Shinsengumi Boom

[John Dougill]

If you take a non-political view, the Shinsengumi boom is one of those buddy
stories of earnest young men allied to support each other in a cause in
which they believe.  Add daring sword skills, early death (a potent
ingredient), samurai glamour and period detail and you have the recipe for
some oriental version of 'one for all and all for one'.  It's said that
Shinsengumi is a more modish and fashionable young person's version of
Chushingura.

On the other hand, if you take a political view of these things, the boom
speaks of the glorification of militarism in the same way as the Last
Samurai.  In a sense the Shinsengumi were just a bunch of hit-men hired by a
repressive regime.  Assassination, arson, and surprise attacks were their
stock in trade, and their favoured tactic was to overwhelm the enemy by
force of numbers.  ?Loyalty and Patriotism? was the group?s recruiting
slogan, something the present-day LDP might have dreamed up with their drive
for flag-raising and anthem-singing.

The qualities being held up for admiration are sincerity, hard training,
commitment, group solidarity, duty, and the acceptance of authority.  In
other words, samurai values repeddled for today?s salaryman.

Most of all, though, the story enforces the notion of self-sacrifice for the
greater good.  The papers have been full recently of a new-found national
pride among the country's youth, and it's no coincidence that this happens
to be the moment when the country's armed forces are being sent abroad for
the first time since WW2.






on 8/2/04 11:05 PM, Christophe Thouny at cthouny at yahoo.ca wrote:

> This is not another mail about the Onmyoji-Recent Japanese
> Cinema discussion (I did not know contemporary japanese
> cinema still had to be justified in this forum?!).
> 
> I happen to be now interested in the shinsengumi boom now
> occuring in Japan (after the Onmyoji boom best represented
> by the movie of the same name). The attraction for the
> shinsengumi is not something new itself, and there have
> been a few movies (among them Oshima's Gohatto) and novels
> (Shiba Ryotaro) made on the subject, along with the undying
> fascination of mutliple generations of shinsengumi fans.
> 
> But the actual shinsengumi boom seems to beis taking a new
> scale, reaching all levels of the population, and working
> through all the media (mostly visual) available : NHK TV
> drama staring a SMAP member, RolePlayingGame for
> PlaystationII, Manga (Peace Maker), countless books of
> hitorical vulgarization along with maps of the old Kyoto, a
> growing popularity of tourist sites linked with the
> shinsengumi history...
> 
> This may be just another ephemeral fashion boom (and the
> onmyoji boom can be shown to have had similar
> characteristics), yet even in that case, it still raises
> interesting questions regarding the interconnection of
> history (monumental and national), newmedia (as a locus of
> production of media space) popular culture and fashion (and
> regarding film study the role played in the history of
> japanese cinema by the bakumatsu era in the construction of
> a national identity from the Taisho era).
> 
> I just raise the issue, and hope some people would like to
> share his-her thoughts on the question.
> 
> Also, I take the opportunity to introduce myself. I am a
> PhD candidate in east asian studies at McGill University,
> currently in Tokyo to work on issues of urban space,
> cartography and modernity (Meiji-Taisho now).
> 
> 
> Christophe Thouny
> 
> 
> 
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