How Japan Deals with War: Anime?
Japan's defeat in World War II was a huge emotional blow to the country which is still felt today. Although more than sixty years have passed, the subject of the war is still in many ways "taboo," and not discussed very often outside of certain specific situations. (Kind of reminds me of growing up in the 1970s and asking what that Vietnam War thing was all about...no one seemed to want to tell me.) One interesting mechanism the Japanese have evolved to allow them to deal with the subject of war has been an unlikely one: animation. While the traditional image of a "soldier" used to be tied to black and white photographs from the historical Pacific War, this has changed somewhat after three decades of popular culture in which the idea of "war" was more likely to be defined in sci-fi terms, such as the One Year War of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, in which spacenoids living in orbital colonies fight for independence from Earth. While it's not generally possible for Japanese to wax romantic about the real war, which they lost, you can probably find fans within a certain age range who could tell you about the First Battle of Jaburo between Char Aznable-lead Zeon forces and the Federation in great detail, or a Space Battleship Yamato fan who can get misty-eyed about the Battle of Saturn, when dozens of Andromeda-class battleships were destroyed by the Comet Empire. If you asked Japanese who they considered the most respected "military heroes" of the country were, you might find some who would answer Amuro Rei or Bright Noah or Captain Okita/Captain Avatar, the legendary characters from these war-oriented anime series. It's not unlike the original Star Trek, which was able to tell stories about race relations and other difficult topics that couldn't be discussed in the 1960s unless they were disguised as science fiction tales far off into the future.
Hmm, the links didn't work before. How's this?
posted by Peter in Japan at 8:21 PM
8 Comments:
What should bother people is that Japan, in general, is still in denial about any wrong doings in their part, and primarily concerned only with the fact that they lost, and that foreign powers took away the lands that was rightfully theirs. Japan still insists that all treaty signed before 1920 to be valid, thus making Kuril Islands and Tokdo theirs. The hidden agenda behind this is that the same treaties Japan wants to be honored would make Taiwan, Sakhlin Island, and whole Korean Peninsula Japanese territory as well.
8:56 PM
It's true it's a big topic, and not one I can easily touch on in my updates, since they're made to be somewhat "light" without going paragraphs into various detail. While Japan does need to face up to things more, it's important to know that
a) Japan, like Germany, was a young country, trying to overcome its lack of an empire by trying too hard
b) they really, really respected Britain, and you can learn a lot about Japan's past by thinking of it in that light. In other words, they were trying to get an empire like Britain had
c) at the time, there was a degree of welcoming this young empire that was going to punch the British Empire's lights out. I heard, and I believe it to be true, that in countries like Egypt there are many boy children named Hideki, after Hideki Tojo, because of the spirit of the time
Of course, Japan went way beyond anything that is acceptable with the war itself, from the harm they caused both civilians and normal POWs to the ferocity they fought with. On the other hand, try to remember that history is always written by the victors, and some small percent -- let's call it 2% just for argument's sake -- isn't as it actually was, but is distorted because of the intervening years, especially the huge generation of propaganda in Korea and China. In other words, there's hyperbole in every argument, and some of what we accept as true about Japan is no doubt no totally true.
Not sure what that's worth when all is said and done, since they were frickin' animals. But just something to keep in mind...
10:59 PM
By the way, the links didn't work. I'll put them in a new post.
11:38 PM
back to the War in anime subject, a shining example is grave of the fireflies. that film truly made the firebombing of Japan real.
1:22 AM
About Grave of Fireflies and Firebombing, I like to point out several things.
1. One of the theme in Grave of Fireflies was how pride of a boy ruined the life of his own and his brother. Several opportunities, even though they were not great, were given to the main character which would have let his brother get the food they needed, but he did not take those opportunity. His adopted mother's main complaint against him was that he should do something productive, but I don't recall in him making any attempts to find acceptable line of work.
2. Many in Japan constantly try to arouse sympathy by portraying Japan as the victim of the war. They need to acknowledge the human condition, that in order to gain sympathy, they need to express sympathy towards others as well, and sadly, they have been very arrogant about their actions towards neighboring countries in 20th century.
3. My biggest beef against Japan is how they reacted after the war compared to how Germany reacted. Germany did things much worse than Japan, and they were not the victim of atomic bomb. Yet, Germany tried to make full amends and now is enjoying better relationship with Israel compared to what Japan has with Korea or China. One of things Japan needs to realize is that abandoning claims to territories that they don't have full control, and paying full compensation to the war victims will actually boost Japan's economy as it will let Japanese companies engage in economic projects that they are barred from doing due to sour relationship with Korea and China.
4:06 AM
I agree Japan, which is normally so good at "hansei" (reflecting honestly on errors it made and being sorry) on an individual level, fails there. I've already talked to my kids about the historical things that happened, and hope that more Japanese kids would get a similar treatment, i.e. not just have all of World War II shoved under the carpet because "that was a long time ago" except for Hiroshima, the Great Tokyo Air Raid and so on.
As for some external things like apologies and compensation, Japan has apologized something like 30 times, and it's clear that nothing will ever be "enough" for China and Korea. They show TV dramas regularly in which the Japanese soldiers line up pregnant women and shoot them, so it's hard to be "fair and balanced." Ditto for very hard subjects like the idea of the many Koreas and Chinese (more the former than the latter, since Japan's annexation of the Korean Peninsula was a lot longer). Somehow the subject of how Korea was colonized by the somewhat belligerent power to the East, which was done in part with collaboration by its own members, is still too hot to touch. Really, I'd like to study the history of Ireland as compared to Korea/Japan more. My feeling is that the history of the two (four) countries is similar, with the country in the East treating the country to the West as less than human and learning "Empire making 101" on them, stealing their land, and so on, all of which is very bad. My question though is, why is Japan so totally evil for doing all of this in the 20th century, when England doing it from 1576 onward. It smacks of "history being written by the victors" is all I'm saying.
(Note that I try to be disassociated with the issues at hand, since I am neither Korean nor Chinese nor Japanese. I know it's hard to know exactly how to feel when we're outsiders.)
10:57 AM
Northern Ireland is a more complicated situation compared to Dokdo. Something I want to say in defense of England is that, although they are perpetrators of many historical atrocities, you have to give them credit for being one of the first countries to pay attention to human rights. England is one of the first countries to have their government renounce slavery. My friend often says non-violent movement in India only worked because British could not let go of their illusion of being a true gentlemen, where as any other countries would have ruthlessly executed Gandhi and his followers without batting a eye. Finally, if you consider how the colonies of British Empire fares compare to colonies of other countries, it is likely that you will come to conclusion that British Empire dissolved more peacefully compared to any other countries. Anyway, I fear that real reconciliation between neighboring cultures of China, Japan, and Korea will not come about until all the people born before 1945 has died.
11:52 AM
I agree, of course, and there seems to have been a real difference in how the British treated India for 150 years compared with what Japan did in the Philippines or Korea, trying (among other things) to erase the people's native language and replace it with Japanese, never a good thing to do, as language is to humans what OSes are to computers, and imagine all the flame wars we have about those ^_^
3:22 PM
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