Forum - View topicNEWS: The myth of rising Japanese nationalism
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prettygirl
 Posts: 127 Location: too far from home... |
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I would like be believe a lot of what Kitano has to say but I sometimes question authors who pull statistics into the picture without providing a source from which these 'vital statistics' came from. Questions raised in my head include: How many people particpated in the poll? For example, 20 participants does not make for a very accurate poll; Who conducted the poll? Was the institution credible?; Who participated in the poll? Our local news broadcast often chooses random people off the street and interviews them about their opinion on a certain subject matter. The thing is, they tend to interview people in mid-afternoon, on the street, waiting at the bus stop. What about the opinions of the working class or educated university students? They are only asking the opinions of a select few in a certain social class. Not very accurate in my opinion.
Despite the problems with the statistics, however, I do sincerely hope that it is true when Kitano states, "Japan today is a mature democracy, whose society prizes freedom of expression and other checks against a rise of excessive nationalism." And I do agree when Kitano argues, "It is in nondemocratic states with no freedom of expression that rulers tend to resort to nationalism in order to strengthen their authority." He's got some valid points that are worth noting. |
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hadoken
Posts: 3 |
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Kitano makes some good points in his essay, but there were a couple of things I want to comment on.
I can't speak for all of Japan from my own personal experience, but my host father and I discussed this trend. He enjoys Korean dramas, but something he said concerned me a little. He said the Korean Wave was the result of a sort of "boomerang effect," stating that Korea was "finally" giving back to Japan after all the good things Japan had provided for Korea. I don't know if the majority of Japanese think this way, but it still unsettled me a bit. Kitano quotes the controversial textbook in his essay: "'...soldiers and the people of China fell victim in large numbers to the invasion by the Japanese military.'" This is his translation of the original Japanese text, yet even here, I can see that it is possible that he flavored the translation to hide the possible glorified language used in the textbook regarding the war. Of course, this is just paranoid speculation and wild finger-pointing until I can get a hold of the original source text myself and see whether or not the original had any glorified flavor to it. In any case, things do look somewhat hopeful for Japan's relations with Korea. I'm not sure how things will go for China. Having a strong trade agreement does not necessarily mean happy parties on both sides on every issue.[/quote] |
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TheShadow99
Posts: 32 |
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I like some of the things he said, but...
From what I see of Japanese culture I do think their is a very nationalistic undertone to some things. Fortunately it's not as strong as some other countries nearby (*cough*China*cough*), or at least so it seems. Their is even a vocal group who have wanted to reform the SDF (Self Defense Force) into a standing army for years now. Whether he thinks that will ever happen or not... As for their revisionist take on history... I don't really think I need to mention much on that, it's kinds of obvious text book or no text book. Their few artistic works on the subject of the second world war tend to show there views... They were the victim, the world would have been a better place if the US hadn't attacked Japan, etc... It seems to leave out the slaughter of soldiers on both sides through a number of actions that were horrible regardless of who commited them or the fact that they through the first punch. Now I'll be the first to say the US went overboard at the end wanting to prove the power of atomic weapons to the world, but in war neither side is innocent... History of course always tends to try to omit that sort of thing... ... I've ranted enough, I'll let someone else talk now... 
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Raz_G
Posts: 72 Location: Israel |
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This reminds me a lecture I heard in one of the classes I took, given by the Japanese Cultural Attache in my country. The lecture was preceded by an introduction from one of the studens in the class, who made a passing reference to the popularity of anti-semitic literature in Japan. When the lecturer began talking, this was the first issue he chose to address, dismissing the phenomenon as "insignificant" and claiming that "people may read this stuff, but they don't take it seriously" and after a thought he added "just as they read manga" (and being the only person in class who was into manga, this reamrk made me smile...).
Anyways, much like that cultural attache (and somewhat in contrast to the article's title), Kitano doesn't actually deny the rise in Japanese nationalism, he just claims that this phenomenon should be examined in the right proportions, and notes that there is actually another side to all this - people who oppose nationalitic views. I should point, perhaps, that nationalism by itself isn't necessarily a bad thing - it becomes a problem when it's accompanied by xenophobia and militarism. Some of Kitano's arguments are problematic. Pointing to the popularity of South-Korean TV shows in Japan is ignoring the fact that it is this popularity that triggered the appearance of Manga like "Hating the Korean Wave" (or at least that's what I heard). As mentioned by prettygirl, statistics and polls are not a very reliable thing - you can play with numbers and make results look the way you want them to look. 360,000 people buying a book are actually a better testiment than 57% of people who answer a poll (though this doesn't necessarily mean anything either - just because many people read "The Da-Vinci Code", for example, doesn't mean all of them treated it as an authentic history lesson. At least I hope not...). I think he does have a point about the school textbook - that people should probably get the entire context before criticizing specific paragraphs. It is his closing words that I most agree with: "Japan today is a mature democracy, whose society prizes freedom of expression and other checks against a rise of excessive nationalism. It is in nondemocratic states with no freedom of expression that rulers tend to resort to nationalism in order to strengthen their authority." A democracy, in my opinion, should express tolerance to a wide variety of opinions, even ones regarded as unpleasent or distasteful. |
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scorpioEDC
Posts: 45 |
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Now, there is a myth of rising Japanese nationalism but there is also a the fact of rising Japanese nationalism
Here is a quote from the link: "the Mainichi newspaper here released a poll of 1, 058 Japanese showing that only 43 percent thought the nation's actions during World War II were "clearly wrong," while the rest said the war had been unavoidable or were unsure. The comparable response was even lower among younger Japanese; 36 percent of 20- to 30-year-olds participating in the poll considered Japan's role in World War II as clearly wrong." Together with the recent release of the Yamato movie, it is more likely that the Japanese government is systematically white washing the Japanese role in World War II. In comparison, the german government has never ever tried to encourage using a Nazi flag again to represent a national flag, or showing any white washing acts upon the German role in World War II. Anyway, talk and action are two different things. Talk to be or act to be? Which one is truth? |
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LightNightmare148
 Posts: 37 |
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I don't wanna sound like an a-hole, but... What the hell does this have to do with anime?? Just because it's talking about Japan and Japanese people does not mean it's anime.. I don't want to know crap about Japan, I simply like it's animated style. That's why I come to ANN, to read anime news, not Japan news.
But since this is already made, I'll just say my opinion on this matter. Japan is proud, patriotic country. Kind of racist if you ask me.. and that's pretty sad. |
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HitokiriShadow
 Posts: 6251 |
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Because there are a lot of us who are interested in Japanese culture as a whole in addition to anime and manga. Plus, this nationalism is present in some anime and manga as well. Ranging from Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies to extreme examples like "Hating the South Koreans" or whatever that anti-Korean manga was. |
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Jariten
Company Representative
 Posts: 180 Location: Here and there |
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This is a difficult subject indeed. As someone who has spent 3 years living and working in Japan, I'd like to comment:
First of all, there are over 110 million people in Japan. To say that a certain trend represents all Japanese people is careless; that would be like saying that the actions of the KKK represent over 270 million Americans. However - and both sides of the argument are guilty of this - so many articles that deal with modern Japanese society are written in a "All of Japan is like THIS" kind of tone. I was most thankful for the comments on Korea in this article. As anyone who has been to Japan lately will tell you, Korean culture is extremely popular with people of all ages. If Korean culture was as taboo and unwanted as some people would have you think, how do you explain the success of BoA and the drama "Winter Sonata"? I'm not saying that there is a complete lack of nationalism in Japan. Japan, like the USA (and, for that matter, almost every country in the world), has wacky fringe groups with unpopular views. I remember seeing a right-wing protester with a bullhorn in front of Ueno Station one afternoon. He was saying that Japan should re-arm and make its presence in the world known. However, the important thing is that everyone in the area just walked by the guy. Not a single person stopped to listen. |
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LightNightmare148
Posts: 37 |
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 There was a manga like that? Wow... that's just... sad. Really.
I stand by my point, Japan is a racist country who doesn't like almost anybody but themselves. I'll just enjoy non-racist anime like DBZ thank you. |
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2302 Location: Online Terminal |
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Um, I hate to break it to you, but every country prefers "their own people" to some degree. Some feelings are just more severe than others. For example, the United States had to deal with that issue for 100 years after the Civil War and remnants of that still exist today. And of course, there's one of the most famous displays of racism known as the Holocaust. But I digress. The point is foriegn countries don't like you, and it's naiive to feel otherwise. |
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Yoshball
 Posts: 99 Location: Portland, OR |
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Non-racist? Have you seen Mr. Popo? |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6900 Location: Kazune City |
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Or, as another example of still-present nationalism, how about the exaggerated fear of foreigners and their supposed crime sprees, along with politicians' use of fear-mongering to gain votes? You can read about it here, among other places. I can just imagine the parents with their children on the streets: "Aah! Ki o tsuke! That gaikokujin has overstayed his visa by 5 days! He's going to rob us and firebomb our house!
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Cowpunk
Posts: 168 Location: Oakland - near the Newtype Lab |
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Yes and they are encouraged by the present US administration. In the 1980's the Reagan administration was openly putting preasure on Japan to increase the budgets of the SDF. I see this as one of the inspirations for the second Patlabor movie. For more on US attempts to get Japan to increase military activity and revise it's constitution see: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040502a1.htm |
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10455 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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With anime ? Nothing. But it has a lot to do with manga, which it refers to in the second paragragh.
Two extremely nationalistic manga have recently become best sellers in Japan. Among other things, this essay, is in part trying to convince people that the popularity of these articles does not indicate a growing form of "bad" nationalism. Japanese Nationalism Archive on ANN. I guess I should have pointed out that the essay refers to these manga. -t |
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kyosukekasuga
 Posts: 8 |
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Nationalism is not a bad thing. After 9/11, this country needed a good shot of nationalism and we got it. Nationalism in and of itself is healthy. Taking it to the extent that we're going to impose that nationalism on other countries and wiping out their culture in the process is not justified.
The Japan of the Facist era, with the Way of Subjects and the attempted cultural destruction of captive nations such as Korea and Manchuria was not legitimate nationalism. However, if Japan goes "nationalist" today (which I would gather meaning changing the name of the "Self-Defense Force" to "Army", and not much more than that), it's nowhere near the days of Tojo. Of course, the Koreans and Chinese know that. They just enjoy having Japan as a whipping boy because they really did do some nasty things...60 to 90 years ago. There is another issue here, and that is that after WWII, it was essential to preserve some amount of "face" for Japan after the surrender to the US (arguably one of the most humiliating events in Japan history). As a result, the US didn't push the cultural retributions as hard in Japan as it did in Germany, where the local population was constanly reminded of their hand in the Holocost. Partly this was to make occupation easier, partly it was out of sympathy from the US as we nuked them twice, but as a result, there are still many in Japan who think they fought WWII honorably, and these people tend to focus on stuff like the Yamato and the pacific islands war, and gloss over (or outright lie) about the China and Korea experience. Understanding is key to the situation. Besides, having today's China call Japan nationalistic is really like the Pot calling the Kettle black. |
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