Sharin Yamano/Shinyusha
In "Hating the Korean Wave," a young Japanese woman says, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!"
Posted on 11/20/2005 7:55:12 PM PST by neverdem
TOKYO, Nov. 14 - A young Japanese woman in the comic book "Hating the Korean Wave" exclaims, "It's not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" In another passage the book states that "there is nothing at all in Korean culture to be proud of."
In another comic book, "Introduction to China," which portrays the Chinese as a depraved people obsessed with cannibalism, a woman of Japanese origin says: "Take the China of today, its principles, thought, literature, art, science, institutions. There's nothing attractive."
The two comic books, portraying Chinese and Koreans as base peoples and advocating confrontation with them, have become runaway best sellers in Japan in the last four months.
In their graphic and unflattering drawings of Japan's fellow Asians and in the unapologetic, often offensive contents of their speech bubbles, the books reveal some of the sentiments underlying Japan's worsening relations with the rest of Asia.
They also point to Japan's longstanding unease with the rest of Asia and its own sense of identity, which is akin to Britain's apartness from the Continent. Much of Japan's history in the last century and a half has been guided by the goal of becoming more like the West and less like Asia. Today, China and South Korea's rise to challenge Japan's position as Asia's economic, diplomatic and cultural leader is inspiring renewed xenophobia against them here.
Kanji Nishio, a scholar of German literature, is honorary chairman of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, the nationalist organization that has pushed to have references to the country's wartime atrocities eliminated from junior high school textbooks.
Mr. Nishio is blunt about how Japan should deal with its neighbors, saying nothing has changed since 1885, when one of modern Japan's most influential intellectuals, Yukichi Fukuzawa, said Japan...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
ping
Ah... the dark underbelly of manga. Somehow this nauseates me more than any number of tentacle-rape scenes. Those, after all, are still only fantasy.
Finally, Japan is becoming itself again.
Nishio-san is leading his country off a cliff...assuming that the Japanese are for the most part stupid enough to follow him. I don't think they are.
Although the Japanese had excelled in horror (Ringu (Ring), Ju-on (Grudge)) they have resorted to endlessly copying the long dark haired female ghost to the point where it's not even scary anymore-i.e. Dark Waters.
The sole exception being Miike's sick, twisted, gut wrenching "Audition"-it's like Fatal Attraction on steroids. Now that movie was great.
Puh-LEEZE.
Japan never changed.
Why do you think some of us here dislike the idea others have of arming China as an 'equal partner' in the region? One more racist, armed state we don't need in a region already full of `em.
<< Finally, Japan is becoming itself again. >>
Just how thin IS the Xerox copy of Judeo-Christian/American/Western/Human Civilization pulled over themselves like a dust cover by such states as Japan and South East Asia's "tigers?"
And, least we forget, for a time, by Germany and Britain and much of the rest of Old Europe.
And Canada.
Although never in the collection of other peoples lands and states and nations and sovereign territories brutally colonized, occupied and enslaved by the wannabe-warlord Peking pack of predatory gangster bastards that so grandiosely calls itself, "china."
And yet, of them all, only Japan and, one prays, Taiwan, have the strength of character to survive in any recognizable form of their present selves. And likely, especially Japan, as our loyal friends and allies.
"They're riot-ing in A-fri-ca"...
It's as though someone presented the 'Stormfront' website as a accurate portrayal of America.
"South Koreans hate Japanese"
Fifteen years ago a friend of mine showed me a map of Tokyo.
There were these huge green parts on the map that I assumed were parks.
I mentioned that Tokyo had a many large parks, pointing to the green areas.
She said those are the Korean neighborhoods. The Japanese do not acknowledge the existence or publish street names in the Korean areas of Tokyo. For all intents and purposes they don't exist.
Also children born of Korean parents or mixed Japanese/Korean ancestory are considered forigners and no foreigner can ever become a Japanese citizen.
If you ever want to get into an arguement with a Japanese just mention that it was ancient Koreans who originally colonized Japan.
The Japanese culture views non-Japanese with a venom they do not always take pains to conceal.
You can find a wide spectrum of political views among Japanese mangas - from the nutty uber-Chomskyite Left to palro-Tojoite militarist Right. To be honest, the fads come and go in Japan and I would doubt whether most run of the mills Japanese, whether they are leftists or conservatives, will take such mangas seriously.
The article raises an important point about Japan vis-a-vis the rest of East Asia: Japan has always enjoyed a recent cultural link with the wider Anglosphere but it also occupies a place in the Chinese cultural sphere (Sinosphere) when considering its heritage. The conflicts between Japan going into the Anglosphere's orbits (as manifested by Yukichi Fukuzawa's Datsu-A Ron, or "Leaving Asia" theory), and uniting with the rest of the Chinese cultural sphere (as put forth in the ideology of pan-Asianism, or "Asian united front" theory) is particularly intense. It may be an interesting battle ahead.
For a view favouring Japan aligning with the Anglosphere, see this Jim Bennett, a US conservative and Anglosphere adovate, article:
http://www.upi.com/inc/view.php?StoryID=18012002-055550-1094r
For a view adovating Japan to embrace pan-Asianism, see this article by Chen Kwang-hsing, a Taiwanese Marxist/Third World nationalist leftist (in Chinese):
http://hss.nthu.edu.tw/~apcs/kh/04.htm
Apparently the Japanese in these pictures have nice round eyes.
I hate to say it, but Asians can be some of the most racist people around. My father was born a "half-breed" during the Korean War. Half Korean and half Caucasian. His mother died and his remaining relatives treated him no better than a stray dog. He ended up on the streets at a very young age. Fortunately, he found his way into the Holt Orphanage and was adopted by my grandparents at the age of 11. Thank God he made it to the US.
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