Both “Naomi” and “The neighbor’s wife and mine” are representative stories of westernization of Japanese culture. Naomi was written by Junichiro Tanizaki and published in newspaper in 1924. It demonstrates aestheticism and created the word naomism that represents the modern girl. The neighbor’s wife and mine is also a story that shows how Japanese people were longing to be like westerners. Both are stories of transition from classic Japanese culture to modern western style culture. I would like to describe how each story represents modernity and the difference of each women modernization.
The neighbor’s wife and mine is the first sound effect movie in Japan. As we can see, the title is written in horizontal line instead of traditional vertical direction. The whole movie shows the influence of the western culture. First, in the beginning of the movie, the painter was drawing a western style house that was rare to see it at that time. He was inspired to the western style architecture and boast to Shibano, the main character, about how beautiful he drew it. Second, when Shibano goes to his neighbor house to claim the loud music, he realized that the house was totally western style, and he even did not know how to use the slippers. The interesting thing is that the music, Jazz, he supposed to feel disgust, was really amazing that he ended up dancing and singing with the people around. The music, Age of Speed, is also interesting because it implies the quick development of society and a hope to catch up with westerns nations. According to Harry Harootunian from The Fantasy of Modern Life,

After the earthquake, material changes simply affirmed the image and power of this figure. While film culture was favored as the route to grasping the new everyday life in its textured materiality, others saw how it could be understood concretely and holistically in newspapers and