Mizuho Hashisako

Discourse emphasizing “natural childbirth,” emerging at first in the 1980s in Britain, was welcomed to Japan, too, attracting high attention. The discourse in Japan has changed with the times and has gradually lost momentum, but is recently paid attention to again, which is shown by the fact that childbirth assisted by midwife has become more preferable than before. This kind of discussion tends to keep a distance from feminism although it gives holiness to childbirth, differently from trends overseas in which the discourse has a high affinity to feminism as well as spirituality.

By concentrating on the process of making something by hand, this paper considers what kind of value handmade “charm-goods” had for girls in Japan's 1980s boom of “fortune-telling & charm.” It has been said that “charm-goods” in the 1980s “magic-religious popular culture” gave girls their own sense of identity with a world-view that was worthy of them, but with “charm-goods” the fact that they were made by hand has been regarded as being important. This second element seems to have demanded from girls a more active commitment to “fortune-telling and charm.” Through analyzing the articles of “My Birthday,” which is well known as a representative “fortune-telling & charm” magazine for girls, I clarify that “charm-goods” and their being made by hand helped girls to get involved in and improve their real-life communication skills.

This paper aims to make clear that "fortune-telling & charms," being popular among young girls in the 1980's in Japan, helped them to cope effectively with conflicts often taking place in establishing their relationships, especially in schools. For this purpose, I have analyzed articles in My Birthday, a representative fortune-telling magazine. It was said that "fortune-telling & charms," a part of "magic-religious popular culture" in the 80's, had worked as a map to help girls understand their standpoint and relationship with others, and My Birthday was taken in the same way. But as a result of analyzing in detail the articles in My Birthday, it has been found out that "fortune-telling & charms" have not only given girls a "map" as mentioned above, but also helped them to convert school into a place for training to construct relationships, by giving a mystic meaning to the process of adopting. It is also clear that My Birthday helped girls to create a loose community of their own.

"SPICON" (Spiritual Convention) is one of the most famous events in recent spiritual boom in Japan. In "SPICON" many people including both sponsors and customers enjoy approaching the sacredness through buying things and taking part in sessions which are related to spirituality. Although approaching the sacredness is often accompanied with danger, they seem to devote themselves to "dedication" and yet keep themselves from any trouble and violence. How can they do so? In this paper I intend to verify, by taking "SPICON" as an example, that a new type of safety device for approaching the sacredness is appearing in Japanese society.