also highlights a shift away from visual and media an-thropological practices that present media technologies asoutwardly communicative, to the use of media and digitaltechnologies by anthropologists interested in collabora-tion with communities that is inward looking andprotective. Whether the Sawau Project can maintain itsmomentum and extratextual significance within thecommunityFdependent on factors such as the passing ofFiji’s Traditional Knowledge and Expressions of CultureBill, an unstable national and tribal politics, dynamictribal politics, ongoing technology maintenance, andtraining, continued funding, and the sheer will of localproject stewardsFwill remain to be seen.

Preaching from Pictures: A Japanese Mandala

Produced and directed by David W. Plath, 2006, 119minutes, color. Distributed by the Asian EducationalMedia Service, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 805 West Pennsylvania Avenue, MC-025,Urbana, IL 61801, http://www.aems.uiuc.edu

Yeoh Seng GuanMonash University Sunway Campus

Preaching from Pictures succeeds in acquainting theviewer with an unfamiliar place, milieu, and archaicvisual didactic technique. Using the intricately drawncontemporary Buddhist painting of the Kumano KanjinJikkai Mandala (‘‘Mandala of the Ten Worlds’’) asthe focal piece of discussion, it interweaves snippetsof the social and religious worlds of the residents ofEdo (the former name for Tokyo), Japan’s early moderncapital city. Edo City was the seat of power for the To-kugawa Shogunate from the early 17th to the mid–19thcenturies, and preeminent among some two hundred andfifty castle-towns built by daimyos and samurais duringan extended period of peace. With a population ap-proaching 1 million, it was probably the largest city inthe world of its time.

Great strides in material prosperity not only saw therise of urban social classes, but also a flourishing of no-vel modes of religious expressions. In Edo, we are told,‘‘all of Japan was replicated’’ in terms of religiouspilgrimage practices. For instance, the notion of utsushi(‘‘mirror’’ or ‘‘reflection’’), where miniature replicas ofdistant Buddhist and Shinto shrines or structures werebuilt, enabled pilgrims to metaphorically worship MountFuji without having to leave Edo.

The Tokugawa Shogunate commissioned panoramicsilk screens picturing the history, gaiety, and splendor ofEdo’s hierarchical social fabric. But in contrast to theShogun paintings’ this-worldly focus, the Jikkai Mand-

ala refracts the arc of life through the Buddhist lens ofkarma, linking the here and now with the afterlives tocome. This is visually illustrated by the painting’s pow-erful symmetry in its depiction of time and space.Nonetheless, these pictures were mute, and required ex-plication by itinerant preachers, which in this case werebikunis (nuns) from the Kumano sect. They preached andrecited at roadsides and various public spaces of Edo,and even beyond the city boundaries into the country-side. In essence, the Jikkai Mandala drew ideas fromTendai Buddhism and Shugend mountain ascetics. Itbeckoned viewers and listeners to observe their minds(kanjin) by contemplating on the ten realms (jikkai) ofexistence, which include six courses of rebirths and fourlevels of enlightenment.

Aptly, the centerpiece of Preaching from Pictures isa fascinating exegetical tour of the many human figures,bodhisattvas, demons, and other sentient beings thatpopulate the Jikkai Mandala by an unseen female nar-rator. We are told that a central motif linking all of thesedisparate entities is kokoro (‘‘compassion’’)Fa heartwith a right attitude will generate right actions, whichwill avoid the sufferings of the underworld. Drawingfrom Confucianist elements, the Jikkai Mandala also in-corporates filial piety into its visual narrative of rightaction. The account is juxtaposed with short commen-taries on daily life in Edo. In keeping with the sober toneof the Jikkai Mandala, the narration is terse and reflec-tive, and is accompanied by minimalist Japanese musicand Buddhist chants. This portion of the DVD lastsaround 37 minutes.

A more substantial portion is found in an interactivesection that is organized along three interlinked clusters.The first is a series of dyadic conversations (approxi-mately 80 minutes) with American experts on Japanesehistory and Japanese religions. These are organized un-der the key headings of ‘‘religious practices,’’ ‘‘karma,’’‘‘life cycles,’’ ‘‘Edo’s energy,’’ ‘‘filial piety,’’ ‘‘pilgrim-age,’’ and ‘‘bikuni.’’ Each conversation is around 11minutes. Under this cluster, a contemporary 17th-cen-tury text taken from a puppet drama known as the‘‘Etoki sermon’’ is read aloud in Japanese, enhancingthe aural sense of the Mandala’s visual power.

Another section allows for a closer look at the im-ages of maps, scripts, paintings, and photographs thathave been editorially cut into the conversations. Finally,all the key terms used in the conversations are listed andexplained in a glossary cluster. This arrangement, in ef-fect, allows easy intertextual navigation into portionsthat may interest the viewer.

Using the Jikkai Mandala for preaching and prose-lytization purposes by kumano nuns fell out of fashionin the 1920s. We are told that one of the contributing

92 VISUAL ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW Volume 25 Number 1 Spring 2009

factors to its demise is the advent of talking and movingpictures on big white screens. It is somewhat ironic thatPreaching from Pictures draws from the powers of ‘‘newmedia’’ to reach a wider and uninitiated audience.Moreover, unlike the genre of an ethnographic docu-mentary, which facilitates easier engagement, thesubject matter of Japanese religious art is potentiallydistant to its viewers. Given that the documentary’s keyplayers are static and mute characters etched onto anarchaic painting, the task of bringing these characters tolife is more daunting, requiring not only the knowledgeand enthusiasm of scholars, but also the communicativeskills of the production team. Considering that the doc-umentary is not commercially produced, Preaching fromPictures performs admirably well on all counts.

Thus, what it may lack in terms of pace, cinematicfinesse, and expensive reenactments in commercialtelevision documentaries such as one finds on The His-tory Channel or Discovery, the video makes up in ascholarly and insightful exegesis of a visual aestheticslong since out of vogue. By the same token, because ofthe nature of the subject matter and tone of delivery, adegree of perseverance is demanded of the viewer in or-der to derive Preaching from Pictures’ full didactic value.

As an aid to classroom teaching the documentary isinvaluable. Its interactive section is especially suited toenhancing the viewer’s grasp of the intersecting multipleworldviews that inform the Jikkai Mandala’s cosmolog-ical politics. Thus, although it is not explicitly stated,Preaching from Pictures’ subject matter resonates withvisual anthropology insofar as it not only unpacks thevisual aesthetics of Japanese Buddhism, but also pro-vides empirical evidence for theorizing about thehistorical and cultural specificities of the visual.

Preaching from Pictures would be of interest not onlyto students of Japanese religion and religious studies, butalso to students interested in understanding imagery’ssocial power to reimagine and reorder human lives.

On Another Playground: Japanese PopularCulture in America

Produced by Keiko Ikeda; DVD designed and edited byDavid Plath, 2008, 160 minutes, color. Distributed by theAsian Educational Media Service, University of Illinoisat Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, http://www.aems.uiuc.edu

Richard ChalfenCenter on Media and Child Health

Materials for this DVD come from a 2003 conferenceentitled ‘‘Globalization and Japanese Culture.’’ This

two-day gathering was hosted by the American StudiesProgram at Doshisha University in Kyoto and offeredin conjunction with an exhibition, ‘‘Japan in the UnitedStates.’’ Keiko Ikeda, the conference’s convener andfilm’s inspiration, wants to help Japanese people under-stand better how America reacts to Japanese popularculture and the fate of Japanese things once they crossthe Pacific. In her introductory comments, ‘‘EastwardAcross the Pacific Ocean,’’ she emphasizes the need totake a more careful look at how ‘‘people meet in the newinternational playground’’ of popular culture.

The video presents three keynote lectures. Eachspeaker is a well-respected American anthropologistspecializing in Japanese society and culture. ChristineYano, Theodore Bestor, and William Kelly each take alook at how Japanese pop culture has come to infuseitself within mainstream American culture, especiallywithin entertainment scapes. Yano (University of Haw-ai’i) speaks on ‘‘Kitty Does Dallas: The Marketing andConsumption of Japanese Cute,’’ in which she elaborateson the polysemantic features of the internationally pop-ular Hello Kitty image and paraphernalia. Bestor(Harvard) reviews the popularity of sushi in the contextof food culture in his talk: ‘‘Sushi and the Westernizationof Japan.’’ Finally, Kelly (Yale) tackles the internationalpopularity of professional baseball in ‘‘Nomo, Ichiro,Matsui: Japan Enters the Major Leagues.’’ Each lectureis roughly 50 minutes and organized into 7–9 sectionsfor quick reference. I would have enjoyed one lastbookend section, perhaps by Keiko Ikeda, that couldhave offered a brief overview summary or even a seriesof questions for future study.

Given the video’s theme and topics, this DVD makesan important contribution to central contemporary an-thropological debates on globalization. The lectures arevery clear. They do a wonderful job of lending images todiscussions on problematic cross-cultural translations aswell as the range of meanings given to the marketingand consumption of products and ideas within a capi-talist context. Each lecture draws upon ArjunAppadurai’s theory of ‘‘scapes’’ as central to realizing aworld made up of multidimensional flows of informa-tion and influence, and to understand the dynamics ofglobalization theory and mechanics (Modernity at Large:Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, University ofMinnesota Press, 1996). Each presentation offers ampleand valuable historical context for changes seen in theshape, appearance, and use of products. All three lectur-ers offer insightful and provocative views of popculture’s dynamic impact on Japan and the UnitedStates, illustrating that its international flows (here toys,food, and sports) are likely to cause some change in boththe United States and JapanFbut not as the terms

Film Reviews 93