Shôkokumin Sensô Bunkashi [Little Citizens: A History Of Wartime Children’s Culture] by Hisashi Yamanaka (review)

This in-depth, scholarly study of children’s culture during WWII Japan is by Yamanaka Hisashi1 (1931), better known in Japan as the pioneering postwar author of many realistic children’s books like Pochi, the Red Dog (Akage no Pochi, 1960). Alongside writing for children, Yamanaka has also penned nonfiction dealing with the militaristic education he experienced as a child in wartime Japan, such as the series that began in 1974 with We Little Citizens (Bokura shôkokumin). His previous scholarly works on related subjects include Wartime Children’s Literature (Senji jidô bungakuron, 2011), a penetrating, unprecedented study of how some of Japan’s most representative children’s authors—Ogawa Mimei (1882-1961), Hamada Hirosuke (1893-1973), and Tsubota Jôji (1890-1982)—contributed to the war effort by romanticizing war in their writings for children.

In the book under review, Yamanaka repeatedly draws on his own experiences to discuss children’s publishing culture during wartime Japan. In particular, he analyzes a number of children’s books of the time, including some not addressed in his 2011 book, for their role in fostering a “fighting spirit” among young readers.

During the Pacific War, the Japanese government worked to curtail freedom of speech by reducing the number of publishers through amalgamation and censorship. Children’s books produced under these strict but vague standards of censorship featured idealized “little citizens” who, for example, were sure to be thrifty, saving money that could then be spent supporting the nation’s war effort. In other words, these didactic works sought to foster in young readers a biased, narrow viewpoint rather than cultivate their abilities to think critically for themselves. Books that preached the greatness of Japan were endorsed, and even picture books for young children were expected to feature the national flag in their illustrations. Japan-centric children’s books that justified the war and contained blatantly false historical information were also published in great numbers.

Books used in the context of militaristic education featured explicit and brutally violent scenes as a matter of course, and stories that sentimentalized death in battle were also common. Even so, children’s authors of the time still insisted on the importance of producing artistically superior children’s books, regardless of the political power structure that held sway. Yamanaka makes the interesting argument that with author Ogawa Mimei, this desire to produce good books for children nevertheless became infused with militaristic ideas. While Ogawa was known as an idealistic advocate of humanism during the early part of the twentieth century, Yamanaka argues that the author’s early sentimentalism found a new propagandistic expression in wartime Japan.

Wartime children’s magazines are also a target of Yamanaka’s critique. The Little Citizens Culture Association of Japan (Nihon shôkokumin bunka kyôkai), which had worked closely with the government to exert control over children’s books, began publishing the magazine Children’s Stories to Support Our Troops: Little Friends of War (Gunjin engo dôwashû: chiisai sen’yû) in 1944. Yamanaka analyzes many of the patriotic, militaristic tales that appeared in this magazine—including those by well-known authors such as Tokunaga Sumiko (1888-1970), Koide Shôgo (1901-1977), Sakai Asahiko (1894-1969), Nitanosa Nakaba (1907-1977), Ujihara Daisaku (1905-1956), Ishimori Nobuo (1897-1987), and Yamamoto Kazuo (1907-1996).

Offering numerous visual examples, such as book covers from his own extensive wartime children’s book collection, Yamanaka excavates this largely buried literary history in an objective and critical manner. While his analysis is an academic one, grounded in detailed surveys, Yamanaka’s book compellingly illustrates the horror of how books for children can, and continue to be, used as ideological tools in service to nationalist projects.