Environmentalism in Japan

As an island with limited resources Japan's culture has always valued the efficient use of what was available to the society. Unfortunately the environment as a whole was not seen as one of the resources to be managed and an ecological perspective wasn’t part of the general consciousness until the last several decades.

A very thorough discussion of Japanese views on the environment can be found in this book by Washington State Professor W. Puck Brecher.

Following WWII, the country raced to rebuild itself as a modern economy at all costs, allowing pollution to reach unprecedented levels, much like China is doing today. The oceans surrounding Japan became dumping grounds for heavy metals like Mercury and Lead while air pollution made masks a necessity for breathing, in cities like Tokyo.

Fans of the old Toho Studios monster movies may remember Hedorah the Smog Monster, an incarnation of the evils of pollution born in Fuji City, home to many paper mills and its attendant byproducts.

An equally larger than life figure working on the other side to protect the environment over the last forty years is C.W. Nicol, a Welshman who came to Japan in 1962 to study Karate at the Shotokan in Tokyo. Nicol has used his paradoxical position as an outsider to Japanese society who’s also a committed Japanese nationalist and naturalist, to champion ecological causes. Through his many commercials and public appearances Nicol-san has leveraged his fame and notoriety to badger, shame and motivate Japanese companies and bureaucrats to save the environment and stop common practices like the dumping of toxic wastes in forests.

Here’s a good profile of Nicol done ten years ago in Outside magazine that shows various aspects of his personality and his work.

Japan has come a long way from Nicol’s description of the dirt and grime of Tokyo streets and environmental concerns are being addressed seriously. Underscoring this fact, the presumed winners in Sunday’s national elections, the upstart Democratic Party of Japan includes environmentalism as one of the planks of it’s platform.

Alternative Energy Vehicles and their Visual Design

According to a story in the NYTimes yesterday Mitsubishi and Nissan are attempting to leapfrog Toyota’s dominance in the Hybrid car market by developing electric vehicles for production in the near future. Considering that Japan imports 100% of its oil, a switch to electric cars would help shift the energy problem to power plants where economies of scale would allow more efficient and cleaner means of generation.

Also as Japan is such an urbanized society with a large percent of its population living in and around several large cities, the 90 mile range of these electric cars would be sufficient for most uses. Quiet, clean, small, cost effective and of course cute, these vehicles seem to fit Japanese society’s demands very well. Not to be out done, Toyota is meanwhile attempting to extend its lead in AEVs by developing a hydrogen fuel cell car it hopes to bring to market in the next decade.

How these cars will do in other countries is a question that involves many local issues beyond energy efficiency and lack of pollution. In America for instance, our relative need for space, power and comfort would make widespread adoption of these first generation vehicles impractical. Conversely our abundance of Natural Gas and the well understood conversion process for NG utilization in cars, makes it a preferable solution. Government support seems to be growing for adding natural gas pumps to filling stations especially in the West, initially for long haul trucks and then for cars, as a bridge fuel for the near future.

Another factor in adoption appears to be the visual styling of AEVs according to an interesting study on why the original Honda Fit failed in the US. People were turned off by the Fit’s similarity to the external profile of a normal Honda Civic and preferred the odd styling of the Prius as a public badge of their progressive lifestyle. The question then is how will electric cars and hydrogen vehicles distinguish themselves in the near future from their regressive hybrid or positively prehistoric gasoline powered brethren ?

In terms of visual style I find Japanese vans to be really interesting in their disproportionality of height to width making for an odd profile on the streets. Equally fascinating for me for its shortness was the Smart Car when I ran into it years ago in Italy. When I visualize American cars on the other hand I always think about length and width as the salient features of the profile rather than height.

An American centric AEV then would have to highlight these elements to capture mass appeal. I wonder if it would be possible to apply Le Corbusier’s ideas about the Golden Ratio to resolve this design challenge.

Ponyo and Hayao Miyazaki

As anyone with small children already knows, Hayao Miyazaki's latest movie “Ponyo” (Gaku no ue no Ponyo) is out in theaters in the US. Loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Mermaid", the film's received rave reviews for it magical atmosphere and childlike wonder at the world around us.

In this film Miyazaki explores themes common to his work at Studio Ghibli on the universe and our place in it. For me these themes include the following:

Nature

In Miyazaki’s conception Nature is a living entity encompassing all plants and animals with the notable exception of man. The beauty of this interdependent system is showcased in his movies and contrasted with its fragility in the face of human exploitation of it.

An illustrative example of this theme is “Princess Mononke” (Mononke Hime), where the title character leads the forest creatures against a small settlement of humans intent on pillaging natural resources without concern for the native inhabitants.

Magic

Coincident with Nature’s beauty is its inherent mystery expressed in diverse and sometimes terrifying manifestations. A beautiful exposition of this theme is in Miyazaki’s early work “My Neighbor Totoro” (Tonari no Totoro)where two young children spend the summer of their mother’s convalescence joyfully exploring the countryside in the company of a variety of magical creatures.

Even when the magic is openly on display as in “Kiki’s Delivery Service” (Majo no Takkyūbin), where young witches learn their profession by delivering parcels on broomsticks, adults are unable to understand the magic in their midst.

Traditional Beliefs

Underlying the modern rational world are traditional elements of Japanese culture that have never gone away in Miyazaki’s perspective.

In “Spirited Away” (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) a menagerie of characters from Japanese folklore and Shinto beliefs make their appearance on screen as guests and workers at the otherworldly resort. At the end of the movie one of the protagonists realizes his true identity as a river spirit and flies of as a winged dragon.

All of these movies are interesting and beautiful, reflecting Miyazaki’s ability to see the world through children’s eyes utilizing the prism of Japanese culture.

Bon Odori

I had the opportunity this past weekend to attend a Bon Festival, the Japanese holiday welcoming the spirits of one’s ancestors. As the country has become mostly urbanized and secularized, the festival has lost its spiritual overtones and become a cultural practice much like many other traditions from the past.

One part of the festivities I find very interesting are the associated dances called Bon Odori, that vary with the areas of Japan they originated in.  The dancers move gracefully to the rhythm of Taiko drums situated on a platform in the center of the stage accompanied by traditional songs called min’yo. Some dances celebrate the professions that villagers practiced like the Tanko Bushi, whose movements are based on coal miners daily exertions while others are more abstract like the Hanagasa Odori, which consists of elegant gestures done using hats decorated with flowers.

I liked the Nippon Daiko where dancers making rhythmic motions with drum sticks as if striking the Taiko while dancing around the platform synchronizing their movements to the drum.

Also despite my inability to appreciate most traditional Japanese vocal arts like Utai or Rakugo, I found these folk songs to be charming even in recordings and hope to hear live performances next time.

Thinking back on the Japanese movies I’ve watched, I can’t remember an instance of a Bon Odori on film except in Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress. There a frenetic dance around a bonfire is performed annually in the province of Yamana, commemorating the evanescence of life and inspiring one of the main characters to realize their own smallness of perspective.

Astro Boy

This fall a 3D animated movie will be released in America about Osamu Tezuka’s iconic creation, the boy robot who feels human emotions and fights for good. It will be interesting to see how he’s changed to fit 21st century American sensibilities, as he always struck me as so mid-century Japanese.

In many ways Astro Boy’s story overlaps that of other characters, like Pinocchio created by kindly Geppeto to be the son he never had. Here it’s the preeminent robotocist Dr. Tenma who builds Astro Boy to replace the 10 year old son he lost in a car accident. Unfortunately, like the robot boy in Stanley Kubrick’s A.I., Astro Boy is rejected by the parent he loves for his apparent inability to be truly human. Redeemed by another scientist who appreciates his unique humanity, Astro Boy is able to lead a happy and for us humans, useful life protecting people and robots from each other.

As mentioned previously, one of the characteristics of Japanese culture I find fascinating is the recursiveness in its art forms. As perhaps the first modern manga, many of the characters in Astro Boy (including Tezuka himself) appear in other manga and anime, playing different roles while keeping their outward appearance and individual personality. In Tezuka’s manga about the life of the Buddha for instance, the ill fated child named Assaji is from another of Tezuka's manga, playing an indefatigable if villainous character called Hosuke Sharaku, wearing his trademark bandage on his head.

Tezuka even humorously created his own star system much like the Hollywood studios of the 1930s reporting how much each character was paid for appearances in his works.

For Tezuka’s 80th birthday. Google created this very nice Astro Boy theme for its iGoogle portal. If you'd like to watch the old shows in English, you can find the Astro Boy videos on You Tube.