Tamura Taijiro's Shunpuden

Tamura Taijirō's "Shunpuden" (1947)

How the life of a wartime "spring girl"
survived postwar censorship

One of the most important works in Japanese fiction to depict the lives of women who worked in military-attached brothels in China -- arguably better as "social history" than many radical accounts of "military sex slaves" -- is Tamura Taijirō's Shunpuden.

Contemporary readers of the published version of this story, as edited by its author and/or publisher both before and after it was supressed by censors at General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (GHQ/SCAP), would have had no trouble understanding that the three most prominent women in the story were from Chōsen, and that their real names were Chosenese. Even I, when reading the first few pages of the story, without any explicit mention of Chōsen or Chosenese, could figure out that Tamura was excluding the girls from those he called "Japanese" and "Chinese" -- and he wasn't suggesting that they were Russians or Karafutoans.

A few years later -- when studying the contributions of Chosenese novelists to Japanese-language literature during the period that Chōsen was part of Japan and Chosenese were Japanese -- I realized that Tamura's title -- Shunfuden -- is itself a giveaway to the novel's Chōsen connections. The most famous classical Korean love story is titled Shunkōden (春香傳, 春香伝) -- or Chunhyangjŏn (春香傳 춘향전) in Korean. The story became well known in Japan's prefectural Interior, thanks to multiple publications of Chō Kakuchū's novelization in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and dramatizations on stages in the Interior in the late 1930s.

See Cho Kakuchu, Shunkoden, 1938, in the Fiction section of the Bibliographies section of the Konketsuji website, for images and other details.

Tamura Taijiro's nikutai trilogy, 1946-1947
1946 Nikutai no akuma 1948-09 Nihon Shorin edition Yosha Bunko scan	1947 Nikutai no mon 1947-10 Fusetsusha edition Yosha Bunko scan	1947 Shunpuden 1947-05 Ginza Shoten edition Yosha Bunko scan

Tamura Taijiro

Carnality in wartime China and postwar Japan

Tamura Taijirō (田村泰次郎 1900-1983), born and raised in Kōchi prefecture, was educated in literature at Waseda University. He was active in literary circles, and was earning his living as a novelist and writer, when the conflict between Japan and China -- later called a war -- broke out in 1937.

In 1938 Tamura visited China, and the next year he visited Manchuria and northern China with other writers, who wrote about their observations and experiences in these areas. Many literary figures worked during the war years as journalists attached to Japanese military units.

Tamura himself was drafted in 1940 and spent the rest of the war in Shanhsi, the setting of Shunpuden. He was involved in combat and was also once captured. He had risen to the rank of sergeant by the time the war ended in 1945, but would not return to Occupied Japan until 1946.

Tamura's first novel, Nikutai no akuma, or "Demons of flesh" (肉体の悪魔), is about the carnality he witnessed in northern China. It was serialized from September 1946 before being published in a soft cover edition with the low grade pulp in use at the time. The story involves a relationship between a Japanese soldier and a Chinese women who had been captured as a communist guerrilla. He protects her from the brutality of other Japanese soldiers until she is returned to her village.

Tamura's most famous novel, Nikutai no mon, or "Gate of flesh" (肉体の門), was published in May 1947. The novel has been the basis of four films and a TV drama as of this writing. The story involves a prostitution ring in postwar Japan, in which the girls agree never to sleep with a man for free, and never to sleep with a GI.

Shunpuden, the topic of this article, also writen in 1946, was first published in May 1947, as the third of Tamura's "nikutai triology".

Nikutai no mon immediately became a bestseller and was made into a film with the same title in 1948. Shunpuden followed as a film titled Akatsuki no dassō in 1950. As Japan was then under the control of the Allied Powers, the novels and the films were subject to prior inspection and censorship. Shunpuden and Akatsuki no dassō; were especially problematical for Allied censors on account of what GHQ/SCAP viewed as the "Korean problem" in Japan -- meaning the 600,000 or so Chosenese who had chosen to remain in Occupied Japan rather than be repatriated.

Both Nikutai no mon and Shunpuden were remade into films, under these tiles, by Suzuki Seijun (鈴木清順 1923-2017), in respectively 1964 and 1965. These films -- again especially Nikutai no mon -- became attracted a lot of attention on account of their themes. Today they are cult films, both in Japan and overseas, where they are widely available in sub-titled versions.

Nikutai no akuma was the Japanese title of the 1923 novel Le Diable au corps [The devil in the body (flesh)] by Raymond Radiguet 1903-1923). The novel has been translated into Japanese numerous times, twice before the Pacific War, in 1930 and 1936, under the title Nikutai no akuma (肉体の悪魔). A French film version, released in France on 12 September 1947 and in Japan on 6 November 1952, became very popular in subtitled and dubbed editions. I would guess that Tamura, a literature student, borrowed the title of his novel from the Japanese translation of Radiguet's novel. Tamura's Nikutai no akuma has never been made into a film. Nikkatsu's 29 October 1877 release of Nikutai no akuma, in its Nikkatsu Porno series, was a Japanization of 's novel.

May 1947 Ginza Shuppansha edition
Font and back of cover of 1947 Ginza Shoten edition Drawings by Migishi Setsuko (Yosha Bunko copy)
October 1949 Yakumo Shoten edition
Fronts of obi and jacket of 1949 Yakumo Shoten edition Obi advertises book as original story of Shin Tōhō film Akatsuki no dassō [Escape at dawn] in which A stiffling fog enwraps two young lumps of flesh that cut harsh army regulations into lust 息苦しい胡沙が苛酷な軍紀を愛慾に截つた 二つの若い肉塊を包んで行つた。
Front and back of cover of 1949 Yakumo Shoten edition Cover drawings by Okamura Fuji (Yosha Bunko copy)
1962 Shun'yōdō Shoten bunko edition
1966 3rd printing of 1962 Shun'yōdō Shoten bunko edition Jacket drawing by Naruse Kazutomi (Yosha Bunko copy)
1965 Tōhōsha boxed edition
Cover and frontispiece of 1965 Tōhōsha edition April 1947 photo of Tamura at Yangch'üan in Shanhsi province Boxed edition with heavy red cloth boards (Yosha Bunko)
Chō Kakuchū's Shunkōden (1938)
Fronts of obi and cover of 1938 Shinchōsha edition Cover drawing by Murayama Tomoyoshi (Yosha Bunko copy) "The emotions of the peninsular race swell like the tides" See Cho Kakuchu, Shunkoden, 1938 for details

Editions of "Shunpuden" in Yosha Bunko

Tamura's nikutai triology -- especially Nikutai no mon, has been published in many single volume editions and numerous

1947 Ginza Shuppansha edition

田村泰次郎
装幀：三岸節子
春婦伝
東京：銀座出版社
昭和昭二十二年五月二十日印刷
昭和昭二十二年五月二十五日發行
2 (forward), 2 (contents), 251 (stories) ページ、初版

Tamura Taijirō
Cover drawing: Migishi Setsuko
Shunpuden
[The life of a spring woman]
Tokyo: Ginza Shuppansha
20 May 1947, printed
25 May 1947, published
2, 2, 251 pages, 1st edition, paper cover

1949 Yakumo Shoten edition

田村泰次郎
装幀：岡村夫二
春婦伝
東京：八雲書店
昭和昭廿四年十月廿五日印刷
昭和昭廿四年十月三十日發行
268ページ、初版、カバー、帯

Tamura Taijirō
Cover drawing: Okamura Fuji
Shunpuden
[The life of a spring woman]
Tokyo: Yakumo Shoten
25 October 1949, printed
30 October 1949, published
268 pages, 1st edition
Paper cover, jacket, obi

1962 Shun'yōdō Shoten bunko edition

田村泰次郎
装幀：成瀬一富
春婦伝
東京：春陽堂書店
昭和昭三七年八月五日 第一刷発行
昭和昭四一年一月三〇日 第三刷発行
223ページ、カバー, 春陽文庫

Tamura Taijirō
Cover drawing: Naruse Kazutomi
Shunpuden
[The life of a spring woman]
Tokyo: Shun'yōdō Shoten
5 August 1962, 1st printing published
30 January 1966, 3rd printing published
223 pages, cover, Shun'yō Bunko

1965 Tōhōsha boxed edition

田村泰次郎
中川一政 (題簽扉)
春婦伝
東京：東方社、昭和昭四十年二月一日発行
237ページ、函

Tamura Taijirō
Nakagawa Kazumasa (title calligraphy)
Shunpuden
[The life of a spring woman]
Tokyo: Tōhōsha, 1 February 1965
237 pages, hardcover, boxed

The 1947 Ginza Shuppansha edition is a collection of 8 stories, beginning with the cover story, the novella Shunpuden (pages 1-69), by far the longest story.

The 1949 Yakumo Shoten edition also had 8 stories, beginning with Shunpuden (pages 5-73), followed by the second story in the 1947 Ginza Shuppansha collection. All 6 other stories are different.

The 1962 Shun'yōdō Shoten bunko edition includes 5 stories in addition to Shunpuden (pages 1-48), all of them different from the stories in the earlier anthologies.

The 1965 Tōhōsha edition features Shunpuden (pages 5-57) with 7 stories not in the earlier editions, including Nikutai no akama (1946), the first of his "nikutai triology", the second being Nikutai no mon and the third Shunpuden, all written in 1946 immediately after Tamura returned to Japan from China. The frontispiece of this edition is captioned "A portrait during the war" which is said to show Tamura at Yangch'üan (Yangquan) in Shanhsi (Shanxi) province.

Movie tie-in

Tōhōsha's 1 February 1965 publication of the slip-cased Shunpuden anthology edition was timed for Nikkatsu's 28 February 1965 release of Suzuki Seijun's film version of Shunpuden. The anthology included Nikutai no mon, also directed by Suzuki, which Nikkatsu had released on 31 May 1964.

Nikutai no mon was hugely successful in theatres at a time when Japan's postwar film industry was at its peak, but beginning to feel the threat of the spread of television and the variety of television fare that would eventually force film companies to reduce their movie production from 1 or 2 a week to just a few a year, and force all but a few local movie theaters to close.

Nogawa Yumiko (野川由美子), born in Kyōto in 1944, though second billed in Nikutai no mon, stole the show with her sexy performance, and was cast as the heroine Hiromi in Shunpuden. Nogawa would go on to be a major film, TV, and stage actresses.

Nogawa, as a woman's weekly magazine reported in February 1966, had only recently learned that she was a national of ROC, through her father, who had married a Japanese woman. She apparently naturalized on or about 21 November 1966.

Eleanor Kerkham on censorship of "Shunpuden"

From "HOLD" to "SUPPRESS"

The most valuable examinations of GHQ/SCAP's censorship of Shunpuden in English, based on an examination of original documents in the Gorden W. Prange Collection at the University of Maryland, have been made by Eleanor Kerkham, a now retired professor of Japanese literature at the University of Maryland.

Kerkham 2001

Eleanor Kerkham
Pleading for the Body: Tamura Taijiro's 1947 Korean Comfort Woman Story, Biography of a Prostitute
In Marlene J. Mayo and J. Thomas Rimer, editors, with H. Eleanor Kerkham
War, Occupation, and Creativity: Japan and East Asia, 1920-1960
Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2001
xiii, 405 pages, paperback
Pages 310-359

Kerkham 2013

Eleanor Kerkham
Censoring Tamura's "Biography of a Prostitute" (Shunpuden)
In Rachael Hutchinson, editor
Negotiating Censorship in Modern Japan
(Routledge Contemporary Japan Series)
Routledge, 2013
264 pages, hardcover
Pages 152-175

Mayo's introduction

War, Occupation, and Creativity is a conference book, and as such it is a bit of a mixed bag. On the whole it is well edited but not all contributions are of equal quality. Editor (and contributor) Marlene J. Mayo leads her "Introduction" like this.

IF RECENT DECADES HAVE TAUGHT US nothing else in the twentieth century, they have forced us to concede that no statement is a neutral statement; no art, however pure, can be created or understood apart from the politics of its time. Conversely, the real significance of those some politics, sometimes half-hidden, can often find distinctive and revealing reflections in the arts.

If taking Mayo at her word, then her own statement lacks neutrality, and it has to be understood in terms of contemporary politics. The statement established a foundation for the generally "critical" approaches that, by the end of the 20th century, had taken root in American studies of Imperial Japan.

Most contributions are jargon free, and their contributors appear to strive for a high level of "objectivity". Closer readings of their remarks, however, suggest that their "objectivity" is somewhat filtered through the fashionable ways academics had come to understand East Asia history during Japan's imperial years.

Mayo's introduction, on "Japan's cultural imperialism in eastern Asia", is generally readable but there are some conspicuous errors. She speaks of "the fate of Japan's arts during the Allied Occupation (1945-1953)" -- which ended on 28 April 1952, never mind that, in some sense, Japan as still occupied by U.S. military bases (Mayo et al. 2001, page 2).

Mayo also writes about Korea "In the confusion of liberation, division, and war (1945-1953)" -- as though to date the Korean war from 1945 rather than 1950 (et al. 10).

Mayo characterizes Taiwan as having been "a prefecture of China when it was annexed in 1895" -- though Taiwan was not annexed by Japan, but was ceded to Japan as part of the settlement to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, which did not involve iwan. She says "Korea . . . was made into a protectorate in 1905, then appropriated in 1910" -- although Korea "joined" Japan in a "union" what amounted to Korea being annexed as Chōsen -- a word Mayo and other contributors avoid in favor of "Korea" (Ibid. 2).

Articles touching on "Korea" and "Koreans" speak of "Korea" as though it was not part of Japan, and "Koreans" as though they were not Japanese", during the annexation years (1910-1945/1952). In fact, "Korea" ceased to exist in 1910 -- since which there has never been a "Korea" or "Koreans" in any objective political or demographic sense. What used to be "Korea" for the brief period of 13 years between 1897 and 1910, became "Chōsen" as part of Japan from 1910-1945/1952.

Chōsen, provisionally separated from Japan in 1945, was divided into USSR and US military occupation zones, which materialized as two states -- the Republic of Korea in the southern US zone, and the Democratic Republic of Korea (actually Chōsŏn) in the northern USSR zone. DPRK invaded ROK in 1950, and the "Korean" or "Chōsen" War was still raging in 1952 when "Chōsen" was separated from Japan under the assumption that it would become a latter-day version of the "Korea" that joined Japan in 1910. But that was not the case. "Chōsen" was never "liberated" as "Korea". Chōsen became two postwar states created in 1948.

Moreover, concomitant with Korea becoming the Japanese territory of Chōsen, Koreans became Chosenese. And because Chōsen (like Taiwan from 1895) was part of Japan's sovereign dominion, Chosenese were Japanese -- hence their continued treatment as Japanese for nationality purposes in Occupied Japan by both the Allied Powers and the government of Japan, until the San Francisco Peace Treaty came into effect on 28 April 1928. The territorial terms in the treaty finalized the provisional separation of Chōsen and Taiwan from Japan in 1945. And because Japan's nationality is territorial, Japan's formal loss of Chōsen and Taiwan had the effect of separating Chosenese and Taiwanese from Japan's nationality. Those who thus lost Japan's nationality, and wanted to be Japanese, had to naturalize, and many did.

Chosenese in Japan after 28 April 1952 remained Chosenese. From 1966, it became possible for Chosenese in Japan to migrate to ROK nationality. Over the decades, most Chosenese migrated to ROK nationality, and not a few became nationals of other countries while maintaining their permanent residence status as aliens in Japan. As of this writing, several thousand people in Japan continue to be legally classified as aliens in "Chōsen" family registers (whether north or south of the border between DPRK and ROK) -- a legacy population of Chosenese who lost Japan's nationality in 1952.

Mayo's introduction does not get better. Every page has problems that could have been avoided by nuancing and fact checking.

Mayo writes that Ri Kaisei, a "postwar Korean Japanese writer", was "born in Sakhalin in 1935 and relocated with his family permanently to Japan in 1947" (Ibid. 9). And a few pages later, she writes, "In addition to restoring Sakhalin, the Soviet Union descended upon the Kuriles as a prize of war for its belated entry" (Ibid. 20).

Ri, however, was born in Karafuto, which was part of Japan, and a prefecture of Japan from 1943. His parents were Chosenese, hence Japanese, and so Ri himself was born Japanese. He was still technically of Japanese nationality when his family left Soviet occupied Karafuto for Occupied Japan in 1947, and he lost Japanese nationality with other Chosense in Japan in 1952.

In 1875, Japan agreed with Russia that the southern part of Sakhalin, which Japan called Karafuto, would be Russian, in return for Russia's claim to the northern Kuriles, which Japan called the Chishima Islands. The southern Kuriles (southern Chishima) was already recognized as part of Japan. As part of the settlement in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Russia ceded Japan the southern half of Sakhalin, which again became Karafuto, and also the northern Kuriles, which joined the southern Chishima islands as part of Hokkaidō prefecture.

In August 1945, the Soviet Union invaded Karafuto and administratively restored to Sakhalin, the northern part of which had remained part of Russia when Russia ceded Karafuto to Japan in 1905. Soviet troops also invaded the Kuriles, which were part of Hokkaido prefecture.

The Yalta Agreement of February 1945 provided that, on condition that the Soviet Union entered the war against Japan a few months after Germany's surrender, "the southern part of Sakhalin as well as all the islands adjacent to it shall be returned to the Soviet Union", and "The Kuril islands shall be handed over to the Soviet Union."

The "southern part of Sakhalin" was the Japanese prefecture of Karafuto. The meaning of "Kurile islands" is disputed because the Soviet Union invaded, captured, and Sovietized even the southern Chishima islands Russia had previsiously recognized as part of Japan. The southern Chishimas are the "Northern Territories" that Japan contends should not have been part of "the Kuriles" in the wording of the San Francisco Peace Treaty -- which, in any event, the USSR did not sign.

See Declarations and treaties: From Washington to San Francisco via the USS Missouri under "The Sovereign Empire" in "The Empires of Japan" section of this website.

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"Pleading for the Body"

Mayo describes Kerkman's contribution to War, Occupation, and Creativity like this (Mayo et al. 2001, page 23).

Eleanor Kerkham's essay on Tamura Taijirō is an exposé of wartime atrocities on two levels of denial, Americans and Japanese. as well as an exploration of constraints upon postwar Japanese literary creativity. Within the context of a rapidly excalating human rights issue long delayed in global consciousness until the early 1990's, she shows how a romanticized and yet, for its time, shocking literary indictment in 1947 of Japan's wartime exploitation of a Korean military comfort woman fell victim to American censors and to the author's own theories on sexuality in the new "literature of the body." [Note 59]

Note 59 lists the "large and growing historical and journalistic work by Japanese, Koreans, Americans, and Australians on comfort women, with a special tribute tothe research talents of Japanese historian Yoshimi Yoshiaki, one of the first (1992) to discover official documentation of military sexual slavery" (Ibid. 41).

Mayo's appraisal of Kerhkam's contribution as an "exposō" is accurate, in that it captures the tone of the pages that Kerkham devotes to contempoary (1990s) "comfort women = sex slaves" polemics. The tribute to Yoshimi Yoshiaki's 1992 book is telling, in that his book -- more than any other among the most cited Japanese-langauge reports -- presents documents which dramatize the diverse workings of what can be called the "comfort women system" -- so long as the "system" is recognized as having been subject to local conditions and local practices, and consequently was very complex. Yoshimi did not reduce "comfort women" to "sex slaves" -- although Suzanne O'Brien subtitled her 2015 English translation of his book "Sexual Slavery in the Japanese Military During World War II" and otherwise misrepresented or mistranslated some important parts of the book.

Kerkham is fairly good -- sometimes very good -- at her overall assessment of how GHQ/SCAP (and others) ran interference in Tamura Taijirō's effort to publish "Shunpuden". She's done her homework on primary documents in the Prange Collection, and she's illuminated these documents rather well. She deserves a lot credit for that.

What Kerkham does not do well is translate what Tamura writes, the way he writes it. It's Tamura's story, his voice, his phrasing, his metaphors. He had reasons, as a writer and novelist, for telling his story the way he wrote it.

Kerkham in effect kicks Tamura out of the driver's seat and changes his words to those that were fashionable in 1990's American-style academic "critiques" of how Japan's postwar governments have responded to charges of "denialism" regarding Imperial Japan's involvement in "atrocities", such as its alleged complicity in orchestrating abductions of "Korean women" (i.e., Chosenese women) into "sexual slavery" at "comfort stations" deployed with Japanese military units in war zones and occupied countries.

In short, while Kirkham is generally reliable when talking about GHQ/SCAP documents, which she has seen and effectively cites, her commentary on prewar, wartime, and postwar Japan suggests that is not very familiar with the conditions of Chosenese during the annexation years, or in Occupied Japan. And she seems to have swallowed the "comfort women = sex slaves" bait on the hooks of highly polemic publications in English, without herself having done the sort of homework she did to introduce Tamura's Shunpuden in the light of how it was viewed and treated by Allied Occupation censors, publishers, and the literary world.

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GHQ/SCAP censorhip of Shunpuden

Kerkham reconstructs the series of actions taken by GHQ/SCAP regarding the original galleys of Shunpuden. She reports that the "data sheet" attached to the galleys briefly described Shunpuden as follows (Kerkham 2001: 335).

. . . depicts the tragic story of a Korean Prostitute who committed suicide with a Japanese soldier at the China front. At the same time, it emphatically illustrates the corruption of the former Japanese army.

A two-page summary of the story attracted the attention of an officer who wrote -- "Leave this thing out! The mention of a Korean prostitute is dangerous, let alone the whole article." Kerkham points out his incorrect characterization of the "short novel" as an "article" -- suggesting that perhaps he misunderstood the intent of what he was reading.

The officer -- according to Kerkham -- struck out "hold" and wrote "SUPRESS" on the 1st page, then stamped "SUPRESS" on the 1st page and on each of the other pages. However, the image of the 1st page, which she includes in her article, shows "HOLD" block-printed in upper case, crossed out with "Sup" written in cursive lower case above it -- and, immediately above this, in the margin at the top of the page, a "SUPRESS" stamp.

The initial reason for the novella's suppression -- "incitement to violence and unrest". A later reason -- "criticism of Koreans". (Kirkman 2001: 335-336)

Kerkham expands on this reasoning as follows (Kerkham 2001: 340-341). Highlighting and boxed comments mine.

Kerham goes not speculate about whether Tamura himself intended his story as a comment about the "military role" in the plight of the women he depicts in his story. She suggests that SCAP -- because of the use of Japanese women for the "'comfort' and recreation of American [sic = Allied] forces in Japan" [Note 97] -- was perhaps "not at all eager to have the topic of militarized prostitution become a 'public issue'" and hence resorted to the censorship category of "criticism of an ally" as a "more legitimate sounding" reason to suppress the work.

Both reasons -- "incitement to violence and unrest" (bōryoku to fuon no kōdō no sendō 暴力と不穏の行動の煽動) and "criticism of Koreans [sic = Chosenese]" (Chōsenjin e no hihan 朝鮮人への批判) -- were listed on various "Key Logs" which had been issued by the end of 1946 to supplement the Code For Japanese Press issued on 21 September 1945 by the Civil Censorship Detachment of GHQ/SCAP's G-2 section.

Kerkham on publication of May 1947 Ginza Shuppansha collection

Kerkham makes the following observation, which suggests the extent to which opinion within GHQ/SCAP could vary -- as it did on other issues as well (Kerkham 2001: page 345, note 9).

9. Tamura Tajirō, Shunpuden (Tokyo: Ginza Shuppansha, May 1947), 1. The quote ["openly describing things which stagnated in my breast during the long war years"] is taken from the preface to a collection of stories featuring what appears to be a self-censored, "de-Koreanized" version of the short novel Shunpuden. This version did, to the later surprise of the magazine section, get past the Book Unit of the Press, Publications, and Broadcasting Division (PPB) of the Civil Censorship Detachment (CCD) and was published in May.

The book published in May 1947 is the 1947 Ginza Shuppansha edition shown above and cited elsewhere in this article.

Hiroaki Sato on censorship of "Shunpuden"

"Why did they bother?

A more recent look at Shunpuden in English, by the New York based writer, translator, and critic Hiroaki Sato, was published in The Japan Times, to which he often contributes his takes on contempory and historical issues.

Hiroaki Sato
Redaction of a 'comfort woman' story The Japan Times
The View From New York
3 November 2014

Sato made the following remark about the title assigned Shunpuden by GHQ/SCAP censors.

"Alluring" is Sato's way of representing the erotic and carnal nuances of "spring" (shun 春) -- as used in expressions like "selling spring" (baishun 売春) and "spring picture" (shunga (春画), respectively the selling of one's body for sexual pleasure, and woodblock prints depicting sexual intercourse. Like many translators, Sato prefers to replace the perfectly good Japanese metaphor "spring" used in a romantic carnal context -- with "alluring" -- which replaces the metaphor with an interpretation or explanation.

"shun"

"Shun" is here best translated "spring" -- in view of the fact that the protagonist's name is "Harumi" (春美), meaning "spring beauty". The erotic associations of "spring" are clear enough in context.

"fu/pu"

Whether "fu" (婦) as "pu" should be translated "woman" or "women" is a toss. I am inclined to prefer "women" because the story -- while concerned mainly with one "shunpu" -- is about several if not all such women. Having said this, singular "woman" does underscore Harumi as the heroine.

"shunpu"

Kerkahm glosses "shunpu" as follows (Kerkham 2001: 335).

Tamura's fictional vision is colored not only by his nikutai theory but also by a fantasy that he and other contemporary Japanese government officials and former military men have used to justify their own actions and attitudes -- that these women were "prostitutes" (the term "shunpu" in Tamura's title is literally "woman of spring" or "sex woman").

The characterizations of the "spring woman" in Tamura's story as a "sex woman" and "prostitute" are Kerkham's, not Tamura's. In his longer dedication to Shunpuden in the May 1947 Ginza Shuppansha edition (see below), as well as in the narrative of his story, Tamura puts the girls who served in the "women's army" above the "prostitutes of Japan" who stayed in the rear to cavort with the officers and disparage the rank-and-file soldiers and the women who lived and died in the fighting.

Why all the fuss?

As Kerkham describes the revisions to the original story, both those that appear to be have been inspired by GHQ/SCAP's suppression, and those that seem to have been motived by self-censorship, the modifications involve mostly the elimination of direct references such as "Korea" and "Korean" -- by which she has to mean "Chōsen" and "Chosenese", since "Kankoku" and "Kankokujin" did not exist and Tamura wrote only of "Chōsen" and "Chōsenjin". Kerkham also cites expressions like "women who loved garlic and hot red peppers" -- and adds, "key terms such as race, personal names, or foods" among other things that might suggest Chōsen or Chosenese.

Sato, though, raises a question that Kerkham didn't ask (Sato 2014).

As I pointed out at the outset of this article, the title Shunpuden would probably have congered of recollections Shunkōden" to all 1947 readers familiar with Chosenese literature -- and that would have included quite a few Japanese in the prefectural Interior who were savvy about Chōsen and familiar with Chunkōden as a classical Chosenese romance. In fact, the story of Shunkōden was favorably dramatized in the Interior in 1938, and continued to be publicized by reprintings and even a bunko edition of Chō Kakuchū's play into the early 1940s. See Cho Kakuchu, Shunkoden, 1938, also in this Literature section, for details.

Kawasaki Kenko's 2006 article onAkatsuki no dassō < Escape at Dawn > 1950 adapation of Shunpuden by Taniguchi Senkichi Yosha Bunko scan of Taiwan DVD edition

Kawasaki on Shunpuden

"Chosen" versus "Korea"

川崎賢子
GHQ占領期の出版と文学
昭和文学研究 (昭和文学会編集委員会)
東京：昭和文学会
第52号、2006年3月 (1979年から年2回刊)
ページ38-48

Kawasaki Kenko
GHQ senryōki no shuppan to bungaku
[ Publishing and literature in GHQ occupation period ]
Shōwa bungaku kenkyū (Shōwa Bungaku Kai henshū iinkai)
< Showa literature studies > (Shōwa Literature Association editorial committee)
Tokyo; Shōwa Bungaku Kai
No. 52, March 2006 (published twice a year from 1979)
Pages 38-48

Kawaski Kenko (b1956), a product of Tokyo Women's University, specializes in Japanese literary arts, including fiction, drama, and film in prewar, wartime, and postwar Japan. She has written extensively on female novelists like Osaki Midori (尾崎翠 1896-1971) and on Takarazuka, but also on literature published under the watchful eye of the GHQ/SCAP during the Allied Occupation of Japan. The article shown here focuses on Tamura Taijiro's Shunpuden, among other Tamura novels that drew fire from GHQ/SCAP censors.

Flesh trumps race (and love conquers all)

If likeable like, if hateful hate, and no regrets

The human condition of the women in "Shunpuden" is essentially one of "carnality" -- meaning that every thing they do is determined by the "will" of their "bodies" or "flesh" -- depending on how one wishes to translate "nikutai" (肉体). As I stated above, I characterize Tamura's "nikutai-ron" (肉体論) as "nikutai doctrine". If pressed to fully anglicize the expression, I would render it "doctine of carnality". If pushed for an explanatory translation, I would go with "carnal determinism".

Three pages into Shunpuden, following fast and dramatic establishing scenes, comes a long paragraph that essentially defines the geographical and socio-economic origins of the three women featured in the story. The paragraph also articulates Tamura's doctrine of carnality, according to which his characters live through the wills of their bodies or flesh.

In her 2001 article on Shunpuden, Eleanor Kerkham translates the entire paragraph as it appeared in the galleys submitted to GHQ/SCAP for its approval in early 1947, with her notes and commentary. However, she divides her translation into two parts, one earlier and the other later in her article. And elsewhere in her article she comments on matters related to the original and revised versions of this paragraph.

In the following table, I have first shown Kirkham's translation of the original version (left), followed by my transcription (center) and my structural translation (right) of the revised version of the paragraph.

"Would the Emperor call me a whore?"

Harumi's "racial backhand" against Japanese who made a fool of her

Kerhkam takes too many liberties in some of her summaries of Tamura's narrative. Rather than reveal what Tamura writes, and let readers participate in his 1940s drama, without her running 1990s Americnesque commentary -- in other words, rather than show before she tells -- she front loads her presentation with her own story, in the course of which she lifts things out of Tamura's story to suit her own viewpoint and purpose. And not infrequently she garbles the details.

Kerham's overview of Harumi's comments about the emperor is a good example of what she does (Kerkham 2001: pages 318-319 and notes, all [bracketed remarks] and highlighting mine).

Tamura tells the story rather differently.

Harumi quickly becomes very popular and everyone wants to play (asobu 遊ぶ) with her. The lieutenant who barges into her room in the following scene has only heard of her by reputation, but is determined to have his turn, even if it means pulling rank and breaking in line.

Tamura uses "asobu" (遊ぶ) in its totally conventional sense of "play" or "hang out" or "have fun" -- whether kids with toys in room or on a swing in a park, or high school students at a fastfood shop after school, or an office girl in bed with her married supervisor at a love hotel. My structural approach is to translated the word just "play" and leave its nuances to the reader. The word "yūjo" (遊女) is an old term in Japanese for "pleasure girl" while "playgirl" is "pureigaaru" (プレイガール).

Midnight has come on the 5th night and someone pounds on Harumi's door so hard it seems it might break. The sergeant major, who was there for the night, is sleeping in her bed. She asks who's calling and says she has a guest. "I don't care, open up", the caller says and starts kicking the door. She can see his eyes peering through a space between the door and the frame. He kicks the door harder, calls her a fool, and worrying he'll break the door, she releases the catch and opens it herself. Harumi tries to block the door, but the tall officer pushes her aside and barges in. It was the lieutenant. He sees the man on Harumi's bed and orders him to get up. The sergeant, pretending he was asleep, opens his eyes and lifts his head from the pillow. The lieutenant recognizes him, and knowing he'd been permitted to stay the night, says, "You've already played, right? So change with me (mō, asondan daro, na, kawatte kure yo もう、遊んだんだろ、な、かわつてくれよ). The sergeant's acknowledgment of the lieutenant's request was weak, but seeming resigned about it, he stands to leave. "Why are you leaving? You can't leave," Harumi says, taking his arm, while glaring at the lieutenant. "You leave (anta wa kaere yo あんたはかえれよ)," she says to the lieutenant. "I'm not playing with you." The narrator remarks that Harumi doesn't care if she's killed, she's not going to take the officer as a partner. (1947: 18-21, 1949: 22-24).

The confrontation escalates like this (1947: 21, 1949: 24-25).

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Kaibara Hiroshi's Showa owattenno (1988) Examines Tamura's Shunfuden as Hirohito lay dying Click on images to enlarge Yosha Bunko scans Dust jacket of Kaibara's lampoons of Hirohito "A hole, a hole," shouts the soldier making the first assault on a log Hirohito has no name, and Hironomiya wants to become "Hiro Shields" Hirohito cared for by military-attached Christian nurse Michiko Shunpuden in comfort women lore Kaibara Hiroshi's lampoon of Hirohito's ianfu The images to the right show the jacket of Kaibara Hiroshi's Shoo-wa owat-tennoo, published in 1988, as Emperor Hirohito was dying, and three of the book's many annotated lampoons on aspects of his legacy. 貝原浩 (偏・画) ショーは終っテンノー 天皇制論叢 別冊4 東京：社会評論社 1988年10月15日初版第1刷発行 160ページ (奥付を含む) Kaibara Hiroshi (editing, drawings) Shoo-wa owat-tennoo [The show is over (for Emperor Shōwa)] Tennō-sei ronsō Bessatsu 4 [Emperor system opinion collection: Separate volume 4 Tokyo: Shakai Hyōron Sha 15 October 1988, 1st edition, 1st printing published 160 pages (including colophon), paper cover, jacket Kaibara qualifies his own editing and drawing as "biased". He wants readers to know what side he's on. His collection of lampoons on all aspects of the "emperor system" focuses on Hirohito, who at the time is dying. The collection consists of a mix of short comments, essays, and illustrations. Most commentary consists of one page of text facing a full-page caricature, as shown in the examples to the right. As you reach the colophon, you think you're done -- but turn the page, and you see a perspiring emperor standing on the back deck of his special railway car, his left hand raised in a wave. The car is bracketed by two lines of text, "Sayonara" (さよなら) right of the page, and "Hirohito" (ヒロヒト) down the left. Close the back cover, and on it's back you see Hirohito's face and a balloon saying "Minna, shinpai shite arigatō" (皆、心配してくれてありがとう) -- "Everyone, thanks for worrying". I introduced this book to the world in an article I wrote shortly after Hirohito's death -- titled The Showa is over: Paying their last disrespects to Emperor Hirohito -- for the Far Eastern Economic Review (143:4, 26 January 1989, pages 38-39). The book was rushed to press in October 1988, a month after Hirohito's intestines began bleeding and the government and nation of Japan, indeed the world, prepared for his death. The "totsugeki ichiban" (突撃一番) condom cartoon (page 85) is one of many annotated lampoons that appeared in Kaibara's book. The image to the right shows the text of Kaibara's commentary on the cartoon -- "Chosenese comfort women" (Chōjin ianfu 朝鮮人慰安婦). (Page 84) Also shown to the right are 2 of my other favorite cartoons from the book. One shows Hirohito at the counter of a club. The mama sidles up and says, "Oh, it's your first time here. What is your name?" To which he says "I don't have one." Behind the bar is Hirohito's grandson Prince Hironomiya, who will soon become the Crown Prince, but needs a wife, pouring his own booze and saying, "I want to become Hiro Shields" -- alluding to his rumored crush on Brooke Shields. (Page 131) The other shows Hirohito in bed saying "I'm in ag, agony." There to tender her loving care is a nurse attached to the military (jūgun kangofu 従軍看護婦), Hirohito's daughter-in-law Princess Michiko, soon to become the Empress, radiating him with her cross. (Page 135) "military-attached nurses" (jūgun kangofu 従軍看護婦) were the medical counterparts of "military-attached comfort women" (jūgun ianfu 従軍慰安婦). The expression "military-attached" (jūgun 従軍) is also used with other vocations, mostly commonly "reporters" (kisha 記者) -- "embedded reporters" in present-day English jargon -- hence "embedded nurses" and "embedded comfort women"? Breaking taboos For Kaibara and his publishers, it was time to take off the kid gloves regarding alleged taboos about light and dark humor directed at Hirohito, the wartime emperor, and the "emperor system" that leftists that some critics have claimed continues to nurture romantic nationalism in conservative patriotic quarters. Kaibara's commentary is unsparring. His lampoon of a comfort station (page 85), dramatizing his his commentary on Tamura Taijirō's Shunpuden (page 84), is as punching ' "Chōsenjin ianfu" Preceding and facing the comfort woman cartoon is a full-page article titled "Chosenese comfort women" (Chōsenjin ianfu 朝鮮人慰安婦). The article is devoted to Shunfuden (春婦傅) or "The life of a spring woman" -- a novella by Tamura Taijiro (田村泰次郎 1911-1983) first published in May 1947 after having been suppressed by General Headquarters, Supreme Commander for the Allied Forces (GHQ/SCAP) in Occupied Japan. "Spring" is associated with the desire and passion men and women seek in a carnal relationship, and a "spring woman" is a "woman who sells spring" (baishunfu 売春婦) -- or, as a similar metaphor puts it, a "woman who sells smiles" (baishōfu 売笑婦). See Tamura 1947 on this page for a full summary of Shunfuden and an examination of GHQ/SCAP's "HOLD" and "SUPRESS" double punch. All in the "line" of duty Kaibara's "totsugeki ichiban" cartoon showing a line of condom-capped soldiers, making a first attack on a log with a hole, is a lampoon on the attitudes of the soldiers who got their rocks off between battles in which they faced death in the name of the emperor and the glory of his realm -- all by the numbers, and in the "line" of duty. In the foreground of the cartoon, a log reclines on two branch stubs for arms. A spectacled, bucktoothed, barebutted soldier is throwing himself at the waist-high hollow on the log. His eyes are bulging, and he's thinking "Ana ana" (アナ アナ) -- "A hole, a hole". The stocking cap on his close-cropped head is a condom. A queue of condom-capped soldiers snakes into the background and fades into a line of just condoms. Why do they surge? The caption reads "Totsugeki ichiban nado tachisawaguramu" (突撃一番など立ち騒ぐらむ) -- meaning "The first assaults [of war], why do they surge?" But the caption is full of wordplay. "totsugeki ichiban" (突撃一番) happens to have been the name of a commerical brand of prophylactic rubbers popular among military personal from the time of the China Incident in 1937 to shortly before the start of the Pacific War, when they began to be supplied by the military. For photographs and other information, see Aso Tetsu 1939 and Amako Kuni 2010 under "Personal accounts" in the "Comfort Women" section of "The Sovereign Empire" group of articles on this website. "nado tachisawaguramu" (など立ち騒ぐらむ) -- "why do [the condoms] rise in commotion?" alludes to a waka attributed to Emperor Meiji (Mutsuhito) at the start of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, and recited by Hirohito 3 months before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 (my translation). 四方の海 皆同胞と思ふ世に など波風の立ち騒ぐらむ Yomo no umi / mina hara kara to / omofu yo ni nado namikaze no / tachisawaguramu In a world where we feel that all of the 4 seas are from the same womb, why do the waves and winds rise and clamor? Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito) reportedly recited this waka at the end of an imperial conference on 6 September 1941 at which officials, including the then prime ministry, Prince Konoe Fumimaro (近衞文麿 1891-1945), discussed the pros and cons of convening a war against the United States. The poem written by Emperor Meiji, who had cited it shortly after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war in 1904. The poem is considered to be Emperor Meiji's expression of dismay that the two countries, whose people should feel a common human bond, were fighting each other. Hirohito seems to have expressed the same dismay towards government and military leaders who appeared to want to resort to war to solve Japan's problems with the United States and its Pacific allies. "hara kara is the Japanese reading of Sino-Japanese "dōhō" (同胞). Where as "dōhō" means "same womb", "hara kara" means "from the [same] belly". The words are most commonly used to refer to comrades and compatriots, brethren and siblings, of the same "minzoku" (民族) or (racioethnic) "nation" or "race". In the context of "yomo no umi, mina", however, they refer to all people from countries in the 4 seas -- the seas in all directions -- i.e., all humankind, all members of the human race. "nami kaze no tachisawagu" (波風の立ち騒ぐ) -- "the rising and clamoring of waves and wind" -- refers to storms at sea, and alludes to the discord between Japan and Russia -- the battles between their navies. nado (など) is a classical form of "naze" or "dōshite", and "ramu" (らむ) is a classical form of suppositional "darō". So "nado XYZ ramu" means something like "Why do you suppose XYZ?" The puzzle of Emperor Shōwa's "Four seas" 平山周吉 昭和天皇「よもの海」の謎 東京：新潮社 2014年4月25日発行 303ページ、ソフトカバー Hirayama Shūkichi Shōwa Tennō "Yomo no umi" no nazo [ The puzzle of Emperor Shōwa's ""] Tokyo: Shinchōsha 25 April 2014 published 303 pages, softcover, jacket, obi

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Shunpuden films

The 1st movie version, made in 1949 and released in 1950 by Shin Tōhō (新東宝), corrupted the original story, beginning with its title, "Akatsuki no dassō" (暁の脱走), or "Escape at Dawn" as it is generally known in English. The film was directed by Taniguchi Senkichi (谷口千吉 1912-2007) from a script he wrote with the help of Kurosawa Akira (黒澤明 1910-1998). After squabbling over how to handle the Chosenese elements that remained in the novel, and the manner in which the lovers died, the film makers turned Tamura's story into a very different kind of drama.

The 2nd film adaptation, made and released in 1965 by Nikkatsu (日活) and directed by Suzuki Seijun (鈴木清順 b1923), attempted to return the story to its novelistic roots, but ended up corrupting it in different ways -- again without its original Chosenese elements.

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Akatsuki no dassō < Escape at Dawn > 1950 adapation of Shunpuden by Taniguchi Senkichi Yosha Bunko scan of Taiwan DVD edition Akatsuki no dassō 1950 (1949) "Escape at Dawn" In this first film adaptation of Tamura Taijirō's Shunpuden, Harumi is played by Yamaguchi Yoshiko (山口淑子), better known on Broadway and in Hollywood as Shirley Yamaguchi (シャーリー・ヤマグチ), but best known as the Manchuria-born singer and actress Ri Kōran (李香蘭 Lee Hsiang Lan). At the time Kaihara Hiroshi's book of lampoons on the dying "emperor system" came out in 1988, Yamaguchi was -- as he describes her in his article on "Chosenese ianfu" (Chōsenjin ianfu 朝鮮人慰安婦) -- "none other than the Liberal Democratic Party's number-one talent Diet member Ōtaka Yoshiko (大鷹淑子)." See Kaibara 1988 below for details. The conventional English version has "escape" for "dassō" (脱走), which means "desert" in a military context. In Japanese, the terms for "escapee" and "deserter" are respectively "dassōsha" (脱走者) ["person who runs away (from detention)"] and "dassōhei" (脱走兵) ["soldier who runs away (from duty post)"]. Imondan The women in the movie are not represented as "comfort women" (ianfu 慰安婦) but as "consolation unit personnel" (imondan-in 慰問団員). An "imondan" (慰問団) was more broadly a "group" or "troupe" (dan 団) of entertainers, especially singers and dancers, mostly women, but also men, some famous, others not. The purpose of such groups was not sexual entertainment, and the women were not obliged to fraternize with officers or soldiers, though some might. The term "imondan" also seems to have been used, as in this movie, to refer to groups of women who entertained soldiers at clubs where drinks were served. In the course of such work, the women were subjectable to pressure to sexually fraternize with officers and cadre who flaunted their masculine desires if not also their authority. By some accounts (see Hirano 1992 below), this movie had a difficult birth, as its director, producer, and script writers disagreed over how faithfully it should adhere to the Tamura's novel. And Occupation authorities and others in positions to have a say in content demanded a number of changes in several versions of the script. Having read the original novel as published in 1947, and seen the 1950 film, I will simply declare that the movie is nothing like the novel. Which is "better" is not an appropriate question if one grants creative license to both Tamura and the film makers. As works of entertainment, both the novel and the movie manipulate readers and viewers differently by way to telling their very different stories. As for which work is more "authentic" as a snapshot of the human condition in China at the time, the novel trumps the film. Or, more frankly, the film -- pandering as it did to the demands of censors bent on suppressing facts for the sake of not offending ideologues -- doesn't quality as a candidate for authenticity. The double-suicide ending of the novel became a double-murder in the film. Double suicide is one of the most familiar and predicable endings in stories about star-crossed lovers. Showing their being shot does not entirely eliminate suicidal intent on their part, but it does vilify the military far more than the novel. The film's characterization of the women as "imondan-in" -- rather than as "ianfu" -- may have been contrived as a way to increase the audience's sympathy for the heroine. However, prostitutes as sympathetic heroines are not uncommon in Japanese fiction, drama, and film fare. In any event, there does not seem to have been a taboo -- then -- against depicting "ianfu" for what they were -- some professional prostitutes, some hoping to work off family debts, some sold into indentured service in brothels, some contracted under false pretenses for work in factories, and some abducted into sexual slavery. The graphs imon (慰問) denote a "consolation inquiry" in a sense similar to "mimae" (見舞い). As used in the military, it meant something intended to "comfort" or "console" or "cheer up" or "soothe" or "amuse" or "relieve" soldiers in the field. An "imonbukuro" (慰問袋) was a "comfort bag" or box of amenities given a soldier, especially in a warzone, where sweets, cookies, and other such items were in short supply. The story In this first movie version of Shunpuden, Mikami, a gentle Superior Private stationed at a forward Imperial Army base in a fortified village in China, is wooed by Harumi, a singer, who would rather fraternize with him than be forced to sleep with the vulgar and violent adjutant (aide-de-camp). The adjutant, who is jealous of her feelings toward Mikami, sends him on a mission into territory controlled by Chinese resistance forces. He is wounded and captured, then released and returns to the base, where the adjutant and some others treat him badly. Harumi persuades him to desert, and in disguise they join a group of Chinese who are permitted to leave the village. The adjutant, who learns they are missing, does not spot them until they are some distance from the gate of the walled village. But they are within the range of a machine gun mounted on a turret near the gate, and the adjuctant himself mans the gun and fires at them until they they are mortally wounded. As they die, Harumi extends her hand toward Mikami's but fails to reach it. The film Akatsuki no dassō was produced and distributed by Shin Tōhō (新東宝), a 1947 split-off Tōhō (東宝) that became known for its "exploitation" films. The "New Toho Company" lasted until 1961, when it went bankrupt, though parts of its operations were reincarnated in other companies, including Shin Tōhō Eiga (新東宝映画), which made a name for itself as a major producer of "pink" or "sexploitation" films. Internet film databases give the release date as 8 January 1950, but the Akatsuki no dassō was first screened in 1949. The original release is said to have run 115 minutes. The Taiwan DVD release, which has the original Japanese soundtrack and options for Japanese or Chinese subtitles, runs 110 minutes. 1950 Akatsuki no dassō staff and cast credit Staff 監督 Direction 製作 Production 原作 Originator 脚本 Scenario  　  　 撮影 Cinematography 音楽 Music 美術 Art 照明 Lighting 谷口千吉 Taniguchi Senkichi 田中友幸 Tanaka Tomoyuki 田村泰次郎 Tamura Taijiro 谷口千吉 Taniguchi Senkichi 黒澤明 Kurosawa Akira 三村明 Mimura Akira 早坂文雄 Hayasaka Fumio 松山崇 Matsuyama Takashi 大沼正喜 Ōnuma Masaki Cast 三上上等兵 Superior Private Mikami 副官 Adjutant (Aide-de-camp) 中隊長 Company Commander 小田軍曹 Sergeant Oda 山本上等兵 Superior Private Yamamoto 木村軍曹 Sergeant Kimura 小島伍長 Corporal Kojima 野呂軍曹 Sergeant Noro 桑島軍曹 Sergeant Kiwashima 春美 Harumi 百合 Yuriko 薫 Kaoru 恵子 Keiko 伸枝 Nobue 立花 Tachibana 池部良 Ikebe Ryō 小沢栄 Ozawa Eitarō 清川荘司 Kiyokawa Soji 伊豆肇 Izu Hajime 柳谷寛 Yanagiya Kan 田中実 Tanaka Minoru 島田友三郎 Shimada Yūsaburō 田中春男 Tanaka Haruo 山室耕 Yamamuro Kō 山口淑子 Yamaguchi Yoshiko 利根はる恵 Tone Harue 若山セツ子 Wakayama Setsuko 立花満枝 Tachibana Mitsue 安雙三枝 Yasufusa Saegusa 深見泰三 Fukami Taizō Top   Title page of hardcover edition of Kyoko Hirano's Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo Yosha Bunko scan First page of Hirano's 9-page overview of Taniguchi Senkichi's Akatsuki no dassō Yosha Bunko scans 1998 Japanese edition Above and right Dust jacekt and obi and front and back flaps of 1998 Japanese adaptation of Hirano Kyoko's doctoral dissertation as Tennō to seppun "The emperor and kissing" Click on images to enlarge Yosha Bunko scan Below First pages of Chapter 7 on The case of "Escape at Dawn" Kyoko Hirano on "Akatsuki no dasso" Kyoko Hirano (Hirano Kyōko 平野共余子 b1952), born in Tokyo in 1952, and educated at Waseda University and Tokyo University, came to the United States on a Fulbright Fellowship in 1979, and completed a doctoral disseration on Japanese films under the Allied Occupation of Japan, at New York University in 1988. English and Japanese adaptations of her dissertation were published in 1992 and 1998. Both language versions contain essentially the same general description of the ways in GHQ/SCAP and others meddled in the production of the 1950 film version of Tamura Taijiro's 1947 novel Shunpuden. But the two versions also show how Hirano, like practically all researchers who write in English, prefer to speak in English of "Korea" and "Koreans" rather than "Chosen" and "Chosenese" -- although in Japanese they speak of "Chōsen" (Chosen) and "Chōsenjin" (Chosenese), knowing that "Korea" and "Koreans" did not exist after the Empire of Korea became the Japanese territory of Chōsen in 1910. Hirano 1992 Kyoko Hirano Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo (Japanese Cinema Under the American Occupation, 1945-1952) [Smithsonian Studies in the History of Film and Television] Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992 365 pages, illustrated, hardcover A paperback edition was published in 1994. The scans shown here are from an ex libris copy of the hardcover edition that lacks a dust jacket. Hirano 1998 平野共余子 天皇と接吻：アメリカ占領下の日本映画検閲 東京：草思社 1998年1月1日 411ページ、単行本、カバー、帯 Hirano Kyōko Tennō to seppun: Amerika senryōka no Nihon eiga ken'estsu [ The Emperor and Kissing: Japan film censorship under the America occupation ] Tokyo: Sōshisha 1 January 1998 first published 411 pages, hardcover, jacket, obi This is a Japanese adaptation of Hirano 1992. Sōshisha issued a bunko edition in 2021, and it is also available in a Kindle edition. 平野 共余子(ひらの・きょうこ) 1952年東京生まれ。早稲田大学法学部卒業。東京大学人文科学研究科比較文学比較文化専攻修士課程、東京大学新聞研究所を経て、1976-77年旧ユーゴスラヴィア政府給費留学生としてベオグラード大学大学院映画学科に留学、1979年フルブライト奨学生としてニューヨーク大学大学院映画研究科に留学し博士号取得。1986年より2004年までニューヨーク市のジャパン・ソサエティでアメリカにおける日本映画紹介に携わり、その活動と著書『天皇と接吻』(草思社)で日本映画ペンクラブ賞、川喜多賞受賞。ニューヨーク大学、ニュー・スクール大学、テンプル大学ジャパン・キャンパス、明治学院大学などでも非常勤講師を務めてきた。 The book began as a doctoral dissertation at New York University, completed in 1988 and titled Japanese cinema under the American occupation: 1945-1952. The title "Mr. Smith goes to Tokyo" was inspired by Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the 1939 classic political comedy depicting democracy in action when a newly elected small-town senator who goes to Washington to combat corruption. Hirano thus characterizes what she calls "the American Occupation" as a "Mr. Smith" that goes to Japan to democratize the country and rid of the elements that led to the Pacific War. Hirano is far from alone in stylizing the Allied Occupation of Japan from 1945-1952 as an "American Occuption". While the war against Japan in the Pacific Theatre was mainly an American operation, and while the military Occupation of Japan was led and dominated by the United States, it was nonetheless an Allied action, undertaken under the authority of agreements made by the nations that united in January 1942 to defeat the Empire of Japan, and wartime declarations that determined how Japan would be treated when defeated. The Allied Nations were also known as the United Nations -- not to be confused with the postwar supranational body that succeeded the League of Nations. "rewritten at least seven times" Hirano opens "The Case of Desrtion at Dawn in her chapter on "Prohibited Subjects" like this (Hirano1992, page 87). The screenplay of Senkichi Taniguchi's Desertion at Dawn (Escape at Dawn [Akatsuki no dassō] (1950) was rewritten at least seven times between September 1948, when it was first submitted to CIE, and January 1950, when the film was finally released. For no other film among the cases that I studied from the occupation period were so many rewrites mandated. The various versions of its script, some of whose yellowing pages have started to decay, take up the largest space in the collection of files on Japanese films at the National Records Center in Suitland, Maryland, and are stored in two boxes. Hirano, while noting that the 5th script is missing from the file, reviews changes made in several other scripts, beginning with the 1st script, by Taniguchi Senkichi and Kurosawa Akira. Kurosawa's name was dropped from the 4th and subsequent scripts. The "Chinese Mission in Japan" -- as Hirano describes the diplomatic legation of the Republic of China in Occupied Japan -- reviewed at least the 1st script. This suggests that Hirano's "American Occupation" was in fact an Allied collaboration. According to a letter from the Chinese Mission on file, the mission had no objection to the film but recommended a few, mostly minor changes. The most significant request for change in the script, among several listed by Hirano, was -- in my opinion -- the request to change "Shina" (支那) -- the most common name for China in Japanese -- to "Chūgoku" (中國) -- Sino-Japanese version of "Chungkuo" (Zhongguo). Hirano calls Chūgoku "the official name for the country" -- though formally ROC was founded as, and continues to be, "Chūka Minkoku" (中華民国 Chunghua Minkuo, Zhonghua Minguo) in Sino-Japanese. "Chūkoku" (Chungkuo, Zhonghua) is merely an older, more generic name for the country, regardless of its "official name" at any given time. At the time the Chinese mission in Occupied Japan was asking to be called "Chūgoku", Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces were losing ROC's control and jurisdiction over China's continental provinces to Mao Tse-tung's liberation army. And 10 months after the release of Akatsuki no dassō in January 1950, the ROC government and what remained of its national forces took refuge on the province of Taiwan -- the "New China" of the People's Republic of China was founded on the continent -- both ROC and PRC claimed to be the sole legitimate government of China -- then in 1971, recognition politics among members of the United Nations conspired to give ROC's China seat to PRC -- and the rest is today's living history of the continuing standoff between the two entities and countries that take sides.

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Suzuki Seijun's 1965 film adapatation of Shunpuden Right B2 theater poster for Japan release as Shunpuden Below Jacket and pamphlet of English-subtitled DVD release as Story of a Prostitute Yosha Bunko scans Suzuki Seijun's 1965 film adapatation of Shunpuden Stills 23, 24, and 40 from film Click on images to enlarge Yosha Bunko scans Japanese Laser Disc release English-titled VHS release LD and VHS images copped from Internet Shunpuden 1965 "The Story of a Prostitute" This 1965 Nikkatsu production, directed by Suzuki Seijun (鈴木清順 b1923), is the second film adaptation of Tamura Taijirō's Shunpuden. Harumi is played by Nogawa Yumiko (野川由美子), who played Maya, one of the prostitutes in Suzuki's direction of Nikkatsu's 1964 remake of Tamura's Nikutai no mon. The B2 theater poster, used to promote the Japan release of the film, makes this appeal (my structural translation). 戦乱の中国大陸に白熱愛欲模様を描く問題の異色大ロマン！ A problematic different-color (distinctive) great romance, portraying the motiff (conditions) of white-heat love-desire (fervid passion, hot lust) on the war-torn China continent! English-titled release Known in its English-titled release as "Story of a Prostitute", this version of Shunpuden is supposed to be truer to the novel -- an impression that begins with the title. The synopses of the story on Amazon Prime in Japan reads like this (my structural translation). 中国北部の大荒野を疾走するトラックの中で春美はうつろな瞳を黄色い大空に向けていた。天津で春美は愛を裏切られた。春美は絶望を求め、この奥地の慰安所に志願したのだった。山間地にトラックがやって来た時、突如地雷が爆発し、待ち伏せた敵軍が急襲してきた...。女の真実の絶叫を描く In a truck dashing through the vast barren plains in northern China, Harumi directed her hollow pupils at the vast yellow sky. Harumi had been betrayed in love in Tientsin (T'ien-chin, Tianjin). Harumi, in pursuit of despair, had applied to a comfort station in the hinterland. When the truck came to a place in the mountains, suddenly a land mine explodes, and enemy soldiers laying in wait quicky attacked (stormed) [the truck]. . . . Portrays a woman's true screams

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