The preserved draft of the news put out on the day WW II ended-August 15, 1945-is a document of great historical value and forms the actual basis for this research. This document tells us the way that the Japanese government reported defeat in the war to the people. It also informs us about the process of news rewriting because it includes a galley manuscript which was distributed by the Domei News Agancy in advance and was not merely a draft for broadcasting which was read by announcers. From the way that the draft was rewritten we are aware of the type of consciousness that broadcasting station personnel possessed. As for the problematic points regarding the news reporting the end of the war, while the news was distributed by Domei, the National News Agency, the news rewrite was mutually agreed upon. To cite an example, in reporting the Potsdam Declaration, the underlined portion of Article 10 which reads "stern justice shall be meted out to all war criminals, including those who have visited cruelties upon our prisoners," was deleted, and "war criminals" was rewritten and broadcast as "those people responsible for the war". When questioned as to why this kind of intentional revision was undertaken, the person who was in charge at the time said that it was "to soften the sting of the defeat", but it appears that there was a positive agreement between the government and the military with broadcasting agencies. As for the background behind the stance taken in reporting the news, from the time that broadcasting was established in 1925, the government exercised strict guidance and control, and the broadcasting stations themselves felt that it was their duty to guide the people. They probably saw their work as "carrying out a state mission". The points which I have taken up in this paper, such as guiding the people's consciousness, the deleting of certain items, and the rewrite process in reporting the termination of the war, symbolize an important aspect of radio's news reporting which was in positive accord with the authorities.

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This paper will explore the historical context of the development of voice-over narration in wartime Japanese documentary, focusing on the introduction of existing vocal performers, mainly radio announcers and benshi, and their unique arts into nonfiction sound film production. At the beginning of the 1930s, after talkie technology arrived in the Japanese film world, filmmakers and critics began to search for a desirable acoustic accompaniment to the newly flourishing genre of bunka eiga (culture film). Interestingly, two previous techniques of narration contributed in this process, namely, radio announcing and the art of the benshi. In particular, the narrating practices of the latter had a qualitative and quantitative influence on the stylistic formation of voice-over narration in wartime “sensuous” documentaries, whereas the former, having been established as a modern and public vocal-medium, took a firm hold on newsreel soundtracks.

Through analyzing stylistic relationships between these vocal performers and nonfiction media, we will see that early documentary filmmaking built a close connection with radio broadcasting practice and such contemporary performing entertainments as mandan. Indeed, experimentation in documentary forms in the early era was surely an outcome of not just auteurist creativity but also a conflict between the techniques of existing performing arts, the enlarged modern soundscape, and the desire, on the part of those involved in the genre, for differentiation from other media and/or for surviving during the hard times of war.

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