Science fiction is an important genre of modern Japanese literature that has strongly influenced aspects of contemporary Japanese pop culture, including anime, manga, video games, tokusatsu, and cinema.
Science fiction is an important genre of modern Japanese literature that has strongly influenced aspects of contemporary Japanese pop culture, including anime, manga, video games, tokusatsu, and cinema.
Both Japan's history of technology and mythology play a role in the development of its science fiction. Some early Japanese literature, for example, contain elements of proto-science fiction. The early Japanese tale of "Urashima Tarō" involves traveling forwards in time to a distant future, [1] and was first described in the Nihongi (720). [2] It was about a young fisherman named Urashima Taro who visits an undersea palace and stays there for three days. After returning home to his village, he finds himself three hundred years in the future, where he is long forgotten, his house in ruins, and his family long dead. [1] The 10th-century Japanese narrative The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter may also be considered proto-science fiction. The protagonist of the story, Kaguya-hime, is a princess from the Moon who is sent to Earth for safety during a celestial war, and is found and raised by a bamboo cutter in Japan. She is later taken back to the Moon by her real extraterrestrial family. A manuscript illustration depicts a round flying machine similar to a flying saucer. [3]
Science fiction in the standard modern sense began with the Meiji Restoration and the importation of Western ideas. The first science fiction of any influence to be translated into Japanese were the novels of Jules Verne. [4] The translation of Around the World in Eighty Days - of which part of the plot is set in Japan - was published in 1878–1880, followed by his other works with immense popularity. The word kagaku shōsetsu (科学小説) was coined as a translation of "scientific novel" as early as 1886. [5]
Shunrō Oshikawa is generally considered as the ancestor of Japanese science fiction. His debut work Kaitei Gunkan (Undersea warship), published in 1900, described submarines and predicted a coming Russo-Japanese war.
During the period between the world wars, Japanese science fiction was more influenced by American science fiction. A popular writer of the era was Jūza Unno, sometimes called "the father of Japanese science fiction." The literary standards of this era, and the previous, tended to be low. Prior to World War II, Japanese rarely if ever saw science fiction as worthwhile literature. Instead, it was considered a form of trivial literature for children.
A character considered to be the first full-fledged superhero is the Japanese Kamishibai character Ōgon Bat, who debuted in 1930, eight years before Superman. Another similar Japanese Kamishibai superhero was Prince of Gamma (ガンマ王子) , who debuted in the early 1930s, also years before Superman. [6]
Manga artist Osamu Tezuka, who debuted in 1946, was a major influence on the later science fiction authors. Lost World (1948), Metropolis (1949), and Nextworld (1951) are known as Tezuka's early SF trilogy.
Avant-garde author Kōbō Abe wrote works that are within science fiction genre, and he later had close relationship with SF authors. [5] His Inter Ice Age 4 (1958–1959) is considered the first Japanese full-length science fiction novel. [7]
The era of modern Japanese science fiction began with the influence of paperbacks that the US occupation army brought to Japan after World War II. The first science fiction magazine in Japan, Seiun (星雲), was created in 1954 but was discontinued after only one issue. Several short-lived magazines followed Seiun in the Japanese market, but none experienced great success.
Science fiction in Japan gained popularity in the early 1960s. Both the Hayakawa's S-F Magazine (S-Fマガジン) (since 1959) and the science fiction coterie magazine Uchūjin (1957–2013) began publication in this decade. The first Japan SF Convention was held in 1962. A writers' association, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan (SFWJ) was formed in 1963 with eleven members.
Notable authors like Sakyo Komatsu, Yasutaka Tsutsui, Taku Mayumura, Ryo Hanmura and Aritsune Toyota debuted at the Hayakawa SF Contest (1961–1992, restarted since 2012). Other notable authors, such as Shinichi Hoshi, Ryu Mitsuse, Kazumasa Hirai, Aran Kyodomari and Yoshio Aramaki, were also published. [8] Though influenced by the West, their work was distinctively Japanese. For example, Kazumasa Hirai, Aritsune Toyota and Takumi Shibano wrote novels as well as plots for SF-anime and SF-manga, which are some of the most prominent examples of Japanese contributions to the genre of science fiction.
The contributions of excellent translators such as Tetsu Yano, Masahiro Noda, Hisashi Asakura and Norio Ito introduced English science fiction to readers in Japan, and greatly influenced public opinion of science fiction. SF Magazine's first editor, Masami Fukushima was also an excellent novelist and translator.
In visual media genre, film studio Toho spawned the Kaiju film genre in 1954 with Godzilla . Eiji Tsuburaya who directed the special effects for Toho's film formed his own studio and created Ultraman in 1966. Tezuka's manga Astro Boy (1952–1968) became the first Japanese TV animation series in 1963.
Public interest in science fiction had risen notably in Japan by Expo '70. Komatsu's Nihon Chinbotsu (aka Japan Sinks , 1973) was a best-seller. Uchū Senkan Yamato (aka Space Battleship Yamato), a work of anime placed in a science fiction setting, was aired, and Star Wars was screened in Japan in the late 1970s. The change in the nature of the science fiction genre in Japan that resulted from these events is often called "Infiltration and Diffusion" (浸透と拡散 Shintō to Kakusan).
At this time, Hanmura's Denki SF (伝奇SF, literally "mythology-based SF") series and Hirai's Wolf Guy series became prototypes of later Japanese light novels through the works of Hideyuki Kikuchi, Baku Yumemakura, and Haruka Takachiho. In addition, new science fiction magazines such as Kisō Tengai (奇想天外), SF Adventure (SFアドベンチャー) and SF Hōseki (SF宝石) were founded. A number of notable authors debuted in either SF Magazine or one of these new publications: Akira Hori, Jun'ya Yokota, Koji Tanaka, Masaki Yamada, Musashi Kanbe, Azusa Noa, Chōhei Kanbayashi, Kōshū Tani, Mariko Ohara, Ko Hiura, Hitoshi Kusakami, Motoko Arai, Baku Yumemakura, Yoshiki Tanaka and Hiroe Suga.
In the 1980s, the audio-visual side of the Japanese science fiction genre continued to develop. Hayao Miyazaki's Kaze no Tani no Naushika (a.k.a. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind ) and Mamoru Oshi's Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer were first screened. On TV, real robot anime series, starting with Mobile Suit Gundam , were aired, and the science fiction artist group Studio Nue joined the staff of The Super Dimension Fortress Macross . Animators Hideaki Anno, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Takami Akai, and Shinji Higuchi, who had attracted attention by creating anime that had been exhibited at Daicon III and Daicon IV, established Studio Gainax.
Literary science fiction magazines started to disappear in the late 1980s when public attention increasingly switched to audio-visual media. The Hayakawa science fiction contest was also discontinued, removing a major outlet for the work of many writers. A number of science fiction and space opera writers, including Hosuke Nojiri, Hiroshi Yamamoto, Ryuji Kasamine, and Yuichi Sasamoto, began writing "light novel" genre paperback science fiction and fantasy novels, which are primarily marketed to teenagers. This period, during which literary science fiction declined, has been labeled "the Wintery Age" (冬の時代 Fuyu no Jidai). In the mainstream of science fiction, Yoshiki Tanaka published Ginga Eiyu Densetsu (a.k.a. Legend of the Galactic Heroes) series.
The boundary between science fiction novels and light novels was blurred in the 1990s. Although Hiroyuki Morioka's Seikai no Monshou series is considered to be in the vein of the light novel, the series was published by Hayakawa Shobo as part of the mainstream science fiction world. On the other hand, light novel writers like Sasamoto and Nojiri have also published hard SF novels.
As a continuation of infiltration and diffusion of science fiction into mainstream literature, Kenzaburō Ōe, who later received Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote two science fiction novels in 1990–1991. Haruki Murakami received World Fantasy Award for Kafka on the Shore in 2006, and his 2009 novel 1Q84 was a bestseller.
Meanwhile, in visual fields, the new Gamera series (1995, 1996, 1999) directed by Shusuke Kaneko with visual effects by Shinji Higuchi, renewed the kaiju genre film. An anime television series Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996), directed by Hideaki Anno, got phenomenal popularity.
The 2000s (decade) saw a recovery in the market for literary SF. Science fiction books had solid sales compared to the overall decline of the publishing industry. [9] SFWJ and Tokuma Shoten began the Japan SF Budding Writer Award contest in 1999, and Tokuma launched the quarterly magazine, SF Japan, in 2000 (ceased in 2011). Hayakawa started a new label, J Collection , in 2002. Kadokawa Haruki Corporation conducted Komatsu Sakyō Award contest in 2000 (ceased in 2009). A new Year's-Best anthology series , edited by Nozomi Ohmori and Sanzō Kusaka , started in 2008 by Tōkyō Sōgensha (ceased in 2019), and, from it, the Sogen SF Short Story Prize contest spun off in 2010.
Among the finalists for the Komatsu Sakyō Award and debuting from J Collection, Project Itoh left a strong impression in his short career before dying of cancer in 2009. Toh Enjoe, crossing into mainstream literature, was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize, and eventually won it in 2012. Yūsuke Miyauchi , who was a jury's special citation for the Sogen SF Short Story Prize in 2010, was nominated for the Naoki Award and won the Nihon SF Taisho in 2012 for his debut collection, Dark Beyond the Weiqi (盤上の夜, Banjō no yoru). Other authors from the Sogen SF Short Story Prize include the 2010 runner-up Haneko Takayama and the 2011 winner Dempow Torishima.
65th World Science Fiction Convention was jointly held with the 46th Nihon SF Taikai in Yokohama, Japan, in 2007.
Taiyo Fujii, who debuted by self-published e-book in 2012, quickly stood out in the field, and he served as the chairperson of SFWJ in 2015–2018.
During 2010s, translator and reviewer Nozomi Ohmori continued to work actively. He edited an original anthology series NOVA (first series 2009–2013, second series since 2019). Ohmori and Hiroki Azuma began the Genron Ohmori Science Fiction Writers' Workshop (since 2016).
User-generated web novel platforms like Shōsetsuka ni Narō or Kakuyomu gained popularity during the decade, mostly in light novel genre.
In visual media, Your Name (2016) and Weathering with You (2019), written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, were the top-grossing films of the respective years. Shin Godzilla (2016), directed by Hideaki Anno with visual effects by Shinji Higuchi, was a major hit.
Kamishibai is a form of street theater where oral storytellers illustrate their stories with painted art, which was popular in 1930s Japan. There were a variety of popular stories and themes in kamishibai, which are now seen in contemporary manga and anime. [10] [11] This includes one of the first superheroes, Ōgon Bat (Golden Bat), who debuted in 1931. Another early kamishibai superhero was Prince of Gamma, who debuted in the early 1930s and anticipated elements of Superman, including a secret identity (his alter ego was a street urchin) and an extraterrestrial origin story. Both these early Japanese superheroes predate popular American superheroes such as Superman (1938 debut) and Batman (1939 debut). [12] [6]
Tokusatsu (Japanese: 特撮, "special filming") is a Japanese term for live action film or television drama that makes heavy use of special effects. Tokusatsu entertainment often deals with science fiction.
Tokusatsu has several sub-genres:
Mecha (Japanese: メカ, Hepburn: meka) refers to science fiction genres that center on giant robots or machines (mechs) controlled by people. In Japan, mecha anime (also called "robot anime" in Japan) is one of the oldest genres in anime. [13]
There are two major sub-genres of mecha anime and manga:
Some mecha anime (like the popular 1995 anime Neon Genesis Evangelion ) are a cross of sub-genres in between the super robot sub-genre and the real robot sub-genre. It falls under the sub-genre of super real robot, where super robots are used by a military faction for some hidden agenda.[ citation needed ]
Japanese cyberpunk has roots in underground music culture, specifically the Japanese punk subculture that arose from the Japanese punk music scene in the 1970s. The filmmaker Sogo Ishii introduced this subculture to Japanese cinema with his punk films Panic High School (1978) and Crazy Thunder Road (1980), which portrayed the rebellion and anarchy associated with punk, and went on to become highly influential in underground film circles. Crazy Thunder Road in particular was an influential biker film, with a punk biker gang aesthetic that paved the way for Katsuhiro Otomo's influential cyberpunk franchise Akira . [17] The Japanese cyberpunk subgenre began in 1982 with the debut of the manga series Akira , with its 1988 anime film adaptation later popularizing the subgenre. Akira inspired a wave of Japanese cyberpunk works, including manga and anime series such as Ghost in the Shell (1989), Battle Angel Alita (1990), Cowboy Bebop (1997) and Serial Experiments Lain (1998). [18]
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Japanese steampunk consists of steampunk manga comics and anime productions from Japan. [19] Steampunk elements have consistently appeared in mainstream manga since the 1940s, dating back to Osamu Tezuka's epic science-fiction trilogy consisting of Lost World (1948), Metropolis (1949) and Nextworld (1951). The steampunk elements found in manga eventually made their way into mainstream anime productions starting in the 1970s, including television shows such as Leiji Matsumoto's Space Battleship Yamato (1974) and the 1979 anime adaptation of Riyoko Ikeda's manga Rose of Versailles (1972). [20] The most influential steampunk animator was Hayao Miyazaki, who was creating steampunk anime since the 1970s, starting with the television show Future Boy Conan (1978). [20] His manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1982) and its 1984 anime film adaptation also contained steampunk elements. Miyazaki's most influential steampunk production was the Studio Ghibli anime film Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986), which became a major milestone in the genre and has been described by The Steampunk Bible as "one of the first modern steampunk classics." [21] The success of Laputa inspired a wave of Japanese steampunk works, such as Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (1990), [20] [22] Porco Rosso (1992), [19] Sakura Wars (1996), [20] Fullmetal Alchemist (2001), [19] Howl's Moving Castle (2004) [20] and Steamboy (2004). [22]
Examples of Japanese dieselpunk include Hayao Miyazaki's manga Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1982) and its 1984 anime film adaptation, the anime film Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, [23] and Squaresoft's Japanese role-playing game Final Fantasy VII (1997). [23] [24] [25]
Isekai (Japanese: 異世界, transl. "different world") is a subgenre of Japanese light novels, manga, anime and video games that revolve around a normal person from Earth being transported to, reborn or trapped in a parallel universe. While many isekai involve a fantasy world, a number of isekai instead involve a virtual world. The Digimon Adventure (1999 debut) [26] and .hack (2002 debut) franchises were some of the first works to present the concept of isekai as a virtual world (inspired by video games), with Sword Art Online (also 2002 debut) following in their footsteps. [27] Some isekai are set in a formerly virtual world that turns into a real one, such as in Log Horizon (2010 debut) and Overlord (2010 debut).
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Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting said to focus on a combination of "low-life and high tech". It features futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberware, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay. Much of cyberpunk is rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when writers like Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer and Harlan Ellison examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution while avoiding the utopian tendencies of earlier science fiction.
In science fiction, mecha or mechs are giant robots or machines typically depicted as piloted and as humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese after shortening the English loanword 'mechanism' or 'mechanical', but the meaning in Japanese is more inclusive, and 'robot' or 'giant robot' is the narrower term.
Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian era or the American frontier, where steam power remains in mainstream use, or in a fantasy world that similarly employs steam power.
Since the advent of the cyberpunk genre, a number of cyberpunk derivatives have become recognized in their own right as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction, especially in science fiction. Rather than necessarily sharing the digitally and mechanically focused setting of cyberpunk, these derivatives can display other futuristic, or even retrofuturistic, qualities that are drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk: a world built on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level, a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.
A light novel is a type of popular literature novel native to Japan, usually classified as young adult fiction targeting teens to twenties. The definition is very vague, and wide-ranging.
Teito Monogatari is an epic historical dark fantasy/science fiction work; the debut novel of natural history researcher and polymath Hiroshi Aramata. It began circulation in the literary magazine Monthly King Novel owned by Kadokawa Shoten in 1983, and was published in 10 volumes over the course of 1985–1987. The novel is a romanticized retelling of the 20th-century history of Tokyo from an occultist perspective.
The following is a glossary of terms that are specific to anime and manga. Anime includes animated series, films and videos, while manga includes graphic novels, drawings and related artwork.
Yutaka Izubuchi is a Japanese anime mecha and character designer, anime director, illustrator and manga artist. He was born in Tokyo, Japan and grew up in Yokohama.
Sakyo Komatsu was a Japanese science fiction writer and screenwriter. He was one of the most well known and highly regarded science fiction writers in Japan.
Taku Mayumura was a Japanese novelist, science fiction writer and haiku poet. He won the Seiun Award for Novel twice. His novel Shiseikan, written in 1974, was translated into English by Daniel Jackson in 2004. Mayumura was also a young adult fiction writer whose works have been adapted into TV drama, film, and anime. Mayumura was an honorary member of the SFWJ.
The Nihon SF Taishō Award is a Japanese science fiction award. It has been compared to the Nebula Award as it is given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan or SFWJ. The Grand Prize is selected from not only Science Fiction novels, but also various SF movies, animations, and manga.
Shinji Kajio is a Japanese author of science fiction and fantasy. The film Yomigaeri is based on Kajio's novel of the same name and he also co-wrote the manga series Emanon: Memories of Emanon (2008) with Kenji Tsuruta, which was serialized in Monthly Comic Ryu. The manga is based on his 1983 short story of the same title and became the beginning of his long-running series of "Emanon" short stories, about a mysterious girl born 3 billion years ago. In 1971, he made his pro debut after his book, Pearls for Mia was published by Hayakawa Publishing Co. He won the 1991 Nihon SF Taisho Award.
Mecha, also known as giant robot or simply robot, is a genre of anime and manga that feature mecha in battle. The genre is broken down into two subcategories; "super robot", featuring super-sized, implausible robots, and "real robot", where robots are governed by realistic physics and technological limitations.
The Daicon III and IV Opening Animations are two 8 mm film anime short films that were produced for the 1981 Daicon III and 1983 Daicon IV Nihon SF Taikai conventions. They were produced by a group of amateur animators known as Daicon Film, who would later go on to form the animation studio Gainax. The films are known for their unusually high production values for amateur works and for including numerous references to otaku culture, as well as its unauthorized appropriations of the Playboy Bunny costume. Usage of the songs "Runaway" by Bill Conti as well as "Twilight" and "Hold On Tight" by English rock band Electric Light Orchestra were also unauthorized.
Project Itoh, real name Satoshi Itō, was a Japanese science fiction writer and essayist.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to science fiction:
Anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. However, Outside of Japan and in English, anime refers specifically to the animation produced exclusively in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, anime is generally described as all animated works, regardless of style, type or origin.
Isekai is a sub-genre of fiction. It includes novels, light novels, films, manga, anime, and video games that revolve around a displaced person or people who are transported to and have to survive in another world such as a fantasy world, game world, or parallel universe with or without the possibility of returning to their original world. Isekai is one of the most popular genres of anime, and isekai stories share many common tropes – for example, a powerful protagonist who is able to beat most people in the other world by fighting. This plot device typically allows the audience to learn about the new world at the same pace as the protagonist over the course of their quest or lifetime. If the main characters are transported to a game-like world, the genre can overlap with LitRPG.
The Mecha Samurai Empireseries is a trilogy of alternate-history science fiction novels written by American author Peter Tieryas. The series centers around an alternate America, known as the United States of Japan, after the Nazis and Japanese Empire have emerged victorious in World War II. The stories focus primarily on Asian communities since the war, depicting the struggles of survivors in a new totalitarian fascist regime. The novels explore themes such as government propaganda and the blurring of fact and fiction. Each book in the series is a standalone novel in the same shared universe, featuring different protagonists, antagonists, and conflicts. The series has been the recipient of several awards, twice receiving the Seiun Award for Best Foreign Novel. The first title in the series was published by Angry Robot in 2016; the latter two were published by Ace Books, with the last title being released in 2020. In Japan, all three books are published by Hayakawa Publishing under the New Hayakawa Science Fiction Series imprint.
JK Haru Is a Sex Worker in Another World is a Japanese novel by Kō Hiratori, first published in Japan as a web novel from October 2016 to August 2017 on the website Shōsetsuka ni Narō. It was later acquired by Hayakawa Publishing, who published it in December 2017 with cover art by shimano. The novel follows the high school student Haru Koyama, who is transported to another world after her death, where she begins work as a sex worker.
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