this is karai.com

On May 12, 2005, Richard J. Samuels, noted Japan scholar from MIT, came to PSU for a lecture presented by PSU’s Center for Japanese Studies on Japan’s security policy.

Dr. Samuels was an excellent lecturer with a welcome sense of humor. Unfortunately for me, there was little new material presented. These general lectures don’t provide me with the depth and detail on Japan that I crave now.

One of the more entertaining parts of the lecture was on Japanese military enlistment ads, featuring the infamous “Seaman Ship” video. The video is available here. That ad led me to ask Dr. Samuels, “Just how successful are these ridiculous enlistment campaigns?” The answer, of course, is that they are not very successful at all. Even more interesting however was Dr. Samuels’ mention that he will include a chapter on the sociology of the Japanese military in his upcoming book. That sounds like a very interesting area of study and now I am eagerly awaiting his book.

This is the “GO!GO!PEACE!” enlistment campaign poster featuring the all-girl manufactured idol group Morning Musume. The article states that it’s the first time Japan Defense Ministry has produced a poster with models not in uniform, and the campaign is targeted at high school students. The copy on the poster states, “Doing your best feels good! GO!GO!PEACE!” It was posted everywhere one of the times I was in Japan. It didn’t particularly inspire me to want join the Self-Defense Force, but I’m sure I’m not their target audience.

These ads and the question of the sociology of the Japanese military is interesting in a number of ways: Who are the people attracted to join the military by these enlistment ads? What kinds of people are in the military now? How do these soldiers differ from other soldiers in the world? Are they embarrassed about these enlistment campaigns? What kind of image do they want to project to the world?

I guess we’ll have to wait for the book to see if Dr. Samuels answers these questions.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 17th, 2005 at 1:59 pm and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.