Nihon eiga bunken shoshi (E+J)

[Aaron Gerow]

It has taken over 30 years, but the first major index to Japanese writing 
on cinema has finally been published. The independent researcher Makino 
Mamoru spent several decades pouring through prewar publications to 
produce an index of articles and books on cinema. This was an enormous 
task given the fact that few institutions have collected prewar film 
publications, and thus Makino sometimes had to travel the country and 
visit several institutions and private collectors just to index one year 
from a single magazine. It was also long thought his index would never be 
published because of the poor state of film studies in Japan (indicating 
a lack of demand for such a publication) and the years a publisher would 
have to take just to collate and format Makino's data. But finally the 
index has seen the light of day.

The first installment of the _Nihon eiga bunken shoshi_ covers the Meiji 
and Taisho periods. It is over 2000 pages long (in 3 volumes) with over 
56,000 entries. The bibliographic details are as follows: 

Nihon eiga bunken shoshi, Meiji Taisho ki
日本映画文献書誌 明治・大正期
Editor: Makino Mamoru (牧野守)
Publisher: Yushodo （雄松堂出版)
86,000 yen
ISBN 4-8419-0313-5
Japanese web announcement: http://www.yushodo.co.jp/ysdnews/movie/

The price is too high for individual researchers to buy, but I do 
recommend that any institution working on Japanese cinema purchase it. 
The next installment covering early Showa will appear in a few years.

Makino, who was honored in the anthology _In Praise of Film Studies: 
Essays in Honor of Makino Mamoru_ (ISBN 1552126404), has published such 
research as the _Nihon eiga ken'etsushi_ (ISBN: 476847814X), and edited 
republications of such important cinema publications as _Kinema junpo_, 
_Eiga nenkan_, _Kinema Record_, _Nihon eiga_, etc.

A note on the index's format. Unfortunately, given the fact the index was 
produced by a single individual on his own free time, it basically just 
lists articles in 50-onjun by year, with the third volume offering an 
index of authors and film titles. There is thus no subject index (but 
this is not unusual for Japanese bibliography). The index is a godsend 
for anyone working on particular crtics, directors, and films, but it is 
harder to use for other research. The index would be easier to use if it 
was on CD-ROM, but the publisher, nervous about how much demand there 
will be for this given the lack of film studies programs in Japan, has 
not yet made the decision whether to produce a CD-ROM version. The index 
also cannot be called complete given the limitations of a single man and 
the fact some publications are still hidden in private hands.

Nevertheless the publication of the _Nihon eiga bunken shoshi_ marks a 
significant moment in the history of Japanese film studies.

Aaron Gerow
Associate Professor
International Student Center
Yokohama National University
79-1 Tokiwadai
Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama 240-8501
JAPAN
E-mail: gerow at ynu.ac.jp
Phone: 81-45-339-3170
Fax: 81-45-339-3171