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NEWS: Barefoot Gen Manga Removed From Matsue City School Libraries


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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6248
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 4:59 pm Reply with quote
Oh boy, trying to cover up Japanese war crimes by removing a manga that talked about it even though there are many ways Japanese student and ordinary Japanese are going to find out about it via internet or buying a book about it outside of Japan (let's say a person in Japan has relatives living in US, Brazil, or Europe and that relatives living outside of Japan read a book about Comfort women, and Rape of Nanjing and that relatives showed the book to that person in Japan. No way you can covered that up and come up with lies). Also when historians that tried to publish a textbook about Rape of Nanjing and Japan's wartime atrocities get blocked from being revealed to the public, that historians has other way to bypass that using blogs, or make a historic video about Japan's wartime atrocities and upload it on Youtube and ordinary Japanese that know how to use Youtube will somehow find out about it.

It doesn't help that the Japanese Wikipedia has a page on Comfort Women and Rape of Nanjing. So how can you cover that up when the internet can reveal all that? Hasn't the Japanese govt thought ordinary Japanese wouldn't know how to operate Wikipedia and look up Rape of Nanjing? I don't think the Japanese govt would dare to go on the same level as the Mainland Chinese regime by putting up a Great Firewall of Japan to block Japan's wartime atrocities to the public.

I like to add that I saw a news about how a Japanese band release a song criticizing Japan's govt history education. So too late, there are Japanese people that already know the truth about Japan's wartime atrocities and you can't cover that up forever.
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KabaKabaFruit



Joined: 20 Sep 2007
Posts: 1869
Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 7:53 pm Reply with quote
Cutiebunny wrote:
Case in point - When I was in Hiroshima several years ago, I went to the museum there with several other Americans. Most of them were elderly and had not only lived through the war, but had lost siblings in it. In front of the museum, there's a sign which mentions that lots of Japanese people lost their lives during the war, and to pray for them. One woman in the group, after reading the sign aloud, turns to the rest of us and says "I'm not going to pray for them. They were on the wrong side."

I think the woman is missing an important point here. Not all Japanese people supported the war. Some just ended up caught in the aftermath as evidenced by the atomic bombings. If one does not want to pray for them, that is their decision but it is not fair to automatically conclude that every single Japanese citizen was for the destruction of America and doesn't deserve remembrance. To say that all Japanese people back then were evil because they were on a different "side" is not only grossly unfair but shallow. It sounds more like the woman was carrying an old grudge than anything. I understand her feelings but I also understand that you can't judge every Japanese citizen just by which land they stand on.
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Polycell



Joined: 16 Jan 2012
Posts: 4623
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 8:12 pm Reply with quote
Unfortunately such collectivistic thinking is the norm these days and has been for a long time when war's involved. That most of the arguments against the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki focus on the means rather than what was done is telling.
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Chrno2



Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 6171
Location: USA
PostPosted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 8:54 pm Reply with quote
WTF??? Seems like Japan is doing their apologetic crap again as if they never in their recorded history that they caused a lot of problems even for their own people during pre-war WWI and onward. Sad thing is the older generation is dying off and soon there won't be much of a legacy to tell the tale. I've been noticing quite a bit of buzz where it seems that they feel that anything speaking against the Imperial Army is like "propaganda" that slanders their wrong doing. I think there was an issue some years ago about a book called 'Rape of Nanking". They wanted that removed saying that it had false info and that it should not be supported. I mean look what just happened concerning 'Attack on Titan'. It's really a shame actually. Here's a man that lived it and saw things but he's not allowed to say his piece. Seijun Suzuki was another that saw quite a bit of action and he portrayed that in his films. I guess no matter what country you live in there's always some BS they want to cover up. I'm really saddened by this.
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nargun



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 924
PostPosted: Mon Aug 19, 2013 5:24 am Reply with quote
Chrno2 wrote:
WTF??? Seems like Japan is doing their apologetic crap again


It's not "Japan". Matsue is hicksville. Towns like Matsue are backwards in any country, and japan -- and remote parts like Matsue even more so -- has the special issue of its very particular demographics. Given that social progress is largely signposted by graves of old people...

They're scared. They're getting old, and their children don't visit [it's two-and-a-half hours by train from Okayama.] Things are changing and they look like they're gonna suck. Of course they retreat into the past: the future holds nothing for them.

Your proper basis of comparison is probably something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_Public_Schools
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NERVchild



Joined: 30 Dec 2008
Posts: 34
PostPosted: Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:55 am Reply with quote
nargun wrote:
Chrno2 wrote:
WTF??? Seems like Japan is doing their apologetic crap again


It's not "Japan". Matsue is hicksville. Towns like Matsue are backwards in any country, and japan -- and remote parts like Matsue even more so -- has the special issue of its very particular demographics. Given that social progress is largely signposted by graves of old people...

They're scared. They're getting old, and their children don't visit [it's two-and-a-half hours by train from Okayama.] Things are changing and they look like they're gonna suck. Of course they retreat into the past: the future holds nothing for them.

Your proper basis of comparison is probably something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_Public_Schools


Thanks for the generalized assumption about the people of Matsue and of Fargo, ND </sarcasm>.

The book is still there as teaching materials for teachers if they choose to use it for their class. It is shocking and horrifying, and some classes or specific students may not be able to get past that or retain composure of themselves. You do not show the dangers of misusing guns by displaying crime scene photos to first graders or to those overly sensitive; the rest of the day will be spent consoling crying children. The use of it is up to the teachers. If the school board orders teachers not to use it ever, then Matsue has a new problem to face.

Despite people's attempt at rewriting history, the information is still out there for young, inquiring minds, if someone will guide them to it.
--"They can't stop the signal." Serenity
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mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:22 am Reply with quote
Juno016 wrote:
manhiem wrote:
You could be right, but I got a different meaning from it. It seemed to me that he was saying that if the Japanese don't face their past, they will miss an opportunity to grow and mature as individuals and as a nation. Perhaps his view and mine are opposite sides of the same coin.


Yeah. He was saying exactly that, but he also first quoted:

Quote:
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana


--which means [almost] exactly what you said. =P


Manhiem, Juno, sorry I missed your earlier posts.

I was trying to say that a conscious decision, by any group of people, to turn their back on history, to ignore it or to actively try to suppress or re-write it, is a harmful thing of the first order to the future.

With modern technology changing the perception of history will be much more of a challenge to any current or future revisionists. It is that same technology that I firmly believe could also enable revisionists to succeed.

In the end it is individuals, like us, that will determine what is remembered and what is lost to time.

Mark Gosdin
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faintsmile1992



Joined: 18 Mar 2011
Posts: 295
Location: England
PostPosted: Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:25 am Reply with quote
The problem is not historical facts but that people abuse historical facts to push agendas. People talk as though the Japanese censor historical facts outright, rather than controlling the way they are presented (this is something different), and all countries practice some kind of political curtailments like that. In itself history is simply a sequence of historical trivia, till someone presents it with spin, and no one has a monopoly on trying that.
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mgosdin



Joined: 17 Jul 2011
Posts: 1302
Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA
PostPosted: Mon Aug 19, 2013 11:52 am Reply with quote
NERVchild wrote:
nargun wrote:
Chrno2 wrote:
WTF??? Seems like Japan is doing their apologetic crap again


It's not "Japan". Matsue is hicksville. Towns like Matsue are backwards in any country, and japan -- and remote parts like Matsue even more so -- has the special issue of its very particular demographics. Given that social progress is largely signposted by graves of old people...

They're scared. They're getting old, and their children don't visit [it's two-and-a-half hours by train from Okayama.] Things are changing and they look like they're gonna suck. Of course they retreat into the past: the future holds nothing for them.

Your proper basis of comparison is probably something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_Public_Schools


Thanks for the generalized assumption about the people of Matsue and of Fargo, ND </sarcasm>.

The book is still there as teaching materials for teachers if they choose to use it for their class. It is shocking and horrifying, and some classes or specific students may not be able to get past that or retain composure of themselves. You do not show the dangers of misusing guns by displaying crime scene photos to first graders or to those overly sensitive; the rest of the day will be spent consoling crying children. The use of it is up to the teachers. If the school board orders teachers not to use it ever, then Matsue has a new problem to face.

Despite people's attempt at rewriting history, the information is still out there for young, inquiring minds, if someone will guide them to it.
--"They can't stop the signal." Serenity


NERVchild, nargun, Chrno2, I'd like to give you a bit of personal history. I'm from a part of the US where the proverbial "Hicksville" might have been looked at as being the big city. I grew up with many adults, Parents, Grand-Parents, Teachers and other authority figures who fought and suffered in the Second World War and would have willingly seen Japan and Germany both bombed back beyond the stone age.

Those people weren't bloodthirsty or uncivilized, they were angry.

Those same people were mightily upset whenever it was pointed out that the US was not free of guilt in the war's prosecution. ( Whoever said "War is Hell" was a died-in-the-wool optimist, it is worse. ) Even though some of them were present and admitted to me that they saw what happened when things went wrong.

I won't judge the people in Matsue, for all I know it's a pleasant place and I suspect most of the people there are having a hard enough time just making a living without grousing about how Barefoot Gen depicted history.

Mark Gosdin
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Chrno2



Joined: 28 May 2004
Posts: 6171
Location: USA
PostPosted: Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:32 pm Reply with quote
mgosdin wrote:
NERVchild wrote:
nargun wrote:
Chrno2 wrote:
WTF??? Seems like Japan is doing their apologetic crap again


It's not "Japan". Matsue is hicksville. Towns like Matsue are backwards in any country, and japan -- and remote parts like Matsue even more so -- has the special issue of its very particular demographics. Given that social progress is largely signposted by graves of old people...

They're scared. They're getting old, and their children don't visit [it's two-and-a-half hours by train from Okayama.] Things are changing and they look like they're gonna suck. Of course they retreat into the past: the future holds nothing for them.

Your proper basis of comparison is probably something like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fargo_Public_Schools


Thanks for the generalized assumption about the people of Matsue and of Fargo, ND </sarcasm>.

The book is still there as teaching materials for teachers if they choose to use it for their class. It is shocking and horrifying, and some classes or specific students may not be able to get past that or retain composure of themselves. You do not show the dangers of misusing guns by displaying crime scene photos to first graders or to those overly sensitive; the rest of the day will be spent consoling crying children. The use of it is up to the teachers. If the school board orders teachers not to use it ever, then Matsue has a new problem to face.

Despite people's attempt at rewriting history, the information is still out there for young, inquiring minds, if someone will guide them to it.
--"They can't stop the signal." Serenity


NERVchild, nargun, Chrno2, I'd like to give you a bit of personal history. I'm from a part of the US where the proverbial "Hicksville" might have been looked at as being the big city. I grew up with many adults, Parents, Grand-Parents, Teachers and other authority figures who fought and suffered in the Second World War and would have willingly seen Japan and Germany both bombed back beyond the stone age.

Those people weren't bloodthirsty or uncivilized, they were angry.

Those same people were mightily upset whenever it was pointed out that the US was not free of guilt in the war's prosecution. ( Whoever said "War is Hell" was a died-in-the-wool optimist, it is worse. ) Even though some of them were present and admitted to me that they saw what happened when things went wrong.

I won't judge the people in Matsue, for all I know it's a pleasant place and I suspect most of the people there are having a hard enough time just making a living without grousing about how Barefoot Gen depicted history.

Mark Gosdin


Yes, that does make sense from which side of the fence. You still here that here. It's shame that things often are being that way. It's one reason why you look at things from both sides. Which is often hard to do. Thanks for that thought. Wink
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MangaNeko



Joined: 21 Sep 2008
Posts: 137
PostPosted: Mon Aug 26, 2013 1:11 pm Reply with quote
It was nice to read this update

[url] http://news.yahoo.com/japan-school-board-bows-outcry-drops-curbs-anti-101359757.html [/url]


Also nice to read the majority of the principles did not want to remove the material.
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