Introduction to Japanese Oral History

Abstract

Oral history in Japan has shifted from ‘confrontation’ to ‘mutualism,’ thanks to both interviewer and interviewees’ cultivated understanding of the process. Interviewees in the past included various ‘worriers’ like Masaharu Gotoda (former Commissioner General), Tsuneo Watanabe (Editor-in-Chief of Yomiuri) and Shunichi Suzuki (former Governor of Tokyo) who intended to take full control of the conversation. Seiji Tsutsumi - former executive of Seibu group with nick-names ‘the dodger (nige-no-meijin)’ or ‘slick talker (hito-tarashi)’ - was another protagonist. Tsutsumi answered interviews as if he was accompanied with two different specialists from each field, including a novelist with his pen-name Takashi Tsujii. We are moving away from such past patterns and are now facing oral history and its ‘mature,’ alike those by creators and intellectuals. We all have a specific choice of one’s next favorite interviewee. Such ‘only-one oral (ohitori-sama oral)’ widely directs Japanese oral history towards massification.