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Published by the Japanese Cabinet Information Bureau between 1938 and 1945, Shashin shūhō (Photographic Weekly Report) was one of the government’s most effective propaganda tools. In 1943, when it reached its greatest circulation, this influential journal is thought to have been issued in a staggering edition of up to 500,000 copies. Relaying news of the war between China and Japan that had begun in 1937 and of World War II, which Japan entered in September 1940, the covers described Japan’s military efforts through a combination of photographic practices and graphic devices evocative of the Russian and European interwar avant-garde. Unexpected angles, extreme foreshortening, close-ups, photomontage, dynamic angles, and broad planes of flat color here bolster images of leadership, surveillance by sea, bombing by air, armaments in production, and troop deployment. Neither the designers nor the photographers are credited in the issues. For a full list of issues of Shashin shūhō in the Merrill C. Berman collection, click here. For information about the journal, including itemized cataloguing and English translations, visit the website of the National Archives of Japan.
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