Hostname: page-component-7b9c58cd5d-9klzr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-03-15T01:37:23.994Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Remembering and Forgetting the War Dead at Ryōzen Kannon: A Site of Entangled and Transnational War Memories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Daniel Milne  and
David Moreton
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This paper traces the history of Ryōzen Kannon, a little-known religious site in Kyoto, Japan, to consider war memorials as sites of transwar continuity and change, and as ideological tools to present certain visions of past and present wars. While Ryōzen Kannon is promoted today as little more than a typical Japanese temple, it has a remarkable history beginning in the 1950s with its establishment by the business entrepreneur Ishikawa Hirosuke. Opened in 1955, it was pitched as a Buddhist alternative to commemorating the patriotic sacrifices of the war dead. Shortly thereafter, a separate monument to Allied prisoners of war that professed world peace and reconciliation was added to the site. While accompanied by historically valuable records of these former prisoners, however, this monument was largely a homage to the Cold War-era Japan-US alliance, and it obfuscated memories of violence in East Asia from the site. Since the 1960s, Ryōzen Kannon has struggled to keep up with the times. Particularly after the death of its founder and the end of the Cold War, the site has become increasingly anachronistic. Now, it occupies an ambiguous space between remembering and forgetting.

Keywords

Ryōzen KannonIshikawa HirosukeKyotowar memorialswar deadAsia-Pacific WarCold WarYasukuni Shrine
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 11 , June 2022 , e2
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2022

References

Ashplant, T. G., Dawson, Graham, and Roper, Michael. 2000. “The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration: Contexts, Structures, and Dynamics”. In Ashplant, T.G., Dawson, Graham, Roper, Michael (eds.) The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration. London: Routledge, 3–86.Google Scholar
Aukema, Justin. 2019. “Cultures of (Dis)remembrance and the Effects of Discourse at the Hiyoshidai Tunnels.” Japan Review 32:127–150.Google Scholar
Barclay, Paul D. 2021. “Imperial Japan's Forever War, 1895–1945.” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus Vol. 19, Issue 18, No 4: 1–30.Google Scholar
Chūbuginkō. 1989. Chūbuginkō-shi. Tokyo: Toppan Publishing.Google Scholar
Elliott, Andrew, and Milne, Daniel (eds.). 2019. War, Tourism, and Modern Japan, special issue of Japan Review 33.Google Scholar
Figal, Gerald. 2018. “The Treachery of Memorials: Beyond War Remembrance in Contemporary Okinawa.” In Finney, Patrick (ed.) Remembering the Second World War. London: Routledge, 143–157.Google Scholar
Frost, Mark R., Vickers, Edward, and Schumacher, Daniel. 2019. “Introduction: Locating Asia's Memory Boom.” In Frost, Mark R., Schumacher, Daniel, and Vickers, Edward (eds.) Remembering Asia's World War Two. London: Routledge, 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yoshiaki, Fukuma. 2019. “The Construction of Tokkō Memorial Sites in Chiran and the Politics of ‘Risk-Free’ Memories.” Japan Review 33:247–270.Google Scholar
Harrison, Elizabeth G. 1998. “‘I can only move my feet towards mizuko kuyō’ Memorial Services for Dead Children in Japan.” In Keown, Damien (ed.) Buddhism and Abortion. London: Palgrave, 93–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hashimoto, Akiko. 2015. The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma, Memory, and Identity in Japan. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hettling, Manfred and Schölz, Tino. 2019. Translated by Potter, Nicholas. “Bereavement and Mourning.” In Daniel, Ute and Gatrell, Peter et al. (eds.) 1914–1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War. Berlin: Berlin Freie Universität.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Marianne. 2012. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Igarashi, Yoshikuni. 2000. Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture, 1945–1970. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ayako, Kimishima. 2019. “Heiwa kinen shinkō ni okeru kannonzō no kenkyū.” Doctoral thesis. The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, Hayama, Japan.Google Scholar
City, Kyoto. 2014. Shinshitei, tōroku bunkazai. [Accessed 17 April 2021].Google Scholar
Lee, Seyun. 2012. “Onshin-byodo in the Sino-Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War” (Japanese). Interdisciplinary Studies of Japanese Buddhism 10:69–87.Google Scholar
McQueen, Ian. 1982. Japan: A Travel Survival Kit. Melbourne: Lonely Planet.Google Scholar
Milne, Daniel. 2019. “From Decoy to Cultural Mediator: Changing Uses of Tourism in Allied Troop Education about Japan, 1945–1949.” Japan Review 33:143–172.Google Scholar
Mimura, Janis. 2011. “Japan's New Order and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere: Planning for Empire.” Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus Vol 9, Issue 49 No 3.Google Scholar
Mitter, Rana. 2013. China's War with Japan, 1937–1945: The Struggle for Survival. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Moreton, David. 2018. “Ryōzen Kannon: A Temple Built for World Peace.” POW Kenkyūkai Kaiho 20:28–35.Google Scholar
Mullins, Mark R. 2017. “Religion in Occupied Japan: The Impact of SCAP's Policies on Shino.” In Anderson, Emily (ed.) Belief and Practice in Imperial Japan and Colonial Korea. Singapore: Palgrave, 229–248.Google Scholar
Ōru Teisan yonjyūnenshi henshu iinkai (ed.). 1974. Ōru Teisan yonjyūnenshi. Tokyo.Google Scholar
RKK (Ryōzen Kannon Kai). No date. “Ihai: Ryōzen Kannon ni omatsuri suru ihaikuyō ni tsuite.” Leaflet produced by Ryōzen Kannon.Google Scholar
Rothberg, Michael. 2019. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Kannon, Ryōzen. 1962. Ryōzen Kannon sanbutsu kashū. Kyoto: Ryōzen Kannon.Google Scholar
Saaler, Sven. 2006. Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society. 2nd ed. Munich: Iudicium.Google Scholar
Saaler, Sven. 2007. “Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History: Overcoming the Nation, Creating a Region, Forging an Empire.” In Saaler, Sven and Koschmann, J. Victor (eds.) Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History. Oxon: Routledge, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saaler, Sven. 2020. Men in Metal: A Topography of Public Bronze Statuary in Modern Japan. Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seaton, Philip A. 2007. Japan's Contested War Memories: The “Memory Rifts” in Historical Consciousness of World War II. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Satoshi, Shirai. 2018. Kokutairon: Kiku to seijyoki. Tokyo: Shueisha.Google Scholar
Tetsuo, Shirakawa. 2015. “Senbotsusha irei” to kindai Nihon: Jun'nansha to Gokoku Jinja no seiritsu shi. Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan.Google Scholar
Naohiko, Tachibana. 2011. “Kyōto chūreitō to Ryōzen Kannon.” Bulletin of the Folklore Society of Kyoto 28:149–171.Google Scholar
Takenaka, Akiko. 2015. Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan's Unending Postwar. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“US Navy Cruise Books.” 1961–1962 edition. Fold 3. [Accessed 30 December 2020].Google Scholar
Yuji, Yamada. 2009. “Matsui Iwane to Koa Kannon.” The Journal of History and Archaeology, Mie University 9:8–21.Google Scholar
Makoto, Yamaguchi. 2012. “Hiroshima shūgaku ryoko ni miru senso taiken no henyo.” In Yoshiaki, Fukuma, Makoto, Yamaguchi, and Kazuma, Yoshimura (eds.) Fukusū no “Hiroshima.” Tokyo: Seikyūsha, 256–310.Google Scholar
Zwigenberg, Ran. 2014. Hiroshima: The Origins of Global Memory Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar