The Relationship between Yakyū (Baseball) and Militarism: Baseball Discourse in Japanese Shōnen (Boys’) Culture

Abstract

Abstract This article analyses the popular post-war boys’ baseball manga Kyojin no Hoshi, to highlight how pre-war militaristic values were carried over into post-war Japanese sports. Militarism in pre-war Japan was underpinned by bushidō, a set of beliefs that idealised the values upheld by samurai, and which greatly influenced Japan’s pre-war physical education system. While post-war Japan achieved democratisation in many ways, the democratic transformation in sports after the war was much slower. For this reason, elements of military training that were included in sports training prior to the war continued to be emphasised in the post-war era. This article uses examples taken from Star of the Giants to highlight this phenomenon, as well as the broader connection between manga and cultural context. It also touches upon cultural representations of fathers and the male gender in post-war Japanese boys’ fiction.