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Seminars on Academic Research of Manga and Anime Part 8
13th December 2005
Manga/Animation and Lifeworld Culture of Ordinary People in Edo
Takamatsu Iwao
 
 I was born and brought up in an area called Hachobori in Tokyo. My family has lived there for 8 generations. I am pretty much an ordinary person: like the people of my generation, the first animation I saw and was impressed by was Disney's 'Dumbo'; I read 'Tetsujin No.28' with great enthusiasm when I was at primary school, and was engrossed in mangas such as 'Kyojin no hoshi' (The Star of the Giants) 'Ashitano Jo' (Tomorrow's Joe) at university.
 Today, I would like to try to suggest some interesting points by overlapping my personal history and my field of specialization of town planning in Tokyo by referring to the popular culture of Edo. There is already a dearth of discussion on Edo culture, so I would like to change the perspective a little and present an argument of my own.
 
Town planning and popular culture in Edo
 Let us take a look at how Edo was established. Historically speaking, Edo began in the 1450s when Ota Dokan built a castle on the order of the Ashikaga Shogunate to hold back the house of Uesugi. Edo was marshland adjacent to the Edo Bay. Originally, the southernmost end of the mountain side extended up to today's Yurakucho, and beyond the mountains of Kanda were muddy marshlands that were part of the Edo Bay delta. A town was built on this location in spite of this because it could be used as an important point for water transportation. It was selected because it was an important point in terms of transport and communications. There was a river and one could go north by using water transport and keep an eye on the Takeda clan to the south.
 Edo flourished for some time, but it was forgotten after Ota Dokan was overthrown and the Hojo clan began to rule the region. In 1590, Ieyasu came to Edo having been ordered by Hideyoshi to rule over Kanto of 2,500,000 koku. The region was still unstable at that time and there were some small ruling families. What Ieyasu did first in this situation was to adopt a policy of constructing a peaceful town. He did not want trouble in the region. A typical illustration of his intent can be seen in the name of the era 'Genna'. There was a phrase genna enbu. En meant a large chest, so the phrase implied putting the samurai into a chest, sealing it and not letting them out. Thus the name of this era stressed that there was going to be peace from now on.
 Ieyasu controlled the important transportation points and kept watch in all directions. He seemed to have thought that economic development was absolutely necessary for the realization of peace and harmonious life of the region. On the one hand, he equipped a self defense army to prevent war, and on the other he established an economic system to support the samurai. Thus he adopted policies to protect the region and this led to suppressing the daimyos (feudal lords). Absolute economic power was necessary to make this possible, so a system was developed to send over 25% of the rice production of entire Japan into the bakufu's hands. Policies were adopted to increase rice production and maintain the peace of the whole country through unipolar system of rule. Japan is generally known to have adopted the policy of isolation during this period. But in fact it was not really isolated. The idea was to protect the country from certain kinds of external intervention by strengthening the barrier against the outside, and to create a proper exit and entry of information. It seems that there was actually a great deal of information coming into the country.
 Tone River flowed into Edo, but since there was a lot of flooding, flood prevention works were undertaken to direct the river towards the north. Other rivers were used to provide channels. Earth and sand excavated from the mountains of Kanda were used to reclaim land in the south and a brand new town was built. Daimyos of the west who were still under the influence of Toyotomi were chiefly employed to carry stones along the waterway and build a castle. 5 main roads were constructed and the infrastructure for sankinkotai (system of alternate attendance) was prepared. Samurai from different regions were engaged in these various construction works. Overwhelming economic power was used to pay their traveling and eating expenses. This also led to keeping watch over each daimyo. The economic power was formidable, and even samurais of Takeda, Hojo, and Date who were supposed to be full of spirit of defiance were engaged.
 Many samurai came and took part in this process of town planning and built a samurai town in the north. On the other hand, a brand new town was built on the reclaimed land in the south, which became an attractive center of culture, trade and entertainment. Thus, it seems that Ieyasu not only had tremendous economic influence but also great intellectual capacity.
 Town planning at that time basically involved reclaiming the sea and replanning the streets. I used to be the head of the Department of Coastal Development in the administration of Tokyo, and felt that building a town towards the sea was like creating a new civilization. I think constructions on the sea front are an important aspect of town planning. Unit of replanning the streets of a town was 80 ken (1 ken is approximately 1.818 meters) in length and width, or approximately 180 meters, and a small section was approximately 20 ken or 36 meters. There were many fires in Edo, so vacant land, open public spaces, and large roads 12 meters wide were constructed as protection against fire. Distribution of land was approximately 65% or 70% for samurai houses, 15% to 20% for temples and shrines, and 10% for common people. The total population of Edo was at the most 1,200,000 to 1,300,000, comprised of 500,000 samurai, over 500,000 common people and 100,000 to 200,000 unregistered people. Edo administration tried to construct a samurai town in which the samurai lived and conducted administration. The basic idea of town planning was to keep different classes of people separate in their respective residential areas. The purpose was probably to maintain public peace and order by not allowing strange people inside and make it easy to keep under control.
 However, in reality, Edo was formed by expansion southwards due to development of townspeople's culture and cultures of temples and shrines. The map I refer to was made in the 1670s, so land reclamation had progressed considerably by that time. I think the process of such town formation was very important in terms of development of townspeople's culture.
 Also from the point of view of the Edo economy, the population, which was 150,000 at the time of Ieyasu's entry into the castle, increased during a period of over 100 years to 1,200,000 by the Kyoho era. Incidentally, the population of Osaka at that time was 250,000. This was due to regional samurai moving into Edo for alternate attendance and large scale merchants moving to support the samurais' lifestyle. But what is surprising is how the economy and law and order were maintained.
 The only checkpoints were in Hakone in the south and Shirakawa in the north. People were free to come and go anywhere in between. However, merchant houses and landlords who owned houses established a system called goningumi (five-family social responsibility group) and organized the inhabitants. There was also a system of machi yakunin (town officials) who were commissioned by the bakufu or bugyo (magistrate) and yoriki (officials assisting the magistrate) to organize the inhabitants. They were proud of maintaining the law and order of the town and had a system of reserve funds for this purpose. 400-450 mon of rent paid for living in terraced houses included an amount for the reserve fund. The landlord took care of this and merchant houses paid several fold of reserve fund money according to the size of the household. Reserve funds were managed by being spent on volunteer activities such as crime prevention, cleaning, nursing, fire fighting, as well as on festivals.
 Revitalization of the economy owed a great deal to the fact that enormous amount of money came to Edo due to the system of alternate attendance. This system officially involved each daimyo coming to greet the shogun, but in fact it was also a system for increasing the economic gap between the regions and the Edo Shogunate. Regional daimyos accompanied by thousands of followers alternately spent one year in Edo and one year in their home countries. Expenses for the round trip, living, and staying in the Edo residence added up to an enormous amount, approximately one third of the domain budget. For a daimyo with 500,000 koku, the expenditure would be 150,000 to 200,000 koku, so it was a great financial burden.
 Why did the daimyos follow the system of alternate attendance when they had to bear so much expense? There are several theories about this. The daimyos were sent to the regions they administered and were not originally from those places. Once they had tasted the pleasure of living in Edo, they could no longer live in the countryside. As a result of this system, detailed information about Edo was passed on to the regions and vice versa. Thus it was the most effective system for culturally standardizing the entire country. Consumption involved in this system also contributed a great deal to the revitalization of the Japanese economy.
 In this way, Edo town was constructed. Popular culture was born from the day to day lives of the 500,000 common people who lived on 10% of the land. About 20 households lived in a single terraced house separated by a lane from the next row, sharing a gate, well and toilet. The houses were small-2 ken (3.6 meters) in depth-so naturally people came up with ways of dealing with these living conditions. Tradesmen and artisans came from many regions and common factors developed through interaction of different regional cultures. For example, language of the traditional districts of Edo gradually developed as different words were mixed together while conveying common nuances and eventually became standardized. Skills were also developed for living comfortably in small spaces that slowly changed people's behavior. If people shouted in a terraced house with a frontage of 2 ken, the neighbors would hear everything. Thus there was no privacy, but people would say, 'Excuse me' when entering a house. This kind of manners verbally expressed the fact that people respected each other's privacy. People also enthusiastically came to help in times of illness and trouble. Terraced houses and towns were very often grouped according to profession, such as artisans, carpenters and merchants. There were common wells and toilets, so the people had a sense of belonging to one cooperative unit. Local culture and sense of solidarity were very strong. The basis of Edo culture was born from the formation of township in which various people from many regions lived in one place and shared everything, thus helping each other and creating a culture and strong sense of solidarity.


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