Table Of ContentRecreating Japanese Men
Recreating Japanese Men
Edited by
Sabine Frühstück and Anne Walthall
University of California Press
Berkeley Los Angeles London
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University of California Press
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University of California Press, Ltd.
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© 2011 by The Regents of the University of California
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Recreating Japanese men / Sabine Frühstück and Anne Walthall,
editors.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-520-26737-4 (cloth, alk. paper) — 978-0-520-26738-1
(pbk., alk. paper)
1. Men—Japan. 2. Masculinity—Japan. 3. Men—Japan—
Identity. 4. Sex role—Japan. I. Frühstück, Sabine. II. Walthall,
Anne
HQ1090.7.J3R43 2011
305.38'895600903—dc22 2010052332
Manufactured in the United States of America
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In keeping with its commitment to support environmentally
responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this
book on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post consumer waste, recycled,
de-inked fiber. FSC recycled certified and processed chlorine free. It is
acid free, Ecologo certified, and manufactured by BioGas energy.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Interrogating Men and Masculinities 1
Sabine Frühstück and Anne Walthall
Part I. Legacies of the Samurai
1. Do Guns Have Gender?
Technology and Status in Early Modern Japan 25
Anne Walthall
2. Name and Honor:
A Merchant’s Seventeenth-Century Memoir 48
Luke Roberts
3. Empowering the Would-be Warrior:
Bushidö and the Gendered Bodies of the
Japanese Nation 68
Michele M. Mason
4. After Heroism: Must Real Soldiers Die? 91
Sabine Frühstück
Part II. Marginal Men
5. Perpetual Dependency: The Life Course
of Male Workers in a Merchant House 115
Sakurai Yuki
6. Losing the Union Man:
Class and Gender in the Postwar Labor Movement 135
Christopher Gerteis
7. Where Have All the Salarymen Gone?
Masculinity, Masochism, and Technomobility
in Densha Otoko 154
Susan Napier
8. Failed Manhood on the Streets of Urban Japan:
The Meanings of Self-Reliance for Homeless Men 177
Tom Gill
Part III. Bodies and Boundaries
9. Collective Maturation: The Construction
of Masculinity in Early Modern Villages 203
Nagano Hiroko
10. Climbing Walls: Dismantling Hegemonic
Masculinity in a Japanese Sport Subculture 220
Wolfram Manzenreiter
11. Not Suitable as a Man? Conscription,
Masculinity, and Hermaphroditism in
Early Twentieth-Century Japan 241
Teresa A. Algoso
12. Love Revolution: Anime, Masculinity,
and the Future 262
Ian Condry
13. Gendering Robots:
Posthuman Traditionalism in Japan 284
Jennifer Robertson
Bibliography 311
Contributors 333
Index 337
Illustrations
Figures
1.1. Young boatman 33
1.2. Man flinging himself to the ground while shooting 34
1.3. Man shooting at the ground 35
4.1. Self-Defense Forces recruitment poster from 2005 96
6.1. “Only father and the postman work on New Year’s” 144
6.2. “New Year’s Temple Visit” 145
8.1. The view from Yoshida-san’s shack on the Shönai River 187
13.1. Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boy) 285
13.2. A diagram of Mori’s theory of the uncanny valley 292
13.3. Wakamaru 293
13.4. Honda’s Asimo (Advance Step in Innovative Mobility)
with author 295
13.5. Actroid Repliee Q2, a composite of the “average”
Japanese female 296
13.6. Ishiguro Hiroshi and his robot double, Geminoid HI-1 298
13.7. The FT (Female Type) 300
13.8 Flower Robotics’ Pino 301
13.9 Flower Robotics’ Posy 301
vii
Tables
5.1. New employees and retirements 117
5.2. Change over time in points of origin for shop workers 119
5.3. Reasons for leaving employment 126
Acknowledgments
This volume began as a panel organized by Roger H. Brown and pre-
sented at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies in 2006.
With the encouragement of Kären Wigen, coeditor of the University of
California Press series “Asia: Local Studies / Global Themes,” an interna-
tional workshop at the University of California, Santa Barbara, organized
by Anne Walthall and Sabine Frühstück, followed in late January 2008. In
addition to the contributors to this volume, the paper presenters included
Roger Brown, Jason Karlin, and David Obermiller. We were also lucky to
have Bishnupriya Ghosh, Dick Hebdige, David Howell, and Robert Nye
participate as commentators and discussants.
Funding for the conference came from a number of institutions,
including the Center for Asian Studies, the History Department and the
International Center for Writing and Translation, UC Irvine; and the
Chancellor, the Executive Vice Chancellor, the College of Letters and
Science, the Division of Fine Arts, the Division of Social Science, the
Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, and the departments of History,
Anthropology, Sociology, and East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies
at UC Santa Barbara.
In addition to the participants and audience at the workshop, we extend
special thanks to Kirsten Ziomek, who ably assisted us in organizing the
workshop, and to Matthew Mewhinney and Jeremy Pavy, who served
as interpreters for Nagano Hiroko and Sakurai Yuki. Amy Stanley and
another reviewer for UC Press provided insightful comments on the man-
uscript. We are most obliged to Reed Malcolm, who ushered it through the
publication process.
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