Paper short abstract:

Why religions in Japan remained relevant in a secularist state? This paper argues that weekly and monthly papers revolutionized religious proselytism in the 1920s and 1930s, becoming the most adequate outlets for self-legitimization and expansion of religions in twentieth-century Japan.

Paper long abstract:

In the early twentieth century, religions risked becoming irrelevant because of the pressure to conform to the international standards of the modern nation, in which science-based thought was considered superior and more adequate to the new era. However, religious organizations found a way to legitimize their belief systems in modern Japan and potentially attract new followers: regular publishing. By the 1930s, magazines had become a medium of national mass consumption. Production and distribution of religious magazines/newspapers started as early as the 1890s but became widespread only after the 1920s. Recently, scholarship on media and religions has focused particularly on digital media, often overlooking the role of print, especially in the case of newer religions (known in religious studies as New Religions and New-New Religions) which became popular in the 1900s. Yet, to understand the dynamics behind the growth of New Religions, it is imperative to explore the historical significance of print media in shaping their success.

By investigating the history and content of newspapers and magazines published by three New Religions (Tenrikyō, Ōmoto, and Kurozumikyō), I argue that increased circulation of monthly and weekly papers in the late Taishō (1912 – 1926) and early Shōwa (1926 – 1989) Japan became the base for a revolution in proselytism and helped religions maintain currency. This paper concludes that religious propaganda underwent a revolution for three main reasons: 1) to answer the demand coming from a modern society of consumers by adapting to the market requests: i.e. people loved magazines, religious organizations provided them; 2) subscription-based papers eliminated the necessity of proximity to conduct propaganda, facilitating national (and even international) scale expansion through doorstep delivery service; 3) finally, magazines and newspapers dethroned (Buddhist) scriptures from their long-held monopoly of religious print by providing fresh content, being affordable enough to attract followers, and especially conveying religious teachings in a light, palatable format while also creating print-based religious communities.

[Note: this paper is based on a chapter from my in-progress doctoral dissertation on religious publishing in the twentieth century, which touches upon three periods (the early 1930s, early 1960s, and late 1980s)]

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the educational role of a manga about the founder of the Japanese new religious organization Risshō Kōseikai and argues that the manga reveals multiple voices of interest within the group to recreate its founder to educate its younger generations about his legacy.

Paper long abstract:

Four years after the passing of Niwano Nikkyō (1906-1999), the founder of the Japanese lay Buddhist organization Risshō Kōseikai, a five-volume manga named "Manga ichijō no hohoemi" was published in 2003. Founded in 1938, Risshō Kōseikai is the second-largest new religious organization in Japan with over 2.3 million members. The publication of the manga, which is adapted from Niwano's autobiography published in 1976, represents the group's significant effort to teach its younger generations about Niwano's life in a new light.

This paper explores the role of this five-volume manga in educating Risshō Kōseikai's young members through its rendition of Niwano's life in the context of the group's history. Despite a growing body of literature on the interplay of religion and popular culture, the manga and anime commissioned by religious organizations are often viewed to convey their teachings from a single source of authorial authority. This paper examines aspects such as the narrative focus, character development, and visual techniques that are unique to this manga in comparison with Niwano's autobiography, with references to the group's other publications about its history and its mass media representations. This paper argues that the manga serves as an educational medium that not only makes Niwano more accessible to the younger generations to inspire them to carry on his legacy in the engaged practice of helping others in society. It further demonstrates the negotiation of multiple voices of interest within Risshō Kōseikai in recreating Niwano as a leader bound to both religious missions and familial ties against the backdrop of the group's development into the 21st century. This paper will contribute to the study of religion's modern self-representation through forms of popular culture.

Paper short abstract:

Housing the spirits of almost 2.5 million war dead the Yasukuni Shrine is a highly controversial religious site. I will analyze how the “noble spirits” are being framed within the shrine’s onsite museum Yûshûkan and used to streamline and control worshippers’ imagination of the enshrined spirits.

Paper long abstract:

Since the Yasukuni Shinto Shrine proclaims to house the spirits of almost 2.5 million selected war dead and proposes a particularly contested brand of war-memorialization, it has been thoroughly researched. However, attention devoted to the on-site museum Yûshûkan is mostly limited to focusing on the exhibition’s deliberately revisionist narration of war history and its disruptive effects on war memorialization (Allen 2015, Breen 2005, Uchida 2007). In my presentation I will expand the scope of analysis on the Yûshûkan by inquiring the role it fulfills within the Yasukuni Shrine complex. After establishing how visits of the exhibition are being incorporated into the worshippers' schedules, I will take up the museum's claim that it was in fact not a historical or war museum, but “exhibiting numerous historical items that enable to grasp the sincerity of the divinities” (Yasukuni Jinja 2019). Taking this self-assertion as a starting point my presentation will focus on the narratives that are projected on the divinities within the exhibition. By showing which biographies of “noble spirits” are being selected and which aspects of them are foregrounded, downplayed or ignored I will explore how the concept of “sincerity” (magokoro) is presented to the visitors and which receptions the museum strives to evoke or suppress. Inspired by Rumi Sakamoto’s analysis of the emotional impact of suicidal narratives at the Yûshûkan (Sakamoto 2014) I will present exemplary exhibits and untangle the biographical, representational and spiritual dimensions within the exhibition’s framing of the “noble spirits”. I propose that the museum’s selectivity is not determined by willful blindness or nationalist ignorance towards empirically informed narratives of war memorialization. Instead the Yûshûkan is being strategically utilized by the shrine in order to visualize the otherwise invisible and intangible enshrined spirits and render them emotionally accessible for a mainstream audience. Thus, I argue that the museum fulfills a vital role for the shrine in streamlining the worshippers’ projections and foreclosing diverging imaginations of the war-dead.