This debate actually reminds me of a DBWI I wrote where the USSR and Japan switched places.
Long story sort, I mentioned an alt. pop culture where lots of Anime focuses on the heroes defending traditions against a degenerate empire.
The Sun, The Stars and The Sickle: Alt-WWII and a Tripolar Postwar World
- Thread starter WaterproofPotatoes
- Start date
- Status
Long story sort, I mentioned an alt. pop culture where lots of Anime focuses on the heroes defending traditions against a degenerate empire.
I can see at least one anime where an honorable empire is fighting against what is blatantly an extremely unflattering take on Nationalist China.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Imagine if the USSR made its own anime? I wonder how ludicrous/awesome it would be...
OTL anime doesn't often depict Chinese people in the best light.
TTL might be even less flattering, since Japanese imperialism isn't seen as monstrously evil.
Maybe TTL's anime could have a distinction between the corrupt Nationalists and their allies in the Union of China.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Yeah, but their definition of being "nice" might also be very condescending, seeing the Unionists as uncivilized children who need to be taught the proper way to act.
TTL, much Japanese media, at least in the immediate postwar period, will likely take a triumphalist tone. Imperial Japan has had an unbroken string of glorious victories, from the Boshin War to WWII.
However, all those wars and victories may lead to another direction- the fact that the Japanese people have thus far never really had the chance to enjoy the fruits of their victories and peace. It is a powerful desire that may grow, and the horrors of a war such as this one may provide fertile soil for those seeds.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Could something akin to "counterculture" form in the TTL Postwar era? Japanese teenagers, not knowing memories of their parents victories, become jaded by the whole "imperialism" thing?
I'm thinking that if the Kaiju genre is created I'm thinking that it'd be a lot more like if Super Sentai did Pacific Rim. Or simply like later Godzilla movies except the military isn't hopelessly outmatched by the monster they're attempting to fight.
With an original Godzilla "what if violence is wrong?" style film as the counterculture's response to so many gun-ho giant monster movies.
With an original Godzilla "what if violence is wrong?" style film as the counterculture's response to so many gun-ho giant monster movies.
Bookmark1995
Banned
You could see a deconstructive monster movie, which show the "kaiju" as a mostly benign creature who falls victim to capricious belligerence.
That depends. Modern or early modern China, i.e. the Qing and KMT definitely don't get the best treatment. But older periods of Chinese history are seen through rose-colored lenses by the Japanese. Han and T'ang China, AFAIK, are seen by Japan in the same way we see Imperial Rome and Classical Greece. The Three Kingdoms period in particular, is no less perceived as a heroic age comparable to the Homeric epics, not just in China, but also in Japan.
I can imagine a TTL Japanese baby boomer making a film like that after years of films bombastically praising the IJN.
Especially if TTL Japan ends up in a Vietnam-style quagmire.
It makes sense that the Japanese would be fond of classical China since much of their early culture was influenced by China. Right down to their system of writing.
More than that: the oldest Japanese legal codes, were carbon copies of T'ang Dynasty legal codes.
IIRC, I once read before that at the time of the First Sino-Japanese War, many Japanese academics and even aristocrats found it jarring to face China as an enemy, since it wasn't that long ago from their perspective that China was the center of Asian civilization. China wasn't Japan's enemy. China was where Japanese went to polish themselves and learn about the world.
Despite what popular fiction might say, sakoku Japan wasn't completely closed off from the world. From the perspective of the west, yes, but there was plenty of trade and traffic between Japan and China.
Bookmark1995
Banned
It shows you how utterly down the rabbit hole the Qing were, when they couldn't even defeat Japan.
Films like that aren't just social critques. They are often made by people who get tired of seeing the same thing over and over again.
The Simpsons gained ground for a similar reason: people were tired of the cookie-cutter sitcom.
Yup, and you could even compare them to the Ming. The Japanese held a great deal of respect for the Ming. The Ashikaga paid tribute to them, and there was much trade between Japan of the time and the Ming at their height. Osaka's fortunes were born in that trade, as much as the city's role as an armory for the armies of the sengoku jidai.
Back to the Ming...even at death's door, at their nadir at the end of their dynasty, Ming armies all but pushed Hideyoshi's battle-hardened, modernized (for the time) armies into the sea.
Exactly. A desire to both create fresh story ideas and to flip off the previous generation would motivate some films.
Which makes the show's own fall into stagnation by being screwed by their own popularity all the more ironic.
Well, one setting/theme/story that's unlikely to get old is the Battle of Tsushima. Even today, Japanese take pride in the Battle of Tsushima, the first time in the modern age that a non-western power smashed a western power. Hell, even in China, despite still smarting over from the First Sino-Japanese War, news of the great victory at Tsushima was met with celebration. Sun Yat-sen even called it a victory for all Asia.
Bookmark1995
Banned
Because it was only the second time in all of human history that Europeans learned they weren't all that great.
(The first was the Haitian Revolution).
This is why TV shows should have an organized story arc. Better to die an honorable death, then to linger on.
You know, with the more conservative Japan of the Imperial period unchallenged (though Japan, especially in the present day, is far from left wing on many matters in a fair chunk of the population, hello Abe, which is also true of the majority of the industrialized world) and lasting I would expect Japan ITTL will have the main cultural narrative be very much similar to the OTL U.S. with putting it's military (especially the Imperial Navy for Japan ITTL) on a pedestal. Since it wasn't shown as the monstrosity and then utterly demolished as a powerful institution.
Though I can easily see ITTL Japan having a serious counter-cultural movement in the 60's-70's criticizing Japan's more conservative cultural mores and the unthinking adoration of the military that Japan will probably have ITTL.
Also, something I thought of, some historians see the Suez Canal crisis as when Britain's time as a Super-power officially ended. How badly should we expect things to go for Nasser or a Nasser equivalent should he attempt to nationalize the Suez canal ITTL with the stronger British Empire and the fact that it sounds like India didn't leave the British Empire literally right after WWII with the second post mentioning a 'then dominion of India' in the 50's?
Though I can easily see ITTL Japan having a serious counter-cultural movement in the 60's-70's criticizing Japan's more conservative cultural mores and the unthinking adoration of the military that Japan will probably have ITTL.
Also, something I thought of, some historians see the Suez Canal crisis as when Britain's time as a Super-power officially ended. How badly should we expect things to go for Nasser or a Nasser equivalent should he attempt to nationalize the Suez canal ITTL with the stronger British Empire and the fact that it sounds like India didn't leave the British Empire literally right after WWII with the second post mentioning a 'then dominion of India' in the 50's?
Bookmark1995
Banned
I'm guessing Britain might be under less criticism, but there would still be anticolonial backlash.
I mentioned in one of the earlier posts that in the mid-1950s, a Japanese studio is making a big-budget film about the Battle of Tsushima- which is something else to rub in the Soviets' noses.
- Status