The most popular heroes of the
Fifteen Year’s War (1931-1945) in Japan were boy heroes like the comic strip
figure Mābō
and the folk tale legend Momotarō.
One of the most loved was Daring Dankichi (冒険ダン吉/Bōken Dankichi) from the comic strip
series of the same name by Keizō
Shimada (島田啓三, 1900-1973). The comic appeared in the magazine Boy’s Club
(Shōnen Kurabu) and the tales were
also edited into a children’s picture book as well as adapted into a series of
animated shorts.
It
is believed that the adventures of Dankichi were inspired by the real life
tales of the exploits of Koben Mori
(森小弁, 1869-1945), the colonist who was one of the early
Japanese settlers in Micronesia. The
International Institute for Children’s Literature in Osaka, on its web archive One Hundred Japanese Books for
Children (1868-1945) summarizes the plot of Shimada’s picture book Bōken Dankichi thusly: “In this story, a boy protagonist drifts to a
southern island in his dream. He becomes
king of the island. On one hand, this
work tells a story about creating a pastoral utopia on an island, however, on
the other hand, it can be read as the embodiment of the idea to conquer
Southeast Asia at that time.” (See: IICLO for
more details and scans of the book).
The animated short Olympic Games on Dankichi Island (ダン吉島のオリムピック大会/ Dankichi-jima no Orimpikku Taikai, 1932)
is one of a handful Dankichi animations extant. The animator and director are currently
unknown. It seems likely that the film
was made to coincide with the Games of the X Olympiad which was held in Los
Angeles in 1932. One of the few Asian
nations represented at these games, Japan sent almost as many athletes as
Germany – although their team was still only a quarter of the American
contingent that year.
The animation sets the Olympic games on Dankichi
Island, hosted by the king of the island Dankichi himself. A variety of animals, both wild and domestic,
compete against the native peoples of Dankichi Island, who are portrayed using
Jim Crow blackface stereotyping. The “natives”
wear grass skirts to denote the Pacific islands –
an area of great strategic concern to the Japanese government at this
time. The spectators and athletes are
depicted as being segregated, with the animals on one side and the “natives” on
the other in any scene in all crowd scenes.
The races are full of gags and pratfalls, with
contestants winning more by accident than design. Dankichi himself even participates in a
log-carrying race and wins because of the misery of another. The “natives” toss him into the air in
celebration at the end of the film.
The
animation is quite rudimentary, made with cut-outs and simple designs. Following the common practice of the silent
era, “close-ups” are done using irises. The
relationship between comic strips and animation can be seen in the use of
speech bubbles in addition to inter-titles.
Other common motifs of comics – such a as stars and swirls to denote
dizziness – abound.
The
propagandistic nature of this film is made clear from the outset with the first
shot being of Japanese flag flying from a tropical tree. Dankichi is clearly delineated as being “other”
than the natives of the island with his “whiteness” and round-faced “kawaii” look. The native peoples are affable fools, who
bumble about good-naturedly in contrast to the direct action of Dankichi. The not-so-subtle message of the film is that
the Japanese (Dankichi) are superior to the Pacific Islanders (Jim Crow
stereotypes). Indoctrinating children into the myth of the
cultural superiority of Japan was crucial at this time to the colonial aims of
the ruling class.
It is
fascinating to see that the Japanese adopted racist black stereotyping from the
West. I have not looked into how far
back the use of this imagery goes in Japanese culture, nor do I know from
whence it came, but my educated guess would be that they were influenced by
American popular culture. American
films, cartoons, and comics were readily available in Tokyo at the time that
Shimada created Dankichi. Minstrel
themes were very common in American silent films – in fact, Warner Brothers’ had
just had a smash “talkie” hit a few years earlier with The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927) starring Al Jolson doing the blackface routines for which he was famous. The
Jazz Singer (ジャズ・シンガー)
was first shown in Japan on 21 August 1930 so there is the possibility that it was seen by Shimada and the animators of this film.
Unfortunately, at this time in U.S. history, Jim Crow imagery was the
norm. To learn more about its
pervasiveness, I recommend Ferris State University’s Jim Crow Museum. Examples of Jim Crow imagery in animation
from the 30s and 40s include United Artists’ Censored Eleven and MGM’s
Mouse Keeping (1948)
starring Tom and Jerry.
Catherine
Munroe Hotes 2014
Notes:
This film is silent, with a soundtrack composed and performed by Jōichi Yuasa (湯浅ジョウイチ) for the DVD release.
This
film appears on disc 4 of Digital Meme’s
box set Japanese Anime Classic Collection.
A
discussion of Dankichi in comics and animation used to promote imperialism can
be found in Chapter 2 of Michael Baskett’s The
Attractive Empire: Transnational Film Culture in Imperial Japan, Honolulu:
U of Hawai’i P, 2008.
Related
Posts:
