A Study of the Formation of African Images in Japan

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The history of relations between Japan and Africa dates back to the sixteenth century. According to Portuguese sources, some Africans were brought to Japan in the late 1540s. But it was after the Meiji Restoration that Japan's relations with Africa bacame close.This research was an attempt to trace these relations by means of an extensive review of materials on Africa and to examine Japanese attitudes towards Africa and African people in the Meiji period. Much emphasis was placed on a compilation of an African bibliography, since there had been no full length bibliographical works devoted specifically to books, articles and govenmental papers concerning Africa from politics to juvenile literature during the period, 1868 to 1912. The material is basically arranged chronologically. No references are made to sizes of works, but the full title of items is given.It can be clearly pointed out from the bibliography that the publication of African-related works increased markedly after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-5. The change was observed not only in quantity but also in quality. Before the war, almost all the works were the translation of English and French novels and stories laid in Africa, but after the war, Africa turned out an object of studies in colonial administration. It was quite surprising that the number of books, joumals, magazines, and periodicals relating to Africa published in Meiji Japan was much more than anticipated. What I have done in this two-year research is in many ways only a beginning, for much remains to be done bibliographically, just as many aspects of the history of Afro-Japanese relations need much closer scrutiny and study.