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The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 13 | Issue 30 | Number 1 | Article ID 4349 | Jul 27, 2015
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“Something Dreadful Happened in the Past”: War Stories forChildren in Japanese Popular Culture
Akiko Hashimoto
Reflecting on the 70th anniversary of the end ofJapan's War, it is worth noting that teachingthe history of World War II to Japanese childrenhas always been difficult at best. As a subjectfraught with contentions over textbook contentand conflict between teachers and statebureaucracy, teaching war history has longbeen “a dreaded subject” for many schoolteachers. Japanese history education has beencriticized for not going far and deeply enoughto describe perpetrator history – especially theinjury and death inflicted on tens of millions ofAsian victims. At the same time, it has beenadmonished for the opposite: that it goes toofar in promoting Japan's negative self-identity.This contest to shape hearts and minds offuture citizens has long burdened Japan'shistory education in schools, and has yieldedmixed results.
Flawed as the school instruction of war historyis in many respects, however, what is easilyoverlooked in the focus on the shortcomings offormal history education is the significantimpact of informal education about the Asia-Pacific War. What can deeply influence thehearts and minds of the next generation –perhaps more than textbooks – is the power ofpopular war stories accessible to children inthe commercial media and libraries. This “pop”war history is readily available in children’severyday life, mostly unmediated by teachersand unfiltered by state authorities.
War stories for children in Japan's popularculture have been influential carriers of warmemory for many decades. Famous storiescreated by celebrated manga and anime artistslike Barefoot Gen, Grave of the Fireflies, and To
All Corners of the World have successfullyexposed young readers to the destructiveaspects of the Asia-Pacific War and influencedthem to feel the horror of death. Others likeMother’s Trees, Glass Rabbit, and PoorElephants have been equally successful inshaping young children’s antipathy towardlethal violence, exposing them to the sheermeaninglessness and horror of mass death. Thecumulative effect of these cultural materials –produced, reproduced, and revised over manyyears in multiple editions and in diverse media– is to nurture negative emotions about theAsia-Pacific War and war in general that havebecome powerful motivators of moral conduct.The discussion that follows draws from mybook, The Long Defeat: Cultural Trauma,Memory, and Identity in Japan, where the topicof children’s education about the war appearsin the larger context of Japan's collectivememory of colonialism and war, the nationalfall, and its pathways toward moral recovery.
Collections of Study Manga: History fromBelow
In a country where the popular cultural mediaare ubiquitous, it is not surprising that materialon Japanese history is abundant in thecommercial media. In Japan 40% of all booksand magazines are manga (comic art)publications. It stands to reason that mangahas been a popular vehicle for supplementalinstruction and education. Indeed, this genrecalled “study manga,” or “education manga”(gakushū manga), is found readily in schoollibraries, local public libraries and bookstores.As informal tools of cultural learning they areon a par with television and animation films in
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how they bring cognitive comprehension tochildren, influencing their perceptions asmemory carriers of the next generation. Theyare entirely distinct from young boys’entertainment comics, not discussed in thisessay, that valorize heroic fighters, fictive orotherwise, in throwaway paper format. Of thepublic media that transmit and translate warmemory – from newspapers, magazines, books,and novels to television documentaries andfilms – study manga merit special attention as avehicle that exclusively targets children at aformative age, when their ethical judgment andmoral dispositions are formed.1
The moral evaluation of war and peace in pophistory study manga comes into clear focuswhen we closely examine their content for plot,characters, visual clues, and dramatic style.They are, however, not standardized or uniformwithin the genre. Study manga can beclassified in several categories: “academic”history manga series by professional scholars;“popular” history manga series by superstarartists in the manga industry; “Cliff-Notes”history manga designed for students preparingfor entrance exams; “digest” history manga forquick reference; “biographical” manga ofeminent and popular figures; “novelized”history manga for entertainment, and more. Ifocus here on two types of study history series –the “academic” and the “popular” – that haveproven their staying power with major,powerhouse publishers, some becomingclassics, reprinted many times over in the lastdecades. They include six well-known series:three “academic” collections supervised byprofessional historians, and published by themainstream publishers Gakushū Kenkyūsha(known by the shorthand Gakken), Shūeisha,and Shōgakkan; and three “popular” collectionsoffered by the studios of three phenomenallysuccessful star artists of the postwar mangaindustry, Fujiko F. Fujio, Mizuki Shigeru, andIshinomori Shōtarō.2
Successful study manga make grim history
palatable, even engrossing, with dynamic plots,colorful characters, and humorous asides. Thestories, in contrast to the typically blandtextbooks, are often page turners that sustainreaders’ curiosity and entice them to imagineand identify with distant, unfamiliar times andplaces. They also help the reader’s cognitivegrasp of moral distinctions by showing theethical qualities of key characters with graphicvisual cues like facial expression, bodylanguage, and other signals. For example, ifcharacters are drawn with a menacing grin,harried body language and in dark silhouettes,the reader readily understands that the planthey are hatching must be of dubious moralquality. Equally significant and captivating instudy manga is the view of history from below,allowing readers to see events through the eyesof “ordinary families” that are interspersed inthe narrative to drive the plot, to comment onthe events, and to express feelings about theimpact of the events on their everyday life. Thissympathy with the “little people” gives thesestories an unmistakable populist tilt, and aninterpretive framework critical of higherauthority. The chutzpah and irreverence typicalof Japanese comics are perfectly suited toexpressing misgivings about authorities like thegovernment, military, and police, and indeed,caricatures are delightful ways to get back atthe overbearing bullies who intimidated,oppressed, policed, betrayed and devalued themasses in wartime society.
Academic history manga
Educational comics about national history, afamiliar genre of children’s literature in manycountries, have been popular tools of learningin Japan since the 1970s.3 In Japan, theytypically come in multi-volume collectionsoffered by well-known, major publishers inhard-covers, and purchased by schools andlocal l ibraries as well as parents andgrandparents for young children to read athome. For example, the well-known Gakkenseries on Japanese history is an 18-volume set
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in its current edition, now in its 60th printingsince 1982; Shōgakkan’s current series spans23 volumes, and is now in its 49th printing since1983; Shūeisha’s current series is a 20-volumeset in its ninth printing since 1998. Theseeducational manga series, supervised byacademic historians, are targeted to children ofschool age, mostly in elementary and middleschools.4
For the most part, the academic manga offercolorful portrayals of 2000 years of Japanesehistory from early settlement through thecontemporary era in chronological order. Theportrayal of the Asia-Pacific War usually takesup one volume, averaging about 150 pages inlength. As a portrayal of a discredited anddisastrous war, there are no gallant nationalheroes or enchanting political leaders thatbrighten up the pages and dramatically drivethe plot. Instead, the stories unfold withaccounts of divisive politics and deterioratingeconomic life that are rife with social conflict,unstable government, ambitious military,terrorist violence, rogue actions, and rampantpoverty. These accounts are interspersed withdescriptions of bloody violence, oppression, andmassacres, which, in turn, lead ultimately tocrushing defeats, mass deaths, and thedevastating national fall.
The War in As ia and the Pac i f i c(Shōgakkan's manga history of Japan)
The descent into war is rendered into asobering morality tale of what not to do again.The pacifist moral frame is consistent: war-friendly characters and actions are portrayednegatively, and peace-friendly characters andactions are portrayed favorably. The anti-warmessages of the “little people” are especiallystriking, from a grim conscript’s cry (“I cursethis war,”)5 to a stunned mother’s lament (“War– I hate war…”) 6 and a grandmother’sdesperation about her grandson’s departure towar (“everyone cursed the war, and prayedtheir children would come home safe”).7 Even afamily dog bemoans, “I hate war!”8 Front andback matters of the books also convey moralevaluations, such as a note to the family thatpleads, “please make sure to let the readers
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pay attention to Japanese acts of perpetrationin China.”9 As war memory is translated intocultural memory in educational manga,compassion for suffering is now directed toanti-war pacifism – the desired moral qualitytransmitted to the young readers – even thoughin wartime it was condemned as unpatriotic.
No heroes make their mark in these academicstudy manga, but a few vi l lains makeunceremonious appearances. None of thesevillains are American, Chinese, Russian, oranyone else in the enemy camp; they are allJapanese. The designated “bad” characters areJapanese men who advocated, instigated,promoted, and then bungled the war. Such“war mongers” are usually officers of theJapanese Army, especially those in theKwantung garrison in Manchuria and the highmilitary and state leadership who backed andcovered for the rogue Army. These loadedcharacterizations produce a vernacularunderstanding of Japan's colonial war on thecontinent in young readers who develop anearly moral awareness of “something goneterribly wrong in Japanese history.”
The Asia-Pacific War (Shūeisha's mangahistory of Japan)
To be sure, what went terribly wrong is notonly the colonial exploitation and militarycatastrophe both across Asia and in Japanesecities, but also the massive death toll of over 20million people in Asia, many of whom werenoncombatants, and 3.1 million Japaneseincluding nearly one million noncombatants. Tothis end, two of the three study manga series –Shūeisha and Shōgakkan – offer explicitperpetrator narratives illustrating Japan’ssubjugation of civilians in East and SoutheastAsia during the years of war and colonization.One volume describes Japanese atrocitiescarried out in the Nanjing “Incident,” theslaughter of civilians in Chinese villages,recruiting forced laborers in occupiedterritories, and the biological warfare Unit
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731.10 Another volume gives graphic accountsof civilians slaughtered in Nanjing, as well asvillagers slain in rural China in the campaign tokill, plunder, and burn (the Three-Allscampaign).11 The ferocious Japanese invasion ofEast and Southeast Asia is also described,including full-page accounts of the massacre ofcivilians in Singapore and elsewhere.12 Thebrutal treatment of forced laborers – locallydrafted or captured POWs – by Japanesesoldiers and administrators also takes up fullpages in both volumes.13
As a rendering of a multidimensional war, theportrayal of the violence and dehumanizationinflicted by Japanese soldiers on Asian victimsis also extended to those inflicted on Japanesesoldiers by the Japanese military. Their anguishtypically comes from the battlefront, fromfighting unwinnable and lethal battles plannedby incompetent military strategists in placeslike Imphal (“Damn! I curse the top brass whoplanned this.”),14 to dying of disease andstarvation in Guadalcanal and elsewhere assupplies ran out (“We can't go on fighting withmalaria and malnutrition …”),15 and killingthemselves en masse rather than surrender tothe enemy (“I can’t move anymore. Kill me.”)16
The suffering of Japanese civilians is describedwith equal candor – deaths by aerial bombings,atomic bombs and the battle of Okinawa – andtakes up an amount of space similar to theillustration of Asian victims at Japanese hands.Indeed, the number of pages devoted torecounting the hardship of Japanese civilianvictims devastated by bombardments on thehome front and driven to mass deaths inOkinawa is roughly comparable in length to thespace allotted to Japan’s acts of imperialoppression and perpetration overseas.
In all, these texts offer a barebones synopsis,yet nevertheless visually riveting account, of awar that caused, in their estimates, a totaldeath toll on the order of 20 to 23 million. Theunderlying causes of the atrocities, however,are not explained in detail to the young
readers. Other than the outlines of events,there is no close reasoning of the causal chainof events. They are tuned to cognitive ratherthan conceptual comprehension, and emotionalrather than rational understanding. These,abridged history stories for young children aresanitized cultural products, but they cannevertheless play a notable role in cultivatingmoral and even political dispositions. What isinculcated here is a simple pacifist sentimentthat precludes any possibility of a just war: waris bad and unjust, because war kills and peoplesuffer; it is an evil that hurts people like you,your family and friends; the government thatwages war is bad, and can't be trusted to helpand protect you.
The Road to War (Gakken's manga historyof Japan)
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Compared to the foregoing two series,Gakken’s national war is visually brighter,shown as an event carried out by child-like,inoffensive protagonists who are muddlingthrough an international crisis. It is largely a“war story lite” about state and militaryleadership decisions, without showing anybloodshed or dead bodies, still less atrocities.The war was instigated by the belligerentJapanese Army which amassed power throughthe prolonged crisis, and turned Japan into anoppressive military state. They waged a badwar, and created a bad society, but as the plotmoves forward and people’s lives deteriorate,not much suffering of Japanese or Asian victimsis shown. When no suffering is shown, no one isheld accountable for it; when no one is heldaccountable for suffering, it is possible to takea benign, no-guilt approach to war and colonialoppression. This untroubled approach isdifferent from the foregoing two series, but themoral sentiment that “everyone cursed thewar”17 is nevertheless built into the storyline,and comes across clearly to the readers. Themuch simplified, abridged history strives to beunthreatening to children, yet war is anythingbut glamorous. When historical memory isrendered into long-term cultural memory in thistype of no-guilt educational manga, the moralsentiment is still anything but pro-war or pro-military.
Popular history manga
Fujiko F. Fujio, Ishinomori Shōtarō, and MizukiShigeru are superstar manga artists who arecelebrated for their classics from samuraiadventures and space ventures to family storiesand ghost stories, and are well-known beyondthe manga and animation film industries. Overthe years, their imaginary characters havebecome household names, like the delightfulrobocat Doraemon who is ubiquitous in popularculture from television shows and commercials,to paraphernalia like guitars, stationery, and
refrigerator magnets, and now an internationalsuperstar. Such popular characters thatenchanted and entertained successivegenerations growing up in postwar Japan havealso been put to good use for producing“popular” history comics, rendering complexhistory into abridged stories for successiveyoung generations. The result is a particularstyle of documentary history comic stories toldby fictional narrators, unfolding with a kind ofVerfremdungseffekt (alienation effect) of aBrechtian play that tells stories within storiesto create a disengaged critical perspective.With commentary from lovable iconiccharacters, tragic dark history can be renderedinto accessible morality tales rich with emotion,irony, and caricature. These popular stories,produced by the manga artists or franchised bytheir production companies, are multi-volumesets of history manga published in paperbackwhich are less scholarly than the academicseries and less constrained by curricularguidelines. These popular study manga takemore artistic liberties than academic manga.They are imaginative in rendering war historyinto entertaining cultural products that areappealing for young generations. To be sure,the artistry comes at a cost to comprehensiveor rigorous assessment of history. The complexreality of defeat culture in which heroes,victims, and perpetrators are often the samepeople is left largely untouched. But readersneverthe less take away a cogni t iveunderstanding that contemporary Japanesehistory is a stained legacy, and that beingJapanese means they are burdened with thatstain.
Fujiko F. Fujio Studio’s Doraemon series
As a winner of many prestigious awards and aphenomenal merchandizing success, Doraemonis perhaps the most fitting manga icon to enticeelementary school children to take an interestin learning dark history. The section on WorldWar II in the Nichinōken series takes up only18 out of 220 pages, but takes readers from the
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depression and the Manchurian Incidentthrough the escalation of war and oppression insociety, to the final catastrophic defeat. As thesection sketches the main events, youngreaders are given succinct commentaries aboutthem by the endearing robocat Doraemon andhis dim-witted friend Nobita. It is mostly Nobitawho conveys the moral evaluation of the warand wartime society through his visceral cries:“ugh, another war? I can't take another one.”18
“That’s a terrible law [to arrest people whoopposed the government].”19 “I will never go towar!”20 “They’re even sending students towar.”21 “Someone, stop [the atomic bomb]!”22
These gut pacifist sentiments are Nobita’sresponse to the violence and authoritarianoppression introduced in the text. Even thoughthe number of pages devoted to the war is slim,the morality tale to be learned here comesacross clearly: the government, military, andbusiness go to war to profit from it. The littlepeople like us are dragged into war and arehurt by it. We don’t trust leaders in power whohurt the little people.
To be sure, the ethics of care for the sufferingof little people being taught here applies onlywithin the limits of Japan's national boundary.Taking the blame for the horrors of war andmounting casualties are not the enemy forcesin China or the U.S., but Japanese war mongerswho instigated and promoted the war. Not eventhe atomic bombings of Hiroshima andNagasaki are blamed on the Americans but onthe Japanese leadership that missed chances tocapitulate earlier, which might have forestalledthose tragedies.23 All told, this domesticperspective on the war depicts the Japanese asboth perpetrators and victims.
Mizuki Shigeru’s Shōwa History Series
Mizuki’s message about the war is direct andconsistent: Fighting in the military to die forthe country is utterly absurd. The powerfulmessage that there is no heroism in fightingand dying in an unwinnable war is grounded
directly in Mizuki’s wartime experiences –near-death experiences from combat,bombardment, starvation, malaria andamputation – which are all depicted in theseries. This compelling message flies in theface of the patriotic mantra of “honorabledeath” ingrained in his generation of soldiers.Born in 1922 and conscripted at age 20, Mizukiwas sent to Rabaul in New Britain, Papua NewGuinea, which was a central base of Japanesemilitary and naval operations in the SouthPacific at the time. He barely survived combatand repeated bombardment that overwhelmedthe ill-equipped and scantily supplied Japaneseforces. He survived, thanks to the help offriendly local tribes, and was repatriated afterthe war. He started writing his war stories inthe 1970s after garnering success with Kitarōin the 1960s, and has since remained an anti-war voice, driven by his loyalty to his buddieswho died needlessly, and his indignationtoward the military and state leaders whoabandoned the soldiers without propersupplies, strategic planning, or compassion –causing preventable disasters and unnecessaryloss of lives.24 Both Mizuki and his brotherSōhei survived, but not without sustaining life-changing traumas like many others of theirgeneration: Mizuki became an amputee, andhis brother became a Class B war criminal fork i l l ing a POW, and was indicted andincarcerated in Sugamo prison.
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The Tripartite Pact (Mizuki Shigeru'smanga history of Shōwa Japan)Prime Minister Tojo inspecting thegarbage (Mizuki Shigeru's manga historyof Shōwa Japan)
Mizuki’s war history, focused on the lowestrung of military life, is an especially grippingtale that young readers can probably empathizewith. The young men in the stories who went towar and died for the country, however, are notheroic personalities that children could desireto emulate. They are unfortunate scrawnycharacters, beaten and broken, who succumbedto defeat. To be sure, there are extensive battlescenes, and gallant military encountersespecially in the first six months of the PacificWar – like Pearl Harbor – reminiscent of boys’war stories popularized in major comicweeklies in the 1960s.25 But as losses mountand war prospects turn grim, the battles
become more chilling than thrilling and thesoldiers become more pitiful than brave. Forhundreds of pages, readers wading throughgraphic illustrations of men falling and dying –in Leyte, Guadalcanal, Imphal and elsewhere –can recognize the protracted despair. There isno exhilarating valor.26
Soldier Mizuki in mortal fear on thebattlefront in Papua New Guinea (MizukiShigeru's manga history of Shōwa Japan)
Mizuki’s accounts are largely victim narratives.The stories of wrongs inflicted on Japanesesoldiers -- whose survival rate was atrocious --overshadow those inflicted on Asian peoplewhose lands they invaded.27 This narrow focuson one’s own suffering does not derive from theintent to whitewash or divert attention fromperpetrator history, though personal narrativesfocused on local experience can depict anarrow range of events that often excludedistant suffering. These stories are powerfulindictments of the Japanese state and themilitary that dragged people through anunnecessary war, killed them needlessly, andbetrayed their trust until the bitter end. Theanguished stories barely conceal anger towardthe decept ion of the unjust mi l i taryestablishment. War memory here is framed bythe “pent-up anger toward war” that gnawed atthe survivors like Mizuki for many decades.28 In
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the final volume, Mizuki himself takes over asthe narrator to offer his reflections andreminiscences. Here, his indictment of theJapanese state as the perpetrator is no longerdisguised. The anti-state, anti-military messageto young readers is unmistakable:
“…I really hated militarism. Peopledeluded themselves into believingthat anything daring and bravewould bring luck and fortune. Theyparroted all along: ‘Loyalty to theEmperor. Patriotism to the State.’…We were not supposed to thinkabout ‘ourselves’ but be happy todie as ‘good citizens’ when thedraft letter arrived. If truth be told,people who lived through the earlyShōwa [era] were bullied by theState …The ‘military’ was like acancer that had to be surgicallyremoved [by defeat].”29
Japan's occupation of Korea (MizukiShigeru's manga history of Shōwa Japan)
Ishinomori Shōtarō’s Manga History of JapanSeries:
In Ishinomori’s Manga History of Japan, theAsia-Pacific War period takes up nearly 300pages, and is presented as a descent into aruinous war through many ill-fated politicalmaneuvers and erroneous decisions. Thedominant story is that of the fierce politicalstruggle among a cadre of elite men in power.In that struggle, the bellicose Army leadershipultimately rises to power, and recklesslythrusts the nation into a world war that ends inthe devastating downfall. The bickeringrivalries, mistrust, miscalculations, andmiscoordination at the heart of the story arerecounted in detail: the leaders fail to heed
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warnings, miss opportunities to negotiate, losestrategic momentum, misplace their confidencein wishful thinking, and make incompetentdecisions. As the military amasses more powerover time through emergency legislation andtotalitarian repression, the nation becomes apolice state. All told, this is a dishearteninghistory of a nation led by misguided villainswithout any wise heroes who stood firm enoughto foil them and save the nation and Asia fromdisaster.
Ishinomori’s history, unlike the foregoingexamples, does not rely on familiar mangacharacters for narration but develops the plotsolely through authorial narratives and graphicdepictions of dynamic events and encounters.Taking a populist approach, a regular cast ofseven or eight people appears throughout asordinary citizens voicing their thoughts andfeelings about the unfolding events. Theircommentaries are presented as casualconversations in a mom-and-pop diner, wherethe proprietor family and regular patrons shootthe breeze over meals and drinks. They areimaginary witnesses and bystanders of wartimeJapan: independent-minded people who ownsmall establishments and regular customerswho drop in from all walks of life: newspaperjournalists feeling the squeeze of statecensorship, youths at schools or in showbusiness being called up to military service,foreign ministry workers confessing to beingclueless about the ongoing diplomaticwhirlwind, blue-collar workers being laid offfrom struggling factories, and others. As thewar escalates, they feel by turns apprehensiveand ambivalent, surprised and cheered,ignorant and manipulated, fearful andconfused, resentful and weary, and ultimately,desperate and indignant that the war isdragging the country into an abyss with no endin sight.
The Japanese are clearly shown as theaggressors, and to a lesser extent, as pitifulvictims. The reasons why this war escalated to
such levels of brutality or why the militarycallously abandoned Japanese civilians inManchuria, Saipan, and Okinawa – drivingthem to desperate mass suicides – are neverfully explained, however.30 While young readersare offered insights that this war should havebeen and could have been prevented, they aregiven no moral or conceptual means to reflecton practical alternative possibilities that couldhave been pursued.
The Sino-Japan War-The Pacific War(Ishinomori Shōtarō's manga history ofJapan)
“Something Dreadful Happened in thePast”
Successful pop history projects of mangacelebrities like these exemplify the power of
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cultural memory forged outside the reach ofstate educational institutions. Phenomenallyeffective in reaching youth – though overlookedby scholarship preoccupied with officialtextbooks – manga rode the wave of agenerational turnover of Japanese youth, forwhom it continues to be, with television and theinternet, a compelling, indispensable mode ofcommunication and resource for information.Compared with textbooks, communicatingh i s t o r y t h r o u g h m a n g a h a s b e e n agenerationally distinct, and decidedly freer,mode of transmitting memory, embraced firstby the baby boomers who welcomed the newexpressive voice unencumbered by traditionalliterature, plays and poetry. Those readerswere also happy to turn up their noses at“serious” moralizing work by the wartimegeneration that controlled the public sphere.Having sensed that those adults hadthemselves wrought “something dreadful thathappened in the past,” the younger generationhad good reason to distrust the traditionalcarriers of memory and celebrate an alternativesphere of communication of their very own.Manga stories, then, became their stories,allowed them to indulge in subverting theauthoritarian gaze while also bonding withtheir peers. It is therefore not surprising thatmistrust of state authority is a salient elementof pop history, even when criticism is indirect.There is neither glamour nor valor in the waymost mainstream study manga history depictsthose responsible for the war and their policies.In this sense, young readers of these volumesare more likely to come away disheartened anddistressed than entertained by the illustrationof the legacy that they have inherited asJapanese nationals.
Japanese children are raised in an environmentencoded with generational memory that oftenencourages them to develop negative morals e n t i m e n t s a b o u t t h e w a r . T h e“encouragement” comes in subtle and unsubtleways, as young children develop gut instinctsthat “something dreadful happened in the
past,” even if they don’t fully understand whator why. Even when they encounter emotionalaccounts of terror that seem unfathomable,many can still understand that, unlike thefictive wars in video games and televisionshows, this one really engulfed the lives of theirgrandparents when they were small childrenlike themselves. It was so bad that children likethemselves lost their families, friends, homes,then couldn’t escape and died. From such“shock and awe” war stories that elicit avisceral response – in animation films, textbookphotos, peace education, school instruction,popular history, and more – they may learn toempathize and identify with those war orphans,malnourished children, bombed children,injured children, and abandoned children wholost everything that sustained them.
Over time, this kind of emotional socializationthat taps into instincts for self-preservationturns into “feeling rules,” with which childrenlearn to internalize how they are supposed tofeel about war in a pacifist country.31 Clearly,this choice of strategy is not geared towardraising nascent critical thinkers who wouldassume responsibility for the past atrociousdeeds of their forefathers as in a culture ofcontrition like Germany, but is focused insteadon not raising the type of Japanese people whocould perpetrate another abhorrent war in thefuture. These are important influences thathave long played a role in nurturing Japan'sgrassroots pacifism, which have beenintensified in this summer’s protests againstthe Abe government’s push for remilitarization.
The Broader Picture
Turning our attention to study manga publishedin the last two years, a few trends are worthnoting. Some have trimmed down the numberof pages describing the Asia-Pacific War, whileothers have also curtailed the moral evaluationof the war. For example, the NEW History ofJapan (NEW nihon no rekishi) reduces thedescription of the war by half, to 54 from 102
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pages, focusing now on stories of selecthistorical figures.32 The moral evaluation of theAsia-Pacific War is truncated accordingly, nowarticulated through the tormented figure of theShōwa Emperor who receives a series oftroubling reports of international and domesticproblems from his advisors and ministers thatserve as the book’s narratives of Japanesehistory. The latest Doraemon series History ofJapan has now revised the didactic format ofthe book to one that focuses on helping readersprepare for middle school entrance exams.Nobita’s humorous asides uttering his fear ofand distaste for war are gone in the 36 pages ofthis volume.33 As the wartime generation whocreated the original study manga series passeson and postwar scholars now gradually takeover the series editorships, it is possible thatthe negative moral sentiments expressed instudy manga will be less salient. It may be partof a trend to promote a vision of history thatsees Japan's road to hell as having been pavedwith good intentions.
It would be a mistake, however, to see thischange, if it continues, as a trend to representthe Asia-Pacific War as a “good war.” Here, thewar remains a ‘bad war,” and the underlyingmessage that “something dreadful happened inthe past” remains intact; the emotionalaccounts of terror, and the concomitant moralindignation are, however, considerablydiminished. In contrast to the heroic warmanga that Kobayashi Yoshinori wrote for adultreaders 17 years ago, these recent volumes stillrepresent the Asia-Pacific War as a failed warof a failed state, not a glamorous heroic war.E v e n w h e n t h e h i s t o r i c a l f i g u r e sare romanticized and mythologized in thosevolumes, they are not depicted as avid warmongers but rather as tragic heroes whowaged war reluctantly. In an interesting twist,even Kobayashi himself today emphasizes thehorrors, rather than the glory, of war in hislatest “New” Treatise on War (Shin Sensōron).34
Narrating war history in a defeated nation is a
complicated, painful project. As I describe inmy book, it is part of a long process ofrepairing the moral backbone of a brokensociety after a monumental national fall. InJapan's public discourse today, accounts of warmemories are diverse and divisive, articulatedthrough the interplay of multiple narratives ofheroes, victims, and perpetrators. Thesenarratives are intertwined with the nation’smoral recovery from defeat, to recover fromstigma, to heal from the losses, and to right thewrongs. It would not be surprising, in thiscontext, to see that war stories for children –such as study manga – diversify further inmessage and moral import in the future.
This article is adapted from Chapter 4 of AkikoH a s h i m o t o , T h e L o n g D e f e a t(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0190239166/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20): Cultural Trauma, Memory,a n d I d e n t i t y i n J a p a n(http://www.amazon.com/dp/0190239166/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20) (Oxford University Press,2015). The author has lived and studied inJapan, Germany, England, and the UnitedStates, and taught cultural, comparative, globalsociology at the University of Pittsburgh for 25years. She is also a Faculty Fellow at YaleUniversity’s Center for Cultural Sociology, andcurrently visiting professor at Portland StateUniversity.
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as important as this not in the textbooks?' –Teaching Supplements, Student Essays, andH i s t o r y E d u c a t i o n i n J a p a n(https://apjjf.org/-Matthew-Penney/4055/article.html)
• Nakazawa Keiji, Hiroshima: The History ofB a r e f o o t G e n(https://apjjf.org/-Nakazawa-Keiji/3416/article.html)
• Yuki Tanaka, War and Peace in the Art ofTezuka Osamu: The humanism of his epicm a n g a(https://apjjf.org/-Yuki-TANAKA/3412/article.html)
(https://apjjf.org/-Yuki-TANAKA/3412/article.html)• Yoshiko Nozaki and Mark Selden,Japanese Textbook Controversies, Nationalism,and Historical Memory: Intra- and Inter-n a t i o n a l C o n f l i c t s(https://apjjf.org/-Yoshiko-Nozaki/3173/article.html)
Recommended Citation: Akiko Hashimoto,"“Something Dreadful Happened in the Past”:War Stories for Children in Japanese PopularCulture", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13,Issue 30, No. 1, July 27, 2015.
Notes
1 Study manga often target school children inthe latter years of elementary school and inmiddle school, typically ages 10-15.
2 The mainstream academic study mangadiscussed here became widely available in theearly 1980s, and some have been reprinted asmany as 50-60 times. The popular study mangaby Fujiko, Mizuki, and Ishinomori becameavailable in the 1990s. The iconic status ofthese manga artists is celebrated in theirindividual museums across the nation today.
3 Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. The past within us:media, memory, history. London: Verso. 2005,
170;
Penney, Matthew. "Far from Oblivion: TheNanking Massacre in Japanese HistoricalWriting for Children and Young Adults."Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2008)22:25-48.
4 Gakken Manga, Nihon no rekishi, volumes1~17, 1982; Shōgakkan Shōnen Shōjo GakushūManga, Nihon no rekishi, volumes 1~21, 1983;Shūeisha Gakushūmanga, Nihon no rekishi,volumes 1~20, 1998
5 “Sensō o nikumu.” Shōgakkan Shōnen ShōjoGakushū Manga, Nihon no rekishi vol. 20.1983, 110
6 “Sensō – iyadane, sensō.” ShūeishaGakushūmanga, Nihon no rekishi Vol.18. 1998,58
7 Gakken Manga, Nihon no rekishi:15, 121
8 Shōgakkan, Nihon no rekishi: 20, 102.
9 Ibid. 157.
10 Shūeisha, Nihon no rekishi:18, 72,75, 98-104.
11 Shōgakkan, Nihon no rekishi: 20, 53, 58.
12 Ibid. 81.
1 3 Shūeisha, Nihon no rekishi: 18, 103.Shōgakkan, Nihon no rekishi: 20, 106.
14 Ibid. 115.
15 Shūeisha, Nihon no rekishi:18, 111.
16 Ibid. 114.
17 Gakken Manga, Nihon no rekishi:15, 121.
18 Nichinōken and Fujiko F. Fujio, Doraemon noShakaika Omoshiro Kōryaku: Nihon no rekishiga waraku 2: Sengoku~Heisei jidai, Tokyo:Shōgakkan, 1994, 192.
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14
19 Ibid. 195
20 Ibid. 195
21 Ibid. 199
22 Ibid. 201
23 Ibid. 192, 200-1.
24 Mizuki, Shigeru. Sōin Gyokusai Seyo
