Junji Kinoshita

Junji Kinoshita (木下 順二) was a Japanese playwright.

He was the foremost playwright of modern drama in postwar Japan.

He was also a translator and scholar of Shakespeare's plays.

Kinoshita’s achievements were not limited to Japan.

He helped to promote theatrical exchanges between Japan and the People’s Republic of China, and he traveled broadly in Europe and Asia.

In addition to his international work, Kinoshita joined various societies that focused on the study of folktales and the Japanese language.

Kinoshita was born in Tokyo as the son of government official Kinoshita Yahachiro and his wife, Sassa Mie.

Kinoshita attended school in Tokyo until 1925 when his parents moved back to his father's hometown of Kumamoto to retire.

Kinoshita was in fourth grade at the time.

Although Kinoshita was teased very much by other students because of his Tokyo dialect at his new school, this experience in his childhood made him think deeply about the Japanese language and become more aware of the complexities of spoken language.

He attended Kumamoto Prefectural Middle School and later went on to Kumamoto Fifth High School, where he received a degree equivalent to that of a western university.

In 1936, Kinoshita returned to Tokyo to attend the Imperial University of Tokyo where he studied English literature.

He majored in Shakespeare under the instruction of Yoshio Nakano (中野好夫), who was an eminent translator of English and American literature.

He graduated with a master's degree from University of Tokyo in 1939 and continued in school.

He studied the history of the Elizabethan Theater.

Kinoshita left many works, which cover a wide range of genres including plays, novels, and theatre reviews, in addition to his translation of Shakespeare’s works.

They are collected in The Collected Works of Junji Kinoshita (木下順二集), published by Iwanami Shoten, Publishers (株式会社岩波書店, Kabushiki Gaisha Iwanami Shoten).

He earned a degree in Elizabethan theater in the early 1940s, but majoring in English literature was not encouraged in Japan at the time since the society was greatly influenced by militarism.

His early plays, on the theme of some folktales, were created at that time.

The first half is entitled Shimpan (The Judgment), and it reacts to the Tokyo War Crime Trials held between 1946 and 1948.

This part is divided into three acts of a trial, which take place on three different days in the same courtroom.

The first act of The Judgment focuses on the jurisdiction of the court.

The defendants, all Japanese, are charged with crimes against peace, murder, and war crimes against humanity, but the question the play raises is whether the court actually has a legal power over those defendants.

The second act focuses on the credibility of the evidence given by the prosecution, who argue that what has been done is obvious and must be punished.

In this act, the prosecution brings some evidence, given by a French witness, of atrocities committed by Japanese in Indo-China.

The Japanese are suspected of having killed Free French guerrillas during a battle.

Those French guerrillas might have been killed by Japanese soldiers, but their deaths are not related to the twenty-eight Japanese present in court.

The third act concentrates on the definition of “war crime.” The play argues that, due to the extraordinary circumstances of war, whether the guilt of an entire nation during the wartime can be excused or not.

His better-known works that have been translated into English include Twilight Crane (夕鶴, Yūzuru), 1949; Wind and Waves (風浪, Fūrō), 1947; Between God and Man (神と人とのあいだ, Kami to hito to no aida), 1972; and A Japanese Called Otto (オットーと呼ばれる日本人,Ottō to yobareru nihonjin), 1962, Kinoshita's rendering of the Sorge spy ring incident on the eve of World War Two.

Between God and Man presents readers with the themes of death, guilt, and judgment in response to the two war crime trials held by the Allies after the Pacific War to judge Japanese who were suspected of having committed crimes.

This play is written in two parts.

Kinoshita was selected as a member of The Japan Art Academy (日本芸術院) in 1984, and chosen as the honorary citizen of Tokyo (東京名誉都民) in 1998, but he turned down both of these honors.

He never accepted any national honors or awards, and stuck to his left-wing political views throughout his life.

Kinoshita died on October 30, 2006, from pneumonia.

In accordance with his will, no funeral was held.

His death was reported one month after his death.

Kinoshita's professional career started at the end of the war when Yasue Yamamoto (山本安英) used to perform as a leading actress.

Although he wrote more than forty plays in his lifetime, the subjects of his works vary.

Many of his plays are based on Japanese folktales, but he also created works set in contemporary Japan that deal with social issues.

The drama of Kinoshita does not deal with elements of fantasy or poetry, but rather allows the audience to think deeply about death, guilt, and judgment.