Description
Published in 1931, this is a special photographic issue of Weekly Asahi documenting the Manchurian Incident as it was actually unfolding.
This is not a history book produced decades later. It is an original piece of Japanese news media created when the Manchurian Incident was still current news for the Japanese public.
The Manchurian Incident began in September 1931 following the Mukden Incident and the subsequent expansion of military operations by Japan’s Kwantung Army. These events led to the establishment of Manchukuo in 1932 and became an important turning point in Japan’s expansion on the Asian continent before the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War.
The magazine contains numerous period photographs showing Kwantung Army and Imperial Japanese Army soldiers, machine guns and rifles, military aircraft, military trains, occupied cities and facilities, and other scenes from Manchuria. The cover itself shows Japanese soldiers standing in front of the Kwantung Army Headquarters.
One reason this publication is particularly interesting today is its special emergency-issue format.
Unlike a normal book intended to remain in circulation for years, special magazine issues like this were produced to report major events while they were happening. Newspapers and magazines were essentially disposable media, frequently discarded after being read. Surviving examples also had to pass through the following decades of war, paper shortages, air raids, and postwar upheaval.
For that reason, finding an original 1931 photographic news magazine still surviving as a complete physical object nearly 95 years later is increasingly uncommon.
Perhaps the most fascinating part, however, is not simply the military photographs.
Today we know what followed the Manchurian Incident. The Japanese reader opening this magazine in 1931 did not.
The selection of photographs, captions, and presentation therefore offers a window into how the Japanese public was shown the conflict and how military expansion was presented through contemporary mass media.
In that sense, this is both a photographic record of military events and a surviving artifact of Japanese wartime-era journalism, public opinion, and propaganda.
An interesting original historical source for collectors and researchers of the Kwantung Army, Imperial Japanese Army, Manchuria, military aviation, war photography, propaganda, and pre-WWII East Asian history.
Own a Piece of History.
This is not a history book produced decades later. It is an original piece of Japanese news media created when the Manchurian Incident was still current news for the Japanese public.
The Manchurian Incident began in September 1931 following the Mukden Incident and the subsequent expansion of military operations by Japan’s Kwantung Army. These events led to the establishment of Manchukuo in 1932 and became an important turning point in Japan’s expansion on the Asian continent before the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Pacific War.
The magazine contains numerous period photographs showing Kwantung Army and Imperial Japanese Army soldiers, machine guns and rifles, military aircraft, military trains, occupied cities and facilities, and other scenes from Manchuria. The cover itself shows Japanese soldiers standing in front of the Kwantung Army Headquarters.
One reason this publication is particularly interesting today is its special emergency-issue format.
Unlike a normal book intended to remain in circulation for years, special magazine issues like this were produced to report major events while they were happening. Newspapers and magazines were essentially disposable media, frequently discarded after being read. Surviving examples also had to pass through the following decades of war, paper shortages, air raids, and postwar upheaval.
For that reason, finding an original 1931 photographic news magazine still surviving as a complete physical object nearly 95 years later is increasingly uncommon.
Perhaps the most fascinating part, however, is not simply the military photographs.
Today we know what followed the Manchurian Incident. The Japanese reader opening this magazine in 1931 did not.
The selection of photographs, captions, and presentation therefore offers a window into how the Japanese public was shown the conflict and how military expansion was presented through contemporary mass media.
In that sense, this is both a photographic record of military events and a surviving artifact of Japanese wartime-era journalism, public opinion, and propaganda.
An interesting original historical source for collectors and researchers of the Kwantung Army, Imperial Japanese Army, Manchuria, military aviation, war photography, propaganda, and pre-WWII East Asian history.
Own a Piece of History.