But guys you have to admit it japan having one of the smallest population in the world is the 2nd richest country in the world they are leaders in world technology and they are also great warriorsNow they are with us and europe against china and russia who are supporting iran
They are like a fat old lap dog feasting off the good graces of America. Any technology they have they built on from the great education they got from American big business. People forget that they are a two faced people (sneaky). While they had their ambassadors negotiating in Washington their Navy was steaming towards Pearl Harbor for a sneak attack. They can thank the good old U.S.A for what they are today. After WW2 America did for the Japanese the same thing America is now doing in China making a monster. Instead of letting them starve to death after the war they used them for a source of cheap labor in order to get there economy going and in the process made them into what they are today. In China the United States has created a monster that is more blood sucking to the host than Japan ever was. I grew up here in America in a time that America had the finest products in the world if it was not made here it did not exist. It always cost more to buy the American product but it was worth the extra money. In most cases you got a product that lasted for more years than you wanted to see it around. American corporations sold their soul for cheap labor and that is a sin that came back to haunt them. People got use to buying cheap garbage that lasted a year or two. In time the Jap products got better and many older companies here in America could no longer compete with the cheap labor factor. American companies had to reduce the quality of products to compete. When many people look at Japans great economy what they fail to realize is that there are a lot of old American companies that are behind that money. Much of the great ideas that people think are of Japanese origin were designed right here in the good old USA. The work was done in Japan in the 60's, 70's and 80's because of the cheap labor. Today Japan is much like the USA it is being sucked dry due to cheap labor in China and other emerging countries. Its good to see them fall into the same situation they took such glee over when they were bashing the American economy around some years back. The cartoons that in question here show clearly that Japan has not changed in the least. Grove Of The Fire Flies, Zipang, The Cockpit? I can see why some of this stuff is unavailable to the US market. This stuff is clearly designed to convince the gullible and lull the suspicious. Here is a cartoon dealing with the Japanese I can embrace 
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I had thought most of the World War II stuff would have been propaganda but it really wasn't. I thought some of it was interesting
Heres more explanation
On
The CockpitThe Cockpit: Kamikaze Stories
Written by Leiji Matsumoto
Produced by Tatsumi Yamashita, Toshio Hagiwara, and Haruo Noguchi
Directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Episode #1), Takashi Imanishi (#2), and Ryosuke Takahashi (#3)
Urban Vision, 1993, 90 min., Video
The three short episodes in this animation video contain a strong anti-war message. The heroes in the episodes exhibit courage and honor as they strive to accomplish what they perceive to be their duty. Although each story shows battles near the end of the World War II, the settings, style, and characters vary greatly. The title of The Cockpit: Kamikaze Stories is a misnomer, since only the second episode involves Japanese kamikaze pilots, and the other two episodes do not even involve suicide attacks. Also, the last episode does not have a cockpit, since it tells the story of two soldiers on a motorcycle with sidecar. This video deals with war, but it focuses on the human perspective rather than the machines used for fighting. However, the video also contains realistic animation of the planes and motorcycles used in combat scenes.
Three different directors created the video's episodes based on manga (Japanese comic) stories written by Leiji Matsumoto. The original Japanese version of this video came out in 1993, and the dubbed English version reviewed on this page was released in 1999. Each episode lasts less than 25 minutes, and the video contains short interviews with each director after his episode.
The first episode, "Stratospheric Currents," tells the story of a German pilot who gets branded a coward for surviving a fierce battle with British planes despite his previous exemplary record. Notwithstanding the incident, he gets selected to escort a plane carrying the world's first atomic bomb, which has been developed by a German scientist with whose daughter the pilot previously had a love interest. The fighter pilot lets a British plane get through to destroy the transport plane with the bomb, and the scientist, and his daughter also perish in the attack. Although he will carry the burden of disgrace for the rest of his life because he did not protect the transport plane, he believes he chose the right course of action since he prevented mass murder by the bomb.
The second episode, "Sonic Thunder Attack Team," gives the story of a young pilot of an ohka, a "human bomb" launched from underneath a mother plane and powered by rocket engines. On August 5, 1945, this ohka pilot named Nogami survives by parachuting out of his plane when attacked by American fighters. Although ashamed to be saved since so many of his comrades perished, he gets another chance to make an attack on the next day. When the plane carrying his ohka gets attacked and catches fire, a Japanese plane makes a suicide crash into the American fighter ready to shoot down his mother plane and ohka. Nogami's ohka gets launched, and he crashes it into an American aircraft carrier. The carrier captain receives news of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima just before his ship explodes.
Ohka Attached
Under Mother Plane
Nogami's squadron leader and comrades make several direct comments about the ohka suicide attack. A couple of men in his squadron give their opinions, "We're carrying someone with us who's doomed to die. It's horrible." "Whoever came up with the idea of committing suicide in the ohka has got to be crazier than we are." The squadron leader explains, "Any of us could die in this war. It's whether or not we die with honor that matters. That's why they came up with the idea of the human bomb in the first place" [1]. Nogami says he can accept that he has to sacrifice so the rest can live. Although the characters make several comments on the morality of the ohka, the viewer does not get a chance to understand why Nogami has such motivation to ride the ohka to death.
In the same way the first episode mentions Germany producing the world's first atomic bomb, this episode also has several inaccuracies. The last attempted ohka attack occurred on June 22, 1945, not on August 6 (Hagoromo Society 1973, 97). An ohka never hit an American aircraft carrier during the war, but ohka weapons did sink a battleship and damage eight other ships (O'Neill 1999, 160). An ohka pilot who went down in the sea near Okinawa would never have been able to make another sortie the next day, since the Japanese mother planes with ohka missiles did not depart from Okinawa but rather from Kyushu, the southernmost main island of Japan.
The third episode, "Steel Dragoon," shows two Japanese Army soldiers get shot down as the younger one tries to complete his promise to bring back reinforcements to his comrades, even though this mission is impossible since his former base has already been occupied by the Americans. The Japanese soldiers ride a motorcycle with sidecar, and they encounter an American motorcyclist along the way. The older Japanese soldier raced motorcycles before the war, so he wins a battle with the skilled American cyclist. The Japanese soldier gives the following reason for letting him live, "He's too good of racer. It would be a shame to kill him" [2]. The plot of this episode and the soldiers' reasons for fighting to their death seem shallow in comparison to the first two episodes. Also, one Japanese soldier introduced in the first part of the episode disappears from the story without explanation.
Although this video does not accurately depict certain historical facts of the war, the three episodes do successfully show the soldiers' human perspective and the war's tragedy. The "Sonic Thunder Attack Team" episode gives viewers various criticisms of the ohka weapon, but the director does not delve into the reasons that led the Japanese military to develop the weapon or into the motivations that led Japanese youths to sacrifice their lives to defend their country.
Grave Of The FirefliesTaking place toward the end of World War II in Japan, Grave of the Fireflies is the poignant tale of the relationship between two orphaned children, Seita (清太) and his younger sister Setsuko (節子). The children lose their mother in the firebombing of Kobe, and their father in service to the Imperial Japanese Navy, and as a result they are forced to try to survive amidst widespread famine and the callous indifference of their countrymen (some of whom are their own extended family members).
ZipangThe newest, most modern warship in the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, the guided missile destroyer Mirai sets sail from Japan on a training exercise with the U.S. Navy. Enroute, they encounter a strange meteorological anomaly. The Mirai loses contact with her sister ships but finds herself sailing by the unmistakable shape of the battleship Yamato.
The Mirai eludes the Imperial Japanese fleet and, reluctantly, the crew realizes that they have traveled sixty years into their past to the early days of World War II. Their first desire is to return home, and to insure that they have a home to which to return they decide to do nothing that will change history. That good intention does not last long, however, and gradually they are drawn into the conflict, though they continue to refuse to choose one side over another. The struggle of the crew from a modern, peaceful, and wealthy Japan to resist the nationalistic appeal of defending their country, knowing that in this time it is ruled by a brutal, totalitarian and militaristic government is the central theme of Zipang.
The basic premise of Zipang, a modern warship thrown back in time to World War II, was used over twenty years earlier in the movie, The Final Countdown (1980). In that movie, the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is transported back to the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But the Nimitz returns to its own time before it can have any observable impact on history. In the Axis of Time novels by John Birmingham, a US-led naval task force from the near future is sent back in time, also to the Battle of Midway. In Birmingham’s novels history is immediately changed when the modern ships appear so there is no attempt to remain neutral or to not interfere. Though all three of these works of fiction start with a very similar premise, each has a completely different outcome.
Personally I found Zipang the most interesting of the 3, it did end up getting licensed in the US and I was very surprised, apparently sales weren't well and the company who licensed is "Geneon" has been shut down in the US by it's Japanese counterpart due to a loss of 45 million dollars due to poor marketing of their products.
Topic: Anyone here like Anime? (Japanese Animation/cartoons) (Read 16683 times)