Paper short abstract:

This study analyzes the social impact of the revelation of erased traditional philosophies, religion and ideas in Japan. Because the past was purposefully erased by the foreign power, and submission to the US Authority introduced, that the complex process of forgetting and remembering began.

Paper long abstract:

For many Japanese, the end of the World War II marked the beginning of the separation of its historical perspective of Japan before and after WWII. It was recently revealed that during a period following the end of the War the U.S. authority systematically and clandestinely destroyed books in Japan while secretly shipping copies thereof to the US Library of the Congress (Nishio 2008; Tsuchiya 2009). This revelation caused some polarized reaction — some were shocked but others were indifferent. Yet, this very polarized reaction signifies the presence of the complex processing of the meaning of its own past.

In this context, this study will analyze the social impact of the revelation of erased traditional philosophies, religion and ideas in Japan. I will look at literary canons that existed before and after the war and examine the ideas expressed in the books that the US authority had banned. I will examine symbolism used in some books that survived the American censorship during the post-war years and finally, I will focus on anxieties expressed in the most recent literature regarding forgotten Japanese heroism erased from Japan's national identity. By tracing the complex plays of symbolism of the forgotten and the remembered, this paper reveals the sense of the ever-lasting "postwar" period in Japanese imagery. I will argue that because the past was purposefully erased by the foreign power, and submission to the US Authority introduced, that the complex process of forgetting and remembering began.