Toriyama Sekien och hans arv : En analys av Toriyama Sekiens yōkai kataloger, deras kawaii-estetik och Sekiens inflytande på det japanska folkets föreställningsvärld

Sammanfattning: In this essay, I study Toriyama Sekien’s yōkai (supernatural beings) catalogues and undertake a diachronic examination surrounding Sekien's imprint on his contemporaries and modern times, striving to highlight the aesthetic dimension that adds to the popularity of yōkai today. Through an image analysis based on a modified version of Roman Jakobson's communication model and a diachronic examination of Sekien’s influence on the imagination of the Japanese people, I have investigated how and why Sekien chose to depict yōkai in his catalogues as kawaii (cute). The questions that have driven my study are as follows:    1. Why does Toriyama Sekien kawaii use aesthetic codes in his four catalogues?    2. In what ways have Toriyama Sekien's catalogues influenced the Japanese people's imagination and world view?    The study is anchored in cute studies theories, and with the theory Displacement of Meaning, I have identified possible answers to how Sekien has influenced the Japanese people's imagination: (1) kawaii aesthetic codes are found in Toriyama Sekien's work, because Sekien tried to make his creations as attractive as possible. To accomplish this, he used aesthetic elements which cute studies theories have found control what we perceive as kawaii and thus attractive. (2) Toriyama Sekien demystified the supernatural, took it out of context and allowed Japanese people to take the supernatural out of its traditional setting. This paved the way for yōkai as consumer items and (3) allowed modern creators to fill the yōkai (consumer items) with nostalgia and reintroduce them as symbols of a lost and idealized past.