#lost his family in the hiroshima bombings

[review-anon]

Jeez, if it isn't one crisis around here, it's another!

So wait...this isn't a simple suit Gokuhara?

Gonta not know what it is! All Gonta knows is Kirumi put suit on and can't take off!

It hurts...it hurts so much....

We will find a way to get it off you Kirumi, don't you worry.

The pain...is nothing like what my people are experiencing right now...from the blood of traitors and flithy Americans roaming around.

Erm....why are you making those noises?

Old language Gonta knows. Kirumi understands it.

Kirumi keeps claiming Americans at fault.

T-that's not good! A lot of Godzilla films are the result of nuclear testing by the Americans to create him, and some of them have very heavy nationalist vibes to them!

Given the fact we do have Americans and hafus on the Voidship...they would be in danger if we don't do something.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

ideas for a backstory for someone who is a writer?

Writing Ideas: Writer Backstory

Abandoned by a parent/s

Experienced financial instability; usually moved frequently

Experienced bullying, contributing to feelings of isolation

Grew up in an affluent household, thus had access to a huge library

Grew up in a small village, often close to nature, thus developing observational skills for their writing

Had a solitary childhood, usually read numerous books

Lost a significant other, or other personal tragedies

Struggled with addiction (e.g., alcoholism) or other mental health conditions

Was a former professional in a different field

Went to a prestigious school where they learned literature or different languages

Examples

Briony Tallis in Atonement. When we first meet Briony, she is a 13-year-old who likes to write; when we last hear from her, she is a novelist in her late 70s. What passes between first appears to be merely the story of her life and her family’s life, but in the final pages, all is revealed: it is she who is the author of what we have just read—and things did not turn out quite the way she said.

Dr. Watson, in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is a medical professional, but it's on account of his writings about Holmes that Holmes is so well known. Of course, the stories he writes that make Holmes famous are the same ones that we read, so this could be the world's first meta example of the Most Writers Are Writers trope.

Esther Greenwood, the protagonist of The Bell Jar, is in many ways Sylvia Plath. Essentially every aspect of Esther from her appearance, talent for writing, bad luck with hypocrite boyfriends to her mental breakdown, suicide attempts, and subsequent hospitalization can be traced back to Plath herself in some way. Which takes a meta twist when Esther starts a draft of an account of her experiences, which is obviously The Bell Jar in a nascent form.

Jack Torrance in The Shining. The typical alcoholic writer type, who accepts a winter position at the Overlook in the hopes of fixing up his life.

Jo March in Little Women. An alter ego for Louisa May Alcott herself, Jo is a strong-willed tomboy who loves to read and write. She writes plays and short stories in her youth, and later goes to seek success as a writer in New York City. In the end, she gives up writing and gets married.

Kurt Vonnegut. The main character in his novel Cat's Cradle is a writer who starts out doing research for a book he's planning to write about the day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Later in the story, he takes an assignment from a magazine to visit the island of San Lorenzo and write an article on it, where he gets more than he bargained for.

Stephen King's Misery. The main character has written a long series of popular genre-novels (historical romance, rather than horror), but wants to write more "serious" fiction, and is kidnapped by an obsessed fan who needs to know how the series ends.

Winston Smith, the unassuming protagonist of Nineteen Eighty-Four, works as a writer for the Ministry of Truth, his specific job being to redact inconvenient news stories or incorrect predictions made by the ruling Party, and replace it with propaganda he is told to make up from whole cloth. He says that his writing is the high point of his life. His love interest, Julia, is also a writer, albeit of amateur pornographic novels and other tripe meant to keep the populace distracted and happy. Author George Orwell was a highly experienced writer, and was wearily self-aware about the nature of the literary world, and it shows best here. Orwell also worked for the BBC during WW 2 and observed Britain's wartime propaganda broadcasting firsthand. In some respects, the Ministry of Truth is, pretty much exactly, the wartime BBC.

Sources: 1 2 3 ⚜ More: Writing Notes ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Here are some examples for inspiration. Choose which ones you would like to incorporate in your story. Consider combining or modifying them as needed/desired. You can find more in the sources. If you have a specific writer/s in mind, you can study their life story to get more ideas. Hope this helps with your writing!

[transmutationisms]

I don't necessarily disagree with your take on David Lynch but I feel like at least part of Twin Peaks is about deconstructing or questioning the myth of the idyllic small town, like everyone in Twin Peaks has a dark secret, most of the men were abusing or complicit in abusing a teenage girl, etc. and the Return to me is about showing that it's kind of fundamentally impossible to return to that glamorized nostalgic past. I could totally be missing something though.

wow ok this was my most controversial david lynch statement yet... so first of all i disagree that there's any tension between the kind of conservative nostalgia i see in lynch's work, and the idea that the past is impossible to return to. in fact i think that kind of lament is pretty central to quite a lot of reactionary rhetoric: it's that emotional appeal of, look what we've lost / damaged / destroyed forever. it doesn't need to be a coherent political platform because it's an appeal on the grounds of pathos.

anyway if i can just quote from my own post lol:

i simply cannot read the series in any way besides as being deeply conservative lol. this becomes especially clear to me in 'the return’, which is largely motivated by a narrative of the loss of american innocence (the double r subplot, the numerous instances of drugs and violence tearing nuclear families apart, the encroachment of electricity and processed snack foods and gambling, &c). but this viewpoint is seeded too throughout the first season-and-change of the original series, and fwwm; because what was laura palmer if not the series’s first use of rape as metonymous for what lynch sees as a broader process of social breakdown and irreversible change? i understand that some people try to read bob and laura as a critique of the family, in the sense that the violence comes through the father, but i don’t think this reading holds even in the original series and it certainly doesn’t after part 8 of 'the return’, in which bob is explicitly and directly invoked in reference to the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki, here construed as an originary act of american evil.

i think in david lynch’s mind, the spiritual forces and influences in the show are literal and apolitical, and frequently he seems to mean to depict them more as sources of artistic inspiration than anything else ('twin peaks’ is in many ways a tv show about making a tv show, hence the double use of electricity throughout 'the return’ and fwwm, in particular). but i find this really irritating frankly, because it’s at best ignorant of the inherently political nature of the constructions of small-town americana, teenage innocence, violence as an act of moral corruption, and so forth—and also because, after the return, it’s simply impossible to deny that the show’s overarching narrative IS plugged in to political and historical lines of critique. like, i am not trying to 'force’ a reading that deals with us imperialism—lynch put the show on this discursive terrain explicitly and deliberately, through not just the bomb footage and the penderecki threnody but also the inversion of classic symbols of american 'greatness’ (the unlucky penny, the evil lincoln impersonator), culminating again in the violation of a young girl’s body by the forces of evil. what this all adds up to is the invocation of american empire as a kind of universal moral struggle, stripped of its historical specificity or even the barest pretense of material critique or commentary. if it sounds like i’m asking too much of network television… i mean, maybe i am, but again, these were deliberate choices lynch made and specific historical events he invoked on purpose, lol. see also the jacoby trump commentary in 'the return’ (cringe and yawn).

i’m not a lynch scholar but i do think there’s a tension throughout his work (what i’ve seen) between the desire to make art about what he sees as the purely spiritual process of making art (heavily informed by his own TM beliefs), and the conservative elements that creep in anyway, noticeable especially in his commentary on american history, corruption, modernity, &c. the idea of any pure, transcendent, apolitical spiritual dimension of human existence is itself, i would argue, at best a misguided conservative fantasy, and 'twin peaks’ ultimately shows these cracks more blatantly than some of his other work (say, 'inland empire’) because it tries to subordinate the material to the spiritual in a kind of fantastical historical parable. but, you can see this recurring tension throughout his filmography, eg, the loss of small-town innocence ('blue velvet’) and a kind of generalised modernity anxiety ('eraserhead’, though taken on its own this one would permit other readings depending on how you interpreted the role of german expressionism in it).

i don’t think lynch is an ideologue or even considers himself particularly political, but nevertheless his narratives do idealise a certain conservative vision of post-war america, mourn its loss, and wax nostalgic for its perceived ethos (& it’s not a coincidence lynch is/has been a reaganite, lol). anyway, i thought 'twin peaks’ had some really incredible moments of visual artistry (part 8 of 'the return’, for example!) and i found much of it frankly beautiful and compelling to watch. so, i don’t mean any of this to dismiss lynch as a filmmaker—he is, if nothing else, highly technically adept.

[moonogre]

Snippet 3

Business | Technology 

KaibaCorp Dreams of Another World

May 28 

“It’s not a question of what’s next. It’s what’s happening right now. Right in front of you.”

These are the words from the seventeen-year old visionary Seto Kaiba, known worldwide as the reigning Duel Monsters champion and CEO of KaibaCorp (TSE:KBA). His advice seems perfect for this moment: he is standing right in front of a gigantic dragon. It is screaming and ready to attack and he is fearless. 

The creature in question is one of three in the world that belong to the young CEO: Blue Eyes White Dragon, a rare Duel Monsters card and the star of KaibaCorp’s impromptu demonstration of its latest project: Scheherazade.

Named after the fabled storyteller of “One Thousand and One Nights,” Scheherazade is as much a technological marvel as it is a philosophical leap forward. The platform creates immersive worlds drawn from both written stories and players’ own memories, merging fiction and reality into a seamless experience. A combination of machine learning, memory recall, and advanced simulation technology allows the system to respond and adapt for real-time, constant immersion. While virtual reality has been evolving steadily over the past decade, Scheherazade’s memory integration takes it to another level, with unprecedented possibilities for storytelling, education, and, of course, gaming. 

Its most immediate application will be for duelists, offering fully interactive Duel Monsters matches in an arena where the creatures seem to step out of the cards and into life. Industry insiders speculate that this move could put KaibaCorp at the forefront of both gaming and virtual reality, potentially outpacing rivals like Industrial Illusions (NYSE:ILL) and Meta (NASDAQ: META).

This is the latest in the bold new direction forged under young Kaiba’s leadership, which transformed KaibaCorp from an arms contractor to a tech powerhouse, pioneering innovations at the intersection of telecommunications, augmented reality and entertainment. KaibaCorp’s origins date back to the post-World War II era when it rose to prominence as a leading arms manufacturer, standing just behind global defence giants like Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) and Northrop Grumman Corp (NYSE: NOC). The company’s previous success in the defence sector is often credited to the founding family’s deeply personal experience with war: Ryu Kaiba, KaibaCorp’s founder, served in Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbour. The war also impacted his son, the late Gozaburo Kaiba, who was one of the 650,000 survivors of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. 

The latter half of the twentieth-century saw KaibaCorp as a bastion of military technology, supplying weapons to governments around the world. Yet the company was perpetually mired in controversy, and a frequent target of political outcry for its contributions to war and conflict. Protests frequently accompanied its business dealings, which placed it at the centre of public debate about the ethics of arms dealership. It is speculated that mounting pressure and dwindling public support factored into the shocking suicide of Gozaburo Kaiba, who jumped to his death from the KaibaCorp headquarters during a meeting with the company’s board of directors. 

This tragedy would make it the third time Seto Kaiba had lost a parent. Gozaburo Kaiba adopted both the current KaibaCorp CEO and his younger brother, KaibaCorp’s Senior Manager of Technology Operations, Mokuba Kaiba, following the deaths of their parents. Their mother died of eclampsia while giving birth to Mokuba, and their father was killed in a car accident in the infamous Izumo Earthquake Disaster.

Seto Kaiba succeeded Gozaburo as CEO of KaibaCorp at fifteen, making him the youngest person to ever lead a billion-dollar company. His youth left him no shortage of ideas, and he set the company on course for a seismic shift in focus. He went on a buying spree, absorbing a staggering number of promising computer technology companies in his first quarter as CEO. He also terminated operations at KaibaCorp’s global weapons testing centres and completely divested the company from projects supporting armed conflict. These actions led KaibaCorp to several high-profile lawsuits for defaulting on its contracts and sales agreements. These disputes were settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.     

Between the payouts, acquisitions and lack of customers, KaibaCorp was teetering on financial ruin. The company was saved with Kaiba’s most notable innovation: SolidVision, the holographic projection technology that brought Duel Monsters to life. This was followed by the Duel Disk, a revolutionary p2p interface that allowed duelists to compete in real-time holographic battles, becoming a staple for competitive players across the world. These commercial successes catapulted KaibaCorp into global fame and made Duel Monsters a cultural phenomenon, while signalling KaibaCorp’s new mission: to create, not destroy.

This pursuit has now brought KaibaCorp to the verge of another groundbreaking moment. Scheherazade, set to roll out this summer, will first be available at stadiums and theme parks before making its way into homes through a specialised hardware release. Duelists and VR enthusiasts alike are eagerly awaiting the chance to immerse themselves in the fully realised worlds this technology promises to deliver.

In many ways, KaibaCorp’s evolution is as poetic as it is fascinating. What was once a company defined by its contribution to destruction is now positioned to offer the world a new way of seeing itself, through stories, memories, and duels. 

“This is just the beginning. Scheherazade isn’t just a virtual space—it’s a new frontier for human imagination. It’s the bridge between what we can dream and what we can live.”

And in that, perhaps, lies Kaiba’s greatest victory: transforming a company of war into one that makes dreams reality.

______

The article featured two captioned pictures. Duel Monster Blue Eyes White Dragon, rendered in Scheherazade: a still of him pulled from the testing zone broadcast, looking up at Blue Eyes White Dragon. He was surprised at the lack of fear on his face– the light from the White Lightning Attack had washed every emotion into brightness. He was just vacant, ready, waiting.  He was more expressive in the second photograph: Father and son. One of the last before Gozaburo’s death. The man had a hand on his shoulder and was sneering down at him. Kaiba, fifteen, slanted his face to return his contempt, the corner of his mouth barely lifted in a matching, cruel smirk.

[sakebytheriver]

I don't really know what to say about Oppenheimer and Christopher Nolan's newest glorification of white violence, I truly don't have a strong opinion either way nor do I have much to say on the film other than I hope the movie itself is less about glorifying Oppenheimer as some American folk hero and more about the massacre and devestation caused by the bombs

And on a personal note, the Japanese side of my family literally came from a suburb of Hiroshima. Of course, my great grandfather left Hiroshima with his brother long before WWII started and he settled in Hawai'i while his brother settled in Salinas Valley CA, when the war broke out the Salinas Valley branch of our family was all sent to the internment camps and two of my great uncles who left Hawai'i for the mainland were also interned along with their spouses and children, the only reason my grandmother and her family weren't interned is because there were just too many Japanese in Hawai'i to intern them, they were 60% of the population, interning Hawaiian Japanese would have meant capsizing Hawai'i's economy, (it didn't stop them from making a few internment camps for influential Japanese community leaders in Hawai'i though). Before the bombs were dropped, a distant relative of mine, a second cousin twice removed or something like that, went back to Japan, they went back to Hiroshima, back to where my family first came from. They went home to family

And then the bombs dropped.

And for months upon months, my family thought they were dead. They were finally able to contact our family and say they were still alive. They got lucky and didn't die in the bombing, but their story is an outlier, and my family got really really lucky in that regard. Of course, I have no idea about the family we still had in Hiroshima before my great grandfather left, but there's no doubt in my mind that I lost family when those bombs dropped, there's no doubt in my mind that a piece of my family history was destroyed, there is not doubt in my mind that there is forever an indelible mark on my family for the rest of time all because the US wanted to test out their fancy new toy that they made their pet scientist Oppenheimer build

I don't care about Oppenheimer, I care about the family I will never get to know

[o1kiwi]

Barefoot Gen

A specific detail that I appreciated about Barefoot Gen while watching this movie was how the director and producers were not afraid to censor any of the direct aftermaths of the Hiroshima bombing. It is not uncommon for history, especially when it comes to either sides of a war, to be taught misinterpreted, biased, or even completely omitted in schools and media, which is why having films like Barefoot Gen is incredibly important so we won’t forget the countless lives lost by one of the worst disasters made by mankind. This includes the gruesome depictions of bodies melting, flesh and blood spilled, and even rotting corpses laid out on decimated streets. Before Hiroshima collapsed, Gen’s father mentioned how having the courage to protect others and one’s own life is far more important that being patriotic in a war killing people, which was quite a respectable standpoint that he did not back down from even if he got shunned for being unpatriotic. I personally believe that although this might’ve caused controversy when the movie was initially aired, I respect the accountability where they admit that Japan was not innocent in this war either. Both American and Japanese media tends to demonize the opposition and emphasize their losses, but also hides their own crimes against humanity. This ignorance as well as misinformation is what has been driving the hostility between the two countries when we don’t know the fullest extent of how much we have impacted each other on both sides. Besides that point, I feel like the movie being named Barefoot Gen specifically references the determination of Gen, no matter how many dead people he saw, no matter what sort of tragedy he faced, he continued to run. He ran desperately to save his family, he ran urgently to find necessities to help his mother give birth, he ran determined to save a soldier’s life, and he ran proudly home to show his mother the milk he brought home for his newborn sister that he earned from working. The message that Gen’s father left with him and the analogy of growing up strong like a wheat field taught Gen to be an unstoppable force in a new reality where you are not allowed to give up, whether that is in yourself, or in the people around you.

[surfaceofseoul]

Getting Lost in Busan

Today, midway through our Korea journey, we took the bullet train. In just 2.5 hours we were transported by this gloriously speedy transit from shiny modern Seoul straight to bustling oceanside Busan, on what had became a gray and rainy day.

Our trip's itinerary involves lots of space for health, energy and time change crashes - mine was yesterday and Ano's was today. As he rested in our little apartment after check in, Izzy and I ventured out, very underdressed, in the pouring rain, in search of food. A touch of grump may have been in the air. The more we walked the wetter it got. The water squished in our shoes. After a while we stopped bothering to avoid puddles.

We walked longer than the map said we should, and we never did find the place we were looking for. But, an unexpected alleyway of food shops revealed itself - tanks of eels and other creatures of the sea waiting to be someone's dinner.

Standing there surrounded by dozens of vendors and stalls with water dripping down our chilly legs, we were both a little paralyzed by it all.

We ended up selecting - or being selected by - a tiny little udon soup shop. Nobody else was crazy enough to be out in the storm so we had the place to ourselves. Hot soup served with pickled radish warmed us and steamed our glasses as we both decided it was the best udon we had ever tasted. We emptied the large bowls while the owner prepared kimbab and fish cake for us to take back to Ano. As we got ready to leave, she came to check on us, patted Izzy's cheeks, declared them beautiful, chided me for not having an umbrella, and then zipped up Izzy's jacket, smoothed their hair into the hood of their raincoat and admonished us to stay dry and be safe. At least that's what it seemed like she was saying...

When we left that little place, our steps were still soaking wet but felt lighter and everything seemed like an adventure. We stopped at the beach and stood in the rain watching a bulldozer build sculptures for a sand festival. As the rain came down harder and we started to venture back to Ano, we got lost... and ended up finding a sock shop that needed our attention. Izzy mentioned that getting lost was the best part.

We came to Busan with some excitement and maybe also some trepidation. It is the area where Ano's people are from - and where they had to leave. His grandmother first left as a child, moving with her family to Japan where there was work - and just in time to witness the bombing of Hiroshima. She told us that she remembered the American soldiers moving through the country, and that she and her friends called them The Big Noses.

Afterwards, her family returned to this part of Korea, where she had Ano's mother, and was again confronted by war - but now as a mother instead of a child. At the same age that Izzy is now, Ano's mother left this country, leaving behind the wreckage of war, but not all of the damage. Multigenerational survival is one of the family's legacies, with costs that lingered.

Izzy keeps seeing their grandmother in everything here - the clothes, the hair, the ways of standing and talking. Shopping for gifts and souveniers for her is easy because as Izzy notes, we know she would like all of this. The recognition that her grandmother is part of a larger something made richer by context has been a revelation to this 17 year old, and to me.

Meanwhile, we keep observing, and we keep marveling - things here work. We are not used to this kind of functionality laced with beauty. The systems, the subways, the trains, the healthcare, the apps for convenience, the technology, the preservation of the historic architecture and the public spaces alongside the modern conveniences. The monks and nuns chanting in the temples, the stream flowing through Seoul, welcoming office workers with their lunches and wedding parties to its edges where they are photographed under the paper lanterns. The celebrations.

Now and then we read the news from home and wonder at the cycles that life moves through and the ways in which we all move with or against it.

All of these years later, after so many hardships and trials faced by the women in this family, to be dancing in the rain on this land with my daughter - the one of us who has chosen to spend the last two years studying Korean, the one of us who will return here to study soon, the one who thinks of it not as a place of a tragic past but as the now and the future, is a blessing I did not expect.

Getting lost really is the best part.

~Jenny

[sayit3x]

Mrs. Bea Juice’s Journal #25

When America dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, the entire Neitherworld was stunned in a way that will never be faithfully captured in words. 80,000 human lives vaporized in an instant. Gone, just like that. And everything, all across the Neitherworld, stopped. Trains were held, case worker appointments were cancelled, hauntings were forgotten. All of it practically froze in place. We were all too overwhelmed with the gravity of what happened to behave like this was just another day. 

We were told that, with nothing left of their bodies to haunt houses or sit in the Japanese equivalent of waiting rooms, all those souls just skipped straight to wherever they were destined. When news broke topside the same day and the living learned of what had happened, many Americans were in favor of the government’s decision, which horrified us even more. Our family had watched people be cruel to each other at every scale for centuries, from wars and revolutions to murders and massacres. We’d seen how much the living took life for granted, but this was just too much. 

And yet, it happened again, just three days later, when the U.S. dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki on August 9. Another 40,000 people snuffed out in the blink of an eye. Understandably, our sensitive Donny couldn’t stop crying to the point where he lost his voice and stayed curled up in his room for days. In a similar yet distinct reaction, Betelgeuse got completely drunk as soon as he could after Hiroshima, and was just starting to come out of his three-day bender when Nagasaki was annihilated. He was drunk another week straight after that. But the suffering didn’t stop with the bombings. The death toll at each site nearly doubled in the months that followed when survivors near the blast radius succumbed to their injuries and radiation sickness.

After the war ended and it seemed like the living had abandoned their humanity, what followed added insult to injury. Japanese Americans released from internment camps were forcibly scattered across the country, only to be greeted with prejudice for their ancestry. Black soldiers came home to the same racism they'd faced before the war, despite their heroism and sacrifice. And as the uneasy alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union broke down, Americans fed their fear and turned on each other in the shadow of the Cold War. Again, we in the Neitherworld were aghast at what we saw unfolding in the United States. 

As helpless as he felt at the injustice at large, Betel did what he could the way he knew best. Scoping out jobs before he agreed to them meant he learned in advance about potential clients and their living tenants. If the humans in the haunted house even smelled racist, or any other flavor of scum he didn’t like, he put them through his own special brand of Hell, stopping short of scaring them literally to death. And when a client turned out to be said scum, he terrified the ghost into submission, rather than the human. Under the circumstances, Juno couldn’t even get mad at him for those, even if they were bending the rules almost, but not quite, to the point of breaking. He always found ways to get around the system, especially when it struck him as unfair, and delighted in finding the wrong ways to do the right thing.

This journal dovetails into a Beetlejuice fanfiction epic that I'm posting chapter by chapter here:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63522586/chapters/162777649

Chapter 24 "The hunch" is now up.

[jaythomasthetrain]

Barefoot Gen...

What a miserable watch. It was awful. Every ounce of happiness is gone by the end. I was very unsettled throughout the movie. Just a bad movie. But that's how war is, so I guess it was a good movie. While it did suck, I feel it did a very good job of really driving the horrors of war into the viewer. The movie was very accurate, depicting many of the issues people in Hiroshima, or honestly all of Japan, had to deal with during World War II. Even before the bomb was dropped, there were many issues people like Gen and his family had to deal with. Poverty struck the country as it put much of its resources towards the war, with people lining up just for rice porridge. They also had to deal with constant bomb warnings and had to hide in shelters at any time. Then the A-bomb was dropped, and we all know what came next. People were killed, burned, or blinded the moment the bomb dropped, and many more were killed in the immediate aftermath via fires and falling rubble. After 3/5ths of Gen's family burned to death as he watched, he does his best to get by with his pregnant mother. She goes into labor soon after, and Gen delivers the baby. He vows to protect the baby in honor of his family, but it's hard in the world he lives in. Dead bodies are everywhere, there is little food and water, and the next effect of the bomb kicks in. The radiation from the bomb started to get people sick, and many people died from Pika. Gen himself lost all his hair because of the radiation. He then gets a job to buy food for the baby, and after many days, he is finally able to buy her milk. When he gets home with the milk, the baby is dead. This crushed me. There was so much misfortune brought about because of the war that may fly under the radar because it didn't happen to us or because it happened long ago. But this stuff is real, these things happened in real life, and I think it's important for the world to remember so we can avoid something like that in the future and so humankind can be better off as a whole.

[xtruss]

Atomic Secrets: The Scientists Who Built The Atom Bomb 💣

Science and the military converged under a cloak of secrecy at Los Alamos National Laboratory. As part of the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos — both its very existence and the work that went on there — was hidden from Americans during World War II.

Many of the thousands of scientists on the project were not officially aware of what they were working on. Though they were not permitted to talk to anyone about their work, including each other, by 1945 some had figured out that they were in fact building an atomic bomb.

In 1943 J. Robert Oppenheimer was named the director of the Bomb Project at Los Alamos, a self-contained area protected -- and completely controlled -- by the U.S. Army. Special driver's licenses had no names on them, just ID numbers. Credit: Courtesy of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Archives

Robert Oppenheimer's wife Kitty was not above scrutiny. All who were affiliated with the project -- and their spouses -- were thoroughly screened and had a security file with the FBI. Credit: Courtesy of the F.B.I.

Less than a year after Oppenheimer proposed using the remote desert site for the laboratory, Los Alamos was already home to a thousand scientists, engineers, support staff… and their families. By the end of the war the population was over 6,000, and the compound included amenities like this barber shop. Credit: Time Life/Getty Images

Atomic Bomb Project employees having lunch at Los Alamos. Though food was often in scant supply, residents made the best of life in their isolated community by putting on plays and organizing Saturday night square dances. Some singles’ parties in the dormitories reportedly served a brew of lab alcohol and grapefruit juice, cooled with dry ice out of a 32-gallon GI can. Credit: Copyright Bettmann/CORBIS

Completely self-contained, the Los Alamos facility did not officially exist in its early years except as a post office box. Scientists’ families were mostly kept in the dark about the nature of the project, learning the truth only after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Credit: Courtesy of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Archives

Credited with inventing the cyclotron, University of California-Berkeley physicist Ernest Lawrence (squatting, center) looks on as Robert Oppenheimer points out something on the 184” particle accelerator. Harvard University supplied the cyclotron that was used to develop the atomic bomb. Credit: Copyright CORBIS

The Trinity bomb was the first atomic bomb ever tested. It was detonated in the Jornada del Muerto (Dead Man’s Walk) Desert, near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on July 16, 1945. The test was a resounding success. The United States would drop similar bombs on Japan just three weeks later. Credit: Courtesy of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Archives

Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves inspect the melted remnants of the 100-foot steel tower that held the Trinity bomb. Ensuring that the testing of a bomb with unknown strength would remain completely secret, the government chose a location that was so remote they had to import their water from over 150 miles away. Credit: Copyright CORBIS

Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves stand in front of a map of Japan, just five days before the bombing of Hiroshima. Credit: Copyright CORBIS

Though there was no evidence that Oppenheimer had betrayed his country in any way, several officials called his loyalty into question in the Cold War environment of 1954. After being subjected to months of hearings, “the most famous physicist in the world” eventually lost his government security clearance. Credit: Reprinted courtesy of TIME Magazine

[crawforda-ufl]

Barefoot Gen Reflection

In the anime Barefoot Gen, a case against war is brought up again and again through the blunt and, at times, brutal and horrific illustrations. Unlike many anti-war works of art, this anime looks at the past of World War II and paints an accurate, but simplified, picture of Hiroshima through the atomic bombing.

The anime begins where Gen and his family struggle to feed themselves alone, as is, despite the rarity of bombing near Hiroshima. As early as here, Gen's father, Daikichi, suggests that the war had been drawn out for too long and that the war's end was imminent.

After the bomb, three of the six family members (including Tomoko) died, accurately representing the facts that about 60% of Hiroshima's population was wiped out immediately after the bomb. Further, Tomoko eventually dies due to malnutrition. This represents the death of more of Hiroshima's population due to the tragedy, and also the death of a lost generation of Japanese people.

We also see a reference to the later economic growth of Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. However, as Kimie shows with her expression in this pivotal scene, the newfound economic growth of Japan is unable to save those who are already lost. The economic growth occurred too late and the people who have died will not come back.

On the other hand, the anime showcased a maturing Gen where he worked, cared for his family and even managed it, all while barefoot.

Overall, the anime represents an accurate, and horrific, tale of the war in Japan after it had already lost. It suggests that we end avoidable and unwinnable wars, for the sake of humanity. I agree here; millions of people died due to the inability of an emperor and a nation to accept loss.

Upon reflection, I think the anime rightfully portrays the war harshly. Millions of lives could have been saved due to changes in war leadership and mentality.

[alexstudyjapanese]

Godzilla

Coming into Godzilla, I was expecting an outdated and less engaging monster film. Luckily, I was wrong about both of those things. Having recently watched Godzilla vs. Kong (2019), I can say this was by far the more entertaining film of the two, packing in an emotionally engaging plot and underlying themes and messages relevant to the world at that time period especially.

A major thing that was done better in this film than Godzilla vs. Kong was the emphasis on the impact on each individual. Families scrambled to find out information on their missing loved ones. A single home is destroyed, and people are shown grieving their lost loved ones. Compare this to Godzilla vs. Kong’s final battle, where countless buildings were destroyed and seemingly hundreds of thousands perished, yet the impact on citizens of Hong Kong was largely ignored. I had more emotional investment in Serizawa’s death, for example, than the entire Godzilla vs. Kong.

This humanity centered approach has some parallels with the bombing of Japan during WW2 just a decade prior. The way hospitals filled up reminded me of a short story I read recently detailing the experience of a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing. To add to this, some patients had measurable levels of radiation poisoning. Perhaps this film served as a way to cope with the tragedy that was the atomic bombings in Japan, and form it into a cultural icon.

The film also provides important commentary on the dangers of the thirst for power. Godzilla only emerges as a result of H-bomb testing, a government’s thirst for destructive power. A similar thirst for power is seen in the militaristic approach to find a way to kill Godzilla. Even Dr. Yamane says “all they can think about is killing Godzilla,” suggesting approaches other than violence should be considered as well. In the end, a miracle invention is able to stop Godzilla, but Dr. Yamane again has a powerful line, stating that if H-bomb testing continues, another Godzilla will emerge again. Godzilla in this sense serves as a metaphor for any unforeseen catastrophic results of H-bomb testing and other actions taken for the sake of power struggle.

Although in the end a weapon of mass destruction was used to kill Godzilla, the movie makes it a good point to highlight the responsibility that goes into using such a weapon. Serizawa knows that if his research reaches political hands, it will be used to gain power on the international stage and only continue the cycle of A-bomb, H-bomb, next powerful weapon of mass destruction. His sacrifice at the end of the movie, holding to his ideals, was powerful. Not only did he sacrifice his life, but also his life’s research and a chance at finding a way for his discovery to benefit humanity (other than killing Godzilla).

Although it can be seen that smaller models and perspective were used for many visual effects in this movie, it never gets in the way of my enjoyment and I think it was quite brilliantly done overall. Very good movie.

[kjwald]

Astro Boy and Embracing Defeat

Wow, these readings were really heart-aching. The first chapter of Embracing Defeat is about Post-War Japan after 1945. Dower talks about how citizens were severely affected by the war, physically and emotionally. The chapter's title is "shattered lives," conveying the harsh effects of the war. The chapter starts off with a woman, Aihara Yu, telling her story of when the emperor had announced Japan's defeat. She waited for three years for her husband to return, only to learn that he died in war. This was so extremely devastating. There was also the preference of dying by a more honorable death rather than be defeated. Unfortunately, many soldiers committed suicide due to this. The emperor also tried to keep peace within Japan by assuming the guilt and sadness of the people of Japan, and while some felt guilty and like they failed the emperor, others felt a sense of relief that the war was over. There were many mixed emotions after the war, but everyone struggled immensely. There were numerous bombs throughout Japan. I feel like the amount of bombs and deaths in Japan is not actually well taught in foreign countries. I never knew that 66 major cities were bombed, and that 3 millions people died. I also did not know that mostly residences of those with low income were destroyed while the wealthy neighborhoods remained. Soldiers were killed in war, injured, abused, stuck in foreign countries as war prisoners, disappeared and psychologically traumatized. Families lost loves ones, became homeless or orphaned, also injured or killed, and also traumatized. Chapter 2 explains the effects of America making reforms in Japan after the war. As America made its way into Japan and gave goods, some thought of this as a miracle and blessing, while others thought that this means they will have to depend on a foreign country for their own survival. With demilitarization and democratization, Japan struggled with these new ideas.

I remember reading about the war and post-war Japan in textbooks during history class. I am disgusted that these kinds of details were not given to us. I remember having an argument in third grade about which was more devastating, the Pearl-Harbor attack or the atomic bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The very fact that the teacher would even try to compare and place value on each event is so wrong, but then for the entire class to just say that there were only two bombs and it was Japan's fault was nauseating. Of course, it was third grade, but the entire point of learning about these events is to try to understand all sides and the history of what really happened, and there was still an adult in the room that was okay with and pushing this. There were so many economic, psychological, physical, and political effects throughout all of Japan, not only the cities that were bombed, and this needs to be taken into account.

Astro Boy is a light-hearted, yet also kind of depressing manga. Astro Boy was made by a man that lost his son to a car crash, and then abandoned by that man when the man realized the robot he built was actually a robot... dang. There is some kind of war and fighting occurring between humans and robots, and Astro Boy seems to be trying to help with establishing peace. I researched the author, and he was involved in World War II, and he saw many people die. He has since made media to try to express his thoughts about the war and post-war. I think that Astro Boy is a manga that conveys to the audience how peace is important and that war is never the answer.

[jedivoodoochile]

Godzilla is a landmark in film history, a cinematic colossus with an inmensurable legacy. Like Mickey Mouse or Spider-Man, Godzilla himself is a timeless global icon, unmistakable all around the world and infinitely larger than any one film, product, or even time period. The Godzilla film franchise is recognized as the "longest continuously running film franchise" ever, with dozens and dozens of films spanning more than half a century. It all grew from the unflinching mastery of the first film, released in Japan in 1954 and localized for American audiences in 1956 as Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

Toho Co. pioneered tokusatsu, a style of genre films that utilize a distinct form of special effects, with Godzilla. Some techniques can be traced to a lost Japanese film from 1934 titled The Great Buddha Arrival, but Godzilla spawned the boom that would lead to properties such as Gamera, Ultraman, and countless others. Godzilla was inspired by King Kong and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms but when stop motion animation proved unrealistic for the production the tokusatsu methods of miniature sets and actors in suits (suitmation) was born.

Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka and Director Ishiro Honda brought the vision of Godzilla into reality and would work together on the series for the next two decades. Toho’s team of special effect artists, led by Eiji Tsuburaya and Akira Watanabe, revolutionized the entire industry with their work on the film. An unforgettable soundtrack and portfolio of sound effects by Akira Ifukube have endured within the franchise for generations.

In subsequent sequels Godzilla became a hero in increasingly family friendly monster battles but the first film is famously somber and grim, reflecting worldwide nuclear anxiety and the post-war fallout of 20th century Japan. It confronts themes of humanity’s helplessness in the face of natural and manmade disasters, pointing directly to the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a fishing boat crisis of radiation poisoning in 1954. The nuclear metaphor is well known and documented, it is impossible to see the bleak scenes of devastation and not instinctively feel the allegory. It may be harder for modern audiences to appreciate how naturally terrifying something like this was at the time, when the world still felt uncharted and full of dangerous mystery. This was the era of Bigfoot, Nessie, and UFOs in the sky, so the prospect of a city crushing dinosaur ignited imaginations, especially as the world grappled with the consequences of the nuclear age.

The Americanized release added actor Raymond Burr, changing much of the setup and story to center around his character, while largely staying true to the aesthetic and themes of the film. The original release carries more weight and class - it is quite simply a better made movie - but King of the Monsters propelled the picture to an international audience in a respectable way and deserves credit for building a bridge to the brand’s enduring success. With tragic beauty the Japanese original portrays the sincere gravitas of the subject in a way King of the Monsters only brushes against but it is still considerably more serious and dark than most American monster movies.

Godzilla transcends time, genre, and the film industry as a whole, it’s an immortal work of art that is representative of an entire era in human history. The character will be with us forever now; as long as there is popular media there will be a concept of giant monsters that destroy cities irreversibly linked to Godzilla. The 1954 masterpiece that started it all will persist too, with its everlasting message about humanity’s self-destructive hubris living on in its indestructible avatar.

[treadmilltreats]

Memorial Day Message

I interpret this normally scheduled Monday message to bring you a special Monday Treadmill Treats:

We seem to forget what this weekend is all about. It's not about a three-day weekend. It's not about the start of beach season and it's definitely not about a backyard BBQ. It's about remembering the brave men and women who fought for our country. These men and women fought and gave their lives for our freedom. It's about the millions of others who still are fighting, each and every day for our freedoms we take advantage of.

I so miss my stepfather, Nunu who was a World War 2 veteran. He was in the Air Force. In fact, he was in the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and he was so proud of being a veteran. Every Memorial Day he would put on his uniform right down to his hat and black shiny shoes and would march in the parade our town would have.

He would carry the flag as I sat on the curb with my mom watching all of these brave men and women march so proud. Even 50 years later they were still so proud to have served their country. Some of the veterans were out there in walkers, some were in wheelchairs but they were there all the same. I am lucky to come from a family of servicemen. My father served in the Navy, in the Korean War. All of my uncles served, as well as my cousins. I've even dated quite a few servicemen and I can tell you they are a different breed.

They are a different bunch of men, they are proud, and they love their country so much that they are willing to die for it. Can you say that?

If they needed you to go today to fight for your country and other people's freedom would you go or would you make excuses? There was no "Let me think about" for these people, it was “Yes, absolutely I will go!” And so many of them never came back. Many went to fight wars that weren't even ours, but they went without questioning it.

On this day we need to remember this while they are cutting services for them. These are the people who keep us free, they deserve all services.

So today my friends, while you're enjoying the beach and your BBQ, remember why you're really off and what today is really about.

It is to salute, to celebrate, and to remember and honor the many men and women who fought for us and lost their lives. Today we need to give thanks to the millions more who are still risking their lives each and every day for your freedom.

To all the servicemen and women out here…Thank you all for ensuring my freedom, so I can do and say what I want to in a country that protects my rights….words can never be enough!!

"Be the change you want to see”

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[brianyuhhh]

Barefoot Gen

Not many films really manage to capture the true horrors of war quite like Barefoot Gen does. This animated movie, based on Keiji Nakazawa’s manga, gives a firsthand look at what happened during the Hiroshima atomic bombing. A lot of historical films tend to focus mainly on soldiers and battles, but Barefoot Gen makes sure that we truly see the experiences of ordinary people, people who had no say in the war.

The story follows Gen, a young boy whose life changes forever when the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima. The animation does not hold back people’s skin melting, bodies burning, and families being wiped out in an instant. The film also shows the terrible aftermath of starvation, radiation sickness, and the struggle to survive in a ruined city.

One of the most striking things about Barefoot Gen is how it uses animation to tell this serious story. Most people think of animation as fun and lighthearted, but this film proves it can also be used to show harsh realities. The way survivors are drawn like zombies walking through the ruins makes it clear that the bomb’s effects didn’t stop after the explosion.

Even with everything so tragic and devastating, Barefoot Gen is still at its core a story about survival. One of the most inspiring parts of the film is how Gen and his mother still find ways to help others despite their own suffering. They take in Ryouta, an orphaned boy, even though they barely have enough food for themselves. Small moments of kindness, like when an old man lets Gen and his friend take his fish, show that even in times of war, humanity still exists.

The movie also uses the image of wheat to symbolize survival. Gen’s father explains to him how wheat manages to grow strong, even in the harshest conditions. This reflects how the people of Hiroshima had to keep going, even after losing everything.

While the film shows the suffering caused by the bomb, it also asks bigger questions about war. Gen’s father openly criticizes Japan’s leaders for dragging the country into a fight they couldn’t win. He wonders why innocent people have to pay the price for the decisions of those in power. Unlike so many other war movies that tend to focus on pride or revenge, Barefoot Gen really pushes us to think about why wars even happen in the first place.

This message still matters today. In modern wars, it’s often regular people who suffer the most, caught in the middle of political and military conflicts. The film reminds us that war isn’t just about battles and soldiers it’s about real people whose lives are forever changed.

The horrors that Barefoot Gen brings to light aren’t just things buried in the past. War still destroys lives in places like Syria, Ukraine, and Gaza, where civilians are the ones suffering the most. The black rain that falls after the Hiroshima bombing, spreading radiation, is similar to the long-term effects of nuclear disasters like Chornobyl. Even today, the world debates whether nuclear weapons should exist at all, raising the question: will history repeat itself?

Another really important issue that the film brings up is how questioning war itself can be a dangerous thing to do. In Barefoot Gen, people who speak out against the war are treated like traitors. Even now, many governments silence those who criticize them, whether it’s about war, politics, or human rights.

Barefoot Gen is more than just a film, it’s an emotional roller coaster. It forces us to face the true cost of war while also showing the strength of survivors. The message is clear: no one truly wins in war, only innocent people suffer.

As we look at conflicts happening around the world today, Barefoot Gen reminds us to learn from the past. How many more innocent lives will be lost before we finally change? Will we ever stop repeating the same mistakes?