Table Of ContentTransgenerational
Remembrance
SERIES EDITORS This series publishes books in theater and performance studies,
Patrick Anderson and focused in particular on the material conditions in which
Nicholas Ridout performance acts are staged and to which performance itself
might contribute. We define “performance” in the broadest sense,
including traditional theatrical productions and performance art,
but also cultural ritual, political demonstration, social practice,
and other forms of interpersonal, social, and political interaction
that may fruitfully be understood in terms of performance.
Transgenerational
Remembrance
Performance and the Asia- Pacific War
in Contemporary Japan
Jessica Nakamura
northwestern university press
evanston, illinois
Northwestern University Press
www.nupress.northwestern.edu
Copyright © 2020 by Northwestern University Press.
Published 2020. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Nakamura, Jessica, author.
Title: Transgenerational remembrance : performance and the Asia Pacific war in
contemporary Japan / Jessica Nakamura.
Other titles: Performance works.
Description: Evanston, Illinois : Northwestern University Press, 2020. | Series:
Performance works | Revised version of the author’s thesis (doctoral)— Stanford
University, 2014. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019034238 | ISBN 9780810141292 (paperback) | ISBN
9780810141308 (cloth) | ISBN 9780810141315 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Theater— Japan— History— 20th century. | Theater— Japan—
History— 21st century. | Japanese drama— 20th century— History and
criticism. | Japanese drama— 21st century— History and criticism. | World War,
1939– 1945— Literature and the war.
Classification: LCC PN2924 .N29 2020 | DDC 792.095209045— dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019034238
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction
Ghosts of the Asia- Pacific War in Contemporary Japan ix
Chapter 1
Lingering Legacies of the War: Performance and Specters
at Yasukuni Shrine 3
Chapter 2
Returning Kamikaze: Popular Culture, Affect, and
Theatrical Repetition 27
Chapter 3
Staging Response- ability: Historical Omissions and the Audience 49
Chapter 4
Becoming Missing “Comfort Women”: Embodiment, History,
and Position 71
Chapter 5
Acts That Do Not Transfer: The Battle of Okinawa and
Situated Testimony 93
Chapter 6
Making Unresolved Japanese American Histories:
Transpacific Possession and Response- ability as Conflict 117
Epilogue
Ghosts and the Future 145
Notes 149
Bibliography 193
Index 207
Acknowledgments
This book’s journey started more than ten years ago, as a small kernel of an
idea in a graduate seminar at Stanford. It (and I) had the great fortune of ben-
efiting from many people along the way, too many to mention here. I hope to
acknowledge some of them, while expressing my thanks to all.
The book would not exist without my wonderful dissertation chair, Jisha
Menon. I am grateful for her generosity, patience, and rigor. I also thank my
committee members, Branislav Jakovljevic, in whose seminar I wrote that first
paper, Peter Eckersall, and Jun Uchida. In addition, I had the great privilege
of receiving feedback from Stanford faculty and graduate students. Thanks
to Alice Rayner, Peggy Phelan, Jennifer Brody, Sebastián Calderón- Bentin,
Derek Miller, Isaiah Wooden, Daniel Sack, Lindsey Mantoan, and Kellen
Hoxworth. The fabulous VK Preston commented on multiple drafts through-
out the revision process and urged me on through the darkest of times.
I am grateful for support from wonderful colleagues: Rob Gander, Juli-
anne Lindberg, Meredith Oda, Brett Van Hoesen at the University of Nevada,
Reno, and all my colleagues in the Department of Theater and Dance at
the University of California, Santa Barbara: Hamit Arvas, Ninotchka Ben-
nahum, Leo Cabranes- Grant, Frances Ya- Chu Cowhig, William Davies King,
Christina McMahon, Greg Mitchell, Carlos Morton, Simon Williams, former
and current chairs Risa Brainin and Irwin Appel, and colleagues outside the
department— Katherine Saltzman- Li, Sabine Frühstück, Kate McDonald, and
Naoki Yamamoto. Such a project would not have been possible without the
help of the staff at these institutions—i n particular, Carla Geib, Justin Leung,
and Eric Mills. I am grateful to my students, who continue to push me to
read and think better. And, I benefited from Jaime Gray’s excellent research
assistance in preparing the final manuscript.
Research for the project was supported by the Graduate Research Oppor-
tunity Grant and Diversity Dissertation Opportunity Grant at Stanford
University and the International Activities Grant at the University of Nevada,
Reno. An early version of chapter 1 appeared as “Kamikaze Spectres and
Transgenerational Memories in Winds of God” in Performing the Secular,
edited by Milija Gluhovic and Jisha Menon, and a version of chapter 3 was
published as “Reflecting on the Unknowns of History: Theatrical Ghosting,
Transgenerational Remembrance, and Japanese Imperialism in the Seoul
Shimin Play Series” in Modern Drama. I have presented research from the
book at the Performance Studies international, American Society for Theatre
vii
viii Acknowledgments
Research, and Global Asias conferences. Feedback from editors and confer-
ence participants has been invaluable.
I could not have asked for a more supportive publisher than Northwestern
University Press. It was a pleasure and an honor to work with Gianna Mosser,
Patrick Anderson, and Nicholas Ridout— I am grateful for their comments
and belief in the book from its early days. Feedback from anonymous readers
was crucial in improving the book. I also thank Mike Ashby for superb copy-
editing, and Trevor Perri, Anne Gendler, and Marianne Jankowski for their
guidance in the later stages of the editing, production, and marketing process.
I have been humbled, time and again, by artists who have generously pro-
vided access to their work: Shimada Yoshiko, Koizumi Meiro, Kondō Aisuke,
Yamashiro Chikako, Narahashi Yōko, Hirata Oriza, and Sakate Yōji. I also
thank contacts in Japan who provided support, access, and feedback at vari-
ous points in the process: Rebecca Jennison, Kushida Kiyomi, Hanashiro
Ikuko, Chiba Yumiko, and John Oglevee. I hope that the analyses here do
justice to the thought- provoking work in which I have had the privilege to
research.
Finally, I am grateful to my parents and in- laws for all their support and
to my friends, who have sustained me throughout the years. Most of all,
I thank David Kaczorowski, who took this journey alongside me through
many hours of graduate school, at performances, and in archives. He read
drafts, asked difficult questions, engaged me in debates, and, above all else,
brought joy to my life.
Japanese names are given following the Japanese convention, last name
before first, unless that person works primarily outside Japan. Japanese terms
well established in English appear without italics. All translations are mine
unless otherwise noted.
Introduction
Ghosts of the Asia- Pacific War
in Contemporary Japan
Every year on August 15, Japan’s official anniversary of the end of the Asia-
Pacific War (1931–4 5), the country becomes overrun with spirits.1 Within a
mere three blocks in Tokyo, millions are remembered by means of the ceremo-
nial, participatory, and performative. The country officially commemorates
the day with the Zenkoku Senbotsusha Tsuitōshiki (National Memorial
Service for War Dead) at the Nippon Budōkan arena in central Tokyo. The
ceremony, attended by the emperor and prime minister and observed by
thousands in person and broadcast throughout the country, memorializes the
millions of Japanese who died during the war. Across the street from the Nip-
pon Budōkan, the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, dedicated to the apotheosis
and pacification of fallen soldiers, attracts another large group of people—
some are there to pray for deceased family members, while others, dressed as
soldiers, perform unofficial commemorative ceremonies. At noon, everyone
stops whatever they are doing, turns to the shrine’s main worship space, and,
together, bows their heads in silence, connecting with spirits of fallen soldiers
through embodied action.
The war dead are not the only ghosts present. Rather, August 15 falls in
the middle of obon, the Buddhist holiday devoted to the return of ancestral
spirits. The holiday is so important that the entire country shuts down to
allow people to travel to their hometowns to prepare for the arrival of their
long- departed loved ones. The designation of August 15 as the anniversary
of the end of the war points to the careful framing of its remembrance. The
date is not the only option for “the last day of the war”— another is Septem-
ber 2, the date of the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender on the
USS Missouri.2 August 15, selected after the end of the U.S. Occupation, for-
ever links the war with Emperor Hirohito, who announced Japan’s surrender
on that date. And, it doubly connects the war’s commemoration with obon,
ensuring that the anniversary of the war’s end is gravid with ghosts.
The war’s anniversary highlights the ghostliness of its remembrance,
ghostliness that has only intensified in the contemporary period (1989 to
the present). During this time, other ghosts appeared outside of institutional
ix
