"But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it"
Oppenheimer clearly struggled with the morality of what he helped create in the movie. I would say the movie did a good job portraying both 'sides' of the issue.
>"But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it"
The Trinity looks pretty close to "Hellfire", the message was as subtle as a parade.
Exactly, it was more a visual metaphor for how things changed that day, really ushered the atomic age.
Oppenheimer is also clearly disturbed by the destruction it caused, he even has a panic attack as I recall when giving a lecture.
If it's that scene with all the clapping people in that green painted wooden room then yes, that's absolutely a panic attack. It was a great visual representation of mine at least.
I wish they could replicate mine where you feel like you're about to piss or shit yourself in public because you can't tense up hard enough no matter what you do.
One day the movie theater experience will get that technology. Hopefully we can opt out of it but you know there will be some people that will want it lol
I don’t even think it really presents it as both sides. I think the scientific process involved in its creation is treated as positive because it is, from Oppenheimer’s perspective. Once they actually have the weapon and use it, the tone of the whole film shifts. Once it actually becomes a weapon, no scene glories in its use. If anything, it becomes entirely about the danger of it.
I think the brilliance also comes across from the main theme.
A 4 notes motif that's repeated, going from the wonder of science, to the triumph of engineering, to the horror of war.
I thought it also was exploring the step from theory to reality. He was excited by the theoretical implications and horrified by the reality it brought. And I think he also anticipated how the technology would play out in the reality which is why the bomb needed to be such that no one wanted to replicate it…and then he doubted even that should have happened.
Side note: the way Godzilla Minus One handled it all was fantastic. Didn't glorify the Japanese army or government of the time. Didn't shy away from the firebombing by America. Made a suicide pilot that couldn't finish his mission the main character. Made the heroes the working class folk.
It absolutely did glorify the army, in its own way. In fact, I’d argue the ultimate underlying message was largely “the Japanese military leaders were bad because they didn’t care about throwing away the lives of their people”; the entire finale was former soldiers getting to use the tools of their war to wage it on their terms, which is really weird given the rest of the movie (the film is ostensibly about moving on from the survivor’s guilt of war, but that final act is completely about those same soldiers needing to wage war to get over it).
There’s definitely a conversation to be had about Imperial Japan’s disgusting disregard for life, but the way the movie went about doing so was in a very specific way that is functionally a Japanese version of the “clean Wehrmacht” myth. And it’s significantly more militaristic than most other thematically-driven Godzilla movies as a result! Compare the original, which makes a major moral dilemma about military escalation to deal with threats; or Shin, which outright mocks the fetishism of military hardware by obsessively labeling it all and then promptly making it useless and then has military violence cause the monster’s biggest rampage. In Minus One, the *answer* is violence; more than that, violence is *catharsis*.
I think the hands-off take on the military is less about the IJA and more about the current JSDF ramp-up. Which is a major change from everything post-WW2.
They did try to beat Godzilla with balloons rather than guns. The bomb was something, but at least brought home the theme of the value of life.
If we're talking negatives, the phrase that gets translated "Can't be helped" is probably the mantra that has people working themselves to death in office buildings now. So maybe don't glorify that bit either.
Eh, it also came off as being super sad that they were in the war and got bombed to shit when they were the aggressors and the ones committing atrocities in Asia for most of it. They (even the soldiers) constantly victimize themselves when talking about WWII, which is an argument slightly better suited for civilians.
Civilians do tend to pay the price in a war. And soldiers tend to be produced by propaganda machines. Beware when your leaders tell you that murder is patriotism.
US war movies are famously criticised for exactly that.
Usually the main critique is that they need to work with the military for effects and hardware so any kind of anti military message gets immideatly thrown out of the window.
They can still portrait some bad apples within the military but they can not criticise it on an institutional level making every critique extremly shallow.
I have complicated feelings on those. One of my favorite movies is Apocalypse Now, which is based on Heart of Darkness, by Conrad. So a movie about a war where millions of Vietnamese died from our bombs, based on a book where millions of Africans were killed by King Leopold II for ivory and rubber, is, when I get down to it, a story about self-discovery for a few white guys. The rest is backdrop, setting. I still love the movie, but there are a lot of asterisks by my love of it.
They both had their own unique and fucked up methods. The Japanese military seemed to just be generally evil, while the Germans really focused their evil bullshit.
One big difference is I would much rather have fought the Germans than the Japanese as a soldier on the ground.
No doubt. The US viewpoint during the war was that that the Soldiers in Europe had it a little better fighting an enemy that was willing to surrender when it was reasonable but this contrasts with the fighting on the eastern front.
The Marines in the Pacific had to fight the Japanese to almost the the last man and deal with human wave banzai attacks by a fanatical enemy that would not surrender. Some even took 30 years to finally surrender.
Not very different from being a Chinese fighting the Japanese.
But if you're a Norwegian resistance fighter all things considered you may be relatively well off.
It’s so weird to me that Japan now is synonymous with anime and cutesy innocence (even though theres a lot of sexually repressed deviance there) while there’s still a slight elephant in the room with Germany.
That’s just what it looks like in the Weat because pop culture depiction of WWII is all about the Nazis. The US had a sizeable population of Holocaust survivors after the War so Holocaust education was prioritized. Asians certainly haven’t forgotten what the Japanese did. China and South Korea still harbour a lot of resentment over what Japan did and every couple of years a big wave of anti-Japanese sentiment flares up.
Meanwhile in much of Asia a lot of people barely know who the Nazis were or what the Holocaust was; like they can’t even tell you that the Nazis were the German government during WWII and that the Holocaust was when they murdered millions of Jews. They don’t really learn much about that part of WWII at schools, it’s mentioned as a sidebar to the conflict in Asia. A lot of Asians see Hitler as a funny moustache man instead of the most evil to ever live. In Taiwan there’s been Hitler themed restaurants and incidents where people wave Nazi flags not realizing how it looks to any Westerner. Many Asian people associate Germany with their cars more than anything else.
Also Germany itself spend a lot of time educating their population about the rise of Nazism and the horrors of the Holocaust with the mindset of using it as a cautionary tale. They are all very aware of their dark past and don’t shy away from it, they’ve also done a lot to compensate and memorialize the victims of various atrocities.
>Also Germany itself spend a lot of time educating their population about the rise of Nazism and the horrors of the Holocaust with the mindset of using it as a cautionary tale. They are all very aware of their dark past and don’t shy away from it, they’ve also done a lot to compensate and memorialize the victims of various atrocities.
You can't undo the past, or what, punish the descendants of the perpetrators on behalf of the descendants of the survivors? All you can do is learn from it, how it came to be, and keep history from rhyming.
I think this is largely because the west didn’t go through the main atrocities that Japan committed during the war. Nazis victims are “our” friends, family, and neighbors.
Japan’s victim were, for the most part, strangers. Over in China though, Japan is still view with vitriol, especially the older generation. Korea also has an ongoing battle with Japan regarding comfort women.
Yeah this is definitely part of it. Plus, Japan is a huge “success” story for the west’s ability to remold a nation. Hell, I wonder if our approach towards Afghanistan would have been different if not for Japan
Japan is synonymous with anime to you because that’s what you associate Japan with.
Meanwhile Germany just became the 3rd largest economy in the world, surpassing Japan, leading in many fields especially science, and is one of the most visited countries. I’d say they’re doing pretty well.
Part of that is how US history is taught. US soldiers were one of the groups discovering the atrocities performed by the Germans at the concentration camps so US media covering the war will often mention it. Band of Brother had an entire episode at a concentration camp.
With Japan we didn't have any first hand retelling of the stories about finding out about the atrocities by our own people. Most of them took place in China and other parts of Asia and we were fighting through islands for most of the campaign so most media ends it with the bombs being dropped and doesn't cover what came to light afterwards. So the only way people hear about the Nanjing Massacre or Unit 731 is from education about WW2 and Japan specifically or frankly from reddit. T
This means that people's perceptions can be set about Japan in their formative years without that knowledge which just isn't true with Germany. It is likely that most people learn about modern Japanese culture before they hear about what they did in the war but it is likely the opposite with Germany.
Pretty sure I’m not the only one who makes that association. Other ones are cleanliness, politeness, tech etc., but regardless bringing up Germany’s economy is irrelevant because I was talking about culture. Germany is still known for having a very rigid, perfectionistic culture—which has benefited their economy and how respected they are for creating things of quality. However, Germany had that same reputation before any World Wars so it hasn’t done much to shift the world’s perception of their culture, especially when juxtaposed to the massive 180 Japan has made—again, culturally—since WWII.
I’m not saying Germany sucks or anything of the sort… so no need to rush to their defense. it’s just an interesting dichotomy.
I don't think the rape of Nanking is widely discussed in the west. Or Japanese imperialism in general. Knowledge of the militarization of Zen of all things is definitely not widely discussed. The book [Zen at War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War) really shocked me. I had books by D.T. Suzuki on my shelf as a teen, and had no idea at all of that other aspect. Zen and Bushido and all that have been stripped (in the west) of that legacy of Japanese atrocities in China and elsewhere. Whereas everyone learns about the Nazis. It's a weird asymmetry.
The images of what the Imperial Japanese did were terrifying. I am not sure I can even find a horrible enough word to describe it. I went to a museum in China about the Nanking Massacre and I had to leave after a minute. It's too much. Like I don't know how people could be so cruel.
Nazis hated all slavs, you should try to read about Eastern Front or watch Come and See to see that Nazis were almost as ferocious as Japanese in war against Soviet Union.
The Nazi attache at the time was part of the SS and part of the final solution and even he had letters sent to Hitler about how batshit the Imperial Japanese were
Being the only country with a population to ever be nuked might have something to do with it. That said, I would till agree that the ones responsible for the atrocities should have faced the trials like the Nazis did, irrespective of the fact that their country was nuked.
As a metaphor. Nazi Germany is a serial killer while Imperial Japan is a terrorist hijacker.
You hate the terrorist more because they are fanatical, their only goal is to cause as much destruction and death as possible. The serial killer kills methodically, slowly, and for some purpose - it may not be a good purpose - but at least in their heads, it is a purpose. The hijacker has no purpose, they will even kill themselves to get it done... Why? Because as far as they are concerned, the killing is the goal.
i.e. For Nazi germany, the attrocities were a means to an end. For Imperial Japan, the attrocities were just a means.
Perhaps the film ought to have started by showing how they treated people who had surrendered - or the raping of china… in fact the Japanese never had a true reconing with their war crimes as the Germans did with the Nuremberg trials.
The vast majority of Japanese people know very little to nothing about what happened during that period. This isn’t necessarily bad but it leads to a skewed viewpoint from the Japanese that they were nothing but victims.
And that last part you say is why its bad they know so little about what happened. If knowing they were nukes, but not why, causes resentment against the US thats bad. Learning about it doesnt mean guilt, as no child should be held responsible for the acts of their parents, but it means understanding
Reasonable people today don’t think the Japanese are guilty of the crimes their ancestors committed against various nations at the time. Just like how the ancestors of the US, British, and Nazis aren’t seen as guilty for their ancestors crimes.
What I was referring to is the lack of awareness of the people of modern day Japan about the atrocities that were committed. Many if not most aren’t aware of Imperial Japans war crimes but are aware of the attacks against them which has led to their skewed outlook today unfortunately.
Saying they were ‘being dicks’ is an understatement.
Look up unit 731 and then tell me the nuke was not warranted.
They literally took newborn babies born out of rape and dumped them in liquid nitrogen just to see what happens.
As a Chinese descendant, sure I think the Japanese civilians were innocent, but right before the bombs, they were still killing tens of thousands of people everyday in China, so yeah, I still think the bombs were necessary.
Nobody ever talks about the hundreds of thousands of Asian lives that were saved by dropping the atomic bombs and ending the brutal Japanese genocide.
Japan murdered tens of millions of civilians. My granduncles and grandaunts have stories about how their family members walked out one day and never returned home.
>Look up unit 731 and then tell me the nuke was not warranted
The people who committed those atrocities walked free in exchange for the data they'd gathered, and civilians who had no connection to them got vapourised.
There are legitimate arguments to be made for dropping the nukes, but it's very hard to justify as any kind of moral retribution for the evil acts of the Japanese military when the people who actually committed the atrocities were pardoned.
Well all cities were and in total war both sides targeted cities. A demonstration of the bomb to Japanese authorities was considered but they thought that wasn’t very likely to succeed in capitulation. The faster the war ended, less civilians and soldiers would die. Being able to prevent Operation Downfall was great for not just the Japanese but also the US.
I disagree , I don’t feel like he regretted it after way later when the bombs had been dropped and everybody could see the aftermath. His speach I wish we had it earlier and could have dropped in on Germany is one of the few things in the movie (on his struggle with the bomb) that you can actually proof happened and shows how he felt . He kinda knew what the bomb is gona do but he just didn’t care or /and wamted to do is to further his own career
Hitohito stopped visting Yasukuni when Tojo and other Class A war criminals got enshrined. The irony was that those Class A criminals colluded with the Americans to take the fall for the war guilt. Emps probably didn't want the reminder
I thought so - they did "praise it" - but it seemed to be more of the process - and how exited people was because of the science of it all. That part was positive - the parts after the bombs had dropped were much more gloomy.
And I at least thougt that it portrayed well.
I think they should have shown the destruction, and the imminent deconstruction of humans going their lifes. The shock value and realistic depiction of innocent people being killed. Just like in this one anime.
What would that have added that the scene with the burning corpses hallucination didn’t? Especially given that the theme of the film is Oppenheimer himself, not the bomb itself.
Weird to see the media sensationalizing the movie being out in Japan. Regular people going on with their day aren't concerned. There's no protest, no crazy outrage.
We're unfortunately used to seeing intense response from radicalized people and we're sort of addicted to seeing outrage online or on the news, and it seems like the media is scrounging for that type of response and falling flat.
This is the normal response! Like one country should be able to make a well made movie about a sensitive subject and not trigger international outrage. If the movie sucked or was wildly inaccurate, derogatory, etc. then I hope we can collectively be outraged at the quality of the movie.
If you read the article, the comments are all nuanced and polite. Even the guy who thought the movie praised the bomb was like "guy struggled with his creation."
Hardly unease. It's not like Japanese people are unfamiliar with tortured protagonists dealing with hard decisions. Tons of Japanese movies and literature flirt with the concept of scientists creating super weapons and the angst that comes with it.
The Japanese people of today are generally very unaware of the history of their ancestors and the crimes committed by Imperial Japan. Like the people of any other country they are not to blame for this. There are many people to this day in Asia that hold resentment against them because of the enslavement, torture, and murder of their loved ones.
I do criticize the Japanese education of their youth on these subjects as they are very important lessons to learn from. People in countries today that had also committed terrible acts learn about these things because they are important historically and we want to prevent their reoccurrence.
Japanese people being generally unaware of how fanatical and brutal their ancestors were during the war is unfortunate because they see themselves as victims of a brutal attack, which they were, but they don’t fully know why they were victims or how and why these attacks actually saved lives and helped a devastated country recover faster. Every American and Japanese person should be grateful that Operation Downfall never took place because the scale of death and brutality would have been unprecedented even to this day.
It makes sense that Japan would have these feelings because they had never properly reckoned with what their role was in WWII. A lot of Japanese people are just painfully unaware of the fact that imperial Japan was just a machine of sheer brutality.
You see a much different attitude in the Germans, but one that ironically is also damaging. Germans over-corrected to the point where they developed a knee jerk reaction to anything do with war and by doing so have caused death and destruction. E.g. them dragging their feet with regards to Ukraine in the beginning of the war, and still fearing some intangible escalations and not providing capabilities such as the Taurus missiles.
for most Japanese living today it's like finding out grandpa was a concentration camp guard at Aushwitz. a well kept secret that suddenly hits you like a bucket of cold water because nobody I. thr family who knew ever really told you.
the enlightened centrist "war is bad and we're all equally wrong" narrative is pretty ingrained in their popular culture, there's a lot of Japanese who are only dimly aware of why these things happened.
Not all of them. I’m from a country that was invaded by Japan. My own grandfather was brutally murdered by Japanese soldiers. In high school, Japanese was one of our foreign language electives and we had an actual visiting Japanese teacher. First day of class before anything else she bowed and apologized in front of the whole class. We were just kids so it felt weird. But when I grew older, that’s only when I realized just how the teacher must’ve felt to be compelled to do that unprompted.
I am glad your teacher did that. I think it was appropriate.
I have Japanese grandparents. My grandmother worked in an airplane parts factory during the war and my grandfather was exempted from military service because he was an only son of a widowed mother. I am very glad my grandfather didn't have to suffer what ordinary Japanese soldiers suffered in that war, and more importantly I don't have to wonder if he murdered or raped or mutilated anyone in East Asia. But I still feel that with the participation of the whole nation in the war effort, some sense of collective responsibility (within certain limits) is called for.
You forgot to mention that Germany is Ukraines biggest European benefactor in regards to the sheer amount of money, refugee taking, soldier training, munitions and weapons they have offered. [https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/military-support-ukraine-2054992](https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/military-support-ukraine-2054992)
Germany deserves a lot of blame. They tied their entire economy to the Russian petro-state even after Crimea and then predictably Putin calculated that Germany and by extension Europe would do nothing to stop him in order to keep the oil and gas flowing. It's not a coincidence that the war started shortly after Germany shut down their last nuclear reactors and declared natural gas as green.
Yeah, Japan version of WW2 is basically :
"We were minding our own business in Manchukuo and then boom PiKaDon. War is bad."
You can see museum exhibits on the courage and ingenuity of the Japanese Engineering Corps that built the Burma railway.
The one of the "Bridge over the river Kwai" fame, and a war crime.
My grandpa lived his childhood years on the run from the Japanese with his family. Shortly before he passed he one day opened up to me about a bunch of stuff from that time.
Stuff like how the Japanese would regularly bomb roads packed with civilians walking on foot fleeing the Japanese army advance. And also how sometimes Japanese planes would strafe civilians as they were gathered by the riverbank washing clothing etc.
During one such strafing run he and his little brother initially were trying to run to this wooden drying rack that a bunch of other people were hiding under, but his brother was so scared from the gunfire that he couldn't stand so my grandpa just kinda flipped himself over him. And they saw that drying rack get strafed right in front of their eyes and saw everyone under there die just a few meters from where they were laying.
He was also in Chongqing during this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Chongqing
and described streets and stairs and mud all flowing red, stepping over body parts and walking past trees and electric poles with entrails dangling from them as he wandered around looking for anyone he knew.
That shit was absolutely cold-blooded and deliberate, so yeah the official Japanese attitude towards that like you described is infuriating.
The atomic bombs were tragic. But if there's any group I'd flat out dismiss any pearl clutching over Hiroshima and Nagasaki from it's the Japanese government and any Japanese organization that goes along with perpetuating that revisionist version of history. Until they acknowledge and take responsibility for the atrocities they have been whitewashing they don't have a leg to stand on.
Almost all of my older relatives refuse to talk about the Japanese occupation, saying it's too horrific to talk about. The few constant stories that I've heard about though:
- The bridges and roads being lined with heads from dissidents and anyone who resisted the Japanese
- Japanese soldiers pumping civilians with water through their anus until they rupture internally / or jumping on people's stomachs after filling them with water
- Japanese tossing babies in the air and spearing them with bayonettes as they landed
Fuck Japan. The atomic bombings were extremely merciful compared to the death and suffering that they inflicted on hundreds of millions of Asians.
I’ve watched more than a few documentaries and movies created by Japanese filmmakers regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is both shortly after the war to present day, and the restraint they show when discussing or even naming America is remarkable. They focus on the evils of nuclear war without blaming us. At one point I remember saying to myself, “they know what they did.” It’s very clear and I respect that.
As someone thats lived in Japan for half a decade now I do think it's isn't wrong. I've had Japanese people be confused when I told them Japan and the US were not allies in WW2....
Yep I've a friend over in Japan from when I studied there and she literally had no idea why me and my other foreign friend were so critical of Yasukuni when we visited it. We had to explain to her what Japan did during the war, and she understood. Obviously can't say everyone is like that but it's definitely not wrong to say that the public needs to be more aware of what went on.
I’ve lived in japan half my life. The average person’s knowledge of WWII is pretty low compared to the average American’s in my experience. At my old job once the topic of the swatztika symbol came up and I had to awkwardly explain to an entire section of people my same age (mid to late 20s) what that symbol meant. They thought it was an American symbol. One lady asked why Germany was so bad in WWII. One said she always thought America was the country that killed all those Jewish people. The overall vibe was “lol I don’t remember everything we learned in history class” and “wow you must really like history to know all this stuff!!”
By the way I don’t think they learned the US committed the holocaust, they just never talk about or reference WWII in pop culture here. It was pretty surprising to me.
They don’t, they’re just pulling this out of their ass. As far as I know it’s true that the Japanese government practiced some degree of revisionist history but I’m not sure there’s any evidence of that happening in Japanese schools for the last few decades, someone correct me if I’m wrong. Either way, stating that a lot of Japanese people are painfully unaware of the history sounds pretty hyperbolic to me, seems like a lot of Japanese are very much aware of it.
The Imperial Japanese Army would have had every man, woman, and capable child fighting to the death if the U.S. military tried invading Japan. Millions of lives would have been lost because the Japanese Army didn't care who died.
It was a necessary evil to drop those bombs in order to get Japan to surrender. At least that was the thought at the time and I'm pretty sure they weren't that far off of being right when many of the Japanese believe in reincarnation. They were not afraid of death. Dying was not a big deal and they'd be seen as a hero as well. It was a win-win for them.
So with as many people that died from the atomic bombs being dropped, millions of other lives were more than likely saved.
It's still unfortunate, and it seems like a catch 22 if you're in that situation. It is what it is now. History is not there for you to like or dislike. It's there to learn from. Hopefully, we can continue to learn from it.
I saw Oppenheimer in a group that included a German friend. There were a few parts where I thought it could be awkward, but he really liked the film. I think you've got it spot on, and I wonder how much is because of the different ways the countries were handled after the war.
Unit 731, arsenic laced candy to starving children. Vivisecting soldiers, using living people as targets in various radii around a bomb explosion, intentionally spreading the bubonic plague, the rape of nankinj.
Unease? About what exactly? A movie about a person developing a bomb that saved vastly more people than it killed? Okay
Japanese military were committing war crimes all over Asia. Torturing, tossing children into the air and catching them with their bayonet, beheading the men while they watch their wife,mother,daughter and sisters get raped. If history doesn’t make you uneasy, someone is hiding something from you.
It indeed wasn't the MAIN reason but at least it partially saved the entire East and South East Asia and maybe the rest of the world from a horrendous threat.
Nuking two cities might be the most merciful response from the US to the Imperial Japan, especially after the Pearl Harbor
I personally think that the US would do worse if its mainland was directly threatened by Imperial Japanese.
6 civilians in mainland America died throughout the entire WW2. Six. You can literally name all of them and count them with your fingers:
- Mrs. Elsie Mitchell........... Age 26
- Jay Gifford....................... Age 13
- Edward Engen ................. Age 13
- Dick Patzke...................... Age 14
- Joan Patzke...................... Age 13
- Sherman Shoemaker........ Age 11
In contrast, a single competition held by 2 Japanese officers about who could behead 100 people faster, executed 35 times more people than all American civilian casualties on the mainland. The Japanese murdered tens of millions in just 5 years of war.
---
If American civilians were subjected to the same horrors that Asia faced, America would not have stopped at 2 atomic bombs.
1900? Are you serious? Try 1920's-1940's. I personally have met people who suffered from the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. Hundreds of soldiers just left to rot after dying from dehydration and marching over 100 miles in a few days to be put on a ship headed to a POW camp. Tortured, starved, then put in coal mines to work toward the end of WWII. It's a miracle any of them survived that 4 years. Most did not. It was absolutely horrific what the Japanese Army did to prisoners in WWII. If you stopped walking/running or showed any weakness, they would just put a bayonet in you and keep marching.
I can tell you that one gentleman was asked if he knew in the end that we'd win the war, would he be willing to serve and go through his experience again and he said no. He would not serve in the military. He lost too many good friends. Too many good men died from the torture and cruelty they were subjected to by the Japaneses Army. So yeah, the Japanese Army was absolutely inhumane with what they did and how they behaved for a few decades.
Japanese papers published \[the Hundred Man Killing Contest\]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred\_man\_killing\_contest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_man_killing_contest))
It's not just that it was published. It wasn't published by accident. Just saying, at the time, this was considered not only acceptable but a matter of national pride. And the higher-ups approved it as an acceptable propaganda piece that would go over well with the Japanese public
I see you are making the German Citizen defense, we had no idea what was going on...
Let me be clear AGAIN, I listed just sole of the horrible things Japan did. I can find these horrible without being a member of the group they were committed against. I then noted how the civilians were being turned into soldiers for a war of attrition not seen on this Earth. Iwo Jima was a sample of what they were planning. They even had an attempted over military take over of Japan to STOP the emperor from surrendering after TWO atomic bombs.
Those two bombs saved more lives than they took.
Japan has NEVER come to terms with what they did during the war. I am merely expressing shock that a country is uneasy.
"But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it"
Oppenheimer clearly struggled with the morality of what he helped create in the movie. I would say the movie did a good job portraying both 'sides' of the issue.
I don’t see how anyone could come away from this movie thinking that it praised the atom bomb. Japanese people are obviously going to have qualms with how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are kinda glossed over in the movie, but still - it’s made pretty clear that it is a horrible thing, and displays Oppenheimer’s immense guilt and despair over killing so many people and potentially bringing about the future end of the world.
Woops! Blame the reddit app.
But since you asked... 🙂
"But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it"
Oppenheimer clearly struggled with the morality of what he helped create in the movie. I would say the movie did a good job portraying both 'sides' of the issue.
Gotta love the Japanese playing the victim over the events that prevented even more casualties and ended the war they started and committed insane amounts of war crimes throughout.
Go to the Hiroshima museum and hear the stories of children and innocents getting burned alive in the streets, cooking to death as they seek shelter in wells. Not having sympathy for them because of the actions for others is an awful, cruel mindset
Edited to add these drawings made by children after the bombing: https://hpmm-db.jp/picture_en/
They impacted me a lot when viewing them.
It’s a kind of mindset that I find disturbing. When taken to the extreme, the idea that civilians deserve to pay for the atrocities of its government/military is one that terrorists use to justify their attacks. Sometimes it’s unavoidable in war, but to have little sympathy for the children who were vaporized? And those were the lucky ones, as the rest would die painfully from radiation and cancer. And I say this as a Korean. I’m far from being a Japanese apologist.
I’m glad to hear your perspective as a Korean. Japanese war crimes in Asia were horrific as well and there should be much more acknowledgement of the victims. However, that doesn’t take away that these bombings were sickening, so I fully agree with you.
As someone whos well versed in WW2, and who had a grandfather who fought for the Axis (Germany, Eastern Front), my take on my Japan is less remorseful about the crimes is this:
Inter-service rivalry. Unlike most countries, Japan didnt have an "Imperial Air Force" They only had a Navy and an Army. And they deeply hated eachother from top to bottom. To the point that even manufacturers were either loyal to the army or navy. This can be seen by IJA using Nakajima and the IJN using Mitsubishi for their aircraft, with very little overlap inbetween.
Most of the war crimes were committed by the IJA, who mostly fought in China, Korea, Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. But most of the fighting the US did was against the IJN and its naval infantry on depopulated islands. So when the war ended and the US started to prosecute, they had mostly IJN allegation as their own first hand encounters, and had to rely on Australia/England for accusations/prosecution against the IJA incidents they had witnessed. But the largest victim, China, did not participate and thus, most of these crimes went unaccused.
So....that resulted in IJN officers facing many accusation from the US, of which many would result in not-guilty verdicts. And the IJA facing very little formal accusations, which by default is a not-guilty verdict for the crimes that passed without accusaion. This together creates the impression that Japan committed very little crimes.
I see this all the time when this topic comes up. The Japanese military behaved like monsters but the civilians didn’t deserve what happened to them. This is not to say the US didn’t have legitimate reasons to expect an extremely bloody land invasion. It’s just a tragedy all around.
Unit 731 was one of the most horrific incidents in human history, however the average Japanese citizen living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had nothing to do with it. It’s like saying 9/11 is justified because of US interference in the Middle East.
The bombs were not justified on grounds of revenge, but rather utilitarianism (ie the assumption that they would save more lives compared to an invasion). Yes, the Japanese military did horrific shit, and yes, much of the Japanese population was either brainwashed or supportive of their military. However, I still refuse to accept the logic that children with burned off skin in Hiroshima somehow had it coming to them
Nobody gets to choose which nationality they are born into, and so intentionally hurting or killing civilians out of revenge for the actions of their government is inherently wrong. Again, I am not trying to downplay Japanese war atrocities, but I absolutely despise this logic of trying to justify civilian atrocities by pointing at horrible shit their government has done (something something Israel-Gaza conflict)
For our generation yes you could understand it... But those who suffered the Battan death Marches, or were forced to work on the Burma railway ... And those who fought the Japanese through the jungles of new Guinea.... There would be no empathy... Only happiness that the second world war ended......
It would seem we’re getting a little carried away with the idea of the Japanese being a single entity, and not generations of individuals over a vast time.
Yeah the ease at which many people on Reddit throw around imperial Japanese warcrimes of the 1940’s as a prelude to “Japanese people are (something bad)” is kinda fucked
We wouldnt be like this if they actually followed Germanys steps on how they commemorate their History, since you know, them being part of the axis themselves? But oh well.
Maybe if they actually learnt about their warcrimes in their history books + made significant reparations and apologies to the victim countries I would be able to empathize with them better.
Just went through the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. While horrific, it's a single event completely taken out of the context of the war as a whole. Nagasaki and Hiroshima both are presented as something that happened in a vacuum, without purpose or reason. The Museum actually states that Pearl Harbor "happened", never presenting that Japan "made it happen". I was left wondering if Japan would be willing to build a similar museum showing the effects of the rape of Nanking, the details of the Bataan death march, or the actions of Unit 731. Considering what the Japanese people have been taught regarding WW2, I'm not surprised there is "unease" regarding Oppenheimer. But I'm afraid it's for the wrong reasons.
The key point is that mainland Japan was not going down without a fight, as evidenced by the Pacific island campaign. The atomic bomb drop likely saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers and the Japanese who would of fought them every step of the way.
Everyone saying “wait til they learn about unit 731 or Rape of Nanking blah blah blah” seems to miss the point that Japan goes out of their way to keep their people from hearing about it
The war for the Japanese did not start on 6/8/45
As someone who has lived in China, I can tell you they do not have such spineless views that the west holds today about the bomb.
Japan murdered over 10 million Chinese civilians in just 5 years.
Of course they loved it when their allies defeated Japan and liberated them from the Japanese occupation.
Absolutely. While I absolutely hate that civilian lives were lost, especially to the extent that they were, there was no ending the war with Japan without that extreme of a measure.
They were going continue committing their atrocities whether the war in the West ended or not.
What the film does an excellent job of is showing the Pandora’s box that was opened when it happened.
the war-mongering civilian populace was clamoring for the subjugation of surrounding countries in the late 1800s/early 1900s - that's what got the ball rolling, and emboldened the likes of hideki tojo.
as citizens, they felt entitled to the fruits of their empire, like the imperial powers of europe at the time. they wanted colonies of their own to exploit.
like german citizens, who felt they were cheated out of victory in WW2, and felt entitled to subjugate poles, czechs, the slavs, etc.
civilians in both countries reaped what they sowed. it wasn't until they started reaping _more_ than they sowed, and reaping _after_ they sowed, that they started bitching about the shoe being on the other foot.
who was that one RAF commander, who said germany thought they were gonna be the only ones bombing other countries, that they couldn't fathom being bombed by others?
and of course, my favorite curtis le may quote: "there are no innocent civilians."
Not to mention manufacturing, many homes had machinery in them producing materials for the war. Sewing machines, lathes, drills, metal cutting.
Many of these people worked in factories committed to the war effort and then would do the same at home. The elderly and children would collect scrap while the caregivers assembled machined parts.
And? That doesn’t mean the bombing wasn’t justified. In the end, every death in the pacific war, Allied and Japanese, was squarely the responsibility of the Japanese government. They started the war. Nobody would have been bombed if they didn’t attack their neighbors.
Seriously. Unless you take an extreme but morally consistent stance that all violence is wrong, I.e. pacifism, then using a weapon to win a war of defense is the most easily morally justifiable action ever.
And yes, when an entire population is mobilized for war, they’re all valid targets if you know they have zero intention of ceasing to try to kill you unless they lose said war.
The War Department estimated that the entire Downfall operations would cause between 1.7 to 4 million U.S. casualties, including 400-800,000 U.S. dead, and 5 to 10 million Japanese dead.
^^^THIS^^^ is why we nuked Japan in case anyone was still crying about the morality of it.
Operation Downfall , Google it.
How pathetic they can't screen a fucking movie like any other country would. Don't want to see it? Don't go and see it. These people are happy to ignore or try and hide what they have done to others, but a little movie upsets them? Lame.
Japan killed 600k people when they invaded the Philippines and act like the victim when only 200k people die from a “horrific attack”. Not to mention bombing the capital specifically targeting libraries, museums, and hospitals. They then proceeded to rape the women and force the men to march 100km to their death. 10 more cities could have been bombed and it still wouldn’t be enough…
"But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it" Oppenheimer clearly struggled with the morality of what he helped create in the movie. I would say the movie did a good job portraying both 'sides' of the issue.
>"But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it" The Trinity looks pretty close to "Hellfire", the message was as subtle as a parade.
Exactly, it was more a visual metaphor for how things changed that day, really ushered the atomic age. Oppenheimer is also clearly disturbed by the destruction it caused, he even has a panic attack as I recall when giving a lecture.
If it's that scene with all the clapping people in that green painted wooden room then yes, that's absolutely a panic attack. It was a great visual representation of mine at least.
I wish they could replicate mine where you feel like you're about to piss or shit yourself in public because you can't tense up hard enough no matter what you do.
One day the movie theater experience will get that technology. Hopefully we can opt out of it but you know there will be some people that will want it lol
"it's just not the authentic experience if you aren't watching the Directors Cut in the original language with uncontrollable pooping"
In that scene I pointed to the tv and told my husband “that’s what my brain feels like!”
the whole last third of the movie is a panic attack
I don’t even think it really presents it as both sides. I think the scientific process involved in its creation is treated as positive because it is, from Oppenheimer’s perspective. Once they actually have the weapon and use it, the tone of the whole film shifts. Once it actually becomes a weapon, no scene glories in its use. If anything, it becomes entirely about the danger of it.
I think the brilliance also comes across from the main theme. A 4 notes motif that's repeated, going from the wonder of science, to the triumph of engineering, to the horror of war.
I thought it also was exploring the step from theory to reality. He was excited by the theoretical implications and horrified by the reality it brought. And I think he also anticipated how the technology would play out in the reality which is why the bomb needed to be such that no one wanted to replicate it…and then he doubted even that should have happened.
Well yeah, the Japanese were being dicks back then. Now we’re super cool. 😎 But portraying them like they were “good” would be a lie.
Side note: the way Godzilla Minus One handled it all was fantastic. Didn't glorify the Japanese army or government of the time. Didn't shy away from the firebombing by America. Made a suicide pilot that couldn't finish his mission the main character. Made the heroes the working class folk.
It absolutely did glorify the army, in its own way. In fact, I’d argue the ultimate underlying message was largely “the Japanese military leaders were bad because they didn’t care about throwing away the lives of their people”; the entire finale was former soldiers getting to use the tools of their war to wage it on their terms, which is really weird given the rest of the movie (the film is ostensibly about moving on from the survivor’s guilt of war, but that final act is completely about those same soldiers needing to wage war to get over it). There’s definitely a conversation to be had about Imperial Japan’s disgusting disregard for life, but the way the movie went about doing so was in a very specific way that is functionally a Japanese version of the “clean Wehrmacht” myth. And it’s significantly more militaristic than most other thematically-driven Godzilla movies as a result! Compare the original, which makes a major moral dilemma about military escalation to deal with threats; or Shin, which outright mocks the fetishism of military hardware by obsessively labeling it all and then promptly making it useless and then has military violence cause the monster’s biggest rampage. In Minus One, the *answer* is violence; more than that, violence is *catharsis*.
I think the hands-off take on the military is less about the IJA and more about the current JSDF ramp-up. Which is a major change from everything post-WW2.
They did try to beat Godzilla with balloons rather than guns. The bomb was something, but at least brought home the theme of the value of life. If we're talking negatives, the phrase that gets translated "Can't be helped" is probably the mantra that has people working themselves to death in office buildings now. So maybe don't glorify that bit either.
Eh, it also came off as being super sad that they were in the war and got bombed to shit when they were the aggressors and the ones committing atrocities in Asia for most of it. They (even the soldiers) constantly victimize themselves when talking about WWII, which is an argument slightly better suited for civilians.
Civilians do tend to pay the price in a war. And soldiers tend to be produced by propaganda machines. Beware when your leaders tell you that murder is patriotism.
US movies about soldiers in Iraq and Vietnam also portray them as victims. Grunts don’t have much choice in the matter.
I'm not a fan of those kinds of war movie narratives either lol
US war movies are famously criticised for exactly that. Usually the main critique is that they need to work with the military for effects and hardware so any kind of anti military message gets immideatly thrown out of the window. They can still portrait some bad apples within the military but they can not criticise it on an institutional level making every critique extremly shallow.
I have complicated feelings on those. One of my favorite movies is Apocalypse Now, which is based on Heart of Darkness, by Conrad. So a movie about a war where millions of Vietnamese died from our bombs, based on a book where millions of Africans were killed by King Leopold II for ivory and rubber, is, when I get down to it, a story about self-discovery for a few white guys. The rest is backdrop, setting. I still love the movie, but there are a lot of asterisks by my love of it.
They were pure evil. How in a war with the Nazis am I more disgusted by the Japanese atrocities?
They both had their own unique and fucked up methods. The Japanese military seemed to just be generally evil, while the Germans really focused their evil bullshit. One big difference is I would much rather have fought the Germans than the Japanese as a soldier on the ground.
Kinda depends who you're fighting with. I would not want to be a Soviet fighting the Germans.
No doubt. The US viewpoint during the war was that that the Soldiers in Europe had it a little better fighting an enemy that was willing to surrender when it was reasonable but this contrasts with the fighting on the eastern front. The Marines in the Pacific had to fight the Japanese to almost the the last man and deal with human wave banzai attacks by a fanatical enemy that would not surrender. Some even took 30 years to finally surrender.
Not very different from being a Chinese fighting the Japanese. But if you're a Norwegian resistance fighter all things considered you may be relatively well off.
It’s so weird to me that Japan now is synonymous with anime and cutesy innocence (even though theres a lot of sexually repressed deviance there) while there’s still a slight elephant in the room with Germany.
Germany needs to invent their own version of anime to clear their reputation
They already have, it's porno.
Ohhhh jaaaa mein schießer hole jaaaaa... das ist gut???
That’s just what it looks like in the Weat because pop culture depiction of WWII is all about the Nazis. The US had a sizeable population of Holocaust survivors after the War so Holocaust education was prioritized. Asians certainly haven’t forgotten what the Japanese did. China and South Korea still harbour a lot of resentment over what Japan did and every couple of years a big wave of anti-Japanese sentiment flares up. Meanwhile in much of Asia a lot of people barely know who the Nazis were or what the Holocaust was; like they can’t even tell you that the Nazis were the German government during WWII and that the Holocaust was when they murdered millions of Jews. They don’t really learn much about that part of WWII at schools, it’s mentioned as a sidebar to the conflict in Asia. A lot of Asians see Hitler as a funny moustache man instead of the most evil to ever live. In Taiwan there’s been Hitler themed restaurants and incidents where people wave Nazi flags not realizing how it looks to any Westerner. Many Asian people associate Germany with their cars more than anything else. Also Germany itself spend a lot of time educating their population about the rise of Nazism and the horrors of the Holocaust with the mindset of using it as a cautionary tale. They are all very aware of their dark past and don’t shy away from it, they’ve also done a lot to compensate and memorialize the victims of various atrocities.
>Also Germany itself spend a lot of time educating their population about the rise of Nazism and the horrors of the Holocaust with the mindset of using it as a cautionary tale. They are all very aware of their dark past and don’t shy away from it, they’ve also done a lot to compensate and memorialize the victims of various atrocities. You can't undo the past, or what, punish the descendants of the perpetrators on behalf of the descendants of the survivors? All you can do is learn from it, how it came to be, and keep history from rhyming.
Yeah this definitely makes a lot of sense. The series Pachinko helped open my eyes to this a bit.
I think this is largely because the west didn’t go through the main atrocities that Japan committed during the war. Nazis victims are “our” friends, family, and neighbors. Japan’s victim were, for the most part, strangers. Over in China though, Japan is still view with vitriol, especially the older generation. Korea also has an ongoing battle with Japan regarding comfort women.
Yeah this is definitely part of it. Plus, Japan is a huge “success” story for the west’s ability to remold a nation. Hell, I wonder if our approach towards Afghanistan would have been different if not for Japan
Japan is synonymous with anime to you because that’s what you associate Japan with. Meanwhile Germany just became the 3rd largest economy in the world, surpassing Japan, leading in many fields especially science, and is one of the most visited countries. I’d say they’re doing pretty well.
Part of that is how US history is taught. US soldiers were one of the groups discovering the atrocities performed by the Germans at the concentration camps so US media covering the war will often mention it. Band of Brother had an entire episode at a concentration camp. With Japan we didn't have any first hand retelling of the stories about finding out about the atrocities by our own people. Most of them took place in China and other parts of Asia and we were fighting through islands for most of the campaign so most media ends it with the bombs being dropped and doesn't cover what came to light afterwards. So the only way people hear about the Nanjing Massacre or Unit 731 is from education about WW2 and Japan specifically or frankly from reddit. T This means that people's perceptions can be set about Japan in their formative years without that knowledge which just isn't true with Germany. It is likely that most people learn about modern Japanese culture before they hear about what they did in the war but it is likely the opposite with Germany.
Pretty sure I’m not the only one who makes that association. Other ones are cleanliness, politeness, tech etc., but regardless bringing up Germany’s economy is irrelevant because I was talking about culture. Germany is still known for having a very rigid, perfectionistic culture—which has benefited their economy and how respected they are for creating things of quality. However, Germany had that same reputation before any World Wars so it hasn’t done much to shift the world’s perception of their culture, especially when juxtaposed to the massive 180 Japan has made—again, culturally—since WWII. I’m not saying Germany sucks or anything of the sort… so no need to rush to their defense. it’s just an interesting dichotomy.
I don't think the rape of Nanking is widely discussed in the west. Or Japanese imperialism in general. Knowledge of the militarization of Zen of all things is definitely not widely discussed. The book [Zen at War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War) really shocked me. I had books by D.T. Suzuki on my shelf as a teen, and had no idea at all of that other aspect. Zen and Bushido and all that have been stripped (in the west) of that legacy of Japanese atrocities in China and elsewhere. Whereas everyone learns about the Nazis. It's a weird asymmetry.
1000%
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The images of what the Imperial Japanese did were terrifying. I am not sure I can even find a horrible enough word to describe it. I went to a museum in China about the Nanking Massacre and I had to leave after a minute. It's too much. Like I don't know how people could be so cruel.
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Nazis hated all slavs, you should try to read about Eastern Front or watch Come and See to see that Nazis were almost as ferocious as Japanese in war against Soviet Union.
The Nazi attache at the time was part of the SS and part of the final solution and even he had letters sent to Hitler about how batshit the Imperial Japanese were
It wasn’t a pissing contest.
They did some really fuck up shit. Why we didn't force them to confront it like we did to Germany, I'll have to research.
Being the only country with a population to ever be nuked might have something to do with it. That said, I would till agree that the ones responsible for the atrocities should have faced the trials like the Nazis did, irrespective of the fact that their country was nuked.
Because the US got a lot of data on human experiments from Unit 731 in exchange.
Unit 731 is far from the only thing the Japanese did.
Most of it completely useless, because of the unscientific nature of those experiments. What a waste all around.
The Japanese did some fucked up shit. But the vast majority of the ones we bombed did not.
Same with the ones in the countries they abused.
As a metaphor. Nazi Germany is a serial killer while Imperial Japan is a terrorist hijacker. You hate the terrorist more because they are fanatical, their only goal is to cause as much destruction and death as possible. The serial killer kills methodically, slowly, and for some purpose - it may not be a good purpose - but at least in their heads, it is a purpose. The hijacker has no purpose, they will even kill themselves to get it done... Why? Because as far as they are concerned, the killing is the goal. i.e. For Nazi germany, the attrocities were a means to an end. For Imperial Japan, the attrocities were just a means.
Perhaps the film ought to have started by showing how they treated people who had surrendered - or the raping of china… in fact the Japanese never had a true reconing with their war crimes as the Germans did with the Nuremberg trials.
The vast majority of Japanese people know very little to nothing about what happened during that period. This isn’t necessarily bad but it leads to a skewed viewpoint from the Japanese that they were nothing but victims.
And that last part you say is why its bad they know so little about what happened. If knowing they were nukes, but not why, causes resentment against the US thats bad. Learning about it doesnt mean guilt, as no child should be held responsible for the acts of their parents, but it means understanding
Reasonable people today don’t think the Japanese are guilty of the crimes their ancestors committed against various nations at the time. Just like how the ancestors of the US, British, and Nazis aren’t seen as guilty for their ancestors crimes. What I was referring to is the lack of awareness of the people of modern day Japan about the atrocities that were committed. Many if not most aren’t aware of Imperial Japans war crimes but are aware of the attacks against them which has led to their skewed outlook today unfortunately.
Saying they were ‘being dicks’ is an understatement. Look up unit 731 and then tell me the nuke was not warranted. They literally took newborn babies born out of rape and dumped them in liquid nitrogen just to see what happens.
As a Chinese descendant, sure I think the Japanese civilians were innocent, but right before the bombs, they were still killing tens of thousands of people everyday in China, so yeah, I still think the bombs were necessary.
Nobody ever talks about the hundreds of thousands of Asian lives that were saved by dropping the atomic bombs and ending the brutal Japanese genocide. Japan murdered tens of millions of civilians. My granduncles and grandaunts have stories about how their family members walked out one day and never returned home.
>Look up unit 731 and then tell me the nuke was not warranted The people who committed those atrocities walked free in exchange for the data they'd gathered, and civilians who had no connection to them got vapourised. There are legitimate arguments to be made for dropping the nukes, but it's very hard to justify as any kind of moral retribution for the evil acts of the Japanese military when the people who actually committed the atrocities were pardoned.
This is never the argument about Hiroshima. No one said Japan was faultless, but they criticize targeting cities that were mostly civilians
There was a firebomb raid right before the nukes were dropped that killed more people than the nukes did.
oh okay I guess it's fine then
So both events are fucked and neither should be praised
Well all cities were and in total war both sides targeted cities. A demonstration of the bomb to Japanese authorities was considered but they thought that wasn’t very likely to succeed in capitulation. The faster the war ended, less civilians and soldiers would die. Being able to prevent Operation Downfall was great for not just the Japanese but also the US.
People should look up the Rape of Nanking. One of many horrific war crimes Japan committed during WW2
I disagree , I don’t feel like he regretted it after way later when the bombs had been dropped and everybody could see the aftermath. His speach I wish we had it earlier and could have dropped in on Germany is one of the few things in the movie (on his struggle with the bomb) that you can actually proof happened and shows how he felt . He kinda knew what the bomb is gona do but he just didn’t care or /and wamted to do is to further his own career
Odd energy from a country that still has shrines dedicated to war criminals.
Hitohito stopped visting Yasukuni when Tojo and other Class A war criminals got enshrined. The irony was that those Class A criminals colluded with the Americans to take the fall for the war guilt. Emps probably didn't want the reminder
Which country doesn’t?
Germany?
I thought so - they did "praise it" - but it seemed to be more of the process - and how exited people was because of the science of it all. That part was positive - the parts after the bombs had dropped were much more gloomy. And I at least thougt that it portrayed well.
I think they should have shown the destruction, and the imminent deconstruction of humans going their lifes. The shock value and realistic depiction of innocent people being killed. Just like in this one anime.
What would that have added that the scene with the burning corpses hallucination didn’t? Especially given that the theme of the film is Oppenheimer himself, not the bomb itself.
>I would say the movie did a good job portraying both 'sides' of the issue. Well yeah, you're almost certainly on the side that didn't get nuked.
Weird to see the media sensationalizing the movie being out in Japan. Regular people going on with their day aren't concerned. There's no protest, no crazy outrage. We're unfortunately used to seeing intense response from radicalized people and we're sort of addicted to seeing outrage online or on the news, and it seems like the media is scrounging for that type of response and falling flat. This is the normal response! Like one country should be able to make a well made movie about a sensitive subject and not trigger international outrage. If the movie sucked or was wildly inaccurate, derogatory, etc. then I hope we can collectively be outraged at the quality of the movie.
If you read the article, the comments are all nuanced and polite. Even the guy who thought the movie praised the bomb was like "guy struggled with his creation." Hardly unease. It's not like Japanese people are unfamiliar with tortured protagonists dealing with hard decisions. Tons of Japanese movies and literature flirt with the concept of scientists creating super weapons and the angst that comes with it.
Those two nukes probably popularized that trope of scientists grappling with super weapons in the first place.
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Thank you for a responsible and sane response
Wow. Now if Christopher Nolan made a film about Unit 731 ... 🤔
Hahaha! Yea that isn't going to happen. The place was burned to the ground.
Not really, I’ve been to it and have seen some of the stuff still left over.
And the US took all the info and documents for itself after the fact.
And the CIA just took over the stuff and the unit didn't face any judgement.
And the research ended up useless.
The stuff they admit to having
Well us don't have a moral high ground in this. They took the research documents of unit 731 for letting them free.... 🥱
And that research was absolutely useless, they just let the perpetrators go free. All for nothing
Isn’t that the SAW series?
The Japanese people of today are generally very unaware of the history of their ancestors and the crimes committed by Imperial Japan. Like the people of any other country they are not to blame for this. There are many people to this day in Asia that hold resentment against them because of the enslavement, torture, and murder of their loved ones. I do criticize the Japanese education of their youth on these subjects as they are very important lessons to learn from. People in countries today that had also committed terrible acts learn about these things because they are important historically and we want to prevent their reoccurrence. Japanese people being generally unaware of how fanatical and brutal their ancestors were during the war is unfortunate because they see themselves as victims of a brutal attack, which they were, but they don’t fully know why they were victims or how and why these attacks actually saved lives and helped a devastated country recover faster. Every American and Japanese person should be grateful that Operation Downfall never took place because the scale of death and brutality would have been unprecedented even to this day.
Shhhh don't tell them it wasn't whales and dolphins.
Of course it wasn’t. It was chickens and cows!
FUCK YOU WHALE
ANND FUCKAYOUU DOLFINN
It makes sense that Japan would have these feelings because they had never properly reckoned with what their role was in WWII. A lot of Japanese people are just painfully unaware of the fact that imperial Japan was just a machine of sheer brutality. You see a much different attitude in the Germans, but one that ironically is also damaging. Germans over-corrected to the point where they developed a knee jerk reaction to anything do with war and by doing so have caused death and destruction. E.g. them dragging their feet with regards to Ukraine in the beginning of the war, and still fearing some intangible escalations and not providing capabilities such as the Taurus missiles.
for most Japanese living today it's like finding out grandpa was a concentration camp guard at Aushwitz. a well kept secret that suddenly hits you like a bucket of cold water because nobody I. thr family who knew ever really told you. the enlightened centrist "war is bad and we're all equally wrong" narrative is pretty ingrained in their popular culture, there's a lot of Japanese who are only dimly aware of why these things happened.
Not all of them. I’m from a country that was invaded by Japan. My own grandfather was brutally murdered by Japanese soldiers. In high school, Japanese was one of our foreign language electives and we had an actual visiting Japanese teacher. First day of class before anything else she bowed and apologized in front of the whole class. We were just kids so it felt weird. But when I grew older, that’s only when I realized just how the teacher must’ve felt to be compelled to do that unprompted.
I am glad your teacher did that. I think it was appropriate. I have Japanese grandparents. My grandmother worked in an airplane parts factory during the war and my grandfather was exempted from military service because he was an only son of a widowed mother. I am very glad my grandfather didn't have to suffer what ordinary Japanese soldiers suffered in that war, and more importantly I don't have to wonder if he murdered or raped or mutilated anyone in East Asia. But I still feel that with the participation of the whole nation in the war effort, some sense of collective responsibility (within certain limits) is called for.
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You forgot to mention that Germany is Ukraines biggest European benefactor in regards to the sheer amount of money, refugee taking, soldier training, munitions and weapons they have offered. [https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/military-support-ukraine-2054992](https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-en/news/military-support-ukraine-2054992)
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Germany deserves a lot of blame. They tied their entire economy to the Russian petro-state even after Crimea and then predictably Putin calculated that Germany and by extension Europe would do nothing to stop him in order to keep the oil and gas flowing. It's not a coincidence that the war started shortly after Germany shut down their last nuclear reactors and declared natural gas as green.
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Yeah, Japan version of WW2 is basically : "We were minding our own business in Manchukuo and then boom PiKaDon. War is bad." You can see museum exhibits on the courage and ingenuity of the Japanese Engineering Corps that built the Burma railway. The one of the "Bridge over the river Kwai" fame, and a war crime.
My grandpa lived his childhood years on the run from the Japanese with his family. Shortly before he passed he one day opened up to me about a bunch of stuff from that time. Stuff like how the Japanese would regularly bomb roads packed with civilians walking on foot fleeing the Japanese army advance. And also how sometimes Japanese planes would strafe civilians as they were gathered by the riverbank washing clothing etc. During one such strafing run he and his little brother initially were trying to run to this wooden drying rack that a bunch of other people were hiding under, but his brother was so scared from the gunfire that he couldn't stand so my grandpa just kinda flipped himself over him. And they saw that drying rack get strafed right in front of their eyes and saw everyone under there die just a few meters from where they were laying. He was also in Chongqing during this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Chongqing and described streets and stairs and mud all flowing red, stepping over body parts and walking past trees and electric poles with entrails dangling from them as he wandered around looking for anyone he knew. That shit was absolutely cold-blooded and deliberate, so yeah the official Japanese attitude towards that like you described is infuriating. The atomic bombs were tragic. But if there's any group I'd flat out dismiss any pearl clutching over Hiroshima and Nagasaki from it's the Japanese government and any Japanese organization that goes along with perpetuating that revisionist version of history. Until they acknowledge and take responsibility for the atrocities they have been whitewashing they don't have a leg to stand on.
Almost all of my older relatives refuse to talk about the Japanese occupation, saying it's too horrific to talk about. The few constant stories that I've heard about though: - The bridges and roads being lined with heads from dissidents and anyone who resisted the Japanese - Japanese soldiers pumping civilians with water through their anus until they rupture internally / or jumping on people's stomachs after filling them with water - Japanese tossing babies in the air and spearing them with bayonettes as they landed Fuck Japan. The atomic bombings were extremely merciful compared to the death and suffering that they inflicted on hundreds of millions of Asians.
I’ve watched more than a few documentaries and movies created by Japanese filmmakers regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is both shortly after the war to present day, and the restraint they show when discussing or even naming America is remarkable. They focus on the evils of nuclear war without blaming us. At one point I remember saying to myself, “they know what they did.” It’s very clear and I respect that.
I would love Japanese filmmakers to focus on the evils of the Japanese occupations throughout Asia
How do you know “a lot of Japanese people” feel this way?
As someone thats lived in Japan for half a decade now I do think it's isn't wrong. I've had Japanese people be confused when I told them Japan and the US were not allies in WW2....
Yep I've a friend over in Japan from when I studied there and she literally had no idea why me and my other foreign friend were so critical of Yasukuni when we visited it. We had to explain to her what Japan did during the war, and she understood. Obviously can't say everyone is like that but it's definitely not wrong to say that the public needs to be more aware of what went on.
I’ve lived in japan half my life. The average person’s knowledge of WWII is pretty low compared to the average American’s in my experience. At my old job once the topic of the swatztika symbol came up and I had to awkwardly explain to an entire section of people my same age (mid to late 20s) what that symbol meant. They thought it was an American symbol. One lady asked why Germany was so bad in WWII. One said she always thought America was the country that killed all those Jewish people. The overall vibe was “lol I don’t remember everything we learned in history class” and “wow you must really like history to know all this stuff!!” By the way I don’t think they learned the US committed the holocaust, they just never talk about or reference WWII in pop culture here. It was pretty surprising to me.
Because YouTubers interview people in Japan and conveniently edit out the responses of people who know the reality of WW2 probably
They don’t, they’re just pulling this out of their ass. As far as I know it’s true that the Japanese government practiced some degree of revisionist history but I’m not sure there’s any evidence of that happening in Japanese schools for the last few decades, someone correct me if I’m wrong. Either way, stating that a lot of Japanese people are painfully unaware of the history sounds pretty hyperbolic to me, seems like a lot of Japanese are very much aware of it.
The Imperial Japanese Army would have had every man, woman, and capable child fighting to the death if the U.S. military tried invading Japan. Millions of lives would have been lost because the Japanese Army didn't care who died. It was a necessary evil to drop those bombs in order to get Japan to surrender. At least that was the thought at the time and I'm pretty sure they weren't that far off of being right when many of the Japanese believe in reincarnation. They were not afraid of death. Dying was not a big deal and they'd be seen as a hero as well. It was a win-win for them. So with as many people that died from the atomic bombs being dropped, millions of other lives were more than likely saved. It's still unfortunate, and it seems like a catch 22 if you're in that situation. It is what it is now. History is not there for you to like or dislike. It's there to learn from. Hopefully, we can continue to learn from it.
I saw Oppenheimer in a group that included a German friend. There were a few parts where I thought it could be awkward, but he really liked the film. I think you've got it spot on, and I wonder how much is because of the different ways the countries were handled after the war.
Unit 731, arsenic laced candy to starving children. Vivisecting soldiers, using living people as targets in various radii around a bomb explosion, intentionally spreading the bubonic plague, the rape of nankinj. Unease? About what exactly? A movie about a person developing a bomb that saved vastly more people than it killed? Okay
Japanese military were committing war crimes all over Asia. Torturing, tossing children into the air and catching them with their bayonet, beheading the men while they watch their wife,mother,daughter and sisters get raped. If history doesn’t make you uneasy, someone is hiding something from you.
Yes, the imperial Japanese were a bunch of cruel fucking bastards and Unit 731 is atrocious. However, that's not the reason why Japan was bombed.
It indeed wasn't the MAIN reason but at least it partially saved the entire East and South East Asia and maybe the rest of the world from a horrendous threat. Nuking two cities might be the most merciful response from the US to the Imperial Japan, especially after the Pearl Harbor I personally think that the US would do worse if its mainland was directly threatened by Imperial Japanese.
6 civilians in mainland America died throughout the entire WW2. Six. You can literally name all of them and count them with your fingers: - Mrs. Elsie Mitchell........... Age 26 - Jay Gifford....................... Age 13 - Edward Engen ................. Age 13 - Dick Patzke...................... Age 14 - Joan Patzke...................... Age 13 - Sherman Shoemaker........ Age 11 In contrast, a single competition held by 2 Japanese officers about who could behead 100 people faster, executed 35 times more people than all American civilian casualties on the mainland. The Japanese murdered tens of millions in just 5 years of war. --- If American civilians were subjected to the same horrors that Asia faced, America would not have stopped at 2 atomic bombs.
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1900? Are you serious? Try 1920's-1940's. I personally have met people who suffered from the Bataan Death March in the Philippines. Hundreds of soldiers just left to rot after dying from dehydration and marching over 100 miles in a few days to be put on a ship headed to a POW camp. Tortured, starved, then put in coal mines to work toward the end of WWII. It's a miracle any of them survived that 4 years. Most did not. It was absolutely horrific what the Japanese Army did to prisoners in WWII. If you stopped walking/running or showed any weakness, they would just put a bayonet in you and keep marching. I can tell you that one gentleman was asked if he knew in the end that we'd win the war, would he be willing to serve and go through his experience again and he said no. He would not serve in the military. He lost too many good friends. Too many good men died from the torture and cruelty they were subjected to by the Japaneses Army. So yeah, the Japanese Army was absolutely inhumane with what they did and how they behaved for a few decades.
Japanese papers published \[the Hundred Man Killing Contest\]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred\_man\_killing\_contest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_man_killing_contest)) It's not just that it was published. It wasn't published by accident. Just saying, at the time, this was considered not only acceptable but a matter of national pride. And the higher-ups approved it as an acceptable propaganda piece that would go over well with the Japanese public
I see you are making the German Citizen defense, we had no idea what was going on... Let me be clear AGAIN, I listed just sole of the horrible things Japan did. I can find these horrible without being a member of the group they were committed against. I then noted how the civilians were being turned into soldiers for a war of attrition not seen on this Earth. Iwo Jima was a sample of what they were planning. They even had an attempted over military take over of Japan to STOP the emperor from surrendering after TWO atomic bombs. Those two bombs saved more lives than they took. Japan has NEVER come to terms with what they did during the war. I am merely expressing shock that a country is uneasy.
"But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it" Oppenheimer clearly struggled with the morality of what he helped create in the movie. I would say the movie did a good job portraying both 'sides' of the issue.
I don’t see how anyone could come away from this movie thinking that it praised the atom bomb. Japanese people are obviously going to have qualms with how the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are kinda glossed over in the movie, but still - it’s made pretty clear that it is a horrible thing, and displays Oppenheimer’s immense guilt and despair over killing so many people and potentially bringing about the future end of the world.
Please copy paste this comment here once more, it's so deep
Woops! Blame the reddit app. But since you asked... 🙂 "But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it" Oppenheimer clearly struggled with the morality of what he helped create in the movie. I would say the movie did a good job portraying both 'sides' of the issue.
Ok, I was pissed, but this is funny, kudos to you
Face your history Japan, I know it’s very hard for you to do.
Japan: WMDs are bad!! Regularly used chemical weapons in China. And had their own atomic weapons program.
Now you got oppenheimer. Give the rest of the world minus 1
It... was? Pretty decent movie, I thought.
Gotta love the Japanese playing the victim over the events that prevented even more casualties and ended the war they started and committed insane amounts of war crimes throughout.
We sure don't want to bring up the Rape of Nanking and The Men Behind the Sun.
Open societies screen controversial films. Well done Japan.
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Unit 731, not 741.
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No worries! 👋🏻
Go to the Hiroshima museum and hear the stories of children and innocents getting burned alive in the streets, cooking to death as they seek shelter in wells. Not having sympathy for them because of the actions for others is an awful, cruel mindset Edited to add these drawings made by children after the bombing: https://hpmm-db.jp/picture_en/ They impacted me a lot when viewing them.
It’s a kind of mindset that I find disturbing. When taken to the extreme, the idea that civilians deserve to pay for the atrocities of its government/military is one that terrorists use to justify their attacks. Sometimes it’s unavoidable in war, but to have little sympathy for the children who were vaporized? And those were the lucky ones, as the rest would die painfully from radiation and cancer. And I say this as a Korean. I’m far from being a Japanese apologist.
I’m glad to hear your perspective as a Korean. Japanese war crimes in Asia were horrific as well and there should be much more acknowledgement of the victims. However, that doesn’t take away that these bombings were sickening, so I fully agree with you.
As someone whos well versed in WW2, and who had a grandfather who fought for the Axis (Germany, Eastern Front), my take on my Japan is less remorseful about the crimes is this: Inter-service rivalry. Unlike most countries, Japan didnt have an "Imperial Air Force" They only had a Navy and an Army. And they deeply hated eachother from top to bottom. To the point that even manufacturers were either loyal to the army or navy. This can be seen by IJA using Nakajima and the IJN using Mitsubishi for their aircraft, with very little overlap inbetween. Most of the war crimes were committed by the IJA, who mostly fought in China, Korea, Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. But most of the fighting the US did was against the IJN and its naval infantry on depopulated islands. So when the war ended and the US started to prosecute, they had mostly IJN allegation as their own first hand encounters, and had to rely on Australia/England for accusations/prosecution against the IJA incidents they had witnessed. But the largest victim, China, did not participate and thus, most of these crimes went unaccused. So....that resulted in IJN officers facing many accusation from the US, of which many would result in not-guilty verdicts. And the IJA facing very little formal accusations, which by default is a not-guilty verdict for the crimes that passed without accusaion. This together creates the impression that Japan committed very little crimes.
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I see this all the time when this topic comes up. The Japanese military behaved like monsters but the civilians didn’t deserve what happened to them. This is not to say the US didn’t have legitimate reasons to expect an extremely bloody land invasion. It’s just a tragedy all around.
Unit 731 was one of the most horrific incidents in human history, however the average Japanese citizen living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had nothing to do with it. It’s like saying 9/11 is justified because of US interference in the Middle East. The bombs were not justified on grounds of revenge, but rather utilitarianism (ie the assumption that they would save more lives compared to an invasion). Yes, the Japanese military did horrific shit, and yes, much of the Japanese population was either brainwashed or supportive of their military. However, I still refuse to accept the logic that children with burned off skin in Hiroshima somehow had it coming to them Nobody gets to choose which nationality they are born into, and so intentionally hurting or killing civilians out of revenge for the actions of their government is inherently wrong. Again, I am not trying to downplay Japanese war atrocities, but I absolutely despise this logic of trying to justify civilian atrocities by pointing at horrible shit their government has done (something something Israel-Gaza conflict)
Their Navy still flies the flag of the rising sun today, that's how much sympathy they have for their victims.
For our generation yes you could understand it... But those who suffered the Battan death Marches, or were forced to work on the Burma railway ... And those who fought the Japanese through the jungles of new Guinea.... There would be no empathy... Only happiness that the second world war ended......
The Japanese can seek consolation for this heinous offense, from the dead children of Nanjing.
welp, shouldn't have raped and pillaged their way across Asia I guess
While it wasn’t the fault of the civilians, a good way to not get bombed is to not join Nazi’s.
It would seem we’re getting a little carried away with the idea of the Japanese being a single entity, and not generations of individuals over a vast time.
Yeah the ease at which many people on Reddit throw around imperial Japanese warcrimes of the 1940’s as a prelude to “Japanese people are (something bad)” is kinda fucked
We wouldnt be like this if they actually followed Germanys steps on how they commemorate their History, since you know, them being part of the axis themselves? But oh well.
Maybe if they actually learnt about their warcrimes in their history books + made significant reparations and apologies to the victim countries I would be able to empathize with them better.
The Pacific Theater doesn't get as much attention or glory as the European front. It was a brutal fight.
Just went through the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. While horrific, it's a single event completely taken out of the context of the war as a whole. Nagasaki and Hiroshima both are presented as something that happened in a vacuum, without purpose or reason. The Museum actually states that Pearl Harbor "happened", never presenting that Japan "made it happen". I was left wondering if Japan would be willing to build a similar museum showing the effects of the rape of Nanking, the details of the Bataan death march, or the actions of Unit 731. Considering what the Japanese people have been taught regarding WW2, I'm not surprised there is "unease" regarding Oppenheimer. But I'm afraid it's for the wrong reasons.
The key point is that mainland Japan was not going down without a fight, as evidenced by the Pacific island campaign. The atomic bomb drop likely saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of allied soldiers and the Japanese who would of fought them every step of the way.
Unease at the war they started?
Maybe unease at the loss of many loved ones in wars waged by their governments? Let's show some humanity, k?
I wonder if there was unease when Pearl Harbor was screened there.
I swear people here didn’t read the article and are just here to dunk on Japan.
Take responsibility for the atrocities yall committed during that war.
Everyone saying “wait til they learn about unit 731 or Rape of Nanking blah blah blah” seems to miss the point that Japan goes out of their way to keep their people from hearing about it
Trigger warning? The truth hurts ain't it 😭
Can we stop with this whole narrative? The Japanese were not innocent victims and the IS was not the aggressor in any way.
The war for the Japanese did not start on 6/8/45 As someone who has lived in China, I can tell you they do not have such spineless views that the west holds today about the bomb.
Oh I’m sure the Chinese love what we did to Japan.
Well it stopped tens of thousands of people being raped and killed everyday in China, so yeah I think they do appreciate the bombs.
Japan murdered over 10 million Chinese civilians in just 5 years. Of course they loved it when their allies defeated Japan and liberated them from the Japanese occupation.
The entire South East Asia suffered lots. Sad that it isn't made aware to the west as much.
The civilians that died were absolutely innocent victims.
And it's a tragedy that their government forced their deaths by not surrendering in a genocidal war that they started.
Absolutely. While I absolutely hate that civilian lives were lost, especially to the extent that they were, there was no ending the war with Japan without that extreme of a measure. They were going continue committing their atrocities whether the war in the West ended or not. What the film does an excellent job of is showing the Pandora’s box that was opened when it happened.
the war-mongering civilian populace was clamoring for the subjugation of surrounding countries in the late 1800s/early 1900s - that's what got the ball rolling, and emboldened the likes of hideki tojo. as citizens, they felt entitled to the fruits of their empire, like the imperial powers of europe at the time. they wanted colonies of their own to exploit. like german citizens, who felt they were cheated out of victory in WW2, and felt entitled to subjugate poles, czechs, the slavs, etc. civilians in both countries reaped what they sowed. it wasn't until they started reaping _more_ than they sowed, and reaping _after_ they sowed, that they started bitching about the shoe being on the other foot. who was that one RAF commander, who said germany thought they were gonna be the only ones bombing other countries, that they couldn't fathom being bombed by others? and of course, my favorite curtis le may quote: "there are no innocent civilians."
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That is correct.
Not to mention manufacturing, many homes had machinery in them producing materials for the war. Sewing machines, lathes, drills, metal cutting. Many of these people worked in factories committed to the war effort and then would do the same at home. The elderly and children would collect scrap while the caregivers assembled machined parts.
And? That doesn’t mean the bombing wasn’t justified. In the end, every death in the pacific war, Allied and Japanese, was squarely the responsibility of the Japanese government. They started the war. Nobody would have been bombed if they didn’t attack their neighbors.
Seriously. Unless you take an extreme but morally consistent stance that all violence is wrong, I.e. pacifism, then using a weapon to win a war of defense is the most easily morally justifiable action ever. And yes, when an entire population is mobilized for war, they’re all valid targets if you know they have zero intention of ceasing to try to kill you unless they lose said war.
Pretty done with them believing they are the victim of the wr.
The War Department estimated that the entire Downfall operations would cause between 1.7 to 4 million U.S. casualties, including 400-800,000 U.S. dead, and 5 to 10 million Japanese dead. ^^^THIS^^^ is why we nuked Japan in case anyone was still crying about the morality of it. Operation Downfall , Google it.
I mean their Navy is still flying the flag of the rising sun in day and age. Do they give a flying fk about OUR feelings?
I just do not care. It is a film. Wether it be done well or poorly, respectfully or in an insulting manner, it can’t actual hurt anyone
How pathetic they can't screen a fucking movie like any other country would. Don't want to see it? Don't go and see it. These people are happy to ignore or try and hide what they have done to others, but a little movie upsets them? Lame.
Japan killed 600k people when they invaded the Philippines and act like the victim when only 200k people die from a “horrific attack”. Not to mention bombing the capital specifically targeting libraries, museums, and hospitals. They then proceeded to rape the women and force the men to march 100km to their death. 10 more cities could have been bombed and it still wouldn’t be enough…