Thanks! That's good to know!
I really am intrigued at whether or not there will be a lot of Japanese history threaded within the game as subtext. The idea of flesh and flowers seem to be intertwined. The surroundings and location do seem more reminiscent of a period piece. Could very well be pre-WWII...
We know that officially the game is set in the 1960's.
viewtopic.php?f=50&t=26901
The mailbox itself is vintage in design.
"The history of Japan's mail box began in 1871. Originally coming from the United Kingdom, currently there are 181,895 of them all over the country. Commonly, the color is red, same as the UK post box. Nowadays, the typical shape is the boring square type"
https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/the-japane ... 100200158/
Modern style:
https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/478085316664076356/
The 1870's were the Meiji Era, a time of industrialization, and a lot of collaboration with Western countries.
The Industrial Revolution in Japan occurred during the Meiji era. The industrial revolution began about 1870 as Meiji era leaders decided to catch up with the West. The government built railroads, improved roads, and inaugurated a land reform program to prepare the country for further development. It inaugurated a new Western-based education system for all young people, sent thousands of students to the United States and Europe, and hired more than 3,000 Westerners to teach modern science, mathematics, technology, and foreign languages in Japan (O-yatoi gaikokujin).
In 1871, a group of Japanese politicians known as the Iwakura Mission toured Europe and the US to learn western ways. The result was a deliberate state led industrialization policy to enable Japan to quickly catch up. The Bank of Japan, founded in 1877, used taxes to fund model steel and textile factories.
...
There were at least two reasons for the speed of Japan's modernization: the employment of more than 3,000 foreign experts (called o-yatoi gaikokujin or 'hired foreigners') in a variety of specialist fields such as teaching English, science, engineering, the army and navy, among others; and the dispatch of many Japanese students overseas to Europe and America, based on the fifth and last article of the Charter Oath of 1868: 'Knowledge shall be sought throughout the world so as to strengthen the foundations of Imperial rule.' This process of modernization was closely monitored and heavily subsidized by the Meiji government, enhancing the power of the great zaibatsu firms such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_era ... evelopment.
The trailer features what looks like an industrailized location that the girl is walking through, and she is obviously a student in a uniform.
I wonder if it is possible that she is one of those students sent overseas to America... possibly even traveled to Silent Hill... But maybe the character is older while in America, and she is traversing the Otherworld in a younger form? However, I think that's unlikely, as her uniform is for a very young girl, and most likely any students sent abroad would be college age. Also considering the era, it would've most likely been men and not women that were sent.
Whereas a large proportion of the students selected for overseas study came from samurai families, they were not necessarily the proper choice and had come to be even considered as cases of misuse of government scholarships. Thus, in December 1873, the government decided to recall all students studying abroad. However, several students from Tokyo Kaisei Gakko - predecessor of the University of Tokyo - were selected in March, 1875, and in July nine were sent to the United States and one each to France and Germany.
...
The students selected were promising young men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two who were to specialize primarily in law, chemistry and engineering. Apart from this program, in July, 1875, three young students including Izawa Shuji (1851-1917) were sent by the Department of Education to the United States to pursue studies in teacher training; and in1879 three graduates of the Law, Literature and Science Faculties of the University of Tokyo were sent to England and one to France. That same year three graduates of the Medical Faculty went to Germany.
https://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/h ... 317259.htm
This style of school uniform seems to match, but it is closer to the later Taisho era, which is the 1900's...
Meiji school uniforms were Hakama styled.
"Unfortunately, because of World War Two broke out in 1939, there were no enough materials and food produced in Japan, lots of school girls lost their opportunities to continued study at school. They had to started working in the farm or went to work in the workshop. For the convenience, the sailor skirt was changed into pants which has a name called Monpe. This was also a interesting combination base on the historical effects in the development of Japanese school uniform. After World War Two ended, the sailor skirt reappeared in the society as the formal school uniform for girls."
https://medium.com/@katier.jiang/develo ... bf9c7856af
So based on the uniform itself, the earliest date would be the 1900's. And the themes of farms and industry suggest this is around WWII.
House architecture does seem to match the Taisho period.
But what is throwing me off are the barriers on the road, which are more modern meant to protect pedestrians from cars.
Guardrails seem to have originated in 1933.
"Steel guardrail was originally developed by Armco (The American Rolling Mill Company) in 1933 as highway guardrail but is often used in the factories and warehouses of the industrial sector, despite not being intended for this application."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guard_rai ... pplication.
So it matches up with that era, but was Japan that well developed by then? It is possible that the scenes with the girl walking with the pipe are closer to modern times after more development. Which makes sense by 1960.
We could be shifting between imagery of two different periods, perhaps the otherworld is not a traditional one, but one that transforms the scenery into something resembling the past. Though not so unusual, if we consider the previous games and how locales change and notes are left etc. James, for example, was seeing a completely different Lakeview Hotel from an earlier time compared to the one that actually exists and is burnt down.
So my thinking is that the more historical-looking locations are perceptions of the character traversing the Otherworld. But imposed on more modern 1960's locales, so there is a potential mix of old and modern locations.
Anyway, of interest in 1960's Japan...
1960 was a year of prolonged and intense political struggles in Japan. The massive and often quite violent Miike Coal Mine Strike at the Miike Coal Mine in Kyushu lasted nearly the entire year, and the massive nationwide Anpo Protests against renewal of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty carried over from 1959 and climaxed in June, forcing the resignation of Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi and the cancellation of a planned visit to Japan by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The "June 15 Incident" – As part of the Anpo Protests, radical student activists from Zengakuren attempt to storm the National Diet compound, precipitating a battle with police in which female Tokyo University student Michiko Kanba is killed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_in_Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miike_Struggle
The coal mine part is interesting considering the SH movie...
On November 9, 1963, the worst mining disaster in Japan's postwar era occurred at Miike when coal dust ignited and exploded 500 feet below the surface, collapsing tunnels and spreading deadly carbon monoxide throughout the mine.[10] As a result, 458 miners were killed and 555 were injured.
Maybe the dead female student is relevant history, though she was a University student.
The 1960's were a post-war period, there was dissatisfaction with the U.S. and lots of labor conflict.
Agricultural conditions in Japan during the 60's were also seeing some tumult with reforms to control of farm property by landlords whom farmers rented the land from, and also of note, during the 1800's there were peasant uprisings due to the conditions of poverty. Geopolitical issues with the U.S. were also a factor.
The prevailing system of land tenure in Japan both before and after the Meiji Restoration in 1868 was one of
feudal land o¥vnership based on rent in kind. As the money economy expanded during the Tokugawa Period
(1603-1867) and the feudal lords (through the large landowners) intensified their exactions from the small
dependent tenant-farmers, many farm families were driven into extreme poverty and peasant revolts continued to
intenslfy during the Tokugawa and early MeiJi, peaklng in 1873. The cumulative effect of repeated peasant
uprisings led to the downfall of the Tokugawa regime.
Food has been, and continues to be, used as a political weapon. U.S. "food aid" for
example, has been used to prop up ~ilitary dictatorships and further U.S. strategic interests;
to "reward" those states willing to nnplement "austerity" measures (which often translate to
diminished social services and lower wages) recommended by the World Bank or International
Monetary Fund; to improve the image of the United States worldwide through "humanitarian" acts of giving; or to punish those states not willing to give in to U.S. pressures to conform
to the dictates of U.S. foreign policy/business concerns by either denying emergency food
relief or by imposing an economic embargo, which often includes an embargo on food.
...
Between 1954 and 1964, Japan received U.S.$445 million in PL 480 "food aid" shipments;
its imports of U.S. agricultural commodities through conventional trading channels during this
same period amounted to $10.8 billion (Ohno 1988: 18). Japan was on its way to becoming the
number one importer of U.S. agricultural goods and number one among advanced capitalist
countries as being most dependent on food imports, with its self-sufficiency ratio in grains
(including rice and feed grains) dropping to 29% by 1991 (MAFF:1993).
...
With trade restrictions in agricultural goods considerably eased, the resultant upsurge in
agricultural exports to Japan contributed directly to the decline of Japan's production of
wheat, barley, soybeans, and rapeseed. By 1971, 85% of the wheat consumed in Japan and
93% of the soybeans were imported from the United States. Between 1965 and 1971, the
United States accounted for at least 70% of Japan's agricultural imports and Japan had
become not only the biggest importer of U.S. agricultural goods but the biggest foreign market
ever for U.S. farm produce.'
...
Moore notes that "Japanese farming households have created a part-time farming'
survival strategy and have become a vital link in the expansion of industrial capitalism" ( 1990:
13). This strategy entailed having other family members (most often wife and/or parent(, s))
work the farm during the weekdays while the husband worked full-time off the farm.
Two terms came into common usage by the early 1960s denoting the division of labor on
the majority of family farms in postwar Japan:3αn chαn nδ9アδan(13h擁醒α醜 nδ副δ
(“week-end faming,’,referring to the prevalence of seeing the husband working in his fields
only on weekends),The first term refers to the three family members who actually worked the
farm on a regular basis;the mother,grandmother,and grandfather(from the chiklren’s
perspective).
Between l950and l960,Japanese farm families provide(1the industrial sector,concen-
trated in the major metropolitan areas,with a steady stream of low-wage laboL Twenty to
thirty thousand young men annually left farming for work in the cities,while the percentage
of ful1-time farmers fell from50%to34.8%during the same period of time(Bix1974)。Also,
many of the remaining farmers resorted to migrating to urban areas during the o『一season in
order to make ends meet.Labor recmiters,often afnliated with organized crime syndicates in
Japan,traveled to rural areas in search of workers willing to work in factohes or at
construction sites for low wages and non-existent fringe bene丘ts(Nee1974:12-13).This type
ofemployment“opportunity,”as recruited dekasegi,or migrant workers,still exists,although
not as prevalent as it was from the mid-1950s to the late l960s,
...
Quite understandably,the course of agricultural transformation in postwar Japan has not
always been a consensual process.However,the inability of Japanese farmers in the postwar
period to secure major social change in their benefit may be attributed at least as much to their
contradictory class positions,as property-owners and subjects of exploitation,further compli-
cate(i by their partial status as wage laborers,and to their political beliefs,inculcated through
the dominant culture’s institutions.In part,this may explain why farmers have so rea(lily
accepted state pollcies that would lead to rural community degeneration and away from viably
engaging in farming on a full-time basis。Thus,the successful manipulation of the farm vote
through pork-barrel politics and rural development schemes during most ofthe postwar period
by the Liberal Democratic Party(LDP)politicians can only partially account for the relative
complacency until recently of Japan’s rural residents,
I have shown the important role that the United States govemmen亡and US.corporate
interests have played in helping to engineer the postwar agricultural〔1ebacle in Japan,The
Japanese govemment and Japanese monopoly capital were the other major playe凪that
worked hand-in-hand with their U.S.counterparts to set up the military alliance needed to
justify Japanese remilitarization and the maintenance ofU,S,military bases in Japanl;negotiate
mutua1隻y-beneficial trade relations that would contribute immeasurably to economic growth量n
both countriesl and further their progress in establishing a Japan-U。S.“co-prosperity sphere”
in the Westem Pacinc.That Japanese farming families were ultimately sacri6ced to achieve
these objectives is clear、
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ... _id=636209
https://hermes-ir.lib.hit-u.ac.jp/herme ... 100290.pdf