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INTEREST: Evangelion Character Designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto Attracts Criticism Over 'Dismissive' Twee

harminia wrote:

WWII ended 74 years ago. Many people who were alive during it are still alive now. Children of those in the war are still alive now. This isn't like some event that happened in the 1700s where people related have been dead for centuries. This is still relevant. It's still a pretty recent memory.

Those that were children during WWII cannot be held responsible for acts that they neither committed nor had any control over happening. I agree that those who were adults, particularly those who were soldiers at the time, should be held accountable. While there are still some former WWII Japanese soldiers and "comfort women" that are still alive, the majority of those responsible for these crimes have long since passed away.

At what point do we, as a society, acknowledge that these actions have occurred but also grant forgiveness to those that have committed these acts? In the US, we have politicians that are exploring the idea of reparations for slavery despite the fact that no one alive today was ever a plantation slave or slave owner/seller. Every country and group of people has, at some point in their history, committed some sort of heinous action towards another group of people (and sometimes their own). If we start holding one group of people who weren't alive when these actions occurred accountable for whatever their ancestors did, where does the blaming game stop? If I am expected to apologize for something my ancestors 200 years ago did, does that mean I can expect reparations from another group of people whose ancestors wronged mine? Can they also sue those that hurt their ancestors hundreds of years ago? Apart from the lawyers, who really benefits from suing those alive today for what their ancestors did?

In this particular case, the Japanese Government needs to compensate those women who were abused. They also need to acknowledge that these events did occur. But I think the only people who should be expected to apologize are those that actually did the crimes, which means that the majority of Japanese citizens alive today should not be held responsible for things that they could not have prevented.

The difference is that America acknowledges the dropping of atomic bombs, while many if not most Japanese pretend that the "comfort women" problem never happened at all. They try and hide it, sweep it under the rug, rather than owning up to 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.

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.

He feels the art piece isn't making meaningful commentary and is of low craftsmanship.

Is he being criticized because people want him to support the piece regardless of its quality or message?

Is there any artwork supporting the cause of the Comfort Women that is good and he'd support? Does he have to like them all?

This isn't even denying the issue. With the Reiwa era starting Japan is getting a lot of pushback by its neighbors. Their neighbors aren't exactly being kind and the generations that had nothing to do with the offenses are noticing they are to take blame for their past and that it should weigh on their present. Were there not also calls for reparations somewhat recently?

The insult here is that they aren't even making 'great' art to make the criticism. His complaint is someone slid in a crappy job to take a cheap shot.

I wonder why people care so much about this, it's history? yes, but it's unrelated to the active population of Japan nowadays, and to be perfectly honest, it must be very annoying. It's not like Japan constantly whines at the US for dropping the 2 bombs, so why should S.Korea do it for the comfort women? At this point, it's only to pressure Japan, and Sadamoto must be very annoyed to go into twitter and post about it. It's not commendable, true, but it's no reason to berate him.

That is not to say that those that deny that those events happened are right, but at the same time, everyone who lived in that era and had some sort of role in it is already long dead, and the people of the present have absolutely no obligation to feel responsible for that. The son of a murderer must not pay for what their parents did, and if people keep pestering this person about what they did, they have all the right to get annoyed.

While simultaneously taking a hard line approach to being unapologetic about 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.

It has been a while since I have watched Evangelion but having a single horrible father in a show doesn't mean that everyone working on that show has a problem with fathers. Also Evangelion was a show that was made by a company and a lot changes when the government is paying the bill since that means that taxpayers are paying for it.

Japan, as a state, should do what Germany did: Accept its history, learn it ell, and disassociate its present culture from it. Many Japanese already do that, but it should become a program of the state.

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.

Regarding:

BadNewsBlues wrote:

While simultaneously taking a hard line approach to being unapologetic about it.

and

SilverTalon01 wrote:

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.

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.

The fact that Japan continuously DENIES what they did means it stays relevant. If Japan had accepted they did that and apologised, people could've moved on a little and healed.