The writers of popular culture were adults so they had a fantastic power of imagination. Representing something through comparison and imitation would not have been possible without a considerable degree of imagination and attachment for realism at the same time. The artist pursued realism on the one hand, and exercised imagination involving exaggeration and ellipsis on the other, and they would not say that there is greater artistic value in realism. In other words, we could say that there was a universality of cultural values. We see this in the fact that great European artists were very moved when they saw the works of Hokusai, which were extreme examples of deformed representation, and highly valued them as works of art.

 What is astonishing is that people could casually throw away ukiyoe as old-fashioned as soon as new things came from the West in the Meiji period. They were rather like photogravures in today's magazines, and even though they were valued they were easily thrown away. Surprisingly, the Japanese tend not to take care of most things. They do not mind changing the words of the Japanese language. What they are concerned about is whether something is fascinating, fun or stylish.

　

Takahashi: I have conducted research in Nozawa Onsen Mura (Nozawa spa village). There are documents dating back from about the Kyoho period. The village was like a country in which there were departments for foreign affairs and finance. A group called Nozawagumi functioned as a cabinet which was organized every alternate year. They used to negotiate the amount of tax with the landlord in documents written entirely in kanji. That is to say, a great popular culture had developed that included elements of writing, mathematics and negotiation. There was a kind of inverse discrimination where the samurai were not permitted to enter villages except during times of special surveys, so the villages used to govern themselves. They also had a council system and held elections to select the council members. The peasants were proud to be engaged in agriculture, and at the same time govern their own regions, declaring and paying taxes. There was a department of foreign affairs to prevent disputes arising from border transgressions by checking the foundation stones at the village boundaries. The department made records of disputes with neighboring villages. Conditions for becoming ostracized from the village were also determined.

 Japan had outlawed slavery so people were not allowed to accept wages and did everything themselves. Hence merchants were at the bottom of the social hierarchy of samurai, peasant, artisan, merchant because they were the closest to slaves who received wages. The samurai had their own estates, employed people to grow rice and took a portion of the produce. But this was not considered to be wages. Today's salary men are part of slave society from the point of view of the Edo period. Interestingly, there were days when the ban on slavery was lifted. When agricultural land was destroyed by natural disasters or famines, law was passed lifting the ban on slavery, permitting wage employment for about a period of 3 years until the land was restored. In this sense, Japan was different from the rest of the world, including the Western and Islamic countries.

　

Takamatsu: I think we can say that Japan emerged as a nation at the time of enthronement of Emperor Tenmu after the Jinshin Rebellion. So we can start by talking about the time of Prince Shotoku approximately 1500 years ago. The picture of Prince Shotoku might have religious connotations, but I think it can be said to be the oldest representation of aesthetic sense and expression in Japan, since it was drawn when Japan was reformed by importing Chinese culture on a large scale. After that, the world of picture scrolls developed, and then there was a sudden change that led to the origin of manga. I think this change took place during the Edo period. The sense of color, design, and capturing of the moment in ukiyoe are wonderful, and I imagine that a significant change took place at that time.

　

Takahashi: As I discussed with a friend in Kyoto, ukiyoe cannot be made into a kimono design. This is because ukiyoe adopts an unusual technique of fitting an enlarged design in the form of a picture, so that a viewer can grasp what is drawn immediately. Like the techniques of exaggeration, ellipsis and deformed representation in manga, the drawings are made to match the size of the pictures and are not in accordance at all with actual size. Faces, proportions and angles are made larger than reality, and drawn so that the expressions can be captured along with the entire body. These are techniques used in manga. The faces are represented according to the fashion of that period (rather like the triangular face in today's manga), the angle is 7:3 which shows the lady most attractively in photogravure style. In a book I edited with Yamaguchi Sachio called What is Laughter? I took up the idea that there is humor underlying a certain structure. I thought that there was an Asian type of humor in a particular comical sentence, and wanted to investigate why Asians smiled at something or a saint smiled as he embraced a tiger. I get the feeling that something akin to this is behind manga representation, underlying consciousness. That is to say, people contact another dimension or feel something when values such as morality, religion and great persons completely disappear. If one reaches that, what is left is only one thing: the level of laughter. Children forgetting how to laugh and unable to communicate may be due to lack of this aspect of laughter. I don't know whether this would provide a hint regarding the revolutionary change in the popular culture of the Edo period, but I thought I would mention it.