Ask John: Does Anime Whitewash Japanese History?

Question:
I love Zipang and think it’s a great anime. But the one thing that bothers me is despite hammering in that it was wrong for Japan to engage in war, they never criticize Japan’s colonial policies. One whole episode has a character investigating how they run their colonies – the worst we see is a sleazy Japanese man arrested for spying for the enemy. He’s basically evil for being against Imperial Japan. Later, in Hong Kong, we see a lavish party with finely dressed soldiers and beautiful women having a grand dance. The impression I get from this anime is that Japan’s colonial empire was pretty damn awesome. There’s nothing about comfort women, slave camps, death marches, propaganda, murder and oppression. Is there a conspiracy of silence about discussing the darker side of Japan’s Imperial behavior in the field of anime? And are there any actual anime that really dissect that darker side properly?

Answer:
Like countless other countries, including America, Japan has a great sense of nationalism and a number of unpleasant deeds in its national history. Because foreign anime fans tend to perceive contemporary Japan through rose-colored glasses tinted by anime, manga, and popular culture, many often overlook, forget, or don’t realize that modern Japan has its own share of social issues and problems including institutionalized racism, high suicide rates, an economy in extended recession, rampant student bullying, and a skewed, exclusive sense of nationalism. I’ve been told first-hand anecdotes of Japanese citizens that proudly and with complete conviction assert that Japan is the only country in the world that enjoys four distinct seasons. I’ve encountered American ex-patriots in Japan who’ve been asked by Japanese citizens, with honest inquiry, whether people outside of Japan eat rice. I have no doubt whatsoever that there will be Japanese readers that criticize this very thesis because, in my own personal experience, many Japanese residents take personal offense at absolutely any statements which could be even perceived as foreign criticism of Japanese culture and society. But just as America and American residents like me accept and invite fair, objective critique and criticism of America from foreign observers, I think that Japanese residents could use some similar forbearance.

Japanese war atrocities remain a touchy subject within Japan. The China Daily newspaper reported in July 2005 that in 2004 Japan’s now former Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Minister Nariaki Nakayama stated that “it was very pleasing to see the self-abusing description of ‘comfort women’ disappearing from history textbooks in Japan.” In 2005 Nakayama stated in a public address in Fukuoka, Japan, that he was encouraged by a letter from a Japanese woman that stated, “The victimized women in Asia should be proud of being comfort women.”

Japan’s current system of composing and incorporating textbooks into Japanese schools began in 1947. Particularly until the 1990s numerous Japanese historians continued to debate whether Japanese war crimes during the two Sino-Japanese Wars and WWII even occurred, so the Japanese Ministry of Education regularly refused to authorize school use of history textbooks that referred to topics including comfort women, the 1937 Nanking Massacre, and the infamous Unit 731 human experimentation during WWII. As recently as 2001 the Japanese government’s Ministry of Education did authorize Japanese junior high schools to issue the the right-wing ultranationalist Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform’s Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho (New History Textbook), a history textbook that largely whitewashes historical Japanese war crimes. Extremely few Japanese schools choose to use the textbook, but a small handful do.

Anime does frequently handle adult topics, but we should remember that anime is primarily a medium targeted at children and teens. In the same way we don’t see American cartoons depict slavery, suffrage, racial discrimination, or the American history of outrage perpetrated against Native Americans and immigrant Chinese, we don’t see Japanese animation touch upon dispicible periods of Japanese history (with the occasional exception of the 17th century Japanese persecution of Christians). I believe that Japan’s anime and manga industry are largely left-leaning and not disposed to overlooking historical Japanese crimes for the sake of indefatigable national pride, but as anime is a pop-culture commodity, it has some practical obligation to be optimistic and positive rather than accusatory. Furthermore, the modern Japanese zeitgeist is one of internalization and martyrdom. Anime has a long history of commerically and independently produced anime that illustrate Japan’s victimization by other countries, including Tsushimamaru: Sayonara Okinawa, Ushiro no Shomen Daare, Hiroshima ni Ichiban Densha ga Hashitta, Piko Don, and Megumi. The 1993 film O-Hoshisama no Rail depicts the Japanese occupation of Korea in 1945, but it depicts the effects the Korean rebellion and reclamation of sovereignty have on a young Japanese girl rather than depicting the prior 35 years of Japanese efforts to eliminate Korean culture and enslave over five million Korean citizens.

Personally, I’m not familiar with any anime that refer to or depict historical Japanese war atrocities. While there does seem to be a tacit agreement to avoid this particular subject in anime production, at least I don’t believe that Japanese anime industry is intentionally trying to deny that such war crimes ever occurred or trying to interpret those dark events in a positive, autocratic light.