The Dark Valley Period and its resultant Asia Pacific War remains an open
question in Japan; this era is consistently revisited in both public debates over textbooks
and state apology as well as in popular culture and literature. The discussion of the Dark
Valley Period and the conflicts it generated also exists within manga, a widely consumed
media, and has shifted genres multiple times in the decades following the Japanese
surrender. Some genres, such as early senki-mono, portrayed the war as a heroic,
although ultimately futile, action undertaken by self-sacrificing youth. Semiautobiographical
works, such as those created by the late manga artist Mizuki Shigeru,
countered this narrative by showing the war as brutal, senseless, and useless. Often, the
popularity or decline of a genre skewed closely to the general attitude concerning the
wartime period.
Due to its wide-scale consumption by youth, manga has the potential to both
represent and forward shifts in public perception. Additionally, historical revisionists and
anti-Article 9 proponents have shifted their discourse into manga in order to appeal to
and influence a younger audience. This strategy is further strengthened by previous genre
works, such as the Space Battleship Yamato series, which reframed the Dark Valley
Period and the Asia Pacific War in a positive light indirectly through their narrative. This
dissertation posits that the discussion has recently shifted into shōnen/seinen fantasy
manga and that this discussion reflects a level of sympathy with revisionist historians that
would normally cause a public backlash against the series in question if this sympathy
was not masked by genre.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:arizona.edu/oai:arizona.openrepository.com:10150/625622 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Greene, Barbara Ruth, Greene, Barbara Ruth |
| Contributors | Gabriel, James, Gabriel, James, Pinnington, Noel, Smith, Nathaniel, Mcfatter, Qing |
| Publisher | The University of Arizona. |
| Source Sets | University of Arizona |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text, Electronic Dissertation |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. |
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