Factbook

According to some academics the first Japanese translations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) appeared in two Japanese magazines in serial form in 1895 and 1899, Shonen Sekai (A Boy’s World) and Shojo Sekai (Girl’s World).

These translations, however, have little resemblance to Carroll’s original, published in 1865, in English, by Macmillan.

In fact, there were several early Japanese translations and adaptations, and an edition published in 1920, with the title Fushigi no Kuni, Wonderland, is also sometimes cited as the first Japanese translation of Carroll’s work.

That said, according to Japan’s National Diet Library, the first full and complete translation, in which the whole story of the original was translated faithfully, was published in 1910.

A copy of this edition, Aichan no yume monogatari. containing copies of John Tenniel’s (1820-1914) famous original illustrations, translated by Eikan Maruyama and published by Nagai Shuppan Kyokai, is accessible online at the library.

It has been widely commented that in some of these early translations changes were made not just because of the difficulty in rendering the story in Japanese, but also, according to some commentators, to reflect Japanese traditions of the time, such as Alice not arguing with the Mad Hatter,  “because it would be improper to disrespect one’s elders” and the Hatter not offering Alice tea, probably because it was “inappropriate for men to serve food or drinks to women in Japan” at that time.

This and the story itself has helped spawn a burning desire amongst many to try and create the prefect translation, or a brilliant creative adaptation, or an unusual homage that challenges society’s expectations, a rabbit hole of a challenge that some of Japanese most famous and highly-regarded authors, including Ryunosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) and Yukio Mishima (1925-1970), have felt compelled to go down.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, this has created a field day for many including academic researchers who have written papers and arranged conferences on the topic such as: Being Alice in Japan: performing a cute, ‘girlish’ revolt; Alice in evasion: adapting Lewis Carroll in Japan; and Alice in Wonderland in Japan: Contemporary media and Carroll’s creation.

There are now literally thousands of translations, more than 1,271 at pixel time, according to Wikipedia. And there have been many other types of creative adaptations by artists like Yayoi Kusama, as well as many manga and anime versions. So much so that a special section titled Through the Looking-Glass and into Manga was included at The British Museum’s landmark 2019 exhibition on manga in London.