War Time Memories Of Shojo (Girl) - An Analysis Of A Japanese Girls\u27 Magazine, Shojo No Tomo, And Its Readers

This study researched a Japanese girls’ magazine, Shojo no Tomo (A Friend of Girls), which was published before WWII and republished in 2009. By focusing on the republication of the magazine after more than 50 years, the study shohow Japanese women remember their girlhood during the war and how this memory is reconstructed. To discuss reconstruction, this study examines not only what is remembered but also what is forgotten. For this research, it analyzed original issues of the time that the republished issue especially focuses on, and intervieformer readers. Also, it analyzed the republished issue and interviethe editors of it. The research found that the image of shojo (girl) acquired strength in the republished issue because this republication assumes its readers are artistic intellectuals. For this reconstruction, this republished issue marginalized wartime nationalism. This reconstruction allofor women to claim status despite male domination. Also, the research found that fiction had more impact than non-fiction so it suggests the importance of studying fiction when history is discussed