Comment on Kyoto Report 2026 – 1: Philip Lawn on historical violence and ecological risk

The useful part

I will publish more about the sort of work I do here in my regular blog posts. This report, which will I aim to publish on a Tuesday of each week will focus on things I discover about living in Japan that I think might be of more general interest. I have been very interested in how the Japanese artists, particularly the manga illustrators and authors seek to make commentary on matters where normal discourse is subject to constraining taboos.

How it works

• What I found interesting about the site was its celebration of some of its past authors, which signals that it is not an explicit marketing exercise but an attempt at creating a curated museum-type collection.
• the workplace is a conservative institution that also constrains individuality and self-expression.
• He was drafted into the military in WW2 and "he lost his left arm in combat, an experience that deeply shaped his later antimilitarist works".
• This aspect of his work really interested me, given the reluctance, in my opinion, of the people I talk to in Japan to fully engage with the history of that period and the role that Emperor and the military...
• He took up illustrating later in his working life – his breakthrough came in 1965.

What to take from it

We learn how the ordinary Japanese soldiers were brutally treated by their leadership and how they then, in turn, engaged in abominable acts against others. This sort of discreet commentary is, of course, not a Japanese thing alone. For example, during the Shakespearean period in England, open criticism of the monarch was likely to get one into hot water – usually defined in terms of imprisonment or execution.

Example or evidence

• One of Shigeru Mizuki's masterpieces is – Showa, 1926-1939: a history of Japan – which was published in serial form between November 1988 and December 1989.
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• In Richard II, he challenged the idea of divine legitimacy via a discussion about the deposition and murder of a consecrated ruler.
• In Henry IV, he focused on the failures of leadership and left the reader with the impression that their rulers were hardly driven by diving mandate.

Details worth keeping

For the next several weeks I am working once again at Kyoto University. These plays were performed in public playhouses. More explicit political critique was enabled through the concept of closet dramas, which were held in private houses.

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