This presentation will explore the representation of Manchuria in contemporary Japanese television productions, focusing on how these programs reveal changing discourses on the remembrance of Japanese colonialism in China. Through an analysis of TBS’s Return Home: The Forgotten Brides (Kyōkō kikoku: Wasuresarareta hanayometachi, 2012) and NHK’s Distant Bonds (Harukanaru Kizuna, 2009), it will reveal both the gendered dynamics of colonial memory as well as how such images serve to both expose and repress Japanese remembrance of NE China.
Amanda Weiss is Assistant Professor of Japanese at Georgia Institute of Technology, where she teaches courses on Japanese media and society. She is also Director of the School of Modern Languages’ annual Global Media Festival and Editor of Hivemind, a forthcoming digital publication on Global Speculative Fiction. Her current book project, Han Heroes and Yamato Warriors: Competing Masculinities in East Asian War Cinema, explores contemporary East Asian remembrance of WWII.