Shinseinen (New Youth) Magazine was first printed in the year of 1920, embracing modanizumu (Japanese modernism) culture and branding itself as a stylish magazine for young men. In its first few years, the magazine danced between different focuses, finally settling upon becoming a place for literary and other intellectual discussions to take place as entertainment for the same young men it had originally targeted. In embracing modanizumu, Shinseinen could not help but embrace the genre that had become so intertwined with the movement: tantei shosetsu or Japanese detective fiction. Because of the magazine's "promotion of tantei shosetsu as a genre for readers who are sophisticated and curious about current times, the response to Shinseinen’s promotion of tantei shosetsu in the 1920s was overwhelming" (Omori). Shinseinen's sponsoring of the genre welcomed many of the most popular Japanese detective fiction writers of the time, including giving Edogawa Ranpo his debut in 1923, Yokomizo Seishi his in 1921, and Yumeno Kyushu his in 1924. Shinseinen even made a distinct effort to hire and promote female writers, interested in the differing points of view they would offer. It is interesting to note that in Japan women were welcomed into the genre of Japanese detective fiction, despite many women dropping out of sight after a few successful works. This disappearance was less because of prejudice and more because of the many obstacles that stood in the way of Japanese women becoming and remaining authors: the struggle to become self sufficient, the struggle to balance the life of a wife and a writer, and the fierce competition between other women (Seaman). Despite these struggles Shinseinen debuted and promoted many female writers as well as male, and the magazine became a place that heralded the beginning of many great careers. Among the many short stories and serials the magazine welcomed, gorgeous illustrations graced the pages and thoughtful criticisms of the literature within were printed, some of the only literary criticisms we have of the genre. Shinseinen and the tantei shosetsu it cultivated within its pages nurtured "a critical discourse that shows how this modern genre adopted a rigorously critical view towards just about everything, including self-reflexive attitudes toward the very act of literary production" (Seaman). Without Shinseinen Magazine, the genre of tantei shosetsu probably would have never reached the heights the magazine pushed it to. It truly is one of the most major contributors to have ever graced the genre.
1, Omori, Kyoko. “Detecting Japanese vernacular modernism: Shinseinen magazine and the development of the tantei shôsetsu genre, 1920-1931.” PhD diss., 2003. 2. Seaman, Amanda. “Cherchez la femme: detective fiction, women, and japan.” Japan Forum, 2004.
Detective fiction in Japan was deeply influenced by women. While this may be surprising, looking at the lack of female detective fiction writers operating during the genre's heyday, without the women of Japan the popularity of the genre would never have grown as it did. During the time of World War II, the women of Japan were eagerly reading and sharing the genre, despite its decline during this time. Many male authors (including Edogawa Ranpo himself in his personal essays) reminisce about their mothers reading stories of mystery and imagination to them growing up, sharing with them their favorite magazines and writers. Trapped in a world that felt unstable, women reached for detective fiction for the same reason most of the rest of the world does: it was a place where everything was only a mystery to be solved, a world where in the end everything is put to rights and the villains are brought to justice. The dedication of these World War II era women to the flailing genre resulted in a whole generation of young men growing up with a love of mystery in their hearts. By the time Shinseinen Magazine appeared in 1920, these young men were ready and willing to reconnect with the stories they'd treasured in their youth (Kawana). Despite the love women of the era had of detective fiction, we see few strong, popular female Japanese detective fiction writers until the 1970s and 1980s. The female detective fiction of Japanese women in the beginning age of Shinseinen was welcomed, but unrealistic. Women struggled to balance the life of a writer with the life of a woman in those times, balancing home and family and struggling to be able to support themselves. Even when these women broke past these barriers, their writings seemed to have a distinctly masculine feel, some even writing under the names of men. Scholars believe this is not because female detective fiction writers were afraid to write from a more womanly point of view, in fact, this womanly point of view was widely hungered for! The women of detective fiction wrote like men to prove they could, that their work was valuable not because they were women, but because they were skilled in general. In writing like men, Japanese female detective fiction writers found more empowerment than writing as women (Kawana). We don't see a change in this trend in female Japanese detective fiction until the genre shifted in the Americas and Europe. As translations moved across the ocean in which female crime-solvers were depicted as strong and as clever as their male counterparts, a change started to sweep across the genre in Japan. Female writers began to emerge as powers in the genre, notably Natsuo Kirino, who wrote the first "hard-boiled female detective like those of Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky: the strong-willed and independent private detective Murano Miro" (Seaman). These new strong female writers who appeared after the end of World War II embraced the genre in an entirely new way. They brought fresh life to the genre by looking at the world in a completely new point of view, writing less about villains and more about the wrongs of society both in the world and in Japan. By depicting the world around them in these terms, they used detective fiction as an avenue for social criticism and commentary, focusing on many disparate issues as well as issues that effected them as women. This new way of interacting with the genre created a massive boom in Japanese female detective fiction, resulting in women winning many literary awards that had never seen a female recipient before, changing the shape of Japanese detective fiction forever (Seaman).
1. Kawana, Sari. “The price of pulp: women, detective fiction, and the profession of writing in inter-war Japan.” Japan Forum, 2004. 2. Seaman, Amanda. “Cherchez la femme: detective fiction, women, and japan.” Japan Forum, 2004.