Introduction

　For the past 25 years, the Japan Center for Asian Historical Records (JACAR), National Archives of Japan, has been providing a service that makes modern and contemporary Asian historical records (historical official documents) held by three organizations—the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Diplomatic Archives, the Ministry of Defense’s National Institute for Defense Studies, and the National Archives of Japan—available as digital images and accessible to the world via the internet. In recent years, we have been working hard every day to meet diverse needs through collaborations with other institutions and by expanding our public outreach activities through online special exhibitions, the distribution of our newsletter, and via social media.

　Last year, marking the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, we held an online special exhibition focused on the period around the end of the war, under the theme “Japan’s Withering Empire: Surrender, Demobilization, and Repatriation,” with the aim of widely introducing materials related to surrender (the end of the war), demobilization, and repatriation registered in the JACAR database.

　This fiscal year, as part of our online special exhibition series, we plan to post an exhibition in three installments covering the Shōwa period—spanning the Second World War—to convey the multifaceted aspects of that era. These will focus on the lives of people who lived through turbulent times both at home and abroad, relations with Asian countries, and postwar reconstruction.

　The first installment, titled “Japan and Asia During the Showa War Years as Seen in Shashin Shūhō,” will focus primarily on introducing Shashin Shūhō. Shashin Shūhō (Weekly Photographic Journal) was a weekly photo magazine published by the Cabinet Information Department (later the Cabinet Information Bureau). A total of 370 issues were published, from the inaugural issue in February 1938 (Shōwa 13) to the final, combined issue in July 1945 (Shōwa 20). JACAR has selected issues of the magazine held in the National Archives of Japan and will present them alongside related materials registered with JACAR.

Dr. Inoue Toshikazu

Director General

Japan Center for Asian Historical Records

National Archives of Japan