Violence and War in Japanese Popular Culture Essay

Introduction

The bombing of Hiroshima on 6^th August, 1945 and of Nagasaki three days later by the US led to the death of more than 200,000 men, women and children. More than 130,000 inhabitants died of radiation related poisoning over the next five years.

Despite bringing an end to the 2^nd World War, the wartime experience and its aftermath has continued to be discussed by the Japanese and non-Japanese literary writers.

50 years after the end of the war, the effects of the war have continued to influence the Japanese culture and have also affected its relations with other countries.

Aim

The aim of this paper is to discuss how the violence and war in Japan have influenced the culture of its people.

Discussions

The Japanese culture has been greatly influenced by the experiences from the war, a look at the popular comic series, Manga, heavily reveals this (Penney, para.1). According to Lamarre Thomas’ Speciesism, part I: Translating races into Animals in Wartime Animation, the use of racial conscious themes in both the Japanese and American media, was very widespread (Lammare 2). The author points to the Japanese depicting the Americans as failures, demons or ogres in retaliation to the US media referring to them as animals, the most commonly used animal was the monkey or ape (Lammare 1). The idea behind this animalization of the Japanese was to strip away their humanity thereby apply the animal qualities to them during the post-war period. It is this animalization that is referred to as speciesism and is defined as a displacement of race and racism. It involves the attribution of negative characteristics to animated beings and extending the traits to humans.

In the animated film Momotaro: umi no shinpei, the representation of the Americans and Britons in human forms with horns depicted them as demonic creatures who would be chased away by the purity and vigor of the Japanese during war.

America is depicted as a child of twelve who has refused to grow up in one of Manga’s editions, Ambassador Atom. This is depicted by the use of a robot (which doesn’t grow), the final scene shows aliens sending an adult face to Atom, an attempt to force maturity of the Americans (Eiji 3).

Animation provided a platform for the Japanese to practice speciesism against their American counterparts through the use of animals in animated films. This is due to the fact that these animals were flexible and therefore they could switch to any life form. Use of animations also made possible all manners of deformation on the human form as it imparted a different sense of power on the human forms, common with animals.

Another animated television series shows an Atom achieve peace through the pursuance of justice by ‘defeating’ wrong deeds; this depicted the achievement of peace through the formation of a Japanese force and signing of a pact between the two countries.

Pictorial forms were also used by the Japanese in the manga from the 1930s with Disney-like bodies, a notable artist is Oshiro Noboru who worked for Mars Exploration, and it is these early works that were used for reference by the manga creators.

Conclusion

The use of Speciesism and animation by Japanese writers during and after the war placed them in the path of a conflict with its enemies, especially the Americans, who also used pictorial forms to portray the Japanese as apes. This style also set course for its use in latter day works.

Works Cited

1. Eiji, Otsuka, and LaMarre, Thomas. Disarming atom: Tezuka Osamu’s Manga at war and peace. 2008.
2. LaMarre, Thomas. Speciesism, part I: translating races into animals in wartime animation. 2008.
3. Penney, Mathew. War and Japan: the non-fiction Manga of Mizuki. (n.d.). 2010.