In/visibility in post-war Okinawan images 2

Abstract

Following on from the spring issue, we are proud to present the second part of our special section on postwar images of Okinawa. This two-part special section comes at an apt time, for next year witnesses the fiftieth anniversary of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan. For Okinawans, the reversion was a massive historical event that marked the end of the US military’s twenty-seven-year occupation of the islands since the end of the Pacific War. The transition of sovereignty had a significant impact on the islanders’ social life, from the change of currency to the switching of car lanes from the right to the left on 30 July 1978, which, not so surprisingly, resulted in a number of accidents. However, to the disappointment of many locals, the military bases stayed on the islands, in accordance with the treaty of mutual cooperation and security between the two countries. The barbed-wire fences of the bases are still a prominent feature of the Okinawan landscape, with approximately 15 percent of the main island still occupied by the US. The islanders’ antipathy, or at least ambivalence, toward the reversion and its consequences has often been swamped by the celebratory images of the exotic islands from mainland Japan. Thus, when viewing films and TV series set in Okinawa, or those featuring Okinawa as their topic, one needs to pay attention not only to what is being shown but also to what remains invisible, lurking in the margins of representation. Although the articles compiled here are not intended to draw a comprehensive picture of the complex power relations of Okinawa, Japan and the US as manifested in the cinematic representations of the islands, it is our hope that these articles, along with those in the first issue, throw critical light on the postwar visual history of Okinawa. Takuya Tsunoda’s article focuses on Japanese New Wave filmmaker Hani Susumu’s 1958 educational short film The Living Sea (Umi wa ikiteiru). Drawing on the concept of dispositif, Tsunoda strategically analyses the composition and decoupage of film images, as well as the reflexivity between the aquarium and film viewing situations. He demonstrates that Hani’s film, shot on Hateruma and Ishigaki Islands under the US military occupation, contributes to the knowledge construction of Japan’s periphery in the cultural infrastructure of postwar Japan, while avoiding a simplistic dichotomy of Okinawa versus mainland Japan. Moving from occupation to post-occupation, Patrick Chimenti examines media responses to the reversion in the leftist filmmaking group Nihon Documentarist Union’s documentary film Asia Is One (Ajia wa hitotsu, 1973) and Okinawan playwright Chinen Seishin’s stage production Human Pavilion (Jinruikan, 1976). Approaching the biopolitical regime in postwar Okinawa and in particular the post-reversion Okinawan identity,