A young Japanese woman in a kimono takes part in the Hula-Hoop craze that swept America and Japan in this October 30, 1958 picture. (AP
Photo/Mitsunori Chigita)

Women greet repatriated Japanese soldiers, formerly prisoners of war, on April 26, 1950. The men bear the ashes of their friends who died during their imprisonment. (Photo
by AP Photo via The Atlantic)

On August 3, 1951, six years after an atomic bomb was detonated above this spot in Hiroshima, a souvenir shop stands in the street near the shattered dome of the Industry
Hall. The shop is operated by Kiyoshi Yoshikawa, who was injured in the blast. (Photo by AP Photo/Kyodo via The Atlantic)

Engines of U.S. Air Force B-26 bombers are revved up shortly before taking off from Far East Air Force field in Japan on September 20, 1950, for combat missions in Korea.
The twin-engine bombers were flying round-the-clock missions in support of United Nations ground forces. (Photo by AP Photo/U.S. Air Force)

A Japanese girl carefully sorts
cultured pearls raised on Kokichi
Mikimoto's pearl farm near the tip
of Japan's Ise peninsula on October
12, 1949. They are sorted according
to color and size as well as shape.
(Photo by AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Children In the Snow, Japan, 1950’s, Unosuke Gamou

Industrial training experts watch a light bulb machine drop bulbs down to other workers who sort them according to defects at Tokyo Shibaura Electric Co. in Tokyo on
January 25, 1951. (Photo by Arthur Curlis/AP Photo/U.S. Army via The Atlantic)

Close up of the express engine Tsubame in
Tokyo station on April 19, 1950. (AP
Photo/Charles Gorry)

Passengers on a train traveling from Tokyo to
Osaka go through three minutes of calisthenics
under leadership of a drill master, during a five-
minute stopover at Hammamatsu on August 27,
1952 Photo by Max Desfor/AP Photo

Pedestrians in Tokyo's Ginza district,
circa 1950. (Photo by Evans/Three
Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A female bus conductor in Tokyo,
circa 1955. (Photo by Three
Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty
Images)

A group of geisha girls being instructed by their teacher, circa 1955

A geisha laughing
coquettishly with a male
guest, left, and a geisha going
home past a line of drying
umbrellas in the alleyway,
both circa 1955

Electrical appliances began entering Japanese kitchens from the mid 1950s.

Eiga Stars :: Portraits of Japanese Divas in Fan Magazines of the 1950s

To draw the public's attention to a new line of bathing suits, a Tokyo department store used live models to show off the suits on June 5, 1950. The rain didn't bother the
curious, and both the girls and the crowd seemed to like the idea of staring at each other through the glass. (Photo by AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Photo of dancing under Japan's late-night ban in the 1950s

The heads all painted and
the hair glued on, this
Tokyo doll maker gets
dolls ready for dressing in
Tokyo on Jan. 26, 1950.
Japan'’s doll makers are
busy as girls day draws
near. It is celebrated on
April 3. (AP
Photo/Charles Gorry)

Some 50 colorfully-garbed Buddhist monks march from the Buddhist goddess of Mercy Statue in Kyoto, Japan on May 11, 1958, after the unveiling of a memorial to Allied
dead of World War II on June 8.AP Photo.

A female shoeshine in the Ginza district
of Tokyo, circa 1955. (Photo by
Orlando/Three Lions/Hulton
Archive/Getty Images)

Dining room of an orphanage in Osaka,
Japan, on February 19, 1951, where the
160 orphans were fed each day on food
purchased by the Wolfhounds, the 27th
Infantry Regiment of the U.S. Army.
(Photo by Jim Pringle/AP Photo via The
Atlantic)

A Japanese woman removing
weeds from a rice field. (Photo
by Three Lions/Getty Images).
Circa 1950

A lens is inspected at Tokyo's Nikon camera plant, on January 5, 1952. (Photo by Bob Schutz/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

A sandwich girl who
carries a sign proclaiming
a new type of club where
folks who work nights
can come and enjoy
themselves during the
day, stops to adjust the
bells on her ankles in
Tokyo, March 19, 1950.
The cafe hours are from 1
to 6 p.m. and Japanese
beer sells for 320 yen.
(AP Photo/Charles Gorry)

At the "America Fair". Left: Three kimono clad Japanese girls sit at the base of a reproduction of the Statue of Liberty at the America Fair, which opened in Osaka, Japan on
March 25, 1950. Right: A replica of the Mt. Rushmore memorial in South Dakota, one of the exhibits portraying U.S. history and notable scenes at the America Fair. (AP
Photo/Charles Gorry, Library of Congress)

Pro-communist demonstrators stone Japanese policemen at the height of May Day riots in downtown Tokyo on May 1, 1952. Casualties were numerous on both sides as
police used tear gas, guns and clubs to beat back the waves of rioters. (Photo by Max Desfor/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

A dazed Japanese youth, his face bruised and bleeding, is led from the riot scene by a policemen after pro-communist demonstrators were dispersed near the imperial palace
grounds in Tokyo on May 1, 1952. (Photo by AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Rice being symbolically planted in a paddy
field during a traditional annual rice festival in
Osaka, Japan, circa 1955. (Photo by
Evans/Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty
Images)

A woman, in traditional dress of kimono and platform shoes, boards a bus, Japan, circa 1950. (Photo by Frederick L. Hamilton/Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Japan's movie makers filming on the last day of the documentary about the Battleship Yamato. Studio men load shells into the guns of a model of the Yamato as they get it
ready for the big scene on June 8, 1953. Photo by Yuichi Ishizaki/AP

A scene from “Battleship Yamato” is filmed in
the studio pool of Japan's Shin-Toho Motion
Picture Company on June 8, 1953. The
background of sky and water ends at left and
right, a camera crew in the foreground. (Photo
by Yuichi Ishizaki/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

A movie studio workman rigs up one of the scale model warships used in filming a battle scene in a Japanese documentary that tells the story of the last day of the battleship
Yamato, on June 8, 1953. (Photo by Yuichi Ishizaki/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Two young girls in Kimonos in a street near the almost
completed Tokyo Tower, July 1958. The tower is a TV
and radio broadcasting antenna as well as a tourist
attraction. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty
Images)

Tooru Ohira, the Japanese voice of television's
Superman, watches actor George Reeves closely
while he dubs Japanese words for the show on
July 7, 1959. Television has made a strong
impression on the Japanese from Emperor
Hirohito down. About 99 percent of Japanese TV
shows are American, including the Emperor's
favorite, “Superman”. (Photo by AP Photo via The
Atlantic)

A young couple walking around in the Ginza district of Tokyo. 1959.

Beauty parlor in the Shmbashi district (Tokyo'’s number
one geisha district) as the girls get ready for the New Year
parties and celebrations they will attend in the evening on
Jan. 4, 1950. (AP Photo/Charles Gorry)

Spectators equipped with fans watch a baseball game between Waseda and Keio Universities at Meiji Park, Tokyo, on June 1, 1954. At left Japanese counterpart of American
cheerleader leads rooters whose fans are painted with school colors. (Photo by AP Photo via The Atlantic)

On the island of Iwo Jima, Japanese work crews cut up the wreckage of a naval vessel which was almost completely covered along the sandy beach on February 21, 1954.
After a nine-year absence, the Japanese are back on the island of Iwo Jima, but as salvage workers. (Photo by AP Photo via The Atlantic)

The transition from former enemy to ally is evidenced by these GI-clad Japanese army volunteers during maneuvers at the Fuji Army School outside of Tokyo on May 15,
1957. (Photo by George Sweers/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Women nurses of Japan's newly-formed Self-Defense Corps man an aid station on Hokkaido, Japan, during maneuvers on October 20, 1955. (Photo by AP Photo via The
Atlantic)

A Shinto priest at the torii (gate) of
Itsukushima Shrine at low tide on Itsukushima
Island, Japan, circa 1955. (Photo by Three
Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Ten thousand photo flashbulbs lit up a new television station and tower in downtown Tokyo on March 26, 1955, in what was called the biggest flash shot in the world. Radio
Tokyo, in connection with a local flashbulb company, exploded the 10,000 bulbs on its new 516-foot television antenna to remind Tokyoites that it would begin telecasting on
April 1. Thousands of camera fans crowded upper story windows and roof tops near the TV station to photograph the spectacle. (Photo by AP Photo via The Atlantic)

A stall selling fish at a market
in Shinjuku, Tokyo. (Photo by
Orlando /Three Lions/Getty
Images). Circa 1955

Forty-five cameramen photograph the new Japanese cabinet at the Prime Minister's official residence in downtown Tokyo on December 17, 1954.(Photo by AP Photo via The
Atlantic)

Micky Curtis, an Elvis Presley-style singer, strums his guitar and sings just beyond reach of female admirers in the Nichigeki Theater in Tokyo on February 18, 1958. AP Photo.

Two Geisha Girls, professional
Japanese entertainers,
practising their art; one is
playing a samisen, a traditional
Japanese stringed instrument,
circa 1950. (Photo by Three
Lions)

Children of repatriated families scoot around the deck of the Koan Maru as their parents prepare to disembark at Maizuru Bay, Japan, on March 24, 1953. Photo by Y. Jackson
Ishizaki/AP

(AP Photo/Charles Gorry)

A group of men who work around the canals of Tokyo and Yokohama meet for a late evening snack. (Photo by Orlando /Three Lions/Getty Images). Circa 1950

Interior of a Tokyo department store in 1959, where a Japanese man wearing Geta, traditional wooden footwear, looks up at a poster-sized portrait of Abraham Lincoln
hanging with two other posters about Lincoln's life. (Photo by Library of Congress via The Atlantic)

A huge replica of an H-bomb mushroom cloud is carried through the streets of Tokyo, Japan, on May 1, 1957, in protest of a planned British H-bomb test at Christmas Islands.
(Photo by AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Japanese dancers of the Schochiku dancing troupe rehearse one of their new numbers in the “natsu-no-odori” summer dance scene which they performed at the Kokusai
Theater in Tokyo on July 11, 1958. (Photo by Mitsunori Chigita/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Survivors of the Hiroshima atomic bombing
10 years earlier, face newsmen and
photographers at the Mitchel Air Force
base on Long Island, New York, on May 9,
1955. Twenty-five Japanese girls, scarred by
the blast, made the 6,700. Photo by Jacob
Harris/AP

College students employed as
uniformed “pushers” cram
commuters into railroad
passenger cars in Tokyo.
(Photo by Library of Congress
via The Atlantic)

Soldiers practice bayonet tactics at the
Kokubu Army Camp in Japan on May 22,
1957. (AP Photo/George Sweers

Dom DiMaggio of the Boston Red Sox gets set to swing during an exhibition game between the American All-Stars and the Yomiuri Giants in Japan on October 20, 1951. AP
Photo

Tomiko Kawabata sits in her car and admires
her new all-transistor, portable television set
which Sony put into mass production, in
Tokyo, on January 5, 1960. AP Photo.

Japanese children press close to
view an “outer world” space
exhibit in a Tokyo department
store on August 19, 1958. There
they saw a rocket which landed
on the surface of the moon,
strange looking people of the
moon walking around, and even a
satellite going around the moon.
(Photo by AP Photo via The
Atlantic)

A combination of two comparative novelties to Japanese audiences, television and American wrestling, brought out a tremendous crowd of fans watching the bouts on an
outdoor screen in Tokyo on February 21, 1954. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)

Golf enjoyed some popularity in Japan before World War II, but became a national obsession in the later years of postwar Japan. Here, a three-story driving range in use in
Tokyo. AP Photo.

An area of Tokyo, seen from the sky on August 5, 1955. Modern buildings have wiped out the scars of flattened blocks. The Sumida River flows peacefully through the
Hamacho district (foreground) and the Fukawaga district. Wholesale houses and warehouses occupy most of these districts. (Photo by AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Mount Fuji, viewed from a passing train. (AP Photo/Mitsunori Chigita)