World War II As Trauma, Memory and Fantasy in Japanese Animation

Volume 3 | Issue 5 | Article ID 1972 | May 19, 2005 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus World War II as Trauma, Memory and Fantasy in Japanese Animation Susan J. Napier World War II as Trauma, Memory least the early 1950’s when the first Godzilla and Fantasy in Japanese Animation (Gojira) film took on atomic testing, wholesale destruction and the American enemy in the By Susan J. Napier form of a kaiju eiga or monster movie. Japanese manga (comic books) have revisited WWII often, especially in the works of Matsumoto Leiji whose depictions of aerial dogfights and last minute sacrifices gained a wide following. Since the 1960s, animated films and television In her book Hiroshima Traces Lisa Yoneyama series have produced some of the most discusses how recent scholarship has tended to memorable visions of the war. The two most define memory in opposition to history,famous of these are the remarkably faithful recreations or rememorations of cataclysmic suggesting that “Memory has often been events such as the atomic bombing of associated with myth or fiction and contrasted Hiroshima depicted in Barefoot Gen (Hadashi with History as written by professionals. [1] no Gen 1983) and the final days of the war as Yoneyama herself problematizes this opposition seen by two children in Kobe shown in Grave of as a “false dichotomy,” stating that “the Fireflies (Hotaru no haka, 1988). In these two production of knowledge about the past … is films personal memory on the part of the always enmeshed in the exercise of power and writers of the original texts (respectively is always accompanied by elements of Nakazawa Keiji on whose autobiographical repression.” [2] She exhorts her readers to manga Barefoot Gen is based and Nosaka remember that, “we begin our investigations Akiyuki who wrote the semi-autobiographical into the past with an awareness that historical short story Grave of Fireflies), became part of a ‘reality’ can only be made available to us collective Japanese memory as the films were through the mediation of given categories of seen by millions of Japanese schoolchildren. representation and processes of signification.” But the war, the defeat and the atomic bomb [3] This article examines how one of the most also manifest themselves consistently in more significant events in modern Japanese history, displaced forms, most obviously in the overall defeat in the Second World War, is represented fetishization of apocalypse which has been a through the medium of animation, a medium staple of Japanese animation since the 1970’s which allows history and memory to transform to the present. into myth and even into fantasy, ultimately creating for the viewer an experience which Here discussion focuses on one anime allows for a working through of what might be depiction, the Space Battleship Yamato (Uchu called historical trauma. Senkan Yamato) television and film series from the 1970’s???and what might be called the Japanese popular culture has engaged with Yamato’s descendant, the series Silent Service memories of the Second World War since at (Chinmoku no Kantai) from the late 1990’s. 1 3 | 5 | 0 APJ | JF Both works refer explicitly to the Second World when American triumphalism coexisted with War at the same time as they go beyond history heightened Cold War tensions. and memory to produce a cathartic and fantastic reworking of the loss. The Yamato series can also be seen as a product of its time when Japan was one generation away from the war, an era in which technology and economic success seemed to promise a bright future, but also one in which many expressed anxiety over loss of basic Japanese traditions, including notions of community, sacrifice, and respect for the past. Unlike Star Wars and Star Trek, however, which take place in the science fiction continuum that Fredric Jameson describes as “the defamiliarization of the present “ (my italics), the action of the Yamato films is predicated on coming to terms with a past event, the sinking of the battleship Yamato off Okinawa in the final days of the war, an incident that, in its iconic significance for the Japanese people, may be interpreted as an originary event, linked with the supreme originary event, the loss of the war. Furthermore this is an event which, in The Space Battleship Yamato series premiered displaced form, is revisited constantly in October of 1974, three years earlier than the throughout the series, a dip into a quasi- first Star Wars film. Like Star Wars and the repressed nightmarish past which, through the 1960’s American Star Trek series, however, medium of animated science fiction, is Yamato can be seen as an immenselyreworked into a dream of success. entertaining science fiction series, with memorable characters, cutting edge special Interestingly, when the series was initially effects (for the period), and compelling story shown on Japanese television it garnered lines, that also possesses a strong ideological relatively low ratings, forcing the producer, subtext. In the case of Star Trek and Star Wars, Nishizaki Yoshinobu, (the actual creator of the this subtext is clearly linked to the period in series was Matsumoto Leiji and there were a which each was created. Star Trek with its number of different directors involved), to introspective, racially mixed crew and regular shorten the original 39 week broadcast to 26 invocation of the Enterprise’s mission, “to seek weeks. It was with the opening of the first out new worlds and new civilizations” may be Yamato film, however, (essentially a seen as an optimistic answer to American compilation from the season’s episodes), that anxieties during the Vietnam War, when many the film and series began to become a pop at home and abroad perceived America’s culture phenomenon. In fact, the Yamato film advance into Southeast Asia as racist and series is widely credited with having inspired imperialist. The original Star Wars trilogy, on the beginnings of anime fandom, as fans from the other hand, with its evil Galactic Empire around the country came to camp out on the and largely Caucasian cast, took place mainly cinema’s steps the night before the opening. [5] during the manicheanism of the Reagan years As the editorial staff of Animerica puts it, “the 2 3 | 5 | 0 APJ | JF first film] ignited a ‘Yamato craze’ which would these few minutes the film encapsulates go on to consume Japan-and eventually many emotions ranging from despair to hope, the other parts of the world-for the next ten years.” basic emotional trajectory of the entire series. [6] In an article on the Yamato phenomenon The four films comprising the 1970’s cinema originally published in Bungei Shunjuu, the series range over a mise en scene that varies Japanese writer Yoshida Mitsuru sums up the from Earth to the Magellanic Clouds and first film in the following manner: beyond, even to the fourth dimension, but always calling attention to the WWII historical Space Cruiser Yamato fights alone as best it framework. [7] This is most obvious in the first can against the swarms of enemy forces, its film of the series Battleship Yamatounassisted fight reminiscent of how the (Uchusenkan Yamato), when an increasingly battleship Yamato accompanied by only 10 radioactive future earth is menaced by alien ships and with no air protections, fought a fatal invaders known as the Gamilans. For somewhat battle and sank off Okinawa before the enigmatic reasons, the government decides onslaught of 300 American warships and 1,200 that the only way to save humanity is to revive American planes. But unlike the tragic demise the actual battleship Yamato from its watery of its prototype, the space cruiser Yamato grave off Okinawa. The sequence in which the successfully obtains the radioactivity-removing Yamato is raised is clearly calculated to be both device with the help of Stasha, a mysterious thrilling and deeply evocative of the actual beauty who lives on the planet Iscandall, historical event of the Yamato’s sinking. In a destroys the Gamilus forces and returns safely several minute sequence the film flashes back to earth. [8] to the sailing of the original Yamato, the largest battleship ever created. As the film indicates, The Yamato's successful saving of the earth the battleship Yamato was freighted with far becomes the basic diegetic pattern for the more iconic significance than an ordinary ship. series. Battles are fought, new worlds are Its name itself consciously refers to Japan, discovered, the earth is menaced and then since “Yamato” was the ancient name for Japan saved, always by the Yamato which and warriors were urged to havemiraculously survives destruction time after Yamatodamashii (Yamato spirit). Equallytime. Indeed, throughout the spaceship’s important, the ship bore the final hopes of interstellar journeys one tactic is particularly warding off, or at least slowing the advance of common: faced with a particularly menacing invading Americans on the eve of the battle of threat—one that seems impossible to Okinawa. escape—the crew consistently chooses, not simply to confront the menace, but to head The film shows the 1945 Yamato setting sail, straight into it, courting almost inevitable waved off by ordinary Japanese hopeful of its disaster but somehow emerging intact. At one success, then offers a detailed depiction of its point in Space Battleship Yamato (the first film destruction. The film then cuts to the future, of the series), for example, the crew of the showing the ship’s literal resurrection. Through Yamato is attempting to engage with an alien the astonished eyes of two young soldiers, we attack force, only to be stymied by the intensity see the reconstituted Yamato breaking through of a star that blocks their passage.

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