Re-imagining Japan after Fukushima by Tamaki Mihic (review)

The Great East Japan Earthquake struck the Tohoku region on March 11, 2011, leaving an indelible mark not only on the physical landscape but on the cultural consciousness of the Japanese people. In the years that followed, responses to the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant gave rise to numerous discussions on Japanese identity: How was Japan represented in public discourse and literature after the disaster? How did 3/11 contribute to a reconsideration of Japanese identity? Who were the agents influencing these debates? To address these salient questions, Tamaki Mihic examines in her book Re-imagining Japan after Fukushima representations of Japan in a range of literary and cultural productions released within six years of the disaster. As the meanings associated with 3/11 resonate well beyond the national borders of Japan, the book incorporates both what the author terms "self-images"—representations produced by Japanese artists—and "hetero-images"—those produced by non-Japanese artists (p. 5). Following Joep Leerssen, the study follows an "imagological" approach, with a primary focus on artistic representations and what they reveal.¹ The scope of analysis in Mihic's study is impressive, including a wide array of materials (mass media, fiction, manga, poetry, and film) in several languages (Japanese, French, and English). The breadth of the study and its comparative approach make it a unique contribution to existing research on 3/11 literature, which, a decade after March 11, 2011, now constitutes a well-established field of scholarship.

The main body of Re-imagining Japan after Fukushima consists of an introduction, six chapters, and a conclusion. Each of the six chapters represents a significant aspect of post 3/11 Japan. Chapters 2 and 3 deal with works by Japanese authors; the remaining chapters are organized thematically and bring Japanese-, French-, and English-language cultural productions into dialogue with one another.

A key feature of the book is that analyses of works are set against the complex backdrop of the social discourses on Japanese identity that came to the fore after the disaster. Chapter 1, "Japan after Fukushima," explores how the disaster reframed discourse in various contexts in Japan, including values of social cohesion (kizuna) and self-sacrifice (gaman), the nuclear debate, and aspects of "Cool Japan" such as otaku culture. Mihic draws from a wellspring of sources to articulate the terms of these debates after 3/11, incorporating the voices of journalists, the mass media, public intellectuals, fiction writers, and cultural commentators. Among these voices are internationally recognized literary figures such as ōe Kenzaburō, Murakami Haruki, and Karatani Kōjin as well as key cultural critics such as Saitō Tamaki and Azuma Hiroki, whose commentaries and opinion pieces helped to shape the narrative of Japan after 3/11.

Chapter 1 outlines the terms of the nuclear debate in Japan, which understandably took on a new focus in the wake of the Fukushima incident. It shows how 3/11 stirred up vociferous discussions on nuclear power and reframed discourse on the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mihic draws our attention to the often polarized or polarizing terms of debates not only on nuclear issues but also on social relations and identity in post-3/11 Japan; this provides a sophisticated framework for consideration of the primary texts. In the chapters that follow, Mihic explores how writers negotiated and responded to these discourses through their literary and cultural productions, participating in the debate with their own creative visions.

Chapter 2, "Sustainable Japan," examines literature by three representative authors of 3/11 literature, Kawakami Hiromi, Shiriagari Kotobuki, and Wagō Ryōichi. Kawakami's "Kamisama 2011" (God bless you, 2011), Shiriagari's Ano hi kara no manga (Manga since that day), and Wagō's Shi no tsubute (Pebbles of poetry) are essential reading in the field of 3/11 literature. Mihic argues that these three writers portrayed the disaster as a kind of "moral wake-up call" (p. 36), highlighting the erosion of kizuna...