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 ...
"When asked to respond to the upwelling of nationalist fervor, several prominent anime characters responded to reporters' questions...." 
SPIEGEL
"Chauvinists?...Who?....Us!????......No, we just don't like the fact that people in other Asian countries haven't figured out that World War II is over yet!"
VALENTINE:
"Yeah, Spike, that and that kimchi stuff smells like last weeks laundry...."
Be Seeing You,
Chris
thanks for the movie suggestions (aint Netflix great)
I think you are on to something... Divide and conquer.
Could anybody give me a thumbnail sketch of the primary differences between the Chinese, Japanese and the Koreans. I teach English as a Second Language and my students have said that the "mentality" is very different between the three countries. In what ways?
IMHO, they are able to identify "the other". Folks naturally tend to their own kind, regardless of the time, once wars are started. The left clings to Marxist doctrine. It refuses to acknowlegde human nature.
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.
I own a large number of maps of Tokyo. What your friend told you is not true. Green areas on most maps are indeed parks or at least open areas of some sort. I opened my favorite book of maps, Tokyo 7000, and there are two areas keyed as green in it: kouen (
, parks) and ryokuchi (
, green space).
Also for what it is worth, most streets in Tokyo do not have a name. The Japanese use an area system for naming, not a street system. For instance, the address for the publisher of the map that I am using is 
3-1-2, which starts with the city, Tokyo, then the division of Tokyo called Chiyoda-ku, then to the area Misakichou San Choume within Chiyoda-ku, and then finally gives a smaller numbered area, and then the building number in that area (which turns out to appear on page 189 of their own map book.)
As to the completeness of the maps, I have walked a largish portion of Tokyo using maps such as Tokyo 7000 and I can assure you of their accuracy. Cab drivers use these highly detailed maps to find their way about the city (there is no true equivalent to London's "The Knowledge" for Tokyo cab drivers.)
(For the pictures of kanji in this posting, I used Jim Breen's excellent website.)
"When will there be "enough" atonement?"
After there is *some* atonement.
"that Americans cannot understand"
Well, in my view it's not that Americans are not able to understand it, but rather that they either lack the knowledge or are unwilling to believe it.
Go up to the average American and say something like, "It grates on the Japanese that they do not presently occupy what they view as their rightful position as overlords of the human race," and they'll think you're a crackpot.
Let them spend a few years in Japan, and all but a very few dullards will say, "I thought you were a crackpot, but I now see that you were understating the reality."
And Edward said "UrrrrPPPP!"
I would tend to believe that these type of manga like those other types I.E:tentacle rape and darker varieties are a small portion of the Maga Market.
Akin to a crudely drawn White power comic without the crudely drawn part, since there are more wannabe manga artists then actual jobs available. On only has to look that the vast arena of doshinji manga to know that that much talent searching for employement, would eventually get picked up by some of the darker sides of Japanese society, like the militarists.
This isn't the first time such a warning has been raised.
And now if you'll excuse me I'm going to photoshop "It's all Bush Fault" in place of the Kanji in the first picture.
By the way, Japanese draw manga as they see themselves, for those of you that wonder why all the characters don't have slanted eyes.
Just a quickie...
"The Japanese have always been racist and exclusionary."
That bears repeating. In my job, we've had to deal with Japanese. They are as racist and arrogant as any other people I've ever worked with. One thing that really irks me is their insistence on being addressed as Mr. whatever. My company works on an informal first name basis except when it comes to Japanese. Then we have to call them Mr. whatever. They call us by our first name though.
The Japanese don't reproduce themselves anymore and will allow very few immigrants (close to none, really)--they'll have all the threat of a nursing home very shortly.
One could say the same about the militarists in Japan.
For example, there is much that is praiseworthy in bushido, including the fact that traditional samurai culture rather sharply distinguished between combatants and non-combatants, a distinction erased by the militarists, and the insistence that honor required a defense of the weak, the aged, and the poor. Not different in some respects from the chivalric code of Europe, but very different from the barbarism practiced by the military regime in Japan.
The trick now is to try to get the Japanese to sort through their history fairly, which includes not only the recognition of the atrocities of WWII but also how those atrocities were the antithesis (not the fulfillment) of the best of Japan's ancient traditions.
LOL. How cool was that fight in the hallway scene?
Thanks. I did not know that.
LOL. Let's just say they've come a long way.
How abut that scene were she was sitting by the phone waiting for the guy to call? (shudder)
Could you image the outrage if in Germany comic books depicting Jews in negative cariacatures became popular? What's the difference here?
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