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To: coydog; neverdem; TigerLikesRooster; AmericanInTokyo

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


17 posted on 11/20/2005 8:29:08 PM PST by NZerFromHK (Alberta independentists to Canada (read: Ontario and Quebec): One hundred years is long enough)
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To: NZerFromHK

Thanks for the links.


24 posted on 11/20/2005 8:34:53 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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