Evolutions and Diasporas of the Fantastic: Spirits, Supernatural Beings, and Fairies in the Imaginary of Japan

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

This panel is about various supernatural beings in and out of Japan, and as well, their implication in the depiction of Japan itself as a fantastic, fairylike place. Each of the papers takes up the issue of human fascination with altered realities, within which beings who amuse, irritate, perplex, or perhaps help us may dwell. Entering Japan in the 19th century, Lafcadio Hearn found himself charmed in a soon-to-industrialize place he called ‘fairyland’ inhabited by ‘fairyfolk’, thus employing readymade tropes for both a traffic in spirits and ambivalence with modernity. The present-day Japanese anime/light novel Humanity has Declined (Jinrui wa Suitaishimashita), presents a different stance as its fairies’ technology seemingly works to support the dwindling humans, whose modernity lies in ruins. As Occhi’s paper shows, fairies currently in Japan (yōsei) include not only the flower-fairy Victorian kind analyzed in Manning’s paper nor the elflike characters in the Suitai anime who Nozawa introduces but increasingly, a variety of local character mascots whose forms may resemble neither. These fairies’ shared trait appears to be a tendency of kindness towards humans. In this regard they provide productive contrasts to shikigami discussed by Miller as well as to fearsome yōkai, ‘goblins’. The motif of shikigami itself began as a shapeshifting spirit helper and has been subject to reworkings since the Heian period, most recently into forms expressing a currently popular aesthetic of grotesque cuteness. Shikigami have also undergone a shift from an expression of magical power as animated by the owner to an object created for girls’ popular consumption. Come along with us on this journey into other realms!

Area of Study

• Northeast Asia

Session Organizer

• Debra Jane Occhi, Miyazaki International College

Individual Presentations

• Evolution of the Wizard's Spirit helper: Medieval Heian to Contemporary Heisei shikigami - Laura Miller, University of Missouri-St Louis

• Lafcadio Hearn's Cosmopolitan and Interdimensional Fairyland: The Exchange of People and Spirits between Japan and Europe - Paul Manning, Trent University

• Humanity According to the Fairies - Shunsuke Nozawa, Dartmouth College

• Japanese Fairies across the moe-yuru Continuum - Debra Jane Occhi, Miyazaki International College

Discussant

• Teri Silvio, Academia Sinica