Paper short abstract:

Knowledge of the unfamiliar and exotic was in high demand in late Edo Japan, yet also strictly controlled. How could content creators satisfy demand without violating government sanctions? This paper explores the use of gōkan, a pictorial fiction genre, to introduce foreign worlds to common readers.

Paper long abstract:

Just after the return of the first Bakufu embassy to the United States in Man'en 1 (1860), Edo publisher Yamadaya Shōjirō began release of a serialized gōkan titled Osana etoki bankoku banashi (A Child's Illustrated Countries of the World; story by Kanagaki Robun and art by Utagawa Yoshitora). Reading it now we might well wonder at the curious blend of geographical textbook elements with a fantastical plot told as a traditional adventure narrative, all wrapped in extraordinary images of the world beyond Japan. We see the young Queen of England menacing Georce Washington's parents, George Washington himself punching a tiger, his loyal friend John Adams slaying a giant serpent that has just eaten Adams' own mother--an imaginative refraction of the origin story of the United States told in a visual-verbal medium with a result reminiscent of today's manga and superhero comics.

While probably unfamiliar to most readers today, this book is a representative example of a once flourishing genre called gōkan, a term meaning literally "combined booklets/chapters," but which Ellis Tinios has defined as "richly illustrated small format serial novels." For their arresting images, simple text, and gripping narratives they are often dismissed as mere pulp fiction—yet in the context of their own time gōkan could be important vehicles for knowledge distribution. In my paper I examine the European sources behind this particular text, and also consider some other examples of informational gōkan focussed on Japan, with a view to reappraising the role of this entertainment genre within the late Edo knowledge economy. Gōkan's status as fiction gave it license to report new information without claiming authority or directly challenging orthodox views. I argue that gōkan, already established as a versatile form with broad reach, served as an integral part of an extensive if informal program of knowledge production for the popular Japanese market in response to the rapidly changing international and domestic situation of Bakumatsu Japan, and even on into the early years of the Meiji era.