Send message to Author

Paper short abstract

This paper examines Asianist solidarity with Filipino anti-colonialism in Oshikawa Shunrō’s Battleship Series. Focusing on representations of Emilio Aguinaldo, it argues that the series reworks Filipino anti-colonialism to ease Japan’s anxieties over early twentieth-century global power politics.

Paper long abstract

In the middle of the Meiji period (1868–1912), representations of the Philippine Revolution and the subsequent Philippine-American War attracted sustained attention from Japanese writers. Emilio Aguinaldo (1869–1964), a revolutionary affiliated with an anti-colonial secret society Katipunan (Association), emerged as a central figure in these resistance movements. The Philippine-American War concluded in July 1902 when Aguinaldo issued a ceasefire declaration and pledged allegiance to the U.S., signifying the beginning of American colonial rule. In response to these events, Japanese writers such as Yamada Bimyō (1868–1910), Hiraki Hakusei (1876–1915), and Oshikawa Shunrō (1876–1914) engaged with Aguinaldo and Filipino anti-colonialism in their writings.

Oshikawa’s engagement took the form of a six-part adventure fiction series commonly known as the Battleship Series (Gunkan shirīzu, 1900–1907). In this series, Oshikawa, out of yearning for Asianist solidarity, sympathetically narrates the struggles faced by Aguinaldo and other Filipino revolutionaries fighting for independence from Spain and the U.S. After his defeat by the U.S., Aguinaldo leaves the Philippines and joins the secret organization Heroism Group (Bukyō dantai), which operates together with another underground group, Eastern Group (Tōyō Danketsu), to support Japan amid rising tensions with Russia and Euro-American powers. Oshikawa’s Battleship Series is worth examining because it depicts Japan’s desire for Filipino anti-colonialism within early twentieth-century global power politics, thereby illuminating the historical conditions under which representations of Asianist solidarity emerged.

In order to consider how and why Oshikawa’s Battleship Series represents Aguinaldo and Filipino anti-colonialism, this paper situates the series within the global context surrounding the Philippines and Japan in the early twentieth century. In so doing, it critiques the conventional reading of the series as a celebration of Japan’s imperial confidence and expansionist ambition. Instead, this paper argues that Oshikawa’s representation of Aguinaldo and Filipino anti-colonialism should be understood as a response to the Japanese empire’s national anxieties shaped by early twentieth-century global power politics. By reinterpreting Oshikawa’s Battleship Series, this paper contributes to broader discussions of Asianism, colonial discourse, and the transnational circulation of anti-colonial narratives in modern Japanese literature.