Forum - View topicINTEREST: Evangelion Character Designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto Attracts Criticism Over 'Dismissive' Twee
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harminia
Posts: 2003 Location: australia |
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I wasn't referring so much to the Japanese children but moreso the children of the comfort women. The children of the comfort women would have known about the suffering of their mother, and therefore it's still raw. As for your other points, I agree it's not right to hold people accountable for actions their great great great grandfather or whatever did. But in this situation, the exhibition and statue (as far as I can tell) weren't trying to blame the current generation for the past but rather keep an awareness of it in their mind. It's important for people to remember the atrocities of the past, even if they personally didn't do it. In this case though, Japan as a whole does need to be held accountable. At least, the people who pretend comfort women never existed need to be. That's why this stuff should be brought up again and explored, so that Japan can change. Probably the more recent generations in Japan are more open minded and accept Japan actually did that the things they did, but there's still so many people that refuse to believe it or just pretend it never happened and hope it goes away. They may not have committed the crimes, but by pretending the crimes didn't happen they are taking part in the crime. As an aside, this review that went up today is coincidentally very relevant Last edited by harminia on Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2402 |
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This whole situation just reeks of outrage culture. People went to an exhibit for offensive art and got offended. Great example of people looking to be offended finding something to offend them.
As for the exhibit itself, well, it seems to be taxpayer funded. If the tax payers do not like it, I see no reason it shouldn't be canceled so they aren't forced to pay for it.
That isn't really true. America acknowledges the good that dropping the bombs did for us. When there was to be an exhibit detailing the entire ordeal put up at the Smithsonian, too many Americans were outraged and insisted that the exhibit be gutted. So maybe we don't sweep it under the rug, but we do hide it in a mountain of sugar. Last edited by SilverTalon01 on Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:28 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Cutiebunny
Posts: 1748 |
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I disagree that the entire Japanese population should be held accountable. Doing so would only create bitterness and resentment, particularly because most of those alive today were neither alive nor did they have any control over what decisions their ancestors made. Acknowledgement that crimes were committed in the past and making the population aware that these things occurred in the hope of preventing the possibility of them happening again would be the easiest pill to swallow, and thus have a better chance of occurring. Sometimes the best solution is to find the middle ground. It's hard to say how many generations down financial compensation should be paid as well. Children who were born as a product of rape, yes, should be compensated...but the next generation and the one after that..? At what point do you stop blaming those that hurt your ancestor in the past for the fortune and misfortune in your life? And who would pay these future generations? Should the future family members be held accountable for that bill? Should the tax money of those who were not involved be used to pay, and if so, would that not create more resentment and bitterness? Things to think about for heavier shoulders than I. |
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2402 |
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I agree. History should not be forgotten, but innocent children shouldn't have to pay for the sins of their parents. |
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Watanabefan
Posts: 152 |
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What children are paying for this, exactly? This talking point keeps coming up here that the Japanese are somehow being punished for what happened in World War 2, which is not the issue. Nobody is being hurt or punished by the statue or the continued discussions about what Japan did, and the issue is the exact opposite: people sticking their fingers in their ears and pretending it never happened.
And I say this as someone from Atlanta, a city in a state where a large number of people still like to pretend the Civil War had nothing to do with racism or slavery, and that it was just a bunch of heroic patriots defending their land from aggressive northern elitists. Denial is a hell of a drug. |
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Takkun4343
Posts: 1502 Location: Englewood, Ohio |
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Sometimes, brutal honesty works. Other times, if you have nothing nice to say, it's better to say nothing at all.
This is one of those cases where the latter applies moreso than the former, and yet the opposite still happened despite that basic fact. |
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Agent355
Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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He used the term “propaganda” which makes it clear that he didn’t even try to see it as art because he was too colored by his political opposition to it. |
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 500 |
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"Ancient history" has a habit of repeating itself when it goes unchecked. I was born and raised in one of America's colonies. Political decisions that are about as old as comfort women still echo about in the political scene of my homeland to this day. That stuff doesn't just stop happening or mattering because you don't care about it. |
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AkumaChef
Posts: 821 |
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I don't think anyone should hold living people "accountable" for the acts involved in enslaving comfort women. But those people who would deny that the situation ever existed at all? That is a different situation entirely.
FinalVentCard has a very good point here. We need to study history so people do not repeat the same mistakes we previously made. It is especially relevant to anyone who votes. We see policy problems happen time and time again--all over the world--which easily could have been avoided if the voters realized what happened the last time they elected a person with a particular agenda or set of views. The naievety of people who have not studied history can be mindboggling--and I say that as a person who was often bored out of their mind in History class back when I was in school. Regarding:
and
I hope I didn't give the impression that I was praising America's situation with the atomic bombings because that was not my intent. I simply said that they owned up to dropping them, and nothing more. Frankly, I don't know much about what they did or did not do in terms of an apology, reparations, etc. But at the very least nobody denies that the bombs were dropped, by whom, when and where. In fact the whole process has been the subject of countless documentaries and films. While it's certainly possible to argue that America could have done better, the only relevant detail in this discussion is that they never tried to pretend it never happened. People can argue for eternity as to whether the bombings were justified, whether or not more people would have died if the war continued in a traditional manner, and so on, but that's an entirely different can of worms that's not really relevant here. You have to admit what you did first before anyone can even think about moving to the next step of healing. Japan, generally speaking anyway, doesn't even seem to have taken that step yet regarding Comfort Women. |
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uguu
Posts: 220 |
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I was making fun of Anno's nationalistic tendencies back in, like, 2007. His comments about the superiority of pre-war Japan (while, as far as I know, never really addressing that his views on gender and love of strong non-traditional women wouldn't have flown then...) and the Gunbuster lore for example.
Classic Gainax obviously had lots of military nerds, but you know something no one dares bring up? Miyazaki, Anno's friend, met up with a real nazi veteran tank operator to show off his tank manga. This stuff is rampant with Japanese creators. Jojo portrays Stroheim as cool, sexy and heroic and Joseph cries when he apparently sacrifices himself. Not a single of Yaginuma's industry followers questioned him when he came out as a full-blown Nazi, faving Hitler propaganda and saying the holocaust was a lie. Makoto Kobayashi? Trump fan who also faved tweets from Japanese accounts saying the holocaust never happened. Angel Cop and its in-your-face stuff about "the jews"? Just discarded as a "minor schlock OVA" - when in reality it's something many high-profile anime staff worked on - and the baby of Ichiro Itano, creator of the Itano Circus and one of the most influential Japanese animators of all time. I think people like to focus on really overt outliers but never talk about the overall culture of these industries. Questionable stuff is deeply entrenched in animation; American animation too. Everyone is mad at John Kricfalusi but ignores that many of his friends who helped cover up his child grooming (it was stated by one of their past employees that EVERYONE at Spumco knew he had a 16 year old girlfriend) are still successful and never questioned. I don't know the larger context of that imagery Sadamoto criticized but unless he's actually saying "this never happened, Japan never oppressed Korea!", there's much worse stuff than this take. I dunno, I'm kinda torn on it; I think people should acknowledge the oppression of the past and how it's far form completely gone today, but I'm also against an "original sin" approach and I know Japan had an "anti-Japaneseism" movement. I don't think that stuff helps either. I think multiculturalism when truly about everyone getting together and seeing beyond tribalism over race, nationality etc is good but I also think it's now being used by powerful people, left and right, to stir shit and divide people |
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El Hermano
Posts: 450 Location: Texas |
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Most people who try to apply politics to media are terrible at it. I've seen people insist that Pretty Cure, a franchise dedicated to selling merchandise to little kids and otaku, is anti-capitalist. All because one series had a big company as the main villain organization, which automatically means Toei, a big company, is anti-capitalist. It's a real juvenile take on media analysis.
The last thing you want is more countries like Germany where draconic laws prevent you from talking about certain subjects out of fear of being dragged off to prison.. The best way to cover something up is to ban all discussion about it and make it illegal to talk about.
I think people are aware, they just like to pretend otherwise, or want to keep it on the down low so western anime fans who are right-wing don't feel empowered or emboldened. So that leads to things like pretending the right wing party hasn't been in power in Japan for pretty much ever, and treating the hundreds of Japanese creators who have right wing views as exceptions to the rule rather than the norm |
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Megiddo
Posts: 8360 Location: IL |
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Please, please tell me that you are not taking a position where admitting some atrocity happened and framing it as a positive thing is somehow a better moral position than denying the atrocity happened at all. The moment that you stoop to rationalizing wholesale slaughter of women, children, and civilians in general in war you've sunk to the lowest you can get and are in every way no better off than people who deny such things happened at all. |
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jl07045
Posts: 1527 Location: Riga, Latvia |
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They apologise like every other year for it. What SK and China and others don't like is the wording. But the truth is even if the wording is too ambiguous, this issue won't go away as long as Japan's rivals can use it as a political leverage internationally and, more importantly, back home. |
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Snomaster1
Subscriber
Posts: 2798 |
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It looks like Sakamoto really stepped in it. His attack on the comfort women statue is just ridiculous. There are similar statues in the U.S.,one in Los Angeles or San Francisco,I think and the other one's in New Jersey. I also remember that the Japanese government sent some representatives to try have the statues taken down. Fortunately,they didn't succeed and as far as I know they're still around.
There are Koreans and Korean-Americans who are justifiably angry at Japan's denial of what happened during that time period. I even imagine that there could have been some of those women who emigrated to America years later and just kept quiet about that sort of thing. I don't blame them for doing so. It must have been a painful thing to have gone through. I can't even begin to imagine what that would have been like. I don't blame anyone,especially here,for being mad at Sakamoto's insensitive remarks. They were incredibly thoughtless and hurtful to those who gone through such a terrible experience,or for anyone related to them. Again,I can't imagine what those women went through. It must have been nightmarish for them. Hopefully one day,Japan will finally begin to address these sorts of things. I think it would be good of them to do so. |
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geepee
Posts: 109 |
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I swear to god if I hear someone to "cancel" Evangelion...
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