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Paper short abstract

This paper examines three 1937 J.O. Studio films—Hanabi no matsuri, Yoru no hato, and Otoko wa dokyo—revealing how the Kyoto-based studio represented diverse modern urban spaces through innovative sound film techniques, melodramatic narratives, and "bright" visual aesthetics.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines three modern dramas produced by J.O. Studio in 1937—Ishida Tamizo's Hanabi no matsuri (Festival Fireworks) and Yoru no hato (Night Dove), and the P.C.L. co-production Otoko wa dokyo (A Man Has Courage) directed by Watanabe Kunio. These films exemplify J.O. Studio's distinctive approach to representing urban modernity across diverse Japanese cityscapes.

Established in 1935, J.O. Studio emerged alongside P.C.L. as one of Japan's most progressive sound film studios, eventually merging to form Toho in 1937. Unlike Kyoto's other production houses, which focused predominantly on period films (jidaigeki), the Kyoto-based J.O. Studio pioneered contemporary narratives, drawing on the musicality, urban spectacle, and technological innovation characteristic of P.C.L.'s Tokyo productions.

Through close textual analysis of these three films, this paper explores how J.O. Studio depicted modern transformation across different urban settings. Hanabi no matsuri is set in Meiji-era Yokohama's cosmopolitan foreign settlement, while Yoru no hato takes place in 1930s Asakusa, Tokyo's entertainment district. Otoko wa dokyo presents a contemporary urban milieu combining elements of both studios' production styles. These diverse settings—complete with cafés, dance halls, Western fashion, and electric soundscapes—reveal cinema as a medium for articulating competing visions of Japanese modernity.

The films' deployment of music, diegetic urban sounds, and sophisticated sound recording techniques demonstrates J.O. Studio's technical prowess. Hanabi no matsuri and Yoru no hato employ melodramatic structures to explore themes of social mobility, gender, and urban experience, while Otoko wa dokyo—as a P.C.L. co-production—demonstrates the close collaboration between the two studios and their shared production philosophies. All three films utilize what contemporary critics termed "bright" (akarui) visual aesthetics and modern lighting techniques that distinguished J.O.'s output from conventional Kyoto studio productions.

This analysis situates these films within broader discourses on vernacular modernism, examining how J.O. Studio's representations contributed to evolving definitions of Japanese urban identity during the tumultuous 1930s. By focusing on a studio often overshadowed in Japanese film historiography, this paper illuminates an alternative trajectory of sound film development in prewar Japan.