1957 Sekai Bunka Pictorial Manga World Map w/ Bikini Atoll Atomic Tests

This is a chilling 1957 Sekai Bunka pictorial (manga) world map, published in the magazine The Science Graph, graphically illustrating the controversial Atomic Bomb test on Bikini Atoll - a topic that would have resonated profoundly with a Japanese public still reeling from the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Moreover, although ostensibly an objective map of flora and fauna, the map also reveals much about Japan's conception of itself and the world in the early post-World War II period.

A Closer Look

This map of the world (minus Antarctica) employs a Mercator Projection roughly centered on Japan. Although no legend is present, cities, railways, shipping routes, national and administrative boundaries, and geographic features are clearly indicated and labeled throughout. Colorful illustrations depict the peoples, products, and animals of the various regions of the world. At the bottom are photographs of plant, animal, and human life, including cactuses in the American desert, an automobile, an experimental hovercraft, and an image of the surface of the moon.

Atomic Tests on Bikini Atoll

The most jarring element of the map is the mushroom cloud near the center that hovers over the Marshall Islands, a reference to the controversial American atomic bomb testing at Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1958. This issue had a special resonance in Japan, which had redefined itself as a pacifist nation in the postwar period and where anti-nuclear sentiment was strong. Bikini Atoll had also been occupied by a small number of Japanese troops during World War II, and nearby islands saw significant fighting (the 1944 Battle of Kwajalein). The area was also a frequent topic in the news in the years before the map's publication because a Japanese fishing boat (the Daigo Fukuryū Maru) had been in the vicinity of the atoll during the March 1, 1954 test of 'Castle Bravo,' the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated by the United States. Unaware of the planned test, the ship's crew was subjected to extremely high levels of radiation exposure and suffered acute radiation sickness as a result. Like the hibakusha survivors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they bore obvious scars from the incident and were stigmatized for the rest of their lives.

Japan Re-enters the World

The postwar (sengo) situation is also reflected in several other features of the map, most obviously the Japanese planes flying to various parts of the world, especially neighboring Asian territories, nearly all of which were subsumed into its empire at its height. At this time, Japanese companies were reestablishing ties in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia and were especially interested in raw materials for Japan's own (re)industrialization after the war; in essence, the same thing that had led Japan to seek colonial control over the same areas. The red circle sun emblem on the wings of Japanese planes seen here would have been an ominous sight in such places, as it closely resembles wartime military aircraft. (Japan Airlines sometimes painted the sun emblem on its planes at the time, but much more discreetly than seen here, and the company adopted a new logo in 1959.)

More generally, the map reflects an increased interest among the Japanese public in the outside world, including areas outside Japan's immediate vicinity in East Asia. Historians have connected Japan's postwar pacifist internationalism with a comparable mentality in the immediate post-World War I period, when similar manga maps were produced (replaced by more militaristic themes in the 1930s).

Publication History and Census

This map appeared as a special supplement to the January 1957 (Showa 32) inaugural issue of The Science Graph (科学大観), a periodical published between 1957 and 1963 by the publishing company Sekai Bunka (世界文化社, meaning 'World Culture'). Although Sekai Bunka has continued to exist in the years since, The Science Graph was a short-lived publication and is relatively difficult to find nowadays. The present map is not cataloged in any institutional collections, while the entire issue to which it was a supplement is only held by the National Showa Memorial Museum. The map portion seen here was reused by the magazine for a similar supplement two months later, replacing the photographs at the bottom with a calendar for 1957; this alternative presentation of the map is equally scarce.