The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 13 | Issue 7 | Number 1 | Article ID 4277 | Feb 16, 2015

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Introduction: Art and Activism in Post-Disaster Japan はじめに災害後の日本におけるアートとアクティビズム

Alexander Brown, Vera Mackie

On 11 March 2011, the northeastern area ofJapan, known as Tōhoku, was hit by anunprecedented earthquake and tsunami.1 Thedisaster damaged the Fukushima Daiichinuclear power plant, one of a number of suchfacilities located in what was already aneconomically disadvantaged region.2 This led toa series of explosions and meltdowns and to theleakage of contaminated water and radioactivefallout into the surrounding area. Around20,000 people were reported dead or missing,with a disproportionate number from the agedpopulation of the region. Nearly four yearslater, hundreds of thousands of people are stilldisplaced: evacuated to other areas, living intemporary accommodations, or living inmakeshift shelters in former public buildings.There has been despoliation of the environmentand contamination of food, air and water.Primary industries like fishing and dairy havebeen curtailed. Livestock have sufferedexcruciating deaths due to injury, radiationsickness and starvation, or have had to be "putdown". The nuclear power industry in Japan iseffectively shut down, and people are enjoinedto save electricity (setsuden) in order to copewith the reduced capacity for powergeneration. This multiple disaster hasreverberated on a number of scales – in thelocal communities immediately affected, in civilsociety groups who have sent volunteers to theregion, in more distant places which havewelcomed refugees from the disaster, in theresponses of local and national governments,and in international expressions of solidarityand concern.

In this special issue, we focus on artistic andactivist responses to the disaster, but without

assuming that "art" and "activism" arenecessarily discrete activities. In the wake of adisaster with such immense social implications,all of the diverse ways of attempting tocommunicate about the disaster – whetherdocumentary or artistic – have politicaldimensions. Indeed, many of the contributors tothis issue reflect on the near impossibility ofcommunicating the experience. Similarly, it isdifficult to dismiss the artistic element in manyof the political responses – such as the use ofmusic, drumming, rapping, street theatre,m a s k s , c o s t u m e s a n d p o s t e r s i ndemonstrations. The close relationship betweenart and activism in the wake of the disaster isexemplified by artist Nara Yoshitomo. Heuploaded his anti-nuclear poster to theinternet, so that people could print it out attheir local convenience store and take it todemonstrations.3

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Nara Yoshitomo "No Nukes".

There have been various grassroots responses.Volunteers are working with NGOs to supportaffected and displaced communities. Civilsociety activists collect signatures for petitions,ho ld publ ic meet ings and engage indemonstrations at strategic sites like the DietBuilding, the Prime Minister's residence,relevant government ministries, powercompanies, and in the streets, parks and otheropen spaces of their local communities. Citizenscientists are documenting the level ofradioactive contamination in different parts ofJapan and challenging the veracity ofinformation provided by governments.4 Othershave attempted to document the disasterthrough personal testimony, interviews,photography, journalism, documentary film,ethnography, academic research and othermeans of communication.5 Documentary

screenings stimulate civil society discussionsamong audiences in real time, while othersdisseminate their experiences and reflectionson social media sites like youtube.6 Artists in arange of media have responded to the crisis,expressing anger, sadness, grief, confusion,bewilderment, empathy and solidarity. Givingexpression to these shared feelings can also bea stimulus to action.

The political repercussions of the disastershave been immense, as people in Japan andbeyond reflect on the systems and structuresbehind decisions to locate nuclear power plantsin vulnerable and impoverished regionalcommunities or to allow development in low-lying areas which are susceptible to tsunamis.Tōhoku is close to known seismic fault lines,and there is a long history of earthquakes andtsunamis on the Pacific coast of Japan.Questions have also been raised about the waysin which decisions were made about so-called'safe' levels of nuclear radiation, about theheight levels of protective walls, and about thenumber of years a nuclear plant can beoperated. Even before the Fukushima disasterit was known that decisions about the locationof nuclear power plants were made throughnational and local governments and powercompanies providing incentives to localcommunities to host these facilities. It was alsoknown that areas with strong civil societystructures were better able to resist theseovertures. In current writings, the coalition ofscience, business, conservative political partiesand national and local governments is known asthe genshiryoku mura, or "nuclear powervillage".7

Many now challenge the notion of a "natural"disaster. While the timing and scale of eventssuch as earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, floodsor bushfires are beyond human control, theireffects are mediated by social conditions andby the history of human interaction with theenvironment. As far back as 1906, Japaneseanarchist Kōtoku Shūsui (1871–1911), who

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witnessed the Great San Francisco Earthquake,noted of the disaster that,

hunger fo l lowed, and cold.Unemployment followed. Onehundred thousand poor tastedbitter suffering to its fullest extent.And yet, this was not the fault ofthe fire, this was the fault oftoday's social order alone.8

This has become apparent, not only inFukushima, but in the case of the Indian OceanTsunami in 2004, Hurricane Katrina in the USin 2005, and the droughts, floods and bushfireswhich have ravaged Australia in recent years.

Disasters have a profound impact on theshaping of culture.9 When Hurricane Katrinaripped through New Orleans it made apparentthe racialised, gendered and class divisions inUS society. Cultural responses to Katrina likethe HBO television series Treme engageddirectly with these issues and depicted thetensions which pervaded everyday life in thepost-disaster city.10 This contributed to thewriting and re-writing of an otherwise familiarplace which had been radically transformed bydisaster.11 In this special issue we trace howthe Fukushima disaster is being imagined andreimagined; we place these imaginings in alonger cultural history; and consider how thesecultural representations are linked to theimagining of alternative futures.

Modern Japan has been shaped by disasterswhich reverberate through the cultural spherelong after the immediate events. Indeed, inusing the phrase "post-disaster", we are notsuggesting that the disaster is over. Rather,"post-disaster" refers to all of the continuingrepercussions.12 Responses to the Great KantōEarthquake of 1923 referenced the disaster forparticular social and political ends.13 The 1995Great Hanshin Earthquake in the Kōbe regionprovoked what is widely regarded as a

flourishing of civil society volunteerism.14 Manyof the activist groups which took part in anti-nuclear demonstrations after Fukushima wereNon-Prof i t Organisat ions (N.P.O.s)incorporated under the auspices of the 1998Law to Promote Specified Non-Profit Activities(Tokutei Hi Eiri Katsudō Sokushin Hō;generally known as the N.P.O. Law) which wasbrought in partly as a response to the Hanshindisaster.15

The representation of radiological disasters hasa significant place in Japanese cultural history.Artists and activists responded to the atomicbombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki byinitiating widespread political and culturalmovements against nuclear weapons. TheHiroshima Panels by painters Maruki Iri(1901–1995) and Maruki Toshi (1912–2000)toured the country when mention of the impactof nuclear weapons was still being censored bythe Supreme Command of the Allied Powers(SCAP).16 After the end of the Allied Occupationin 1952, the experience of the bombings couldbe dealt with more openly in literature,memoirs, poetry and film.17 The originalGodzilla film, released in 1954, includesreferences to the atomic bombings of 1945 andthe Lucky Dragon No 5 (Daigo Fukuryū Maru)Incident of March 1954, where a fishing vesselwas irradiated by US nuclear testing at BikiniAtoll in the Marshall Islands.18 Post-nuclearapocalypse is a staple of graphic novels andanimated films like Ōtomo Katsuhiro's Akira.19

This cultural history of anti-nuclear artprovided a context for many of the responses toFukushima, and will take on further resonanceas we mark the seventieth anniversaries ofHiroshima and Nagasaki in 2015.

The flourishing of civil society activism in thewake of the Fukushima disaster remindscommentators of the huge demonstrationsagainst the US-Japan Security Treaty in 1960,the anti-Vietnam war movement of the 1970s,and the student left of the 1970s. This historywas explicitly referenced by a group who hired

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a helicopter in order to take an aerialp h o t o g r a p h o f o n e o f t h e w e e k l ydemonstrations outside the Prime Minister'sResidence (Kantei-mae).20 By making this visualrepresentation of the massed demonstratorsavailable on the internet, the group challengedthe mainstream media's failure to documentthe weekly demonstrations.2 1 Culturalrepresentation (in this case photographs) couldnot, here, be separated from activism. Theaerial photograph of the crowds referenced thef a m o u s a e r i a l p h o t o g r a p h s o f t h edemonstrations around the Diet Buildingagainst the renewal of the US-Japan SecurityTreaty in 1960, thereby reconfiguring historicalmemory. The Kantei-mae demonstrations weret h u s p l a c e d i n a l o n g e r h i s t o r y o fdemonstrations dating back to the 1960s.

Noda Masaya (JVJA), Aerial Photograph ofDemonstration 29 June 2012, CreativeCommons Licence.

People struggled to come to terms with thedisaster by communicating through new socialmedia, debating in print and other traditionalmedia, and engaging in political action. Asartists and activists responded to thecompound disaster they turned to one anotherand developed affective networks throughwhich they could share their responses. In heranalysis of two post-Fukushima literary texts,Wago Ryōichi's Shi no Tsubute (Pebbles of

Poetry) (originally published as tweets) andKawakami Hiromi's Kamisama 2011, TamakiTokita explores the attempt to create affectivebonds with disaster victims through artisticexpression.22 The government and media inJapan promoted the concept of kizuna (thehuman bonds between people), which could beseen as encouraging solidarity and empathy. Atthe same time, however, the official promotersof kizuna have played down the unequaldistribution of suffering, pain and precarity inthe wake of the compound disaster.23 Tokitatakes a critical approach to the concept ofkizuna, focusing on expressions of humanconnectedness which were not mediated bygovernment policy or media advertisingcampaigns.

Children's literature has also been a mediumfor artists and poets to respond to the disaster,as Helen Kilpatrick documents in this issue inher analysis of Arthur Binard and OkakuraTadashi's Sagashite imasu (I am Searching).24

Binard and Okakura used images of objectsfrom the Hiroshima Peace Museum to makeconnections with the contemporary devastationat Fukushima. In the book, these objects areendowed with the power to mourn theirmissing human owners. The objects arephotographed against a backdrop of a kind ofgranite often used in gravestones, providing asubtle visual reinforcement of the theme ofmourning. As with many of the works discussedin these essays, Sagashite imasu placesHiroshima and Fukushima in the samenarrative frame, as places which are linked bythe devastating effects of irradiation, and asmelancholy places of unresolved mourning.

Peter Eckersall considers two theatricalproductions, Hirata Oriza's "Sayonara" (2011version) and Okada Toshiki's "Ground andFloor" (2013), which are also concerned withmourning. Many of the bodies of those lost inFukushima will never be recovered; theexclusion zone around the Fukushima Daiichinuclear plant blocks access to the site of their

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loss; and the long half-life of nuclear materialnecessitates an almost endless time frame ofmourning and recovery. The theme of hauntinglinks these contemporary plays with earlierartistic forms such as Nō theatre, which oftenfocus on spirits who can not find rest.

Alexander Brown discusses guerilla artcollective Chim↑Pom who have placedFukushima in the longer history of nuclearJapan through "completing" Okamoto Tarō's(1911–1996) mural "Asu no Shinwa" (The Mythof Tomorrow) in Shibuya Station. Okamoto'smural depicts the Hiroshima bombing of 1945and the "Lucky Dragon Incident" of 1954.Chim↑Pom added a panel depicting theFukushima Daiichi nuclear explosion. ForChim↑Pom, like Okamoto, representing theseradiological incidents through art is animportant means of defence against the"forgetting" so essential to modern history.

Carolyn Stevens compares photographs of theFukushima disaster and its aftermath withiconic images from the earlier disasters ofnuclear war and environmental pollution. Whenphotographers "quote" earlier iconic images,viewers' responses are informed by historicalmemory. The photographs are a visualmnemonic, a trigger to memory. The initialresponse may be an emotional one; this canthen be l inked to memories of similarphotographs of other disasters. For someviewers at least, these memories might promptquestions about the links between, for example,Minamata and Fukushima. Both arecommunities which suffered through theactions of private companies, and whoexpressed dissatisfaction with governmentresponses to their suffering. Minamata alsoprovides the example of a longstandingcampaign for redress; and is seen as a sitewhere individuals and groups have tried toforge new forms of political connectedness.25

Takanori Tamura explores the use of socialmedia by anti-nuclear activist groups. Social

media can also facilitate individual decisions tobecome politically active. Tamura uses text-mining software to analyse the twittermessages of one individual (who uses thetwitter handle @tatangarani).The tweets reveala developing political awareness in the wake ofthe Fukushima disaster, reflected in changes inthe vocabulary used by @tatangarani, her useof twitter to disseminate information aboutissues she is committed to; and her moreregular participation in demonstrations.

The 3/11 compound disaster has beenexperienced in the age of globalisation. Noplace on earth can be sheltered fromradioactivity, which is transmitted by oceancurrents, by rain, by wind, and in the foodchain. The nuclear explosions, meltdowns andradioactive contamination at Fukushima haveinvited comparison with the Chernobyl nucleardisaster of 1986, an incident which galvanisedopposition to nuclear power in Japan.26 Thenuclear dimension of the 3/11 disasters alsoprovokes reflection on all of the stages of theglobal nuclear fuel and weaponry cycle: mining,extraction, the building and operation ofnuclear power plants, nuclear testing, and theuse of nuclear weaponry. The reference pointsinclude the Manhattan Project in Nevada,Bikini Atoll, Maralinga in central Australia(where indigenous communities suffered fromnuclear testing in the 1950s), and the placeswhere uranium is mined, which are oftenassociated with the dispossession of indigenouspeoples (see Mackie in this issue).27

Responses to the Fukushima disaster exceedthe boundaries of the Japanese nation-state.The anti-nuclear movement is a transnationalone. Documentaries and feature films circulateinternationally; several photographicexhibitions have toured other countries, andsome performances and installations have alsotravelled. International communication aboutthe issue has also, of course, been facilitated bynew social media (see articles by AllisonHolland, Carolyn Stevens and Vera Mackie in

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this issue).28

Vera Mackie provides an (auto)ethnographicaccount of commemorative events held ineastern Australia, where a multiculturalperformance allowed for the expression oftransnational solidarity. Gestures of solidaritywere expressed through the embodiedexperience of attending and participating inlocal events, through the use of new socialmedia, and through the interactions betweenthese different media. Mackie argues that theseevents prompted a "re-remembering" ofHiroshima and Nagasaki through the prism ofFukushima, grounded in a recognition of theplace of both Japan and Australia in the globalnuclear chain.

Allison Holland examines the work of artistTakamine Tadasu, whose installation,"Fukushima Esperanto" in a Brisbane galleryevokes an emotional response to the disaster inits presentation of childhood objects like losttoys, and the overlaying of a nostalgicsoundtrack. Fukushima Esperanto evokeshistory in its references to the bombing ofHiroshima and the post-Second World War"Atoms for Peace" campaign.29 The work alsomakes connections with a local disaster, thedevastating floods suffered in SouthernQueensland in late 2010, early 2011 and againin early 2013 while "Fukushima Esperanto" wasbeing exhibited. In Australia, too, the effects ofthe periodic disasters of floods, droughts andbushfires are mediated by human choices aboutagricultural industries, the management ofwaterways and the location of humandwellings.

A further reference point for Fukushima-related politics is the Tokyo Olympics plannedfor 2020.30 Critics are already noting new formsof repression associated with preparing to hostthis event. Furthermore, funds which couldhave been devoted to reconstructingFukushima are being diverted to theconstruction of new Olympic facilities. The

discussion around the 2020 Olympics remindsus that both artistic practice and politicaldiscussions are about imagining possiblefutures.

Rebecca Solnit has argued that there can be a"paradise built in hell" in the wake of majordisasters.31

The assumption has been that werevert to our original nature, andthat original nature is chaotic,selfish, panicky, opportunistic. Butthe actual evidence, over and overagain, is that we are orderly, calm,generous, even selfless, creative,and resourceful. The communitiespeople build in emergencies areoften utopian. They don't last, butthey suggest both what we mostdesire and that i t might bepossible. And that we are not whowe think we are. And these self-organized communities are alsodirect democracies , wheredecisions are made by the group,where everyone matters.32

Unsurprisingly, Solnit's work has stimulateddiscussion in post-disaster Japan. Somecelebrate the flourishing of volunteerism andcivil society activism in the wake of thedisaster. Others are more pessimistic about theprospects for recovery. Even beforeFukushima, people in Japan were sufferingthrough extended economic recession, the riseof precarious employment, and a welfare crisisin the society where population aging hasadvanced further than anywhere else in theworld.33 Will a "paradise" emerge, or a more"hellish" future? Artists are engaged inimagining those possible futures, while activistsare trying to bring a better future into being.

These utopic and dystopic visions resonate withTawara Machi's poetic rendering of fleeing

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with her primary-school aged son to Okinawa,as far away as possible from Fukushima.

To the West

To the West

Fleeing with my child

If you want to say

I'm a stupid mother

Then say it!34

Tawara's illustrated collection of poetry evokesthe micropolitics of everyday life in post-disaster Japan. She documents the initial shockof the earthquake, the decision to take herchild to Okinawa, the often negative reactionsof her friends to her decision to flee, and thegradual process of making a new home inOkinawa. She also traces moments of kindnessin the wake of the disaster and the importanceof hanging on to such moments for the sake ofimagining better futures.

Holding hands with my son

He complains of hunger

Even though I have 100 yen, thereare no rice balls to buy

A boiled egg

From a passerby

Don't you ever forget that boiledegg!35

Recommended citation: Alexander Brown andVera Mackie, "Introduction: Art and Activism inPost-Disaster Japan", The Asia-Pacific Journal,Vol. 13, Issue 6, No. 1, February 16, 2015.

Notes

1 The articles in this special issue draw onpapers first presented at a symposium on 'Artand Activism in Post-Disaster Japan, held at theUniversity of Wollongong in August 2013, andconvened by Vera Mackie and AlexanderBrown. The symposium was supported by theJapan Foundation Sydney Office, the JapaneseStudies Association of Australia and the Forumon Human Rights Research at the University ofWollongong. We would like to thank the editorsof The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus,particularly Laura Hein and Mark Selden, andthe reviewers, for their constructive commentson earlier versions of the articles.

2 Kainuma has argued that the siting of theFukushima Daiichi nuclear power plantreflected the semi-colonial relationshipbetween Tokyo and poorer rural areas likeFukushima. See Kainuma Hiroshi, Fukushimaron: Genshiryokumura wa Naze Umareta no ka[On Fukushima: What Gave Rise to the NuclearVillage?], Seidosha, Tokyo, 2011.

3 N a r a Y o s h i t o m o , " N o N u k e s "(http://firestorage.com/index.cgi?act=download&key=eca440c4a6562ade2fee4ccddc9b158078045126&comoff=25752) poster retrieved on 26December 2014.

4 Richard Hindmarsh (ed.) Nuclear Disaster atFukushima: Social, Political and EnvironmentalIssues, Routledge, Oxford, 2013.

5 In addition to the extensive coverage in TheAsia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, see, interalia, Jeff Kingston, ed., Tsunami: Japan's Post-Fukushima Future, Foreign Policy Magazine,Washington D.C., 2011; Jeff Kingston, ed.,Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan:Response and Recovery after Japan's 3/11,Routledge, Oxford, 2012; Holly Thompson, ed.,Tomo: Friendship through Fiction: AnAnthology of Japan Teen Stories, Stone BridgePress, Berkeley; David Karashima and ElmerLuke, eds , March was Made of Yarn:

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Reflections on Japan's Earthquake, Tsunamiand Nuclear Meltdown, Vintage, New York,2012; Lucy Birmingham and David McNeill,eds, Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan'sEarthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima NuclearDisaster, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2012;Mark Willacy, Fukushima: Japan's Tsunami andthe Inside Story of the Nuclear Meltdown, PanMacmillan Australia, Sydney, 2013; HiroshimaCity University 3/11 Forum, Japan's 3/11Disaster as Seen From Hiroshima: AMultidisciplinary Approach, Sanseidō, Tokyo,2013; Roy Starrs, ed., When the Tsunami Cameto Shore: Culture and Disaster in Japan, GlobalOriental, Leiden, 2014; and Japan Forum, Vol.26, No 3, 2014.

6 Fujiki Hideaki, " 'Shimin ' to Eiga noNettowāku: 3.11go no Genpatsu o MeguruShakai Undō no Naka de " ["Citizens" and theFilm Network: In the Social Movement AroundNuclear Energy], JunCture, Vol. 5, 2014; DavidH. Slater, "Fukushima Women against NuclearPower: Finding a Voice from Tohoku"(https://apjjf.org/events/view/117), The Asia-Pacific Journal. Retrieved on 17 August 2012;Women of Fukushima. Retrieved on 24D e c e m b e r 2 0 1 4 f r o mhttp://www.women-of-fukushima.com/.

7 Daniel Aldrich, Site Fights: Divisive Facilitiesand Civil Society in Japan and the West, Ithaca:Cornell University Press, 2008. For an accountof a twenty years struggle against the buildingof a nuclear power plant adjacent to the islandof Iwaijima in the inland sea see Yamaaki Shin,Genpatsu o tsukurasenai hitobito: Iwaijimakara mirai e [People Who Won't Let a NuclearPower Plant Be Built: From Iwaijima to theFuture], Tokyo, Iwanami, 2012. On thegenshiryoku mura, see Kainuma, Fukushimaron.

8 Kōtoku Shūsui, Sōkō Heiminsha Buji [SanFrancisco Heiminsha Safe], Hikari [Light], no.13, May 20, 1906, p. 6; cited and translated inGeorge Elison, "Kōtoku Shūsui: The Change in

Thought", Monumenta Nipponica, vol. 22, nos.3–4, 1967, p. 453.

9 Kevin Rozario, The Culture of Calamity:Disaster and the Making of Modern America,Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007.

10 Lynnell L. Thomas, " 'People Want to SeeWhat Happened': Treme, Televisual Tourism,and the Racial Remapping of Post-Katrina NewOrleans", Television and New Media, vol. 13, no3, pp. 213–224.

11 See, for example, Herman Gray, "Recovered,reinvented, reimagined: Treme, TelevisionStudies and Writing New Orleans", Televisionand New Media, vol. 13, no 3, 2012, pp.268–278.

12 See the discussions of the prefix "post-" insuch terms as "post -modern", "post -structuralist" or "post-colonial". LindaHutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism,Routledge New Accents, London, 1989;Margaret Rose, The Post-modern and the Post-industrial: A Critical Analysis; CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, 1991; KwameAnthony Appiah, "Is the Post- in Postmodernismthe Post- in Postcolonial?", Critical Inquiry, Vol.17, No 2 (Winter 1991), pp. 336–357; AndrewJohn Mil ler , "Fables of Progression:Modernism, Modernity, Narrative", in StephenRoss, ed. Modernism and Theory: A CriticalDebate, Routledge, London, 2009.

13 Gregory Clancey, Earthquake Nation: TheCultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity,1868–1930, University of California Press,Berkeley, 2006.

14 Rajib Shaw and Katsuichiro Goda, "FromDisaster to Sustainable Civil Society: The KobeExperience", Disasters, vol. 28, no. 1, pp.16–40.

15 Robert Pekkanen, "Japan's New Politics: TheCase of the NPO Law", Journal of JapaneseStudies, vol 26, no. 1, pp. 111–148. It needs to

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be acknowledged, however, that the N.P.O. lawalso had the effect of reshaping the relationshipbetween state and civil society. N.P.O.s are alsoimplicated in the neo-liberal reshaping ofwelfare policy, as some N.P.O.s are alsoinvolved in the provision of welfare services inthe context of a shrinking national welfarebudget. Karen Nakamura, "Disability,Destitution and Disaster: Surviving the 1995Great Hanshin Earthquake in Japan", HumanOrganization, Vol. 68, No 1, Spring 2009, pp.82–88.

16 Richard H. Minear, ed., Hiroshima: ThreeWitnesses, Princeton University Press,Princeton, p.11. The Marukis' paintings alsotoured Europe, the Soviet Union and thePeople's Republic of China from 1953 to 1964.Ann Sherif, Japan's Cold War: Media, Literatureand the Law, Columbia University Press, NewYork, 2009, p. 47.

17 John Whittier Treat, Writing Ground Zero:Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb,University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1995;Mick Broderick, ed., Hibakusha Cinema:Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the Nuclear Image inJapanese Film, Kegan Paul International,London, 1996; Yuko Shibata, "Belated Arrival inPolitical Transition: 1950s Films on Hiroshimaand Nagasaki", in Starrs, ed., When theTsunami Came to Shore, pp. 231–248.

18 Ralph E. Lapp, The Voyage of the LuckyDragon: The True Story of the JapaneseFishermen Who Were the First Victims of theH-Bomb, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1957; AnnSherif, "Thermonuclear Weapons and Tuna:Testing, Protest and Knowledge in Japan", inJadwiga E. Pieper Mooney and Fabio Lanza,eds, De-Centering Cold War History: Local andGlobal Change, Routledge, Oxford, 2012, pp.15–30; Honda Ishirō, Gojira Godzilla], Tōhō, Tokyo, 1954; Yuki

Tanaka, "Godzilla and the Bravo Shot: Who Created and Killed the Monster?", The

Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, 13 June 2005. Retrieved on 24 December 2014 from

.

19 Ōtomo Katsuhiro, Akira, Tōhō, Tokyo.1988

20 "Ano kiji no sono go o otsutae shimasu. DaysJapan forō appu" [Reporting on What HappenedAfter That Article. Days Japan Follow Up], DaysJapan, August 2012; Noda Masaya, "TadashiiHōdō Heri no Kai 6.29 Shūsho Kantei MaeDemo Kūsatsu Shashin o Kōkai" [HelicopterClub for Accurate Reporting Releases AerialPhotographs of Kantei Mae Demonstration],fotgazet, 29 June 2012. Retrieved on 22December 2014 from .

21 On media reporting of the Fukushimadisaster, see Leslie M. Tkach-Kawasaki, "March2011 On-Line: Comparing Japanese NewsWebsites and International News Websites", inJeff Kingston (ed.), Natural Disaster andNuclear Crisis in Japan: Response andRecovery after Japan's 3/11 , London,Routledge, 2012, pp. 109–23; Itō Mamoru,Terebi wa Genpatsu Jiko o dō Tsutaeta ka [HowDid Television Report the Nuclear Accident?],Heibonsha, Tokyo, 2012.

22 Wagō Ryōichi, Shi no Tsubute [Pebbles ofPoetry], Tokyo, Tokuma Shoten, 2011;Kawakami Hiromi, Kamisama 2011 God Bless You, 2011],

Tokyo, Kōdansha, 2011.

23 On the differential distribution of precarity,see Judith Butler, Frames of War: When is LifeGrievable?, Verso, London, 2009, p. 24.

2 4 Arthur Binard and Okakura Tadashi.Sagashite imasu I am Searching], Tokyo, Dōshinsha, 2012.

25 Hidaka Rokurō, Sengo Shisō o Kangaeru[Thinking about Post-war Thought]; Iwanami,Tokyo, 1980; Rokurō Hidaka, The Price ofAffluence, Melbourne, Penguin, 1985 [1984];Hidaka Rokurō, 'Personal Retrospective', inGavan McCormack and Yoshio Sugimoto, eds,Democracy in Contemporary Japan, Hale andIremonger: Sydney, 1986; Shioda Takashi,Minamata-na Hito: Minamata-byō o Shien shitaHito-bito no Kiseki [Minamata People: TheTraces of the People who SupportedMinamata], Miraisha, Tokyo, 2013.

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26 Ulrike Wöhr, "From Hiroshima to Fukushima:Gender in Nuclear and Anti-Nuclear Politics" inHiroshima City University 3/11 Forum, Japan's3/11 Disaster as Seen From Hiroshima: AMultidisciplinary Approach, pp. 203–233.

27 On these links, see: Oda Makoto, Hiroshima,Tokyo, Kōdansha, 1981; Oda Makoto, TheBomb, translated by D. Hugh Whittaker, Tokyo,Kodansha International, 1990; and RobertJacobs and Mick Broderick's Global HibakushaProject, .

28 See also, Vera Mackie, 'Reflections: TheRhythms of Internationalisation in Post-Disaster Japan', in Jeremy Breaden et al., eds,Internationalising Japan: Discourse andPractice, Routledge, Oxford, 2014, pp.195–206.

29 Ran Zwigenberg, "'The Coming of a SecondSun':The 1956 Atoms for Peace Exhibit inHiroshima and Japan's Embrace of NuclearPower", The Asia-Pacific Journal: JapanFocus,Vol. 10, Issue 6, No 1, February 6), 2012.

30 On attempts to reconsider the culturalpolitics of the memories of the 1964 TokyoOlympics, see: Peter Eckersall, "TourPerformance 'Tokyo/ Olympics': Digging theH i g h T i m e s o f t h e 1 9 6 0 s "(http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue23/eckersall.htm), Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in

Asia and the Pacific, Issue 23, January 2010.Retrieved on 21 December 2014,

31 Rebecca Solnit, A Paradise in Hell: TheExtraordinary Communities That Arise inDisaster, Viking Books, New York, 2010. Solnitvisited Japan in 2012 to meet with localcommunities affected by the 3/11 disaster andgive a lecture at the Tokyo University ofForeign Studies. For Solnit's reflections on thet r i p s e e R e b e c c a S o l n i t , " D i a r y "(http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n09/rebecca-solnit/diary), London Review of Books, vol. 34, no. 9–10,May 2012. Retrieved 8 December 2014. For herspeech (in Japanese) Rebecca Solnit, "Shinsaini mukatte, tobira o hiraku" [Facing Disaster,Open the Door], Odawara Rin (trans.), atpurasu, no.12, May 2012.

32 "An Interview with Author Rebecca Solnit"(http://www.calhum.org/files/uploads/program_related/Disc%20Guide%203%20Paradise.pdf),in CalHumanities, Searching for Democracy.Retrieved 12 January 2015.

33 See Anne Allison, Precarious Japan, DukeUniversity Press, Durham, 2013.

3 4 Tawara Machi, Are kara [And then],Imajinsha, Tokyo, 2012, unpaginated.Translation by Vera Mackie.

35 Tawara, Are kara.