Andrea Germer

Romantic Love and the ‘Housewife Trap’: A Gendered Reading of The Cat Returns

ABSTRACT Gender, particularly the figure of the shōjo, plays a crucial role in the creation of heroes and the development of plots in Japanese popular texts. This paper focuses on The Cat Returns (Neko no ongaeshi) (2002, dir. Morita Hiroyuki), one of the lesser-known films produced by Studio Ghibli. A socio-political reading and gender-sensitive analysis reveals that this film offers a deep and critical commentary on the gender order in contemporary Japan. Moreover, with its teenage girl protagonist Haru, it presents an exceptional case of a shōjo-centred anime that does not fit conventional genre characteristics. Through Haru’s refusal to become a wife in the Cat Kingdom the film criticises the expectation for young women to prioritise the pursuit of romantic relationships (ren’ai), and rejects the ideal of the Japanese housewife (shufu) as an existence of dependence in a semi-feudal social gender order. This paper views Haru’s coming-of-age story through major gender theories, and interprets the plot as a critique of what Ueno Chizuko and Nobuta Sayoko (2004) called the ‘Marriage Empire’ in Japan. We argue that the anime reflects shifting ideas on gender and at the same time presents an exceptional treatment of the need for young women to confront the social changes and gender role expectations of contemporary Japanese society.

Visible cultures, invisible politics: propaganda in the magazine Nippon Fujin, 1942–1945

Abstract Nippon Fujin (The Japanese woman, 1942–1945) was the most prominent wartime womens magazine of Japan that shaped its propagandistic messages in gendered and culturalized forms. Scrutinizing the visual dimension of the magazine, I discern patterns of gendered visual representation that primarily produce highly visible cultural notions and thereby veil, obscure and render invisible assertions of political power over colonized people as well as enemies. Visibility is commonly associated with influence, power and political impact, whereas less visibility – or invisibility – often indicates the positions of those who are politically powerless, socially disadvantaged or culturally oppressed. Contrasting the visual propaganda in Nippon Fujin with visual examples from NS Frauen-Warte (NS womens outlook), the major Nazi womens magazine of the time, I argue that in the former case there are concepts of ‘visibility’ and ‘invisibility’ at work that do not fit neatly into the paradigmatic assumption of mediated political ‘visibility’ as a pre-condition for public acceptance in a mass culture. To a large degree, it is the ‘invisibility’ or coded visibility of political actors that forms effective strategic elements of visual propaganda.

A Review of “Scream from the Shadows: The Women's Liberation Movement in Japan”

title Hijikata Tatsumi and Japanese People: Rebellion of the Body shows, remains steadfast in not allowing such essentialism in assessing Hijikata’s legacy. I believe that one of the best arguments Baird makes in this book comes from his grasp of surrealism and its fundamental mechanism, which he sees present in Hijikata’s every work: juxtaposition of multiple and diverse realities and the resulting tension. This tension could be interpreted in terms of aesthetics, ethics, social power structures, gender, sexuality, or one’s (national) identity. Now, because of this book, I am convinced that Hijikata must be one of the very best manifestations of surrealism in the world. Breton would be extremely proud of Hijikata and his legacy, including this book.