I’ve been reading up a little about Japanese history as of late, and one interesting bit is that the Taisho Emperor was reported as something of a numb-skull. Described as “aloof” and “feeble-minded,” the most famous story is the time he rolled up a document in order to peer through it like a telescope in front of his ministers and officials. He was never allowed in public again. In light of the recent display of 1920s Japanese girls engaging in America’s Favorite Pastime in the form of Taisho Yakyuu Musume, my first reaction was wondering how the existence of a less-than-good Emperor might cast a dubious shadow on the show and its setting.
My second reaction however, was the realization that no moment in history is truly idyllic, even if it might be a lot harder to write about the happy times fighting in the trenches of World War I than it is to portray 1950s America as an A-OK happy fun time (as TV shows from that era often did). If I started looking at TYM from that perspective, I’d probably have to do with every period piece of fiction ever, and that’s not a road I’m willing to travel down.
There might have been some riots during the time Koume and Akiko were learning how to throw a ball, but forcibly attaching the politics of the era to what is supposed to be a harmless show about girls learning about self-improvement (with some yuri humor on the side) would be a definite problem that likely would be purely for my own smug satisfaction, which is the last thing I’d want.
OGIUE MANIAX 
1950s America as happy time? Isn’t that more the post-prohibition-pre-depression 1920s?
Actually I think the whole setting thing is suppose to be tripping flags just by presentation. There’s usually a reason why they tell you “hey this is Taisho era” as episode one spent half of its length doing so (with a song and dance that is so adorable!), and it’s 1/3 of the name of the show.
If they don’t bring up the point, it’s usually ok to ignore it, right?
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>>(with some yuri humor on the side) would
I think this show just went up a few levels on my watch list…
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Nice job selling it, SDS. \o
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The Taisho era fascinates me because only the very oldest people left alive in Japan can remember it–and they are also the only Japanese people left alive who experienced a Japan that wasn’t dominated either by militarism, or the postwar consequences of the same.
Maybe the single most bizarre aspect of historical memory in Japan is the notion that the Japan of 1945–the one that surrendered to and was occupied by the United States–was somehow the purest expression of the Japanese nation, and that the defeat was therefore a fundamental blow to the essentials of Japanese identity from which they have even now not fully recovered. The total-war Japan of 1945 was certainly Japanese, but this idea some nationalists (and even many non-nationalists) have that it was *the* real Japan is highly problematic; there were many other alternate and equally real Japans, including the Taisho era, that didn’t involve the prospect of ichioku gyokusai.
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