About Kawaraban
Anna Wada, Brown ’13
Published in the Edo period, Kawaraban, or broadsides, reported newsworthy events in writings and illustrations.
According to scholars, kawaraban have particular features[1]:
- Newsworthy content
- Commercially sold
- Printed soon after the event
- Illegally published without government authorization
- Published anonymously
The prints appeared in various formats and sizes, but were printed in large quantities on cheap paper to keep costs down. As the material indicates, the prints were meant for short-term enjoyment rather than for preservation, although journals containing carefully pasted kawaraban with personal commentary have also been discovered.[2] Scholars believe that the term “kawaraban” had been used from the late Edo period, but don’t know why this term was chosen. The term“Kawara” points to rooftiles, so some surmise that publishers cut production costs by carving rooftiles into printing plates instead of using wood.[3] But the details of the prints show that most of them were made using woodblock printing. So, the term may have been a joke — the printing was so bad, it looked like printers used roof tiles.
The kawaraban took up a range of topics, including natural disasters, superstitious happenings, murders, and less commonly, political satire. Printers chose topics more to entertain and satisfy the readers’ curiosity than to educate them.[4] Visual components such as illustrations, diagrams, and maps attracted the people to the print and helped them to understand the text, as well as sometimes offering additional information.[5]
Throughout the Edo period the shogunate repeatedly restricted printing for a mass audience, particularly seeking to avoid rumors and political commentary. By the time the Black Ships arrived at the end of the Edo period, however, the system of censorship could not keep up with the number of prints in circulation.[6] The increase in publications coincided with the spread of literacy in both urban and rural areas.
Ordinary people’s desire to gain access to information, and to take part in the shaping of public opinion, may have helped kawaraban to proliferate. Through kawaraban, people could determine whether an event may threaten their daily lives, consider political change, or learn about economic opportunities. At the same time, the prints retained their role as entertainment and satire. As illegally distributed news material, the truthfulness of the kawaraban is difficult to measure. The value of kawaraban to historians lies not only in their presentation of information, but in giving us a sense of what publishers deemed popular or what sparked the curiosity of the public.
Kawaraban on the arrival of Perry
The Japanese found the arrival of the black ships a momentous, “historical” event. As the authority of the Tokugawa shogunate wavered in the face of this foreign presence, Edo society began to destabilize as well. People wondered how this event would affect the future, and interest in foreign lands grew. World maps featuring fantastical lands, with Japan at the center of the world, continued to be published, along with prints explaining the culture and customs of the foreigners. Broadsides on strange natural phenomenon, such as earthquakes, proved popular as well, due to a superstitious interpretation of these events as a prediction of the future.[7] Perry’s arrival was not simply a political affair; as an event it verged on the strange and extraordinary, inciting curiosity as well as fear towards an unfamiliar world.
Among the many different kinds of broadsides, news of the black ships became a major genre on their own — the kurofune (black ships) kawaraban. It is estimated that these prints were distributed at a minimum of one million copies in 300 different variations, enough for much of the adult population around Edo to encounter at least once.[8] In addition to the ships themselves, other scenes related to the arrival were depicted as well. The scenes in the kurofune kawaraban, described through both visuals and text, could be categorized into the following:
- Black ships and their physical attributes
- Attempts of Tokugawa shogunate to protect the coast against foreign arrival (okatame)
- Arrival of Commodore Perry and his crew
- Reception scene
- Gifts exchanged
- Humour and satire
The kawarban on this website provide examples of the first three variations. These categories roughly follow the narrative of negotiations that took place between Commodore Perry and Tokugawa shogunate — from the ships drawing closer to the Edo bay, initial arrival and procession of the American crew, formalities exchanged, to reactions among the commoners to these incidents.[9]
The Japanese authorities, on the level of the shogunate or local domains, did not make any official statements regarding the arrival of Perry and his squadron from the U.S. The people were left to their own devices to imagine the arrival, supplementing the kawaraban with other news sources such as traders, lower-class warriors, and servants to warriors.[10] This lack of an official story contributed to the proliferation of popular narratives represented on the kurofune kawaraban, which despite their diversity shared several common elements. For instance, the black ships in the kawaraban on this website (link to Exploring the Oktame Kawaraban essay) are all depicted with three masts, an American flag, smoke billowing from the funnel, cannons, and a large wheel on the side. The similarities point to the fact that Kawaraban artists often drew from existing images about the foreigners and their inventions, rather than going to see the event themselves. These stereotypical images were repeatedly recycled, becoming iconic representations of the event easily recognizable by readers.
Notes:
- Tatsuzou Tomizawa, Nishikie no Chikara: Bakumatsu no Jijiteki Nishikie to Kawaraban [The Power of Colored Prints: Topical Colored Prints and Broadsides at the End of the Edo Period] (Tokyo: Bunsei Shoin, 2005), 24, 28.
- Tomizawa, Nishikie no Chikara,31.
- Yoshikazu Hayashi, Enshoku Edo no Kawaraban [Enchanting Colors: The Broadsides of Edo] (Tokyo: Kawade Shuppan, 1988), 15.
- William Steele, Alternative Narratives in Modern Japanese History (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 5.
- Tomizawa, Nishikie no Chikara, 30.
- Tatsuzou Tomizawa, Kurofune Kawaraban to Sore Izen [The Black Ships Broadsides and Before] (Center for Pacific and American Studies of The University of Tokyo, 2005), 31.
- Toru Hoya, Bakumatsu Ishin to Jyoho [Information at the End of the Edo Period] (Tokyo: Yoshikawa Kobunkan, 2001), 312.
- Steele, Alternative Narratives in Modern Japanese History, 5.
Yoko Tanaka, “Kurofune Raiko wo Megutte [On the Arrival of the Black Ships],” The Birth of News, accessed December 10, 2011. - Tomizawa, Kurofune Kawaraban to Sore Izen, 34.
Tanaka, “Kurofune Raiko wo Megutte.” - Tomizawa, Kurofune Kawaraban to Sore Izen, 37.