This paper examines the early postwar history of the physical remains of World War II through the example of Keio University’s Hiyoshi Campus. Using the castle and the tourism trade around it as a lens, this paper will examine the way local identity transformed as Japan mobilized for empire before the war and tried to exorcise the ghosts of Hiroshima’s past after the defeat. This move by conservative groups to rehabilitate the castle initiated much debate. I argue that the reconstruction of Hiroshima Castle in 1958, as with other castles throughout Japan, was carried out as a way to demilitarize and disassociate the castle from a modern military role. Yet, the castle continued to serve as a reminder of Hiroshima’s past. After the war, the castle’s and Hiroshima’s long engagement with the imperial military was forgotten as Hiroshima rebuilt itself as a “city of peace.” Significantly, it was now the Atomic Bomb Dome, rather than the castle which served as the city’s symbol. Promotion of tourism played an important role in cementing this identity.
The castle was long used to promote Hiroshima’s identity as a military city. The bomb destroyed not just the physical space of the castle but also the symbolism associated with the site. Tens of thousands of Japanese Imperial Army soldiers perished in the castle, which served as the headquarters for Japan’s Western Army. In 1945 Hiroshima Castle, together with most of central Hiroshima, was incinerated and turned into a graveyard. The papers cover the period from the first Sino-Japanese War, through the Russo-Japanese War, the invasion of Manchuria and the Asia-Pacific War, to the postwar and into the present day and they encompass a broad range of locations, including places within prewar and postwar Japan (for example, Inland Sea islands, Hiroshima, Kyoto), pre-1945 overseas colonies (Taiwan and Korea), parts of the wider empire (Manchukuo), and regions on the frontline of wartime expansion (North China). These issues are explored from a variety of academic disciplinary positions, including anthropology, cultural studies, history, literature, media, sociology, and tourism studies.
This special issue of Japan Review is the first dedicated volume to bring together scholars in Japan and outside working on all aspects of war/tourism: wartime tourism and war-related tourism during war, postwar tourism and war-related tourism in the postwar, tourism and war memory, media-induced tourism and war, war/tourism representations, and war/tourism practices.
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