#Japanese Revisionism

[dougielombax]

So

The internet’s many resident armchair historians, right wing podcasters, self proclaimed “philosophers” and other such ill-assorted, small-minded middle aged mediocrities are having a moment again.

All because the new Assassin’s Creed game has a black character in it.

Specifically Yasuke. A black samurai. Who actually did exist.

I knew about him for YEARS before the trailer dropped.

Plus, I study history and have a masters degree so I’ve looked into this stuff.

You know what racists are like.

They don’t know shit about history and when it’s pointed out to them they end up going feral.

Get over it!

Black people exist!

And Yasuke was a real person!

Links for anyone who is curious.

I’d cite the Wikipedia page if idiots would stop vandalising it. So for the moment it’s not here. (Until now)

Feel free to reblog.

[xbuster]

Why do so many people think City Pop is this only Japanese musical genre 😭

[isnt-it-too-dreamy]

so glad that i hate both nolan and gerwig so that i won't have to watch any of that

[unidentifiedfuckingthing]

wikipedia daycare is fun until you try to read a page that mentions any nonwhite group of people in any way

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

Me: omg yea funny feminist versions of the host club!!!!

Me when That Thing™️ happened:

Going into this show completely blind is like strapping in for a kiddie ride at disney and then getting bricks thrown at my head repeatedly.

So you’re telling me the manwhore from Ouran High School Host Club has the same dub actor as Ed from Fullmetal Alchemist?? What is with this dude and voicing little blond bitches???

[alexandriaisburning]

+005: Tetris Forever is marketing disguised as a documentary

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The latest in Digital Eclipse’s game/documentary hybrids, Tetris Forever presents a view of history that omits so much it’s nearly historical revisionism. Ironically, for a documentary about a Soviet export, Tetris Forever is more concerned with its capitalist success than anything else. 

Multiple chapters are spent on the saga of Henk Rogers’ acquisition of the rights to the game, the business deals that led to its financial success, and the total ownership that the Tetris Company finally achieved.

Rogers talks about buying out the remains of the Soviet ministry of computer technology, shutting down a successful Tetris clone keychain, taking ownership of Bombliss from designer--and Pokemon founder--Tsunekazu Ishihara, and it's presented as if they were inspirational stories, not ruthless business decisions. He even adds that he paid Ishihara 100 Yen per unit, “because it was the right thing to do”, even though he legally didn’t need to.

Tetris Forever’s narrative is not the story of Tetris, but the Tetris Company. It’s a story of great men doing great things, mythmaking for people who have very literally already bought in. You can see it in the collection’s roster of games, which only includes titles developed by Bullet Proof Software, games that Rogers had a hand in directly, and are outright owned by the Tetris Company.

For as much as they hype up the Game Boy as a key to the Tetris’ worldwide success, its absence leaves a gaping hole in what’s supposed to be a historical collection. Even if it's already well known to many, its absence makes it hard to take Tetris Forever seriously as a historical archive. 

Alongside Tengen Tetris, which they fought a protracted legal battle to bury, and NES Tetris, which has exploded in popularity recently with a number of world records, a growing competitive scene and a recreation in Tetris Effect, there’s several milestone releases that are not only not playable, but not given little focus in the documentary. 

The greatest of these omissions is easily SEGA Tetris. While Tetris dominated the console space in the West, SEGA’s arcade entry was highly influential in Japan, becoming the de facto representative of the series there, spinning off into competitive entries, and becoming the groundwork for several fan games of the time, and eventually Tetris the Grand Master. 

Together with TGM, SEGA Tetris would play a huge part in defining the “feel” of Tetris. Mechanics like lock delay, ghost pieces and wall kicks were created here, in arcades, then rolled into the official Tetris Guideline, the blueprint of what a modern Tetris game should look like. Rogers himself has said as much in other interviews. 

In leaving out those entries, Tetris Forever buries a slew of other stories. The stories of how a collaboration between ex-Street Fighter devs and Japanese comedians would change the series forever, how feedback from an office lady led to a game defining mechanic, and how the game would make an international name for itself years after its release due to streaming. 

Instead SEGA Tetris is limited to a single paragraph, a short video of Tetsuya Mizuguchi talking about watching it in arcades, and a summary basically saying “it’s influential” TGM and Arika are given even less, with the only comment being that TGM is known for its speed. It’s about the same level of attention as they give to the times they made Tetris cabinets that were REALLY BIG. 

And where are the stories of the NES game champions? THe ridiculous limitations that make the NES version uniquely difficulty to play, the absurd techniques that players developed to get around the physical limitations of the controller they play with? 

Where are the showcases of speedruns and high level competition? Why aren’t there interviews with the devs of different titles, like the experimental N64 entries from H2O Entertainment, or the composer of the CDI Tetris? Digital Eclipse had a chance to showcase the diversity of people and ideas that have touched Tetris, but all of that is barely mentioned, if at all. 

Licensing was surely a factor here, but as Tetris Forever points out, the Tetris Company has fought many battles over rights. Why stop when it's time to tell your story? 

Instead what we get itls historical revisionism by exclusion. A story canonizing what we already know, and leaving out the contributions of the many hands that have touched the game in the decades since its success. 

Tetris Forever would have you believe that's Tetris’ success is the story of Alexi Pajitnov discovering a diamond, and Henk Rogers convincing everyone it was valuable. But a gem's value isn't in its raw material but the refining process--something I'm sure the son of a gem merchant like Rogers would know.

Tetris’ refinements have come as a result of decades of community contributions. From fans making works in both official and unofficial capacities. Tetris is the story of a conversation between a game and its players. It's a cultural phenomenon built by many hands. 

Perhaps, comrades, that's the real legacy of what they once called THE SOVIET MIND GAME.

[bucketsquid]

every time someone calls octavio "fascist" i want to physically hit them with my slosher.

have you considered that maybe it's seriously ignorant to use this term for a society that's had countless numbers of its people die to Actual in-universe fascism?? like commander tartar is right there. THAT is a fascist, not a guy who hates the people that started a war on his own race + made them live in the wastelands.

and that this term is extremely loaded + it feels very weird to call the "we've suffered incredibly from war, we were erased from history, and continue to struggle to exist", heavily-minority-coded people that?

it's not funny, it really isn't.

please please do some reading about the sino-japanese war. about the r/ape of nanking. about japanese historical revisionism. the octarians are pretty specifically meant to be commentary on awful real world events.

maybe I'm just cranky bc I really love the octarians and how they + their wacky leader are written, but I feel like a lot of the western fandom just Say Shit and don't read deeper into what's being said in this series!!!

[batboyblog]

On anon bc I know this will be controversial but one crazy take on the holocaust/wwii is that the American internment camps for Japanese-Americans were just as bad as the Nazi concentration camps.

It’s a sentiment I see a lot and although I know it’s trying to shed light on racism to me it trivializes the horrors Jews and other faced in those camps.

Yeah I've seen that, I've seen a lot of attempts to compare the Holocaust with other things always with the subtext of "shut up Jews, you didn't have it that bad" there's a term for it, "Holocaust Revisionism" where you don't deny it but you downplay it

any ways I've seen a lot of this kind of thing lashing out at Jews because people "don't learn about X" or saying things like "at least Anne Frank could hide" or this particularly famous case from a few years ago

"fuck Anne Frank"

I think this is an outgrowth of two things

the death of complex thought, people right now it our moment have lost the ability to hold in their brains complicated thoughts, such as "not all bad things are equally bad, some bad things are worse than other bad things" So was Japanese internment bad and a crime against humanity and a stain on American history? yes 100% all of those, but its not downplaying any of those things or making Japanese internment okay to recognize the basic fact that humanity has done worse things, Stalin's forced labor camps, or the forced labor camps in China and North Korea rn are worse, and of course the Holocaust with its goal of the destruction of the Jews was worse.

some people are uncomfortable with the idea that white people can suffer historic crimes. Now we can debate if Jews are white, I'd say no pretty clearly not, but whatever, it doesn't matter it doesn't make racism not real to say that sometimes people we see as white are targeted for historic injustices, and indeed often just because the racism they faced doesn't fit in our current 21st century American frame of reference for what is racist, doesn't make it any less racist at the time

and finally its just antisemitism, people are uncomfortable with Jewish suffering, because it humanizes us, and we shouldn't be human in their eyes. There's a book called "People Love Dead Jews" I think thats optimistic I don't think they like us dead even.

[wardevilwins]

Why is it the War Devil?

Obviously, I am fascinated by the concept of the War Devil. There is a way in which her presence in the story is uniquely Japanese. Since WWII, the question of how to process the Empire’s defeat has hung over Japanese society. On the conservative side, there is a long project to minimize the realities of the War, especially atrocities committed by the Japanese Imperial Army. Alongside this, there is the concerted effort within the legislature to repeal Article 9 of the constitution, the article which forbids the Japanese government from raising an army. On the left, there is a desire for genuine reconciliation and strong support for article 9. However, the effort has not gained much of a foothold. Japan is, much like the United States, a strongly conservative country.

For example, when the historian Ienaga Saburo wrote his textbook “New Japanese History” for public schools in 1953, the government initially approved his manuscript, but when he resubmitted a revised version two years later, they demanded that 216 revisions be made. Revisions included minimizing the Rape of Nanking, adding a mention of public support for the Russo-Japanese war, etc. Straightforward government censorship of established historical fact.

Ienaga sued the government for damages arguing that he was protected by Article 21, the right to free speech. Note: his book was not a state standard. It was simply one of many textbooks available for use by schools. A district court ruled that the government’s demands didn’t constitute censorship, but did constitute an abuse of authority and granted monetary settlement. An appeal to the High court rejected the monetary settlement, and the Supreme Court upheld the appeal.

In other words, the Japanese Government was granted the right to dictate the facts of history “for the public good” in the words of the rulings. Realities of war were erased from the public consciousness with the intent to control the narrative around the Fallen Empire. And the state reasoning was a paternalistic appeal to the greater good of humanity. If this reminds you of Makima’s plan in part one, I am sure that is not a coincidence.

This is a metaphor that I think was broadly missed by the international audience. The idea that War should be forgotten for the sake of humanity, this is the ideology behind historical revisionism. Fujimoto is looking directly at the way that political power in Japan is used to manipulate public understanding of history. Pieces of the past are erased, eaten, and forgotten.

This is why I don’t lend much credence to the idea that Chainsaw Man actually modifies the fabric of the universe somehow when he eats a devil. It is not that the world changes, it is that people forget about it. It’s not that our forgotten sixth sense was deleted. We just forgot it used to exist. It disappeared, perhaps as a part of Chainsaw Man’s attack. And then we forgot.

The main reason I think of it this way is because of the parallel with historical revisionism. Right now in Florida the state government is attempting to erase the suffering of African slaves brought to America from the school curriculum. If they maintain this for three generations, no one in the state of Florida will know of this true part of history. It will be forgotten. Humanity in Florida will have forgotten a part of slavery. We don’t need supernatural mechanics to explain historical ignorance. This happens all the time.

Yoru describes this phenomenon in more detail: “War became a thing of books and movies.” Yoru became weakened as humanity became less afraid of war. Parts of the war that really happened are not gone, but have been consigned to unreality. They exist only at a distance. It is only one step further along this axis until they are completely forgotten, until they aren’t thought about at all.

This idea of forgetting War is directly relevant to the political conflicts around Article 9. This conflict is split as I mentioned, but the reality of the situation is more complex. During the occupation, the US Government directed the drafting of the new Japanese constitution. In a real sense, Japan was literally Americanized. The text of Article 9 reads:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.

In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

This is part of Chapter 2 in the Articles of the Japanese Constitution. Other chapters contain multiple articles. This is the only article in chapter 2 which is titled “Renunciation of War.” To date, Japan is the only country in the world to include a renunciation of war in its constitution.

Of course, Article 9 doesn’t exist out of the kindness of the Japanese people’s peace loving hearts. It exists because the US military thought that the Japanese people were so intrinsically bloodthirsty, that if they didn’t dismantle the empire and remove their ability to raise an army, there could never be peace.

That said, Japanese politicians were involved in the drafting of the constitution as well. Since the war began in China in 1928, a significant faction even among the hawkish types were exasperated with the boneheaded aggression. But the fascists had control of the Emperor, the key figurehead. Once that was lost, cooler heads who were open to the idea of a peaceful Japan stepped in.

So Article 9 starts with this complex identity. On the one hand, it is an imposition by the occupying force, on the other hand, it is a reconciliation within Japan around mistakes the nation made. This remains the case going forward. Because soon after the occupation ends, the Korean War begins.

America, having secured a foothold in the region, realizes that militarily neutering their nearest ally may have been a tactical mistake. But they also still don’t really trust the Japanese government. So they make a move. The US signs a controversial security-treaty with Japan that creates the “National Security Force” to act as a military police. Japanese conservatives then use this precedent to begin building a military under the premise of it being for “self defense.” Thus the JSDF, Japanese Self Defense Force, is born. This was all done with explicit American support.

The American’s didn’t want to team up with the JSDF per se. They wanted Japan to manufacture weapons to create a short supply line towards the Korean front. The creation of the JSDF gives the Japanese government permission to permit manufacturing of military machinery, which was originally taken to be forbidden by Article 9.

Since it’s founding, the JSDF has gradually crept further and further towards active military activity. The final line was crossed in the Iraq war. At the behest of George W. Bush, Prime Minister Koizumi approved a battalion of Japanese soldiers to act in conjunction with the US military for the invasion of Iraq.

This occurs in 2004, in the wake of the 90s. Japan re-enters war in a real way. At this point, article 9 is essentially window dressing on a country which has what amounts to a fully functional military force. But, the existence of article 9 creates a public perception of Japan as being removed from war, even as it actively participates.

You can see now why when Yoru appeared in chapter 98 I was immediately excited. The idea of the War Devil coming back is a stab at the powers that be trying to paper over their militaristic intentions with political rhetoric. Conservatives are currently moving to repeal article 9. This was one of Shinzo Abe’s major objectives. But he failed to achieve it.

So the struggle continues under the current leadership. And in that context, Fujimoto is placing War front and center. War that has been forgotten but will come back. War that, should she return to full power, will turn legions of young men into weapons.

It’s a subtle but also daring message. The debate plays out in politics but is notably absent from public discourse. Japan is different from American in that political conflict doesn’t dominate its media landscape. Generally speaking, the media is running cover for the government.

So to see someone go after this idea of forgotten war, of war coming back from a weakened state, and to highlight the latent threat it poses, is quite refreshing. Once again, Fujimoto manages to subtly weave a cogent political message into the threads of his story, not necessarily by trying to push a particular narrative, but simply by reflecting in his work the political realities he sees in his society.

[broodingnightgoddess]

Here's a list of countries that call Hamas a terrorist organization and, by proxy, support Israel.

In case you don't see what I see, here's a few examples of why these countries support the colony of Israel. This is by no means an exhaustive list, as my knowledge only goes so far.

USA, Canada and Australia: settler colonies that mistreat the native populations. Canada has and is commiting atrocities to their native population and Australia denied the aboriginals their own council in a referendum voted by...the white settlers.

Spain: Scared of the separatist movements in it's own territory and still celebrates the conquest of America post 1492. The day of the arrival of Colombus to America is celebrated as a national celebration every 12th of October. I live here, I'd know.

France: possessed Algeria until the '60s and actively advocated for an "Israel solution" in Algeria, that is, creating a separate state composed of the french settlers that hoarder the resources. Also killed hundreds of thousands of Algerians to try and stop their independence movement. In short, France walked so Israel could walk.

Germany: uses the fallacy of the Holocaust guilt to follow Israel like a dog. Germany supporting the genocidal regime of Israel shows they don't feel guilty at all. As Germany and France de facto rule the EU, the rest of states follow them as well.

UK: Israel and Zionism were promoted by the British Empire, they're responsible of the existence of the colony of Israel.

Egypt: sold their fellow Arabs to the Israelies after the war that ended on Israel occupying the Sinai peninsula. Egypt was also colonized by the British, so that's the nail in the coffin.

Japan: committed and subsequently got away with, a genocide in China and Korea bigger than the Holocaust with mass rapes and atrocities and and have still to recognize and apologize for the genocide. Employs mass propaganda and historical revisionism to convince it's populace that it was the real victim and/or diminish the Japanese crimes in the early to mid 20th century.

Notice how countries that colonized support Israel and the colonized countries support Palestine.

If you know of any more reasons why these countries would support the settler colony and occupier Zionist entity of Israel please add in reblogs.

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

"We tend to read fma with a Western lens, so critiquing its use of the military and genocide ignores the Japanese perspective," sorry but you can't cultural relativism your way out of imperialism, genocide, and pro-military nationalism.

Newsflash: Japan was an imperialist power! Japanese nationalism is a thing! Numerous genocides have been committed and excused/denied by Japan! Japan having suffered imperialism from the USA does not mean that people are now magically immune to pro-imperialism propaganda and historical revisionism, and it isn't absent from Japanese pop media. In fact, much like American mass media it is often highly prevalent in both overt and insidious/seemingly innocuous ways.

Be honest about the imperialist themes of the stories you like or stfu!

[olderthannetfic]

Fujoshi, aka an example of queer history revisionism, Wester-defaultism, Wester-queer-defaultism, Western-female-idealism, Western-feminism and racism paired with ignorance as to how a completely different language works. Btw, I'm aware that not every Fujoshi, especially Japanese is queer, and that many probably a majority are cishet, but since it still pertains to queerness in it's depictions of M/M and the treatment of women in a conservative culture I feel like the label "queer" is apt.

--

[tagapagharaya]

I have not read To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods, so I cannot speak about its contents.

I can, however, speak about the utterly vile way people are talking about Molly X. Chang, a Chinese woman.

Can someone explain to me why they think calling a Chinese woman a comfort woman as an insult makes them the morally upright party in this situation?

The way this person, and others who echo this line, is using the term comfort woman as if it means traitor — in particular, a woman who betrays her own people to demean herself for the pleasure of their colonizers — is abhorrent and ahistorical.

Let me set the record straight: A comfort woman is a woman (or a girl, some as young as twelve-years-old) forced or tricked into sexual enslavement by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories (e.g. China, Korea, Taiwan, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines), and even Japan itself, before and during World War II.

These women and girls were kept in "comfort stations" where they would be raped, physically abused and tortured by as many as 40 Imperial Japanese soldiers in a single night. Every night. For what reason? As "stress relief" for the soldiers.

In the mornings, they were forced to do backbreaking domestic labor for the Imperial Japanese garrisons, and at night they would be raped, beaten and tortured. They were given little food and kept in unsanitary conditions. Venereal disease was rampant. Many comfort women became infertile because of sexual violence and venereal diseases. Many women became pregnant during their enslavement, and were still not exempted from the nightly rapes. Many women miscarried and were not given medical attention.

I would remind you that the term comfort woman includes girls, some as young as twelve-years-old.

The level of dehumanization was so extreme that they were treated as inventory.

Comfort women are victims of colonial violence.

To this day, the Japanese government denies that the comfort women were sexually enslaved. Thousands of comfort women never received justice or reparations for the physical, psychological and emotional suffering they were subjected to.

The narrative that comfort women were volunteers or professionals, that they were treated well and compensated fairly, that they got rich from it, is historical revisionism peddled by the Japanese right-wing to deny its war crimes. This exact narrative is used to deny the victims of colonial violence justice.

So to see the term comfort woman used as an insult against a Chinese woman (of Manchu and Hui descent, no less) and to pretend it means she's "in love with her ancestors' colonizers and betrays her own people because of it (through her writing)" — an "Imperial Japan dickrider," if we're being crass — is vile and disgusting.

What do these people think they're accomplishing exactly? How are they criticizing an alleged "colonizer romance" novel by parroting the misogynist and racist historical revisionism of a real life former colonial power to demean a woman of color?

[irithnova]

....about that post going around again saying "hetalia isn't real sweaty :))" yeah dipshit anyone with a fucking brain cell knows that hetalia is not real but this take is one dimensional and incredibly tone deaf considering the nature of this fandom.

Having the liberty to participate in a fandom and create content does not absolve you from criticism; Freedom to be creative within a fandom is not freedom from tactfulness or good judgement. Especially within a country personification fandom.

You can cry "hetalia isn't real" all you want in order to deflect and belittle people who have to deal with discrimination by people in the fandom but it's very telling that these sort of posts usually come from people who's nations aren't targeted when it comes to this sort of crap.

Hetalia isn't real, so you can draw racist caricatures and write racist fanfics? Hetalia isn't real, so you can romanticise colonisation? Hetalia isn't real, so you can participate in historical revisionism? Hetalia isn't real, so you can excuse imperialism?

Maybe you can aim your "hetalia isn't real :))" garbage at people who blorbify the likes of Japan and Russia and America so much that they excuse actual Japanese, Russian, and American imperialism. Maybe you can aim your "hetalia isn't real" horseshit at people who use hetalia to showcase their prejudiced biases at certain groups.

If you think I'm joking, I've seen a certified Russia blorbifier post something saying "Go Ivan!" in regards to a news article about the invasion of Ukraine. I've seen people say that Japanese imperialism wasn't that bad because they blorbify Japan so much (Filipino here, if you think that please go fuck yourself!) I've seen people who criticise American imperialism get called vatniks/Russian agents by people who blorbify hetalia America.

Instead of telling people who are tired of dealing with this shit that they should get over it because hetalia isn't real, maybe go and tell the historical revisionists, imperialism apologists and downright racists to keep their trash out of the fandom, because you know. Hetalia isn't real.

[theliterarywolf]

Gosh, sorry this is some unrelated shit, but I’ve been noticing this trend on Twitter and it feels like the biggest gaslight ever. People have been posting about Chainsaw Lollipop and saying shit like “How could anyone think this game was for those FILTHY cishets?!” and like… gee, you mean to tell me you don’t think boys would be playing a game about a hot cheerleader? They did this shit with Bayonetta too. Why are they trying to shove the target demographic out instead of being in solidarity?

I am NOT standing for this historical-revisionism

I was there, at ground-fucking-zero, when this game came out. I had to sit through so many people joking about how the game was made to cater to horny men and teenage boys. Do you know how many 'ugh, those perverted Japanese people'-adjacent comments I had to hear just because of the upskirt achievement?!

No, what we are not doing is pretending that Lollipop Chainsaw was originally marketed as a gay or camp game. Is it possible that it's gotten that kind of cult following in recent years? Yes, of course. But it sure as hell did not start that way!

[magz]

Please. Please. Stop reblog version "The Wind Rises" movie post that praise historical revisionism movie that make ww2 figure "feel so bad n sad about having contribute death n stuff",

just because prouder japanese fascists hated it.

N framing the chinese person having "a few issues" with hayao miyazaki politics, as the dumb one for even criticize perfect hayao miyazaki --

Son of ww2 warplane company director, praiser of japanese ww2 innovation.

Please. Y'all are break Magz heart.