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Paper short abstract:

In this presentation I will analyze materials included in Chikyū Roman, Meikyū, Gensō to kaiki, and Bokushin, periodicals central in the development of the 1970s “Occult Boom.” In special, I will focus on Aramata Hiroshi (b.1947), who contributed simultaneously to several of these magazines.

Paper long abstract:

When considering postwar Japanese discourses on “the Occult,” analyzing the media in which they developed is one of the most important aspects. Although books and television shows did play an important role, magazines held a central role in the 1970s “occult boom”. In an age before the Internet, periodicals not only introduced new information about the occult to readers, but they also helped forge communities and networks that survived well into the Heisei years. In this presentation I will focus on the magazine Chikyū Roman, published from 1976, and its successor Meikyū, published from 1979. At the same time, I will also look into Gensō to kaiki and Bokushin, fantastic literature periodicals published around the same period. The former two magazines were important predecessors to Mu and Towaraito Zōn, the main occult publications of the 1980s, while the latter two preceded Gensō Bungaku, which continued into the twenty-first century. Chikyū Roman (and Meikyū) published articles on UFOs, pseudo-history, and esoteric topics in general; while Gensō to kaiki and Bokushin focused on vampire and gothic stories. Although these two groups of magazines apparently dealt with different genres, their readers overlapped to a great extent, sharing a common imagination about contemporary fantastic topics. That is, the “Occult Boom” of the 1970s included publications that, despite different in nature, were consumed contiguously by readers. When analyzing these magazines, I would like to focus on the figure of Aramata Hiroshi (b.1947), who began his career as translator of English-language occult literature, and became editor-in-chief of Gensō to kaiki. Aramata also made contributions to Chikyū Roman, which shows that these periodicals overlapped not only in terms of readers. Aramata later developed an interest in natural history, occultism, and yōkai culture, making him an inescapable figure when discussing “occulture” in contemporary Japan. That is, while focusing on the journals above I will pay special attention to Aramata’s work as a way to understand the spread of aspects of “the Occult” in Japan after the 1970s.