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Paper short abstract

This study elucidates the "ideal image of Tozan" constructed in Japan. While influenced by Western traditions, Japanese mountaineering developed distinctly. Analyzing the magazine 'Iwa to Yuki' (1958–1993), I examine how shared ideal images were formed within the community in the post-war era.

Paper long abstract

This study focuses on Japanese tozan[登山, mountaineering] culture. Specifically, it focuses on the shared “ideal images of Tozan” within the Japanese mountaineering community. Japanese tozan culture is distinctive in that it has developed uniquely while being influenced by Western traditions, and is now widely shared throughout the Japanese tozan community. This study elucidates how these ideal images were constructed within the Japanese tozan community.

Japanese modern mountaineering dates back to the founding of the Japanese Alpine Club in 1905. Overseas climbing further flourished after World War II, highlighted by the 1956 Manaslu expedition, which served as a symbol of national recovery and ignited a widespread climbing boom. Given this background, it is possible that a unique and shared ideal of mountaineering has been constructed within the Japanese climbing community

In this study, I will use the Japanese term tozan, instead of 'mountaineering' or 'mountain climbing'. The act of 'climbing mountains' holds diverse meanings depending on the natural environment and historical and cultural background of each region. I focus particularly on the culture known in Japanese as “mountain climbing”, which developed in Japan after the Second World War.

Tozan[登山, mountaineering] means climbing mountains. The purpose of Tozan is to climb the mountain itself. Similar to tozan, I will also use the Japanese term honkakuha. Honkakuha[本格派, serious mountaineer] means a person who is strongly devoted to Tozan, and for whom mountaineering is extremely important. This includes not only professional mountaineers, but also general mountaineers.

By analysing fieldwork records, mountaineering journals, and their memoirs and essays, I shed light on the ideal image of tozan. Specifically, I analyse the discourse in all issues of the mountaineering journal ‘Iwa to Yuki’ [「岩と雪」, Rock and Snow) (from 1958 to 1993), showing that ideal image were formed during the dawn and heyday of tozan in post-World War II Japan.

This study examines the ideal image of tozan constructed within Japanese tozan community through magazine analysis.