The break-up of the national body

<jats:p>In the context of both contemporary Japanese society and cinema, there seems to be a growing preoccupation with national as well as personal identity in the era of so-called ‘multiculturalism’. By drawing on Tessa Morris-Suzuki’s concept of ‘cosmetic multiculturalism’ as well as anthropologist Mary Douglas’s account of ‘body as society’, this article attempts to examine how ‘body-metaphors’ structure the films of Miike Takashi and how the presence of non-Japanese characters are related to such a body politic of his films. Finally I argue that by the repeated use of metaphors of the breakdown of bodily boundaries and fragmentation, Miike’s films may allegorize the break-up of the mythical national body of Japan as a racially homogeneous organic unity and non-Japanese characters are mobilized as an active factor in a narrative strategy to dramatize this.</jats:p>