Age of Samurai on Netflix...

[Johnny Rico]

As cool a culture as Japan has, and it has many great aspects of it. People tend to forget how brutal they could be.....except the Chinese....I don't think they'll ever forget. They made the Holocaust look almost acceptable (not saying it was).

Most Asians know very well what the Japanese are capable of. Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese...the list is a long one. A couple of Japanese soldiers in WWII thought it was good fun to force a woman in the 8th month of her pregnancy to bow 100 times to them. That woman was my grandmother.

[Adrenaline_6]

Most Asians know very well what the Japanese are capable of. Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese...the list is a long one. A couple of Japanese soldiers in WWII thought it was good fun to force a woman in the 8th month of her pregnancy to bow 100 times to them. That woman was my grandmother.

Yep, martial artists also have a tendency to glorify them in. Every time I hear a kendo student remark along the lines of "man I wish I could have lived back then, it must have been awesome to be a samurai" and I have to remind them "you mean you wish you could live your life in servitude to a lord of the land and have virtually no say in your destiny and stand ready to kill anyone including your family or yourself without explanation if so ordered?"

The samurai as a culture can be completely fascinating but not all of them were honor bound, dutiful individuals with an impressive grasp of right action. And as you noted, this manifested itself in terrible ways when the mindset found it's way to Nanking. If you can throw a baby in the air so it can be caught on a bayonet and everyone involved things it's a special skill or at least entertaining...you need to completely reevaluate yourself as a human being.

Yup...brutal af. Even the way they tested their swords for quality. it would have to cut clean diagonally through a prisoners collar bone, rib cage, spine and then hip bone. If it got stuck, it was a low quality reject....cue next prisoner for the next sword.

I tell you what...if Japan had the resources and wasn't island bound. History would have been a lot different from feudal Japan on.

[Honu]

they were mercenaries IMHO
but still intriguing to study

one thing I respect is how the Japanese are now and what they did to change and so on

[SteyrAUG]

they were mercenaries IMHO
but still intriguing to study

one thing I respect is how the Japanese are now and what they did to change and so on

That was mostly the result of their last true Emperor, and I don't mean Hirohito, I mean MacArthur. It's really his only notable contribution to the way, the complete pacification of postwar Japan. They needed an angry god so we sent them one.

[Adrenaline_6]

they were mercenaries IMHO
but still intriguing to study

one thing I respect is how the Japanese are now and what they did to change and so on

Make no mistake though. The "common" people were never the brutal ones to begin with. That is what is being seen today. Look deeper and see the yakuza and the brutality is very much still alive. It is just on the back burner due to circumstance.

[SteyrAUG]

Make no mistake though. The "common" people were never the brutal ones to begin with. That is what is being seen today. Look deeper and see the yakuza and the brutality is very much still alive. It is just on the back burner due to circumstance.

Yes and no. Sure the commoners suffered under the yoke of the samurai but the common folk were also "good little nazi's" who went along with anything and everything Tojo did including sending their children to report for bamboo spear training so they could meet the invaders on the beach and fight to the death.

There is also a "right below the surface" level of accepted racism that would blow your mind and more people go right along with it than correct it. I have Japanese friends who grew up here that are always shocked by what they see and hear in "polite company" when they go home from time to time. People don't put portraits of Mishima on their walls because they are huge book fans. Seems every other generation goes ball deep with a neo patriotism movement.

Anyone who has been on bases in Japan or Okinawa long enough has seen them protested, although Okinawan's are typically more tolerant.

[Johnny Rico]

There is also a "right below the surface" level of accepted racism that would blow your mind and more people go right along with it than correct it. I have Japanese friends who grew up here that are always shocked by what they see and hear in "polite company" when they go home from time to time. People don't put portraits of Mishima on their walls because they are huge book fans. Seems every other generation goes ball deep with a neo patriotism movement.

That racism is widespread too. Unlike the Germans who own up to the evils they committed during the Nazi-era, the Japanese to this day still deny, minimize, and gloss over the atrocities they committed during WWII. Atrocities made easier by the belief that the Yamato race is superior to everyone else, including other Japanese like Okinawans or the Ainu.

[SteyrAUG]

That racism is widespread too. Unlike the Germans who own up to the evils they committed during the Nazi-era, the Japanese to this day still deny, minimize, and gloss over the atrocities they committed during WWII. Atrocities made easier by the belief that the Yamato race is superior to everyone else, including other Japanese like Okinawans or the Ainu.

Sadly. Now I know hundreds of more modern Japanese folks who are also appalled by the pervasive racism that seems to be everywhere, among all classes high and low but that's mostly because I won't maintain friendly relations with those who see themselves as "racially superior" to all asians and most other men. So while it isn't necessarily the norm, it isn't uncommon either.

At the end of the war the Japanese civies weren't force marched through Manchurian "work camps" or made to clean up at Unit 731, but sadly our country was complicit in the half hearted prosecution of Japanese war criminals and acts of protectionism that made things like Operation Paperclip look like a 15 minute time out for bad behavior. That we rewarded some Japanese war criminals with positions of prominence on the post war government was in itself a war crime on some level.

Our willingness to exchange immunity for data with Unit 731 which engaged in live testing on humans of biological warfare methods was one of our most shameful acts as a nation. I understand that on some level we just wanted to end the war and move on, but the Japanese really did get a cultural pass that the Germans and some of her allies never dreamed of.

And the fact that we were already moving onto Stalin and the Soviet Union as the next major threat with Japan being strategically located probably also meant we looked the other way on a lot of things. If all of Japan was forced to learn the actual history of their military actions during the Pacific War I think the demands that we apologize for Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be dramatically lessened.

While I always feel sympathy for any innocent victimized during war, Japan really did earn their Hiroshima and Nagasaki events. But as is often the case, the worse offenders still seemed to go unpunished.

[Adrenaline_6]

Yes and no. Sure the commoners suffered under the yoke of the samurai but the common folk were also "good little nazi's" who went along with anything and everything Tojo did including sending their children to report for bamboo spear training so they could meet the invaders on the beach and fight to the death.

There is also a "right below the surface" level of accepted racism that would blow your mind and more people go right along with it than correct it. I have Japanese friends who grew up here that are always shocked by what they see and hear in "polite company" when they go home from time to time. People don't put portraits of Mishima on their walls because they are huge book fans. Seems every other generation goes ball deep with a neo patriotism movement.

Anyone who has been on bases in Japan or Okinawa long enough has seen them protested, although Okinawan's are typically more tolerant.

I agree. The "good little nazi's" are this polite way now because that is what is expected of them and they as a culture aim to please. Take away that doctrine and brutal can come back just as easy. Human beings are basically the same...no matter where you go. Thinking otherwise is pure fantasy.

[SteyrAUG]

I agree. The "good little nazi's" are this polite way now because that is what is expected of them and they as a culture aim to please. Take away that doctrine and brutal can come back just as easy. Human beings are basically the same...no matter where you go. Thinking otherwise is pure fantasy.

I agree, most people engage in some form of tribalism whether they realize it or not, even if it's in opposition to their stated belief system. Another common human trait is while expressing a desire for freedom is the wish to have somebody else be in charge so we aren't all 100% responsible for all the bad shit that happens in life. We would rather appoint a leader that we could blame even if it means surrendering a lot of personal freedom.

Very few people are equipped to accept responsibility for everything in their life and be the one who decides everything for better or worse. For even the best people, that is a lot of burden to accept. Many people don't even want to know the truth of things let alone be the one to try and fix things.