Overview

Christians are a tiny minority in Japan, less than one percent of the total population. Yet Christianity is ubiquitous in Japanese popular culture. From the giant mutant “angels” of the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise to the Jesus-themed cocktails enjoyed by customers in Tokyo’s Christon café, Japanese popular culture appropriates Christianity in both humorous and unsettling ways. By treating the Western religion as an exotic cultural practice, Japanese demonstrate the reversibility of cultural stereotypes and force reconsideration of global cultural flows and East-West relations. Of particular interest is the repeated reappearance in modern fiction of the so-called “Christian century” of Japan (1549–1638), the period between the arrival of the Jesuit missionaries and thelast Christian revolt before the final ban on the foreign religion. Literary authors as different as Akutagawa Ry?nosuke, End? Sh?saku, Yamada F?tar?, and Takemoto Novala, as well as film directors, manga and anime authors, and videogame producers have all expressed their fascination with the lives and works of Catholic missionaries and Japanese converts and produced imaginative reinterpretations of the period. In Holy Ghosts, Rebecca Suter examines the popularity of the Christian century in modern Japanese fiction and reflects on the role of crosscultural representations. Since the opening of the ports in the Meiji period, Japan’s relationship with Euro-American culture has oscillated between a drive towards Westernization and an antithetical urge to “return to Asia.” Exploring the twentiethcentury’s fascination with the Christian century enables Suter to reflect on modern Japan’s complex combination of Orientalism, self- Orientalism, and Occidentalism.

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9780824840013

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The book's strength lies in the fascinating collection of media featuring the Christian figures, and in Suter's analyses of the significance of those figures' evolving gender and cultural ambiguity. . . . the book succeeds in offering an invaluable study of the ways in which the Christian figures of the Tokugawa period are used by modern authors to reflect and also affect the discourse of their times.-- Asian Studies Review In Holy Ghosts, Rebecca Suter has produced a well-researched, fascinating, and often provocative study of modern and contemporary fictional renderings of the Christian Century . . . Holy Ghosts deftly elucidates the Christian dimensions of what Suter calls Japan's anxiety of influence vis-�-vis the West; perhaps the logical next step for those building on her accomplishments will be to resurrect some of the Asian ghosts that still remain partially obscured by the binary of Japan and the West that has prevailed in the postwar, Anpo era.-- Monumenta Nipponica

In Holy Ghosts, Rebecca Suter has produced a well-researched, fascinating, and often provocative study of modern and contemporary fictional renderings of the Christian Century . . . Holy Ghosts deftly elucidates the Christian dimensions of what Suter calls Japan's anxiety of influence vis-a-vis the West; perhaps the logical next step for those building on her accomplishments will be to resurrect some of the Asian ghosts that still remain partially obscured by the binary of Japan and the West that has prevailed in the postwar, Anpo era.-- Monumenta Nipponica The book's strength lies in the fascinating collection of media featuring the Christian figures, and in Suter's analyses of the significance of those figures' evolving gender and cultural ambiguity. . . . the book succeeds in offering an invaluable study of the ways in which the Christian figures of the Tokugawa period are used by modern authors to reflect and also affect the discourse of their times.-- Asian Studies Review

In Holy Ghosts, Rebecca Suter has produced a well-researched, fascinating, and often provocative study of modern and contemporary fictional renderings of the Christian Century . . . Holy Ghosts deftly elucidates the Christian dimensions of what Suter calls Japan's anxiety of influence vis-a-vis the West; perhaps the logical next step for those building on her accomplishments will be to resurrect some of the Asian ghosts that still remain partially obscured by the binary of Japan and the West that has prevailed in the postwar, Anpo era.-- Monumenta Nipponica

Author Information

Rebecca Suter is senior lecturer in Japanese Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia.

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