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Rethinking 3.11's Mediascape through Japan Sinks 2020

This paper examines Science SARU's Netflix show, Japan Sinks 2020, notably its departure from the general apocalyptic ideology of previous primary Japan Sinks texts. By reframing it through the disaster lens of 3.11, Japan Sinks 2020 sheds light on significant inequalities between global and regional images. As the first internationally aired Japan Sinks media, Japan Sinks 2020 leverages contemporary streaming practices to propose ongoing counter-narratives of the Japanese state, its actors, and the urbanrural divides which have preceded – and continue – in the face of 3.11. Drawing upon Komatsu's last words on the international status of the 3.11 disaster, Japan Sinks 2020 is a post-3.11 text addressing aspects of Japanese disaster fiction mainly ignored by previous Japan Sinks texts and simultaneously reignites less-discussed challenges associated with the 3.11 mediascape.

underwent a meltdown, spilling radiation into the surrounding countryside. The Tohoku Triple Disaster, more generally known as 3.11, resulted in 18,500 casualties, half a million displaced peoples, and $210 billion in damages. 4 3.11 remains the costliest natural disaster in human history, and the subsequent radiation spillage and cleanup is an ongoing expenditure for the Japanese government. 5 In an anthology titled 3.11 no Mirai ("The Future of 3.11"), Komatsu notes that while previous significant disasters in Japan were publicly and internationally known, the Tohoku triple disaster dwarfed everything preceding it. The international and incessant broadcasting of 3.11 caused lasting consequences on Japanese national identity to a degree never seen before -what is the world seeing? 6 How is it responding to this disaster? Most importantly, what kind of Japan is being shown? After 3.11, a particular set of Tokyo-based, ethnonationalist narratives emerged, partly out of a need to press a unified national identity as part of the country's reconstruction. Tamaki Mihic notes that a nationalist rhetoric emerged out of the Tohoku triple disaster, leading to a resurgent sentimentality of Japaneseness through an aggressive use of the word kizuna. 7 However, what amplified the sense of a unified Japanese response was an international perception of Japan as a calm, collected, and united people. 8 The nationalist image, in effect, folded in on itself; not only was there a massive internal push by the Japanese government to come together, but there was also an international image which pushed the Japanese to conform to a particular disaster nationalist identity. Yuko Nishimura, a Tohokuite who worked with local recovery efforts around Rikuzentakata, mentioned a similar embarrassment. She notes that the international sympathy was a point of self-consciousness to many Japanese, 9 especially considering that the hardest hit area was Tohoku, which was historically a peripheral Characters are watching the footage, not negotiated through the lens of a Japanese content creator, but from a foreign content creator, and nevertheless craft their own narratives. In this scene, the assumed viewer is not just people watching the show, but also, more generally, any audience member who witnessed the disaster of 3.11, both directly or allegorically (through Japan Sinks 2020). In other words, survivors watching the sinking of Okinawa are not that distant from both the Japanese and international audiences watching the floods on any video and broadcasting platform (including Youtube), and even more closely, drawing their own conclusions on the disaster.
In this sense, the show's subject -and the subject of these screens -are not just conventional disaster narratives that generally populated previous Japan Sinks. These seemingly perennial subjects of Japan Sinks -urban imaginations, technocratic responses, and disaster macropolitics -play much more limited roles in Japan Sinks 2020. Part of the move away from urban imaginations of 3.11 may stem from creative decisions. Director Masaaki Yuasa has mentioned that he largely remembers 3.11 from Tokyo, outside of the disaster zone. 12 Since Tohoku is one of the least populated areas with some of the lowest average incomes in Japan, 13  A similar post-disaster imagery was mentioned by Yuko Nishimura as she recounted her relief efforts in Tohoku. By emphasizing the rural disaster, Japan Sinks 2020 strives to more accurately depict new and ongoing problems that arose out of 3.11 and sheds light on regional inequalities within the country itself. In a retrospective on reconstruction efforts in the Tohoku area, Nishimura notes that while many Japanese welcomed the initial outpouring of sympathy, it also inadvertently effaced real regional identities. She states that, "many Japanese may have felt self-conscious, embarrassed or even ashamed by the international outpouring of sympathy since it was mostly the Tohokuites of three prefectures in the north who were the victims, and not the Japanese as a whole." 15 In fact, despite being a native of Tohoku herself, Nishimura was unable to hide her surprise upon arrival at Rikuzentakata, noting that she "felt [she] was in a nightmare, a surreal story in which the entire planet had been destroyed by the atom bomb." 16 To Nishimura, such images were mediated through an urbanized lens, that the situation is less one of ongoing regional exploitation and subservience towards a Tokyobased core and instead an immediate, singular disaster that must be rectified immediately. Japan Sinks: 2020 problematizes the spectacle of catastrophe -rural Japan, it suggests, was not dying because of the disaster; it was already dying.

Invisible Collapses and Unseen Victims
The move towards rurality in Japan Sinks: 2020 shifts away from discourses around large, macro destruction towards more micro and long-lasting destruction. It operates as a counter-narrative through a depiction of subjects and spaces often ignored in previous Japan Sinks texts, primarily issues of rural disasters, sexual violence, and radiation.
For instance, in one episode, the Mutous catch a wild boar. The scene is played in a heartwarming fashion with an uplifting beat by Kensuke Ushio. It depicts city folks who ultimately triumph in the face of adversity. However, while the boar scene is relatively lighthearted, it signifies Japan's ongoing rural plight. The emigration from certain parts of Tohoku (due to the radiation) has resulted in an explosion of the wild boar population. 17 Yet more distressingly, the wild boars were not caused by the events of 3.11 -they were already endemic to rural Japan. As Japan's youth move towards the cities, the average age of Japan's towns skews much older, and as a consequence, such towns are becoming overrun by wild boars. 18 Here, the boar scene behaves similarly to the initial urban destruction of Tokyo, though it presents an admittedly different side of the surrealist imagination. As the song swells, the scene takes on an adventurous, light-hearted tone.
As In Japan Sinks: 2020, there are two instances of attempted sexual assault, though the first instance is particularly relevant because it also outlines the ideological context in which perpetrators commit these acts. In episode three, the Mutous (along with a few friends) hitch a ride from a trucker, who is drinking. One of the friends chastises the trucker for drinking while driving, after which he argues: There are no cops anymore...because of you guys, I'm a little over carrying capacity, so who cares about those silly little laws? Let's do all the things we couldn't do before. You're losing out if you're not having fun! 23 The show employs a conventional approach to signal the driver's ill-intent; it adopts the driver's first-person perspective and tilts the camera bottom to top, fixated on the body of Nanami, family friend of the Mutous. Viewers cannot stop him nor get involved, even as they are aware of his intentions. In the next scene, they park at an abandoned gas station, at which point he forces himself upon her. Mari and Ayumu stop him, take his truck, and leave him stranded. If we consider sexual violence during (and after) disasters as fomented sites of invisible collapses, the witnessing of Nanami's attempted sexual assault becomes not only a grave reminder that victims do face considerable unreported and undocumented violence in the wake of these disaster, but also that it was thanks to the concerted effort by Ayumu and Mari -other survivors and potential victims -that she was able to avoid this fate.
In that sense, the sexual assault sequence reflects the sentiment of scholar Meiko Yoshihama, who notes that one of the major problems that arise out of disaster is "a wide range of abuse and exploitation, including quid pro quo sexual assault, where threats were used to force compliance in exchange for shelter, food, and other life-sustaining resources," 24 which is particularly important considering that this transactional exploitation happens outside of the view of mainstream media and governmental response. Reporter Rob Gilhooly similarly notes that after the initial disasters of 3.11, Japanese women become victims of an ongoing slew of sexual abuse, harassment, and rape. 25 Both Gilhooly and Yoshihama's accounts are in stark contrast to the narratives mentioned by Yasuda et al, who note that the National Police Agency concluded that while such incidents did occur, most of them were deemed groundless. 26 The problem, the NPA reasoned, is that such claims could exacerbate problems and cause panic. Yoshihama notes that such insistences may be an attempt to control the disaster narrative. 27 Between these two competing claims about the prevalence of sexual violence after

Recovery Logic
In addition to sexual violence, Japan Sinks 2020 also briefly touches upon another aspect of invisible collapses: radiation. Compared to previous post-war disasters, 3.11 is unique to Japan precisely because of the Fukushima-Daiichi meltdown. The effect of the radioactive spill is that many victims may be unable to return to their former lives. As a result, an identity of displacement emerges from many of 3.11's disaster victims, who must seriously consider whether they can "move on" and settle somewhere else or whether they must come to a plan as to how to return. Akihito describes this mentality as hinan shakai, or evacuation society, where people are stuck in stages of temporary housing, forced anonymity, and long-term precarity. 28 To some, losing everything and living out the rest of your life in a hostile environment can prove too much: Hamako Watanabe, who committed self-immolation after the loss of her home, is one such consequence. 29 What underlies all of this is a concern with recovery -where to recover, recovering with whom, and what one considers recovery. Anne Allison has touched upon similar concerns in Precarious Japan, noting that the precariousness facing all Japanese were not just in the immediate dangers, but persisting dangers which can extend even to those outside of the immediate disaster zone. 30 In this sense, the concept of evacuation and recovery is not just simply a sense of recuperation, but also to adorn a new identity of susceptibility: susceptibility to harm, disease, and death. 31 This adoption of harm in the face of uncertainty and precarity can be seen when the Mutous enter the Shan City compound. A religious organization run by criminals, Shan City is described as a mix between "an alien civilization and a new religion." 32  "Well, where does he get the money?" asked Onodera. "The Church of the Seven Seas," answered Yukinaga cryptically. "It's a new religion. Its headquarters is in Greece." 33 As a new religious organization, Shan City acts as a roundabout diegetic reason as to why Onodera is at the compound. On another level, just like the urban-rural and the visibleinvisible divides, Shan City problematises questions of recovery. In Shan City, the atemporal depiction of rural decay is mapped directly onto the body of its members. At the compound, Go meets a former sumo wrestler (rikishi), whose association with Shan City predates the events of Japan Sinks 2020. In this sense, Shan City is not only an evacuation site, but also doubles as a meeting site for people evacuating more than the disaster. This evacuation imagery is even more important considering that Japan Sinks 2020 seeks to grapple with the depiction of private actors, especially private religious actors. However, the private religious organizations saw a dramatic shift after 3.11.
McLaughlin noted that religious organizations -especially new religions -learned critical public relations lessons from 1995 to lessen the animosity gap between them and the public. 36 Furthermore, during the initial stages of the disaster, religious organization Soka Gakkai, like many other new religious centers, played crucial roles in taking in refugees while simultaneously suspending proselytization. 37 Within minutes, places like the Soka Gakkai Cultural Center in Sendai became a refugee hub and mobilized an army of rapid response volunteers. 38 Thus, on the one hand, Shan City serves as a reminder of new religious organizations' role, specifically how they played a critical role in disaster relief.
Yet on the other, Shan City also touches upon the tasks of comfort care, of which many religious organizations have more than willing to provide: The Japanese public has begun looking beyond the traumas of 3.11, and news reports about the many thousands of Tohoku residents who still live with the pains and deprivations of the disasters are growing increasingly less frequent. Religious organizations are some of the few groups that maintained active aid efforts long after international aid agencies and government emergency crews left the area, and they are now working to raise awareness about their activities and to solicit volunteers in the face of dwindling national concern. 39 Moreover, these ongoing efforts are working. In the wake of 3.11, positive media coverage of new religious movements saw a qualitative uptick despite the lack of a quantitative one. 40 Part of this uptick is also due to the ongoing care -both spiritual and physical -that Though not exclusive to new religious movements, much of this therapy iswithin these new religious movements' interest to maintain. These religious organizations, therefore, In this sense, the counter-narrative presented in the Shan City arc is not just to stress the central role of new religious organizations, but also shed light on actors outside of the civilian-government distinction.

Disaster as Recuperation; Body and Mobility
Japan Sinks 2020 similarly touches upon bodies as sites of political conflict. These Olympics, but also aggressively depicts Japan and its citizens as anything but calm and collected, a far cry from the ongoing 3.11 media narrative it draws upon. In doing so, Science SARU problematizes the idea that Japan has 'recovered' from 3.11.
The intertwining of Japan Sinks with disaster and disaster representation in a global context has been an unshakeable element of the media mix. Marc Steinberg notes that two events drove home televisions' sales: the broadcasting of (then) Crown Prince Akihito and the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. 45  is fixed versus what is lost) intertwine. Ayumu is not only a Japanese subject being watched by an international audience, but a stand-in for Japan; she moves on from the sexual assault, violence, gruesomeness, the loss of friends and family, to emerge triumphant at the new Olympics. However, despite her triumph, the loss of her leg is an irreparable marker of her status as one who ultimately loses: she loses friends, family members, and home. The disaster, even after Ayumu has "recovered," has shaped her.
Thus Japan Sinks 2020 serves as a reminder that such disasters are not temporary disruptions of time and space but permanently mark the bodies -literal and politicalcaught within them. This lens marginalizes the glorification of recovery, stressing that rebuilding is not something subjects acquire but mould.
Ayumu's wound as the hijacking of nationalist sentimentality is not unique to Japan Sinks 2020. Beginning before the postwar period, the discussion of the political state of affairs is often conducted on the state of the Japanese body. To Yoshikuni Igarashi, "the discursively constructed body becomes the central site for the reconfiguration of Japan's nationalist discourse," 49 and while 3.11 is not a war, there was a surge of nationalist discourse during reconstruction. 50  In showing Ayumu's prosthesis and the permanence of her wound, Japan Sinks: 2020 reminds the audience of the disaster's impact. Regardless of the mirth, the event cannot ever be over since it has already shaped the victims within it. In this light, Japan Sinks: 2020 brings forward something to the international mediascape: disaster itself, a consistent and insistent reminder of the cost such events impute upon those caught within it. At the same time, if the body can be seen as an extension of the national political order, then Ayumu's wound reflects the same imagery of old, spectral Japan. Ayumu's loss of her foot is not just a consequence of the disaster, but one in the same; the show intercuts between a jovial Olympic ceremony existing between two striking images of inescapable tragedy. One on hand, a promising young girl who has lost not only a limb, but also much of her family. On the other, an entire nation and political body sunk beneath the waves.
The supposed "recovery" can be seen as a sort of symbolic act, 51 where insurmountable contradictions are resolved aesthetically, a form of suturing which prevails the preexisting ideological order. Given that Japan Sinks 2020 was originally meant to broadcast alongside the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the ending imagery serves as a sort of counternarrative to any presuppositions that Japan has sufficiently recovered from the events of 3.11. The resurgent Olympics of Japan Sinks 2020 is hosted, in effect, on the remains of a sunken Japan with participants who were the victims of such sinking. Much like the real-life Tokyo Olympics, there is arguably no clear resolution yet -some, many, have moved on, yet the show demonstrates that such resolutions are merely masks for ongoing concerns in Japan today.
In this sense, each element of Japan Sinks; 2020 reshapes an aspect of disaster rhetoric in its own way: the regional-national, urban-rural divisions remind viewers that disasters need not be explosive cataclysms to be destructive. The sexual violence and radiation indicate invisible disasters, ongoing and long-lasting devastations that immediate patchwork solutions cannot easily solve. The new religious compounds problematize the idea that disaster events can have limits, contesting the idea that once the homes are rebuilt, that everything is over. In reality, long-lasting recovery is itself a political process. Finally, Ayumu serves as a pointed question as to whether subjects can truly overcome disasters.

Conclusion
Every Japan Sinks text critically engages with what Japan means when a Japanese ontology is examined. When the country goes under, several fundamental questions are asked: who is to be saved, how do we save them, who are our allies, and where do we go from here? These questions and answers are partly drawn from the real disasters that have shaped Japan. For the 1973 novel and 1974 film, it was the postwar recovery and Oil shock. For the 2006 novels and film, it was a post 9/11 security precarity. For Science SARU's Japan Sinks 2020, it was 3.11. These concerns about defining and witnessing are especially important given that just as the eyes of the world were on Japan once more, there was another disaster -COVID-19 and the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics.
Japan Sinks 2020 acts as a stark reminder of the challenges of recovery and survival and how others perceive that recovery and survival. And what is it showing? It turns out, there is no real "recovered" Japan, but rather a post-disaster Japan, waiting for another event to discombobulate the country once again. In this sense, the counter-narrative broadcasted by Japan Sinks 2020 portrays neither a calm, cool, nor collected Japan, but rather one already straddling uncertainty, rural decay, and ultimately invisible problems.