While I have never engaged more than a modicum in urban archaeology or ruins exploration (though one of such few times was also the only time in my life I was given a tour of a police station...) I...
While I have never engaged more than a modicum in urban archaeology or ruins exploration (though one of such few times was also the only time in my life I was given a tour of a police station...) I have always been an armchair fan those who dauntlessly explore long-forgotten locales of human history, now returned to nature. There are, of course, degrees of craziness to it: while I enjoy stuff like Insiders Project, I also don't mind those who take a softer approach to the field, fully remaining within the legitimacy of law.
I have reviewed in the past a d?jin publication by Ichiman Kohei, released through their d?jin circle ??????? (Heliotrope), though a somewhat unusual one, as it didn't focus on urban / modern ruins, but rather on moody traditional Japan alleys. This time, however, we have a collection of photographs that squarely focuses on one of the many subcultural interests of Japan's otakuness: military history and, by adjacency, military ruins.
Tomogashima Island, today a very popular natural park attracting both domestic and foreign tourism, is best known for its Meiji- era military fortifications, now entirely abandoned. The cannon batteries are, apparently, particularly well preserved, and the only example of their kind in all of Japan. I go by reading and hearsay, as I've never been to Tomogashima personally.
Ichiman offers, in a A5-sized, full color, 16 pages booklet an overview of their photographic exploration of the fortifications, all according to the typical style of Heliotrope: little historical insight, but a lot of very pleasing eye candy. Far from documentary exactness, all pictures are heavily edited, saturated and tinkered with, so as to turn the rather prosaic historical ruins into a sort of otherworldly, fairy-like kingdom where Ghibli characters wouldn't feel out of place (as a side note, I wish there was more scholarship studying the undeniable link between Miyazaki and his interest in history and war). Through a Hamilton-style, slightly out of focus lens, the brick batteries and barbicans take a sort of magical appearance, something out of a daydream.
Sadly, seems like Ichiman has fallen off the radar (or changed pen name) a while ago, so all I can leave you with is a
dormant blog and the usual secondhand links, should you want to get your hands on some of their stuff - which, by the way, seems to be rather rare and coveted, judging from prices.
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