The Political Imagination of NHK Historical Drama [Clouds on the Hill]: Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 and National Writers

This paper analyzes NHK's special epic drama Cloud on the Hill, which aired in three parts for three years from 2009 to 2011, in relation to the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake. The drama's original historical novel, Cloud on the Hill, by Riotaro Shiba, is biased toward a historical description of the Russo-Japanese War after the death of the character Masaoka Shiki. If the literary heir, Soseki Natsume, took over the role of Shiki, this novel's polyphonicity would have been maintained. However, Shiva's novel suppresses the possibility by removing Soseki from the novel. On the other hand, in the 2011 drama Cloud on the Hill, Soseki appears, unlike the original. In the drama, he obeys the nationalist discourse prevalent on the home front of the Russo-Japanese War. This is, in fact, equivalent to the catchphrase Japan is one that viewers of 2011's drama obeyed. However, the quoted phrases in Soseki's novel crack this nationalist illusion. It's as if Fukushima's reality cracks the nationalist illusion of Japan is one.