Although not widely known, Masuji Ibuse, the author of "Black Rain" and "The Salamander," was dispatched to Malaysia and Singapore, under the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," as a propaganda officer in 1942. In February of that year, the Japanese Army, advancing south through the Malay Peninsula, began a fierce bombardment to support the landing operation on Singapore across the strait. What was Ibuse doing amidst the flying shells, when he was supposed to be keeping war records?

As his pen name suggests, Ibuse loved fishing, and he would cast his net from the piers of the Johor Strait, delighting to catch fish he had never seen before. Later, Ibuse lived in Singapore as a civilian employee of the army, and he enjoyed experiencing a different culture by playing with local children.

The "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" ultimately allowed hundreds of thousands of Japanese people, who had previously had no connection to Southeast Asia, to experience it. What did the Japanese see and feel there? And what were they unable to see? If war is a form of cross-cultural exchange, then the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" can be said to have been the ultimate venue for cross-cultural experience. Using literary works and war paintings, which have not been given much importance in historical studies until now, as historical materials, I am considering the meaning of the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" that cannot be contained within either the "liberation theory" or the "extension of colonial rule theory."