The purpose of this paper is to describe the portraits of draftdodgers in Japan and through them to think about the relationship between the government and their people and the role of newspaper as the agent between them. Since the conscription was introduced in 1872, there were many draft-dodgers in Japan. To escape from conscription, they used various legal and illegal means, but they proposed the same question. That is, could the government force their people to kill or to be killed against their will? In this meaning, the draftdodgers represent the tensions between the government and their people. In this paper, I tried to describe the portraits of draft-dodgers from the articles of YOMIURIin Taisho and Showa era. YOMIURI is one of the most popular newspapers in Taisho and Showa era in Japan. I found 107 articles about draft-dodgers in it. I have already analyzed the changes of their portraits in Meiji era. Through Meiji era, their portraits changed from the men of darkness to HIKOKUMIN as coward and the cunning intelligentsia. In Taisho era, YOMIURI presented two typical portraits of draft-dodgers. They were as cunning intelligentsia and men of darkness and ignorance. However, the conscription was also criticized because of its unfairness and inequality. In Showa era, the experiences of continuous wars changed their portraits to as wrongdoer and offender. They were criticized as obstacles to accomplishment of wars. After the breakout of war against China, the articles about draft-dodgers in Japan faded out from YOMIURI. Instead of them, the articles of draft-dodgers in America, China, England-the portraits of enemies-appeared. The portraits of draft-dodgers reflected the changes of political, social and military situations. They represented the worst category of Japanese at that time. YOMIURI kept showing people the image of "good" Japanese by showing them the portraits of "bad" Japanese, the draft-dodgers.
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