Just like back at the office... War from the other side

Just killing some time before trying to get out to Chiba on the commuter rail to catch a Chiba Lotte Marines baseball game. Found one of these Manga Kissa (comic book cafe) places that I have heard about in Shibuya (so that I do not have to truck all the way out to the hostel before the game). It is a pretty good deal, 500 yen an hour for your own little private cubicle with a PC and a nice office chair. It reminds me a lot of the office, except here my cube has a door.

Did a little more wondering around Tokyo today, which takes a while because this city is really big. One of the more interesting things I checked out was the Yasukuni Shrine and museum. This is the place that the prime minister gets in big trouble with the Chinese and Koreans for visiting because it commemorates all of the soldiers from WWII, including executed war criminals.

The shrine itself is not that notable, it did seem to have a more cold feeling then the few others I have seen, but I do not know if that is just because I know that its purpose is to celebrate the old imperial army. The only other notable thing was the regular appearance of the imperial seal, which it not seen all that much elsewhere that I have noticed.

The museum was a little more interesting because, even in the English translations of the exhibits (I would love to be able to read the Japanese), it is set up from a very right-wing, pro-imperial point of view. First of all, they defend the aggressiveness of Japan in the WWII era from the standpoint the the US and Europe we unfairly dominating Asia, and a strong Japan was necessary to stop them. This more of an opinion then anything else, but it was interesting to see if from another point of view. Second, they defend the pre WWII operations in China as necessary because they were just trying to go to bat for ethnic minorities in Manchuria. Included in this is a defence of the rape of Nanking (this name not used in the display, obviously) based on their claim that Chinese solders were dressing up like civilians in order to retreat. Third, they blame US sanctions on them for the China actions for starting WWII, basically defending Pearl Harbor on the grounds that the US was being belligerent in trying to get them to stop their perfectly reasonable actions in China. Last, they claim that Japan was willing to stop the war before the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but the Russians pulled a fast one and killed the possibility of a deal, so that they could take over more territory before the war ended.

Anyway, a museum that dedicates the heroes of a lost war, including artifacts like a Kamikaze torpedo and glider is certainly not something that you are used to seeing as an American. But it certainly does show what effect who writes the history has on what impression you get about who were the good guys, or at least who were not the bad guys.