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The Japan World Exposition of 1970, hosted by the city of Suita, Osaka and organized around the idealistic theme of the "Progress and Harmony for Mankind," was the first world's fair held in an Asian country, and attracted a record 64 million visitors.Through its integration of advanced technology, immersive multi-media environments, and eye-popping architecture, Expo '70 projected Japan as a simulation-site for a future society.Indeed, many journalistic accounts heralded the expo as "mirai no toshi" (city of the future), just as the 1939-40 New York World's Fair had been cast as the "World of Tomorrow."At the same time, Expo '70 enacted an elaborate staging of Japan's relationship with the outside world, through massive "international" events such as the opening ceremony attended by the Showa emperor.Together these national and international elements created a bubble of "progress and harmony" within a nation torn by virulent protests against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty and the Vietnam War.Yet beyond the apparent optimism of the expo's theme, the futuristic visions elaborated in its architecture and display environments were considerably more complex.In this essay, I will examine how an eclectic group of Japanese intellectuals used Expo '70 as a drawing board for visions of a future society poised between utopia and collapse.In particular, I will focus on the role of science fiction (SF) author Komatsu Sakyo as a figure connecting the worlds of academic research, future studies, and science fiction, through several phases of critical engagement, planning, and production of Expo '70. Japanese Science Fiction and Expo '70Despite the conspicuous role of Japanese SF talent in Expo '70, it bears mentioning that, as a commercial publishing genre and fan culture, science fiction was still relatively young in Japan in 1970, and had just entered into what some consider its "golden age."Although we can cite numerous examples of science fiction or speculative fiction works 26
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