Prime Minister Naoto Kan to Sapporo Beer, lawmakers and companies in Japan are invoking the image and legacy of Ryoma Sakamoto, the 19th century samurai who helped overhaul the nation’s government and economy.
Kan mentioned Ryoma in a speech on June 8, the day he became premier, drawing comparisons between his new cabinet and the militia groups of the samurai era. Facing an economy saddled with falling consumer prices, rising debt and an aging population, Kan pledged to break Japan’s “stasis.”
“Ryoma has been exploited over and over again in society, for Japan’s militarism, and his ghost still remains,” said Masaaki Noda, a professor at Kwansei Gakuin University. “Japan is suffering from many problems, such as an aging society. We need to seriously think about how to fix the current problems.”
Visitors to Ryoma’s birthplace of Kochi prefecture, on the southern island of Shikoku, rose 71 percent to 2.4 million in the first half of this year from a year earlier after national broadcaster NHK started airing its “Ryoma Den” drama in January. Interest in the samurai has added 40.9 billion yen ($502 million) to Kochi’s economy, or about 1.8 percent of the surrounding region’s gross regional product, the Bank of Japan said in June.
Sapporo Holdings Ltd., Japan’s fourth-biggest brewer, last month started nationwide sales of a beer called “Oi! Ryoma,” and Daihatsu Motor Co. has used an actor playing Ryoma in a commercial for its Tanto Exe car.
China Relations
The Ryoma craze comes as Kan faces strained relations with China over rival claims to uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, a dispute reignited by a Sept. 7 collision between a Chinese trawler and two Japanese Coast Guard boats. Japanese officials said China curbed exports of rare earth metals necessary for Japan’s automobile and high-tech industries over the incident.
Born the son of a samurai in 1835, Ryoma’s efforts to modernize Japan included his Eight-Point Program, which laid out plans to transform the country into a constitutional monarchy, institute a foreign policy, and regulate trade.
Ryoma’s program formed the basis for the Charter Oath, the framework for Japan’s first constitution in the Meiji Restoration, according to the Sakamoto Ryoma Memorial Museum website.
“Almost the entire Restoration program is contained within this program of Sakamoto’s,” writes Marius B. Jansen, author of “Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration.” “Its language would be echoed in the Charter Oath of 1868.”
Before he was assassinated at age 33, Ryoma established Japan’s first trading company, which laid the groundwork for the creation of the Mitsubishi Group, and is regarded as the father of the imperial navy.
He is also revered for brokering an alliance between the two powerful clans of Satsuma, on the southern island of Kyushu, and Kan’s home region of Choshu, present day Yamaguchi prefecture. The two regions were enemies at the time.
‘Fearless Courage’
“I would be very pleased if you called this administration the Kiheitai cabinet,” Kan said on June 8, referring to the volunteer militia from his home region which helped overthrow the government and led to Japan’s modernization.
“I want the Diet members of my party, the DPJ, who themselves hail from various sectors of society, to have a spirit like that of the Kiheitai and take on issues with fearless courage,” he said.
Politicians from different parties have jumped on the Ryoma bandwagon. Your Party head Yoshimi Watanabe, in a February speech in Japan’s Lower House, said “Those who want to restore Japan to prosperity, let’s do so with Your Party as Ryoma.”
Former Liberal Democratic Party Secretary General Hidenao Nakagawa’s website displays the phrase “Let’s all play the role of Ryoma,” a reference to the samurai’s ability to unite disparate factions.
Exploited
“Some people think Ryoma is relevant, so that’s why the television drama is popular,” said Kwansei Gakuin University’s Noda. Still, conjuring Ryoma’s image because he represents youth and vigor isn’t enough to fix Japan’s problems, he said.
That hasn’t stopped companies from benefiting from the samurai. Sapporo’s beer “was extremely well received,” said Katsuhito Ogawa, a company spokesman. Sapporo sold all 480,000 cans of a limited edition of its black label beer featuring a cartoon depiction of Ryoma when it went on sale in western Japan, he said. The company hopes to sell 1.2 million cans of the beer this fall throughout Japan.
Masayoshi Son, president of Softbank Corp. and Japan’s fourth richest man, has said he strives to emulate Ryoma in his business.
Ryoma Inspirations
“He staked his life on the dawning of Japan’s tomorrow,” Softbank’s Son wrote on his Twitter page last December. “This is such an admirable thing to do. Through my own enterprise, I strive to reach closer to Ryoma-san’s mindset.”
It’s not the first time Ryoma has jumped in popularity. He’s inspired at least eight TV series, six novels, 11 comics and eight films, and an asteroid discovered in 1982 was named after him.
The Japan Mint began a lottery in March after 600,000 coin collectors placed orders for the 100,000 commemorative coins released to celebrate the 175th anniversary of Ryoma’s birth.
At the Ryoma Memorial Museum in Kochi, about 190,000 people visited between April and August, almost a fourfold increase on the 50,000 visitors during the same period last year, said Kenshiro Mori, curator of the museum.
Top Five
Daily sales at the Kochi museum’s gift shop have risen to between 300,000 yen and 400,000 yen for the first six months, quadruple last year’s average, Mori said. “We’ve had to increase our staff to 22 from 16,” he said.
“Ryoma Den,” NHK’s Sunday weekly serial, was the most watched TV series for the first eleven weeks it aired, according to Video Research Ltd., a Tokyo-based ratings company. It’s been among the top five shows this year, and had an average viewer rating of 19 percent, meaning one in five households watched the historical drama, according to Video Research, which surveyed households in Tokyo and six surrounding prefectures.
“Ryoma said that if Japan didn’t unify as one country, it couldn’t respond to the West,” said Mori, the curator. “There are parallels between the confusion of that period and what’s happening today.”
See also
(source:bloomberg.com)
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