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Images and Narratives of Law and Order in the Manga KOBAN

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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

While law and justice issues are well represented in the vast and diverse world of Japanese Manga, the medium’s predilection for fantasy tends to produce futuristic or overblown fiction far removed from everyday life. Fantastic treatments may also reflect relatively low awareness of legal matters in a society of low crime and litigation. One law and order institution that most people are familiar with, however, is the network of community police boxes that covers Japan, and this has spawned a gag-ridden yet somewhat more realistic genre of justice-related comics. This article focuses on Ishikawa Chika’s KOBAN, whose humour revolves around the contrasting personalities and petty squabbles of two cops in their dealings with mundane police work. The characters, plots and conversations are visually supported by juxtaposing the weaponry and equipment of law enforcement with childlike facial features and cute mascots, thereby constructing the police box as a halfway house between local neighbourliness and state bureaucracy.

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Notes

  1. Literally meaning ‘alternation’; the noun-verbs tōban (当番) and hiban (非番) are common terms for ‘on/off duty’.

  2. Long vowels are generally marked in romanised Japanese to distinguish them from words that would otherwise be homonyms, but Ishikawa follows the police in choosing koban (rather than kōban, kohban, kouban or kooban), while adding katakana syllabary incorporating vowel-lengthening above the title.

  3. Hereafter [1.1:1] or [2.2:2] for KOBAN vol, 1, episode 1, 交番 PB vol, 2, episode 2 etc. When referring to the whole series ‘KOBAN’ is used to cover both titles.

  4. KOBAN is in A5 and retails at ¥926; Kōban PB is B6 and retails at ¥680.

  5. E.g. Shum and Tranter [4] on neoliberal constraints in the Pokémon GO game, Tranter [5] on the crime-fighting boy robot in the manga Tetsuwan Atomu, or critic Furuya [6] on concepts of justice in the Stand Alone Complex and Arise anime spin-offs of the manga Kōkaku Kidōtai.

  6. This loanword (漫画) [‘entertaining drawing’ or ‘caricature’] first appeared in the Oxford English Dictionary in 1951. Our translations of selected titles in the notes and references are enclosed within square brackets. Dialogue extracts in the main text are also our own translations but are not parenthesised.

  7. Toba Sōjō Kakuyū (鳥羽 僧正覚猷), 1053–1140.

  8. ‘Red-book’ comics that added an affordable splash of colour to the usual monochrome.

  9. The kana transcription suggests wordplay on the current Heisei era and feelings of disbelief.

  10. Approximately 21,000 of a national force of 295,000 are female [33].

  11. Author’s notes appended to vol. 1, 2014.

  12. June, 2016 volume.

  13. Japanese employs a combination of kanji (ideographs characters borrowed from Chinese), two kana phonetic syllabaries (katakana and hiragana), and, increasingly, Roman letters (rōmaji). Most words can be written in kanji and all can be rendered phonetically in the other four scripts, but there is generally an agreed orthographic preference and variation from this may indicate some pragmatic intent.

  14. Signage in Japanese characters, sometimes alongside ‘Police Box’, is also common.

  15. The usual abbreviation for こちら葛飾区亀有公園前派出所 [‘This is the police box in front of Kameari Park in Katsushika Ward’].

  16. Loanwords from languages other than Chinese are generally written in katakana, but acronyms and abbreviations, such as ‘DVD’ and ‘tel’, usually remain in Roman script.

  17. Dir. Tsukamoto Renpei, 2008.

  18. An increase from 253,510 people in 2010 to 256,026 in 2013, against a decrease from 14,263 boxes in 2010 to 14,035 in 2013. The decline is most marked in rural areas, which are being hit hardest by depopulation.

  19. 치안센터. [‘Public order centers’] [43].

  20. Mentama Tsunagari Omawarisan [‘Connected Eye Cop’].

  21. As kōban duty is part of basic training it is common to find younger males posted at boxes supervised by an older colleague [46:36].

  22. Amae, touted influentially by Doi [52] as a key building block in Japanese society but debunked by others as essentialist generalisation.

  23. Japanese doors typically open outward or slide across.

  24. A low table with a heating element and quilt that keeps the lower half of the body warm.

  25. The armed capacity and vulnerability of community policing were headline news on June 16, 2019, when a man called an Osaka police box on the pretext of reporting a burglary, waited until officers had left to investigate, and then stabbed the sole policeman left manning the box and stole a gun.

  26. Found after the poet’s death in 1933, it begins 雨にも負けず, 風にも負けず, 雪にも, 夏の暑さにも負けぬ (Yielding neither to the rain nor wind, nor the snow, nor the summer heat).

  27. Published 2017.3.24 at https://www.youtube.com/watch/v=sBVFqFO-tJw.

  28. なれるカモ? やるシカない! [Narerukamo? Yarushikanai! Could you make it? Just give it a try!].

  29. 咎 in お咎めなし [‘to beat the rap’], 箝 in 箝口令を敷いた [‘gagged’] and 咄嗟 [‘off the top of one’s head’], all used in [2.1:1], are outside the jōyō kanji prescribed for compulsory education, for example.

  30. Massāji [‘massage’], meritto [‘merit’]; gacha and batan for the opening and slamming of doors;

  31. PB3:20.

  32. Speech acts in various registers frequently end with particles (助詞) such as na, ne, no, wa, yo or zo to convey emphasis, encouragement, solidarity etc.

  33. Tsuyokatta zo [You kept yourself together!], for example, rather than tsuyokatta ne.

  34. Parker [46] (2001:13).

  35. Ibid: 自動車警ら隊[jidōsha keira tai], when abbreviated to 自ら隊, could be misread as mizukaratai.

  36. ketsuaraiケツ洗い.

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  1. College of Economics, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan

    Richard Powell

  2. College of International Relations, Nihon University, Mishima, Japan

    Hideyuki Kumaki

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Powell, R., Kumaki, H. Images and Narratives of Law and Order in the Manga KOBAN. Int J Semiot Law 32, 895–921 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-019-09648-x

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