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Contesting the Myths of Samurai Baseball: Cultural Representations of Japan's National Pastime

Online ISBN:
9789888455355
Print ISBN:
9789888455829
Publisher:
Hong Kong University Press
Book

Contesting the Myths of Samurai Baseball: Cultural Representations of Japan's National Pastime

Christopher T. Keaveney
Christopher T. Keaveney
Professor of Japanese, Linfield College
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Published:
1 July 2018
Online ISBN:
9789888455355
Print ISBN:
9789888455829
Publisher:
Hong Kong University Press

Abstract

The Japanese passion for the game of baseball stretches back over one hundred years, and has its origins in the Meiji period. Baseball has long been Japan’s national pastime, and the game constitutes an important part of the social fabric of Japan. Moreover, baseball occupies a prominent position in modern Japanese culture. Starting with Masaoka Shiki’s poetry and fiction about baseball in the Meiji era and continuing all the way up to the recent baseball manga of Adachi Mitsuru, this work chronicles cultural representations of baseball in Japan with chapters devoted to poetry, fiction, manga and films that incorporate or represent baseball. The book makes the case that in Japan baseball has been used by writers, filmmakers and artists both to validate the time-honored model of Bushidō-inspired “Samurai baseball” and to challenge rigid cultural values and assumptions. Baseball has served in the modern era as a cultural touchstone to which artists have returned again and again.

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