Japanese Swords as Symbols of Historical Amnesia: Touken Ranbu and the Sword Boom in Popular Media - The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan FocusAbstract: This essay analyses the Japanese sword boom in popular media in the 21st century, situating Touken Ranbu, an online video game franchise, within its wider political and historical context. In the first two decades of the 21st century, government, commercial, and semi-public institutions, such as museums, extensively deployed positive depictions of Japanese swords in popular media, includ
