Empire’s Afterlife: The “South” of Japan and “Asian” Heroes in Popular Culture

Through the analysis of works of postwar Japanese popular culture, especially those of children’s culture with its heroes and adventures, I argue that postwar Japan maintained a remarkable continuity between the prewar and the postwar eras in its orientalizing and imperializing of Southeast Asia. Looking specifically at the genre of early “TV movies,” I suggest that postwar Japan and the familiar figures of “Asian” heroes redefined the notion of “justice” that enabled Japan to enjoy the trauma of its imperialist endeavors in Southeast Asia and reconceptualize its new positionality within a U.S.-dominated postwar postcolonial Asia.