Only a few historical studies have examined Japan’s martial arts during the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945. Those studies that do exist tend to focus on the controversy surrounding “sengika,” or the militarization of martial arts. Extant research has documented that sengika was recommended by the Martial Arts Promotion Committee (MAPC), which was instituted by the government as an advisory body in December 1939.
Previous research indicates that the commissioners of the MAPC were not universally enthusiastic about sengika. The purpose of this study is to delineate the process by which internal opposition to sengika was transformed into support on the committee.
This research has yielded the following results: the commissioners originally critical of the sengika came to concur that martial arts could have useful military applications. They emphasized the combative effectiveness of martial arts that is not evident in sport-oriented practices, and aimed to distinguish between the martial arts and sports with the intention of protecting the uniqueness of Japanese martial arts. This stance, however, prevented them from offering a protest against sengika.
One area for further investigation is why those officials intent on preventing the Westernization of martial arts (making them into sports) chose to make the combative effectiveness of martial arts their central issue. Subsequent research on the role of martial arts during wartime will need to address in greater detail this effort to prevent the treatment of martial arts as sport.
