Exploring ecocriticism through Japanese disaster narratives
PhD student Emily Bush is exploring ecocritical perspectives in media about historical Japanese disasters.
Emily Bush’s PhD combines her passions: Japanese studies, cultural criticism of media, and the environment.
Her research focuses on fiction produced in response to real Japanese disasters – particularly how those disasters affected the natural world: non-human beings and the environment as well as humans.
“When I tell people that I research ecocritical perspectives on Japanese disaster narratives, they always ask if I’m looking at Godzilla,” she laughs.
“That’s the one that everyone in the Western world knows! But it doesn’t quite fit within my subject area.
“I’m interested in three specific disasters – the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake, the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami – also known as 3/11 – which led to the nuclear meltdowns of several reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.
“They are well-known, high-profile disasters, so there are a lot of literary, film, and video game responses to them.
“You might not think that stories about earthquakes adopt a perspective that lends itself to ecocritical analysis. But one of the reasons I wanted to do this research is because I’m interested in how disasters make the creators of these narratives reassess their beliefs.
“Most disaster narratives focus on the human experience. When it comes to non-humans – animals, plants, environmental features like rivers – they’re not always part of those narratives, they aren’t always discussed. So I want to study what happens when they are part of the story, and to examine the kind of reconsiderations that people have. Because non-humans are affected by disasters just as much as humans are,” she concludes. “They have intrinsic value as living beings, not just as tools or resources for humans.”
Emily’s work is co-supervised by Honorary Professor in Japanese Studies, Dr Christopher Hood, who notes the significance of Emily's fresh perspective: “I have been studying disasters, particularly in relation to Japan, for many years, and have found that most studies focus on the human element – Emily’s research is so important and refreshing as it considers the non-human element.”
Emily completed a BA (Hons) in Japanese Studies with Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University.
“I wanted to study these subjects because I love Japanese literature – that’s one of the main reasons I studied the Japanese language in the first place.”
Her interest in ecocriticism came later: “I did my Master’s at the University of Bristol, where I studied comparative literatures and cultures. They were running a new module, ‘Literature and the Environment’, which I was very lucky to get onto. That’s when I realised that I could combine the study of literature with environmental concerns, which is something I’m also passionate about.
“I started looking at literary responses to 3/11 and how authors reconsidered life after the disaster. And afterwards, when I wanted to do a PhD, I decided to include film and video games as well as literature – I want to contribute to broadening the field of ecocriticism. It’s become more than just ‘nature writing in literature’.
“So my specific definition of ecocriticism includes film and video games as cultural products, as well as a more explicit concern with environmental crises and a focus on the non-human in narratives,” Emily says. “And up until now, a lot of ecocritical work has been Western discussions among English-speaking academics, so I wanted to bring Japanese perspectives into that as well.”
Emily’s PhD research is funded through a scholarship from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, which was founded in 1983 to promote ‘a mutual appreciation and understanding of each other’s culture, society, and achievements’ between the UK and Japan. The Foundation funds up to 30 postgraduate studentships per year to support innovative research in Japanese Studies in the UK.
Ecocriticism is broadly defined as the study of the relationship between the human and the non-human.
It is an interdisciplinary field, combining literary and cultural criticism with earth sciences and ecology.
“Quite a lot of disaster narratives focus on the human, so when creators discuss non-humans or the environment, I get to analyse all these amazing ideas about what disasters mean for non-humans, or the environment.
“There are two narratives in particular, both about 3/11, that illustrate my interest in ecocritical perspectives: 馬たちよ、それでも光は無垢で Umatachi yo, soredemo hikari wa muku de (Horses, Horses, In the End the Light Remains Pure), by Furukawa Hideo, focuses on how the horses of the region were affected by the earthquake and tsunami. The second, 聖地 Cs Seichi Cs (Sacred Cesium Ground) by Kimura Yūsuke, tells the story of the cows who were left behind at Fukushima when the evacuation order was put in place.
“Both narratives give their non-human characters a lot of agency. The protagonists are human, but the non-humans aren’t just observed – they are also the observer, they have agency and emotion in the narrative, and it’s fascinating to see this set against other stories that focus on the human experience of disaster.”
Different media also offer a variety of ways to experience reactions to disaster in fiction, which is why Emily is including film and video games alongside literature in her thesis.
“Literature is very introspective,” Emily says, “and usually dwells on one person’s perspective, or a limited number of them. Films, however, can show exactly what the disaster was like for those who experienced it, in a way that literature can’t do quite so effectively – they can show the scale of the destruction.
“Video games are really interesting,” she says, “because they’re immersive: the player has to participate in order to move the character forward, to interact in what’s going on. There’s a fascinating game inspired by the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, Disaster Report, that was created because the developer wanted people to experience what it was like to go through an earthquake situation. So, for example, the player character has to find water, traverse obstacles, and escape the earthquake zone.
“Games often employ the post-apocalypse in order to affect gameplay – but what decisions have the developers made to allow this to be portrayed in video games? What do they make the player do?
“I’m looking at disaster narratives specifically to understand how disasters change people’s opinion of the environment and non-humans, so bringing games into ecocriticism is a great opportunity to see how the change of medium affects the narrative and the audience experience.
“I’d love to see if video games change how people respond in real life to disasters,” Emily adds. “I don’t have room in my PhD to do this, but it would be great to look into in the future. What if you had a virtual reality experience of an earthquake, for example, that ran you through how to react – would that translate to how people respond in real life?”
The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation
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“There’s a commonly held perspective among the Japanese that because they experience so many disasters, and they’ve had to rebuild their cities so many times, there’s this greater appreciation for the impermanence of things.
“There are several concepts that reflect this perspective,” Emily says. “For example, 無常 ‘mujō’ means ‘impermanence’, and is best illustrated by the custom of 花見 hanami. Hanami means ‘flower viewing’, to enjoy the transient beauty of flowers, and it is most typically associated with cherry blossom trees. Cherry blossoms, or sakura, are so popular because they only last for a couple of weeks, and then you have to wait another year to see it again. Nothing is forever, and there is a beauty in that.
“And 物の哀れ mono no aware is a related concept for the impermanence of things and a sadness at their passing, but also a recognition of the beauty in that sadness. I am interested to see whether these concepts are present in disaster narratives, and what they might mean for living after disaster.”
These are all concepts Emily is exploring in her research, where she focuses on the juxtaposition of human and non-human perspectives in stories about real disasters.
One of the texts Emily is focusing on is Summer Flowers by Hara Tamiki, or 夏の花 Natsu no hana in Japanese. The short story chronicles Hara’s autobiographical experience of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.
Summer Flowers centres the experience of Hiroshima and its citizens, but the non-human representation throughout is telling. The story begins before the bombing, with Hara leaving flowers at his wife’s grave. He writes of not knowing the flowers’ names, but seeing their “yellow petals and rustic beauty”, “just like a summer flower”. The image gives the story its title, invoking a sense of serenity and purity before the bomb falls. The flowers are never mentioned again, but Hara writes of the bomb’s devastation on Hiroshima, its people, and on trees and bamboo groves.
Hara dwells on a large maple tree, split in half, writing that that tree had been the subject of many of his reveries as a boy. Seeing it so damaged prompts him to think that his hometown has “lost its gentle nature”, feeling instead like a “collection of cruel inorganic objects”. The “yellow petals and rustic beauty” are gone.
“I am looking at the interplay in how humans and non-humans were affected by the disaster,” says Emily. “The story doesn’t just illustrate that non-humans were devastated by the destruction, but that their destruction affected people in turn.”
被爆樹木 Hibaku jumoku, often translated in English as ‘A-bomb trees’ or ‘survivor trees’, are a key example of how the fate of non-human living beings affect human survivors of disasters. They are the trees that survived the bombings, growing back when nobody anticipated that they would survive. It was believed by many that nothing would grow in Hiroshima and Nagasaki for decades after the bombs, so when hibaku jumoku began to bud, they gave people hope that Hiroshima and Nagasaki could be rebuilt.
“Hibaku jumoku dot Hiroshima and Nagasaki's city centres to this day,” Emily says. “They are marked by plaques that provide information about the species of the tree and how far it was from the hypocentre of the blast. Both Hara’s lamentation about the destroyed maple tree in his hometown and the hibaku jumoku demonstrate the impact that non-humans can have on humans, both through feelings of suffering and feelings of hope.
“This aligns with the ecocritical argument that the human / nature dualism should be challenged,” Emily says, “because both humans and non-humans are impacted by disasters and by each other. This illustrates the idea of the interconnectedness of everything that underpins current definitions of ‘nature’.”
2025 marked 80 years since the end of World War II.
Germany surrendered on 8 May 1945, but the war continued in the East: the Empire of Japan, alongside Germany and Italy, fought the Allied powers for control of territories in Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Japan and the Republic of China had been at war since 1937.
The Pacific War ended in August 1945. The United States, United Kingdom, and Republic of China demanded Japan’s unconditional surrender on 26 July 2025:
“We call upon the government of Japan to proclaim now the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces, and to provide proper and adequate assurances of their good faith in such action. The alternative for Japan is prompt and utter destruction.”
On 6 August 1945, the United States dropped a plutonium bomb on Hiroshima. Two-thirds of the city was destroyed on detonation, and an estimated 70,000 people died immediately or shortly after the bomb dropped. The mushroom cloud generated by the explosion rose 12 kilometres into the air, and was visible from 400 miles away. By the end of the year, a further 70,000 people had died from radiation sickness, bringing the death toll up to 55% of the Hiroshima’s total population.
On 9 August 1945, the Soviet Union invaded Japanese territory in Mongolia and Korea, and the United States dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki. An estimated 40,000 people were killed outright or shortly after detonation. By the end of 1945, a further 30,000 people had died as a result of the bomb and the radiation sickness that followed. 40% of the city’s buildings were completely destroyed or severely damaged in the explosion.
The Empire of Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945, ending World War II.
15 August is called ‘Victory over Japan Day’ (VJ Day) in the United Kingdom, and ‘The Day for Mourning of War Dead and Praying for Peace’, or 戦没者を追悼し平和を祈念する日, in Japan.
The 1945 bombings remain the only time that atomic weapons have been used in war.
The Japan Foundation Endowment Committee and Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation funded Emily’s second period of field research in November 2024.
Emily interviewed Green Legacy Hiroshima, an organisation who help to share survivor trees from Hiroshima.
“Green Legacy Hiroshima help to disseminate survivor trees all across the world, so that people can grow those trees in different countries,” Emily says. Created in 2011 by two friends, Nassrine Azimi and Tomoko Watanabe, the Green Legacy Hiroshima Initiative shares worldwide the double message of caution and hope that the unique survivor trees of Hiroshima represent: they recall the dangers of arms of mass destruction and the sacred character of mankind and the resilience of nature they represent.
Currently, seeds and saplings from the A-bombed trees are growing in 40 countries – a sustained, long-term campaign – joining other efforts for a nuclear-free and more ecological planet. “They want the campaign to last for a thousand years,” Emily notes.
“The Initiative relates to my research because I want to highlight the ways in which non-humans, such as trees, are just as affected by disasters as humans, and that humans can draw hope from and be supported by non-humans,” Emily says.
“After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was believed that nothing would grow in either city for 70 years. However, when hibaku jumoku began to grow again, people know that the cities could be rebuilt. At the 80th anniversary of the bombings in 2025, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thriving – and so are the survivor trees.”
Nassrine Azimi, co-founder of Green Legacy Hiroshima, shares: “I feel all witness trees, they tell the story of humanity in the best way. I mean, if we know how to listen. And we go out of our way to find really expensive ways to build monuments and platforms of peace. These trees really, for so little, they can tell an ongoing story in so many different ways.”
Similarly to Green Legacy Hiroshima, the Nagasaki Kusunoki Project preserves and protects the hibaku jumoku of Nagasaki.
Emily submitted a photograph of a survivor tree to the Doctoral Academy’s Images of Research Competition 2024.
In her words:
This tree stands in the grounds of Hiroshima Castle and was approximately 935m from the hypocentre of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
My research examines Japanese disaster museums and disaster narratives from an ecocritical perspective. I investigate how nonhumans and the environment are portrayed, whether these portrayals are negative or positive, and how these portrayals might help us to understand how we can work together with nonhumans and the environment to live with and after disasters.
I feel that this photograph encapsulates my research because people believed that nothing would grow in Hiroshima for decades after the atomic bombing. However, when hibaku jumoku began budding, people took hope from this that Hiroshima could be rebuilt.
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Funding
Emily’s research is funded by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, which encourages cultural exchange between Japan and the UK. It was founded by The Nippon Foundation in 1985 to “promote among the people of both countries, in a global context, a mutual knowledge, understanding and appreciation of each other’s culture, society, and achievements”.
The Foundation supports work in a wide range of fields, including the arts, humanities, Japanese language, medicine, science, the environment, sports, and youth education. Its sister organisations include Fondation Franco-Japonaise Sasakawa and the Scandinavia-Japan Sasakawa Foundation.
Emily’s first field trip, in March 2024, was funded by the Lady Marks Charitable Trust, who promote the learning and advancement of education in the subjects of Japanese and Japan.
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Emily’s work is supervised by:
