Ask John: What’s John’s Opinion of Anti-War Anime?
Question:
What’s your opinion of anime/manga that have anti-war themes like Azumi/Barefoot Gen/Grave of Fireflies and what titles of the latest generation continue their tradition?
Answer:
I suspect that my own impressions of, particularly, anime with anti-war themes are representative of the typical response. While it’s not necessarily my own opinion, I’d also like to propose a provocative and less often considered impression of this variety of anime. Japan has justifiable cause for creating anime with anti-war messages. Japan was an instigator of WWII, and is also the world’s only country to have been the victim of a nuclear bombing. Manga artists including Keiji Nakazawa, Shigeru Mizuki, and Tetsuya Chiba were involved in or directly impacted by WWII, so their experiences and perspectives naturally influence their artwork. Furthermore, considering that the primary audience for anime is young, exposure to anti-war political sentiments may influence future generations of Japanese citizens and help shape the future of the country and its international relationships. I respect the inclusion of consequential themes in anime, regardless of the message, because this use of anime elevates animation from the realm of inconsequential commercial product into the realm of legitimate art and serious means of public discourse. Whether it’s anti-war messages in anime including Rain of Fire, Who’s Left Behind?, and Barefoot Gen; religious propaganda in anime films such as Laws of Eternity and Rebirth of Buddha; Japanese nationalism in Zipang and Gasaraki; social consciousness in films like Momoko: Kaeru no Utaga Ki Koeruyo and Goto ni Naritai; environmental awareness in Kawa no Hikari and Nausicaa; or educational encouragement in anime like Alice SOS and Arei no Kagami, anime that tries to deliver a message or encourage consideration or real world circumstances represents a more valuable, respectable, and praiseworthy goal for anime than merely providing time occupying entertainment.
However, the actual ability of anti-war themed anime to significantly influence behaviour or affect social change is probably minimal, at best. My instinctual guess is that the politicians and power-brokers that guide and affect international relations probably don’t watch anime. (Granted, there are always rare exceptions like Taro Aso.) More importantly, I don’t think anyone really expects an animated film – or any film, for that matter – to change the world and drastically alter the fundamental perspective of global leaders. Including anti-war sentiments into anime is a noble gesture, but it is, in practical effect, little more than a gesture. I don’t subscribe to the observation that anime depicting the ravages of WWII on Japan exemplify a Japanese sense of martyrdom – or rather, I haven’t watched enough anti-war themed anime to convince me of that impression – but it is an accusation which I’ve heard. I have encountered, from fellow English speaking otaku, the theory that anime like Madhouse’s 1988 TV special Natsufuku no Shoujotachi ~Hiroshima Shouwa 20-nen Hachigatsu Muika~ that depict the noble struggles and sacrifice of Japanese citizens during WWII and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki may be interpreted as self-serving pity. Anime that depict Japanese citizens as blameless victims of excessive American force during WWII sanctify Japan while downplaying Japan’s own role in necessitating the aggressive international response. It’s irresponsible, I’ve heard say, to elicit pity for the misfortune of Japanese war victims while not acknowledging that the misfortune was predicated by Japanese imperialism and militarism in the first place.
Regardless of one’s stance on the validity of certain anti-war themed anime, these productions continue to periodically surface. The Shin’ei Douga anime production studio has been animating annual “sensou dowa” (wartime fable) anime TV movies since 2003. The most recent one, Aoi Hitomi no Onna no Ko no Ohanashi (Story of the Little Girl With Blue Eyes), aired on August 13, 2009. Studio Hibari is now in production on its anime film Junrod, about Swiss doctor Mercel Junod, the first foreign aid worker to arrive in Japan to assist the victims of the Hiroshima bombing. My own opinion is that regardless of whether anti-war themed anime productions reflect a Japanese victimization mentality or encourage an abhorrence for war and its unavoidable impacts, the very fact that anti-war anime continue to get made is an encouraging example that anime has legitimate social and artistic value and is a socially relevant form of discourse and political/moral expression.
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>It’s irresponsible, I’ve heard say, to elicit pity for the misfortune of Japanese war victims while not acknowledging that the misfortune was predicated by Japanese imperialism and militarism in the first place.
It seems a typical ‘good sense’ of educated non-Japanese. They frequently overlook what had really caused imperialism in the world of the 1930’s; the Great Depression and the policy of block economy executed by dominating countries against the economic crisis. In short, those which have fewer colonies became oppressed by those which have colonies enough to sustain their spheres of influence. (If Germany, I suppose, had won WWI, they would not have born Him. It was quite possible that Britain or someone else would have invented Imperialism.) Pure objectively speaking, it was a kind of Old Maid game; someone would have to be an old maid in the end, and the rest proudly say, “We won because we were justice!â€
To return to the subject, when Japanese movies including anime seem to foreigners as if they tried to depict Japanese citizens as pure victims, it is not that the creators attempt to obscure the then Japan’s nature of victimizer, but that it is the most effective and empathetic to express, “War itself is evil!†without depicting anyone ultimate evils. See Miyazaki’s _Howl’s Moving Castle_; Howl attack any warships and warplanes desperately whether they belong to his country or not. It may make no sense to most non-Japanese, but it vividly reflects how Japanese have seen the war after their defeat with *mixed feelings*. (And that was why Howl failed to appeal to viewers outside Japan.)
Actually, Miyazaki called out the LDP for white-washing the country’s war-crimes. [And during the L.A. Grave of the Fireflies screening, Takahata also had no qualms about citing Japanese aggression on China as being responsible for the whole mess.] As for Howl, it was more in response to Iraq than WW2. And I hate to be honest about it, but the real reason it didn’t resonate here was that it was a narrative mess.
Personally, I am doubtful about the established theory that Miyazaki wanted to criticize Iraq War in Howl, even if he says it is what he really wanted to do. The air-raids sequence reminded many older Japanese of the American B-29s’ bombing in WWII rather than Iraq War. There appeared something like a call-up paper (a.k.a. the red-paper) in a scene, didn’t it? The movie has many scenes and gimmicks to evoke bitter memories of WWII from Japanese.
Interestingly, Miyazaki once wrote in an illustrated essay that he would have possibly volunteered for a Kamikaze (suicide) mission if he had been trained as a pilot during the war. (It is impossibe, of course, since he was born in 1941.) It reflects mixed feelings of him (and most Japanese who survived WWII) about the war and nationalism.
moonchild: “The air-raids sequence reminded many older Japanese of the American B-29s’ bombing in WWII rather than Iraq War. ”
Well, reading Barefoot Gen has actually made me think about parallels to the Iraq thing, and it was written before either Bush was President. Fascist militarism is, unfortunately, never exclusive to a particular era.
“Interestingly, Miyazaki once wrote in an illustrated essay that he would have possibly volunteered for a Kamikaze (suicide) mission if he had been trained as a pilot during the war.”
“Volunteer” might have had different connotations back then.
GATS, you might be surprised. The kamikaze were not forced-at-the-point-of-a-gun to volunteer, or even by peer pressure. Most of them really were enthusiastic about it.
I don’t doubt that. But I have a feeling some of them did it because of peer pressure-at least if Gen is accurate enough in that area.
Does it sound so unlogical that a boy/girl with a sense of patriotism would rather sacrifice to the nation he/she belongs to when he/she sees his/her nation losing? (I recall a scene from _Gone with the Wind_ where a young boy claimed he should volunteer immediately when he knew his brother died in the Civil War.)
Interestingly enough, there were also young Koreans who *literally volunteered* for Kamikaze mission during WWII. I’d like to know what made them determined to do…
moonchild, Koreans, like most civilizations, have generally been attracted or yieleded their will to “power” from ancient times. It is politically unpopular to even consider (because Japan LOST, and thus, not powerful) but it is true. Korea has bee invaded so many times, twice by the Japanese, and hundreds more by the mainland controllers whether it be the Han Chinese of varoius Dynasties, the Manchu’s, other Jurchens, the Mongols… Japan until the Mongols was geopolitically safe as an archipelago, Korea has had to worry about its security since ancient times due to it being a Peninsula.
Good politics generally kept the giant enemy at bay.
Japan was as everyone knew, an emerging Empire. Japan winning against the Manchu’s and the Russian’s was thanks to a lot of things: Luck, success of Japanese training from 1860’s, and Western aid. But politically when Japan bent to the will of France, Russia, Germany (?) to relinquish the Liaotung peninsula, Koreans instantantly saw this as a weakness.
Many Koreans wanted to modernize or at least be independent; but too many Koreans at the time were interested in becoming a colony of the ‘strongest’ nation (which in no way in hell was Japan in their mind) or staying ‘traditional’ and being left alone, which was increasingly becoming a non-option due to the fact that Russians were already setting up camp in North Korea trickling in from Vladivostok.
Hmm, that is not the point, sidjtd. When I saw a movie featuring the bitter experiences of Japanese-Americans during WWII from a view of an American male. (_Come See the Paradise_?) It, on the whole, was a little too sentimental and boring to me, but I was still impressed with boys who hailed the emperor of Japan, or hailed themselves as protesters against the U.S. government’s policy of anti-Japanese, while they do not speak Japanese or have not seen Japan. It got me thinking about what nationalism was.
For your information, many (I do not say ‘the majority of’) Koreans truly wanted to be Japanese in that era. It may seem unlogical that young Koreans volunteered for Japanese army, especially Kamikaze mission, but I think no one is entitled to condemn them as fanatic or brainwashed simply from the viewpoint of the 21st century.
moonchild, I guess we had somewhat of a miscommunication because I was trying to support your point of view that their were many Koreans (and Taiwanese, some Mongols, and although significantly less, Manchurians) who basically saw the Japanese Empires causes as “worth fighting for” in the face of Imperialist Western forces.
That doesn’t mean they agreed with everything, of course, much in the same way all Quebecers(sp?) don’t always see themselves as willing members of Canada or the South wanting to be a part of a forced-Federation controlled by the North back in the 1800’s. But many believed it was worth putting forth an effort to participate rather than to see their “region/country/state”, whatever they were fighting for, become potentially unstable or destroyed due to external foreign forces infringing into their land, most notably Russia and the US at the time.
John, I personally see Zipang as a Anti-war show rather than a ‘Nationalistic’ show because Zipang does not make any segments where the protagonists show support to Imperial Japanese ideals or to reject the Americans, whom in their ‘era’ were allies. Instead of showing blind support for their ‘brethren/blood brothers/ancestors” the time-slipped SDF boat puts all of its efforts into trying to find a way to merely survive, and to find a way to stop the war before their country as they know it is destroyed by the Americans; and more importantly, by the own ignorance of the ruling Military Class of Japan that took over Japan slowly from the 1930’s.
Lastly, while I am in no position to lecture anyone, there is no doubt America will go to war with the ruling class of Saudi’s if the Saudi’s stop all exportation of oil to the United States. Afterall, 80% of the oil the US relies on in economy and national defense derives from oil.
In that same respect, Imperial Japan saw the oil embargoes as a virtual declaration of war due to a loss of oil as a National Emergency. There is no doubt in anyones mind that Japan made the US enter the war via Pearl Harbour. But to me, the word instigator seems to imply that they were itching for war with the US and that the US had no part the souring relationships between the 2 nations.
Maybe my understanding of the word ‘instigator’ is not correct. I am not saying Japan is justified in attacking PH, just informing the real reasonings behind it as oppose to giving off the impression that they just wanted to attack the US just for ideological or war mongering reasons. If someone can inform me otherwise I don’t mind being enlightened further. Just my 2 cents.