2019 Volume 101 Pages 219-234
Images of aviation became very popular after World War I, often appearing in literary works as well as newspapers such as the Sunday Mainichi, but during the 1920s, the framework of air defense increasingly entered the picture. The concept of National Defense, which involved the Japanese people both physically and psychologically, created a new image of a space to be defended that was both separate from the earth yet strongly connected to it. This in turn gave rise to a network of feelings surrounding a National Land that existed above ground, promoting a collective consciousness among the people. The imaginative power of this new space can be seen in the works of Unno Jūza, and in Hosono Ungai's novel Fumetsu no Funbo (The Tomb of Immortality). Furthermore, the imagination of this new space of air defense, which is both visible and invisible, merges with the literary imagination. In literary texts that depict attacks by allied bombers, we can see images of earthbound bodies living through the destruction of the space of air defense.
