ABSTRACT
Fairy-tale adaptations based on both Japanese and Western traditions have increasingly pervaded various areas of Japanese culture, including literature, visual art, film, theater, dance, music, fashion, television, and architecture. Writers and artists have begun to explore various other kinds of narrative possibilities for the fairy tale that go beyond the Grimm boom writings’ preoccupation with sex and violence. The chapter discusses the works by the artist and picture book author Seizo Tashima that use the fairy tale for the purpose of exposing social and environmental problems and bringing about a change in the way people, both children and adults, think and behave. Tashima’s interest in traditional fairy tales has been evident from the early stages of his career. The example of Tashima’s re-envisioning of the fairy-tale hero can be found in Shibaten, the picture book for which he created both the text and the illustrations and which he hand-printed and self-published in 1962.
