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Blithe Spirit: Young Ishiguro’s Contact with Japanese Children’s Culture through Shogakukan’s Graded Educational Magazines

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Japanese Perspectives on Kazuo Ishiguro

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Abstract

This chapter investigates Japan’s cultural influences on Ishiguro’s childhood and his fiction. In-depth research on the influences of Japanese novels and films on Ishiguro’s fiction has been conducted, as Motoko Sugano notes in this chapter. However, Sugano widens this cultural scope by surveying Ishiguro’s exposure to Japanese children’s culture in the 1960s. Since Ishiguro read Shogakukan’s graded educational magazine, copies of which were sent to young Kazuo every month by his grandparents in Japan, Sugano examines its issues published from 1961 to 1967, and particularly Obake no Q-taro, a comic series on a blithe ghost character serialised in it from 1965 to 1967. Sugano argues that Ishiguro is a writer ‘born translated’, not necessarily in the sense of Rebecca L. Walkowitz’s term (writing in the second language) but in the sense that while being immersed in English outside the home, Ishiguro as a boy was engrossed in Japanese comics, as well as stories translated from many different languages into Japanese in the magazine for children.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    According to the JICA report, the first Japanese anime broadcast in Britain was Kaitei Shonen Marin (Marine Boy) in 1969 by BBC (cited in Sawamura 2020, 162).

  2. 2.

    The National Diet Library in Tokyo provides digitalised images of the magazines with some missing volumes, such as Year 1 Student April 1961, Year 2 Students April 1962, Year 2 Students May 1962. I researched physical books for Year 5 Students April, June, August, September, October, November and December 1965.

  3. 3.

    My translation. Obake no Q-taro’s English translation is not available.

  4. 4.

    At the time of the interview, Kenzaburo Oe was not a Nobel laureate. He received the prize in 1994.

  5. 5.

    In the Japanese translation of this interview, the underlined phrase is omitted. This omission seems to sever all connections to Japan – presenting himself as an English writer who happens to have a Japanese background.

  6. 6.

    Year 1 Students is specifically designed for first-year students; however, the title is often used to represent all monthly graded magazines.

  7. 7.

    Ishiguro’s preferred term for furoku is ‘learning aids’ (Hunnewell 2008, 30).

  8. 8.

    On 12 January 1955, Ichiro Hatoyama, the prime minister, made an inaugural speech to the lower house. Hatoyama mentioned that ‘unsuitable’ publications should be monitored. The speech inspired ‘Akusho Tsuiho Undo’ (‘Purging the Bad Books Campaign’). Some children’s magazines, particularly manga and other comics, were heavily criticised (Sawamura 2020, 110).

  9. 9.

    Shogakukan restructured its educational magazine business in 2016 and now publishes two tiers of the magazine: Shogaku Ichinensei (Year 1 Students) and Shogaku Hachinensei (Year 8 Students). The latter covers years 2 to 6 of the primary school curriculum.

  10. 10.

    In 1986, the two authors dissolved their partnership and changed their pen names to Fujio F. Fujiko (Hiroshi Fujimoto) and Fujio Fujuko (Motoo Abiko).

  11. 11.

    Note that Fujiko published different episodes in Shonen Sunday and Shogakukan’s educational magazines. They seldom published the episode twice in different magazines, so which magazine Ishiguro read is important.

  12. 12.

    The onomatopoeic word ‘pokan’ is supposed to rhyme with the word ‘dokan’.

  13. 13.

    It should be noted that Fujio Fujiko only provided stories for the episodes published in Year 6 Students between January 1967 and March 1967. The manga pictures were drawn by Hideo Shinoda (January 1967) and Shigeru Matsuyama (February and March 1967).

  14. 14.

    Ishiguro might have had some appreciation that the world of fans went far beyond the manga texts. Oba-Q became something of a social phenomenon, and various paratexts in the magazines suggest how large the phenomenon was. Three paratexts are especially worth consideration. The first is an advertisement by the Fujiya confectionary company, which regularly advertised their products on the back of the manga title page. The company launched a line of Oba-Q chewing gum and Oba-Q chocolate. Each confectionary came with omake figures. Fujiya offered various promotional prizes, from key chains, tape recorders and radio-controlled Oba-Q dolls to overseas trips to Kenya and Denmark. Evidently, children were actively involved in consumer culture. Ishiguro was far from this kind of involvement, but he might have asked his grandparents to send him some of the products or even collected omake figures. The second paratext is a TV animation announcement. Well before launch, it was announced in the margins and on other pages that Oba-Q would become a TV animation. The animation was broadcast in Nagasaki every Sunday between 7:30 and 8:00 p.m. These paratexts are evidence that Oba-Q was becoming something of a phenomenon; children not only read the comic but bought confectionery and watched related anime. It is said that the viewership rating of Oba-Q exceeded 33 per cent (‘Oba-Q to Osomatsu-kun’ 1966, 38; ‘Oba-Q boom’ 1966, 19). Sawako Agawa, the interviewer who talked with Ishiguro in 2001, must have watched this anime on TV as she sang the theme song when Ishiguro referenced Oba-Q. However, for young Ishiguro, that was happening in a far distant land. The site of his participation was the print media sent to him by his grandparents.

  15. 15.

    Akinori Sakaguchi points out that Ishiguro might have first encountered Yasujiro Ozu’s films in 1963, when the National Film Theatre held an Ozu retrospective. In the following year, his Tokyo Story was shown at a couple of art cinemas in London (Sakaguchi 2002, 220).

  16. 16.

    Hereafter, all Japanese translations of the children’s contributions and Q-taro’s responses are mine. Furthermore, each contribution is printed with the name and prefectural address. I have omitted first names here because I was unable to verify the correct way to transcribe the names.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tsurumi University, Yokohama, Japan

    Motoko Sugano

Authors
  1. Motoko Sugano
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Kyoto Women’s University, Kyoto, Japan

    Takayuki Shonaka

  2. Chiba Institute of Technology, Narashino, Japan

    Takahiro Mimura

  3. Hokkai-Gakuen University, Sapporo, Japan

    Shinya Morikawa

Appendixes

Appendixes

1.1 Appendix I: Translated and Abridge Stories in Graded Educational Magazines

Year 1 Students (April 1961–March 1962)

Japanese title

English title

Author

Namari no heitai

The Steadfast Tin Soldier

Hans Christian Andersen

Ukare baiorin

 

British Traditional Tale

Hoshi ni natta ko

‘The Child Who Became a Star’a

African Folk Tale

Ningyo to Hans

Little Mermaid

Hans Christian Andersen

Kin ni natta ohimesama

‘The Myth of King Midas’

Greek Mythology

Kobito no kutsuyasan

‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’

Brothers Grimm

Roba monogatari

The Story of a Donkey

Sophie Rostopchine, Comtesse de Segur

Semushi no kouma

The Little Humpbacked Horse

Pyotr Yershov

Ouji to kojiki

The Prince and the Pauper

Mark Twain

  1. aMy translation

Year 2 Students (April 1962–March 1963)

Japanese title

English title

Author

Tsuki kara kiita ohanashi

Picturebook without Pictures

Hans Christian Andersen

Kawafune no ko Rupo-san

The Story of a River-Barge and Its Crew

Alphonse Daudet

Troy no mokuba

‘Trojan Horse’

Greek Mythology

Yokubarisugita wakamono

‘The Young Man Who Wanted Too Much’a

Chinese Traditional Tale

Mominoki

‘The Fir Tree’

Hans Christian Andersen

  1. aMy translation

Year 3 Students (April 1963–March 1964)

Japanese title

English title

Author

Jan baru Jana

Les Misérables

Victor Hugo

Haha wo tazunete sanzenria

Cuore

Edmondo De Amicis

Ookamiou Roboa

Lobo, the King of Currumpaw

Ernest Thompson Seton

Shiawase no oujia

‘The Happy Prince’

Oscar Wilde

Lear oua

King Lear

William Shakespeare

Doritoru sensei Afurika iki

The Story of Doctor Doolittle

Hugh John Lofting

Emiru to shonen tanteitachi

Emile and the Detective

Erich Kästner

  1. aManga

Year 4 Students (April 1964–March 1965)

Japanese title

English title

Author

Nanpasen

The Waif of the “Cynthia”

Jules Gabriel Verne and Paschal Grousset

Ienakiko

Sans Famille

Hector Henri Malot

Kokujin Tomu

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Ameru sensei sayoonara

The Last Class

Alphonse Daudet

Kashikoi isha to Yunan ou

‘King Yunan and the Sage Duban’

Tales from Arabian Nights

Meiken Raddo

Lad: a Dog

Albert Payson Terhune

Kojika monogatari

The Yearling

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Ienaki musume

The Adventures of Perrine

Hector Henri Malot

Meiken sumoki

Smoky the Cowhorse

Will James

Gankutsuou

The Count of Monte Cristo

Alexandre Dumas, pére

Robin Hood no boken

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood of Great Renown in Nottinghamshire

Howard Pyle

Shoukoushi

Little Lord Fauntleroy

Frances Eliza Hodgson Burnett

Takarajima

Treasure Island

Robert Lewis Stevenson

Year 5 Students (April 1965–March 1966)

Japanese title

English title

Author

Saigo no tsutanoha

‘The Last Leaf’

O. Henry

Ashinaga ojisanb

Daddy-Long-Legs

Jean Webster

Aoi Parasoru

Blue Unbrellaa

Zona Gale

Mori no ouja Wabu

The Biography of a Grizzly

Ernest Thompson Seton

Taiyo yo kokoro ni kagayake

What Ketty Did

Susan Coolidge

Midori no bokujo

Arne

Bjornstjerne Martinius Bjornson

Aino gakko

Cuore

Edmondo De Amicis

Pegasasu no hoshi

‘The Myth of Pegasus’

Greek Mythology

Okesutora no shojob

100 Men and a Girl

Hans Kraly

Koneko no Rakku nankyoku he iku

Luck of the Roll and Go

Ruth Carroll and Latrobe Carroll

Nakushita oyayubi

‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’

Arthur Conan Doyle

Poru to birujini

Paul and Virginie

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre

Soratobu sindobaddo

‘Sindbad’s Adventures’

Tales of Arabian Nights

  1. aMy translation
  2. bManga

Year 6 Students (April 1966–March 1967)

Japanese title

English title

Author

Yasei no Eruza

Born Free

Joy Adamson

Wakakusa monogatari

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott

Shiroi gan no monogatari

The Snow Goose

Paul ⬝ Galico

Tetsu no yubiwa

The Ring of Iron

Paustovskii

Gurishuka shonen to kuma

Grishka and the Bear

Rene Guillot

1.2 Appendix II: Episode Titles of Obake no Q-taro

Episode titles transcribed here are originals. Some titles are different from those collected in Fujio F. Fujiko Zenshu (Collected Works of Fujio Fujiko F) published by Shogakukan in 2011. For those episodes that did not have titles when they were first published in the magazines, I provided supplementary relevant information from the Collected Works.

Year 4 Students

  • January 1965: No title [Obake ga tomodachi ni … !? (An obake becomes Shota’s friend!?)]

  • February 1965: No title [Sumitsuki (Q-taro setting in)]

  • March 1965: No title [Meiken Purinsu (A smart dog called Prince)]

Year 5 Students

  • April 1966: Shigatsu baka (April Fool)

  • May 1965: Oneko sama no otori da (Here goes the Cat)

  • June 1965: Q-chan koku (Q-chan Air Line)

  • July 1965: Okozukai sakusen (We need more monthly allowance!)

  • August 1965: Supido Oba-Q (Q-taro, the racer)

  • September 1965: Papa no gekkyu ga nakunatta (Dad lost his salary)

  • October 1965: Yume de aimashou (Q-taro meets his mom in his dream)

  • October 1965 special supplementary booklet: Toragari (Hunting the tiger)

  • October 1965 special supplementary booklet: Kutsumigaki (A shoeshine man)

  • November 1965: Boku ga shuyaku da! (Hero and heroine in the school play)

  • December 1965: Amerika obake (Here comes Dorompa from America)

  • January 1966: Kaminari tai Drompa (Dorompa vs Kaminari, his host father)

  • February 1966: Hassuru baasan (Grandma is 93)

  • March 1966: No title [Drompa kawaiya (Drompa, my dear)]

Year 6 Students

  • April 1966: Haru ha tanoshii haikingu (It’s Spring. Let’s go on a picnic!)

  • May 1966: Boku ha misemono ja naizo (I am not a curious tourist attraction!)

  • June 1966: Hitokoe ‘sen-en’ (Just say ‘thank you!’)

  • July 1966: Otemba U-ko (U-ko is a tomboy)

  • August 1966: U-ko chan no yawara ichidaiki (U-ko, the judo master)

  • September 1966: Hebo gaka no moderu ni naru (Q-taro pauses for a picture model)

  • October 1966: Harikire Q-chan (How to become a reliable and strong obake)

  • November 1966: Jidosha resu (Dorompa vs Q-taro: a car race)

  • December 1966: Kurisumasu Purezento (Christmas presents)

  • January 1967: Boku ha tsuyoinda! (I’m strong!)

  • February 1967: Q-chan yukiyama ni iku (Q-taro goes skiing)

  • March 1967: Q-chan nyushi (Entrance exam)

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Sugano, M. (2024). Blithe Spirit: Young Ishiguro’s Contact with Japanese Children’s Culture through Shogakukan’s Graded Educational Magazines. In: Shonaka, T., Mimura, T., Morikawa, S. (eds) Japanese Perspectives on Kazuo Ishiguro. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24998-3_2

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