For a country that birthed its modern society by the rise and re-form from Western colonialist invasion, the Meiji era is the prologue and also the synopsis of contemporary Japan: constituting strength through struggle. Humanity’s salvation through damnation in Japan’s apocalyptic imaginary — one I would call as ‘downtown in distress’ — is exhibitive yet therapeutic, particularly for its post-war consumers, as cataclysms are detonated and thus desensitised at a secure imaginative distance. Few nations have a history of vulnerability and a culture of anxiety imprinted so profoundly like Japan does, hence “doom-laden dream” is able to act as a placebo, a sedative for the Japanese people, whereas Hollywood-styled “utopian” dream is avoided like plague in popular culture.
Although Japan Sinks rebooted again in 2021 and was the annual highest-ratings Sunday series, it is perceivable that Japan’s ‘crisis’ entertainment has reconstructed in the half century after WWII. Traversed from reactive to almost aggressive millenarian commentary, the demise of visual and social order is heralded as both the beginning and the end to the monstrous antagonist that is the (Japanese establishment’s) megacity itself. Regardless, the past and present of Japanese sci-fi cinema shares the principle in it is careful not to depict urban annihilation as a wholly futuristic fiction, instead a near-future augury of revolt and reset.
Tingxuan Gong
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Nice summary on the context and social implications behind the rise of Japan’s monster movie. You demonstrated good understanding of the main ideas in Tsuitsui’s text, including Japan’s history that led to the apocaplyptic imagery on screen and the idea of ‘secure horror’. I appreciate your conclusion that such depiction of mass annihilation, despite its spectacle and seeming impossibility, is done so in a realistic manner to ground the genre in the actuality of Japan’s constant need to adapt to such disasters.