Subversive imagology of the ecoscape: an ecocritical analysis of Ibuse Masuji's Kakitsubata (1951) and Taguchi Randy's Zōn ni te (2013)

The relationship between Japanese people and nature is one of a strong bond in several respects. On the one hand, the symbiotic relationship between the Japanese and Japan's natural environment has shaped cultural aspects of the philosophical and religious matrix, such as the Shintō and Buddhist rituals. On the other hand, the unpredictable character of nature manifests in earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods that have characterized the country for centuries. Eventually, in the global imagination, Japan is associated with cherry blossoms or autumn foliage, expressing an aesthetics of life's fragility in its fleeting passage. This image metaphorically describes nature as both friendly and hostile. What happens when this image is subverted by anthropogenic interference that corrupts the ecosystem and its connection with human beings? Radioactive contamination has troubled Japan twice. First, the double atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki annihilated the topography of the two cities. More recently, the nuclear accident at Fukushima Daiichi turned a flourishing agricultural region into a graveyard of radioactive waste. Nevertheless, literature gives us evidence of nature fighting back. In Kakitsubata (1951), Ibuse Masuji portrays a crazy iris, blooming out of season. With Zōn ni te (2013), Taguchi Randy presents a revitalized nature, more thriving than ever, despite the soil contamination surrounding the nuclear power plant. This contribution adopts an ecocritical perspective to analyze an alternative view of the Japanese seasonal imagery depicted in literature. The aim is to investigate how the imagology that associates Japan with a sublime, untouched country (jitsuzō) is far from the truth of a contaminated environment (jittai) which struggles to restore its unspoiled sublimity.