Todai Zenkyoto 1968–1969. The University of Tokyo Student Protest

First Edition thus, 2007. Book measures 6 x 8 inches. 182 pages. Softcover in dust jacket, with obi. 

A collection of photographs by the Japanese photographer Watanabe Hitomi, which she documented as the only one allowed to shoot inside the barricades during the All-Campus Joint Struggle Committees, known as Zenkyōtō. This is a revised edition of work previously published.

“1968 was also the year I began photography. I wandered around downtown Shinjuku with a camera, capturing people and whatever caught my attention. One night, I came across a crowd causing great turmoil in Shinjuku. I learned that it was an international anti-war protest. Before that, the Vietnam War had seemed to me merely information transmitted from the media, but I felt its reality after joining the protest. As the Riot Police searchlight lit up students’ helmets in the heaving crowd, their silhouettes would shiver violently. Student Power in Japan became a powerful tide fighting against society.

Around that time, I stepped foot into Tokyo University’s Hongo Campus for the first time, and met Yoshitaka Yamamoto, who was then representative of Todai Zen-kyoto. He inspired me. It was he who made me so determined to document the Todai protests. Inside the barricades actually was an open space, into which non-local students, the general public and even high school students could go.” —Watanabe Hitomi