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NEWS: Animated Short of What Happens Before War? Anti-War Picture Book Streamed




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FenixFiesta



Joined: 22 Apr 2013
Posts: 2581
PostPosted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 3:26 am Reply with quote
It is shockingly easy to turn a generation of youths into what amounts to military drones.
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mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 8:47 am Reply with quote
That's been true thru all of human history, war is the easy path to start most of the time.

Mark Gosdin
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Carlooo



Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 58
PostPosted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 12:25 pm Reply with quote
It's a sad little film, but unfortunately also really important.

I like the beginning, where stuff that is needed for war are put into those plamo holder kind of things. Very evocative.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2556
PostPosted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 2:14 pm Reply with quote
I think this is very interesting for what it says and especially what it does not say. Conspicuously absent is what aggressor nations do before they declare war on you. Unspoken is that war will be decided unilaterally without provocation and without input from the citizens, which asserts that Japan is an oligarchy and not a democracy. Very clearly this is aimed at children about 8-10 years or younger and tacitly asserts that the viewer is impotent and that their parents are ignorant before asserting that the viewer has power to decide not to go to war and tell their parents to oppose war. Of course there is no other choice possible, unless you want to see your brothers or sisters or neighbors killed. And as a nice finishing touch, we see how Japan will give the aggressive US money to kill people. I was in grade-school in the late 60's and this same sort of stuff was being circulated by "liberals" to pressure people to stop supporting the South Vietnamese against the aggression of the China-backed North. Convince the people that their government is alienated from them and then convince the people to follow other leaders (like those that created this film). I call propaganda.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Mon Feb 15, 2016 2:31 pm Reply with quote
Hiroki not Takuya wrote:
I think this is very interesting for what it says and especially what it does not say. Conspicuously absent is what aggressor nations do before they declare war on you.


It means well--it clearly wants to shout down the current Abe-era frustration of using nationalism and romanticizing wartime memories to get a handle on their economic helplessness--but it's still shackled to the Japanese view that WE declared war on THEM.
But not that they don't have a concern, as it's when any dissenting view starts becoming "subversive" (like Miyazaki having his anti-WWII sentiments cut out of The Wind Rises) that there's real concern for history repeating itself.

Even in our country, educators have pointed out how the shenanigans of Donald Trump's cult followers--and just what the crowds chant and why--have helped junior and high school students understand what exactly happened in 30's Germany, and how "just a bunch of lower-class troublemaking hoodlums" could rise to charismatic political power.
Wars just don't "happen", something causes us to want them to happen.
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omiya



Joined: 21 Sep 2011
Posts: 1836
Location: Adelaide, South Australia
PostPosted: Sat Apr 23, 2016 10:20 pm Reply with quote
Article today in the Asahi Shimbun English online:

http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201604240013.html

PS, I didn't find this anime listed in the ANN Encyclopedia.
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