Between Escape and Creation - Ryo Hanmura and the Birth of Japanese Science Fiction in the 1960s

Between Escape and Creation - Ryo Hanmura and the Birth of Japanese Science Fiction in the 1960s

In 1962, the first Japan Science Fiction Convention, known as the "Megsurinoki Convention," was held to mark the dawn of Japanese science fiction. At the time, science and technology were rapidly developing on the wave of rapid economic growth, but in the literary world, science fiction was still treated as a "novelty. In such a situation, science fiction enthusiasts from all over Japan earnestly talked about how they had been fascinated by this emerging genre. For example, "I have been fascinated with science fiction since I was a child," and "Asimov and Heinlein shocked me," were some of the "orthodox" motives that were presented one after another.

However, one person who stood out from the crowd was Ryo Hanmura, who at the time was still just an ordinary advertising agency employee. He quietly said on the stage, "I was told that my wife had run away from me. My wife ran away from me, so I ran away from science fiction as well. The air stopped for a moment, and then burst into laughter. The air stopped for a moment, and then burst into laughter. His words showed more eloquently than anyone else in the audience that the genre of science fiction is also a container for people's escapes and wounds.

In fact, the world of Ryo Hanmura's works is filled with an imagination that turns its back on the real world while at the same time transcending it. In his later masterpieces, "Sengoku Jieitai" (The Self-Defense Forces in the Warring States) and "Sanreizan Haikoku (The Secret History of Mt. Sanreizan)," the modern world and the other world intersect, and human fate and the nature of violence are intertwined. Perhaps the story of a man whose wife leaves him, along with the humor he finds in it, is at the root of this "story as a place to escape.

The 1960s was also a time when reality itself was in turmoil, with the lingering effects of the Security Treaty and the Vietnam War still being reported. In such an era, science fiction was not just a mere forecast of the future, but also "another reality" for questioning reality. Ryo Hanmura's comment is an unforgettable episode that highlights the "personal pain" and "strength to laugh it off" at its root.

In this way, the small convention of 1962 became the foundation for the "not-too-serious" spirit of Japanese science fiction, and produced individualistic writers such as Ryo Hanmura.