Abstract
This series elucidates the production method of Nihon no sugao (Japan Unmasked) (1957-1964) that built a foundation of Japanese TV documentaries. In Part IV, the author selects and analyzes eight texts featuring distinctive production styles from 43 texts aired in the FY 1960 (April 1960 through March 1961). In this fiscal year, amidst an unprecedented economic boom, Japan saw a series of social upheavals including the Anpo struggle, or protests against the Japan-US Security Treaty, which led to the blossoming of production styles for investigative television documentaries such as reportage and investigative reporting. Meanwhile, there were episodes still depending on a traditional style that had been used since the launch of the series, where the filmmaker criticizes current affairs in the footage from an authoritative viewpoint. Some of them lost the independent nature of criticism in the face of turbulence of the era. Beyond the texts, the names of program directors that had been credited at the end of each episode were deleted from November 1960 onwards, this shows a significant change in the status of TV documentarists as creators.
