident was to put fear
into the community of writers, performers, publishers and artists. Kōtoku
Shūsui was known personally and regarded as a friend by many in the liter-
ary world, including Nagai Kafū, who watched in horror as their friends
and acquaintances were subjected to the ultimate penalty, death. Literature
was increasingly becoming the focal point for contestation between per-
sonal experience and life as a citizen. By the end of the century, ‘Zola
fever’ had swept through the literati and some predictably free and frank
treatments of human passion were being depicted. There were critics, as
Poch covers in detail, who lamented the obsession with the “small” matter
of individual romantic associations, where the “great” matters of personal
responsibility and duty to the country were apparently ‘crying out’ to be
addressed in literature. Few serious writers saw this as a problem but there
were certainly critics such as Takayama Chogyū who would not hesitate to
rail against the best writers of the day.39
A further dynamic to the literature at this juncture was the interplay, if
not contradiction, between sentiments of attachment to pre-Restoration
locales—particularly Edo as opposed to Tokyo—and a recognition of how
this was being obliterated before everyone’s eyes. In her exceptionally
insightful article Kawakami Chiyoko takes the distinction between the dual-
character of Edo—the distinction between Yamanote and the lower-­class
Shitamachi—and traces how this finds expression correlated in the literary
output of the late nineteenth century. Izumi Kyōka again figures as one of
the most emphatically contrarian exponents of short stories and narratives
that completely embrace a continuity of Edo tropes—the ghost figure in
particular. Yamanote is the Other, and she rather ingeniously demonstrates
how typically Izumi in the short stories that begin to emerge from this
period gradually refined the tension between a ‘new model’ Yamanote scion
with a supernatural figure who represents emphatically the rejected parties
of the Restoration—beggars, masseurs, prostitutes and entertainers.40
Nagai Kafū also presents as an intriguing challenge to the new Japan
based on his status as an inveterate flaneur and extoller of the Edo legacy.
Recent research has indeed gone quite some way to rectify a perception
that Nagai was just a person ‘living in the past’. As Rachael Hutchinson
argues, Nagai used his extended period of habituation in Europe and the
United States not only to refine his criticism of the way that the Meiji
government was attempting to define contemporary society (in terms of a
series of blind and misinformed adaptations of Western norms) but also
strive to define or suggest what a more genuinely Japanese response might
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 183

be.41 Literature had become the nexus of contestation between an aes-

thetic that served empire versus an aesthetic that could accept the validity
of personal experience and emotion. Certainly as Poch suggests, emotion,
and romantic emotion in particular, had ceased to be “licentious” as such
by the early twentieth century. But it only be characterized ‘decadent’ by
those who could be satisfied by the twentieth century correlate to kanzen
choaku (“reward good and punish evil) —love of Emperor and service to
the nation, anything else is treachery.42
There were some who tried to fight back. In March of 1915, Natsume
Sōseki had an article entitled “My Individualism” (「私の個人主義」)
published in a special volume with contributions from eighty-one writers
which aimed to raise funds in support of the electoral campaign of Baba
Kochō (Kochō Baba Katsuya Shi Rikko ̄ho Kōen Gendai Bunshu ̄, 『孤蝶馬
場勝弥氏立候補後援現代文集』) in the upcoming elections. It was actu-
ally originally the text of a speech that had been made to the students of
Gakushūin University, as already alluded to, the bastion of privilege and
elite connections. With an extraordinary frankness he disagreed with the
assertion that individualism by definition was a threat to the nation. He
suggested it was not inimical to national well-being and was in fact essen-
tial to human happiness. He raises the example of Britain, a society where
individualism is highly prized, as demonstrating that such was the case. He
further argues that it is only when individualism is promoted without a
sense of one’s responsibilities or obligations that the kinds of ill-effects
imagined by “certain persons” (a dig at the likes of Inoue Tetsujirō) arise.
He even specifically rejected the position of the Principal of the Tokyo
Normal High School, Kanō Jigorō, who had been stridently criticizing the
impact of individualism in education and advocating the importance of the
Imperial Rescript. As a former teacher, Sōseki was somewhat qualified to
comment on the matter. As a writer, within an increasingly hostile cultural
climate, it was extraordinarily well-reasoned and brave.43
As these internal contradictions continued to intensify during the
period under consideration, there were of course other developments in
technology and daily life that would be transformative and iconic of
Japan’s ‘modernity’. The Singer Sewing Machine Company set up shop in
Japan and transformed both the availability and uptake of their machines.44
Ajinomoto, the seasoning that became as ubiquitous as salt and pepper,
was first marketed and sold from July of 1909, with Mitsuya Cider also
being promoted as a more “fashionable” alternative to Japan’s take on
lemonade, Ramune (ラムネ) from July 1907. Advertising, of the
184 A. SWALE

wall-to-­wall character that has typified the modern period, was intensified
with the introduction of commercial material inside city trains.45
As concerns industrial and military technology, Japan was attempting
to keep abreast of the latest advances internationally. The progress in the
development of the Zeppelin airship was closely monitored and a research
group was established in Japan in August of 1909. Submarine technology
was adopted in the military, with a tragic accident capturing national
attention in April of 1910. And of course the achievements of the Wright
brothers in developing self-powered aircraft ignited the public imagina-
tion, with each advance and improvement in distances flown and speed
being achieved reported. Naturally, there was a drive to create a domestic
development programme and this bore fruit in December of 1910 when
two Japanese aviators, Hino Komazu (1878–1946) and Tokugawa
Yoshitoshi (1884–1963), who had trained in France, succeeded in staging
flights at Yoyogi Park in Tokyo, with Tokugawa making the first powered
flight on 19th December, 1910.46
Consequently, the end of the Meiji period, when it came with the pass-
ing of the Meiji Emperor on the 30th of July 1912, saw Japan at the peak
of its empire building and ongoing significant achievements in commerce
and industry despite significant intensification of internal contradiction
within the domestic sphere of culture and letters. As a history of the ensu-
ing Taishō period would demonstrate, there was a successful movement to
reassert the rights of the citizenry and the validity of culture within civil
society that was not purely devoted to the service of nation. But a dynamic
of internal cultural contradiction and antagonism was never fully resolved,
and it would indeed remain an issue to deal with in time to come.
An account of the end of the Meiji period would not be complete with-
out reference to the final act of General Nogi Maresuke who, at the time
of the Emperor’s death, was still the President of Gakushūin University.
General Nogi had devoted himself to public service well after retiring from
the Imperial Japanese Army, particularly assisting in the raising of funds
and establishment of facilities for returned servicemen or the widowed
families of servicemen who died during the recent wars. He even cam-
paigned to have a monument erected at Port Arthur to commemorate the
Russian dead. Following the death of the Emperor Meiji, Nogi wound up
his affairs and prepared to make one of the most emphatic statements of
loyalty he could make, ritual suicide, or junshi (殉死). On the 13th of
September Nogi, along with his wife Shizuko, took their own lives accord-
ing to the traditional protocols, Nogi performing seppuku after ‘assisting’
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 185

his wife to end her life. The reports in the newspapers expressed profound
shock and many commentators were aghast. Some speculated that it was
in part a protest at the increasing degeneracy of the Japanese populace. As
it turned out, it was an extraordinary instance of following the pre-­modern
tenets of Bushidō that, as we saw in the foregoing, was becoming the
lynch pin of nationalist ideology. At the same time, however, it was also in
part understandable on a very human level given the course of his military
career and personal circumstances. Nogi had witnessed thousands go forth
to their deaths at his orders, and he had also lost two sons in the previous
war. In the letter that he left behind, he explicitly indicated that he was
indeed in part expiating failures in his career, the loss of the Emperor’s flag
during the Seinan War being one of them, but also the enormous loss of
life that had occurred during his tenure at High Command. He was widely
mourned and regained the greater respect of the people who had already
held him in high esteem.
The impact of Nogi’s suicide can also be related to the world of letters
as both Mori Ō gai and Natsume Sōseki were profoundly influenced by the
event. In Bargen’s research, which has explored the relevance of Nogi’s
suicide to both authors, she suggests that in the case of Ō gai he penned a
series of works that deal with thematics that can be traced to the death of
Nogi. Okitsu Yagoemon no isho (The Last Testament of Okitsu Yagoemon,
1912 & 1913) and Sahashi Jingoro ̄ (1913) both use historical settings to
explore the nature of how performing seppuku following a major indiscre-
tion can be something that can be held in abeyance, either unwillingly in
the case of the former and with somewhat ambivalence in the case of the
latter. Sakai Jiken (The Incident at Sakai 1914) deals directly with the
episode just prior to the Meiji Restoration where samurai who had attacked
French sailors near Sakai killing eleven in all were in turn commanded to
publicly perform seppuku—which occurred with horrified French observ-
ers in attendance. Sōseki’s Kokoro (1914), released in the same year as the
speech on individualism to the Gakushūin students, very explicitly refers
to Nogi’s suicide and contains two characters, husband and wife, who
would seem very much to be correlates to General Nogi and his wife
Shizuko (the wife’s name in the novel is “Shizu”).47 As Jay Rubin’s analy-
sis of Sōseki’s emerging views on life and death, and indeed junshi, indi-
cates, there was no simple endorsement of suicide as the last recourse of a
reflective life—Sōseki clearly believed that individual existence should be
pursued, and that life had intrinsic worth despite the struggle it might
entail. Ō gai was also not advocating junshi as such. It would seem that
186 A. SWALE

both authors found Nogi’s precedent as something profoundly unsettling

and in need of processing and responding to. Death, in this case, was not
so much a biological proposition as an aesthetic one, with serious moral
questions thrown in to boot.
The response to Nogi’s suicide in the press had predictably been almost
uniformly one of surprise combined with awe, but there was one intellec-
tual who dared to speak quite unambiguously in critical terms of the
appropriateness of junshi in the modern age. Tanimoto Tomeri, a profes-
sor specializing in education at Kyoto Imperial University, published a
lengthy commentary in the Osaka Mainichi Shinbun on the 17th of
September. His tone in places could be characterized as quite derisive—he
refers to Nogi as “Nogi-san” —and he made no bones about the fact that,
although he could fail to be impressed by the act itself, he did not think of
Nogi as a particularly admirable person and regarded the gesture of sep-
puku essentially meaningless. To be fair, there had been some cautious
discussion in critical terms regarding junshi in earlier reportage. Soon after
the passing of the Emperor the Tokyo Asahi Shinbun on the 10th of August
ran a comment on the sporadic incidents of junshi occurring in various
parts of the country, describing it as a ‘retrograde custom” (弊風) that
shouldn’t be emulated. After the suicide of Nogi, the same publication
continued to make some comment revealing ambivalence but Nogi’s act
was described as “the flower of loyalty to the Emperor and love of coun-
try”.48 Tanimoto argued that historically junshi had been outlawed along-
side acts of revenge and “scarcely something to be esteemed”. But to these
comments were added disparaging comments about Nogi’s lack of educa-
tion and other faults. It came as no surprise that Tanimoto was dismissed
from his post at Kyoto University and he had to make a living thereafter as
an occasional lecturer at Ryūkoku University and journalistic work for the
Osaka Mainichi.
In contrast to Tanimoto, Niitobe Inazō, the eminent educator and
author of Bushidō: The Soul of Japan, spoke of General Nogi’s excellent
character and achievements, and concludes that he was an exemplar of
both a profound devotion to duty and a deep concern for the people who
had followed him in war and died.49 But certainly this degree of unquali-
fied praise was not reflective of the genuine complexity of the issues in play
and it was perhaps even a surprise that Niitobe, a baptized Christian, did
not display a particularly strong sense of ambiguity about the merits of
junshi. As seen above, Ō gai and Sōseki found it necessary to devote sub-
stantial energy to coming to terms with the implications of this level of
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 187

self-sacrifice. On a broader social level, it would have profound implica-

tions for the vision of the Japanese people as “heimin”—commoners, but
also citizens in common—as opposed to “kokumin” whose identity as citi-
zens would be defined primarily in terms of duty to the nation and empire.

Notes
1. One of the most thorough reviews of the High Treason Incident and its
diverse facets can be found in Gavin and Middleton (eds.), Japan and the
High Treason Incident, Routledge, 2013. For contemporary reportage on
the fate of Kōtoku Shūsui see Nakayama (1982, Vol. 14, 106 & 109).
2. Yorozu Chōho ̄, March 27, 1908.
3. Jiji Shinpō, 15 September, 1907.
4. Jiji Shinpō, 1908, 29 March. In a further irony, Hiroko married the son of
Field Marshall Nozu Michitsura and General Nogi was the official interme-
diary. In the international event, she came in at sixth place (Suzuki (ed.),
1995, 259.
5. For a comprehensive review of female Anarchist and Socialist activists see
Seto (2016, 30–49).
6. Jiji Shinpō, 23 June, 1908, original reportage is in Suzuki (1995, Vol. 8,
228–234); see also Seto (2016, 32–33).
7. Seto (op. cit., 33–34).
8. See reports from the Tokyo Asahi Shinbun, 8 March & 16 March; also
reportage of the Jiji Shinpo ̄ dated 12 March, 1906, as per Suzuki (1995,
Vol. 8, 157–160).
9. The amalgamation of the three companies was announced in the Chugai
Sho ̄gyo ̄ Newspaper on 2 August, 1906. The major demonstration and
Matsumoto’s central role in it was covered in detail in the Jiji Shinpō, 6
September 1906. See Suzuki (1995, Vol. 8, 160–162).
10. Graphic descriptions of the violence and police response were reported in
the Jiji Shinpō and Tokyo Asahi Shinbun on 6 September, 1906. See Suzuki
(1995, Vol. 8, 162–164).
11. One of the most thorough reviews of the demographics of those involved
in social unrest during this period can be found in Andrew Gordon’s “The
Crowd and Politics in Imperial Japan 1905–1918” in Past and Present,
Oxford University Press, 1988, Vol. 121, 141–170.
12. Nimura and Gordon (1997, 21–24).
13. Ibid., 69–70, and 78–80.
14. Ibid., 108–109.
15. Ibid., 99–108.
188 A. SWALE

16. See Huffman, Down and Out in Late Meiji Japan, University of Hawaii
Press, 2018, particularly the concluding chapter.
17. The transition from indirect to direct management of the workplace
entailed some rather idiosyncratic measures by the management that fore-­
shadow, directly at least, some of these later practices. See Gordon
(1985, 38–69).
18. Nimura and Gordon (op. cit., 145–148).
19. The course of events and the details of the crime were followed closely.
particularly in the Jiji Shinpo ̄ and the Tōkyō Asahi Shinbun. See Jiji Shinpo ̄
reports on the 3rd and 7th of July, 1905, also Tok̄ yō Asahi Shinbun com-
mentary on the 4th and 6th of July 1905, and the 20th of March, 1906, as
per Suzuki (1995, Vol. 8, 284–288).
20. For coverage of the breaking story see Tok̄ yō Nichinichi Shinbun, 24th of
March, 1908 and regarding the record of previous attacks on women see
To ̄kyō Asahi Shinbun, 25th of March 1908. The Kokumin Shinbun in its
16th of April edition claimed that Ikeda was in fact innocent. See Suzuki
(1995, Vol. 8, 294–299).
21. One of the most comprehensive accounts of the experience of the common
citizen on public transport can be found in Alisa Freedman’s Tokyo in
Transit: Japanese Culture on the Rails and Road, Stanford University Press,
2011. The problem of sexual harassment continued unabated. On 28
January, 1912, the Tokyo Asahi Shinbun reported the advent of “flower
trains” (花電車), which were reserved exclusively for women. For original
newspaper commentary see Suzuki (1995, Vol. 8, 158 & 243–250).
22. Meguro (2014, 21–24).
23. Nihon, October 31, 1907.
24. Kurata (1980, 110–115).
25. Ibid., 165–177.
26. These incidents began to intensify soon after the end of the Russo-­Japanese
War with Japanese nationals being attacked and guerilla activities becom-
ing more common. See Kokumin Shinbun, 16 and 18 February, 18 March
18, 1906.
27. See Osaka Mainichi Shinbun, 17 July, 1907, about the impact on the
Japanese delegation and Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun, 18 July, 1907, regard-
ing the emissaries’ suicide.
28. Yoshino (2012, 168–178).
29. Ibid., 166–168.
30. Ibid., 183–192.
31. The publication was finally relaunched by another publisher, Kassatsu
Dōjinsha from May of 1907.
32. Yoshino (op. cit., 202–204).
 6 MEIJI TWILIGHT 189

33. Re women dreaming see Kokkei Shinbun for (5th September, 1903, no.
56) in Akasegawa Genpei & Yoshino Takao (eds.), 1989, Vol. 2, 317.
34. Miyatake, in the 1911 edition, pages 1–29. Reproduced in the Miyatake
Gaikotsu Chosakushū (5), 1985.
35. He would eventually become a founding member of the Meiji Bunka
Kenkyūkai which included Yoshino Sakuzō, Osatake Takeki and Ishii
Kendo as well as the curator of the Meiji Shinbun Zasshi Bunkō collection
housed at Tokyo Imperial University.
36. Tsukamoto (2021, 1–10).
37. Ibid., 3–4.
38. Ibid., 3.
39. Poch (2020, 187–189).
40. Kawakami (1999, 559–583).
41. Hutchinson (2001, 195–213). See also Stephen Snyder’s Introduction to
Fictions of Desire: Narrative Form in the Novels of Nagai Kafu ̄. 2000, 1–7.
42. Poch (op. cit., 179–191).
43. Tsukamoto (op. cit., 5–10).
44. See Kokumin Shinbun, March 15, 1902, regarding set up of the Singer
shop in Ginza and Jiji Shinpo ̄ April 5, 1907 regarding the introduction of
a monthly payment system as per Suzuki (1995, Vol. 8, 240). Andrew
Gordon has covered the history of the sewing machine in Japan in
Fabricating Consumers : the Sewing Machine in Modern Japan, University
of California Press, 2012.
45. Re Ajinomoto, see Chu ̄gai Sho ̄gyo ̄ 22 July, 1909, for Mitsuya Cider see
Chūgai Shōgyo ̄ 14 July, 1907. Advertising inside city trains was for the time
a novel innovation—see Jiji Shinpō, 9 October, 1909. See Suzuki (1995,
Vol. 9, 61 & 64).
46. See Ho ̄chi Shinbun, 22 August, 1909 regarding the establishment of the
research group. The submarine accident was covered in extensive detail in
the Jiji Shinpō, 17 April, 1910. The Wright’s new speed record was cov-
ered in the Jiji Shinpō, 1 August, 1909, Regarding Hino and Tokugawa’s
flights see Yorozu Chohō, 15 December, 1910, and Tokyo Nichinichi
Shinbun 20 December, 1910. Original articles in Suzuki (1995, Vol. 9,
129–136).
47. Regarding Ō gai’s junshi stories see Bargen, 2006, 85–121, re Sakai Jiken,
122–159, and regarding Soseki’s Kokoro 159–188.
48. Tokyo Asahi Shinbun published on the 16th of September, 1912.
49. See the To ̄kyō Asahi Shinbun, 18th of September, 1912. For original text
of the various opinions expressed at the time see Suzuki (1995, Vol. 9,
297–304).
 CHAPTER 7

Conclusion

The period covered in this volume extends merely twenty-two years, and
yet what a great deal was attained during that time, and what a bewilder-
ing array of transformations occurred at so many levels. As stated at the
outset, it was the leap from plucky underdog to member of the Great
Power club that presents the most striking achievement of Japan as an
aspiring nation amongst nations in an avowedly imperialist epoch. Not
even commentators from Europe and North America knew quite what to
make of this development.
But as we have also seen in the foregoing, every stage of this advance
came with a cost, a cost to the Japanese citizenry and a cost to the peoples
neighbouring the Japanese Empire. If there is one salient observation to
make regarding Japan during this period from the point of view of cultural
history, it is that every stage of ‘progress’, every stage of further advancing
the Empire seemed to bring greater and greater tensions and contradic-
tions. Ameliorating those tensions and contradictions was imperative, but
as the deeply entrenched resentments that burst forth at the riots in Tokyo
in 1905 and 1906, as well as the tumult unleashed at the Ashio mine in
1907 reveal, the government was presented with intractable resistance and
seemed incapable of mollifying it without resorting to force. The High
Treason Incident of 1910, in certain regards, indicated rather poignantly
a desperation and brutality in response to the intensification of that
resistance.

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192 A. SWALE

To be sure, the sense of service to the realm and indeed a devotion to

the betterment of Japanese society was evident in many instances of public
service. Nogi’s following the Meiji Emperor in death through suicide
accords with a perception that duty was something worn heavily by many
who devoted their energies to Empire, but it also highlighted the gap
between what every healthy body politic needs—a means to escape Empire
when its demands become too great. Cultural elites, spanning from aca-
demia and government ministries, especially the Ministry of Education, to
the Meiji Bundan, argued for an elevated social mission for culture and the
arts and yet seemed rather clueless about how to harness the emotions and
energy of ordinary people. Their exhortations were, overall, humourless
and austere, in some cases perhaps unwittingly ludicrous.
One factor that induced this moribund response was the persistent den-
igration of the popular traditions of arts and entertainment that were the
life blood of people’s everyday experience of culture and understanding of
who they were. As hopefully amply illustrated in this volume, it was the
persistence of these traditions, albeit in evolved forms, that formed the
bedrock of a new national culture and civil identity—often despite official
discouragement or circumscription. The serialized novels of the 1880s to
the 1890s were profoundly infused with conventions or late Edo novel
writing and intertwined with performative practices such as kōdan and
rakugo, richly complemented in turn by sashie that grew out of the mas-
tery of line, form and contrast developed by nishikie artists. It was the
amalgam of these new cultural forms that contributed to the vitality of
printed commentaries and illustrated accounts that were co-opted into the
service of fanning patriotic fervour during the Sino-Japanese War. And
certainly there were new energies that were unleashed by the likes of
Kawakami Otojirō in theatre before and during that conflict which, as we
saw with Kawakami’s adaptation of Izumi Kyōka’s works, promised new
vital connections between literature and theatre. The post Sino-Japanese
War period saw further invigoration of popular performance and enter-
tainments, as exemplified by the stellar rise of female gidayū performers.
As already suggested, this was the flowering of the first purely Meiji gen-
eration—born either after the Restoration or too soon before it to have
any meaningful sense of a pre-Meiji society. Theirs was at times a culture
expressed through recklessness and abandon, but it was an energy that
arguably could have been harnessed more positively in time.
One further factor for the curtailing of a healthier accommodation of
the vigour of youth and embracing of the human need for humour and
 7 CONCLUSION 193

release was the persistent discourse of needing to ‘emulate the West’. This
was of course a very loaded concept. It entailed at various turns an intense
disparaging of the very traditions that were most likely to provide the
impetus for an organically formed and emotionally meaningful culture
shared in the public realm amongst the citizenry. But as the early esca-
pades of the Rokumeikan and the later rather shambolic attempts of expo-
nents of kabuki to transform it into a form of ‘modern theatre’ rather
sharply indicate, you could not present rather facile replications of Western
social and cultural norms nor promote rather bowdlerized versions of the
traditional arts and hope to gain the hearts and minds of the people. And
this, as we saw, was not a tendency that receded at all throughout the Meiji
period. The establishment of a rotunda in Hibiya park for the performance
of military band music and Western opera in 1905, along with the attempts
to replicate ‘serious drama’ through productions at the Teikoku Gekijō in
1911 reveal an internal disjunct and tension that never quite gave way,
even amongst those who intended to be quite innovative. It was this con-
stant scourge of having to cloak innovation in ‘improvement’, or the pro-
motion of ‘civilization’, that led to such missteps.
The relative effusiveness of popular culture in the late 1890s was to
encounter a rather sombre pall as the (apparently) inevitable showdown
with Russia increasingly became a distinct practical prospect. As was illus-
trated by the increasingly sombre tone and presentation of the Yamato
Shinbun even in 1903 indicates, there was foreboding, and it wasn’t so
much just the foreboding of expecting another national struggle through
armed conflict, but a gnawing suspicion that political and military elites
expected the people to simply pay the high price, to sacrifice unflinchingly
in a way that was ‘worthy of empire’, without any indication of a realiza-
tion of what such sacrifices actually entail, especially for the people who
would end up bearing the brunt of the consequences of such military
adventures. In the Russo-Japanese War, the youth of Japan did sally forth
valiantly into the path of almost certain death, but the only consolation
that the grim-faced generals could offer was an exhortation to go forth yet
again and almost certainly die albeit as true sons of the Empire, adherents
to the ethos of Bushidō, loyal servants of the Emperor. It was indeed
World War Zero in that, in a very Japanese sense, and without often put-
ting it into so many words, the Japanese people realized their leaders were
in fundamental regards clueless about how to conduct a modern war
beyond cloaking it in a pre-modern ethos and, practically speaking, indif-
ferent to the consequences of conducting war that very way. It could be
194 A. SWALE

suggested that Yosano Akiko in her poem “Brother, Do Not Give Your
Life” got away with her utterly front-on rebuttal of the imperative to die
meekly for the Emperor precisely for these reasons.
The response to the terms of the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1905 was
indicative of how flammable popular sentiments were—it didn’t take
much, despite the fact that Japan had gained much both in terms of inter-
national prestige and in terms of expansion of a recognized sphere of influ-
ence and resources in Korea and Manchuria. But anything less than a
repeat of the spectacular gains of the Sino-Japanese War was regarded as
an affront and things would never quite be the same again. The emer-
gence of Tōchūgen Kumoemon’s enormous popularity as a naniwa-bushi
performer—a performer with great charisma and a fanatical popular fol-
lowing—was nonetheless couched in such a slavish concentration on clas-
sical bushi themes, the tale of the 47 rōnin in particular, that it is hard not
to feel a certain disappointment in the degree to which popular perfor-
mance had become subservient to the very themes that people should
have been suspicious of and resisted. Part of the success of course lay in the
public buying into the official account that victory over the Russians had
been a spiritual victory, rooted most fundamentally in distinct Japanese
values and Bushidō.
As we saw with Miyatake Gaikotsu, there were those who saw the iro-
nies, the idiocy of pretending that humans were other than what they
generally are—not perpetually teeth-gritting devotees of empire but crea-
tures seeking a peaceful life and a modicum of sensual pleasure. Given the
very real injuries he suffered for the cause of keeping such realities front
and centre in his publications, we may rather marvel that he managed to
keep doing it for so long. Clearly there was popular support—signs of
recognition and affirmation from the readership that would have reassured
him that he was on the right track and perhaps made him persevere despite
so much official harassment for so long. But even Miyatake, from around
the time of the High Treason Incident, along with so many other publish-
ers and writers, had to step back and take stock of the kinds of sacrifices
they were prepared to make in order to maintain that stance.
The impetus for change beyond this point of impasse was ironically in
fact partly technological. Media such as photographs, sound recording
devices and cinematic recordings revealed, in an embryonic form at first,
the possibility of private consumption of images, sounds and perfor-
mances. There would still be censorship—but ironically it was of less inter-
est to the censor if a recording either audial or visual was being consumed
 7 CONCLUSION 195

in the privacy of the home; this was the province of the wealthy in any case
and clearly that automatically implied, in the initial stages at least, the ‘bet-
ter bred’.
But as we saw with Matsui Sumako, the persons providing content and
the media production companies they worked for, generated commodities
and communities of consumers that were even harder to regulate than
more traditional pictorial or print media. All this suggests yet another
expansion of the gap between government and the people, as popular
culture through new media developed new audiences, and the govern-
ment continued to devote itself to the practice of attempting to manufac-
ture mass compliance through the interventions of the Ministry of
Education and repressive edicts from the Home Ministry.
It has already been suggested that the years following the end of the
Meiji period actually attenuated some of the contradictions and disjunc-
tures that had come to a head towards the end of that reign. Under the
Home Minister, Hara Kei, some fairly draconian and indifferent responses
to civil disquiet were carried out, especially in the case of the public resis-
tance to the raising of train fares in Tokyo in 1906. But Hara was in fact
insightful and became a force for improvement in public administration as
he rooted out nepotistic appointments and sought to populate the civil
service with competent personnel. In certain ways, his crowning achieve-
ment of becoming the first Prime Minister that also was the head of the
most dominant party in the Diet in 1918 was extraordinary indeed. The
Japanese polity had evolved and matured.
Nevertheless, the event that seems to have unequivocally punctured
that achievement was the Tokyo Earthquake of 1923. Something more
profoundly subterranean in the national psyche seems to have been acti-
vated out of that particular disaster. For example, the utterly inexplicable
and indefensible murder of the anarchist Ō sugi Sakae and the Feminist Itō
Noe when they were in detention. Apparently a spontaneous act at the
hands of the police, it revealed in certain ways the depth of the late Meiji
legacy. The ensuing ultra-nationalism was in fact a re-activating of a mani-
acal devotion to nation and Emperor—a rejection of dissent that was
already well and truly apparent at the end of the Meiji period in the High
Treason trials.
In a sense, the shadow of the legacy of the Russo-Japanese War was
long indeed. It was also rooted in two ‘traditions’ that contained inherent
contradictions. First, the universalization of bushidō for all military service-
men, indeed by extension the populace as a whole, clashed with the fact
196 A. SWALE

that bushido was originally an ethos and moral code that only applied to
samurai and was never intended to apply to other castes. Second, the
Confucianism that was promoted through the Imperial Rescript on
Education, and thereafter expanded upon as a code of conduct for all loyal
subjects, was in fact a departure from the Neo-Confucian orthodoxy that
had been current up until the Meiji Restoration. And there was also a
degree of contradiction in the sense that the intellectual tradition regarded
as most appropriate to create the model for popular instruction was classi-
cally Chinese despite the fact the Restoration had ostensibly been very
precisely about reinvesting the Imperial Household in the Nativist tradi-
tion of Shinto.
The conservative ideologues and associations that sprang up from the
1890s through the early 1900s did not disappear during the Taishō period
but in fact consolidated and bided their time. Their opportunity would be
found in national calamity, the rise of threats within and without, which
would seem to justify the subjugation of the individual citizen to the State.
But as Natsume Sōseki so eloquently argued in his address to the Gakushuin
University students, Japan needed to find a way to preserve individual
dignity and promote mutual respect, to leave space for individual happi-
ness alongside the promotion of the interests of the nation. This was not
a capitulation to “decadence”.
In the foregoing, we have seen a vast array of artistic practices and
modes of dissemination that revealed a remarkable vitality. In each case,
these were instances of endorsing the happiness and amusement of ordi-
nary people—the life actually lived rather than the life that one was sup-
posed to be living. That vitality was never entirely extinguished even at the
height of the militarism that led to the Pacific War, and be it the persis-
tence of distinctively Japanese stylistic tropes in modern literature, the
preservation of traditional pre-modern theatrical traditions such as kabuki
or even the continued appeal of popular comedy as evidenced by Yoshimoto
Shinkigeki (established in 1912) or Manzai,—these all have origins that
can be traced to the late Meiji period where the ‘business end’ of refur-
bishing pre-Meiji cultural traditions took place, and it was pursued with
remarkable adaptability and inventiveness.
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 Index1

A B
Acting, female actresses, 175 Baseball, 87, 151
Adolphe D’Ennery Michel Strogoff Battle of Tsushima, 148–149
co-written with Jules Verne, The Baudelaire, Charles, 5
Capture of Peking (La Prise da Les Fleurs du Mal (1857), 5
Peking), 81, 82 Beardsley, Aubrey, John the Baptist in
Advertising, introduction of his Salome series, 5, 15
commercial material inside city Beerboem, Max, 120
trains, 183, 184 Beiyang Fleet, 75, 79
Aikokushin (愛国心), 127, 129, 131 Bernhardt, Sarah, 118, 120
Ajinomoto, 183 Besshi mine in Ehime, 172
Akiyama Teisuke, 115, 125 Bicycle, 86, 87, 93n45
Anarchism, 22, 165, 180, 181 Bigot’s, Georges, 89, 93n48
Arthur Diosy, the Japan Society, 119 Bitō Itchō (1847 - 1928),
Asahi Shinbun, 84 22, 129–131
Asakusa-Za, 82, 83 Hokushin Jihen Dan (北清事変談),
Ashio copper mine, 23, 122 129, 130
Ashio mine hanba (飯場), 168 Nisshin Sensō Dan (日清戦争
“brotherhood” system, 169 談』), 129
Ashio Revolt of 1907 Minami Blue Stockings, 161
Teizō, 171 Boshin War, 7, 8, 62
Ashio Riot, 161, 171 Boxer Rebellion, 104, 127–130, 132

1
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 207

Switzerland AG 2023
A. Swale, A Cultural History of Late Meiji Japan,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43646-8
208 INDEX

Bubonic plague, 88 “Degeneracy” (daraku, 堕落), 174

Bundan Shōmakyō (「文壇照魔 Department stores
鏡」), 101 Daimaru, 152
Bungei Kurabu (『文芸倶楽部』), 35 Mitsukoshi, 151
Bungei Kyōkai「文芸協会」, 174 Shirokiya, 151
Bungei Kyōshinkai (『文芸共 Detective novels, 36, 38, 46, 57n17
進会』), 35 Dickens, Charles, 6
Bunmei kaika, Akire Gaeru (Frog Fed Ding Ru-chang (Beiyang Fleet),
Up with Modernity), 7 Admiral, 79
Bunmei Zasshi Dodoitsu (versified limericks), 29
Bimyō Zasshi, 47 Dokufumono, 39
Dōtoku Zasshi, 47
Shinri Zasshi, 47
Tonchi Zasshi, 47 E
Bushidō, 127, 142, 144, 151, 152, Eiri Chōya Shinbun, 3, 4, 10, 53
185, 186, 193–196 Eiri Jiyū Shinbun, 3, 10,
13–15, 42, 53
Emancipation Edict of 1872, 113
C Enomoto Takeaki
Censorship Newspaper Minister of Agriculture and
Ordinances, 165 Commerce, 122
Chikushō (蓄妾), 116 Third Mine Pollution Order, 122
Chingaku, Awashima, 9 Environmental pollution, 124
Cholera, 88, 89 Etō Shinpei, 18, 62
Chōya Shinbun, 3, 10, 46 Exposition Universelle, 119
Christianity “brotherhood”, 169 “Extracurricular reading” (kagai
Chūo ̄ Shinbun, 81, 82 yomimono, 課外読み物), 35
Chūshingura (the tale of the loyal
forty-seven rōnin), 22
Conan-Doyle, Arthur, 36 F
Conder, Josiah, 10, 80 Factories and factory conditions, 171
Convention of Tientsin, 66 Feminism, 21, 161, 180
Fenellosa, Ernest, 89
Fin de Siècle, 6, 21, 95–125
D Flaubert’s Madame Bovary (1856), 5
Dan-Kiku Kairiku Renshō Asahi no Franco-Prussian War of 1870 –
Mihata (『海陸連勝日 1871, 81
章旗』), 83 Fujin Shinpō (『婦人新報』), 99
Debakame Incident Ikeda Kametarō, Fujo Zasshi (『婦女雑誌』), 34
debaru (出歯る), 173 Fukuchi Gen’ichirō, Ō chi (桜痴), (『
Defoe, Daniel, 111 海陸連勝日章旗』), 40, 52, 83
Robinson Crusoe, 111 Fukushima Yasumasa’s, Major, 88
 INDEX 209

Fukuzawa Yukichi, 28, 73, 86, 113 Rōdō Shiseikai or Shiseikai 至誠会
Furukawa Ichibei, 122 for short), 169
Furukawas, 170 Greater Japan Workers’ Association,
Futabatei Shimei, 36 (Dai Nihon Rōdo ̄ Dōshikai or
Dōshikai 同志会), 169
Gundan (軍談) Nisshin Sensō Dan (『
G 日清戦争談』), 129
Gahō, Hashimoto (1835 - 1908), 89 Gunshin (軍神), 136
Gakusei fūki mondai (学生風紀
問題), 110
Gakusei Hitsusenjō (『学生筆 H
戦場』), 35 Hague Conventions
Gakushūin University, 164, 183, Emperor Gojong, abdication in
184, 196 favour of Sunjong, 177
Ganghwa Treaty, 62 Hague Convention of 1899, 177
Garakuta Bunkō, 19, 28–31, 56n5 Hague Convention of 1907, 177
Gashin shōtan (臥薪嘗胆), 86 Haishi shōsetsu (稗史小説), 5, 110
Gazoku setchū (雅俗折衷), 5 Hakubunkan (博文館), 33–35, 57n15,
Geisha, 54, 59n48, 88, 117–119, 150 64, 69, 112, 139
Genbun itchi (言文一致), 5 Eisai Shinshi (『穎才新誌』), 64
Genyōsha, 18, 153 Gunkoku Gahō, 139
Gesaku literary traditions, 4 Nihon no Shōnen (『日本之少
Gidayū 年』), 35, 64
Ayanosuke, 108, 109 Nihon Taika Ronshū, 33, 34
Deden-kai, 108 Nisshin Sensō Jikki (『日清戦争
Dō Suru Ren, 109 実記』), 69
Kyōshi, 106 Senji Gahō Nichiro Sensō Jikki
Mutsumi-ha (睦派), 109 Nichiro Senso ̄ Shashin Gaho,̄ 139
Sei-ha (正派), 108 Shō Kokumin (『小国民』), 64
Tōgyoku, 106 Shōnen Sekai (『少年世
Toyotake Shōnosuke and her sister 界』), 35, 64
Shōgiku, 109 Yon̄ en Tamatebako (『幼年玉手
Giga (戯画) cartoons, 61 箱』), 35, 64
Ginkō, Adachi (1853 – 1902), 72 Hanada Nakanosuke (1860 – 1945),
Godai Tomoatsu, 2 Captain, 130–132
Gojong, King, 62, 63 Hōtokukai, 131
Gōtō Shojirō, 62 Hanba (飯場) “Nanking rice”, 168
Grant, Ulysses S, 52 Hankenhō (版権法), 34
The Graphic, 141 Hara Kei, 167, 195
Greater Japan Society of Devotion to Hearn, Lafcadio, 73, 145
Japanese Labour (Dai Nippon Heimin (平民), 129, 187
210 INDEX

Heiminsha Hino Kuniaki Kanō Jigorō (Tokyo Normal High

Kassatsu (『活殺』), 179 School), 183
Osaka Heimin Shinbun and from Ō tsuka Yasuji, 181
Kokkei Shinbun “Suicide at that time merely an Individualism
Number”, 179 Minister for Education, 181
̄
Osaka Kokkei Shinbun, 179 Toda Kaiichi Kawakami Hajime, 181
Heimin Shinbun, 105, 165, 169, 170 Inoue Kaoru, 52, 147
Hibiya Park, 23, 145, 146, 149, 150, Inoue Tetsujirō, 181, 183
155, 166, 193 Ishibashi Shian (1867 – 1927), 28
Hibiya riots, 23, 157n46, 161, Ishii Kendo, 180, 189n35
166, 172 Ishikawa Kin’ichirō, 147
High Court Judge Takano Ishikawa Sanshirō, 165
Takenori, 90 Itagaki Taisuke, 3, 73, 123
High Treason Incident, 160, 165, Ito assassination on the 26th of
181, 182, 187n1, 191, 194 October 1909, 159
Higuchi Ichiyo, 2 Itō Hirobumi, assassinated at the
Hiratsuka Raichō, 161, 162, 164, 175 Harbin train station, 24
Hōchi Shinbun, 105, 157n41, 179 Itsuwa Bunko (『逸話文庫』), 35
Hokkaido Colonization Office, 2 Iwakura Mission in 1871, 62
Home Ministry, 153, 167, 180, 195 Izumi Kyōka, 12, 20, 25n24, 31, 84,
Horimoto Reizō, Lieutenant, who 182, 192
they killed, 63 Giketsu Kyōketsu, (『義血
House of Peers, 45, 61, 123 侠血』), 84
House of Representatives, 45, 61 Loyal Blood, 84
Valiant Blood, 84
Izumi Kyōka Taki no Shiraito, 84
I
Ibsen, Henrik, 162, 175
particularly A Doll’s House (1879), J
162, 175 Japanalia, 118
Ichikawa Danjūrō, 3, 52 Japan Christian Women’s Association (
and Ogata Kikugorō (“Dan-­ 日本キリスト教婦人矯風会), 99
Kiku”), 81 Japan Korea relations
Ichikawa Sadanji, 3 annexation assassination of Itō
Ihara Saikaku, 19, 104 Hirobumi, 159
The Man Who Loved Love (『好色一 First Japan- Korea Protectorate
代男』), 19, 104 Treaty, 176
Illustrated London News, 141 Japan-Korea Treaty of 1910 Prime
Imperial Constitution, 46 Minister Ye Wanyong, Japan
Imperial Rescript on Education, Korea relations Japanese
181, 196 Minister for War, Terauchi
Individualism Masatake, 177
 INDEX 211

Second Japan- Korea Protectorate Kapsin coup d’etat 1884, 63, 65

Treaty, 177 Katayama Sen, 164, 170
Japan-Korea Treaty 22nd of August Katsudō shashin, 93n47, 95, 146
1910, 177 Katsura Tarō, 105, 150, 165
Japan Women’s University (日本女子 Katsureki (活暦), 52
大学), 162 Kawagami Otojirō
Jiji Shinpō, 73, 78, 93n45, 93n50, Itagaki-kun Sōnan Jikki, 55
128, 162–164, 167, 187n4, Jiyū Dōshi (自由童子, literally
187n9, 187n10, 188n19, 189n46 “child of freedom”)
national beauty contest, 163 Oppokepe, 53
Jitsugyō no Nihonsha Seiro Shashin national academy of theatre, Teikoku
Gachō Shōnen, 139 Gekijō (帝国劇場), 175
Jiyū haigyō (自由廃業), 115 Nisshin Sensō, 82, 84, 90,
Jiyū no Tomoshibi, 42, 53 95, 117
Jiyū Shinbun, 3 Shingeki, 174
Jo Byeonggap in the province of Kawakami Igai (意外, Unexpected)
Gobu, 66 based on D’Ennery work, Mère at
Jōno Saigiku, 15, 28, 32, 38, 40 Martyre, 82
Jōno Saigiku Sannin Musume (『三人 Kawakami Sōroku, 130
令攘』), 38–40 Kawakami-Za, 117, 118
Kawanabe Kyōsai “illustrated diary”
(暁斎絵日記) pornographic
K content, 10
Kabuki-za was opened, Ichikawa Keene, Donald (“The Sino-Japanese
became it’s inaugural Director, 52 War of 1894 – 95...”), 68, 71,
Kaburagi Kiyokata, 140 92n20, 92n21
Kafka, Franz, 6 Keikoku Bidan (Illustrious Tales of
Kaishin Shinbun, 3 Statesmanship), 4
Kajin no kigū (Unexpected Encounters Keiō Gijuku, 17, 151
with Beauties), 4 Keisatsu Shinpō, 15
Kamimura of the Japanese Legation, Kenpeitai, 167
General, 119 Kensei Hontō, 124
Kanagaki, Robun, 7, 15, 28, 32, Kenseitō, 124
43, 58n29 Ken’yōsha society, 19
Agura Nabe (Tales Heard Around a Ken’yūsha Gisoku (硯友社戯則), 29
Pot of Beef), 7 Kibi Dango, 41
Kanbun, 52, 98 Kikuchi Dairoku, Minister for
Kaneko Kentarō, 55, 135 Education, 105
Kanno Suga, 160, 161, 165 Kim Ok-gyun, 65
Kanno Sugako, 23, 164 Kinkikan Incident, see Red Flag
Kano Hōgai (1828 – 88), 89 Incident
Kanzen chōaku (“reward good, punish Kinkikan theatre, 23
evil”), 8, 183 Kinmochi, Saionji, 23, 164, 175
212 INDEX

Kipling, Rudyard, 111 Kowshing, an English merchantman

Jungle Book, 111 under lease to the Chinese
Kitahara Hakushū, 101 government sank, 67
Kitasato Shibasaburō (1853 – Kubota Kinsen, 147
1931), 88 Kuchie by Shimazaki Ryūu, 70
Kitashirakawa-no-miya Yoshihisa, Kuga Katsunan, 4
Imperial Prince, 90 Kunikida Doppo, 22, 68,
Kiyochika, Kobayashi, 8, 13, 71–73, 137–139, 150
75, 76, 79, 137, 140, 141, 147 Kuroda Kiyotaka, 2
Klimt, Gustav, 6 Kuroda Seiki (1866 – 1924) exhibited
Kōdan, vii, 15, 22, 30, 50, 51, 95, 96, Chōjō (朝妝 or “Morning
129–131, 152, 155, 192 Toilette”), 89
Kokka Gakkai (国家学会) Kokka Kuroiwa, 38, 46, 50, 117, 125
Gakkai Zasshi, 34 Kuroiwa “viper” (mamushi), 117
Kokkei Shinbun rabu (ラブ, i.e. “love”) Kuropatkin, Alexei General, 148
front pages, 179–180 Kushibiki Yumindo, 118
eroticism, 179 Kwaidan (怪談) A True Tale from
Kokkei Shinbun Yamamoto Yasujirō Kasanegafuchi (『眞景累
and Maeno Kazuhiro, 178 ヶ淵』), 37
Kokusuishugi, 4, 33, 55 Kyōfūkai (矯風会), 99, 114
Konnichi Shinbun, 15, 43 Kyoto University, ix, 186
Kōno Michiyoshi, Lieutenant, Nichiro Kyūha, the “old school,” 84
Sensō Shashin Gahō Koyama
Shōtarō “Patrolling the Banks of
the Yalu River”(「鴨緑江畔偵察 L
の図」), 147 Le Théâtre du Châtelet, 81
Korea became a Protectorate of Li Hongzhang, 63, 67, 82
Japan, 159 L’illustration in France, 141
Korea Chōsen no Chisō (「朝鮮の馳 “Love-suicide” (shinjū, 心中), 162
走」), Kisaeng, 64 Lüshun (later known as Port Arthur),
Korea (or Chōsen) annexation, 24 75, 79, 90
Kornicki, Peter, 28, 30
Meiji Japan: Political, Economic and
Social History, a four-volume M
Maeda Ai, 16 Madame Butterfly, 120
Political, Economic and Social Madame Chrysanthème, 120
History, a four-volume Mainichi Shinbun, 105
Maeda Ai, 16 Mantei Ō ga Akire Gaeru (Frog Fed
Ko-shinbun, vii, 3 Up with Modernity), 7
Kosugi Misei, 139 Manzai, 196
Kōtoku Shusui, 97, 105, 159, 164, Marumaru Chinbun, 41–43,
181, 182 45, 58n28
 INDEX 213

Maruoka Kyūka (1865 – 1927), 28 death of Tenmin, 85

Masaoka Shiki, 2, 68 early life, 40–41
Mata Igai (又意外, Unexpected Again) Hichamucha Sha, 41
and even Mata-mata Igai (又々意 “A History of Obscene Customs”
外, Kawakami (Unexpected Yet (Waisetsu Fūzokushi), 180
Again) adaptation of King imprisonment, 44, 178
Oedipus, 82 Karyū Suishi, (『花柳粋誌』), 100
Matsubara Iwagorō, 168 Kokkei Shinbun (『滑稽新聞』), 19,
Matsui Sumako, 175, 195 21, 100–106, 178, 179
Matsukata deflation, 17 Meiji Bunka Kenkyūkai, 180
Matsumoto Chiwaki, 166, 167 Ogi Kinsabu scandal, 178
Matsuzaki Nao’omi, Captain, 77 “Shunga Monogatari” (「春画物
Meiji Bundan, 2, 11, 35, 96, 192 語」), 100
Meiji Bunko (『明治文庫』), 35 Tonchi Kyōkai Zasshi (『頓知協会雑
Meiji Emperor, 23, 24, 90, 100, 134, 誌』), 41–44, 47
184, 192 Tonchi to Kokkei (『頓知と
Meiji-za, 52 滑稽』), 85
Meirinkan, 97 Miyoshi Yonekichi, 103
Mekake, 112 Moral panic, 21, 173
Migita Toshihide, 12, 69, 72, 76, 140 Mori Arinori, 1, 112, 147
Minami Sukematsu, 169–171 Mori Ō gai, 2, 22, 68, 116, 137, 185
Ministry of Education, 110, 174, 180, Mori Ogai ̄ Okitsu Yagoemon no isho
192, 195 and Sahashi Jingorō (1913) Sakai
Ministry of Education (Meguro), 35 Jiken, 185
Mitsuya Cider, 183 Morita Kanya, the Shintomi-za, 52
Miura Gorō, Lieutenant General, Morita Sōhei, 162, 163
assassination of Queen Min, 89 Myōjō (「明星」), 101, 102
Miyake Katsumi, 147
Miyake Setsurei, 4, 111
Miyako Shinbun, 15, 32, 36, 38, 46, N
50, 61, 84, 97, 108, 145, 157n28 Nagai Kafū, 161, 182
Miyatake Gaikotsu, viii, 19, 21, 24, Nagaoka Tsuruzō, 169
28, 40, 41, 43–50, 56, 56n2, 85, Naniwa-bushi, 96, 152, 153, 155
99–103, 105, 106, 117, 118, Narushima Ryūhoku Bokujō inshi den
124, 125, 160, 177–180, 194 (Biography of a Recluse on the
Bunmei Zasshi, 47, 49; Bimyō Zasshi Sumida River), 8
Dōtoku Zasshi, 47, 48; Kottō Nativism, 4
Zasshi (「骨董雑誌」), 99; Naturalism, 181
Shinri Zasshi, 47; Tonchi Zasshi, Neo-Confucianism, 196
47, 48, 85 Neo-Romanticism, 101
child with his partner Yayo, a boy Nichiro Sensō Gaikoku Gahō (Kinji
Tenmin ( 天民), 85 Gahōsha), 139
214 INDEX

Nietzsche, Friedrich Noguchi Itaru, to send an expedition

Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1885), 6 to climb Mt Fuji, 88
Nihilism, 6 Noguchi Osaburō murder of Tsuzuki
Nihon, 55, 93n47, 128, 151 Tomogorō, Noguchi Neisai,
Nihon and Nihonjin, 4 Kawai Sosuke, 172
Nihonjin, 111 Noguchi Shigehira, 103–104
Nihon Nōgyō Zasshi (『日本農業 Normanton, 3, 51
雑誌』), 34
Nihon no Hōritsu (『日本之
法律』), 34 O
Nihon no Shōnen (『日本之少 Ochiai Yoshiiku, 9, 51
年』), 35, 64 Ogata Gekkō (1859 - 1920),
Nihon Shōgyō Zasshi (『日本商業 72, 73, 75
雑誌』), 34 Ohara Koson, 141
Niitobe Inazō Ō hashi Sahei (1836 – 1901), 33
Bushidō: The Soul of Japan, 186 Ō hashi Shintarō (1863 – 1944), 33
Nikolai Cathedral (formally known as Okakura Tenshin, 89
the Holy Resurrection Oki Teisuke, 136
Cathedral), 134 Ō kubo Toshimichi, 62
Ninjō-banashi, 4 Ō kuma Shigenobu, 2, 3, 124
Niroku Shinpō (『二六新報』), 21, Ō kura Kihachirō, 175
115–117, 153 Osatake Takeki, 180, 189n35
Nishikawa Kōjirō, 169, 170 ̄
O-shinbun, 3
Nishikie, vii, 3, 8, 9, 11–16, 19, Oskar Gripenberg, General, 148
51, 69–73, 75, 77, 81, Ō sugi Sakai, 165
92n21, 139, 140, 147, Ozaki Koyō, 19, 20, 28, 31, 84
178, 192 akkō zōgen (悪口雑言), 30
Nishimura Shigeki, 111 The Golden Demon (『金色夜, 20
Nihon Kōdōkai (日本弘道会) Nihon a Miscellany of Bad-mouthing, 30
Dōtokuron, 111
Nisshin Sensō Zue, (『日清戦争図
会』), 70–72 P
Nogi Maresuke, General, 22, 24, 127, Patriotic Womens Association or
137, 143, 144, 164, 184–186, Aikoku Fujinkai (愛国婦
187n4, 192 人会), 132
junshi (殉死), Nogi Shizuko, Peace Preservation Ordinance, 27, 41
184, 186 Peoples’ Rights Movement, 2,
responses, Tanimoto Tomeri, 4, 11, 45
Niitobe Inazō, 186 Photography artists (gakō, 画工)
suicide note Mori Ō gai and photographers (shashinshi,
Natsume Sōseki, 185 写真師), 71
Seinan War, loss of sons in Russo-­ Piccasso, Pablo, 120
Japanese War, 185 Pierre Loti, 120
 INDEX 215

Poe, Edgar Allan, 5 Russo-Japanese War, viii, 2, 22, 23,

Political crisis of 1881, 3 104, 127–156, 159, 162, 178,
“Political novels”, 11, 46, 55 188n26, 193, 195
“Popular disturbances” (minshū sōjōki, Ryōunkaku (凌雲閣), 87, 155
民衆騒擾期), 155
Powered flight Wright brothers Hino
Komazu and Tokugawa S
Yoshitoshi, 184 Sada Yacco, 119, 120
Private Kiguchi Kohei, 77 Musume Dōjōji, 118
Prostitution, 18, 19, 99, 113, 115, Safety of women problem of sexual
116, 124, 174 harassment, women-only
Prostitution, emancipation movement, train, 173–174
Salvation Army, 115 Saigō Takamori, 18, 62, 69, 129
Protest train fare protests of 1906, 165 Saionji Kinmochi, 23, 164, 165, 175
Puccini, Giacomo, 120 Salvation Army, The Deliverer All the
Pyongyang、Battle of, 75 World, War Cry, 114
Sanjō Sanetomi, 89
Sanpu Gokō Utsusu Gendō (三府五
Q 港寫幻燈), 3
Qing Dynasty, 62 Sanriku tsunami, 89
Queen Min, 89 San’yūtei Enchō, 15, 36–38, 43
Sashie illustrations, 11, 15, 24, 47,
51, 78, 96
R Satō Kieko, 115
Rakugo, vii, 12, 15, 29, 30, 48, 50, Satsuma and Chōshū oligarchy, 4
51, 95, 96, 147, 152, 192 Seikanron, (征韓論), 62, 69
Ramune (ラムネ), 183 Sekai Bunko (『世界文庫』), 35
Red Flag Incident, 23, 165 Seppuku, 184–186
Reparations, 22, 62, 63, 121, 127 Sexual gratification, seiyoku
Rikken Seiyūkai, 124 manzokushugi, (「性欲満足主
Rokumeikan, 52, 80, 147, 193 義」), 162
Röntgen, Wilhelm, 88 Shakespeare, William, 36, 38
Roosevelt, Theodore, 135, 147, Shōnen Shashin Gahō (Ikubunsha), 139
148, 177 Shibusawa Ei’ichi, 175
Rops, Felicien, 5 Shiga Naoya (1883 – 1971), 110
Rozhestvensky, Admiral Zinovy, 148 Shimazaki Tōson, 2, 161
Russian Baltic Fleet the Second Pacific The Broken Commandment, 161
Squadron, 143 Shinbun nishikie, 8
Russian Empire, Trans-Siberian, 21 Shingeki (新劇), The Merchant of
Russian revolts, Bloody Sunday mutiny Venice and Hamlet, Mori
of the battleship Potemkin coup Ritsu, 174
of 1907, 149 Shin Gundan (「新軍談」), 130
216 INDEX

Shinkigeki (新喜劇), 146 Submarine accident April of

Shin Kōdan (「新講談」), 130 1910, 189n46
Shinkyōgoku in Kyoto, 54, 106 Successive Victories on Land and Sea,
Shinpa (新派), 55, 84, 96, 106 Our Glorious Flag of the
Shinpotō (‘Progressive Party’), 124 Rising Sun, 83
Shinto, 180, 196 Suehiro Hiroko, 163
Shōchiku Shinkigeki, 146 Suehiro Tetchō, 4
Shokkō (職工), 17, 18, 95 Symbolism, 5
Shōnen Bungaku (『少年文学』), 35
Shōnen En (『少年園』), 66
Shōnen Sekai (『少年世界』)., 35, 64 T
Shōrin Hakuen, 15 Taishō, 7, 124, 184, 196
Shosei Shibai (書生芝居), 53 Taiwan, 24, 62, 79, 86, 89, 90, 99,
Shunga (春画), 80, 92n34 100, 131
Shunka Shūtō (『春夏秋冬』), 35 Taiwan expedition Paiwan tribe Ryūkū
Sino-Japanese War, 2, 13, 15–17, 19, Islands, 62
22, 61–91, 95, 97, 99, 104, 108, Taiyō (『太陽』), 34, 35, 57n15, 111,
109, 115, 117, 123, 127, 129, 112, 181
130, 138, 144, 156n19, 192, 194 Takabatake Ransen, 7, 12, 51
Declaration of War, 75 Takamatsu Eigi Juku, 40
Social Democratic Party (Shakai Takemoto Gidayū (1651 –
Minshūtō, 社会民衆党), Kōtoku 1714), 20, 106
Shūsui, 164 Tanaka Shōzō, petition in person to
Socialism, 21, 165, 180, 181 the Emperor directly, 123
Soganoya Brothers Comedy Duo Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, 161
Soganoya Gorō (original name Tayama Katai, 139, 161
Wada Hisaichi), 146 Teikoku Gekijō (帝国劇場)
Soganoya Jūrō, 146 A Doll’s House by Henrik
Sōseki, Natsume, ix, 2, 31, 136, 161, Ibsen, 175
162, 183, 185, 186, 196 The Waltz of the Flowers from Swan
Botchan (1906), 31, 161 Lake, 175
I Am a Cat (1905), 31, 39, 161 Telephone, 87, 173
Kokoro (1914), 185 Terry, Ellen, 118, 119
“My Individualism” (「私の個人主 Three Article Educational
義」) Gakushūin Constitution (Sanjō no Kyōken,
University, 183 三条の教憲), 51
Sōshi (壮士), 18, 45, 53 Tōchūgen Kumoemon (1873 –
Sōshi Shibai, 19, 53, 81 1916), 22, 194
Sound recording (chikuonki, 蓄音機) Tōgō, Admiral, 148
Tenshōdō in Ginza, 146 Tōkai Sanshi, 4
Students, ‘immoral conduct’ “Bible Tokutomi Sohō of the Kokumin no
Kiyoko” Ministry of Education Tomo, 73
response, 174 Tokyo Eiri Shinbun, vii, 12, 69
 INDEX 217

Tokyo Imperial University, 17, 97, U

104, 105, 181, 189n35 Uchimura Kanzō, 68, 91n16,
Tokyo Nichinichi Shinbun, 8, 9, 12, 97, 105
46, 93n50 Ueno Park, 90, 150, 155
Tokyo School of Fine Arts, 89 Ukiyoe, 15, 72, 92n21
Tok̄ yō Sōjō Gahō (『東京騒擾画報』),
149, 150
Tokyo Tetsudō Kaisha, 166 W
Tokyo train lines Kaitetsu Line Toden Waseda University, 109, 151
line, 167 Western opera, 193
Tokyo University of Foreign Wilde, Oscar, 5
Languages, 172 Wirgman, Charles, the founder of
Tonchi Kyōkai Zasshi (『頓知協会雑 Japan Punch, 8
誌』), 41–44, 47, 58n29 Women’s gidayū. tare gidayū, 20
Tonghak Rebellion that broke out in Workplace practices oyakata, 96, 122
April of 1894, 66 World Women’s Christian Temperance
Toshikata, Mizuno, 12, 13, 16, 69, Movement (WWCTM), 114
72, 76–79, 137, 140
Tōten, Miyazaki, 130, 153
Toyama Masakazu, 97, 98 Y
Toyohara Kunichika (1838 – Yalu River, Battle of, 70, 75,
1912), 72 78, 90, 136
Treaty of Chemulpo of the 30th of Yamada Bimyō, 2, 28
August, 1882, 63 Yamaguchi Koken, 23, 165
Treaty of Jeonju, was signed on May Yamaji Yakichi (later Aizan), 166
the 7th., 66 Yamamuro Gunpei, 115
Treaty of Peace, Amity, Commerce Yamato Shinbun, 15, 32, 36, 38, 46,
and Navigation 1882 signed 50, 83, 97, 115, 145,
Korean and US, 63 157n28, 193
Treaty of Portsmouth, viii, 22, 149, Yano Ryūkei, 4, 5, 55, 138
167, 176, 194 Yokogawa Shōzō, 136
Treaty of Tianjin (31 May), 63 Yokoyama Gennosuke, 121
Tsubouchi Shoyō, 19, 30, 31, 36, 43, Yomiuri Shinbun, 3, 36, 46,
57n9, 174, 175 71, 79, 105
Tsuchiya Reiko, 3, 15 Yon̄ en Tamatebako (『幼年玉手
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 3, 43, 53, 箱』), 35, 64
69, 72, 178 Yon̄ en Zasshi (『幼年雑誌』), 35
Tsuruta Teijirō, 144 Yorozu Chōho, 19, 21, 38, 46, 50, 78,
A Diary of Service in the Russo-­ 97, 105, 109, 113, 115, 162,
Japanese War Campaigns, 144 175, 179
Tsuzukimono, 11 Yōsai Nobukazu (1872 - 1944), 72, 73
Tuberculosis, 88, 155 Yosano Akiko, 101, 162, 194
218 INDEX

Yosano Akiko (cont.) Yūbari mine in Hokkaido, 169

Kimi Tangled Hair (Midaregami, Yu ̄bin Hōchi Shinbun, 8, 51
みだれ髪), 162 Yūzai Muzai (1888), 46
Yosano Tekkan, 101
Yoshimune, Arai, 12–15, 53
Yoshino Sakuzō, 180, 189n35 Z
Yoshioka Tetsutarō『新著百集』(One Zeppelin airship, 184
Hundred New Works), 30 Zōshikan, 97, 98