Nationalism in Anime

I know that I'm OOT, but i'm wondering if there's an anime that seemingly features War Is Glorious when in reality, after several chapters, the true Aesop is War Is Hell ? I know that Gundam shows quickly the War Is Hell, same thing with Evangelion.

For the Japanese the acceptable romanticized wars are The Three Kingdoms era of China and the Sengoku period of Japan and that is pretty much it.

For the US that would be the revolution, WW 2 and to some extent the Civil War.

edited 6th Sep '15 2:19:13 PM by Memers

As far as Anti-Nationalist anime go, I'd say that Fullmetal Alchemist kinda feels like a pretty huge example of that.

Oh yeah, with the Ishvalans based on the Ainu (though many people think they're based on the Iraqis).

I'm pretty sure the writer of the 2003 anime explicitly said he was trying to draw Iraq War parallels.

That depends on how close you're paying attention, a lot. Many of the tropes apply to both sides of the Axis. What's unique about MS Gundam isn't that it's against nationalism; rather, it's an explicitly pro-Allied show produced by what was formerly an Axis power. This discussion has been had a few times in The Gundam Thread and we're effectively at a stalemate on it. (We've similarly had some discussions over, if it's meant to represent Germany, is MS Gundam the Western Front or the Eastern Front? We're at a stalemate there too.)

Similarly, the argument about pro-Japan being SEED only really suggests you haven't been paying attention to, say, 0083's general themes, or Unicorn's (they invoke the Co-Propserity Sphere almost by name), or the general whitewashing of Zeon by other directors and authors but Tomino.

edited 6th Sep '15 4:23:35 PM by Night

Good heavens, I know they took place at around the same time but I think of the war as recent and FMA as old... "ten years" just means such different things in these contexts.

@Memers: You're about right. Not only are those wars far back in feudal history, they were inside what are now unified nations and hence do not raise nationalist hackles.

To answer the question of "why WWII", the fact is there have been a trio of shows based on tanks, planes and ships of the war, but this has more to do with the fact that many otaku are fascinated by military hardware, and combining it with what they love most is an easy market pitch. It's about the vehicles and tactics, not the politics or morality of the war, and little different from the other X-as-cute-girls being animated (modern guns, lovecraftian beings, cans...).

During the occupation, the Americans piled the blame onto the military, which was entirely disbanded, and absolved the rest of the country because they needed an ally in the region. Most Japs accept the existence of the crimes, if perhaps not their scale, but do not talk about it as openly as the Germans have, and there is a vocal minority denying them. And that includes the present Prime Minister. It doesn't help that China puts the most pressure for apologies, yet it is obvious that the Communist Party is using China's own nationalism to legitimise its rule, but ignores its own crimes and that the occupation helped it take power from the Kuomintang. It is indeed acting rather like pre-war Japan.

Animation is generally too fantastic or escapist to handle the issue directly, and as said any depiction will raise protests and studios don't want the trouble, but there are shows that pander to the victim complex, rather like the romanticised idea of the American South in films like Gods and Generals.

edited 6th Sep '15 4:56:26 PM by Reymma

Just a heads up, I don't think we should use the word "Jap". That's...rather derogatory.

I can argue that the Vandenreich in Bleach have more parallels to Imperial Japan rather than Nazi Germany.

A hyper militant, xenophobic juggernaut where The Emperor is literally a god, and one who borders on God Is Evil. His intensely devout followers' only purpose is to sustain his lifespan, and they fight to the death - surrender is not allowed and defeat is not tolerated.

I found Unicorn boring but I thought the entire point of the series was that there was no point. Everything Full Frontal and his group did was a waste and in the end everything Zeon "stood for" was denounced and disowned by Mineva.

It's just what I've been told of the plot.

And of course SEED is going to be brought up most as it's the only Gundam blatantly featuring Japan against a cartoonishly evil West.You can argue about metaphor and subtext in other Gundam but in SEED it's just plain old text and not subtle at all.

Orb in Seed is really just a minor thing. It's a place they hide out in twice, and it provides the resources for them to save the day later, and is one 3rd of the Three Ships Alliance but that's about it.

It's not until Destiny that all of a sudden almost all the plotpoints revolve around this little island nation and Orb is the only nation that can tip the balance.

But here's the thing that makes Orb different from actual Japan. It thrives because of its immigrants. Most of it's technological advances is because they openly welcomed coordinators when no other nation on earth would. Their MS force of Astray's was only able to work because of Erica Simmons, a coordinator immigrant.

Kira might be the strong ideal Japanese man, but he only gets as far as he does because of all the foreign people helping him. Aside from Kira and Cagalli, everyone else of note in the TSA is either from Plant, or EA, most notably Lacus who is the real power behind the group. All these people were welcomed into the country and hailed as their heroes. The proud Orb army is all too happy to admit that the legendary AA crew, almost all of whom are foreigners are their superiors.

If Orb is Fukuda's ideal Japan, than Fukuda thinks Japan needs to be less nationalistic and xenophobic and start letting foreigners have lots of influence on it. And that's not such a bad thing.

When it comes to the whole War Is Hell thing, I had mentioned Yuki Yuna is a Hero earlier which is a bit downplayed I think but still there. It doesn't go right to the Nationalism Is Bad aesop, but it does pretty much state that sacrificing innocent people for the sake of your country is kind of a dick move. I say its downplayed because the theocracy in question (the Taisha) are shown to not actually be bad people, but rather well-intentioned people who want to protect their country and feel as if they have no other options.

Also, this is purely my own speculation, but I feel like a reason why WWII is so ingrained upon the Japanese psyche is that they had built up this idea that they were a superior people, the favored of the gods, and that they were the destined leaders of Asia, and then with just two bombs the United States defeated them in such an abrupt and absolute manner. Even now WWII is still a pretty controversial subject in Japan, with the current prime minister refusing to acknowledge the existence of "comfort women" and a lot of more right-wing groups trying to either downplay or deny the atrocities their army committed in China. It's not as if the entire country believes this; there's still a significant left wing in the Japanese public- but it's an issue that I don't think will be resolved anytime soon.

Also with the pacifist leaning of the whole series, however annoying the idealised state of Orb is, it does not play into the political desire for rearmament or whitewashing history. It may play up fears of other countries, but with the ideal being to engage with the world and not entrench defensively.

It shouldn't have been that sudden, but it seems that it was. Firebombing killed more civilians than the atom bombs, Grave of the Fireflies doesn't even mention them. Yet censorship and the lack of defeats in living memory seems to have kept off the feeling of impending defeat that there was in Germany after 1943. Yet the shock of surrender in itself gave a sense of conclusion to the war effort, and a readiness to accept change in the country. After that, it morphed into victimhood, helped by the Bikini tests, no Asian nation having atomic bombs, and becoming a pawn in the Cold War, together with how the victims of occupation remained unheard while the Americans suffered quite lightly in comparison.

Pumpkin Scissors had an interesting premise where two nations end a war out of exhaustion, with nothing to show either way for the sacrifices made. It somehow feels like the peace is more bitter with no resolution.

You're right, from now on we should refer to them as Hopays.

And why should Japan be less xenophobic and allow foreigners to have more influence on it? I get stuff like acknowledging their historical atrocities, recognizing the dignity of their neighbors\minorities, but if they don't want outsiders taking residence on their island, that is their right. They've probably been paying attention to the hegemonic empires in operation since Alexander "The Great"(whom people in the so called west still celebrate for unfathomable reasons), noticed that from an anthropological standpoint Africa, America, Polynesia, Australia, ect have a much lower population density of Africans, Americans, Polynesians, ect. They see gaijins with self destructive economics systems, homicidal governments, static religions, questionable eugenics, privatized legal systems and combined with being a little sore about having much of this mess forced on them at gun point, it's not hard for me to guess why, from a Japanese person's perspective, they might be scared of outsiders from south barbary; why Japanese a person might be a little protective of their ethnic and national identities, of their sovereignty, worried about their continued existence.

From my perspective, the Japanese are a remarkably loving and welcoming people given their position in the world and general history. Xenophobia could be worse. Overly apologetic/dismissive in education and national policy doesn't offset the low amounts of patriotism. Comically warped sense of own importance, something most industrialized nations are guilty of on some scale.

Not to mention most of Japan's problems are rooted in outsider interference anyway. Fascism, Communism, Organized crime, Whaling, Jellyfish overpopulation, tentacle porn, giant eyed spindly 'animations' that barely resemble humanity. I'd be careful in assuming displays of patriotism, pride in one's country, are synonymous with a nationalistic desire to control the activities of the rest foreigners. The side of Japan that thinks it's on the top of the world and that Deuce was a foolish buddah for associating with south barbary still isn't a nationalistic one(and itself represents that culture exchange tends to happen to some extent no matter what you do, it's not as if they've closed their boarders, banned anything with a screen and began mass book burnings)

edited 7th Sep '15 2:14:38 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

Japan's stance on foreign influence is pretty paradoxical, really. On one hand they are very protective of their culture and traditions, which is commendable… but on the other hand, their pop culture is littered with Gratuitous English, and there are few countries that embraced the logic of capitalism as strongly as they did (though I guess the American occupation had a role in this). They are apparently very welcoming of foreigners, but want as few of them as possible on their soil.

At the turn of the 20th century the motto was "a Western science with a Japanese soul", but after WWII it went a bit further than that…

There's an interesting bit in an interview of Ryuukishi07, the author of Rose Guns Days (not an anime, but whatever).

I wonder how much this feeling is shared in the Japanese society…

edited 7th Sep '15 3:09:02 PM by Lyendith

Not to mention most of Japan's problems are rooted in outsider interference anyway

Arguably, the same could be said about any other culture on Earth, with the caveat isolationism also brings its own (and arguably far worse) kind of problems.

Japan's attitude to outsiders (at least Western) is indeed "fine to visit, but they can never be naturalised". Brazilians were once invited to fill a labour shortage, but did not feel welcome and in time many left again. I can believe that there is reluctance to be openly patriotic, but then what is acceptable varies hugely across nations; what is normal in France and the States is frowned upon in Britain (and has become politically charged in the case of Scotland).

And Japan's biggest problems are home-grown. Otaku culture is a byproduct of the conformist culture; they are the margins that do not know how to fit in or how to make their own way. The "lost decade" is the end result of a conglomerate economy in which industry and government stifled competition and assured jobs for life; fine in the post-war economy, a recipe for scleroticism now. The ineffective governments come from deference to the elite, seniority-based parties and prizing stability at all costs. So many of its problems, including addressing the war's legacy, are exacerbated by the reluctance to bring out uncomfortable facts (true everywhere but all the worse in the culture of politeness). And finally the army's crimes owe a lot to harsh and brutal discipline even by military standards; these soldiers let out their frustrations at their superiors on the people they had power over.

We may be drifting from topic.

Aldnoah Zero have a strong parallel between the Vers Empire and the Axis, with a very strong allusion to Marco Polo incident at the end of the first episode (rather than Poland, since Terran/China were unprepared for war). Just that the rest of the show doesn't follow up with that. Vers marching up and killing Terrans en mass is mentioned but never shown, probably because it would cause too much outrage within Japan. Funny thing is, within the backstory Vers was started by American.

On that same note, Arc V have an unfavorable view of militarism. Actually done much more than A/Z since it actually show genocide by the opposing side and the disturbing effect of militarism. There is a memorable scene when Reiji, who is supposed to be on the hero's side, called for militarism. The audience cheered while the main characters, who had observed the conflict first hand, is visibly disturbed. Or that two important characters from the opposing fraction are shown to be brainwashed from a young age by militarism. Consider that Arc V is a show for children, this is rather unexpected.

So I stumbled upon Hyakka Ryouran Samurai Girls.

Here's the opening narration:

"The beautiful country, our Great Japan. But! At times beauty is sinful. The foreign countries who grew envious of our Great Japan's beauty, thirsted for battle against our people, defiled our soil thousands of time. The invading army of demons approaches. The Great Japan's fate is like a small candle in the face of small wind. Do not worry. Don't be afraid. For in Great Japan...guardian deities do exist..."

And shows bunch of scantily clad girls in samurai looks flying around destroying Allied force bombers and yadda yadda, you know how this rolls.

Blargh.

Heh,demons.

Because they were such angels in Asia.

I get the strangest feeling that that show isn't exactly meant to be taken completely seriously.

If you want to learn what someone really thinks, look at what they joke about.

I disagree. Nothing should be "out-of-bounds" when it comes to humor; that's censorship.

If it was something more serious then I think it would deserve a serious look, but otherwise it's obviously supposed to be something stupid that you aren't supposed to think a lot about.

Minstrel shows and blackface were considered humorous, were they not?