Certain Victory: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media (review)

In Certain Victory, David Earhart has produced a fascinating visual history of wartime Japan. On the one hand, the photographs, cartoons, illustrations, and artwork presented on nearly every page help us to understand what it was like to live in Japan during these tumultuous years—years marked by the outbreak of war with China in 1937, the attack on the United States in 1941, and defeat and surrender in August 1945. On the other hand, these same visual images demonstrate the power of camera, brush, and pen to capture the hearts and minds of a people and convince them of the righteousness of their cause. Certain Victory is thus more than a study of wartime Japan; it is also a study of the rise and growing power of media such as photojournalism to influence the way people think about their world—a problem that confronts us all in the twenty-first century.

In compiling this impressive book, Earhart draws on his own extensive collection of original wartime publications. One of his sources is the Asahi gurafu, the photo digest of the Asahi shinbun, which provided visuals on Japanese news from its founding in 1926 until its discontinuance in 2000. During the war years, Asahi gurafu published special issues on “incidents,” using titles such as the Manchurian Incident, the Shanghai Incident, the February 26 Incident of 1936, the China Incident, the Outbreak of War in Europe, and the Great East Asian War. Other sources are publications (including comics) for girls and boys, kamishibai panels, graphics (including advertisements) from women’s magazines, and journals, such as Chūō kōron, aimed at the intellectual elite.

However, by far the most important source of images for Earhart’s work is Shashin shūhō (Photographic weekly report), which began publication on February 18, 1938, and continued, despite wartime shortages of paper and ink, for 375 issues, until July 11, 1945, one month before Japan’s surrender. In format, Shashin shūhō was Japan’s answer to Life, the pioneer photo magazine begun by Henry Luce in November 1936. Taking a cue from Life, the weekly was priced at 10 sen (roughly 10 cents) and gave as much space to pictures as to words. In one important respect, however, Shashin shūhō differed from Life: it was published by the Naikaku Jōhō Bu (Cabinet Information Office, later Naikaku Jōhō Kyoku [Cabinet Information Bureau]), Japan’s equivalent of the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI), founded in June 1942. Drawing on the talents of Japan’s leading photographers, including Kimura Ihee, Umemoto Takao, and Domon Ken, the editors of Shashin shūhō consciously sought to take advantage of the emotional impact of photographs and their power to shape public opinion. The choice, layout, cropping, and captioning of photographs and other images had clear political implications.

John Dower has described differences in Japanese and U.S. propaganda during World War II,¹ but similarities are also apparent. Both nations sought to rally the home front around the war effort. Rosie the Riveter had her Japanese counterpart, an airplane mechanic: “Those who scoffed and said, ‘ha, the like of women!’ now take a look at how skillful they are” (p. 172). Images, both moving and still, exhorted Americans and Japanese to be frugal, support the troops, and work hard. The propaganda machines of both countries sought total mobilization. OWI posters proclaiming “United We Win” were matched by Shashin shūhō support for the “One Hundred Million, One Mind (ichi-oku isshin)” (p. 122) and the “Keep up the Fight (uchiteshi yamamu)” (p. 311) campaigns.

In presenting these images from Shashin shūhō, Asahi gurafu, and other publications, Earhart has organized his book into 12 chapters, each with its own set of images. The first six chapters focus on elements of Japanese society (the emperor, the empire, the soldier, the mother and housewife, and the junior citizen...