Sayurists and the Shochiku Sanbagarasu｜The Oshi Culture That Began in Japanese Cinema

The word “oshi” (推し) has long been part of everyday speech, and it is now drawing worldwide attention as a culture peculiar to East Asia, Japan and Korea above all. When we hear “oshi” today, what usually comes to mind is an idol or a pop star. Surprisingly, though, I think the history of oshi is deeply tied to Japanese cinema.

Take Sayuri Yoshinaga, still active today. She is a wonderful actor who has stood in the front rank ever since her debut around 1960. When she was under contract at Nikkatsu and winning popularity in a run of films known as seishun eiga, youth movies, a word began to be heard from nowhere in particular.

That word was “Sayurist.”

A Sayurist, in modern terms, is someone whose oshi is Sayuri Yoshinaga. Among the best known, even Tamori made Sayuri Yoshinaga his oshi and revered her as the idol of his heart.

And this oshi culture was less something that arose spontaneously than something made. You can see it in Nikkatsu’s strategy at the time. Nikkatsu, which had re-entered the industry after the war, built its strategy on how to disperse the energy of the young people of the day and create a new outlet for it. It could not spend lavishly as Toho did, and because of the restrictions of the Five Company Agreement it could not use well-known directors or actors. That is exactly why Nikkatsu committed itself to publicity that created oshi and sold them.

The most representative case was the way it sold the “Nikkatsu Sannin Musume,” the Nikkatsu Trio of three girls. In 1960, Nagisa Oshima’s Cruel Story of Youth, Yoshishige Yoshida’s Good-for-Nothing, Masahiro Shinoda’s Dry Lake, and others were released, and Shochiku promoted them as the “Shochiku Nouvelle Vague.” Nikkatsu drew on the influence of that promotion, and the slogan was used to launch Sayuri Yoshinaga, Chieko Matsubara, and Masako Izumi as a set of three.

Yet the practice of selling three people together already existed before the war. That was the Shochiku Sanbagarasu, the “Three Crows” of Shochiku. In other words, in Japanese cinema the strategy of promoting oshi in groups of three had taken hold early on as a kind of established practice.

The Shochiku Sanbagarasu refers to Shin Saburi, Shuji Sano, and Ken Uehara, who were active from before the war, and films in which all three appeared together were actually made. Shin Saburi was rugged yet endearing. Ken Uehara, with his refined features, was called a nimaime, a handsome leading man. Shuji Sano had the flavor of a true Edokko. Once these three became hits, Shochiku, in what amounted to a rerun, went on after the war to launch Keiji Sada, Teiji Takahashi, and Minoru Oki as the New Shochiku Sanbagarasu.

Of course, the film world also frequently sold a single actor, as with Chiezo Kataoka, Toshiro Mifune, and Kinnosuke Nakamura, but alongside that, curiously, Japanese cinema seems to have moved forward by selling trios and pairs.

Certainly, promoting three people together is better for a company’s results than selling just one. With one person there is no choice, but with three the oshi is dispersed.

As for pairs, Mitsuo Hamada stayed almost as a set beside Sayuri Yoshinaga, and later she also teamed up with Tetsuya Watari and others, and Nikkatsu’s fortunes rose along with hers. This trend continued until Nikkatsu turned toward Roman Porno. In the meantime, many actors grew up there, including Sayuri Yoshinaga, Chieko Matsubara, Masako Izumi, and also Yujiro Ishihara, Tetsuya Watari, and Akira Kobayashi. Behind their success, it is a fact, lay the strong daily lives of the fans who supported their oshi.

Come to think of it, bromide photographs were already popular before the war, and many people are said to have kept bromides in their wallets. Of course, one cannot say that the culture of oshi truly began with cinema, and it is probably also part of some lineage of culture that runs back to the Edo period.

Even so, it is interesting that today’s habit of backing idols and pop stars, though entirely different from that time, still carries its traces somewhere and drags them along.

To people who want to watch films but do not know where to start, I often say: turn this around and use it. In other words, just find your own oshi. Japanese people seem to love backing someone, so use that to dive into cinema.

First, watch the films your oshi appears in, one at a time. Fortunately, most oshi from before and just after the war have passed away, so there is no need to spend any new money. As you keep going, your preferences gradually come into view: for a style of work, for directors, for cinematography and music. Then you branch sideways, to their co-stars and to other works by the same directors. Before you know it, you have covered Japanese cinema entirely.

Honestly, this method seems to me the best fit for the Japanese, and as you carry it on through your days, you will find that you too have fallen under the spell of cinema.