ABSTRACT
After the war, the National Language Council emerged from its period of eclipse and reconvened, holding a general meeting just three months after the surrender, in November 1945. These were busy and exciting times for those bent on script reform, who were now released from the restraints imposed on their activities during fifteen years of ultranationalism and who made the most of the new intellectual climate of the immediate postwar period. Just as language modernisation had been perceived by many to be essential to the modernisation of Japan itself during the Meiji Period (1867-1911) and afterwards, so now as Japan faced the necessity to resurrect herself from the devastation of war the reform of the written language - specifically script - was again spoken of as an essential element in the problems being faced.
