Benedict Anderson discussed the origins of the nation and national consciousness using the interplay between modernity and fatalism as a key concept, defining the concept of nation and explaining its common illusionary nature. He revealed that the background to this was ‘print capitalism’. ‘Print capitalism’, defined as an early capitalist enterprise, created conditions that facilitated the imagining of specific linguistic communities.　It was mass publication through ‘print capitalism.’

Japan industrialized, and imaginary images of the Burakumin were depicted and copied (reproduced) in large numbers in many publications and other media. For example, the symbolic publication Society Outside Society: the Eta and Hinin became popular, and publications continued to quote and refer to the book, regardless of ideological leanings, and new publishing of ‘theories’ were eventually helped by that. References seem endless.

The content of those publications, which discussed the Burakumin as ‘former eta and hinin’ and biased views of work, were copied extensively. Midori Kurokawa wrote: ‘The reason why the Buraku issue, which is feudalism, has continued to exist is that the factors that allow Buraku discrimination to persist have been created and re-created in each era. Among them, the narrative of ‘race’ has continued to support the Buraku discrimination, changing its form, from generation to generation until today’. From this discussion, we will be able to understand the function of publications by the power of episteme, such as academic books, novels and stories, in reproducing the image of the Buraku and playing a role in their exclusion and inclusion. Although this interpretation may be far from Kurokawa's intention, this author believes that it is in line with the context of what Anderson calls ‘print capitalism.’

The Burakumin, as an objective reality wholeheartedly reject the imagined image of the Buraku. They were enclosed in a small world of roughly 6,000 spaces. Their containment made them a stable supply of industrial reserves. The Buraku was the well that supplied low wage labor. By so limited a product of the imagination, the Burakumin have been reproduced. They continue to suffer from unspeakable miserable life conditions.

The Burakumin have no history, as both the Nation and themselves are products of modernity, but their stigma has its own history. The stigma includes the following. Racially or ethnographically, Burakumin are descendants from participants in the Ikkou revolt; that they originated from medieval senmin, that they are descended from feudal eta and hinin; that they are of a different race; or that their ancestors are from China or Korea. They are anthropologically said to have an interracial skeleton, different genitalia and extraordinary sexual abilities. And the occupational origins of the Burakumin are said to be butchers, slaughterers (descendants of slaughterers), leather producers, involved in shoemakers, descendants of bamboo master-craftsmen, and the roots of entertainers. They are also said to be lazy, unproductive, etc. Ethically, some say that they are immoral and unhygienic, sanka (a fictional mountainous tribe), the criminals, or that the Buraku occupy the yakuza society. Religiously, they have a particular religion or are doctrinally impure, etc. None of this has any basis. All are essentialist differences constructed as imagined aspects and pasted as stigmas on the community as a whole.

These were not common slanders. They demeaned the Burakumin as second−class nationals, andassigned them to a political role. For example, soldiers were told: “Even the Burakumin work harder than you. Why can’t you work harder than them?” The Burakumin were used as a motivation to fight. There was a celebrated story about the ‘Three Bomb Brave Warriors’ because rumor said that two of them were Burakumin. Burakumin were, domestically, discriminated against, but did not sympathize with the citizens of the colonies. Rather, they were aware of their imagined superior status. The Zenkoku Suiheisha called for solidarity and joint struggle against the ‘Pekuchon (discriminated people in Korea Peninsula),’ which explicitly stated their superiority as the peoples of the colonial suzerain state. Many Burakumin behaved as the emperor’s dutiful children. From today’s perspective, their ideological stance was characterized by an unawareness of their own positionality — that they were both subjects of discrimination and, at the same time, part of the colonialist structure of discrimination.

Conversely, Koreans, for example, perceived themselves as superior. Myeongseong Ha describes the negative view of the discriminated ethnic groups of Koreans living in Buraku. They designated Burakumin to the same status of the ‘Pekuchon’ despite their ‘common suffering’ with the Korean community in the pre-war period. Ha also stated the general negative view of the Buraku from Japanese Koreans. In short, Koreans in Japan, themselves oppressed, looked down on the Burakumin as they did on ‘Pekuchon’ in their homeland.

Even in a small Japanese local community, the relationship between the two second class nations was never friendly. In 1923, when the momentum for Buraku liberation was growing, 170 Korean civil engineering workers employed by Hiroshima Prefecture or the national building department sub-branches and local ‘dozens of developing Buraku’ confronted each other with weapons in the former Watashijima village in Aki County. The cause was a petty dispute in a tavern. Some of the Korean laborers had taken dynamite from the gunpowder stockpile of the Kure Naval Base

In short, there was a complex structure in which oppression created conflict between minorities, which they accepted. In this sense, the Buraku as an imagined community was the ideological apparatus of the state to carry out colonialism by reproducing feelings of hatred.