Mt. Fuji has presence. As only a small landmark in the distance, the symmetrical mountain immediately calls attention to itself against the glamour of Tokyo’s industrial skyscrapers and neon signs. Whether in Tokyo’s flashy Ginza District or the fashionable Harajuku District, it is hard to forget that one resides in the mountain’s domain for long; Fuji is everywhere. But even where the mountain cannot be seen, it adorns various products, advertisements, brands, and logos across Japan and the world. Fuji has become disembedded or “‘lift[ed] out’… from local contexts of interaction and… restructure[d] across indefinite spans of time-space “(Giddens 1990) to be repurposed as a symbol. Where Mt. Fuji was traditionally viewed as a site used for mysticism and mountain worship, it has now transformed into a globally recognizable symbol of Japan.
On our Lewis and Clark Fuji Summer 2017 program, we set out to find these various manifestations of Fuji around Tokyo. Divided into four groups, we scoured the streets of Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku, Asakusa, and Ginza looking for references to Fujisan.
Fuji bridges distances. A picture of the actual mountain featured on a bus in the Shinjuku district advertises Mt. Fuji as both a destination point and an experience. Where “modern organizations [in this case, the advertising company on the bus] are able to connect the local and the global in ways which would have been unthinkable in more traditional societies and… affect the lives of many millions of people” (Giddens 1990), Mt. Fuji is distanced from its location and processed into an image to be advertised and accessed by tourists.
On a tote bag in Asakusa, Hello Kitty rests besides a tranquil looking Fuji. In a form of symbiotic advertising, the images strengthen each other by being icons of Japan and appealing to each others’ fan bases. This iconography further disembeds Fuji from its place and reinvents it as a symbol. Whereas the advertisement on the bus was intended to connect people to a physical Fuji, the pairing of these icons are only used for commercial purposes.
In the Shibuya/Harajuku district, we found one of the most distinguished forms of Fuji, renditions of Katsushika Hokusai’s famous Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji on fans. Notably, the fans portrayed his two most popular pictures from the set: Fuji dominating the frame of Fine Wind, Clear Morning and the Great Wave where Fuji sits unflinchingly in the background of the destructive ocean. The two images show different situated perspectives of Fuji. Those that view Fuji from either perspective see the physically embedded version of the mountain. Once Hokusai started painting Fuji, the mountain became popularized as an image instead of a location.
On a different fan in the Asakusa district, another reference is made to Hokusai’s Great Wave. In this image, the traditional Great Wave faces the equally culturally iconic but modern image of Godzilla. As for Fuji, she sits back and watches, coolly detached as a referee. Together, these three monolithic images merge the past and present and makes them relevant to a contemporary consumer.
In the Shibuya/Harajuku district, Fuji becomes the source of inspiration for a backpack company’s brand logo. Detached from Mt. Fuji’s original location, name, and history, the logo creates new symbology. Instead of representing Japan, the Fuji image symbol stands in for the identity of this gear brand.
As soon as Mt. Fuji was materialized on paper, it became disconnected from its location. Even Hokusai contributed to the disembedding of Fuji just by trying to capture its charm. Traditionally, Fuji was only understood as a location. Now, it has become a disembedded, global symbol of Japan. But beyond the kitschy fans, bags and other products, Fuji iconography provides an alternative to physical experience. Whether through the lens of Hokusai or Hello Kitty, Mt Fuji’s fan base only seems to grow.
Works Cited
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.