Table Of ContentThis study provides an accessible overview of the range of K Reading Spaces in
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reading spaces in modern Japan, and the evolution thereof, M
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from a historical perspective. After setting the scene in a short
I
introduction, it examines the development of Kanda-Jinbo¯cho¯, -D Modern Japan
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the area of Tokyo that has remained for a century the location C
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in Japan most bound up with books and print culture. It then E
The Evolution of Sites and
considers the transformation of public reading spaces, explaining
how socioeconomic factors and changing notions of space
Practices of Reading
informed reading practices from the early modern era to the
present. This led, in turn, to changes in bookstores, libraries,
and other venues. Finally, it briefly considers the nature and
impact of virtual reading spaces, such as the representation of
reading and reading spaces in popular culture and new modes of R
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reading mediated by the digital realm, as well as the multifaceted din
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relationship between these and older forms of reading practice. S
paces sserP y
Cambridge Elements in Publishing and Book Culture in M tisrev
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ElementsinPublishingandBookCulture
editedby
SamanthaRayner
UniversityCollegeLondon
LeahTether
UniversityofBristol
READING SPACES IN MODERN
JAPAN
The Evolution of Sites and Practices of Reading
sse
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vin Andrew T. Kamei-Dyche
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eg Aoyama Gakuin University
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ShaftesburyRoad,CambridgeCB28EA,UnitedKingdom
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CambridgeUniversityPressispartofCambridgeUniversityPress&Assessment,
adepartmentoftheUniversityofCambridge.
WesharetheUniversity’smissiontocontributetosocietythroughthepursuitof
education,learningandresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence.
www.cambridge.org
sse Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781009181037
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y DOI:10.1017/9781009181020
tisrev ©AndrewT.Kamei-Dyche2023
in
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Reading Spaces in Modern Japan
TheEvolutionofSitesandPracticesofReading
ElementsinPublishingandBookCulture
DOI:10.1017/9781009181020
Firstpublishedonline:March2023
AndrewT.Kamei-Dyche
AoyamaGakuinUniversity
Authorforcorrespondence:AndrewT.Kamei-Dyche,[email protected]
ABSTRACT:Thisstudyprovidesanaccessibleoverviewoftherange
ofreadingspacesinmodernJapan,andtheevolutionthereof,from
ahistoricalperspective.Aftersettingthesceneinashort
introduction,itexaminesthedevelopmentofKanda-Jinbo¯cho¯,the
areaofTokyothathasremainedforacenturythelocationinJapan
sse mostboundupwithbooksandprintculture.Itthenconsidersthe
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y transformationofpublicreadingspaces,explaininghow
tisre socioeconomicfactorsandchangingnotionsofspaceinformed
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inU readingpracticesfromtheearlymoderneratothepresent.This
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gd led,inturn,tochangesinbookstores,libraries,andothervenues.
irbm Finally,itbrieflyconsidersthenatureandimpactofvirtualreading
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C spaces,suchastherepresentationofreadingandreadingspacesin
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ilno realm,aswellasthemultifacetedrelationshipbetweentheseand
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02 KEYWORDS:reading,bookstores,libraries,booktowns,Japan
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Kanda-Jinbo¯cho¯: Tokyo’s Book Town 4
3 The Ongoing Transformation of Public
Reading Spaces 37
4 Virtual Reading Spaces 81
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ytisre 5 Conclusion 97
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ReadingSpacesinModernJapan 1
1 Introduction
In recent years, reading has been a frequently covered topic in the Japanese
massmedia–specifically,concernoverthepracticeofreading,or,rather,the
apparentlyincreasinglackthereofamongyouth.Culturalcriticshavebemoaned
adults abandoning novels in favor of smartphone games and the arrival of
agenerationofchildrenshowingfarlessinterestinleisurereadingthandidtheir
parentsandgrandparents.1Readingspaces,particularlypublicones–libraries,
bookstores,cafes,andsoforth–areincreasinglyinvokedinanostalgicmanner,
or in a fearful one, as if their decline is surely imminent amidst a willfully
illiteratepopulation.Thisdiscourse,however,usuallylacksahistoricalelement,
insteaddeployingthetropeofsomehoary“traditional”pastwhereineveryone
experienced reading in the same way from the early modern era until only
recently.2
The reality is that over the course of the mid-nineteenth and twentieth
centuries the wide-ranging socioeconomic transformation that Japan experi-
enced led to changes in both the practice and the conception of reading.
sse Increased access to education ushered in rising literacy that, coupled with
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vin 1 Such articles tend to appear in response to surveys indicating declining reading
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e habitsamongyouth,suchastheonesonstudentlifestylesproducedbytheNational
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dirb Federation of University Co-operative Associations (NFUCA) (the mostrecent
m beingthefifty-sixth,basedondatafromOctoberandNovember2020;seeNFUCA,
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y 2021).Criticismisnotlimitedtotheprintmassmedia:typicalarticlesbyonline
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en journalistsandcommentatorsinclude“Youthlossofinterestinbooksisserious:
ilno More than half of university students read nothing daily” (Tomozo¯, 2018), or
de “Youthwhodon’treadbooks:IsitbecausetheNetisthebest?Thinkingabout
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silb why we should read books” (Ichita, 2018). See the end of Chapter 3 and early
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P 0 Chapter4,however,foranotherperspectiveonthesurveys.
20 2 WhatcontemporarycriticsconsidertraditionalJapanesereading–peoplequietly
1
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19 readingbythemselveseitherforentertainmentor,moreideally,tobetterthem-
001 selves–isitself,however,largelyamodernphenomenon,asweshallsee.The
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79 collapseoftheentiretyoftheJapanesereadingexperienceintoasingleidealized
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10 categorycomesasnosurprisetoJapanesehistorians,who,likehistorianselse-
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.0 whereintheworld,havewitnessedallmannerofmodernphenomenabeingread
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2 PublishingandBookCulture
cheaperprintingandthedramaticexpansionofthebooktrade,usheredinan
erainwhichbythedawnofthetwentiethcenturybeingwell-readwasthemark
ofasophisticatedmoderncitizen.Theeliteassociationsofreadingrapidlygave
way as the century wore on, however, while reading practices also shifted:
throughthepostwaryears,patternsofsocialreadingamongfamilyandfriends
declined and reading became an increasingly private endeavor. As reading
changed, so too did reading spaces, which continually evolved in response.
Contrarytothewritersbemoaningtheendofreadingandreadingspacesin
Japan,botharestillgoingstrong–albeit,inmanyways,informsunthinkable
a century ago. My goal in this work is to take you on a tour of reading in
modern Japan, from modernization to postwar reconstruction and on to the
digital age, by considering from a historical perspective just how and why
readingpracticeschangedandtheimpactthishadonreadingspaces.
1.1 Reading Spaces?
In the most straightforward conception, a reading space is simply a space
associatedwithreading:itmaybeaspacespecificallydesignedfortheactivity
sse ofreading,oroneinwhichreadingoccurswithadegreeofregularity.Reading
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ytisrev sopracdeissccuosusldreaaldsoinigncmluadteersipalasc.esOfforcoreuardseer,s,thsuecsheacsonlocceapletssifnrewquheicnhtlytoopvroercluarpe:
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U librariesandbookstoresofferspacesinwhichtobothacquireandreadbooks,
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y spentreadingthroughstacksofmanga[comics]atnoodleshopswithfriends).
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en Reading spaces therefore exist not only as sites connected to reading –
ilno whether in physical geographical or digital virtual space – but also as social
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h spacesthatconnectreadersthroughsharedexperienceandidentityasreaders.
silbu When John Agnew defined place in terms of a “meaningful location,” he
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02 identified three key characteristics: location, locale, and sense of place.3
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00 space would be one in which the locale (material arrangement or setting, as
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ReadingSpacesinModernJapan 3
and/or readers. It is this admittedly loose, inclusive conception of reading
spacesthatIemployinthecurrentwork.
While Japanese literature has received significant scholarly and popular
attention, including outside Japan, to say nothing of the enormous popular
printculturephenomenonthatismanga,thesitesandpracticesofreadinghave
receivedlittleattention.Thoughthecurrentworkwilltouchonmanyaspectsof
Japan’s vibrant and evolving reading culture in modern times, its primary
purpose is to sketch the spatial landscape in which this culture developed.
Whilebyno means exhaustive, it representsanattempttooutline somekey
aspectsofthehistoryofreadinginmodernJapanthroughitsattendantspaces,
andtopromptconsiderationofhowreadinganditssocialcontextinfluenceeach
other.Itisastorythatislooselyorganizedboththematicallyandchronologi-
callyasitmovesthroughthreeloci.Chapter2looksatthebooktownofKanda-
Jinbo¯cho¯, for more than a century the capital of Japan’s print culture, and
focusesonthelatenineteenthandearlytwentiethcenturies.Chapter3considers
the transformation of public reading spaces, especially libraries and cafes, in
lightofbroadersocioeconomicandintellectualchangesinJapanesesociety,and
sse takesthestoryupthroughthepostwareratorecentyears.Finally,Chapter4
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ytisre tinurpnosptoulvairrtcuuallturereadainndgsthpeaceems,etorguecnhcinegoofnnethwemreoprdeessenotfatrieoandionfgr,eaanddingcosnpcaecnes-
v
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4 PublishingandBookCulture
2 Kanda-Jinbo¯cho¯: Tokyo’s Book Town
Ifwebeginwiththemostobviousformofreadingspace,thatofgeogra-
phicalorphysicalspace,onespaceinJapanismorecloselyassociatedwith
readingthananyother,butitisnotafamouslibrary,school,orpublishing
house – although it includes many prominent examples of all three. It is
Kanda-Jinbo¯cho¯,Tokyo’sbooktown,andnowhereelseinthecountryis
onelikelyto encountersomanypeopleandinstitutionsconnectedtoand
celebratingtheactofreading.4Whileamajorcenterforeducationandthe
publishing industry, it is most famous for its great number of used
bookstores.5 The town, in short, serves as a spatial representation of the
production,retail,andconsumptionofbooks.Thischapterwillintroduce
thetownanditshistory,whichhelpsrevealhowtheJapanesereadingworld
transformedwithinthecontextofmodernizationinthelatenineteenthand
earlytwentiethcenturies.
2.1 A Stroll through Kanda-Jinbo¯cho¯
sse Western,andparticularlyEuropean,readersmaybemorelikelytothink
rP y ofpicturesquevillageswhenimaginingbooktowns,giventheassociation
tisre oftheconceptwithaformof revivalofruralcommunities beguninthe
vin 1960s and exemplified by the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye. The scholar
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eg JaneFrank,forinstance,reliesonthisdefinition–aconceptionsharedby
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aC townsfromwhatmightbecalledculturalquartersinurbancenters.6From
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silb 4 Tokyo,whilea“city”inthebroadsense,isinJapanesereferredtowiththecharacter
uP 0 formetropolis/capital(都,to),andisoneofJapan’sforty-sevenprefectures.Itconsists
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0 of numerous cities and wards and several subprefectures comprised of islands.
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819 Technically speaking, Kanda-Jinbo¯cho¯ (神田神保町) is a district of Chiyoda
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01 Ward,but,aswithmanyareas,isconsideredadistincttownbyitsinhabitants.Itis
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79 oftenknownjustasJinbo¯cho¯ (orJimbo¯cho¯,inanolderromanization).
/710 5 Japanesebookstoresoftenincludeshoten(書店,bookstore)intheirnames,evenif
1.0 theyareafuruhonya(古本屋,usedbookshop).
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