ABSTRACT
Early August has a distinctive atmosphere in Japan. It is the hottest time of year and television news frequently shows images of commuters wiping sweat from their brows, or of the ravages inflicted on the Japanese archipelago by the typhoon season. There are summer festivals and fireworks displays, and the nation is gripped by the drama of the high-school baseball championship at Kōshien Stadium. The first half of August is also the key period of war remembrance and commemoration in the media. Three major war anniversaries-the dropping of the A-bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war’s end (6, 9 and 15 August respectively)—coincide with two other events that heighten the media mood of remembrance: the anniversary of Japan’s worst air disaster (the crash in Gunma prefecture of JAL flight 123 on 12 August 1985) and the O-bon holidays, when highways become jammed with families returning to their hometowns to be with relatives and to remember their ancestors. The downturn in political and business activity during the summer recess typically creates a dearth of ‘news’, which is compensated for by many retrospectives, documentaries and special reports about the war. Satō Takumi calls this phenomenon ‘August journalism’ (Satō 2005:129).
