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A Study on the National Mobilization of Children under the State of War - Depicted in Fukuda Kiyoto’s novel Clear Sky of the North Manchuria(1943) -

AHN JINA 1

1가천대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The Imperial Japanese government’s cultural manipulation extended to children’s books, and began with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War. However, under the banner of “Japan-China Cooperation,” there were some embedded directives that emphasized understanding and cooperation with the Chinese children to Japanese children, a manipulation aimed at supporting the government in its implementation of war and in strengthening the Japanese spirit. An example of this is the “AiroShonentai (愛路少年隊)”. The children’s novel Clear Sky of the North Manchuria (1943) of Fukuda Kiyoto, who was the central figure of the “literary society for the development of the continent”—a national policy literature group—describes the friendship between a Japanese immigrant boy and a Chinese boy of the AiroShonentai and the Youth Volunteer Corps for Development of Manchuria-Mongolia, in which a Japanese boy from the same hometown participated. This novel, through the representation of AiroShonentai and the Youth Volunteer Corps for Development of Manchuria-Mongolia, reveals imperial Japan ’s mission to mobilize young Japanese children into the volunteer corps while also exposing the fallacy of ethnic harmony.

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