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Kingu (magazine)

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Kingu
Cover page of the 1943 edition
CategoriesGeneral interest
FrequencyMonthly
FounderSeiji Noma
FoundedDecember 1924
First issueJanuary 1925
Final issue1957
CompanyKodansha
CountryJapan
Based inTokyo
LanguageJapanese
OCLC835840343

Kingu (キング, King) was a monthly general interest and entertainment magazine published in Tokyo, Japan, which existed between December 1924 and January 1957. It was the first popular best-selling Japanese magazine.[1] It was also one of two most significant magazines in mid-twentieth century Japan, the other one being Ie no Hikari.[2]

History and profile

Kingu was established in December 1924.[3][4] The first issue appeared in January 1925.[5][6] It was the eighth magazine launched by Seiji Noma, the founder of the publishing company Kodansha.[7] It was modeled on Saturday Evening Post[8] and Ladies' Home Journal.[4] The magazine was published by Kodansha[9] on a monthly basis.[7]

Kingu covered moralistic stories and featured articles about samurai heroics, sentimental romance and melodramatic events.[10] The magazine was read by urban and rural men and women.[5] Major contributors included Yoshikawa Eiji, Kikuchi Kan, Maki Itsuma, Funabashi Seiichi, Tateno Nobuyuki, and Tsunoda Kikuo.[6] It ended publication in 1957.[5]

Circulation

Both Kingu and Ie no Hikari were the first Japanese million-seller magazines.[11] Kingu sold one million copies in its first year, 1925.[5] In 1928 the monthly circulation of the magazine was nearly 300,000 copies.[12] The same year its total circulation was 1.4 million copies.[13] Kingu sold more than a million copies again in 1927.[14]

Legacy

In 2019 Amy Bliss Marshall published a book named Magazines and the Making of Mass Culture in Japan in which she analyzed Kingu and Ie no Hikari to demonstrate the birth of mass culture in Japan.[15] The author argues that these two magazines were instrumental in the establishment of mass culture and in the socialization in Japan.[15]

The name of Kodansha's music subsidiary King Records was actually based from the magazine.

References

  1. ^ Barbara Sato (2003). The New Japanese Woman: Modernity, Media, and Women in Interwar Japan. Durham, NC; London: Duke University Press. p. 190. ISBN 0-8223-3044-X.
  2. ^ "Mass Culture in Interwar Japan". Dissertation Reviews. 11 February 2013. Archived from the original on 7 May 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  3. ^ Kazumi Ishii (August 2005). "Josei: A Magazine for the 'New Woman'". Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context (11).
  4. ^ a b Catherine Yoonah Bae (2008). All the girl's a stage: Representations of femininity and adolescence in Japanese girls' magazines, 1930s–1960s (PhD thesis). Stanford University. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-549-62286-4. ProQuest 304468205.
  5. ^ a b c d "Gender and Modernity in Colonial Korea". CSW Update Newsletter: 53. 2006. ISBN 978-0-549-71329-6.
  6. ^ a b "A Guide to Japanese References and Research Materials". University of Michigan. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  7. ^ a b Roichi Okabe (1987). "American public address in Japan: A case study in the introduction of American oratory through the Yuben". In Richard J. Jensen; John C. Hammerback (eds.). In Search of Justice: The Indiana Tradition in Speech Communication. Amsterdam: Rodopi. p. 38. ISBN 90-6203-968-5.
  8. ^ "Timeline of Modern Japan (1868-1945)". About Japan. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  9. ^ Louise Young (1999). Japan's Total Empire: Manchuria and the Culture of Wartime Imperialism. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA; London: University of California Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0-520-21934-2.
  10. ^ Mary L. Hanneman (2013). Japan faces the World, 1925-1952. London; New York: Routledge. p. 29. ISBN 978-1-317-87895-7.
  11. ^ Amy Bliss Marshall (October 2013). "Devouring Japan: Proposal" (PDF). University of Texas. Archived from the original (PDF) on 9 August 2016. Retrieved 17 September 2016.
  12. ^ John Clark (2000). "Indices of modernity". In Elise K. Tipton; John Clark (eds.). Being Modern in Japan: Culture and Society from the 1910s to the 1930s. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-8248-2360-3.
  13. ^ Sandra Wilson (Summer 2011). "Enthroning Hirohito: Culture and Nation in 1920s Japan". Journal of Japanese Studies. 37 (2): 289–323. doi:10.1353/jjs.2011.0060. JSTOR 41337678. S2CID 145523341.
  14. ^ Takiji Kobayashi (2013). The Crab Cannery Ship and Other Novels of Struggle. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press. p. 296. doi:10.1515/9780824837907. ISBN 9780824837907.
  15. ^ a b "Magazines and the Making of Mass Culture in Japan". University of Toronto Library. Archived from the original on 26 July 2020. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
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