The history of Japanese foreign relations is certainly a unique one; for 214 years from 1639 to 1853 Japan instated Sakoku (‘closed country’) policy which limited foreign interaction and trade to almost nothing. Today, Japan’s standing as an economic superpower would infer otherwise; however, Daisuke Kikuchi writes that today, foreigner discrimination has forced the Japanese government to take legal action. With this in mind, this blog will look Robert Matthew’s Japanese Science Fiction: A View of Changing Society to see how Japanese science fiction writers feel about the possible future of Japanese foreign relations.
Before diving into the numerous stories referred to in Matthew’s book, it is important to understand how science fiction is valuable as more than a genre of entertainment. Matthew states that “the object of his book is to examine the Japanese mind as revealed in science fiction.” He explains that during the Meiji era (1868-1912), “character novels of the period reflected the difficulties encountered by Japanese individuals, […] and served as a vehicle for expression.” Just as fiction writing based on the present can be a way for the author to express their opinion on their current period, science fiction can reflect a writer’s prediction of the future based on the current socio-political situation of their time. With this in mind, Japanese science fiction can be used to analyze many different Japanese concerns of the Future. For this blog, I will be focusing on how foreign relations are depicted in the stories in Matthew’s book. More specifically, I will be looking at stories where there are themes of the protagonists interacting with anything ‘foreign.’ With many diverse stories, the way in which this theme is presented differs often, I have chosen three different stories where this theme appears in varying ways.
The first story I have chosen is ‘The Mirror’ by Hoshi Shin’ichi. The story concerns a childless married couple who are both under intense psychological pressure from their work. The husband eventually receives instructions from his Spanish pen friend for what seems to be a satanic ritual. He follows the instructions and from a mirror comes a devil which he captures. It is described in an interesting way: “Its face is miserable and its look pathetic. When its captor asks it to perform some trick for him it replies it cannot and simply begs to be let go.” The couple begin abusing and torturing the devil, and because of its immortality this torture does not kill it. Over time the couple relieve the stress from their social lives onto the devil in the form of violence and cruelty. As more stress is relieved, the couple are able to perform better in their jobs and both get promoted. From the promotions, there is more work, and more stress, and their violent actions towards the devil become increasingly cruel. Eventually, the wife moves a mirror which reopens a doorway to where the devil came from and it escapes. With no scapegoat to pass their anger onto their stress builds up and they eventually end up killing each other.
At first glance, it may not seem like this story concerns foreign relations; however, the Spanish pen friend and the devil are foreign to Japan and are main elements of the story. Two main critiques of foreign interaction are made in this story. First, the devil’s description as “pathetic” is a satire of Christianity. According to Jeffrey Russel, in Christianity the devil is the personification of evil. Given this, the author is belittling the foreign concept of evil, making it nothing more than a “pathetic” creature, seen as nothing more than a source of stress relief for a Japanese couple. Second, the Spanish pen friend was the one to supply the couple with the means of summoning the devil. It was a foreign entity who indirectly brought harm upon the family. Thus, it is the foreign relations which caused an otherwise harmless Japanese couple to turn to murder. Another concern reflected by this story is the fear of foreign dependence. In the case of ‘The Mirror’, the devil was supplied by the Spaniard; it improved the couple’s quality of life, but they ended up dependent on the devil for their success. This dependence eventually became their downfall. This story was written in 1971, right in the middle of Japan’s economic ‘miracle’ for which they depended on the West for borrowed technology for their economy growth. This story is a reference to Japan’s fear of dependence on the West for their prosperity.
This theme of fear of foreign dependence is a recurring one in Matthew’s book. In some of these stories the concern of dependence is obvious, such as in ‘The American Wall’ by Komatsu Sakyo. The main plotline of the story is “the USA is completely cut off from the rest of the world,” no one can leave or enter, and all trade with the outside world has been stopped. Matthew explains that “‘The American Wall’ reflects Japan’s economic dependence on the USA.” This theme of negativity towards foreign affairs is also seen in Hoshi’s ‘The flower of prosperity’. To briefly summarize, the Earth makes contact with a prosperous planet called Meel. It has no forms of armaments or weapons, it is described as “a small, peaceful planet, free of trouble, and its inhabitants live a life of ease.” They send a seed to Earth as a gift to indicate their willingness to engage in trade. The seed grows into a beautiful tree which produces breathtaking flowers, and after some debate, the humans grow the tree in large numbers. Eventually, the tree grows out of control, devastating agriculture around the world. As a result, the humans turn to Meel for an answer. This is another example of Japanese fear of dependence; in Matthew’s words “it may be seen a poignant reminder of Japan’s vulnerability and fragility as a trading nation.”
Given the above, science fiction has been proven to be more than a genre of entertainment. It has proven its usefulness as a means for authors to convey their concerns of the future. Equally, it is a tool for readers to analyze these concerns to identify the conditions which fueled the predictions written about. This is evident of our analysis of three Japanese science fiction stories in Matthew’s book whose main topics regarded Japanese foreign relations. The main fear discussed in these short stories was the anxiety of dependence on the West, specifically the US. The plotlines of these stories reflected Japan’s dependence on the West for their economic growth of the sixties and seventies, and the worry of what would happen if the West’s help ever stopped.
