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Hey, the stuff about postwar Japanese folk having no interest in war was good and correct, but now you are just being silly.

People just don’t like it.

Nicely put. I’d have written something like that if i was capable of writing anything other than sarcasm.

I just returned from a month in the PRC and I can assure you the attitude is not limited to the WW2 generation. I heard plenty about “The Great Anti-Japanese Warâ€? …

Well yeah, that kinda stuff goes over well with the tourists. When you tour Pearl Harbour they don’t go on about how wonderful was the enemy.

from 20-something guide-interpreters as well as catching several episodes of a popular TV drama series about same.

I’m watching a popular samuri drama.

Not to mention the disparaging–not to say vitriolic–attitude one of our guides had about Japanese tourists (prompted, to be sure, by a really ugly episode that we witnessed).

That guy should probably get a new job, something less stressful. I find Chinese tourists to be loud and rude and incapable of proper queing and i think Russian tourists dress funny and why are American tourists always fat complainers in too small t-shirts? Fortunately Im not a tour guide.

It’s true, a lot of Japanese culture can be ridiculous and inexplicable, but I think that’s some of its appeal. Japanese people readily acknowledge this. But the preposterous and hilarious Spiderman knockoff doesn’t really have to do with anything we’re talking about here, and I think you guys know that.

It’s also true that the new Ministry of Defense (previously a cabinet) is trying to use cartoons and other PR tactics to soften the image of the expanding SDF. The reason they’re trying to do this is because expansion is unpopular in Japan. The postwar Japanese are peaceful people who continue to express shame for the atrocities of the 30s and 40s. Despite being in power for over half a century, the conservative government has been unable to revise the constitution to permit expeditionary military action.

People just don’t like it. I spent the summer of 2006 conducting research into violence in Japan. I interviewed a team of of journalists from Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s (and at one point, the world’s) largest newspaper. Yomiuri is a conservative organization, much like Fox in the U.S., but probably a little more loyal. You know what the Yomiuri reporters had to say about the war in Iraq? I quote from the pages of my research: “We hate the War in Iraq. Everyone does.”

You know what’s interesting, though? They applauded the American public for realizing so quickly that the war in Iraq is wrong. “It took us fifteen years,” they said.

To be honest, it would probably behoove us to encourage expansion of the SDF. What has permitted postwar inaction of the Japanese military (remember that the handful of troops sent to Iraq were entirely noncombative) is Japan’s relative safety under the stewardship of the United States. As long as the U.S. polices the world with its nuclear umbrella, disarmament will not get very far. What’s more is that American nuclear action is no longer a credible threat, and this summer, underneath the nuclear umbrella, North Korea detonated a nuclear weapon of its own in the Sea of Japan. I know Japanese people who say they felt the tremor.

Remember, SDF stands for Self-Defense Forces. In truth, I’m not so sure having a peaceful, democratic power policing the Pacific is such a bad thing.

I just returned from a month in the PRC and I can assure you the attitude is not limited to the WW2 generation. I heard plenty about “The Great Anti-Japanese War” from 20-something guide-interpreters as well as catching several episodes of a popular TV drama series about same. Not to mention the disparaging–not to say vitriolic–attitude one of our guides had about Japanese tourists (prompted, to be sure, by a really ugly episode that we witnessed).

Just sayin….

Or to steal some choice phrases from a Snowblood Apple reviewer — “Weirder than a whole bag of weird bought cheap at a weird sale. Mad as a barrel of green squirrels dancing a jig on a giant blue flower.”

However, I cannot see the Japanese Foreign Ministry sending Miike overseas “to market Japanese culture to foreign audiences”. Even psychotic transvestite Yakuza hit-men would make better cultural ambassadors.

Herr Doktor, you’re a Kiwi? Just across the ocean a bit. Mayhap we can share Miyazaki-san, and get a passel of other Japanese goodness along with…?

And if anyone wants to see weird, the entire oevre of Miike Takashi is there for your delectation. Miike is completely barking mad, in this cat’s opinion. Dollops of weird with weird sauce and a side serving of sauteed weird. On weird toast.

There’s an anime show called Mao-Chan that actually touches upon that idea. The earth is invaded by cute aliens, so a trio of cute girls are drafted to dispatch the aliens in a cute fashion (because it looks bad to send heavy military weapons against cute invaders, y’know). It’s a show that adults will recognize as parody yet OK for kids to watch because it ultimately isn’t that bad, aside from parents who don’t get the joke and think the whole idea is just too freakin’ bizarre.

Well, its good to know youall will have a new bogeyman once you’ve cleaned up the Muslim problem.

Let’s see, there are 480 seats in the Japanese House of Representatives and 242 in the House of Councillors, how many would you guess are from right wing nationalist parties?
If you guessed zero you would be correct.
Of course Americans were easily suckered into invading Iraq with bogus information, so no doubt the presence of a couple idiots with loudspeakers and a black van yelling at Shibuya Crossing would be enough to warrant some sort of equally insane hostility.

Ask some Chinese or Korean people of a certain age to give you their opinion on Japanese militarism; you’ll get an earful. I certainly did when I was stationed in Korea in 1996-97.

How nice for you. Fortunately the WW2 generation is dying off.