So this episode shows Yukina’s brother. I’m not sure whether I understand his plans, though, but the dialogue was surprisingly complex in this episode. I just fail to see the reason why he would kidnap Natsume, just to show him an international conference between the Asian leaders, in which he did nothing but talk about how he wants to create a united Asia but doesn’t have any plans to back them up with.
However, this all does show that we’re about to get to the historically sensitive part of the story. Especially considering this. I don’t know anything about Chinese history, so I looked up the “Mukden Incident” in Wikipedia. Apparently, the Japanese staged their own attack to give themselves a pretext of invading a part of China. The controversy about the whole incident is that some Japanese actually blame the Chinese for it (note: this doesn’t mean all of them).
The interesting thing here is that either the broadcasting station or this series is going to be in the wrong, considering that it’s not going to air. There are two possibilities here: the series doesn’t shy away from blaming the Japanese, and the broadcasting station didn’t agree with it, or the series mixed in some weird conspiracy theory that probably has something to do with Yukina’s brother causing the whole incident, which is what the broadcasting station found too much to air.
I’m actually very much interested in the next episode, no matter what the cause turns out to be. It’s been established by now that this is historical fiction: all historical stories end up screwing real history in one way or the other. The danger of these things is of course to not delve into useless nationalistic propaganda. Either way though, I’m very interested in how the creators actually decided to solve this matter.
Rating: * (Good)
Natsume? Don’t you mean Aoi?
I haven’t seen this episode yet, but anyway… IMO the broadcast station is simply not taking any chances, especially after the diplomatic kerfluffle between Korea and Japan over Hetalia (which was the reason why Hetalia was taken off the air in the last minute).
I don’t think the series is going to take a revisionist route (what with Aoi stating loud and clear that “we have no right to decide over the fate of this country” or something along these lines), but I don’t think it’s going to openly criticize Japan either, as I don’t think the creators want to take any serious risks either (Hetalia example again: in the episode about little Japan and China they removed the bit about Japan attacking China).
Anyway, it’s a very controversial topic and I’m curious of how they’re going to deal with it.
Wow. Man, the Japanese really are ashamed of their history if they can’t even show an episode of revisionist history on TV.
Oops, I didn’t mean revisionist history. But they can’t even show any historical fiction, even if it’s controversial? I mean, I’ve heard that the Japanese are kind of generally oblivious to the things they did in China, so I can see why it’s controversial, but they really don’t like taking chances, do they?
>Keith
Of course they can show historical fiction, they have loads of that. But Japan’s stance on its war crimes is very ambiguous and overall an incredibly sensitive issue that entertainment such as anime doesn’t like to touch. Plus there’s a good chance that China would find it offensive and I suppose the creators/broadcasters probably want to avoid creating a small-scale diplomatic scandal.
I’m gonna be honest, the only reason I picked up this series was to see how they’d handle the sensitive subject matter. It’s too bad there’s no fansubbing group doing it consistently, so I’m a few episodes behind.
I’m really hoping for a criticism of WWII Japanese foreign policy here. I think it’d be a step forward. For a series that purposely chose a controversial setting, I’d hope they’d have more balls than to dodge the issue.
Now, I don’t really know anything about public opinion in Japan, but a few PMs have given public apologies to China in the past, and I think the revisionist textbook issues have mostly been resolved. I’d be obliged if someone more in-the-know with contemporary Japanese culture could give some insight on this.
Finally, far from being an apologist, I’d like to note that the United States has still not issued any sort of apology for the Vietnam War. So the Japanese are miles ahead of us in the department. Yeah, I understand they’re on totally different scales, but I think anytime you invade a country, kill 2 million people and poison the land in order to prop up a corrupt government, you owe a little apology sometime down the line.
@Johnson: The problem is that, while apologies were made then and again, there is no unified stance of the Japanese government concerning the events during the Japanese Imperialism.
While in Germany extremist right-wing oppinions are largely pushed to the corners, if not backside of society and generally demonized, like most other Asian countries a part of Japan’s political sphere still holds on to nationalistic ideals.
Public opinion, just like in every country, is diverse.
There are those on the extremist’s side who believe that the Greater East-Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere really was a plan to equally unite the Asian nations against the Western onslaught from Russia. Those are the same kind of people who believe that the Holocaust was a lie (in case of Germans) or that the Vietnam and Korean war were fought to save the US from communism (in case of them being US-Americans).
But there are also those who accept what horrible things Japan has done, but also see the need to put those things behind us – but not forget about it.
But between those stances there are millions of different opinions…even though especially Korea and China like to make it look like Japan had only one ultra-nationalistic stance.
But apart from the apologies and Japan’s political stance towards those events. There is also that fact that while Germany had to pay reparations for what they had done during the reign of the Nazi-party and the Nürnberg trials were brought to public attention, Japan was put under much less pressure for reparations and direct punishments were less harsh.
It’s a complicated topic I think and often things are used largely out of context from all sides to discredit the other.
And while I think it is a much needed move to accept this part of Asian history into the context of depictable stories, if only for the public to move on beyond it, the protests against Hetalia Axis Power from Korea already showed that it is still a hot topic. And yes, I think as long as the other Asian countries can use it as a weapon against Japan it will stay that way…so it’s an intelligent move to take away the edge slowly.
I just hope they don’t abuse this chance for ultra-nationalistic ideology and instead give us a richer depiction of how that time felt. So far the anime is doing a good job I think.
I just thought I should mention that the next episode will be online only. The online only version will have the “Japanese” point of view, whereas the aired episode will be a recap episode.
I read about it here.
http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=207499
well I think no matter what after having watched all seasons of koihime musou(guilty pleasure (-,-)) there is really nothing that would surprise me left in the anime industry no matter how much they mess with history.
PS I am chinese and my parents come from shanghai
@twilightlegacy
Well, I am very glad that they will cover the incident, rather than wimping out and not even mentioning it. I agree with Johnson that the main reason I wanted to watch this series was to see how they would deal with the Japanese involvement in Manchuria. I must applaud their decision to actually cover the incident, even if they would have to stream it online.
Anyhow, I can’t wait for the next episode.
Oh, and to add onto what chounokoe said, another reason why it is or seems like such a touchy subject is because what happened to Asia during WWII was largely ignored by the western world.
I live in North America – if you ask anyone here about the holocaust, they will tell you what it is, how many people were killed, who initiated, and why. Majority of the people that I know have no idea what happened in Asia during WWII unless they took a world history course. (My best friend for example – she said “Yeah, we’re learning about the invasion of Manchuria next week. I wonder where Manchuria is.” I told her, “Manchuria is in China. You know, when Japan invaded China?” and her response was “Wait what? Japan invaded China? Really?”)
And then there’s the whole Rape of Nanjing where some Japanese people still deny it ever happened or only a few thousand were slaughtered at the most.
Japan, to my knowledge, hasn’t yet apologized for their treatment of comfort women, AKA women many no older than 12 years old given to troops as sex slaves where many were raped to death. The survival rate, if I remembered it right, was 1 in 10, and for those who survived, they were left with permanently disfigured bodies.
My parents told me the Japanese soldiers did human experimentation like in the holocaust, but as I’ve never looked into that, I can’t say how true it is.
TL;DR – Japan did bad shit in WWII, not many in the Western society know about it opposed to what was done by Nazi Germany so it may seem like the other Asian countries are over reacting, not all the crimes were apologized for, some crimes weren’t even acknowledged, and some Japanese citizens refuse to acknowledge the history either, combining to be a mess of ugly that’s as touchy as a boil.
Ebod: I recognize that a lot. The history classes that we’ve had at school never mentioned what happened in Asia during the second World War. This series has actually turned into an interesting history lesson for me, because I keep running into events that I’ve never heard about.
It’s especially annoying when you consider what the Dutch did in Indonesia: only when you take advanced history in high school, they’ll tell about it, but the regular history classes that I followed apparently found it more important to know about the various American presidents. Because of that I had to find out about this indirectly. It’s very annoying, but there are indeed plenty of countries who don’t like to admit parts of history in which they were the ‘bastards’.
@Ebod: Japan did in fact apologize for the treatment of comfort women, twice, somewhere in the early 1990s. They even offered compensation. Only, as far as I know, Japan’s official stance is that while they admit the existence of the brothels and the atrocities committed by Japanese soldiers, they refuse any legal responsibility for them and don’t regard the atrocities as war crimes/crimes against humanity. Even the money for the compensation came from a private fund. (And then there was an attempt to revise the apology.)
That’s the problem in general: Japan has apologized numerous times for various war crimes, but either the apologies were worded in an ambiguous way, or they didn’t seem sincere because Japan then goes on making gestures such as PMs or govt. members visiting the Yasukuni shrine (that happens to house the supposedly cleansed souls of Class A war criminals).
And yes, there were human experiments by Japanese scientists, though their aim of research was biological warfare. They even had a unit established for specifically this reason. Thing is, while members of this unit were captured in the war by the US and the USSR, most of them, even the leaders, were granted amnesty or were let off with greatly reduced sentences in exchange for their research data. (At least with Nazi doctors and scientists they had the decency to punish the leaders and commanders whom they could find before taking the research data and shipping the scientists off to the US.)
I’m from South East Asia,Malaysia to be exact,a country whose lands was colonized by so many different powers through out our history,so its compulsory that we learn about the things the Japanese did in our country(well,it wasn’t Malaysia back then) and to other Asian countries they invaded during WWII in school.I think most South East Asia countries also learn this part of history naturally,so its interesting to see how much other people from the west know about it.
What I often do wonder about is, how objective history lessons on that topic are throughout East Asia.
You always here about the history textbook affair in Japan, which has been haunting discussions since the 80’s now, but it is rarely questioned how accurately the victimized nations of WWII educate their people.
Korea and China (among others) are rather well known for their harsh nationalism, which sometimes borders on absolutism. I can’t help to wonder in how far unneccessary demonization is pushed into people’s head there.
Concerning the visits to the Yasukuni shrine. That topic is more convulted and difficult than it might seem.
In Shinto belief any person who dies a ‘terrible death’ is bound to wander this world as a vengeful spirit, destroying everything in it’s path. That evil spirit can only be appeased by being given a constant home within a shrine.
So the Meiji Tennô created the Yasukuni (靖國: peaceful country) shrine, to automatically enshrine every soldier who died in any war concerning Japan.
This was also caused by the sudden changes during the Meiji Restauration. The bushi (warrior cast) was abolished and suddenly every Japanese could become a soldier, so to make the ordinary people less affraid of the concept of battle, they were given a goal to look forward to. Also, the Tennô paid his respect at the shrine every year, which made the population feel that he was actually connected to them and honored their death.
I think it was mentioned many times here already, but I also think it’s a shame how often people don’t have the proper chances to be educated in history.
How can we learn from our mistakes if we don’t know them.