＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
my X’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多帳（@historia49）さん / X
When I was in junior high school, my father told me, “The National Diet Library has every book and magazine ever published in Japan, even manga.”
This left me with some simple questions: “Do they have even the most boring books? If the number of books keeps increasing, won’t they run out of space? Is there any point in having manga as well?”
Currently, Japanese anime is very popular overseas. Taro Aso, the Minister of Finance, is a fan of manga and animation, and they are said to be “a Japanese subculture (or pop culture) that we can be proud of around the world.” However, back then, they were considered “not very educational” for children to read or watch, and were seen as one or two levels lower than regular books.
Thanks to anime films by studios such as Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai, the cultural quality of anime has improved considerably, making it something that adults can also enjoy.
By the way, it was recently reported that “the National Diet Library has preserved the Ameba blogs of 42 people, including cultural figures and athletes active both in Japan and abroad, including Ichikawa Ebizo, Kobayashi Mao, Kondo Marie (tidying consultant), and Fukuhara Ai.”
I previously wrote an article titled “It’s strange that e-books are not allowed for book reports,” but now that public libraries stock not only paper books but also CDs, videos, and DVDs, I think it’s only natural that the National Diet Library has started to offer blog preservation, in keeping with the times.
1. Preservation of blogs by the National Diet Library
(1) History of preservation
Since 2002, the National Diet Library has been working on the Internet Archive Project (WARP), which collects and preserves the websites of public institutions. However, this is the first time that blogs will be targeted for collection among the websites to be preserved in the Web Archive (Internet Archive). (WARP October 2019 Special Feature)
Apparently it all started with a proposal from CyberAgent, Inc., the major IT company that runs the blog service Ameba.
It may also have been influenced by the fact that the blogs of Kobayashi Mao and Kondo Marie were preserved in the web archive collection of Stanford University’s East Asian Library in 2017 as “valuable records for future researchers and the general public.”
(2) The Significance of Preservation
Regarding the preservation of blogs, the National Diet Library states that “there is great significance in preserving and passing on to future generations, as materials that record real-life information in modern society.” In other words, they are materials that allow us to vividly understand, even 100 or 1000 years from now, “what people of that era thought, and what they did in their lives.”
From the Heian to the Kamakura periods, there were literary diaries such as “Tosa Nikki,” “Kagero Nikki,” “Murasaki Shikibu Nikki,” and “Sarashina Nikki,” as well as essays and musings such as “Tsurezuregusa” and “Hojoki.” In the Edo period, there were diaries by novelists such as Arai Hakuseki’s “Oritaku Shiba no Ki,” and from the Meiji period onwards, Nagai Kafu’s “Danchotei Nichijyo.” Would you say that this is a “modern version of a diary that is more in line with everyday life”?
However, while blogs are direct and vivid records and historical materials, they also tend to be wordy and unripe, or rather, half-baked. I am somewhat skeptical as to whether these blogs have the “significance to be passed down to future generations” that is comparable to the sophisticated diary literature, essays, and musings mentioned above.
(3) Criteria for selecting blogs to be preserved
This time, 42 bloggers were selected from “Ameba Blog” operated by CyberAgent, Inc., as this was a proposal from the company. In the future, we hope that appropriate selection criteria will be established, including blogs operated by other companies, and that valuable blogs will be selected and preserved fairly and impartially from the vast number of blogs that are a mixture of good and bad.
By the way, I think the reason why Kobayashi Mao was selected this time is not only because her blog was preserved in the web archive collection of the Stanford University East Asia Library mentioned above, but also because her strenuous battle with illness was widely reported in the media, eliciting sympathy and empathy.
So why was her husband, Ichikawa Ebizo, chosen? I didn’t know much about him personally, but since starting his blog in April 2013, he has posted an astonishing total of over 50,000 articles. He still updates his blog with the same frequency, sharing his daily life with his children and important events in his life.
In April 2014, he was recognized as the first “MVB (Most Valuable Blogger),” and won the Grand Prize at the “BLOG of the Year 2018” awards in February 2018.
It seems that these “achievements” were the reason why Ichikawa Ebizo was chosen.
This time, in addition to the celebrities mentioned above, a famous Ameba blogger was also selected. The blog is “Chui Mama-san” (now renamed “Ogyako”), who runs an interesting blog called “kosodateful everyday life” by an auntie raising a child. This is the first time I’ve heard of her.
Yoshikazu Ebisu’s manga-like illustrations and Osaka dialect writing make it seem like reading a manga. In the article dated October 3rd, he humorously writes about his surprise and joy at having his blog preserved in the National Diet Library.
2. What is the National Diet Library?
The National Diet Library is a library that serves the research and administration of the Diet members of Japan, as well as the Japanese people.
It is also the only legal deposit library in Japan that collects and preserves all publications published in Japan based on the legal deposit system.
The basis for its establishment is Article 130 of the Diet Law and Article 1 of the National Diet Library Law, which came into force in 1947.
The facilities include two central libraries: the National Diet Library Tokyo Main Branch (opened in 1948) in Tokyo, and the National Diet Library Kansai-kan in Seika, Kyoto (opened in 2002), as well as branch libraries such as the International Children’s Library (opened in 2000) and the Supreme Court Library (opened in 1949).
(1) History
Its predecessors were the “House of Peers Library” and the “House of Representatives Library” that were located in each House of the Imperial Diet under the Constitution of the Empire of Japan, and the “Imperial Library” that was attached to the Ministry of Education.
(2) Preserved books, magazines, etc.
The National Diet Library Law requires all government agencies, organizations, and individuals in Japan to deposit their publications in the National Diet Library.
Publications that are subject to deposit include books, pamphlets, periodicals (magazines, newspapers, yearbooks), sheet music, maps, microfilm materials, Braille materials, and packaged electronic publications such as CD-ROMs and DVDs (including music CDs and video games).
Based on this “legal deposit system,” the library collects all domestic publications and creates a national bibliography. It also works to promote interlibrary and international cooperation.
However, although deposit is mandatory and penalties are imposed (a fine of five times the list price), in reality, it seems that not all publications are deposited. There also seem to be “omissions in deposit” in the form of publications by small and medium-sized publishers and companies, self-published works, and doujinshi.
On the other hand, a huge number of “self-published” books are brought in by “self-publishing companies” every year, but it seems that almost 100% of them are destined to remain “dead books” that will never be read by anyone. This is only natural, but…
I think that the increasing number of these “unspent books” can be problematic in that they end up taking up “wasted space.”
(3) Cases of fraud involving the misuse of the legal deposit system
In the case of private publications, free deposit is not required, taking into consideration that they are published for profit, and “approximately 50% of the retail price” is to be paid as “compensation.” In 2015, a “self-published work with a list price of 60,000 yen per copy” that was sold only on Amazon was deposited, and the National Diet Library purchased 42 copies for 1.36 million yen, causing a major issue (flaming) on the Internet.
This is an expensive book called “Asho” that is nothing more than a list of Greek letters and has no literary value whatsoever. It was published in 2013 by “Risu no Shobou” (now bankrupt), a company founded and run by a 26-year-old man, and has a list price of 64,800 yen. The author is “Alexander Myaskovsky” (a fictional character).
The first volume was published in February 2015, and eventually 96 volumes were published. If all were purchased at the regular price, it would cost 6,220,800 yen. It is said that only 42 volumes were actually purchased. In 2016, the National Diet Library announced a request for the return of the books and the refund of compensation money.
I don’t know what the outcome was, but I think this was clearly a fraudulent act that abused the legal deposit system.
(4) How to use the trick
Since they also store manga, I think it might be possible to use it as a “free manga cafe.” However, I don’t know if all comic publishers are depositing their books in accordance with the legal deposit system.
It has been reported that “comics (hardcover books) of popular manga are not available at the National Diet Library” and that “it is customary for mid-sized publishers not to deposit comics” (J-CAST News, August 20, 2011).
I previously wrote an article about how popular authors are opposed to having their new books placed in libraries, but comic publishers may also be reluctant to deposit their best-selling books into the National Diet Library because it would have a negative impact on their comic sales.
In any case, we won’t know the actual situation until we go to the National Diet Library. When I have time, I would like to go to the National Diet Library in Tokyo or the Kansai-kan of the National Diet Library in Seika-cho, Kyoto Prefecture and check it out.
【中古】 国立国会図書館入門 / 国立国会図書館, NDL入門編集委員会 / 三一書房 [新書]【メール便送料無料】【あす楽対応】