(Japan's National Diet Bldg. since 1936 in Tokyo and a nearby subway station)NO MORE HIROSHIMA, NO MORE NAGASAKI, and NO MORE ADOLF
The No.1 animation character after WWII in Japan is "Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy)" or "Iron-Armed Boy Called Atom."
This "Atom" is from the atomic bombs (nuclear bombs) used by the American military force to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki in air raids, in August 1945.
With a mega hit and popularity of this manga animation title, the hate for atomic-bombing America was however strangely diluted; the fear to the term "atom" was incredibly diluted; and trust in science was surely restored among the Japanese people in 1950's and 1960's.
It was so since the hero "Tetsuwan Atom" was a pure-hearted, courteous, but brave super-robot boy.
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Yesterday, an NHK TV channel presented a special program featuring Osamu Tezuka, Japan's legendary king of manga comics and animation.
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Dr. Osamu Tezuka (Tezuka Osamu, November 3, 1928 – February 9, 1989) was a Japanese manga artist, animator, producer and medical doctor, although he never practiced medicine. Born in Osaka Prefecture, he is best known as the creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka
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I usually do not watch this kind of superficial culture program of NHK TV; but as there was one interesting guest in the program, I decided to spend the night by watching this hours-long program.
Mr. Soichiro Tahara, a leading or No.1 veteran TV journalist in Japan, said that he respected Osamu Tezuka and read "To Adolf" intensively 25 years ago (since it was serialized in a magazine for grown-up citizens).
When the Second World War ended for Japan in August 1945, Osamu Tezuka was a (junior) high school student and Mr. Soichiro Tahara was an (5th-grade) elementary school pupil. The both have shared anti-military and anti-war ideals.
Mr. Soichiro Tahara, respected by so many politicians including ex-prime ministers, recommended a Tezuka's work of manga titled "To Adolf" which is actually a long novel expressed by a series of cartoons.
I am not a great reader of Tezuka's work. But, I have read some; yet I have not picked up "To Adolf," since the title did not sound good at all. Nobody should use "Adolf" in any work of art, if it actually or remotely means Hitler. So, I did not take up the series of comic books titled "To Adolf."
The NHK TV program last night characterized Osamu Tezuka as a kind of specializing in "war story comics." Tezuka's experiences of American air raids on Osaka in 1945 made him hate war, since he was almost killed in an armaments factory where he was mobilized to work, stopping his school life. A majority of his titles are said to be related to war and battles on their negative side against humanity.
But, my opinion is different.
He was one of the middle-class elite, though not of the upper-class elite in the Japanese society (who would surely benefit from any possible war like the American upper-class elite).
He was a professional manga artist with a background of a middle-class culture in Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe, the region most blessed with traditional and rich Japanese culture backed by a long history.
So, Osamu Tezuka smartly adopted the title "To Adolf" in his work in early 1980's (in the middle of the Cold War and the Israeli-Arab armed conflicts), based on a groundless theory that Adolf Hitler had a Judaist ancestor.
I did not like this title, so that I never tried to read it. But, as the TV program last night focused on this work, I checked its story for the first time on the Internet. Then I found it not a nice story at all, though prominent journalist Mr. Soichiro Tahara praised it. It was an entertainment story. It did not show respect for German people, Judaists, and Arabs as well as the Empire of Japan.
Even if Osamu Tezuka had been my senior friend of school, I would have surely advised that he should not have linked Japanese things during WWII to the tension between German Christians and German Judaists during WWII as well as between Israelis and Arabs after WWII.
If he had really wanted to do it, he must have stopped being a rich and successful manga artist. He had to sacrifice himself more. The title "To Adolf" is graver than he must have thought. He had to stop being a Japanese commercial manga artist so as to learn Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and anti-Christianity.
And, what I want to say to Mr. Soichiro Tahara and the like is that it is Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and anti-Christianity that the Empire of Japan should have learnt more (than Hitler and Stalin) before it launched war in the Chinese Continent and the Pacific Ocean against the Western powers.
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My favorite work among Osamu Tezuka's 700 works is "Mitsume-ga Toru (The Three-Eyed Boy Marching)."
It is so since the boy has supernatural power as he has the third eye on his forehead.
Yet, in his last days in late 1980's, Osame Tezuka was super-busy in his humble workshop in Tokyo drawing endlessly cartoon manga on sheets of paper with a small TV set always turned on beside him, while he was casually flying from Narita to foreign cities, including Paris, for any professional occasion.
He was truly a successful and celebrated professional manga artist in Japan, living between the high society and ordinary or poor workers in the society.
Anyway, I myself often read manga magazines named "COM" and "GARO" when I was so young even before starting to live in Tokyo...
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This morning, Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso attended a yearly ceremony held in Nagasaki City to commemorate victims of the Nagaski Atomic Bomb Attack of August 1945.
Next Saturday, August 15, is one of the most important days for Japan as WWII ended on the day in 1945.
However, most of Japanese workers are expected to take their summer vacation next week, though the beginning of fall already came on August 7 in the lunar calendar.
Nonetheless, as a start of the general election is scheduled to be officially announced on August 18 and the voting day is scheduled on August 30, the heat of the summer will surely remain all through September, no matter if Prime Minister Mr. Taro Aso and his LDP should succeed in retaining power, or his rival Mr. Yukio Hatoyama and his DPJ should just walk away from their rivals to form a new Cabinet for the Japanese Government.
Anyway, it needed the September 15's Lehman Brothers Shock to pave the way for the first African-American President...
(The Sound of Silence really appealed to me in the world without PCs, the Internet, cellular phones, cheap air tickets to Los Angeles and New York, and easy ways of making big money...but with so many students around me...
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~UD3T-KRYM/902-jasrac/104-soundofsilence.htm )