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Simulations of Europe have existed in Japanese popular culture since the Meiji period, often with fantastic elements similar to those found in anime. These encounters have by-and-large been sites of pleasurable spectacle, a means to tame the threat of the foreign. Meiji writer Hattori Bussho (1842-1908) describes a 'Western peep show':
Some machines contain pictures of the scenery of countries all over the world; others are of completely imaginary subjects: the steel bridge of London is longer than a rainbow; the palace of Paris is taller than the clouds. An enraged Russian general pulls out a soldier's whiskers; a recumbent Italian lady kisses her dog (quoted in Wilkinson 59-60).
This paper deals with the creation of identity in Japanese popular culture with a particular focus on national identity. I argue that in Hayao Miyazaki's anime Porco Rosso (Kurenai no Buta, 1992) the European setting is rendered as the object of a 'tourist gaze,' a spectacular simulation and a site of pleasurable consumption. The idea that the Japanese are particularly adept at simulating the West has its roots in the Meiji concept of wakon yosai (Japanese spirit, Western techniques) which sought to create a sense of Japanese national continuity against the background of rapid modernization. The idea of keeping the Japanese and the Western separate can also be found in contemporary approaches to Japaneseness and postmodernism. Simulations associated with postmodernity understood as an action that reinforces Japaneseness are very relevant to the spectacular depiction of Europe found in Porco Rosso. This idea is at play elsewhere in popular culture. I shall consider its role in the similarly immersive environments of gaikoku mura (foreign-themed parks) with particular reference to the Huis Ten Bosch park in Nagasaki. The distance between simulator and simulated as well as simulation and consumer that this approach implies allows the construction of Japanese uniqueness to be maintained.
NATIONAL IDENTITY IN ANIME
Regional and indigenous histories and identities are depicted and retold in anime such as Kamui no Ken (1985) which follows a young ainu (an indigenous ethnic group from the north of Japan) boy as he fights Yamato (historically constructed as ethnically Japanese) overlords and travels to North America, meeting Native Americans who share some elements of his culture. Miyazaki Hayao's Princess...