Contents

• 1. Into a Valley of Darkness
• A Brief Season of Pacifism
• Censorship a la 1930
• Militarism and the Youth Culture
• Phantom "Events" and Psychic Holograms: Media in the Thirties
• The Manchurian Incident as Media Event
• Step Two: The "Crisis-Time" Japan Mood
• 2. The Unsatisfactory Mirror
• A Matter of Patriotism and Profit
• Regulating National Life and Controlling the Producers of Culture
• The Critics and Thought Control
• The Film Law
• The Foreign Film "Menace"
• The Kondankai System in Practice
• The Faith of the Reform Bureaucrats
• 3. The Glory Days of the Kulturfilm
• News Films and the Outbreak of the "China Incident"
• Feature-Length Documentaries in the First Year of the China Incident
• The "Kamei Fumio Case"
• Issues Raised by Other Toho Military Documentaries
• Hopes for Culture Film Inspired by the Film Law
• The Makers of Culture Film
• "Pure" Science and the Screen of "Ambiguity"
• The "Propaganda Problem"
• And, Finally, a "Reality Problem"
• 4. The Film Industry in the China Incident
• A Conflict of Egos
• Flickers of Resistance in Jidaigeki
• The Fates of Three Directors
• A Troubled Era of Greatness: Gendaigeki
• "Fooling" the Censors
• Filmworld Individuals in the China Incident
• 5. War Dramas in the China Incident
• A "Treason" of Film Companies
• Five Scouts: The Beast with Many Bodies
• Tasaka and the Rejection of History
• Mud and Soldiers and Legend of Tank Commander Nishizumi
• The Issue of "Humanism" in a War Film
• 6. "The Time for Rationality Is at an End"
• The Rise of the Spiritist Film: Sawamura Tsutomu and Kumagai Hisatora
• Kumagai Hisatora’s The Abe Clan
• The Naval Brigade at Shanghai - - A Story of Leadership
• Other Spiritist Films
• Spiritist Women and Women of Spirit
• Sky Above, Death Below
• 7. China Dreams
• "Intractable Footage" and the Anxiety of Vastness
• Invitations to a "Royal Paradise" - - Ri Koran
• Depicting the Chinese
• 8. On the Eve of a New War
• 1940: "Luxury Is the Enemy!"
• Shortening the Leash on the Film Industry
• Life Inside the "ABCD Encirclement"
• The Bizarre Case of You and Me
• "Not One Foot of Raw Film Stock to Spare!"
• 9. Repression and Internalization of Control
• No Regrets for Whose Youth?
• Iwasaki Akira Goes into the "Pig Box"
• Dancing in a Circle of Spearmen
• 10. The First Year of the Pacific War
• The Japanese Film World: "In the Light of a Perfectly Clear Situation"
• Films in the Season of Victory: 1942
• Imaging an Alien World
• "A Lot Easier Than in China!": Malay War Record and Burma War Record
• Early Pacific War Drama Films
• "In the End, We All Became Servants of National Policy"
• 11. The New Spiritism - "A Progress of Souls"
• The Travails of Making a Combat Spectacular
• The Return of Spiritism in Film
• The Novice
• The Trainee
• The Initiate
• The Warrior and His Sacred Mission
• Fulfillment in Extinction
• Militarist Mothers
• The Demoted Hero of the Pure Combat Film
• The Yasukuni Doctrine
• "There Can Be No Improvement in Production without Improvement in Character"
• 12. Trends in the Middle Phase
• Hate the Enemy: A New Role for the History Film
• "Liberation" and "Antiliberation" Film
• Spy Films
• Tales of Jungle Combat
• 13. The Late War Period
• Closing the Lid of an "Iron Coffin"
• In the Wake of the Decisive War Emergency Measures
• The Fate of the Culture Film
• The Fate of the Cartoon Film
• Twilight of the Film Critics
• 14. In the Shadow of Defeat
• Raising the Divine Wind
• The Firestorm Descends
• Spiritual Countermeasures
• Scorched Earth
• His Majesty’s Voice
• The Occupiers Arrive
• English Source Bibliography
• Japanese Source Bibliography