Bullet Train Battles in Japanese Popular Culture

When Japan’s first bullet train was being planned and built (1959-1964), protests and struggles over land slowed construction, raised costs, and caused frustration for officials at Japan National Rail.  But in spite of weak eminent domain laws, protests proved futile against the juggernaut of this major national project: the new line sliced indiscriminately through fertile fields and sacred forests, ancestral homes and religious sites.  These battles—not only between planners and protesters, but also involving land acquisition and even struggles between competing construction crews—highlighted some of the central tensions of postwar Japanese society: those between development and preservation, urban and rural areas, state and society, individual and community.

Those tensions emerged in artistic and literary representations of the bullet train, as writers, television producers, and film-makers capitalized on the train’s popularity and used it in stories of crime, passion, and everyday life.  The frequent thematic focus on corruption, greed, and environmental or cultural damage contradicted planners’ celebration of technological achievement, industrial development, and economic growth.  In many cases, cultural material reproduced that triumphant narrative, even in depicting problems and protests.  For instance, the television series “Bullet Train,” aired by Japan’s national broadcaster in 1964, highlighted some of the pain caused by construction, but each episode ended with a sense that sacrifices had served a greater good.  In other cases, such as Kajiyama Toshiyuki’s novel of graft, revenge, and murder, Super-Express of Dreams, popular culture gave the new line’s detractors the final word, leaving an ugly (if relatively small) stain on its glowing reputation.  Though popular protests were ineffective in shaping the line’s path, the tensions and problems that plagued its construction ultimately shaped popular conceptions of the space through such cultural representations.