Taisho Roman’s Lingering Question

When the Illusion of Universal Democracy Fades

When you watch Japanese films from the mid-to-late 1930s you sense a crossroads where the era shifted dramatically. This is most visible in the actors themselves, in the distinct bearing carried by people born in two periods unique to Japan’s own historical calendar. Those two periods are Meiji and Taisho. Seen from another angle the films of this era serve as invaluable historical documents. They are traces suggesting that two fundamentally different visions of the Japanese person had come into being, each rooted in its own age. If we can truly examine the nature of these periods I believe it becomes a force capable of exposing the fictions we have been made to accept as universal truths today. Because it is precisely within the emotional turbulence of the people who lived through these times that the deeper truth resides. What we call universal is not universal at all.

The reign of the Taisho Emperor lasted from July 30, 1912 to December 25, 1926, and this span is known in Japan’s periodization simply as Taisho. Within these roughly fifteen years a powerful cultural current emerged. It is broadly called Taisho Roman [大正浪漫], with related terms such as Taisho Modern and Taisho Retro also in use. All serve as umbrella expressions for the intellectual currents and cultural phenomena that convey the spirit of the Taisho era. The most defining feature of Taisho Roman was the liberation of the individual, an idealistic ethos directed toward a new age and the emergence of a sensibility known as Wayo Setchu [和洋折衷] (the artful blending of Japanese and Western elements).

These developments arose fundamentally as popular culture but their character differed profoundly from the preceding Meiji period.