Shogo Miura's Effects On The Victimization Of Western Culture

The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a turning point in WWII. They led to the surrender of the Japanese and the victory to the Allies. The day that the Japanese surrendered will forever be remembered. However, the destruction and casualties in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki cannot be forgotten. Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced massive destruction, and it led to years of disease and misery for the Japanese people following the war. After WWII and the creation of the atomic bomb, the world lived in fear of a nuclear attack ("The Atomic Bombings"). George Orwell’s 1984 references to the atomic bomb and to the society and life after WWII. Nevertheless, one must fully know and understand the bombings and the destruction

Have you ever questioned why and how the US government decided to drop those two nuclear bombs in Japan in the World War II? It is still a universal concern while many disapproval have made toward its humanity. In a book that I’ve read recently, from the point of view of an eyewitness, Yamaoka Michiko, the author of story “Eight hundred meters from the Hypocenter”, shows how humanity was exchanged with the ambition of a nation by reviving a heartbroken experience when she witnessed her hometown was destroyed by such a terrific violence in the war.

In many movies Asian women are sexually stereotyped as “exotic, subservient, compliant, industrious, and eager to please.” If not that, Japanese women are shown to be “inherently scheming, untrustworthy,

In the essay “The Scar,” the author Kildare Dobbs reports the parallel stories of Emiko; a young Japanese girl and Captain Robert Lewis; a U.S. army Captain harrowing events of Aug 6/1945 in Hiroshima, a day that forever changed their lives. Emiko, a 15 year old “fragile and vivacious” Japanese girl lived an hour’s train ride away from Hiroshima, in a town called Otake with her parents, her two sisters and brother. At that time, her youngest sister was extremely sick with heart troubles, her 13 year old brother was with the Imperial Army and her father was an antique dealer. Emiko and her 13 year old sister Hideko traveled by train daily to Hiroshima to their women’s college. Captain Robert Lewis was the co-pilot of the Enola Gay, a U.S.

Most people know about the attacks on Pearl Harbor but very few know about how it affected the lives of Japanese-Americans living on the islands. In the novel, Under the Blood-Red Sun, the author Graham Salisbury tells a story from the perspective of Tomikazu Nakaji, a young Japanese-American boy and his struggles with racism and becoming the man of his family. After the attack, the suspicions and biased racism of the non-immigrant Americans is raised, which lead to the wrongful arrests of Tomikazu's father and grandfather. This resulted with him having to get a job, take care of his family, and deal with the constant bullying of his neighbor, Keet Wilson. In the end, he manages to maintain the tasks his father had assigned him with the help of his friends. This book showed me the importance of friendship, honor, and persistence.

“You saw nothing in Hiroshima. Nothing.” In Hiroshima mon Amour, mise-en-scene and editing are used in conjunction with inspiration from the French New Wave Movement to express the severity and complexity of the traumas endured following the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. In this trauma narrative, mise-en-scene and disjunctive editing create a unique tone that ultimately represents the crippling struggle between past, present, and future. This “struggle” also allows for an emerging theme between personal and public tragedies, understanding the link between She (Emmanuelle Riva)’s experiences and the bombing in Hiroshima.

The world changed the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan. This evoked a cataclysmic spiral in the morals and methods of how

The last Samurai was a movie directed by Tom Cruise and Edward Zwick, it was filmed in 2003, and was based on the Satsuma Rebellion. The Last Samurai does portray Japanese culture of the Meiji Era correctly in some ways as it was the men who would go off to war, and mainly women who would stay home and farm. But parts were incorrect. The Last Samurai does lack historical accuracy as it shows us Japan with more of an East-West culture. In real life, the man named Nathan Algren was actually a man called Jules Brunet, who was a French man who went to Japan to fight, but was captured. At the time of these events, Japan was still modernising; so these aspects of the film may vary to the truth.

George Takei, a Japanese-American actor and activist, discusses why he loves the country that was once unfaithful to him in his TEDTalk at Kyoto, Japan on June 2014. February 1942, Japanese-Americans were forced to stay in concentration camps by American soldiers ordering them out of their homes (Takei, 2014). George Takei and his family were once of many Japanese-American families that were sent off to the camps. After the war, everything was taken away from them, they had to build themselves up again from the beginning. Many young Japanese-Americans wanted to volunteer to fight for their country, when Pearl Harbour was bombed, but they were denied of service and categorized as the “enemy” (Takei, 2014). But when the government realized they

The external environment often shapes culture. Some of the traits that the authors describe as "masculine" or

Moving onto gender roles and ideas, these characteristics in genders are needed in any sort of story to suit the values and attitudes of the people of that time. Gender stereotypes are a major piece to the puzzle of a film. Women are generally seen as less dominant, pushovers, the cares of everyone and that they have no independence. Whist men are seen as the more dominant, masculine, heroes, brave and courageous. This is across all genres of movies, the girl is the damsel in distress and the boy ends up saving her at the end of it.

The film Godzilla’s release in particular brought some tension between the Americans and Japanese. The film caused contradictory views of Godzilla’s symbolism from either sides. One of remembrance and one of guilt suppression. In Japan the movie Godzilla brought along with it an anti – American sentiment. Whereas, in America it was a form of suppression of guilt from the deaths the U.S military caused towards Japans populace. In her article “Godzilla/Gojiro: Evolution of the Nuclear Metaphor.” Nancy Anisfield states the opposing views of Americans and the Japanese “The Japanese embrace the bomb/ monster into their cultural conscience, whereas Americans push it away.” (Anisfield, pg.53) The Japanese people used Godzilla as a form of coping

Japan, forced to rebuild itself from the ashes of defeat, was occupied by Americans in the aftermath of World War II. Although it was commonly perceived through the victors’ eyes, in John W. Dower’s novel, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II, Dower summarized his studies of Occupied Japan and the impact of war on Japanese society in the view of both the conqueror and the defeated. He demonstrated the “Transcending Despair” (p. 85) of the Japanese people through their everyday lives in the early stages of the occupation. In chapter three, Dower attempted to comprehend the hopes and dreams – as well as the hopelessness and realities – of the Japanese who were in a state of exhaustion and despair. In chapter four, due partly to the food shortage, crime rates rose as people began to steal. Women turned to prostitution while men turned to the black market. Some Japanese were so desperate that they stripped out of their clothing and exchanged it for food. Dower vividly conveyed the depth of loss and confusion that Japan experienced. On the other hand, Kasutori culture flourished in the 1950s as sexually oriented entertainments dominated the commercial world. In chapter five, the people of Japan turned wartime slogans into slogans for reconstruction and peace. They used witty defeat jokes as a way to escape despair. Even though they were defeated, the people of Japan pushed through the misery and sought to reinvent their identity as illustrated through prostitution, the black market, and “Bridges of Language” (p. 168).

Japan is an unique oriental country in many aspects, especially in politics and economy, both western practices and traditional nationalism are coexisted in this country. The period 1890-1940 was just followed the Meiji restoration, and was typical in the history of Japan, at that time, Japan was on the way from a feudal country to a capitalistic country, called modernization. Many western practices were being more and more adopted, however, at the same time, traditional rules still had strong influences in Japan. Under this background, this report will discuss the Japanese cultural factors during 1890-1940 that influenced the disclosure

Space Battleship Yamato (1977) and The Silent Services (1988-1996) are both films that ‘rehabilitate’ Japan’s experience of World War II as they re-tell or imagine alternative histories or fictional stories that rehabilitate past trauma (namely their humiliating defeat of WWII and a sense of loss of masculinity to the U.S.-Japan alliance and what came corollary with it). Such narratives can be interpreted as expressing what contemporary Japan desires. The narrative of each film is reflected by the context of the time of its production (cold-war vs. post-cold war) and whilst the narratives of SBY and SS share similarities they differ in their depth of political discussions, conveyed messages and explicitness due to the constraints of post-war democracy, pacifism and U.S. relation. Relevant concepts are militarism, nationalism, anti-war messages, anti-US messages, pacifism, masculinity and patriotism and many of these co-exist in each respective film – the films try to reconcile them by ending with a lasting impression that justifies the aggression for the sake of world peace.