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“Something Dreadful Happened in the Past”: War Stories for Children in Japanese Popular Culture

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Akiko Hashimoto
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Reflecting on the 70th anniversary of the end of Japan's War, it is worth noting that teaching the history of World War II to Japanese children has always been difficult at best. As a subject fraught with contentions over textbook content and conflict between teachers and state bureaucracy, teaching war history has long been “a dreaded subject” for many school teachers. Japanese history education has been criticized for not going far and deeply enough to describe perpetrator history - especially the injury and death inflicted on tens of millions of Asian victims. At the same time, it has been admonished for the opposite: that it goes too far in promoting Japan's negative self-identity. This contest to shape hearts and minds of future citizens has long burdened Japan's history education in schools, and has yielded mixed results.

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 13 , Issue 30 , July 2015 , e1
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2015

References

Notes

1 Study manga often target school children in the latter years of elementary school and in middle school, typically ages 10-15.

2 The mainstream academic study manga discussed here became widely available in the early 1980s, and some have been reprinted as many as 50-60 times. The popular study manga by Fujiko, Mizuki, and Ishinomori became available in the 1990s. The iconic status of these manga artists is celebrated in their individual museums across the nation today.

3 Morris-Suzuki, Tessa. The past within us: media, memory, history. London: Verso. 2005, 170;

Penney, Matthew. “Far from Oblivion: The Nanking Massacre in Japanese Historical Writing for Children and Young Adults.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2008) 22:25-48.

4 Gakken Manga, Nihon no rekishi, volumes 1-17, 1982; Shōgakkan Shōnen Shōjo Gakushū Manga, Nihon no rekishi, volumes 1~21, 1983; Shūeisha Gakushūmanga, Nihon no rekishi, volumes 1~20, 1998

5 “Sensō o nikumu.” Shōgakkan Shōnen Shōjo Gakushū Manga, Nihon no rekishi vol. 20. 1983, 110

6 “Sensō - iyadane, sensō.” Shūeisha Gakushūmanga, Nihon no rekishi Vol.18. 1998, 58

7 Gakken Manga, Nihon no rekishi:15, 121

8 Shōgakkan, Nihon no rekishi: 20, 102.

9 Ibid. 157.

10 Shūeisha, Nihon no rekishi:18, 72,75, 98-104.

11 Shōgakkan, Nihon no rekishi: 20, 53, 58.

12 Ibid. 81.

13 Shūeisha, Nihon no rekishi: 18, 103. Shōgakkan, Nihon no rekishi: 20, 106.

14 Ibid. 115.

15 Shūeisha, Nihon no rekishi:18, 111.

16 Ibid. 114.

17 Gakken Manga, Nihon no rekishi:15, 121.

18 Nichinōken and Fujiko F. Fujio, Doraemon no Shakaika Omoshiro Kōryaku: Nihon no rekishi ga waraku 2: Sengoku~Heisei jidai, Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 1994, 192.

19 Ibid. 195

20 Ibid. 195

21 Ibid. 199

22 Ibid. 201

23 Ibid. 192, 200-1.

24 Mizuki, Shigeru. Sōin Gyokusai Seyol [Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995, 357.

25 Penney, Matthew. ‘“War Fantasy’ and Reality - ‘War as Entertainment’ and Counter-narratives in Japanese Popular Culture.” Japanese Studies 2007, 27:35-52.

26 Mizuki, Shigeru. 1994. Komikku Showa shi. 8 vols. Tokyo: Kodansha. Thesevolumes are nowavailable in English translation, published by Drawn and Quarterly.

27 For example, Mizuki describes graphically how only one tenth of the soldiers survived the disastrous Imphal Campaign in 1944. Mizuki Shigeru Komikku Shōwashi:5, Tokyo: Kodansha, 1994, 26.

28 Mizuki, Komikku Shōwashi:8, 248

29 Ibid. 261-3.

30 Ishinomori, Shōtarō. Manga History of Japan Vol. 53, Tokyo: Chūōkōronsha, 1999. 22-23.

31 Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Hochschild, Arlie Russel. 1979. “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure.” American Journal of Sociology no. 85:551-575.

32 Gakken Manga. NEW Nihon no rekishi 11: Taishō demokurashii to sensō e no michi. 2013. Tokyo: Gakken kyōiku shuppan.

33 Hamagakuen and Fujiko F. Fujio. 2014. Doremon no shakaika omoshiro kōryaku: nihon no rekishi 3. Doraemon no gakushū shiriizu. Tokyo: Shōgakkan.

34 Kobayashi Yoshinori. 2015. Shin-Sensōron 1. Tokyo: Gentōsha.