Japanese Neo-Nationalism Expressed in Anime Terror in Resonance Nowadays, Japanese animes are becoming increasingly famous, and America is not an exception for anime’s gigantic worldwide fandom. Animes, such as One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, and Attack on Titan, are the main leaders of the anime wave sweeping all over the world. Nevertheless, many Japanese animes are often criticized at the same time for employing the idea of neo-nationalism or indirectly mentioning justifications for Japan’s war crimes during the World War II. Although they are not really noticeable to most of the audience, the author of a famous anime, Attack on Titan, Hajime Isayama demonstrated that such neo-nationalist factors actually exist in animes when he showed a strong
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According to the explanations from the anime, the superficial purpose of the organization was to promote interaction between the Japanese government and its people, but it was actually an organization of influential Japanese people who are right wing neo-nationalists. In the anime, the organization has enough authority to conduct secret research projects and affect some of the government decisions. The anime makes the audience to question what is exactly neo-nationalism and how many people take such stands in reality. There is no way to measure the exact number of nationalists in Japan but the influence of nationalists in Japan is well shown in Matthew’s article, “the country 's Self Defense Forces (SDF) are increasing dramatically their expenditures on missile defense, requesting $1.2 billion for it in 2004, nine times more than the total spent from 1999 to 2003.” The cause of the dramatic increase in the expenditures cannot really be considered as increase in global conflicts but rather as nationalist influence from high Japanese officials, preparing a stepping stone to remilitarize Japan. Furthermore, since the government decisions, most of the time, represents beliefs of its people, the increase in the expenditure in SDF can be interpreted as an increase in Japanese people supporting neo-nationalism and a dramatic shift of the government …show more content…
In episode 10, one of the FBI officials says, “we need evidence that at the same time this country’s constitutional interpretation changed, they started producing atomic bombs behind closed door.” What have said in the anime can be seen as an exaggeration to make the story more interest, but the quote actually well illustrates the plausible outcome of the neo-nationalism. According to the Greenpeace’s report, “the country [Japan] already has 38,ooo kilograms of the radioactive material; by 2020, it will have 145,000 kilograms. Given that only 5 kilograms are required for one nuclear weapon, Japan would then be able to assemble almost 30,000 nuclear warheads” (Matthews). It is hard to imagine that Japan is actually producing such a huge amount of nuclear weapon now but the situation may drastically change if the event is paired with another nationalist movement, amendment of the Japanese Constitution. “Largely authored by the American postwar occupation forces, the Constitution has been a bugbear of the nationalist right in Japan, who have called for its revision since the early 1950s” (Penney). Especially, Article 9 of the constitution has been the center of the conflict because it bans Japan from having its own military for aggressive warfare in order to prevent the repeating of the catastrophe of the World War II. If the amendment of the constitution is confirmed, it is
According to the explanations from the anime, the superficial purpose of the organization was to promote interaction between the Japanese government and its people, but it was actually an organization of influential Japanese people who are right wing neo-nationalists. In the anime, the organization has enough authority to conduct secret research projects and affect some of the government decisions. The anime makes the audience to question what is exactly neo-nationalism and how many people take such stands in reality. There is no way to measure the exact number of nationalists in Japan but the influence of nationalists in Japan is well shown in Matthew’s article, “the country 's Self Defense Forces (SDF) are increasing dramatically their expenditures on missile defense, requesting $1.2 billion for it in 2004, nine times more than the total spent from 1999 to 2003.” The cause of the dramatic increase in the expenditures cannot really be considered as increase in global conflicts but rather as nationalist influence from high Japanese officials, preparing a stepping stone to remilitarize Japan. Furthermore, since the government decisions, most of the time, represents beliefs of its people, the increase in the expenditure in SDF can be interpreted as an increase in Japanese people supporting neo-nationalism and a dramatic shift of the government …show more content…
In episode 10, one of the FBI officials says, “we need evidence that at the same time this country’s constitutional interpretation changed, they started producing atomic bombs behind closed door.” What have said in the anime can be seen as an exaggeration to make the story more interest, but the quote actually well illustrates the plausible outcome of the neo-nationalism. According to the Greenpeace’s report, “the country [Japan] already has 38,ooo kilograms of the radioactive material; by 2020, it will have 145,000 kilograms. Given that only 5 kilograms are required for one nuclear weapon, Japan would then be able to assemble almost 30,000 nuclear warheads” (Matthews). It is hard to imagine that Japan is actually producing such a huge amount of nuclear weapon now but the situation may drastically change if the event is paired with another nationalist movement, amendment of the Japanese Constitution. “Largely authored by the American postwar occupation forces, the Constitution has been a bugbear of the nationalist right in Japan, who have called for its revision since the early 1950s” (Penney). Especially, Article 9 of the constitution has been the center of the conflict because it bans Japan from having its own military for aggressive warfare in order to prevent the repeating of the catastrophe of the World War II. If the amendment of the constitution is confirmed, it is