“Okinawa Q” (an Uchinanchū Futurism)

After World War II, Okinawans (Uchinanchu) worked in tokusatsu, an audiovisual genre experimenting with science fiction/fantasy modes in Japanese film and TV. Writer-producers employed in positions of structural power in tokusatsu production brought a distinctly Indigenous Uchinanchu perspective into media narratives, introducing ethical principles that interconnected humans with nature—questioning Japanese cosmology that fears, then attempts to control, the planet’s environmental system. This chapter describes Okinawan attempts to subvert dominant tokusatsu storytelling by inserting Indigenous worldviews into Japan’s SFF, with the “Q” in “Okinawa Q” indicating question—the inquiry behind Okinawans’ search for political bearings, as they raised their traditions against Japanese SF and empire.