Is there a way to get a Anti-American Japan?

I've been asking myself about a scenario where Japan hates the United States after the World War 2
so is it possible to get an Japan that is on the same level as Iran, North Korea, Somalia but it has to take place after World war 2?
Can you answer me if it's possible.
 
I've been asking myself about a scenario where Japan hates the United States after the World War 2
so is it possible to get an Japan that is on the same level as Iran, North Korea, Somalia but it has to take place after World war 2?
Can you answer me if it's possible.
No USF-J to begin with and maybe a more protecionist USA put a more economical toll in japan make it looks other markets, maybe a more pro korea USA infuriated japanese they sided with them over argument?
 
No USF-J to begin with and maybe a more protecionist USA put a more economical toll in japan make it looks other markets, maybe a more pro korea USA infuriated japanese they sided with them over argument?
That's right, I wonder what would Japanese voice their anger toward United States if this scenario were to happen in form of anime well as Video games?
 
Operation Downfall would do the trick. For the following reasons...

According to a study by William Shockley for Secretary of War Henry Stimson , Japanese casualties from the operation would've been up to 5-10 million, mostly from the involvement of civilians in the defence of the country.

Chemical weapons were to be used to prevent the American bloodbath that was Okinawa from happening again. Herbicides were also to be used against Japanese crops.

Ken Nichols, District Engineer for the Manhattan Engineer District, said that fifteen atomic bombs would've been used to support the Americans as they invaded Honshu, the main island of the Japanese archipelago. Other sources say no more than five atomic bombs would've been used during the invasion.

In other words, Japan was to be completely annihilated and it's population would've gone through hell, even more than Germany did. This experience would've been enough to cause a seething hatred of the US to be left in the Japanese psyche.
 
That's right, I wonder what would Japanese voice their anger toward United States if this scenario were to happen in form of anime well as Video games?
We Already Joke of anime as right wing propaganda..here might be even true, videogames are very agonostic but more sutble messages could happen
 
In 1959, the leader of the Japanese Socialist Party ,Inejiro Asanuma, during his visit to the PRC, "called the United States "the shared enemy of China and Japan" during a speech in Beijing. When he returned from this trip he wore a Mao suit while disembarking from a plane in Japan, sparking criticism even from Socialist leaders.[3] " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inejiro_Asanuma Asanuma was famously assassinated in 1960, but if he had lived and could have gained dominance in the Socialist Party, that would have been a pretty strong base for anti-American politics. The JSP and the Communists combined got 30.3 percent of the vote in 1960 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Japanese_general_election and 33.0 percent in 1963. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_Japanese_general_election (Admittedly that was the JSP under the leadership of the more moderate Jōtarō Kawakami but the party still contained a large number of leftists. ) Of course even if the JSP and Communists could form an anti-US left-wing bloc, they were still considerably short of a majority. (Perhaps, though, if Asanuma had managed to survive the stabbing, sympathy with him would help both the left within the JSP and the JSP's overall standing.)
 
Last edited:
Another thing that would likely make a post-war Japan that vehemently anti-US is if we remember that the fairly merciful treatment by the US, and the Allies in general, was part of why Japan's attitude changed so quickly in the first place.

When Japan first surrendered, many had feared direct reprisal from the Allies due to what Japan itself had been doing in the Pacific. With the massacres, human experimentation, and various other war crimes. However, it would soon turn out that many in Japan had over-estimated these fears when such things happening under the Allies turned out to be fairly rare.

If you were to have the Allied occupation become more brutal in one way or another, that would likely help to create a more anti-US Japan.
 
Last edited:
Another thing that would likely make a post-war Japan that vehemently anti-US is if we remember that the fairly merciful treatment by the US, and the Allies in general, was part of the why Japan's attitude changed so quickly in the first place.

When Japan first surrendered, many had feared direct reprisal from the Allies due to what Japan itself had been doing in the Pacific. With the massacres, human experimentation, and various other war crimes. However, it would soon turn out that many in Japan had over-estimated these fears when such things happening under the Allies turned out to be fairly rare.

If you were to have the Allied occupation become more brutal in one way or another, that would likely help to create a more anti-US Japan.
How would United States respond to a more Anti-US Japan? I dunno if a sanction could work against Japan similar to Cuba or Iran.
 
Don't have the US help rebuilt Japan and just leave Japan to rebuild herself. Might even end up pushing Japan into the Soviet Sphere AND Communist?
 
Any nuclear exchange that involves destruction of Japanese cities would probably suffice, especially if some new Bakufu-like government comes to power immediately after. Moreso if it is headed by a former or several former IJA/IJN officers, the more bitter the better for the OP.
 
The simplest answer would be the charging of Emperor Hirohito as being directly implicated in war crimes, forcing the government to apologize for its role in WWII, and forcing the Japanese government to be purged of LDP members, as well as public trials regarding "comfort women".

Consider these were items Germany had to undergo...
 
If an anti-American party latches onto an incident involving U.S. soldiers committing crimes in Japan (has happened many times) and rallies the public, there would be an opportunity to turn Japan against America. If somehow, the left can unite with nationalists on this issue, (a bit tough), then Asian geopolitics become very tricky.
 

chankljp

Donor
In the "Cuban Missile War" TL, a limited WW3 in 1962 resulted in some cities and US military bases in Japan (Okinawa, Misawa, Iwakuni, Atsugi, Yokota, and Yokohama) getting nuked by the Soviets. In the aftermath, the surviving USFJ personnel found themselves temporally cut off from their homeland, the chain of command having been broken-down and them stuck in the country for the foreseeable future. Once they started to run low on supplies, they tried to buy the already scares food from the local Japanese using their massively devalued to the point of effectively worthless US Dollars with little success... Resulting in some instances of US forces outright going bandit on the Japanese population and steal their food at gunpoint, even fighting the JSDF, in order to survive.

Since the American nuclear superiority of that era meant that the United States as a country managed to survive the war, and was able to eventually able to get all their troops that were stuck overseas back home, the experience managed to poison Japan's view on Americans for a long time, to the point of publicly displaying a US flag in public being enough to result in stones being thrown at you by angry locals.
 
A bit of a shameless plug on my part, I made Tokyo governor Shintaro Isihara the Prime Minister of Japan in Pacific War 2: Electric Boogaloo. Isihara is the most prominent far-right revisionist post-war who espouses anti-American views. If he were to become Prime Minister, I'd imagine frostier relations between Japan and the United States (depends on the circumstances of his rise to power. In my list, Isihara heads a restored Japanese Empire after the Cuban Missile Crisis turns hot and the U.S withdraws from Asia.)

I think it would be easier for anti-Japanese sentiment to take hold in America and then for Japan to respond to this hostility in kind. Recall in the 1980s before the Lost Decade Japan was seen as an emerging threat to the United States. "The Cold War is Over- Japan Won" summarizes the attitude of the era. Tom Clancy wrote a novel about war with Japan, and movies like Back to the Future 2 expressed anti-Japanese sentiment. A Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan presidency would threaten Japanese-American relations, especially as Ross Perot campaigned on anti-Japanese populism. If Perot and Isihara were in power at the same time I think you could see a deep rupture in Japanese-American relations. I think the relationship would be similar to America's relationship with Turkey- Japan and America would remain nominal allies with areas of tension. Isihara frequently making controversial comments about World War II would not help matters.
 
Have China divided between the Nationalists and Communists and no Korean War. No major build up/investment in Japan to counter forces in the region, that money instead going to South Korea and Nationalist China. Economic recovery takes longer (with some believing Japan has finally been turned into a Western colony). Throw in the US forcing Japan to apologize for atrocities as well as prosecuting the Emperor as a war criminal and we may just have it.
 
Last edited:

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
No Korean War

OTL that boosted and revitalised Japanese industry, gave new starts to companies we take for granted these days in fields like electronics, and basically rewrote the code for where Japan was heading. As the main US ally next to Korea it benefited enormously from what might be seen as accidents of the war - the need to supply equipment quickly and reliably, that sort of thing.

Take this away, and Japan in the 1950s might continue to be but a shadow of what it had been, with no realistic route out of it
 
Invasion and occupation of Japan instead of nukes.
A longer Chinese civil war which ultimately ends in a Nationalist victory after the US throws a load of stuff in there and after they airlift KMT troops to Manchuria
US will help Nationalist China rebuild, and South Korea develop itself
Japan remains occupied and neglected.
That will make the Japanese people really, really mad.
 
Top