Yeah when it comes to white washing... NO ONE white washes more then the allies.
The Axis countries are all Germany is pretty open to what terrible things they have done, for the most part, but the Allied countries try as hard as they can to bury all but the most popular examples.
Sorry, but I had to correct that. One of the big disputes between Japan against both Koreas and China is the fact that Japan has the exact same awkward tendency to bury their own examples, not to mention understating matters, that you condemn the Allied countries for. It's one of the reasons why Japanese people tend to be somewhat confused about Chinese intransigence regarding the Nanking Massacre; all too often, they don't realize just how bad it was. Plus, there's also the issue of false equivocation that all too often comes up: I'm not accusing you of this, but frankly, there is no real Allied or Soviet analogue during the war to the Japanese treatment of POWs, the systemic "obtaining" and treatment of comfort women, the Holocaust, or Unit 731 (the closest being the pre-war Holodomor, which was conducted against perceived political enemies with Ukrainians being caught in the crossfire rather than a systemic policy of ethnic extermination). Dresden, the Goumiers, the mutilation of the dead, even the internment camps in America and Canada, these were on an entirely different scale.
Yes, there is significant amounts of white-washing, but there really were differences between the two sides, and romanticization of the Axis does not sit well with me at all. For an analogy, imagine that if the mayor of Berlin came out and said that the Holocaust never happened because "it would be impossible to kill that many people." Imagine if Merkel regularly visited the reputed grave of Himmler. Imagine if the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research authorized a set of textbooks downplaying the Holocaust, and a previous Minister came out later stating his pride that he managed to strike all references to the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto from most textbooks. Imagine if it was official stated policy on the part of said ministry also to downplay or ignore all reprisal actions by the German Wehrmacht against villages suspected of partisan action, a policy continued even after several German states attempted to make official protest. Imagine, under these circumstances, how most people would view the production of a large number of media works glorifying the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine. I'm not arguing that most Japanese people are that way; in fact, while officially authorized, the most infamous set of textbooks that state the Nanking Massacre never happened were barely used on a local level. I am, however, suggesting that there is a serious disconnect in a part of the Japanese political and media scene from reality, and that this is more significant and more serious than in most other countries. As such, I am seriously uncomfortable with the glorification of Japanese military forces during World War 2, not just in itself, but because it is also indicative of a general trend in Japan.
EDIT:
That said, and to drag this back off the topic of Japanese nationalism, has anyone ever seen Zipang? The concept behind it seemed somewhat interesting to me because it seems this kind of issue would actually be relevant. Basically, a modern SDF destroyer is thrown back in time to Midway, and you end up with not only the juxtaposition of either attempting to change the past or not, but also the political dimension of modern Japanese citizens and sailors having to balance their wish to protect their home country against the fact that the "Japan" of this era is actually a militarist, nationalist, and totalitarian goverment by decree. It's something you can't find in similar works where it's an Allied ship that's sent back in time.
Author
Topic: I like anime, do you like anime? (Read 3122810 times)