The recent boom in Japanese censorship studies is now enriched by two substantial monographs offering new perspectives on this complex subject. Both are the product of years of painstaking research in archives and trial records, providing greatly detailed case studies and empirical data that will be referenced by other scholars for years to come. Exploring the intricate systems of censorship in transwar and post-Occupation Japan, the two books complement each other extremely well, and together provide many thought-provoking points of contrast.

Jonathan Abel aims to disrupt traditional ways of thinking about censorship in Japan by arguing against the binary periodization of imperial versus Occupation censorship, demonstrating many continuities across both systems and addressing the “myth” that prewar and wartime censorship was visible, externalized, and more severe, while Occupation censorship was invisible, internalized, and more insidious. This myth is dismantled over the course of the book, starting with the debates between Etō Jun and Karatani Kōjin and continuing through case studies of redaction in literature of the period. The perceived binary divide between imperial and Occupation censorship systems has for too long been overemphasized, and Abel makes it impossible to see the debate in such simple terms.

Abel also aims to show how censorship can be both destructive and productive to literary discourse. He gives many examples of writers who successfully negotiated censorship to thrive in the strict publishing environment, examining genres like proletarian, erotic, and wartime literature to show how writers resisted both regulations and boundaries of literary classification. However, Abel himself seems more convinced of the destructive nature of censorship, employing metaphors of killing, wounding, violence, and scarring to describe the effect and trace of censorship on literature. The silence of self-censorship in particular is mourned, and documenting lacunae in the discourse is seen as an ethical imperative. As a result, the creativity of individual writers in the face of strict policies is minimized, and censorship emerges less as a “mode of modern literary reception” (p. 1) than an all-encompassing oppressive force. Abel's thoughtful exploration of fuseji (glyphs marking deleted text), satire, and parody does show the productive capacities of censorship, but the argument remains tilted towards the negative nature of the censorship system. This imbalance is addressed in the conclusion, where Abel provides a “semiotic square” to rethink the issue, complicating the surface binary and offering new perspectives on the relationships between writing, production, censorship, destruction, silence, preservation, and the archive (p. 265).

Truly impressive in scope and ambition, the book examines the traces of censorship left behind in the archive—what is not there, what has been redacted, and how the archive and canon themselves are highly mediated. This carefully researched and well-documented project adds greatly to our understanding of not only enacted external censorship, but also internalized self-censorship and the non-censorship of seemingly counter-discursive works. At times the argument reads like a mystery or detective story, following the trace of a censored work through its various versions in the archives. One of the great joys of reading this book is to compare the artist's manuscript, the fuseji-scattered printed version, the version recreated or reconstructed by the censor, and the canonical version eventually published in the anthologies. Abel does not fall prey to worshipping the “original text” as the one pure essence, seeing the censor's role as reconstructing and preserving the text that may otherwise have been lost, or destroyed in a different kind of censorship system. Maintaining that the idea of a “free press” is just an idea, Abel gets away from a sanctified notion of literary texts and back to the reality of production, dissemination, mediation, and consumption. Reflecting on the makeup and meaning of the archive itself, Abel makes us reassess our own research methods and approach to the subject.

Situating the Japanese case within global scholarship on literary theory and censorship, Abel reaches beyond the realm of area studies, achieving one of his main aims. Examples of censored American texts provide useful comparisons, and the Japanese case studies are wide-ranging, including major authors as well as lesser-known works in both fiction and poetry. Writers examined include Kawabata Yasunari, Edogawa Ranpo, Umehara Hokumei, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Uchida Roan, Ōya Sōichi, Masamune Hakuchō, Kuroshima Denji, Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, Ōoka Shōhei, Kaneko Mitsuharu, Tokuda Shūhei, and Dazai Osamu, so many scholars will find the work a useful reference. Other interesting case studies include Tachibana Takahiro (a censor himself) and the proletarian writer Nakano Shigeharu, whose works provide great insight into the use of fuseji, the consultation system, and what goes into the decision to ban a text.

Throughout the book, Abel maintains a tight focus on the point at hand, with no superfluous language. Some terms, such as “linguistic chiasmus” (p. 146) may have readers reaching for the dictionary, and at times the argument depends heavily on theory, which may be beyond the undergraduate reader. There are some inconsistencies in the presentation of Japanese words—sometimes including only kanji and English, as with kokutai (p. 1), where a romanized spelling would have been useful. Titles of works are sometimes presented in English with bracketed Japanese, and sometimes the other way around. The journal title Kibatsu to kokkei is given two different English translations (p. 144). While these inconsistencies do not harm the argument in any way, they may be distracting for non-Japanese readers. However, this would be my only criticism of this otherwise excellent volume.

Kirsten Cather's book adds greatly to recent scholarship by focusing on what happened after the end of the Occupation, when censorship was legally abolished in the new Constitution of 1947. Examining the landmark postwar obscenity trials, the book covers literature, film, and hybrid texts such as the 2002 manga Honey Room. The significance and implications of the first manga trial in history are thoughtfully explored and placed clearly within the historical context of previous trials. Like Abel, Cather emphasizes the complexity of the censorship process as well as continuities between and across time periods. Utilizing original trial records, legal and artistic journals, published accounts of the trials, and interviews with key participants, Cather provides much new information that would be otherwise unavailable for most readers.

The study is tightly focused in scope, specifically examining the “criminal judicial proceeding in a modern democratic society” (p. 5). The structure is extremely clear, with four parts of two chapters each. Chapters give detailed case studies of the trials, including the reasons that the work was targeted, the main arguments given by each side and key witnesses, the verdict, and the significance of the case. Each part of the book begins with a brief overview of the trials to be discussed, providing historical and intellectual context and highlighting the main issues perceived to be at stake.

Part one examines the trial of the Japanese translation of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1951–57) and its legacy in the trials of other Western works in translation, most notably those of the Marquis de Sade in the 1960s. The trials may be understood as an attempt to “draw the line” on obscenity in the new era, and show the importance of the Meiji Criminal Code (Keihō) as a native institution. Article 175 of the Criminal Code, known as the “obscenity clause,” would be invoked in every landmark postwar obscenity trial—amounting to a strike against the Western ideology of the 1947 constitution, and a strong sense of continuity between prewar and postwar Japan (p. 40).

Part two considers the trials of Takechi Tetsuji's film Black Snow (1965–69) and four Nikkatsu Roman Porn films from the early 1970s, in which not only the directors, but also the studio executives and Eirin (Japan's Motion Picture Code Commission) officials were indicted (1972–80). Where Black Snow was seen as a political statement, Nikkatsu Roman Porn was seen as a commercial necessity that saved the domestic film industry. Any scholar of Japanese film should read this section, as Cather sketches a brief history of the “self-regulatory” body Eirin and its ratings systems, clearly explaining its position between the state and the film industry. The censorship-dodging strategies of Takechi Tetsuji in particular make for entertaining reading, and comparing the various versions of the script, presound “all rush print,” and final cut is just as absorbing as Abel's tracking of fuseji.

Part three analyzes the two trials of Nagai Kafū’s notorious “Underneath the Papering of the Four-and-a-Half-Mat Room” (referred to by its abbreviated Japanese title, “Yojōhan”), from 1948 to 1950 and 1973 to 1980, as well as the trials of republished Edo-period works including The Safflower (1948–50) and Record of the Night Battles at Dannoura (1970–76). As the authors were absent in all trials (Kafū having denied authorship of his work), the editors and publishers were seen as irreverently appropriating the classics of the canon for their own ends. The archaic kanji forms and senryū mode of The Safflower needed erudition and training to decipher, making it permissible, but contemporary translations and editorial comments appended to the Dannoura text made it too immediate, accessible, and therefore obscene. This reviewer would have liked more information on the Dannoura text for its “libelous (and in this case potentially treasonous) obscenity involving the imperial family” (p. 294 n. 12), but the main point here is the perceived accessibility of the work to the reading public, and how lawyers acted as literary critics in judging authorial intent, reader reception, and canon formation. Cather allows Kafū's contrarian personality and great artistry to shine through, noting that the binary perception of Kafū as “cultural anthropologist or a perverted voyeur” (p. 171) is one that continues to haunt his literary reception today. That his “Complete Works” still do not contain a full version of “Yojōhan” reminds us of the mediated nature of the archive that Abel discusses in his work.

Part four examines the hybridity of text and image in the trials of Ōshima's book, including the script and photographic stills from In the Realm of the Senses (1976–82), and the 2002 manga Honey Room (2002–7). Many themes of the book come together here, particularly in terms of media specificity and representation versus reality. Arguments hinged on what kind of medium had the most power to visually evoke the sex act—prose fiction (in contemporary or archaic language), hand-drawn images, photography, or the moving images of film accompanied by sound. Dazzling twists and turns of the court arguments are riveting; for example, the prosecutor who argued for “movement” in photographic images, citing blurred arms and legs as well as poses that would be impossible to hold in a static position. This implied kinesis is at the heart of the Realm trial, while the Honey Room trial blamed the artist for his overly realistic drawings. Japan's international reputation is again at stake, with Ōshima dodging censorship through use of French film stock and international distribution, and the soft power of manga and anime in the otaku age. Cather draws together international laws on child pornography and prostitution, the impact of the Internet on access to materials, and feminist arguments both for and against pornography in manga narratives. Continuities between this and the Lady Chatterley trial are used to show the simultaneous stagnation and development in censorship trials over the last fifty years.

The greatest strength of this book is its focus on the “art” of censorship; while most censorship studies are couched in terms of political history, Cather achieves her aim of examining the texts as art, and the trials as art criticism. This allows her to explore the complex roles of the censors, who acted as “narratologists, reception theorists, critics, editors or even coauthors” in the course of the trial arguments (p. 3). She argues strongly for the productive capabilities of censorship, and points out that prosecuting a work ensured its survival in the canon, deftly negotiating the legacies of various works and authorial reputation. Cather's written style is highly accessible, making the book useful even for undergraduate research and coursework. Cather's way of tying together disparate strands of law, culture, art, and politics gives a brilliant model for interdisciplinary scholars to follow, while Abel's inspired conceptual frameworks will make a lasting impact on our thinking about censorship, both as an object of study and as an ongoing process in our own societies.