Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to highlight the role of demimonde literati from the Bakuhan intelligentsia in establishing a genuinely popularised discourse of critical opinion outside the control of the government endorsed program of 'civilization and enlightenment' as evidenced in the Tokyo E-iri Shimbun.

Paper long abstract:

Studies seeking to disinter deep continuities that traverse that major episode of (seemingly) irreversible social upheaval, the Meiji Restoration, are becoming more common place, although there would seem to be much material yet to be fully interrogated and analyzed.

This paper alights on the class of demimonde literati who were neither well connected to the new oligarchy nor had the 'relevant' training in Western studies to ensure that they would be taken up within the new post-Restoration bureaucracy or coopted within the new regime's ideological project of promoting 'civilization and enlightenment'.

In particular, attention is given to a circle of gesaku literati who combined the pre-Meiji traditions of nishiki-e and kusazoshi-gokan in a decisively innovative format of 'illustrated news'. The Tokyo E-iri Shimbun was perhaps the most prominent example, although there were illustrated variants of the Tokyo Nichi-nichi Shimbun and the Yubin Hochi Shimbun that also flourished at the time. The illustrative talent was provided by noted nishiki-e artists such as Utagawa Yoshiiku and Utagawa Yoshitoshi who had earlier established a firm popular reputation for themselves through a 1866 series of muzan-e prints which depicted gruesome scenes of violence and cruelty. They teamed up with figures such as Takabatake Ransen and Kanagaki Robun who adapted the gesaku staples of parody and sensationalism within a new cultural ecology dominated by government sponsored discourses of reform and improvement.

The aim of the paper is to demonstrate how this pre-Meiji tradition metamorphosed subtly, retaining a core of pre-restoration sensibilities but nonetheless establishing and articulating a perspective from the common populace (heimin) which would be politically disruptive and uncontrollable. The case of the reportage of the Seinan War provides the ideal vehicle for demonstrating how the formerly facile detailing of urban crimes and misdemeanors was transformed into a detailed coverage of a drama that was unfolding in the far West of the country, one which revealed the new model newspaper's capacity to develop popularized narratives (such as the hagiography of Saigo Takamori) that were in themselves deeply subversive but unable to be suppressed.