Creating Modern Japanese Subjects: Morning Rituals from Norito to News and Weather

This original research on Restoration Shinto Norito seeks to explain the rhetorical devices used in the composition of a morning prayer ritual text. The nativist scholar, Hirata Atsutane, crafted this ritual to create a Japanese imperial subject with a particular understanding of native identity and national unity, appropriate to the context of a Japan in the shadow of impending modernity and fear of Western domination. The conclusions drawn concerning Hirata’s rhetoric are meant to inform our understanding of the technique and power of the contemporary Japanese morning television viewing ritual used to create post-modern Japanese citizens with an identity and unity appropriate to a global secular context.