Senkou no Night Raid Episode 7 About Mukden Incident To Be Online Only

So as far as I understand it, you think it's bad to be controversial in public, because it hurts political relations...


I went to the Yushukan and while of course it does swing right-wing (I wouldn't question that) there have been worse museums around the world I went to.
Excluding the 3 rooms about the actual reasons for the war it is mostly a memorial of Japanese war history and I think not a bad one from a purely scientific viewpoint.
The political information in there is questionable, if not downright wrong, of course.

But I think you have to differentiate between the concept of Yasukuni and the foundation behind the Yushukan.
Of course it is a center of right-wing interest groups, but accusing a place (mostly of course with historical relevance) of being at fault for the current uprise of right-wing groups is a bit shortsighted I think.
But where exactly do you see the connection between yakuza and ultra-nationalists?! Or are you reffering to the annual commemoration held at Yasukuni?


The problem is, you seem to have a totally wrong understanding of the cultural and religious background of a Shinto shrine like Yasukuni.
In Shinto every person who dies a gruesome death becomes a vengeful spirit which wrecks havoc on the world, so to counter the fear of the public (suddenly being able to fight) during the Meiji restauration the tennô created the concept of Yasukuni, so that not each soldier had to be individually declared dead and build a shrine (there would be also those with no family or other relations). Every Japanese soldier who died in any war related to Japan would automatically enter Yasukuni.
This concept is not about worshipping the dead, be it hero or criminal, it is about giving peace to them (and therefore automatically to the living). It is even written down like that in the constitution of Yasukuni, which is why it is so difficult to change the concept.

Of course it has been debated to make Yasukuni a non-religious site and turn it into a pure war-memorial, but it's function is to keep the hatred of soldiers who died in a war at bay...which is a purely religious concept. The problem is Yasukuni in it's basic function is not a memorial.
In Japan there were even shrines build for people who were killed for treason against their own country, because the public was affraid of their vengeance. And even today this superstition is too deeply rooted within culture to just change it within some 50 years.


If you'd read carefully you might have noticed I never said to 'screw all ties with them'. I merely said that it is a common fault of humanity to search for the enemies weakpoints, fully ignoring their possible presence in one's own philosophy at all.
For me this is not only a question of politics, but also a question of moral.


Okay, there is just one flaw in this construct.
You say: They are celebrities, but people don't care.
The problem is, most people are not celebrities because of their nationalistic viewpoint, but despite that. I would agree with you that it is a problem how uneducated most of any countries population is concerning their own historical, cultural or political background.
Many people just don't start to question anything. But how can we expect them to question anything if it is not allowed to carry those topics into a public space?


Denying the Holocaust being a crime? How did you get that idea?
This falls directly into the space of freedom of opinion, which is also the problem why we cannot forbid extremist right-wing groups to hold open gatherings or speeches in public.
It only falls into the space of criminal (at least here in Germany) once an agressive stance with direct violent tendencies is visible...like pushing people into violence against foreigners.

I think the other problem you mentioned is understandable, but not only Japan's but an international problem.
The western world had their full attention on Europe during the war and concerning this topic it is still a sad truth that most western nations do not educate their population about the historical background of Asia at all.
While globalization might sound nice and we all feel so much more connected in the 21st century, for most 'Western people' (meaning Europe and America) Asia is still this unexplored, foreign place of wonders and dangers, which it was in the 19th century.
There was no real reason to spend further money on rebuilding the Asian infrastructure after the war, because the attention of the world was on Europe and the borders of Russia.
To just break this argument down to 'Germany was punished, Japan was not' might seem like a logical consequence, but there are so many more reasons behind it.
Hell, Germany would have been turned into a giant wheat and potato field by America, had they not suddenly noticed that behind Germany their next enemy stood just in line...Russia. So basically they rebuild Germany only as a possible buffer-zone when the cold war would escalate.

What I'm trying to say is, you can't group politics, moral ethics and war together and expect the result to make sense. Of course it's politicians who declare war and excuse it with moral ethics...but the problem is, they do not mix.
And that is why it is important to keep being controversial, because it shows at least a small amount of people how stupid the concepts of political warfare are.


What I meant to say is, that this is again too much of a generalization to be kept as a valid argument.
Saying 'The Mukden Incident was about wiping out the Chinese' is like saying 'In the cold war America fought against Russia'. It is basically in a very general sense, maybe true on a purely ideological level, but it does not even start to touch the background.

The Mukden Incident was at first a result of uniteligent treaties made after the Russio-Japanese war, which made the Russian and Japanese occupants colide in Manchuria.
Throughout Asia there was a growing fear of communism from the Soviet Union and it was generally a politically unstable time.
So the Mukden incident was orchestrated in a way that was supposed to make it clear that the attack came from China, for Japan to have a reason to invade the area and claim it for the Empire of Japan. Therefore Japan was able to build up a region under direct control of the Empire at the border to Russia and gave them additional power in their expansion.
The Chinese soldiers of the group stationed there, who died in the annexion of Manchuria was, I think, less a goal but an acceptable loss for the Japanese military.
The Chinese governemnt responsible for this area even gave orders to not resist the Japanese army further.

lol you two are still going on with this?

I should open a fan club for you two lol.

I supposed I didn't make it clear before. I can do nothing if someone like Kobayashi Yoshinori wants to stir up controversy with his loony followers. However, I believe the group that made this (Anime no Chikara) has affiliation with TV Tokyo (might even be own by TV TOKYO). TV Tokyo is part of MAINSTREAM media. Stirring up controversies in the main stream media is not good, especially not when it seems like China and Japan are finally getting on better grounds. Sino-Japanese ties finally reached new heights since Hatoyama came to power, but it looks like it's going to crash again. *sighs*



You're way too soft on Yasukuni. Please, have you ever heard of Yushukan, the "museum" right next to Yasukuni? For the record, that museum is nothing but right-wing propaganda. Yasukuni is even recognized as a favorite right-wing hang-out spot. It's quite humorous that you accuse people of misunderstanding Yasukuni when the Yasukuni owners are the ones making up lies in their Yushukan while offering a resting ground for yakuzas and right-wing groups. Yasukuni may not have started off as a simple resting ground for the dead, but you can't deny that NOW it is a right-wing center.

Of course, if Japanese really want to respect their war dead, I must ask: is visiting Yasukuni the only way to do it? Don't Japanese have shrines in their homes where they worship their ancestors? Can't the Japanese government build a memorial to soldiers that exclude war criminals? The last one has actually been debated for awhile, since Koizumi's days (maybe even earlier), but the funny thing is: the Japanese government never went with the plan!



Now THAT is a netto uyoku's response: completely dodging the problem by saying: "Well, China and Korea are no saints either! So screw all ties with them!" Such a response will only result in even further deteriorating ties with Asia for Japan. But apparently, judging from your and Japanese people's response, they don't seem to care. But I am tired of them acting all hypocritical when China and Korea don't welcome Japan. If you want to ruin ties with Asia, fine, but don't be surprised if Asia doesn't welcome you.



They ARE celebrities. Ignoring Tamogami, you still have Ishihara Shintaro, governor of Tokyo for... how many years? Over a decade? I don't think Japanese in general are ultra-nationalistic, but I think most Japanese just don't care. They don't care what right wingers say, but they certainly don't care if right-wingers have political power.



Are you going to tell me all the rumors about denying the Holocast being a crime were all lies? Also, everybody holds Germany accountable to her crimes. Only Asia holds Japan to her crimes. Japan doesn't, and the West (particularly America) protects Japan so they can use Japan as a geopolitical tool against China, North Korea, and Russia. This cannot be denied with the incredibly unfair San Francisco Treaty.




You show your bias by either being pro-Japan or pro-China. Either way, it's being bias. Also, to say it's impossible to be neutral is definitely true. Do you know anyone who has a truly neutral belief on a very controversial topic? To be truly neutral, you cannot swing either way in the slightest bit.



Read what I said again. I said Japanese government agencies, NOT Japanese people. I am aware some Japanese were against the war at that time, but the Japanese government was hell-bent on war.

Finally, your comment on the Mukden Incident forces me to suspect either you don't know what it was, or that you are a Japanese nationalist. EVERY source that's NOT Yushukan or some other garbage manufactured by the uyoku admits that the Mukden Incident was caused by Japanese troops as an excuse to destroy China. What's next, the Nanjing Massacre was not an event by the Japanese troops to wipe out the Chinese?

This is not exactly answering my question, which is why I want to ask it again.
Do you think that historical topics should never be displayed in any works, like books, films or comics?
Well okay, I am one of those people who dislike romantic comedies because basically they are (in most cases) about nothing. A controversial topic on the other hand gives the viewers the possibility to talk about a series and discuss it's relevance to their current circumstances or it's view on society.


I understand why this is still considered a difficult topic, but on many levels people don't even try to understand the concept behind Yasukuni.
It is not about worshipping war criminals as gods, it is about appeasing the restless spirits of those Japanese who died a terrible death in any war. To break that down to war criminals become gods is a major misunderstanding of Shinto beliefs.

Of course it violates the seperation of state and reliogion, but to favour the political aspect of this discussion would mean excluding the cultural aspect. You can't just sum this up with saying: "Politicians can't go there."
It is highly sensitive, but I can't stop thinking that most people claiming it to be such a huge part in the whole discussion don't understand the actuall concept of Yasukuni.


I find it very hard to believe that threats like this come from countries which are not any better, when it comes to globalization and international politics.
To level with your line of argumentation:
China is controlling what people see, what they can say, what they can think...basically it is not any better concerning inner-politics than any other empire was in the history of mankind.
North Korea is threatening the whole world and controlling it's citizens in a similarly harsh manner and is basically lead by right wing extremists.
It is difficult not to question critics like that.


And again it is your broad generalization which destroys the argument in my oppinion.
'Japan' can not accept 'her' war crimes, because it is not a breathing, thinking individual. It is a collection of different individuals all following different ideals and oppinions and you can never unite those under one banner, unless you fall back to totalitarism.
Many Japanese politicians as well as famous people have accepted and dealt with what happened during the Pacific war. To claim that people who deny what happened during that time immediatly become celebrities is laughable at best.
Of course they are welcomed in right wing circles and in those they are treated as heroes, but it is not like Japan as a whole would follow extremist right-wing ideals.

I assure you, if you'd had taken the time to research some of the right-wing extremist incidents in Germany during the last 5-10 years, you would have seen that it is a largely similar problem.
Germany has a much more colourful ethnic background, so of course there is a certain amount of people who would never be reached by right-wing propaganda. But especially in the areas weaker in income and education, right-wing groups have gained huge amounts of followers, because actually many Germans fear what happens due to large scale globalization in Europe, especially now with the financial crisis at hand.

Right-Wing propaganda is almost never a well constructed approach towards public problems, but mostly uses the stupidity of a large percentage of a countries population and turns the nearest non-nationalistic concept into a goal for the anger and fear of the people.
A person who gives the uneducated masses this easy-way-out is of course welcomed into the group. And especially if those topics, which right-wing extremists use, were never discussed and always shoved away from public oppinion can they succed in turning them into weapons.


For one, why do you think it is impossible to be neutral? That is exactly what we have to do, to be able to learn from past mistakes. Saying it is impossible to talk neutrally about it is like accepting naive principles like good and evil as part of a war.

And that is exactly how I would answer your second question and why I think that you answered it yourself. The setting was chosen because it is controversial, it forces people to think about it without actually using a sledge hammer moral.
A similar controversy came up when in Germany a movie called 'Nicht alle waren Mörder' (Not everyone was a murderer) was broadcasted on national television. It depicted a Jewish family being helped by Germans during their escape from concentration camp.


So basically you are saying that there was not one Japanese person back then who was against Japanese Imperialism in the way it was executed.
That is like saying 'everybody in Germany was an ideal Nazi'...it raises the question, what happened with them after the war? Did suddenly the spell of evil and wickedness lift with the death of Adolf Hitler and everybody could laugh again, while flowers and trees began to bloom?!
To make an absolute claim like 'it was everyone's goal' is what is highly illogical. There is nothing like absolute things and as there might have been Japanese agencies who deserted, there might have been Chinese people who helped the Japanese for personal gains.

And to say that the Mukden incidents only goal was to wipe China off the map makes it seem like you yourself are largely influenced by nationalistic propganda.

Fine, if you want to be such a Japanese Imperialist apologist, then go ahead. Keep making controversial series. This is precisely Koizumi's response when he visited Yasukuni: "What's wrong with me, being the prime minister of Japan and possibly violating separation of religion and state, worshiping war criminals as my gods? It is in our Shinto culture, you know." Very well then, but Japan can continue to expect deteriorating relationships with the rest of Asia and further expand either isolation or dependence on the US-Japan alliance. Also, Japan has no right to whine whatsoever if Japan is not welcomed in any Asian countries with attitude such as this.



Whose fault do you think this is that this topic is taboo? If Japan actually accepts her war crimes as fact, this series wouldn't be anywhere NEAR as controversial. We don't find the Holocaust in the West to be nearly as controversial as Nanjing Massacre, except for the very few times some lunatic denies the Holocaust. But then again, these lunatics would be forced to live with idiots like the president of Iran in order to live because of all the backlash. People who deny Japan's war crimes are treated like celebrities in Japan (see: Tamogami. I forgot his first name, but he used to work with Japan's Self Defense force until he denied Japan was the aggressor. He was sacked, but is now a celebrity). On the other hands, Japanese media who DO admit Japan's war crimes (like, Asahi Shimbun) are labeled as "traitors" (baikokudo) and told to get out of Japan. Just how many times has Asahi Shimbun's headquarters been attacked by right wing groups? Just who is trying to keep the historical debate alive? Just who is responsible for making this whole era a taboo, more than it should be?



It is IMPOSSIBLE to be neutral when talking about controversial events. Also, my point is that WHY does it have to be in the 1930's? So far, I see absolutely NO reason for this series to be set in the 1930's... it could have just been another CANAAN, set in modern Shanghai. As you can see, I haven't been bitching at all about this series after I ranted on episode 1... but now, they just had to drag in the Mukden Incident. There's no other reason for this series to be set in the 1930's other than to stir up controversies.



What's wrong with high school drama *is a slice of life fan*? Also, bringing up Japan's WWII roles is definitely unwanted controversy if you've been following Asian politics. China and South Korea practically broke off ties with Japan during Koizumi's reign.



The problem is that it's not cowardice; it's just downright lying. You can research Channel Sakura, or Mizushima Satoru's "The Truth of Nanjing".



If this anime is to receive any decent scoring from me, then maybe it should end with the organization trying to stop a second Sino-Japanese war but end in failure (as in, maybe getting wiped out in the process). But now matter how you look at it, it's illogical. All Japanese government agencies were looking for an excuse to wipe China off the map (this was actually the intention of the Mukden Incident), so for this group to be rather sympathetic with China really makes little to no historical sense.

Is there something wrong with controversy? Some of the most important works of art were notable precisely because they were controversial and challenged parts of society that people were not comfortable dealing with. Would you rather A1 Pictures make a highschool drama instead? Like you say, many Asian companies shy away from incidents like the Nanking Massacre. But do you think that's a good thing?

I for one applaud the fact that they are touching upon a subject that is so sensitive in Japan and has been dealt with cowardice traditionally in Japanese media.

In any case, I simply can't wait for the next episode. I really hope they don't try to play it safe like they did with the extremely generic ending of Sora no Woto.

Well why can't they make a series set in 1930's Asia?!
Why is it okay to depict the French Revolution, the Vietnam War, WW1 in Europe, the attack on Pearl Harbour?!

On the one hand many East Asian countries keep bringing up Japan's war crimes during the Pacific crisis when it comes to justifying their own actions, on the other hand they ask for every actuall depiction of it to be banned from public view.

Of course a series like this is controversial, but most of it only because we make the topic a taboo. It is something we should be able to discuss and display, because only while dealing with it we can learn from it. Making it a taboo and demonizing those acts, ripping them out from any historical context, is what's making the situation so much more difficult.



What I find positive of the series so far is, that it is neither pro-China nor pro-Japan, exactly what popular culture and art should do. It is not about assuming a political stance as an entertainer or producer, it is about mirroring reality in their own work.

I would appreciate it if they actually delved further into those events and looked at them from both sides...maybe more people would dare to touch those events then and start to deconstruct this concept of demonization that still remains about this topic.
It wasn't demons from hell who ravished East Asia during those days, it were humans and if we are not able to reflect on those events in a non-sensationalistic manner, we will never be able to discuss them reasonably.

The series can of course still drop into propagandistic nonsense, but so far it is an intersting take on history with, if any direction is there, Japan more on the negative side.


I think this is because while in the case of Germany everyone, even we Germans, agreed on pushing all the blame on the leaders of Nazi-Germany and turning them into pitiful examples of sub-human monsters (while partly true it is largely exagerated and one-sided), Japan remained proud as a political and national individual.

Like I said once before, both ways have their good and bad sides and many people think in extremes way too much.
Japan is not still an Imperialistic force which tries to enslave all of Asia only because they do not grovel in shame.
Germany is not suddenly free of all evil only because Hitler and Goebbels are dead.

In Germany they can show Der Untergang, but in Japan they can't show something related to the Mukden Incident..