#post war Japan

[not-your-asian-fantasy]

Zainichi, which literally means “residing in Japan”, is the name given to ethnic Koreans who immigrated to Japan post-war.

Although Koreans in Japan prior to World War II suffered racial discrimination and economic exploitation, the Japanese authorities nonetheless counted ethnic Koreans as Japanese nationals and sought to fully assimilate Koreans into Japanese society through Japanese education and the promotion of intermarriage. Following the war, however, the Japanese government defined ethnic Koreans as foreigners, no longer recognizing them as Japanese nationals. The use of the term Zainichi, or "residing in Japan" reflected the overall expectation that Koreans were living in Japan on a temporary basis and would soon return to Korea. By December 1945, Koreans lost their voting rights. In 1947, the Alien Registration Law consigned ethnic Koreans to alien status. The 1950 Nationality Law stripped Zainichi children with Japanese mothers of their Japanese nationality; only children with Japanese fathers would be allowed to keep their Japanese citizenship.

Read more about Koreans in Japan:

[jwolf85]

So I just saw Godzilla: Minus One

Omg everybody stop everything and go see this movie ASAP. It's INCREDIBLE!!

Post-War Period Piece??? Caring about the human characters??? Takashi making the best Godzilla film TO DATE???? The fear!!! The tension! The emotion!!! The hope for a brighter future in spite of terror and pain!!! So fucking good!!!

He looks fantastic too. What a guy. Favorite film of the year hands down.

[anjumbai]

The Silent Cry by Kenzaburo Oe - Thoughts

"I should have stretched out a helping hand, but a similar landslide was threatening to sweep me off my feet too."

Overall Rating: 8/10

While 'winner of the Nobel prize in literature' might be the initial reason of me buying the book in the first place, the label was not what made me stick to it. I have found yet another writer whose writing style connects so much with me, and also constantly reminds me that I should enrich my vocabulary. While my tour into Japanese writers have only showed me Murakami and Kazuo Ishiguro, they weren't particularly what you'd expect from Japanese literature. They write with heavy western influences and Kazuo Ishiguro is a Japan born British novelist. But it's with Kenzaburo Oe and Osamu Dazai that I had a proper interaction of Japanese literature. The book shows a heavily depressing yet hopeful post war Japanese society, where people are conflicted whether to live in the past sticking to tradition or hope for change and work for it. Japanese culture and traditions, along with heavy triggers- the book managed to captivate me with it's environment building.

The story was set apart by the two main focuses of the story: our humble narrator, Mitsu and his younger brother, Takashi. The duality of Mitsu and Takashi's character made for a journey where I just didn't know who to root for. I didn't root for anybody at one point. I rooted for peace, and somehow I couldn't see any of them getting it. Even though the book ends on a hopeful note, I found myself conflicted on whether this is how it really should have ended. On one side you had Mitsu, our narrator, who happened to have lost his way of life and found himself in an edge after the birth of his disabled child and the suicide of a close friend. And on the other hand, we had Takashi, a hopeful youth just back from America, prone to self destruction, yet very eager to connect to his roots by taking his brother (Mitsu) and his brother's wife to their ancestral home.

Takashi would be all for ancestral connection while Mitsu would often be seen in a state of constant disconnection from reality and his roots altogether. Mitsu's wife, drowning in alcoholism after they had to admit their disabled child to an institution, finds herself in a new spirit after having met Takashi. Takashi's extroverted leadership, enthusiasm to connect with his roots, sudden explosive violence had won him the love and support of people. Yet you still don't find yourself rooting for him- cause there is always something off about everybody here.

The book fleshed out its characters to the point where you can really understand them, and then blows it all apart. You feel you are close to understanding them, and then ask yourself that were you really actually close. This state of perpetual hopelessness, the abject routine of the village people just made you feel sorry for the way that they lived. But it seemed somehow there has always been a glimmer of hope, and it comes to those who choose to search for meaning in their lives. It's for all of the people who don't want to live in a magnificent building by someone else but would rather live in a thatched hut that they built by themselves.

Takashi's eagerness towards self punishment and living his "truth" seemed really vague to me, something I couldn't really grasp. But I think it gets better with a reread. The book took long passages to explain the ancestral history of the village which can drag sometimes, but makes you wanna respect it. Ancestral connection played a huge part in the book, and it wouldn't be fair to shy away from it.

As you can see the book isn't anything resembling the happy go lucky type. It has heavy themes of self punishment and suicide along with other major triggers. The book will make you feel a set variety of emotions. Which is great, because of the fact that something can make you feel such heavy emotions all at once.

Overall, great read. Felt like I read a huge part of Japanese culture just through this book, especially about the post war Japan. I'd recommend it. I've ordered Natsume Soseki's Kokoro to have another road trip down the traditional Japanese literature route. Till then, I'll read a lil bit more bout Kenzaburo Oe.

[sahind]

GODZILLA: Minus One (2023)

[abstraxia]

Ordeal By Roses series (starring Yukio Mishima), 1961, Eikoh Hosoe.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Mitsubishi J8M rocket powered interceptor, pretty much a copy of the German Me-163. 1945

[comikadraws]

Sasuke and the Final Battle

Alright! So personally, I dislike the conclusion that Sasuke's character got in canon. Here's why!

I am putting in pluses between panels to ensure nobody thinks those panels belong together.

The premise of the battle is as follows: Sasuke, motivated by the loss of his family, comes up with a plan to rectify the injustice he experienced which involves killing Naruto - not just because it promises him the power he seeks but also because he wants to cut that bond. It's a direct parallel to the first VotE fight.

Now, I still think Sasuke deserved better and I am very sorry to all Sasuke fans, but we need to get this one out of the way first.

While Sasuke's plans in the first VotE fight made a lot of sense, here, in the second fight, they are downright insane. He essentially plans to take over the world, become a dictator, and maintain his rule in neverending loneliness by becoming immortal. It doesn't need a genius to see that this should probably be considered tyrannical and self-destructive. And yes, he absolutely needed someone to knock some sense into him. But please keep in mind that the degree of Sasuke's insanity is a deliberate choice of the writer. A plot device for picking sides.

And it also makes a lot of sense for Konoha to be wary of him. Outside of this fight, he switched sides like five times. That's not something that would make you look particularly trustworthy or reliable.

It makes sense for Sasuke to feel guilty for his actions. He tried to kill his friends and comrades on multiple occasions. That's not something anybody would feel proud of.

But now, here are the issues I have with this battle and its conclusion:

Sasuke's core motivation is being glossed over

There's a huge bias going on in favor of Konoha and Naruto

Sasuke's sudden change of heart is abrupt and inconsistent with his character

The conclusion of Sasuke's character only exists in theory

Core Motivation

Sasuke's core motivation is the injustice experienced by the victims of the Uchiha massacre. His pain, loneliness, or even his wish for change are merely symptomatic, yet they are the only motivations ever acknowledged throughout the battle - even by Sasuke himself. I repeat: The systemic injustice that caused the massacre gets borderline ignored.

And if you ask me, there's a reason for that. Naruto needs to physically and ideologically defeat Sasuke - preferably without looking like the bad guy for shutting down a victim's cry for change and justice. But that only works by erasing and not ever talking about the corruption of the system. As a consequence, only Sasuke's "symptoms" remain - his detachment from everyone, the pain he embraces and causes, the unrealistic demands he has - and he ends up looking insane to the reader.

But defeating Sasuke and reducing his motivation to insanity like that, not acknowledging and condemning the injustice that motivates him, can only come at the cost of his depth, authenticity, and readability as a character.

The Konoha Bias

This also makes Kishimoto seem incredibly biased when it comes to Konoha. The crimes the village has committed, be it genocide, slavery, or child abuse, usually merely fulfill the purpose of "sad backstories" rather than being given the time and dignity to be properly identified, criticized, and rectified in the story. Injustice is allowed to be a character motivation or a flavor in the story, but it is not allowed to be a theme. That is no different here. Sasuke's traumas (though not their origin) are used to inform his actions but not shown as the result of the depravity of the system.

Aside from this linking back to Sasuke's character being deprived of his ideological value in the story (due to being a victim of the system and demanding change), this lack of attention and awareness toward the injustice reads like propaganda from an irl perspective. These are some of the most contemptworthy acts in existence we are talking about. And yet Konoha gets away unscathed.

Meanwhile, Sasuke, who is seemingly the only person demanding change, is intentionally characterized as "crazy", inevitably invalidating him and his desire for change. It basically reads as "yes, this system is rotten but everybody wanting to change it is evil". Change becomes evil by association. It's disheartening, demoralizing, and disappointing.

The Change of Heart

Now let's take a look at how his character actually progresses during this battle.

Sasuke wants to change the world even if that means killing Naruto or being lonely

Sasuke re-evaluates his relationship with Naruto

Sasuke realizes he no longer wants to kill Naruto or be lonely even if that means the world never changes

Now. Rethinking his self-destructive approach is, without question, a positive change. But that is not the problem here.

The problem is that this change in his character occurs rather unprompted. Sasuke, the entirety of the story, has ignored his own suffering in favor of justice. He has ignored every single character crying over him or telling him that they don't want him to ruin or endanger himself. But then Naruto basically says "it hurts to watch you suffer" and Sasuke suddenly rethinks his entire ideology. Naruto is basically only treating one of Sasuke's symptoms but not their origin.

This is unrealistic for his character and hurts his coherence (as well a invalidating him). It is a forced plot convenience to avoid any sort of compromise between Naruto and Sasuke. Both because Naruto has to come out on top due to genre conventions and also because Konoha cannot be questioned.

Missing Conclusion

Furthermore, this results in Sasuke's arc never coming to an actual "conclusion". As a victim, he should have been given justice. As someone who was supposedly suffering under his loneliness, he should have been given companionship. As a villain, somebody should have pointed out his hypocrisy and the wrongs he has committed.

None of that happened. Sasuke is not given justice and is even incarcerated in the most undignified and dehumanizing fashion possible in the anime. Afterward, he takes off alone. So in the end, even the "power of friendship" resolution that Kishimoto attempted to write only occurred on a surface level and failed in its execution. Sasuke is not changed because he realizes he is a hypocrite and doing more harm than good but because of a plot convenience. Sasuke internalized none of what he supposedly learned and practically had no conclusion whatsoever. He is still suffering. Nothing has changed.

The Point

And at this point, I'm just wondering "what was the point?". Clearly, the point of Sasuke's character wasn't to explore the darkness of the shinobi system. And it wasn't to seek justice for the horrors it has committed. It also wasn't about helping Sasuke heal from any of the hardships he's endured. Of course, all of these points were acknowledged by the story but never truly dealt with. A story can make as many promises as it wants and still follow up on none.

The point was, unfortunately, to be Naruto's trophy. Naruto is the main character, therefore he must remain ideologically unchallenged and perfect, he must have the strongest jutsu arsenal and he must have the most unwavering determination. Even if that means bending the other characters to the plot's needs. Sasuke is, thanks to genre conventions, not allowed to be right and Naruto cannot be wrong. A compromise or any justice at all become impossible unless they are a perfect match for Naruto's ideas of compromise and justice. While this doesn't mean that Kishimoto didn't care for Sasuke's story, Naruto's goal of saving Sasuke and becoming Hokage played a bigger role as compared to Sasuke's of changing the shinobi system, to the point that the latter was ignored whenever it inconvenienced Konoha's image.

[lilybug-02]

I made this in 30 minutes shut up. I needed to make art for this movie okay. Godzilla Minus One

[pussysidon]

When I want to not be weird about something but I have literally never been normal about a piece of media in my life

[possible-streetwear]

[poppy5991]

I really hope when the new anime season comes out that we get to delve into the childhoods of the older generation characters because I’ve seen manga panels of those and it says SO MUCH about the story and how things come to be for the kids they watch over.

GIVE ME THE GENERATIONAL TRAUMA BACKSTORIES PLZ

They essentially grew up in a war zone. It has so much effect on their characters and how they interact with the kids. I hope they don’t cut the inclusion of those scenes to allow longer, flashier fights.

[lonestarbattleship]

"USS NEW MEXICO (BB-40) anchored in the Tokyo Bay area, at the end of World War II. Mount Fuji is in the background."

Photographed in late August 1945.

U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command: NH 50232

[infinitiumme]

Japanese writer Yukio Mishima sitting in a living room during an interview. Tokyo, March 1970

[salmonella-destroyer-of-worlds]

[sahind]

Godzilla: Minus One (2023)

[captain-price-unofficially]

IJN Nagato with USS South Dakota in background of the stern area, making this Tokyo Bay around the time of the surrender of Japan, Sept 1945