Foreword: Japan and Shakespeare: Acceptance and transformations in the twenty-first century

Why a collection of studies on ‘Shakespeare in Japan’ in 2023? Is it because Japan has become (suddenly, as it seems to me) popular with tourists? Although the number of overseas visitors to the archipelago recorded the highest ever level each year until the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and is recovering steadily, and although we hear many good words from them, looking from inside the negative factors have long been predominant. Certainly, Japan is a relatively convenient, safe, and clean place: one can generally expect trains to run on time; the last railway strike I remember was in the 1980s; and I have never seen nationwide industrial action comparable to that in France in the spring of 2023. Yet, we must admit that the country is in decline. While prices had long been stable until recently, that was only one aspect of an economy hardly growing as long as for three decades – the phenomenon nowadays referred to as ‘Japanization’. ¹ The population is ageing and dwindling at alarming speed – making the sustainability of the public pension system doubtful. The government's deficit and debt are horrendous, and the trade deficit has become chronic despite the devaluation of the currency (part of the attraction for visitors). The promotion of tourism by the government including the ‘Cool Japan’ campaign (an imitation of Tony Blair's ‘Cool Britannia’) may be cynically regarded as a desperate attempt when industrial products ‘Made in Japan’ no longer attract the world: they are promoting scenery with temples, cherry blossoms, Mt Fuji, and Shinkansen HST in place of cameras and video recorders. Why, then, should anyone be interested in Japanese productions of Shakespeare?

The study of ‘Shakespeare in Japan’ has a certain length of history. Taking a look at the MLA International Bibliography, we find articles published in languages other than Japanese from the early 1990s onwards. Almost simultaneously, the World Shakespeare Congress was held in Tokyo in 1991 and collections of studies focusing on ‘Shakespeare in Japan’ followed, developing to the larger perspective of ‘Shakespeare in Asia’ which has further flourished since then. ² One of the direct causes of the ‘boom’ must have been the success of broadly ‘japonisme’ productions of Yukio Ninagawa in the UK and other countries, but it was also the time when ‘Made in Japan’ was impressively competitive and the presence of Japan as a global economic power came to be prominent. ³

In 2005, Tetsuo Kishi and Graham Bradshaw wrote in their preface of Shakespeare in Japan, ‘It is now generally known, it seems, that Shakespeare is extremely popular in Japan, but we suspect that the true nature of this “popularity” is not so generally understood’ (p. vii). ⁴ Now, eighteen years later, one might wonder whether Shakespeare is still ‘extremely popular’ in Japan, and if so, whether the nature of the popularity has come to be ‘generally understood’. The answer to the first question will be ‘yes’, as both the articles and the reviews of recent theatrical productions in this volume show. Besides these and other productions, attempts to translate Shakespeare's works continue, by, among others, Kazuko Matsuoka, Shoichiro Kawai (whose theatrical and translating activities are the subjects of articles by Thomas Dabbs and Jessica Chiba respectively), Tomonari Kuwayama (another contributor to this special issue), and Tetsuo Kishi himself. As for the second question, there certainly have been efforts to explore the ‘true nature of the popularity’ and the articles and reviews collected here belong to them. ⁵

‘Shakespeare in Japan’ started in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the country opened its doors to the world in 1854 after more than two centuries’ closure. Since Shakespeare was introduced as part of a Western civilisation that was often considered ‘advanced’ and ‘superior’, acceptance in this (Meiji) period should be viewed in the context of the nation's overall effort of rapid westernisation in order to maintain independence, and to become ‘civilised’ (and, hopefully, a member of the ‘Concert of Powers’). Soon after their introduction, translators and adaptors started to transform Shakespearean plays – for instance, shifting locations to historical and contemporary Japan (including the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries) and utilising vocabulary and conventions of indigenous drama, most prominently Kabuki. As Otojiro Kawakami's adaptation of Othello (1903) located in the then recently colonised Taiwan shows, this process is not separate from the political and social contexts in which the plays were produced. ⁶

Many of the articles and reviews collected here highlight the complex interactions of stage production, translation, and adaptation, and reveal that the Japan–Shakespeare relationship is never free from these contexts. Daniel Gallimore's article offers a good case study of staging of adaptations of Shakespeare translations (both by Matsuoka) in socially and theatrically changing contexts. Thomas Dabbs's article deals with another case of even more complex interactions, in which not only Shakespeare's texts and the reactions of Japanese theatres but also the Beckettian plays should be taken into consideration. I may suggest that Tom Stoppard's famous spin-off of Hamlet and Shakespeare criticism including Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World are equally relevant as well. Kuwayama reveals hitherto overlooked forms of intertextuality between Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood and the Noh-play Tamura, and Rena Endo shows how the presence of a puppet on stage confirms a link with traditional Bunraku puppet shows as well as making Shakespeare more accessible to the audience. Together with Sarah Temmar's review of the ‘half-Kabuki’ Midsummer Night's Dream, they testify to the continuation of interaction between indigenous theatre and Shakespeare plays on both stage and screen.

The collection, however, ranges more widely. Chiba's article focuses on the language of translation. The presence of foreignness despite the assumed ‘universality’ of Shakespeare observed here evokes a comparative study, not only with other languages but also with reference to styles of performance. Kohei Uchimaru sheds new light on a well-known adaptation of Hamlet by Osamu Dazai which has already been the subject of many analyses by closely examining the context of creation. Mariko Nagase and John Jowett remind us that Japan is home to invaluable holdings of early editions of Shakespeare's works which have started to draw attention internationally, promising further research opportunities. ⁷

Yet everything may not be ‘cool’. Sarah Olive's review reveals concerns about the current situation of anti-ableism on stage, which a certain number of Japanese audiences might overlook without paying much attention. Similarly, Gallimore's article reminds us of the on-going debate over same-sex marriage, and more widely over the realities of LGBTQ  +  in Japan. Nagase and Jowett observe that the library catalogue in their case study primarily assumes Japanese users and is not fully linked to major, global databases. They address one of the problems the nation confronts today (and came to be aware of during the COVID-19 pandemic even to the point of hysterical obsession) sometimes called ‘Galapagosization’ or ‘Galapagos syndrome’, isolation from the global trend, leading to a dead-end and extinction.

Let me return to my initial question. Why Japan, and now? Was this a retrospective project, re-evaluating the achievement of a once prospering nation? The answer, for me, is yes – and no. The articles and reviews here look back at the struggles of a nation located in a group of islands in the Far East and with a long cultural tradition of its own to confront, accept, understand, assimilate, acclimatise, and adjust a product of a different culture, with its own long tradition. They, however, also remind us that this effort is ongoing, and producing results that enrich our understanding of Shakespeare and his significance in today's world.