Well, Frenchy says she's going to go all-out since it's the 10th anniversary. Though being in Japan is a good excuse not to be able to go. ^_^
I think memories of the Asia-Pacific Wars have been used as foundations of national narratives throughout northeast Asia--and I wouldn't be surprised about south(east) Asia either, though I know thumbnails' worth about those countries and can't actually say. Certainly the ROC and the PRC to some extent based their legitimacy and their raisons d'etre on what they did and didn't do in the wars. I think for both countries those narratives' imporatance has been de-emphasized, but they can certainly be pulled off the shelf so that pages can be taken out of them as necessary. For that matter, I think the same could be argued for both of the Koreas--and the DPRK may be the one place where that narrative hasn't been substantially revised.
In Japan at least, though, the focus is almost exclusively on exclusively Japanese suffering during the wars, Grave of the Fireflies being the example par excellence. I just watched Mouryou no Hako, which explicitly mentions Unit 731 and the atrocities it committed in Manchukuo/Manchuria, but it's a rare exception that proves the rule, and though most of the characters in that anime fought in the war, the only deaths that disturb them are Japanese. [I wrote more about it on my own LJ, incidentally.] Even a movie like Millennium Actress, which actually partly takes place in Manchukuo and also explicitly shows the oppressive nature of the imperial government, doesn't go any farther than that.
The immediate objection to my argument is that these narratives don't really have room to include a non-Japanese perspective. I also wonder what role any sublimated U.S. atomic guilt may have played in popularizing the Barefoot Gen movies in particular in North America.
no subject
I think memories of the Asia-Pacific Wars have been used as foundations of national narratives throughout northeast Asia--and I wouldn't be surprised about south(east) Asia either, though I know thumbnails' worth about those countries and can't actually say. Certainly the ROC and the PRC to some extent based their legitimacy and their raisons d'etre on what they did and didn't do in the wars. I think for both countries those narratives' imporatance has been de-emphasized, but they can certainly be pulled off the shelf so that pages can be taken out of them as necessary. For that matter, I think the same could be argued for both of the Koreas--and the DPRK may be the one place where that narrative hasn't been substantially revised.
In Japan at least, though, the focus is almost exclusively on exclusively Japanese suffering during the wars, Grave of the Fireflies being the example par excellence. I just watched Mouryou no Hako, which explicitly mentions Unit 731 and the atrocities it committed in Manchukuo/Manchuria, but it's a rare exception that proves the rule, and though most of the characters in that anime fought in the war, the only deaths that disturb them are Japanese. [I wrote more about it on my own LJ, incidentally.] Even a movie like Millennium Actress, which actually partly takes place in Manchukuo and also explicitly shows the oppressive nature of the imperial government, doesn't go any farther than that.
The immediate objection to my argument is that these narratives don't really have room to include a non-Japanese perspective. I also wonder what role any sublimated U.S. atomic guilt may have played in popularizing the Barefoot Gen movies in particular in North America.