As the number of immigrants from Japan increased in early twentieth century Seattle, Japanese diasporic communities developed their cultural activities such as publishing newspapers, forming literary groups, and running fundraising events. Recent research of Japanese-language literature is expanding its scope to these cultural fields of diasporic communities and deepening our understanding of the role of cultural infrastructure amid the constant transformation of communities in flux. To contribute to delineating these diverse cultural histories, this article examines an amateur performance by literary group members (bunshigeki), which was a fundraiser for their public library project, as an example of community building through collective creation. In order to do so, this article excavates Japanese-language newspapers and weeklies available in the Hoji Shinbun Digital Archive along with special collections at the University of Washington. Literary group members’ voices in Japanese-language print media express that their engagement with amateur performance was public commitment to community building. Contextualizing their practices in the history of Japantown in Seattle, this article highlights the way in which people’s participation in cultural activities was a public engagement that would create new infrastructure for unstable diasporic communities.

A Silent Voice (Koe no katachi, dir. Yamada Naoko, 2016) is an anime film based on the critically acclaimed manga of the same name by Ôima Yoshitoki. A Silent Voice follows the experiences of a deaf character, Nishimiya Shôko, and her classmates, particularly as they deal with school bullying and rebuilding friendships afterwards. A Silent Voice not only won various awards such as Best Animated Feature Film at the Japanese Movie Critics Award, but also collaborated with actors across the public sector such as schools, local governments, and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), to enhance inclusive education in Japan. This article shifts the typical focus on media mix as a marketing strategy to consider media mix strategies as potential tools for civic and educational causes. Specifically, it explores A Silent Voice’s media mix in relation to improving inclusivity in Japanese education and society. To that end, this project begins with a brief elucidation of the three versions of the original manga, which serve as starting points of this inclusivity-focused media mix. The project then moves to analysis of how the anime problematizes school bullying as systemic exclusion and explores how sign language is presented as one key to forming an inclusive society. Finally, by introducing cases in which collaboration with the public sector distributes this anime’s characters, induces various audience desires, and mobilizes audiences to participate in social change, I argue that A Silent Voice provides an example of inclusive media mix.

Abstract

Oshima Nagisa's international co-productions, which include the pornographic film In the Realm of the Senses and the war drama with homoerotic themes Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, were noted as the emergence of his female audience. How did this reported demographic change of the audience from male-centered to female-oriented relate to sexualized bodies on screen? In their roundtable discussion about sexual liberation, feminists found emancipatory power from patriarchal society in the face of the actor who played Abe Sada. Girls praised queerness that disrupted heteronormativity in David Bowie's performance in their film reviews. Focusing on the reception of the films within feminists’ discourse and girls’ culture, this article argues that the female audience created political significance of the films by interpreting the bodies as embodied liberation.