Talk:He-gassen

I Call BS

He-Gassen? Really? I'm gonna need some more reputable sources before I believe this one besides a Daily Mail article and a supposed scroll at Waseda that is not directly referenced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.194.176.70 (talk) 17:10, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

I Call BS ALSO

This is nonsense. It's a hoax. Georgekwatson (talk) 02:13, 17 January 2014 (UTC) I have proposed deleting this. Georgekwatson (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Except you forget Waseda University is one of top universities in Japan and they host this scroll.--AldNon^Ucallin?☎ 04:56, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Serious reliability issues

Currently, the only source for any information in this article (aside from the image of the scroll itself) is a Daily Mail article written by an unnamed reporter and using unknown sources of information. This is far from a reliable source, especially when it's the only source given. The only information that appears to be verifiable from another source is the name applied to it, which appears to be (in altered form) from the Waseda University Library website.

For that matter, its notability isn't established either; does this really require its own article, rather than simple inclusion in another article related to Japanese art and culture?

G-Flex (talk) 06:05, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

It seems the logical thing to do is check what the book by Henshall has to say. Also, it would be useful to find out if the Japanese page has any more info. Drabkikker (talk) 08:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Found an online copy of the book; this is what it says on p. 70: In any event, the rule of the shoguns, which had lasted for almost 700 years, was at an end. The foreign devils were back, and did not look like leaving. When these devils had first appeared, a popular cartoon, based on the Japanese tradition of ‘farting contests' (he-gassen), had shown westerners being blasted away by Japanese farts.<57> But such a scenario was, so to speak, just so much hot air. The foreign devils were not blown away. On the contrary, it was the foreigners who, metaphorically speaking, had finally blown open the doors of the closed country. Western fart power had prevailed.

Note 57 refers to Steele, M. W., 2003, Alternative Narratives in Modern Japanese History, Routledge, London, p. 14, which is on Google Books but does not include page 14.

He-gassen also features in the 1994 novel Shinju by Laura Joh Rowland, and in Howard E. Link, Waves and Plagues: The art of Masami Teraoka (1988).

All in all, one gets the impression that the scroll is genuine. Drabkikker (talk) 10:00, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

• Looking at google books, it is clear there is a tradition of such subjects stretching back several centuries, unfortunately only covered in snippet views. Johnbod (talk) 16:52, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

File:Hegassen scroll.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Hegassen scroll.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on March 31, 2018. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2018-03-31. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 04:48, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Picture of the day

He-gassen is a Japanese art scroll created during the Edo period by one or more unknown artists. It depicts various scenes, all of which depict at least one character directing flatulence against other characters. The scroll, which measures 29.6 cm × 1003.1 cm (11.7 in × 394.9 in), may have been made in response to political and social change in Japan following the arrival of outside cultures.Painting: Unknown (image courtesy of the Waseda University Library)

Explaining the opening scenes

I made some extensive modifications to the article today, correcting several errors: (1) not unknown artist, but reasonably identified artist; (2) not one work of art, but a subject matter for which several other scrolls are known, and (3) in every scene, "at least one character is having a bout of flatulence directed against the other characters" : this statement was not true of the first four scenes, also a "reference needed" tag had been added, so completely deleted this, and then described the four exceptional scenes. To describe the story-line of the scroll is probably not "encyclopedic", but I thought it was the best way to correct the error. It would be nice to know what kind of food they are eating, or whether it's intended as a humorous generic flatulence-inducing food (some sort of monster taro). I also gave the Japanese characters for the information in the colophon, for those who wish to match them up, and because this is the source of the information (I didn't make a reference, because the colophon itself is the reference). Vagabond nanoda (talk) 09:49, 1 July 2021 (UTC)