ABSTRACT
In 2015, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo made a statement marking the seventieth anniversary of the end of the Asia-Pacific War that bore a close resemblance to the historical views of Shiba Ryōtarō, one of Japan’s best-known historical novelists. The “Shiba view of history” (Shiba shikan) presents the period leading up to Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905) as a “bright” era, which was then followed by a period of mistakes culminating in Japan’s defeat in 1945. This view is incompatible with Japanese–Korean reconciliation given that it treats positively the period leading up to Japan’s colonisation of Korea. In this chapter, the nature of the Shiba view is presented via analysis of Clouds Above the Hill, Shiba’s epic novel of the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05), and other sources. The links between the novel/drama and official narratives of local and national government are analysed, particularly by looking at the way in which Clouds Above the Hill has been used as a tourism resource in Matsuyama city, where the protagonists are from. While the touristification process has brought benefits to Matsuyama, the canonisation of the novel/drama within Japanese popular culture makes reconciliation with Korea that much more difficult.
