Revisionism? Japanese films about WW2

It's too be expected that a country will try to spin its wartime history to be more acceptable (the US does it all the time), but when the Japanese try to dismiss atrocities in Asia, it can be a bit troubling. These Japanese films present an interesting but sometimes disturbing perspective of the war:

http://www.usni.org/through-japanese-eyes-wwii-japanese-cinema

But as you said, doesn't the USA do it all the time RE: atrocities during wartime? I wonder how the crimes at Abu Graib will be portrayed in the future?

I've been told by many people that Grave Of The Fireflies should be on my "see this movie twice" list, though.

The original anime version is heart wrenching and much better then the live action movies

http://www.amazon.com/Fireflies-2-Disc-Collectors-Tsutomu-Tatsumi/dp/B00006HAWP
highly recommended, have a box of tissues handy.

The Japanese people, especially the children, were victims in WWII, too. and their story shouldn't be ignored just because of their evil imperial government, just as ordinary Americans and Iraqis are victims of our government whackos. In fact, the ordinary peoples real and pervasive suffering during war time should always be prominently shown, in order that we may know some of it's horrors, and think long and harder before starting one. But notice how the M$M sterilizes the story of war. that should also be considered a war crime imho.

:cry:

Grave of the fireflies. The real world film was not as good. Something with animation just does not seem to translate, and the emotions were not as heavy. I bought the animated film. Its part of my collection now.

The special effects were so cheap that they were a distraction. The anime version still haunts me.

but I might order the special 2-disk edition ($10, used but good)

I was expecting something like Miyazaki: it's not. But you should see it for a look at the immediate postwar Japan from a child's point of view.

As far as I know, they still haven't.

. But the right and far right fought such things tooth and nail. Within a few years into the Occupation, SCAP had shifted far right. The rest is history.

The Russians tried all of that infamous unit they could lay their hands on, and shot most of them. But Gen. Willoughby (MacArthur's "favorite fascist") hid them away in an obscure research group. I'll have to Google later, but I believe that the head of that unit ended up as president of a large pharmaceutical company in Japan.

Do you mean Shirō Ishii?

And this is supposed to be some kind of monument to Unit 731, in Japan!

The writing below it identifies it as a monument(?) to unit 731 in Tokyo. Here's one 'hit' from my belated Googling: http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/ishii.html

I see where there's at least one film about unit 731: http://www.amazon.com/History-Unit-731-Nightmare-Manchuria/dp/B001CU7RYE/ref=sr_1_4?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1283510028&sr=1-4

And you wont hear us apologizing for it, nor will you hear much criticism about it in the M$M.

remember how even 'liberal' NPR cheerlead the war, even to this very day.

this is what empires do, unfortunately.

=(

Japan slaughtered over 25 million people in China alone.

I'm against 99% of our middle east policy but you're way off-base.

and we aren't finished yet... just like the imperial japanese in asia during that time.

except they called it The "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".

And we don't do body counts, so who is to say exactly how many we have killed? again, just like the imperial japanese of that time.

like i said, that is what empires do.

and so it goes...

not to mention grand theft. :eyes:

but that helps illustrate my point... we minimize our own behavior, and fail to even recognize it, while railing about similar behavior of others.

it never ceases to amaze me the incredible power of propaganda on the psych.

Not an equality.

I do happen to agree with you that from a certain perspective, our invasion of Iraq "for its own good" bears similarity to Japan's invasions of China, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Burma, and various other areas, also ostensibly for their own good.

But while individual American soldiers may have committed atrocities, and Abu Ghraib will be a stain on our nation's honor, there is a huge difference, not just in degree but in kind. We have not committed anything approaching the mass murder and systematic rape that Japan did. It was not and is not our intention to occupy Iraq indefinitely, nor to keep it as a subservient colony.

It's important to be self-critical, but we don't have to go overboard with it.

Interesting.

If you go with the official story of our actions abroad, I guess it wouldn't seem that bad, however, I believe there is overwhelming evidence that this isn't just a case of a few bad apples, e.g. GITMO, secret 'renditions', wiretapping, torture, assassinations, unlawful enemy combatant, etc. but a formal policy.

it is truly bizarre how folks can justify or gloss over these actions when we do them, but condemn fiercely and passionately when others do them.

i tremble for my country when confronting this wide spread cognitive dissonance =(

But you don't have to presume that the origin of my opinions is some sort of character flaw that is "truly bizarre". Reasonable people can have different opinions on things sometimes.

Listen, I could probably go on and on comparing the US to Nazi Germany (Imperial Japan's best buddy) too. They're both countries with militaries. Their militaries have been involved in operations in other countries. Their militaries have killed civilians. But just because there are a few similarities here and there doesn't mean they're the same at all.

Anyway, it's clear we're not going to come to an agreement. That's all right. I respect your opinion and understand the reasons for it, and as I said earlier, I happen to agree with part of it. Please don't assume that the only reason I have my opinion is due to some sort of moral blindness or character deficiency.

and I apologize about that characterization, as I didn't mean to imply any kind of personal 'character flaw', but more of a general observation about all of us when it comes to how we view events committed in our name, as opposed to other similar events committed in another's.

i am also not trying to defend the imperial japanese (i would never do such a thing), or am i saying that our behavior is worse. I am just deeply offended by war, especially imperial wars of aggression, in particular, ones committed in our name. and i see this as an opportunity to illustrate how wrong the current path we as a nation are currently traveling, by comparing and contrasting it with well known, and widely agreed to as wrong behavior for a nation, as i tremble for my country when i consider where this will all end if we do not choose a different path.

Again, I apologize BlueCheese for offending you, and thank you for chatting :toast:

My reaction was perhaps too strong, and I shouldn't have taken it personally.

Thanks and I look forward to reading your posts in the future.

... until after September 11. I have no qualms about the initial effort to oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda there.

Iraq is a murkier case. But to equate that with Japan's 15-year war of aggression and mass murder is too much.

FYI: the imperial japanese used an explosive september attack on them to justify their invasion and occupation as well.

or are you saying that we have to wait until after we have waged aggressive, murderous war for another 6 years before we can note the similarities?

IMHO, I don't think the numbers of killed or years of time spent waging aggressive war have to be exact matches before you can note the similarities.

But that's okay. You have the right to your opinion.

I'm not sure which of various incidents you're referring to in your September explosive attack, but whatever it was, it was probably either fabricated or of very small scale. There's no way that's comparable to the September 11 attacks, which were a legitimate cause for destroying Al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts if there ever was one.

We've certainly made mistakes in Afghanistan, but the Taliban are brutal, backwards, and evil, and the US should not apologize for its efforts in ridding the Afghan people of their oppresive misrule. This is independent of the question as to whether we ought tobe there or not.

Where in Iraq or Afghanistan did the United States engage in widely sanctioned, systematic murder?

for example how every gov points to an attack to justify their invasion, though we broke that precedent with iraq, and even though the scales may be different.

and i certainly do not believe that bad government is a legal or moral justification to invade and make war against a country and it's people, though i know that that has become conventional thinking in our country these days (as empires often promote military solutions to every problem) I believe that we should have gone after osama's Gang of murderous thugs with a small special forces operation. The scale of our operations is wholly disproportionate to going after a gang. However, if you have a bigger prize in mind like controlling access to vital resources, then it begins to make imperial sense.

Empires often spin disneyland like fantasies to justify their murderous adventures, but after learning to read between the lines, and from multiple, international sources, and the perspective of history, it is much harder to succumb to them.

As far as widely sanctioned murder, I would point to the ONGOING wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention pakistan, as a whole, and just one town (among many) that got disproportionate coverage fallujah as examples.

what do you think our military are doing over there, giving out chocolate bars?

Actually, there's no contest. Really. We're talking many orders of magnitude difference in brutality.

I think you may be right though in one sense -that we shouldn't so easily consider themselves 'the good guys' in any war. We aren't, and horrible things continue to be done in our name. But it's also possible we got that status in WWII not because we were good, but because we were not nearly as bad.

Anyway, the subject is films, so here's a decent film on the Japanese version of regime change, "Nanking" (2007). Sure, it's largely a sympathetic western perspective, but it's easily available and there are a few Chinese voices to be heard.

I would never try to make that argument, though I do think these are excellent teachable moments to highlight the similarities to our deplorable behavior today in the hope of making people understand why we must end these brutal wars of aggression, no matter who is in office, without delay.

it pains me a great deal, everyday, when i consider what is going on in our names, over there.

and so it goes...

You've also jogged my thinking -I need to know more about why the Japanese have had such a tough time coming to terms with it.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_pacific.html

NANKING MASSACRE (December, 1937)

YELLOW RIVER FLOOD (1938)

HONG KONG ATROCITIES (December 25, 1941)

THE LAHA AIRFIELD EXECUTIONS (February 9, 1943)

PHILIPPINES MASSACRE

BANGKA ISLAND MASSACRE (St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 1942)

THE PARIT SULONG MASSACRE

TOL PLANTATION ATROCITY (February 4, 1942)

MASSACRE ON BALIKPAPAN (February 24, 1942)


MASSACRE ON ANDAMAN (August 14, 1945)


THE CHEKIANG MASSACRES

ATROCITY ON LUZON

THE TRUK MASSACRE (February, 1944)

DEATH ON TANOURA BEACH

MURDER ON WAKE ISLAND (January 12, 1943)

KOKOPO AND BALLALAE MASSACRES

THE 'AKIKAZE' EXECUTIONS (March 18, 1943)

THE PORT BLAIR MASSACRES (March 23, 1942)

MASSACRE ON PALAWAN (December 14, 1944)

THE PIG BASKET ATROCITY

THE KALAGON MASSACRE

LOA KULU MASSACRE (July 30, 1945)

RETALIATION IN INDONESIA (1945/46)

THE CHERIBON ATROCITY (July, 1945)

THE HOSPITAL MASSACRES

GENOCIDE IN SINGAPORE

THE HANKOW REPRISAL

SANDAKAN DEATH MARCH (1945)

THE BATAAN DEATH MARCH (April 1942)

Lets see them try to rewrite those tidbits from hstory.

Fuck 'em.

Thanks for posting.

Followed a survivor of that last desperate mission, and how the ship and crew were pounded into scrap metal and pulp by US planes.

Funny book overall, but the champter on "Hiroshima" is very well written and serious. He asked much the same question at that time.

The Human Condition- (The Criterion Collection) (1961) (4 disks!)
http://www.amazon.com/Human-Condition--Criterion-Collection/dp/B0026VBOJM/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1283539476&sr=1-1

I waited patiently several years, for that film to be made available for US audiences. It finally appeared late last year, and I ordered it before the price went even steeper.