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INTEREST: Critic Calls Out The Wind Rises For Perpetuating Historical Revisionism

It's a story about a man who loves planes.. he just so happens to be linked to some things in the war... but hey, people aren't so shallow they can't think of anything besides that... are they? =P

That said, I have problems with inventors being blamed for war crimes the way some of these concerned critics seem to want. Where are the hordes of historians blaming the German Panzer and Japanese bomber planes for the Nazi invasions and Pearl Harbor? Weapons are tools. It's the ones giving orders about how they're used that bear the responsibility.

Leave it to GLORIOUS SUPERIOR JAPAN advocate Crispy45 to suggest that anyone who has a problem with the way this movie is executed is shallow, racist and war-obsessed.

every person trotting out this moral equivalency canard in regard to World War II should substitute "Germany" for "Japan" in their reasoning and think for a few minutes about how that looks.

The thing that bothers me most about this movie is that it fictionalizes a recent historical figures life in a way that most people (including most of the American movie critics I've read) can't tell its fiction.

That's a really simplistic view. Nobody is denying that the ones actually using the weapons are responsible. All anyone is saying is that the inventors may be too. Weapons may be tools but you can hardly wash your hands when you make them available to people. I mean, if I hand a gun to a murderer, knowing full well that he is planning to use it to kill somebody, then I can hardly claim innocence when he does. And it's no different here. If you know full well how "the ones giving the orders" are going to use your creations then you can hardly hide behind the notion that it isn't your decision. You may not be as responsible as others but you still deserve some blame.

ikillchicken wrote:

That's a really simplistic view. Nobody is denying that the ones actually using the weapons are responsible. All anyone is saying is that the inventors may be too. Weapons may be tools but you can hardly wash your hands when you make them available to people. I mean, if I hand a gun to a murderer, knowing full well that he is planning to use it to kill somebody, then I can hardly claim innocence when he does. And it's no different here. If you know full well how "the ones giving the orders" are going to use your creations then you can hardly hide behind the notion that it isn't your decision. You may not be as responsible as others but you still deserve some blame.

That's a very large "if" you're leaning on there. The "indifference" Kang criticizes is absolutely fair game though.

That's a really simplistic view. Nobody is denying that the ones actually using the weapons are responsible. All anyone is saying is that the inventors may be too. Weapons may be tools but you can hardly wash your hands when you make them available to people. I mean, if I hand a gun to a murderer, knowing full well that he is planning to use it to kill somebody, then I can hardly claim innocence when he does. And it's no different here. If you know full well how "the ones giving the orders" are going to use your creations then you can hardly hide behind the notion that it isn't your decision. You may not be as responsible as others but you still deserve some blame.

When the engineer designs an airplane, how much can he know how it will be used? And what if he knows, should he become a conscientious objector? He may get imprisoned or shot. What will happen with his family?

So you're saying that Jiro privately had reservations about what his designs would be used for, but kept silent about it so as not to be labeled a subversive by the Japanese government? If so, please provide some sort of evidence to support such a claim, because based on what has been said on this thread (at least, the parts of it I have read, which is most of it),

I have the impression that he was happy to Do His Part for his country, and his part was designing the best warplanes he could.

Tuor:

Quote:

So you're saying that Jiro privately had reservations about what his designs would be used for, but kept silent about it so as not to be labeled a subversive by the Japanese government? If so, please provide some sort of evidence to support such a claim, because based on what has been said on this thread (at least, the parts of it I have read, which is most of it),

The government spies on correspondence letters between him and his wife.

Quote:

I have the impression that he was happy to Do His Part for his country, and his part was designing the best warplanes he could.

He's doing it, because he loves planes.

It doesn't mean that he had any reservations about what he was doing insofar as furthering Japan's military machine.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Eagles of Mitsubishi
By Mike Friedrich on November 4, 2009
Format: Paperback Amazon Verified Purchase
I was interested in this book by Jiro Horikoshi the managing engineer of the Mitsubishi Zero (then called Prototype 12) aircraft project, which our Naval Aviators faced in combat in the Pacific during World War II. My primary interest was that I am an Aeronautical Engineer and an Air Force pilot, and I knew that the art of stress analysis was invented here in Nagoya, Japan starting in 1937.

I feel a kinship with Dr. Horikoshi because he was a dedicated and talented aircraft designer who succeeded in his art far beyond his wildest dreams. Unfortunately he was also dismayed at the fact that his aircraft was used for purposes beyond his control and knowledge, including Kamikaze.

I only hope Dr. Horikoshi was able to recover his pride after the war because he seemed to end the book with a broken heart.