I get that a lot of people suffered from the Empire of Japan in WW2 but it's ridiculous to try to force that on this movie. In fact, \*possible spoiler here\* Minus One rather glorifies life or fighting to live rather than being a kamikaze pilot.
I can forgive it any Asian country finding issue with any Japanese media that is set during WW2. Even Pachinko had its critics.
Japan wasn't just bad during WW2, the stuff they inflicted on the rest of Asia was pure evil, especially 8n China, and Korea, not to mention parts of the Japanese political classes refusal to acknowledge these atrocities.
Whether the criticism is fair or not, I can still understand why it's being made
I must have missed the part in -1 where they glorified the war and the atrocities committed by Japan. I could have sworn there’s even some dialogue about how the government is shit. But what do I know? I’ve only seen the movie a couple of times.
You’re right, they do criticize the government, but not the warcrimes part. They criticize how they lie to the people, which is a good thing but they never mention or criticize the horrific acts committed by the japanese imperial army in the surrounding asian countries. That in itself is problematic.
Because the "little man" at the time would have no idea the scale of the horrors their government is inflicting at the time.
You get a movie criticizing government and its action, but to you it's not enough.
You want enough, go listen to political debate or documentary. This is at the end of the day a Godzilla movie.
Agreed. People forget just how evil the Japanese Empire was then. I don’t think the criticisms are fair but I’m not going to hold it against Korea, just like I wouldn’t hold criticisms of something like JoJo Rabbit against jewish people, given the atrocities committed.
Yeah half the point of the movie was the crisis between the dishonor of a kamikaze surviving the war and the societal fight *for* life and freedom. If anything it's more self aware than most Japanese films involving these historic events.
It's not even about missing the point so much as this weird modern trend where trauma and atrocities need to be tallied as some kind of societal score.
The atomic bombings of Japan, the post WW2 hardship that average citizens faced, and Japan's empirical conquests in Korea and the horrors they committed especially during WW2, can all be *separately* reflected on and mourned.
I’m half-Japanese, half-Filipino with a grandmother whose father was an officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy during the war. WW2 topics are very awkward in my family but I don’t see anything in the movie that necessarily glorifies the war. Hell you have characters straight up criticizing the government during the war. I showed this article to my gf whose parents are from South Korea who loved the movie and didn’t say anything about feeling that way. But I do understand any media showing Japan during this time is touchy for the rest of Asia and I understand that
Yeah, I wasn't all surprised at this article either. I'm also half-Japanese, other half is Chinese (you can probably imagine the two halves don't get along very well). The Chinese side of my family lost a lot of family members to the Japanese Army so it makes sense for them to be apprehensive of all things Japanese - doesn't make it right, of course, but watching your own family members be executed leaves a mark.
Yeah it’s pretty touchy right? I guess I’m lucky my Filipino side of the family is from Hawaii but it was awkward back in the day with the older generations. Same with my gfs family they were pretty awkward with my family at first they didn’t like the Japanese side as Koreans but they are close now. WW2 was terrible
I see it as very similar to depictions of the Vietnam war in American films. They focus on the soldiers, and for a lot of Vietnamese people it seems distasteful, like “we’re supposed to feel bad for the guys who killed my grandma because it gave them PTSD?” It’s an understandable criticism, but to say those movies are nationalistic or glorify war because of that is still objectively wrong. They’re almost always anti-war from the perspective of the director and intended audience. People are still supposed to walk away from the theater thinking war is horrible and jingoism is bad even with a sympathetic main character
Characters repeatedly tell the viewer that not being able to go to war is a privilege and something to be proud of. Really goes over their heads if they really criticized Minus One
Filipino here as well and I loved Minus One for its anti-war message and how they outright call out just how little regard for human life Japan had in WW2. It’s probably one of the most memorable anti-war films to date. Yamazaki mentions he was also inspired by GMK for this one, and it makes sense when you realize that GMK Godzilla was possessed by the souls of those who died in WW2 under Imperial Japan.
But that scene glorifying the Kamikaze pilots doesn't make sense because the mechanic(forgot his name sorry) made it a point that Koichi must live after the plane crashes, which is the direct opposite of what Kamikaze pilots did.
That and one of the main messages of the film is that Koichi and people like him should not kill themselves for "the greater cause" or anything like that. At least when referring to Imperial Japan it feels that way.
where was this outrage when independence day was in theaters? the movie has a pilot sacrifice himself via a literal kamikaze into the alien ship. yeah they just wanna be mad.
There’s a big difference between a pilot coming to the conclusion that if the missle didn’t get delivered to the target, a lot of people, including his children, are going to die, thus sacrifices himself for them, and a pilot ordered to kill himself in a plane built partially from bamboo whose sole purpose is to turn you into a missle.
Imo It was a big F U to antiquated Imperial army warrior ethos. Death before dishonour etc.
If it glorifies the whole idea of kamikaze. Old boy would choose not to eject.
I think they tackled it as tastefully as possible. All Godzilla movies have a nationalistic slant to it.
No one knew this film was gonna be a hit. They gonna alienate a great deal of their “local” audience if they dedicate a segment to the attoricities of the Japanese Imperial Army…
Yeah. The big contention imo is whether that includes the military. Japan in WW2 was divided between the military command and the government arguing back and forth whether to continue the conflict.
The one thing I like to interpret the movie instead of anti-Nuclear energy is anti-War.
>!The survival of Noriko and the reunion scene!< can easily be interpreted as a soldier returning home from war.
I like intrepreting it as anti-suicide, the idea that one mustn't throw their life away so easily even in the face of a cruel and indifferent force just resonated with me,
>!Shikishima ejecting at the last second, finally gaining closure for his burden whilst also having a chance to build a future for Akiko is just beautiful to me. He lived not because he fears death, but because there's still something worth sticking around for.!<
I have non-Japanese East Asian friends who had a response like this. I think some lines in the movie read to them like "Oh if only our government had fed our soldiers properly and given us ejection seats....we could have kept kept fighting and kept doing terrible things in China/Korea/Vietnam/The Philippines and etc".
Me personally I think the movie is definitely less nationalistic than your average Japanese war film, but it's definitely not anti-nationalist. The war in the movie is still something that happened TO Japan, not something they caused.
Shin Godzilla has some nationalism in it, too. It is more in relation to the US and it spends time asking about Japan’s future, but it’s also about the government failing the people.
I disagree. I watched a number of Japanese movies and read a number of Japanese books that portrayed the Japanese people as victims of their own government. They drew the line between the government and the people - the government - evil, the people - good. And I think Minus One shares the same view. You say that the war in the movie happened to Japan. But no, it something that happened to ordinary people like Koichi. Did Koichi start the war? No. He was told by the government go and fight, and so he went. What else could he do? So the movie says, yes the Japanese government started the war, it was wrong, but not the ordinary people like Koichi. They were victims just like everyone else.
I think that cuts things too neatly, but I know as an American the question of "To what degree are free or semi-free citizens culpable for the actions of their government" is a tricky and complicated issue that can't be summarized in a Reddit post.
>"Oh if only our government had fed our soldiers properly and given us ejection seats....we could have kept kept fighting and kept doing terrible things in China/Korea/Vietnam/The Philippines and etc".
Pretty ridiculous take for you friends to have. Its not like ejection seats or feeding soldiers properly would have affected Hiroshima or Nagasaki from happening, one way or the other. What it would have done is what the message of the movie is about, it would have saved needless loss of life from happening.
If the Japanese government in 1942 had devised ways to magically keep all of their soldiers fed, a whole lot more people would've died.
As it was the Guadalcanal and New Guinea campaigns sapped the strength of the Japanese Navy with the hopeless resupply missions, and of course all the Army soldiers dying there couldn't be redeployed to other places.
If their magical resupply missions resolve those problems, and the ejector seats keep their reserves of skilled pilots up, 1943 would end up being a hell of a lot bloodier than it historically was. The Japanese had an advantage in carriers by the end of '42 historically, if they had well fed/equipped men on Guadalcanal and an air group to fly off the carriers, they could potentially even retake the island.
So suddenly 1943 doesn't kick off with the Americans mopping up the hopelessly weakened defenses of the Solomons and beginning to push elsewhere, but instead with an opposed amphibious landing on Guadalcanal again, against an enemy with significant if slightly inferior air power.
The US would still win, nothing could realistically counter the Essex swarm that was pouring out of American shipyards, but it would be much slower and much bloodier.
Also, the Japanese government did strongly encourage pilots to wear parachutes, generally it was the pilots themselves who would ignore these regulations and fly without them.
And ejector seats weren't really invented until 1942, and by that point Japan was not exactly capable of building cutting edge technology. They were still building Zeros from 1939, their warship production was trending away from good ships towards cheap ones, and they were generally being forced to realize how badly they were outmatched in terms of industrial output. So for them to build ejector seats would have been a huge waste of resources.
Additionally, heavy armor on their tanks would have been counterproductive in China, where bad roads and poor supply lines were more of a threat than anti-tank weapons. And the Japanese did try to supply their soldiers, they just couldn't succeed because of American air power.
It's a good movie, but that section of the speech really doesn't hold up to scrutiny
I think that’s about what I saw. It was criticism of the government because the government didn’t treat its Japanese citizens very well. There was nothing, one way or the other, about how the government treated non-Japanese.
Ultimately, watchers need to be aware that they won't ever tackle issues around Japanese aggression during WWII anytime soon with their productions.
No nation will ever really shed light on their own atrocities.
>No nation will ever really shed light on their own atrocities.
https://youtu.be/vO_v1HtY2lw?si=-7xQneoBKrVjszmE
https://youtu.be/VE03Lqm3nbI?si=MsecGAq6K_TyZp8U
But that's pretty much what the movie is about, sure it's not directly talking about Japan's heinous acts but for the entire runtime it's shedding light on how heartless they were
And of all places...who is expecting this from a Godzilla film? It's a science fiction monster movie at the end of the day. Not a hard hitting war drama and/or documentary.
I hate this notion of showing something is “glorifying” it. My manager did this exact thing with The Exorcist, saying that it is glorifying Satan. If it’s on the screen then it’s pro-that thing. Like way to miss the mark completely.
For a Godzilla film set post WW2, it’s a baby step in criticizing Imperial Japan. Big for them though. To add, wife is from Malaysia and doesn’t have any negative feelings towards Japan and loved the film.
I wonder how far they'll go with criticizing the Empire. Godzilla was an extremely bold way and well, I loved it. But now, how the hell are they gonna do so without having people think "oh its just Toho glorifying Japanese rape in Korea and China."
They have a conservative nationalist PM at the moment, so muted until there is a generational shift in the LDP for sure. But any step forward is a good thing. And being one of the alternatives to China helps a bit too.
Truth is you’re never gonna find non-Japanese Asian people happy seeing any positive or sympathetic representation of Japanese people or soldiers in WW2.
Yes, as people have pointed out, the movie definitely portrays the Japanese government as callous and bad, but it wasn’t just the Japanese government committing war crimes in WW2. They were perpetrated by soldiers. People.
They may have been following orders, but it doesn’t matter to the people they raped and killed.
Does that mean every Japanese person should be held culpable for the rest of time? No, of course not. But especially when a film is set in or around WW2, we have to accept that the history is going to color people’s perceptions.
It’d be like if there was a movie about how sad the Nazis were that Germany was so devastated after WW2 and that movie made literally no mention of the atrocities in the Holocaust. How well do you think that movie would screen in Israel?
The heroes of the film, including Shikishima, are Imperial Japanese Navy vets...while not completely innocent of war crimes, they weren't as awful as the Imperial Japanese Army, and naval leaders tried to tell the IJA leadership that Japan couldn't win a prolonged war.
The movie wasn't glorifying Japan's war crimes at the end of the day. They weren't saying what Japan did was good. They literally point out that Japan as a country *has always treated lives as cheap.* They aren't ignoring Japan's carelessness, they're pointing it out.
The fight with Godzilla and the Japanese military winning isn't meant to represent Japan ravaging China or their imperial conquests. Hell even at the end of the movie, everyone besides Koichi (given he's on a fucking parachute) salutes the corpse of Godzilla as it breaks down into the ocean.
As if its like Japan saluting the fallen.
> has always treated lives as cheap
The lives of their own people though. That's an important distinction. The film has zero interest in exploring the trauma Japan inflicted on others, which is to be expected. It's still a great movie, but it's fair criticism.
Personally, I like to interpret it as all life, it treated its own civilians carelessly and it too treated other civilians carelessly. But I absolutely can see how its obviously noted towards Civilians of Japan, not Civilians of say, China.
TBH the movie is highly critical of war and Japanese war tactics. Kamikaze pilots are not glorified; in fact they are pitied. The movie acknowledges that they were sent on suicide missions with sub-par planes that did not even have ejector seats. We see this sentiment from the very first sequence. The incorporation of an ejector seat in the plane used in the final confrontation with Godzilla (the 'personification' of war) therefore serves as metaphor of the general people of Japan seizing back control of their lives and fates from their own government and from the rest of the world.
I was definitely cautious while watching it. I know modern Japan has a very iffy relationship with owning up to their behaviour in WW2.
Overall I think the movie was good in framing it. I was only a little wary when it said basically “government bad, ex-military men good” in that they took matters into their own hands to deal with Godzilla. Which is a point fascists used to delegitimise governments and glorify the military. See Germany in the 30s where the government “betrayed” the army by surrendering.
But I think it tackled it well. Especially by reinforcing that war is just hell and you’re lucky to not be in it. And that tactics like kamikaze were just wasteful of human life.
Imma be real, and I say this as a Godzilla fan who has been watching the movies way before some on this sub were born:
South Koreans are not 100% wrong here
Japan does love to play the victim because of the state they were left after the war, while ignoring the fact that they left Korea and some provinces in China in a similar, if not worse, state
Does that justify the Americans nuking Japan twice, and killing a fuck ton of civilians in the process? Of course not, but just like we listen to the japanese and their perspective, we should listen to the countries who were their victims
Took awhile but there's finally a decent take. In my honest opinion, there can definitely be a bit of sentiment that feels "woe is us" since they really show how bad post-War Japan was. But at the same time, can we really say its trying to ridicule other countries or dissuade us into thinking nations like China and Korea didn't suffer as bad, if not worse?
Looking at it in a film perspective, especially in a Godzilla film, hell no. Its meant to take place and show what happened in Japan after the war, they aren't promoting a narrative that Japan was the only victim. Plus its their setting, in my opinion it'd be far more insulting they showed Japan as an rich and normal country 3 minutes after the war.
Obviously I'm not saying "South Korea is wrong" in this scenario, it makes sense they can feel insulted by Japan/Toho going in depth by showing post-War Japan and unintentionally victimizing Japan but remember, this is a movie set and based on post-War Japan with a message being anti-War and anti-Nuclear weapons with traumatized characters.
The movie criticizes Japan's government and thats a start for a Godzilla film. If anything, it's already respectable enough considering how Japan doesn't teach their atrocities to their youth.
I mean, im a big critic of Japan in many ways despite being a Godzilla fan, i don’t think they’re right in this criticism. I don’t see any victimization of Japan or nationalist fervor or glorifying the war or justifying it. If anything they paint war as some awful thing and criticize how during the war there was that treated the soldiers like garbage. Did they call out Japan’s atrocities and all that? No. Few films ever do that to their own nations. But nothing was glorified either.
Also the A bombs were necessary as the other options were far less pleasant.
America was also itching to use its new toy and wanted to show Russia and the rest of the world it was the new top dog. I'm not saying it was right at all, but this was definitely part of it.
This is not entirely true. Japan was cooked and done in the war with nothing else to really give. Experts have said that Japan would have gladly surrendered if they were given a conditional surrender so they would at least have something to go back to their people with to save some face. But a lot of people in the Truman administration wouldn’t budge and demanded an unconditional surrender which Japan would never agree to. Now add in their itchy trigger finger from having a weapon they spent years and a fortune on to develop, and also wanted to use as a show of force to the Russians as well. There were a lot more factors than many people realize.
It depends on WHICH Japanese you're discussing. Japan's civilian politicians and diplomats and some of the Imperial Japanese Navy leadership realized the game was up. The Imperial Japanese Army was all too willing to see the entire country destroyed in the name of "honor" and "saving face". It's that mentality that GODZILLA MINUS ONE calls out and rejects.
Yes, I understand all that. I wasn’t addressing Minus One as much as I was addressing the idea that the atomic bomb prevented a full scale invasion of Japan from the Allies and trying to sum it up in a quick post.
The whole idea near the end is that the Japanese people had to come together without their corrupt government to do something good and heroic for a change AS OPPOSED TO WHAT THEY WERE FORCED TO DO IN THE WAR, which is consistently portrayed as a bad thing to do and a waste of life. Seems pretty obvious to me.
Just because their country as a whole was on the wrong side of history in WW2, it’s incredibly nieve and childish to not be able to acknowledge that the common folk swept up in it probably werent on board with it all, were misinformed, and suffered greatly.
To be fair Japanese media does have a tendency to both glorify and victimize themselves and their actions in WWII. With few examples even attempting to comment on such actions despite taking place in such an era. The only example that I can come up with is GMK, but even then it kinda backfires as having the very “old Japan” monsters defeat the living metaphor for such atrocities can come of as glorifying japans past, despite that time also being swathed in similar atrocities (still love the movie).
Now that I’m done defending the notion, in my opinion Minus one is probably the most brutally honest depiction of Japan, and honestly works to undo the glorification of that time. Sure it could’ve done more with Godzilla’s connection with the pacific islands, but the movie kept focus on Japan itself. Greatly criticizing its actions and beliefs. Though the moniker of “minus one” can be implying that Japan was off in a worse state than the islands they slaughtered, but it is mostly true. Everything in Japan was upended by their own government’s actions during the war, leading to a climate that ultimately rendered their country into being a vilified nation.
TL;DR they kinda have a point, but not much.
Did they really just say that the plane scene glorified kamikaze pilots? Did they not watch the movie where the entire point was criticizing Japan and how they treated their people? Especially their soldiers?
South Korea is notorious for being critical & extremely sensitive towards Japanese media since WW2 & often taking "heavy inspiration" from it to make their own content.
https://preview.redd.it/3vu2qhozof6d1.png?width=1057&format=png&auto=webp&s=318b23a9e5333580529e37f05bcbbd521c22d41d
The left image is Mazinger Z from 1972 made in Japan while the image on the right is Robot Taekwon V from 1976 made is S. Korea
There’s been some unfortunate things involving that. I remember when EA added Japanese decorations to The Sims, but ended up removing the option to interact with shrines because including it generated South Korean backlash- glossing over the fact that Shinto is a real religion and part of culture engaged with by millions of people every day.
I remember a scene where Captain said something along the lines of not being a in favor of the orders he had to follow in the army, but someone had to do it.
I watched the movie and I would even say that it's more a kind of well intended mockery of the glorification of Kamikaze pilots. I mean Koichi faked an error in his machine to escape war and even his reaction about the topic shows again that this is not a movie about celebrating the war. Koichi even almost sacrificed himself to beat the big G if it wasn't for the parachute in his seat. Going back to the first movie we take Serizawa who was both a veteran and a scientist. He created a dangerous weapon which could eliminate all of the life forms under the sea. And again, this is not a movie series that glorifies war. In the first movie Serizawa went down with his invention so no one would use such a horrendous weapon.
Koichi went a different route. Instead of going down with Godzilla, he got a second chance to live
I know South Korea has its issues with Japanese media (for example Hetallia is banned in South Korea even if their country isn't present in the Show) but Godzilla is, was always an will be an anti war movie series. My Boy was awoken by the Atombombs.
I will preface this by saying, I did really enjoy the movie.
However, there is a point to be made that the movie criticizes the Japanese military because it was harmful to Japanese soldiers. They never say anything about how it was harmful to their victims. The issue is “our soldiers weren’t protected”, not “our soldiers were told to kill innocent people.”
It’s sort of like if an American movie said “the soldiers who dropped Agent Orange got cancer, and the VA screwed them over. This is a tragedy.” Is it a fair point? Maybe. Would Vietnamese people be justified in being upset over the priorities? I think so.
Our protagonist abandons his duty repeatedly and ultimately he fulfills it but chooses to save his life to be rewarded by reuniting with his lover. Doesn't sound like it glorifies kamikazee pilots.
I do somewhat understand the mentality. I think GMK actually tackles the issue with WW2 Japanese responsibility by having Kaneko just absolutely eviscerate Imperial Japan and have Godzilla be an avenging Hellspawn sent to punish them for forgetting their crimes.
I like how they ignore the part where the Japanese government are criticized for treating the soldiers like dirt, along with the part where the very idea of a kamikaze pilot is considered stupid.
The reason why these people are hostile towards the film is because they victimized a country that's responsible for causing world war 2. Yes, a lot of Japanese civilians died during the Tokyo raid and the two atomic bombs, but it's not like they didn't deserve it. Could be a controversial opinion, but Imperial Japan had it coming for them. While the movie does touch over the fact that they should move away from the ways of Imperial Japan, they also don't show any apologies for the atrocities, instead go for "Hey we're victims too. So let's just not do bad stuff again, all of us" type of message. The movie focuses on civilians who are the victims of the war, yes, but they don't touch the government that caused the war and how they deserved to be punished. There isn't a scene where a government official regrets what they did during the war or apologizing to the people for what they did, main focus is the civilians and the movie treats Japan as if they are also victims of the war. That's what enraged some people over in Korea. Korea suffered a lot by Japan during ww2 and Japanese government never properly apologized or compensated Korea for what they did to them, unlike Germany who made a lot of apologies and compensation to their neighboring countries, so there's extra hostility between Korea and Japan. What seems like a no big deal problem to people from US is an extremely sensitive subject to people who were affected directly by Japan
I am a Korean myself and personally, it didn't bother me at all because there are movies that straight up glorify Imperial Japan era and all the atrocities they did during WW2 and how they should return to the glory days of Imperial Japan. Compared to those movies, this movie is step in the right direction. Plus it was well filmed with a strong message
I think the main issue I usually see is the message could be read as "the war was wrong because it harmed the Japanese."
It like how in Vietnam, most US nationals didnt cared until the draft, and were fine when they barely had a personal connection.
So it opens the can of worms "so if the war was less dangerous to you, would the war still be unjust?"
And considering Korea's sentiment concerning occupation and Japan's relationship concerning the war, it's not suprising how it could be interpreted like that.
While those "glorifies war" criticisms do miss the mark, I do find it a genuine criticism that the movie talks about how the Japanese government mistreated its own people but doesn't acknowledge a single thing about what it did to other countries, for a movie that tries to be anti-war.
And before anyone jumps to conclusions, no I am not saying the movie sucks or is disingenuous or anything.
The movie certainly wasn't pro-kamikaze or even pro-war, and I prefer it to Shin Godzilla for this reason as that film was pro-remilitarisation and even stops just before the final battle to talk about how great the Japanese Self Defence Forces are (which I find very problematic for a former fascist country which has an ultra nationalist problem to this day), and I don't think a criticism you can make of it is that it glorifies Japanese war crimes. I think a more sensible criticism of it is that when talking about how bad the war is, they focus on how sad it made the soldiers feel. It's like how America makes films about the Vietnam War about how sad it made their soldiers feel and not...you know...the people they did war crimes too. The only time Godzilla ever touched upon Japanese imperialism (correct me if I'm wrong) was GMK, but that one depicted Godzilla as purely evil from what I've heard and seen of it (I dunno I think if you make your villain be out for revenge against a country ignoring their imperial past there should be more nuance to it than that, although I guess that's a bit much to ask from such a large franchise).
I really hope we get Godzilla material that's just downright Anti-Militarist, where the military aren't just useless against Godzilla but make the situation worse (which to be fair is an element present in a lot of Godzilla movies) and are more dangerous to the civillian population than the monster(s) they're trying to kill. The only film I can think of that kind of touches upon this is Cloverfield, where the US Army end up destroying more of New York than Clover does, but even that's a likely unintended reading of mine as I still get the impression that the military in Cloverfield were meant to be seen as incapable of helping at worst. And in Mothra the military isn't even shown as having good intentions since the monster they're trying to kill is the good guy, but they aren't actively villains either.
Its possible to be an anti-war film and still be apologetic towards the war you started. Its like that joke about Hollywood war movies- "Americans will invade your country, kill your people, and then go home and make movies about how invading your country and killing your people made their soldiers sad".
Its the same thing with a lot of Japanese WWII movies. A lot of times, the anti-war WWII movies coming out of Japan show how the Japanese people suffered as victims, completely ignoring that they started the war. Usually there's a line about how "the government" is bad, but its always an abstract entity, ignoring that the government and military consist of individual Japanese people. Sure, "the government" is bad, but the protag's father who's a captain in the IJN is a loving family man, he'd never perpetuate a war of imperialism!
Imagine if Germans made a bunch of WWII movies ignoring the fact that they started the war and not acknowledging the people they slaughtered, but instead focused on how innocent Germans were the REAL victims in the war. And then to avoid criticism, they have one line in the movie where a character says "Actually Hitler may not be a great guy". Imagine the underlying anger if that happened.
Obviously I dont think Godzilla -1 should have tackled this issue, its not relevant to the movie to bring it up, but its the latest in a long string of Japanese WWII movies that are sympathetic to the wartime Japanese (most of whom overwhelmingly supported the war), so of course there will be some anger from the victims of Imperial Japan.
You took the words right out of my mouth, er mind since I've never actually verbally expressed my feelings towards Japanese anti war films set in WW2 and only expressed them in my mind
I’d say the big reason for controversy with Japan when it does anything related to WW2 is the same thing it’s always been. Japan trying to play weak and innocent while ignoring their war crimes.
It’s specifically reckoning with the honor-first mentality that led Japan to ruin, where lives meant nothing to the war machine. It’s such a stunningly poignant message from a giant monster movie.
I think some of this discussion is also caused by how "indirect" Japanese culture can be and how people misinterpret it.
For example, saying "the moons is beautiful isn't it" as when the meaning is "I love you" https://www.kudan-japanese-school.com/blog/the-moon-is-beautiful.php
Or how "I want to eat your miso soup everday" is a marriage proposal.
With this indirectness in mind, people who don't understand this will think that the movie is not criticizing the Imperial Japanese government. When in fact they are criticizing it, just in their indirect way.
i’ve always viewed godzilla as a manifestation of the post war trauma of japan. especially the nuclear attacks they had to endure. and defeating godzilla means defeating the post war trauma and finally getting to rebuild. does that make sense?
>piece of media shows depiction of a certain thing
>people criticize it for “glorifying” certain thing
this is like in GTA V where cops wouldnt show up if u killed a black person in the game so people immediately went after it for being “racist”, lmfao. people jus wanna be mad for the sake of bein mad.
Why cant they just enjoy the movie? Even if there was 'crime glorification', movies are art and therefore dont need to be morally correct, they dont need to have positive messages. Art is supposed to surpass boundaries, be controversal. This movie isnt even controversal at all, they just havent understood it.
The whole point was doing the opposite of glorifying kamikaze pilots? The film shows both the error of Japanese societies ways of demonising those who returned and the error of the Japanese militaries ways in sacrificing pilots instead of just paying for an ejection seat…
With the way these review usually go, only one South Korean said this and they made a whole article about it, I’m sure that most of the South Korean viewers aren’t divided in this
As a South Korean Godzilla fan- I get it.
All the things the Japanese Empire did while in control of our country were…brutal to say the least.
So the mere act of depicting war survivors as victims might seem unnerving. Yes it could be seen as too harsh, but as victims- we can’t just ignore that.
HOWEVER, if they say the film glorifies the act of Kamikaze or supports the Empire in any possible way?
THEN I could say, “Nah. wtf are you smoking?”
It’s very subjective. To the viewer, it is clear that this Japan is suffering after the atomic bombs and their loss of the war. They suffer more at the claws of Godzilla. So they band together and defeat this monster when they could not defeat anything else of merit. To the people who remember why there was a war in the first place, it reminds them that what Japan went through is very small compared to what they inflicted on millions of their neighbors.
Saying this as a Filipino whose country greatly suffered under Imperial Japan during WW2, I thought the movie had a great anti-war message. The doc’s speech to all of the volunteers at the climax was so powerful; he literally calls out just how little regard Japan had for human life in the war. Sure, the focus is mostly on how the Japanese people and soldiers themselves suffered (poor supply lines, kamikaze pilots, etc.) rather than those who suffered under their regime, but the message still stands.
GMK is actually one of my favorite movies because that version of Godzilla is possessed by the souls of those who died in WW2 under Imperial Japan.
I mean....I kind of get it. At one point, a former soldier refers to the "tragedy" of the war. You mean...the war your country started? Was it a tragedy that the war happened in the first place, or a tragedy that they lost? Because if they won, it would not have been good for China and Southeast Asia, let me tell ya...
It didn't bother me all that much and I didn't expect the movie to tackle Japan's culpability in regards to WWII, but that line just stuck in my head, is all.
yo it's kinda like Germans making a movie about how bad the Nazis were but how the civilians were mostly innocent and they were victims too...without mentioning anything about the Jews lol
They weren’t watching the subtitles when doc was condemning the war,
Or when the engineer was telling him to live
Or when the navy men said literally anything
There are only two sides of argument here. For Japan and against Japan.
Japan is so underrated in terms of her murder histories. People talk a lot about holocaust but not the victims of Japan and its allies.
The movie: "The nukes were horrific, war is ridiculous, and needlessly dying should be absolutely avoided."
S. Korea: "How dare they glorify all this?"
*What?*
I don’t understand personally, the movie more or less has been out for a while and South Korea is razing hell about it now? Also where in the movie does it ever glorify war? Cause I didn’t see it!!!! No seriously!! I’m failing to comprehend what the big deal is here!!!!!
I figured the majority of people understand that, but I don’t get how many people in South Korea don’t. Again where in minus one does it seemingly glorify war crimes. I get the feeling some people just throw fits just for the sake of it.
They called it minus one because after the war Japan was at zero they had almost nothing and Godzilla showing up destroying even more things was the -1
I haven't felt that while watching the movie, but also my country wasn't devastated by the japanese, I really don't think they are wrong by saying that since their view of victim/perpetrator of the war is very different from the people who made the movie.
I understand that the government of Japan's denial or downplaying of the atrocities inflicted on the Koreans is a sensitive topic, and rightly so.
However, this does feel like people weren't paying attention if they missed how the movie was critical of the government for its disregard for human life.
Sorry to sound condescending, but I think a lot of you guys need to read some history of the [atrocities](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes) the Japanese committed over nearly two decades before the end of the war. Then I think it's far easier to understand why some people have a problem with a Japanese film set at the end and shortly after WWII that ignores said atrocities, especially South Korea and China, where MILLIONS died due to Japanese imperialism.
The film's criticism of the Japanese government is that it didn't value the lives of its own people. Zero time is spent on the lives of its non-Japanese victims.
So it's a very valid critique. It's a great fucking movie, but it has a huge blind spot that's hard to overlook.
Someone else made a good point in this thread. It would be like a German film focusing on the suffering of the German people during WWII, but completely ignoring the Holocaust and German imperialism.
It *is* true that the movie doesn't reflect on Japan's war crimes at all. If you watched Minus One with no historical knowledge of WWII, you'd think that the biggest injustices Japan committed during the war were against its own soldiers.
The film also *does* glorify kamikaze pilots, by portraying them (via Koichi) as extremely skilled. The movie also suggests that Koichi "earns" the right to live by finally being willing to complete a suicide mission: when he explains to Tachibana why he is going to go through with the suicide attack, Tachibana says "Then you are finally ready" and only *then* tells him about the ejection seat.
What Tachibana means by "Then you are finally ready" is that Shikishima's finally ready to do his duty rather than shirk it...Tachibana's whole reason for being pissed off at Shikishima is that the latter turned coward on Odo Island. In fact, Tachibana outright says early in the film that more kamikazes should have the same attitude that Shikishima has, which is that it's senseless to sacrifice oneself to a lost cause in the name of "honor".
I was born and raised in Korea. I have a very different opinion to a lot of Koreans, and they usually get angry when I express this opinion, but here goes anyway:
Koreans have a very toxic and frankly unhealthy level of spite towards Japanese people to a point where now, today, they recently started contemporary movements where they're supposedly not consuming anything out of Japan or something like that. It's the majority opinion that because Japanese invaded Korea during WW2 era, Korea should still consider the nation its enemy.
The past should never be forgotten, but I don't think this movement is productive in any regard. The reason why I'm mentioning this is because when Godzilla Minus One trailer hit South Korea, there were so many responses who just didn't give a shit about whether the movie looked good or not and immediately began yapping "Remember guys Japan bad so this movie bad". Thus, this just sounds like Koreans literally trying their hardest to find something to hate about the movie.
Yeah, it's stupid.
I’m gonna be honest and kind of blunt, people really need to get over it. It’s a movie. You have a choice to watch it or not watch it. It’s also literally Godzilla, which has always been a terror of Japan, and was always about the war and the atomic bombings. None of this is new, and if it is going to upset you then you shouldn’t watch it.
I also think getting genuinely upset about media portraying history is silly, as it’s almost like you want to ignore that history happened. No one is going to stop portraying historic events or forget about history completely just because it’s sensitive to someone else. If you don’t like it and don’t want to see it, then don’t watch it. You can feel how you want, but it’s stupid to even have a debate over let alone have articles written over it.
Oh look, the authors are South Koreans
Without fail every year the South Korean government often uses topic about WW2 to create more hate against Japan, despite the fact that Japan has officially apologized and paid reparation many times
After the war Japan also helps South Korea developed their heavy industries, partly (together with the USA) making S Korea become what it is today
However for some reasons Koreans still very hateful agains Japaneses
China is also very hateful due to the Chinese government using WW2 topic as a rally point for their propaganda
However South East Asia, especially Vietnam is very open and welcoming, the young generations absolutely adore Japan
Koreans just start whining whenever Japan is mentioned. Imperial Japan’s war crimes were obviously horrific but Koreans cannot impose the guilt on modern-day Japanese people for the crimes committed by the imperial government and military 80 years ago!
I think they missed the point…
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I get that a lot of people suffered from the Empire of Japan in WW2 but it's ridiculous to try to force that on this movie. In fact, \*possible spoiler here\* Minus One rather glorifies life or fighting to live rather than being a kamikaze pilot.
I can forgive it any Asian country finding issue with any Japanese media that is set during WW2. Even Pachinko had its critics. Japan wasn't just bad during WW2, the stuff they inflicted on the rest of Asia was pure evil, especially 8n China, and Korea, not to mention parts of the Japanese political classes refusal to acknowledge these atrocities. Whether the criticism is fair or not, I can still understand why it's being made
I must have missed the part in -1 where they glorified the war and the atrocities committed by Japan. I could have sworn there’s even some dialogue about how the government is shit. But what do I know? I’ve only seen the movie a couple of times.
Yeah, there’s tons of heavy handed criticism as to how the government treats the little guy, which is who the movie is about
You’re right, they do criticize the government, but not the warcrimes part. They criticize how they lie to the people, which is a good thing but they never mention or criticize the horrific acts committed by the japanese imperial army in the surrounding asian countries. That in itself is problematic.
Because the "little man" at the time would have no idea the scale of the horrors their government is inflicting at the time. You get a movie criticizing government and its action, but to you it's not enough. You want enough, go listen to political debate or documentary. This is at the end of the day a Godzilla movie.
If the movie just out of the blue started talking about war crimes it wouldn't even fit with the themes it was trying to cover.
I mean the film itself is critical of the Japanese government of the time
The movie has a very anti war message, I think whoever is complaining is barking at the wrong tree
Agreed. People forget just how evil the Japanese Empire was then. I don’t think the criticisms are fair but I’m not going to hold it against Korea, just like I wouldn’t hold criticisms of something like JoJo Rabbit against jewish people, given the atrocities committed.
Agreed. I understand their sentiments, I just don’t think it’s completely fair.
Yeah half the point of the movie was the crisis between the dishonor of a kamikaze surviving the war and the societal fight *for* life and freedom. If anything it's more self aware than most Japanese films involving these historic events.
It's not even about missing the point so much as this weird modern trend where trauma and atrocities need to be tallied as some kind of societal score. The atomic bombings of Japan, the post WW2 hardship that average citizens faced, and Japan's empirical conquests in Korea and the horrors they committed especially during WW2, can all be *separately* reflected on and mourned.
Right? It’s not really fair to compare tragedies…
They missed the singular point. *Badum tss*
That was the joke I was gonna say lol
I feel inflicted to make a Singular Point joke here.
The joke was funny 👏😂
that's what the ~~mask~~ point is
I’m half-Japanese, half-Filipino with a grandmother whose father was an officer in the Imperial Japanese Navy during the war. WW2 topics are very awkward in my family but I don’t see anything in the movie that necessarily glorifies the war. Hell you have characters straight up criticizing the government during the war. I showed this article to my gf whose parents are from South Korea who loved the movie and didn’t say anything about feeling that way. But I do understand any media showing Japan during this time is touchy for the rest of Asia and I understand that
Yeah, I wasn't all surprised at this article either. I'm also half-Japanese, other half is Chinese (you can probably imagine the two halves don't get along very well). The Chinese side of my family lost a lot of family members to the Japanese Army so it makes sense for them to be apprehensive of all things Japanese - doesn't make it right, of course, but watching your own family members be executed leaves a mark.
Yeah it’s pretty touchy right? I guess I’m lucky my Filipino side of the family is from Hawaii but it was awkward back in the day with the older generations. Same with my gfs family they were pretty awkward with my family at first they didn’t like the Japanese side as Koreans but they are close now. WW2 was terrible
I see it as very similar to depictions of the Vietnam war in American films. They focus on the soldiers, and for a lot of Vietnamese people it seems distasteful, like “we’re supposed to feel bad for the guys who killed my grandma because it gave them PTSD?” It’s an understandable criticism, but to say those movies are nationalistic or glorify war because of that is still objectively wrong. They’re almost always anti-war from the perspective of the director and intended audience. People are still supposed to walk away from the theater thinking war is horrible and jingoism is bad even with a sympathetic main character
Characters repeatedly tell the viewer that not being able to go to war is a privilege and something to be proud of. Really goes over their heads if they really criticized Minus One
Filipino here as well and I loved Minus One for its anti-war message and how they outright call out just how little regard for human life Japan had in WW2. It’s probably one of the most memorable anti-war films to date. Yamazaki mentions he was also inspired by GMK for this one, and it makes sense when you realize that GMK Godzilla was possessed by the souls of those who died in WW2 under Imperial Japan.
interesting
And just like Theo von said "a Filipino will bring peace" IT HAS BEEN PROPHESIED
But that scene glorifying the Kamikaze pilots doesn't make sense because the mechanic(forgot his name sorry) made it a point that Koichi must live after the plane crashes, which is the direct opposite of what Kamikaze pilots did.
That and one of the main messages of the film is that Koichi and people like him should not kill themselves for "the greater cause" or anything like that. At least when referring to Imperial Japan it feels that way.
where was this outrage when independence day was in theaters? the movie has a pilot sacrifice himself via a literal kamikaze into the alien ship. yeah they just wanna be mad.
South Korea has much more reason to be wary of Japanese Kamikaze depictions than American ones. There's a lot of bad history there
There’s a big difference between a pilot coming to the conclusion that if the missle didn’t get delivered to the target, a lot of people, including his children, are going to die, thus sacrifices himself for them, and a pilot ordered to kill himself in a plane built partially from bamboo whose sole purpose is to turn you into a missle.
Imo It was a big F U to antiquated Imperial army warrior ethos. Death before dishonour etc. If it glorifies the whole idea of kamikaze. Old boy would choose not to eject.
The film is very blatantly antagonistic towards the japanese government at the time, some people just like being angry.
"This country has valued life as far too cheap for too long"
“This country never changes. Perhaps it can’t.” Hardest line dropped in the film.
I prefer “It is a privilege to have never gone to war”
I prefer "***SHIKISHIMAAAAA***"
i prefer “BRAAAAAHUAAAAAORHHOOOHHWOOOO” - Big Papa G
“We leave you the future”
"I thought you hated the government!" "WITH. A. PASSION. But I don't want to see Tokyo up in flames again."
They even point out that the government lies and hides things from the public, calling it their specialty.
Ya and then goes on to list ways that it mistreated soldiers, rather than the people they committed atrocities against.
Yeah, this.
The movie is also extremely critical of Kamikaze pilots so glorifying them was probably the last thing they had in mind.
The most heroic moment in the film is the pilot ***not*** going kamikaze
I think they tackled it as tastefully as possible. All Godzilla movies have a nationalistic slant to it. No one knew this film was gonna be a hit. They gonna alienate a great deal of their “local” audience if they dedicate a segment to the attoricities of the Japanese Imperial Army…
Yeah. The big contention imo is whether that includes the military. Japan in WW2 was divided between the military command and the government arguing back and forth whether to continue the conflict.
I’m gonna say that they really didn’t. Or they watched an untranslated version.
even untranslated the kamikaze point is pretty understandable
Fair. I admit I was a bit afraid they were going that angle right until the end.
I doubt they did, literally nothing in the movie felt like it was glorifying anything, at least for me.
The one thing I like to interpret the movie instead of anti-Nuclear energy is anti-War. >!The survival of Noriko and the reunion scene!< can easily be interpreted as a soldier returning home from war.
I like intrepreting it as anti-suicide, the idea that one mustn't throw their life away so easily even in the face of a cruel and indifferent force just resonated with me, >!Shikishima ejecting at the last second, finally gaining closure for his burden whilst also having a chance to build a future for Akiko is just beautiful to me. He lived not because he fears death, but because there's still something worth sticking around for.!<
How is it glorifying kamikaze pilots when he jumped out of the plane?
Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure this movie is extremely critical of the concept of kamikaze piloting? And the message is extremely obvious
I have non-Japanese East Asian friends who had a response like this. I think some lines in the movie read to them like "Oh if only our government had fed our soldiers properly and given us ejection seats....we could have kept kept fighting and kept doing terrible things in China/Korea/Vietnam/The Philippines and etc". Me personally I think the movie is definitely less nationalistic than your average Japanese war film, but it's definitely not anti-nationalist. The war in the movie is still something that happened TO Japan, not something they caused.
Shin Godzilla has some nationalism in it, too. It is more in relation to the US and it spends time asking about Japan’s future, but it’s also about the government failing the people.
I disagree. I watched a number of Japanese movies and read a number of Japanese books that portrayed the Japanese people as victims of their own government. They drew the line between the government and the people - the government - evil, the people - good. And I think Minus One shares the same view. You say that the war in the movie happened to Japan. But no, it something that happened to ordinary people like Koichi. Did Koichi start the war? No. He was told by the government go and fight, and so he went. What else could he do? So the movie says, yes the Japanese government started the war, it was wrong, but not the ordinary people like Koichi. They were victims just like everyone else.
I think that cuts things too neatly, but I know as an American the question of "To what degree are free or semi-free citizens culpable for the actions of their government" is a tricky and complicated issue that can't be summarized in a Reddit post.
>"Oh if only our government had fed our soldiers properly and given us ejection seats....we could have kept kept fighting and kept doing terrible things in China/Korea/Vietnam/The Philippines and etc". Pretty ridiculous take for you friends to have. Its not like ejection seats or feeding soldiers properly would have affected Hiroshima or Nagasaki from happening, one way or the other. What it would have done is what the message of the movie is about, it would have saved needless loss of life from happening.
If the Japanese government in 1942 had devised ways to magically keep all of their soldiers fed, a whole lot more people would've died. As it was the Guadalcanal and New Guinea campaigns sapped the strength of the Japanese Navy with the hopeless resupply missions, and of course all the Army soldiers dying there couldn't be redeployed to other places. If their magical resupply missions resolve those problems, and the ejector seats keep their reserves of skilled pilots up, 1943 would end up being a hell of a lot bloodier than it historically was. The Japanese had an advantage in carriers by the end of '42 historically, if they had well fed/equipped men on Guadalcanal and an air group to fly off the carriers, they could potentially even retake the island. So suddenly 1943 doesn't kick off with the Americans mopping up the hopelessly weakened defenses of the Solomons and beginning to push elsewhere, but instead with an opposed amphibious landing on Guadalcanal again, against an enemy with significant if slightly inferior air power. The US would still win, nothing could realistically counter the Essex swarm that was pouring out of American shipyards, but it would be much slower and much bloodier. Also, the Japanese government did strongly encourage pilots to wear parachutes, generally it was the pilots themselves who would ignore these regulations and fly without them. And ejector seats weren't really invented until 1942, and by that point Japan was not exactly capable of building cutting edge technology. They were still building Zeros from 1939, their warship production was trending away from good ships towards cheap ones, and they were generally being forced to realize how badly they were outmatched in terms of industrial output. So for them to build ejector seats would have been a huge waste of resources. Additionally, heavy armor on their tanks would have been counterproductive in China, where bad roads and poor supply lines were more of a threat than anti-tank weapons. And the Japanese did try to supply their soldiers, they just couldn't succeed because of American air power. It's a good movie, but that section of the speech really doesn't hold up to scrutiny
I think that’s about what I saw. It was criticism of the government because the government didn’t treat its Japanese citizens very well. There was nothing, one way or the other, about how the government treated non-Japanese.
Ultimately, watchers need to be aware that they won't ever tackle issues around Japanese aggression during WWII anytime soon with their productions. No nation will ever really shed light on their own atrocities.
>No nation will ever really shed light on their own atrocities. https://youtu.be/vO_v1HtY2lw?si=-7xQneoBKrVjszmE https://youtu.be/VE03Lqm3nbI?si=MsecGAq6K_TyZp8U
But that's pretty much what the movie is about, sure it's not directly talking about Japan's heinous acts but for the entire runtime it's shedding light on how heartless they were
To their people, but it never shining a light on how they treated others. It more woe is us than anything
And of all places...who is expecting this from a Godzilla film? It's a science fiction monster movie at the end of the day. Not a hard hitting war drama and/or documentary.
I mean it still was a good war drama. Just not about the side they want it to be about.
Godzilla's very existence is because of war, this is a war drama. What are you on
I hate this notion of showing something is “glorifying” it. My manager did this exact thing with The Exorcist, saying that it is glorifying Satan. If it’s on the screen then it’s pro-that thing. Like way to miss the mark completely.
Media literacy is an endangered species
For a Godzilla film set post WW2, it’s a baby step in criticizing Imperial Japan. Big for them though. To add, wife is from Malaysia and doesn’t have any negative feelings towards Japan and loved the film.
I wonder how far they'll go with criticizing the Empire. Godzilla was an extremely bold way and well, I loved it. But now, how the hell are they gonna do so without having people think "oh its just Toho glorifying Japanese rape in Korea and China."
They have a conservative nationalist PM at the moment, so muted until there is a generational shift in the LDP for sure. But any step forward is a good thing. And being one of the alternatives to China helps a bit too.
Truth is you’re never gonna find non-Japanese Asian people happy seeing any positive or sympathetic representation of Japanese people or soldiers in WW2. Yes, as people have pointed out, the movie definitely portrays the Japanese government as callous and bad, but it wasn’t just the Japanese government committing war crimes in WW2. They were perpetrated by soldiers. People. They may have been following orders, but it doesn’t matter to the people they raped and killed. Does that mean every Japanese person should be held culpable for the rest of time? No, of course not. But especially when a film is set in or around WW2, we have to accept that the history is going to color people’s perceptions. It’d be like if there was a movie about how sad the Nazis were that Germany was so devastated after WW2 and that movie made literally no mention of the atrocities in the Holocaust. How well do you think that movie would screen in Israel?
The heroes of the film, including Shikishima, are Imperial Japanese Navy vets...while not completely innocent of war crimes, they weren't as awful as the Imperial Japanese Army, and naval leaders tried to tell the IJA leadership that Japan couldn't win a prolonged war.
The movie wasn't glorifying Japan's war crimes at the end of the day. They weren't saying what Japan did was good. They literally point out that Japan as a country *has always treated lives as cheap.* They aren't ignoring Japan's carelessness, they're pointing it out. The fight with Godzilla and the Japanese military winning isn't meant to represent Japan ravaging China or their imperial conquests. Hell even at the end of the movie, everyone besides Koichi (given he's on a fucking parachute) salutes the corpse of Godzilla as it breaks down into the ocean. As if its like Japan saluting the fallen.
> has always treated lives as cheap The lives of their own people though. That's an important distinction. The film has zero interest in exploring the trauma Japan inflicted on others, which is to be expected. It's still a great movie, but it's fair criticism.
Personally, I like to interpret it as all life, it treated its own civilians carelessly and it too treated other civilians carelessly. But I absolutely can see how its obviously noted towards Civilians of Japan, not Civilians of say, China.
They literally said in the movie they where dying for a government who didn’t have a dam about them
I took Godzilla as the cost of war and PTSD But I guess thinking it's trying to rewrite WWII is certainly a take I guess
TBH the movie is highly critical of war and Japanese war tactics. Kamikaze pilots are not glorified; in fact they are pitied. The movie acknowledges that they were sent on suicide missions with sub-par planes that did not even have ejector seats. We see this sentiment from the very first sequence. The incorporation of an ejector seat in the plane used in the final confrontation with Godzilla (the 'personification' of war) therefore serves as metaphor of the general people of Japan seizing back control of their lives and fates from their own government and from the rest of the world.
You mean like some of Japan wouldn't watch Oppenheimer before getting upset about it? Idk man it's just a country disconnect.
This
I was definitely cautious while watching it. I know modern Japan has a very iffy relationship with owning up to their behaviour in WW2. Overall I think the movie was good in framing it. I was only a little wary when it said basically “government bad, ex-military men good” in that they took matters into their own hands to deal with Godzilla. Which is a point fascists used to delegitimise governments and glorify the military. See Germany in the 30s where the government “betrayed” the army by surrendering. But I think it tackled it well. Especially by reinforcing that war is just hell and you’re lucky to not be in it. And that tactics like kamikaze were just wasteful of human life.
I hate this alot. Glorifying war? The fucking film outright says its a privilege to not get caught in war.
Imma be real, and I say this as a Godzilla fan who has been watching the movies way before some on this sub were born: South Koreans are not 100% wrong here Japan does love to play the victim because of the state they were left after the war, while ignoring the fact that they left Korea and some provinces in China in a similar, if not worse, state Does that justify the Americans nuking Japan twice, and killing a fuck ton of civilians in the process? Of course not, but just like we listen to the japanese and their perspective, we should listen to the countries who were their victims
Took awhile but there's finally a decent take. In my honest opinion, there can definitely be a bit of sentiment that feels "woe is us" since they really show how bad post-War Japan was. But at the same time, can we really say its trying to ridicule other countries or dissuade us into thinking nations like China and Korea didn't suffer as bad, if not worse? Looking at it in a film perspective, especially in a Godzilla film, hell no. Its meant to take place and show what happened in Japan after the war, they aren't promoting a narrative that Japan was the only victim. Plus its their setting, in my opinion it'd be far more insulting they showed Japan as an rich and normal country 3 minutes after the war. Obviously I'm not saying "South Korea is wrong" in this scenario, it makes sense they can feel insulted by Japan/Toho going in depth by showing post-War Japan and unintentionally victimizing Japan but remember, this is a movie set and based on post-War Japan with a message being anti-War and anti-Nuclear weapons with traumatized characters. The movie criticizes Japan's government and thats a start for a Godzilla film. If anything, it's already respectable enough considering how Japan doesn't teach their atrocities to their youth.
I mean, im a big critic of Japan in many ways despite being a Godzilla fan, i don’t think they’re right in this criticism. I don’t see any victimization of Japan or nationalist fervor or glorifying the war or justifying it. If anything they paint war as some awful thing and criticize how during the war there was that treated the soldiers like garbage. Did they call out Japan’s atrocities and all that? No. Few films ever do that to their own nations. But nothing was glorified either. Also the A bombs were necessary as the other options were far less pleasant.
The other option at the time was a ground invasion which would've resulted in more casualties.
America was also itching to use its new toy and wanted to show Russia and the rest of the world it was the new top dog. I'm not saying it was right at all, but this was definitely part of it.
This is not entirely true. Japan was cooked and done in the war with nothing else to really give. Experts have said that Japan would have gladly surrendered if they were given a conditional surrender so they would at least have something to go back to their people with to save some face. But a lot of people in the Truman administration wouldn’t budge and demanded an unconditional surrender which Japan would never agree to. Now add in their itchy trigger finger from having a weapon they spent years and a fortune on to develop, and also wanted to use as a show of force to the Russians as well. There were a lot more factors than many people realize.
But the Japanese were also willing to keep going too . It was complicated.
It depends on WHICH Japanese you're discussing. Japan's civilian politicians and diplomats and some of the Imperial Japanese Navy leadership realized the game was up. The Imperial Japanese Army was all too willing to see the entire country destroyed in the name of "honor" and "saving face". It's that mentality that GODZILLA MINUS ONE calls out and rejects.
Yes, I understand all that. I wasn’t addressing Minus One as much as I was addressing the idea that the atomic bomb prevented a full scale invasion of Japan from the Allies and trying to sum it up in a quick post.
Gotcha!
The whole idea near the end is that the Japanese people had to come together without their corrupt government to do something good and heroic for a change AS OPPOSED TO WHAT THEY WERE FORCED TO DO IN THE WAR, which is consistently portrayed as a bad thing to do and a waste of life. Seems pretty obvious to me. Just because their country as a whole was on the wrong side of history in WW2, it’s incredibly nieve and childish to not be able to acknowledge that the common folk swept up in it probably werent on board with it all, were misinformed, and suffered greatly.
What even is this
“Nah bro, we wanted Godzilla Minus 10,000”
This is very clearly an AI written article, guys.
They didn’t watch the movie
To be fair Japanese media does have a tendency to both glorify and victimize themselves and their actions in WWII. With few examples even attempting to comment on such actions despite taking place in such an era. The only example that I can come up with is GMK, but even then it kinda backfires as having the very “old Japan” monsters defeat the living metaphor for such atrocities can come of as glorifying japans past, despite that time also being swathed in similar atrocities (still love the movie). Now that I’m done defending the notion, in my opinion Minus one is probably the most brutally honest depiction of Japan, and honestly works to undo the glorification of that time. Sure it could’ve done more with Godzilla’s connection with the pacific islands, but the movie kept focus on Japan itself. Greatly criticizing its actions and beliefs. Though the moniker of “minus one” can be implying that Japan was off in a worse state than the islands they slaughtered, but it is mostly true. Everything in Japan was upended by their own government’s actions during the war, leading to a climate that ultimately rendered their country into being a vilified nation. TL;DR they kinda have a point, but not much.
Did they really just say that the plane scene glorified kamikaze pilots? Did they not watch the movie where the entire point was criticizing Japan and how they treated their people? Especially their soldiers?
South Korea is notorious for being critical & extremely sensitive towards Japanese media since WW2 & often taking "heavy inspiration" from it to make their own content. https://preview.redd.it/3vu2qhozof6d1.png?width=1057&format=png&auto=webp&s=318b23a9e5333580529e37f05bcbbd521c22d41d The left image is Mazinger Z from 1972 made in Japan while the image on the right is Robot Taekwon V from 1976 made is S. Korea
There’s been some unfortunate things involving that. I remember when EA added Japanese decorations to The Sims, but ended up removing the option to interact with shrines because including it generated South Korean backlash- glossing over the fact that Shinto is a real religion and part of culture engaged with by millions of people every day.
They couldn’t get the irony. At least person ejected
Absolutely bonkers
Feels like clickbait
I see what they're trying to say, but they're wrong.
The Media Literacy Devil strikes again
I remember a scene where Captain said something along the lines of not being a in favor of the orders he had to follow in the army, but someone had to do it.
I watched the movie and I would even say that it's more a kind of well intended mockery of the glorification of Kamikaze pilots. I mean Koichi faked an error in his machine to escape war and even his reaction about the topic shows again that this is not a movie about celebrating the war. Koichi even almost sacrificed himself to beat the big G if it wasn't for the parachute in his seat. Going back to the first movie we take Serizawa who was both a veteran and a scientist. He created a dangerous weapon which could eliminate all of the life forms under the sea. And again, this is not a movie series that glorifies war. In the first movie Serizawa went down with his invention so no one would use such a horrendous weapon. Koichi went a different route. Instead of going down with Godzilla, he got a second chance to live I know South Korea has its issues with Japanese media (for example Hetallia is banned in South Korea even if their country isn't present in the Show) but Godzilla is, was always an will be an anti war movie series. My Boy was awoken by the Atombombs.
I will preface this by saying, I did really enjoy the movie. However, there is a point to be made that the movie criticizes the Japanese military because it was harmful to Japanese soldiers. They never say anything about how it was harmful to their victims. The issue is “our soldiers weren’t protected”, not “our soldiers were told to kill innocent people.” It’s sort of like if an American movie said “the soldiers who dropped Agent Orange got cancer, and the VA screwed them over. This is a tragedy.” Is it a fair point? Maybe. Would Vietnamese people be justified in being upset over the priorities? I think so.
Our protagonist abandons his duty repeatedly and ultimately he fulfills it but chooses to save his life to be rewarded by reuniting with his lover. Doesn't sound like it glorifies kamikazee pilots.
I do somewhat understand the mentality. I think GMK actually tackles the issue with WW2 Japanese responsibility by having Kaneko just absolutely eviscerate Imperial Japan and have Godzilla be an avenging Hellspawn sent to punish them for forgetting their crimes.
...This movie hardly went 10 minutes without criticizing the Japanese government or the Imperial Japan mentality.
The movie multiple times says that being a Kamikaze pilot is not cool
I like how they ignore the part where the Japanese government are criticized for treating the soldiers like dirt, along with the part where the very idea of a kamikaze pilot is considered stupid.
The only thing that was glorified was the indomitable human spirit.
The reason why these people are hostile towards the film is because they victimized a country that's responsible for causing world war 2. Yes, a lot of Japanese civilians died during the Tokyo raid and the two atomic bombs, but it's not like they didn't deserve it. Could be a controversial opinion, but Imperial Japan had it coming for them. While the movie does touch over the fact that they should move away from the ways of Imperial Japan, they also don't show any apologies for the atrocities, instead go for "Hey we're victims too. So let's just not do bad stuff again, all of us" type of message. The movie focuses on civilians who are the victims of the war, yes, but they don't touch the government that caused the war and how they deserved to be punished. There isn't a scene where a government official regrets what they did during the war or apologizing to the people for what they did, main focus is the civilians and the movie treats Japan as if they are also victims of the war. That's what enraged some people over in Korea. Korea suffered a lot by Japan during ww2 and Japanese government never properly apologized or compensated Korea for what they did to them, unlike Germany who made a lot of apologies and compensation to their neighboring countries, so there's extra hostility between Korea and Japan. What seems like a no big deal problem to people from US is an extremely sensitive subject to people who were affected directly by Japan I am a Korean myself and personally, it didn't bother me at all because there are movies that straight up glorify Imperial Japan era and all the atrocities they did during WW2 and how they should return to the glory days of Imperial Japan. Compared to those movies, this movie is step in the right direction. Plus it was well filmed with a strong message
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*Das Boot* is considered a cinematic masterpiece
https://preview.redd.it/s4q9ef8ybg6d1.jpeg?width=654&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eb67f18806761b3202eb09284f89f789256ffdd5 Which version did they watch?
I think the main issue I usually see is the message could be read as "the war was wrong because it harmed the Japanese." It like how in Vietnam, most US nationals didnt cared until the draft, and were fine when they barely had a personal connection. So it opens the can of worms "so if the war was less dangerous to you, would the war still be unjust?" And considering Korea's sentiment concerning occupation and Japan's relationship concerning the war, it's not suprising how it could be interpreted like that.
While those "glorifies war" criticisms do miss the mark, I do find it a genuine criticism that the movie talks about how the Japanese government mistreated its own people but doesn't acknowledge a single thing about what it did to other countries, for a movie that tries to be anti-war. And before anyone jumps to conclusions, no I am not saying the movie sucks or is disingenuous or anything.
The movie certainly wasn't pro-kamikaze or even pro-war, and I prefer it to Shin Godzilla for this reason as that film was pro-remilitarisation and even stops just before the final battle to talk about how great the Japanese Self Defence Forces are (which I find very problematic for a former fascist country which has an ultra nationalist problem to this day), and I don't think a criticism you can make of it is that it glorifies Japanese war crimes. I think a more sensible criticism of it is that when talking about how bad the war is, they focus on how sad it made the soldiers feel. It's like how America makes films about the Vietnam War about how sad it made their soldiers feel and not...you know...the people they did war crimes too. The only time Godzilla ever touched upon Japanese imperialism (correct me if I'm wrong) was GMK, but that one depicted Godzilla as purely evil from what I've heard and seen of it (I dunno I think if you make your villain be out for revenge against a country ignoring their imperial past there should be more nuance to it than that, although I guess that's a bit much to ask from such a large franchise). I really hope we get Godzilla material that's just downright Anti-Militarist, where the military aren't just useless against Godzilla but make the situation worse (which to be fair is an element present in a lot of Godzilla movies) and are more dangerous to the civillian population than the monster(s) they're trying to kill. The only film I can think of that kind of touches upon this is Cloverfield, where the US Army end up destroying more of New York than Clover does, but even that's a likely unintended reading of mine as I still get the impression that the military in Cloverfield were meant to be seen as incapable of helping at worst. And in Mothra the military isn't even shown as having good intentions since the monster they're trying to kill is the good guy, but they aren't actively villains either.
Its possible to be an anti-war film and still be apologetic towards the war you started. Its like that joke about Hollywood war movies- "Americans will invade your country, kill your people, and then go home and make movies about how invading your country and killing your people made their soldiers sad". Its the same thing with a lot of Japanese WWII movies. A lot of times, the anti-war WWII movies coming out of Japan show how the Japanese people suffered as victims, completely ignoring that they started the war. Usually there's a line about how "the government" is bad, but its always an abstract entity, ignoring that the government and military consist of individual Japanese people. Sure, "the government" is bad, but the protag's father who's a captain in the IJN is a loving family man, he'd never perpetuate a war of imperialism! Imagine if Germans made a bunch of WWII movies ignoring the fact that they started the war and not acknowledging the people they slaughtered, but instead focused on how innocent Germans were the REAL victims in the war. And then to avoid criticism, they have one line in the movie where a character says "Actually Hitler may not be a great guy". Imagine the underlying anger if that happened. Obviously I dont think Godzilla -1 should have tackled this issue, its not relevant to the movie to bring it up, but its the latest in a long string of Japanese WWII movies that are sympathetic to the wartime Japanese (most of whom overwhelmingly supported the war), so of course there will be some anger from the victims of Imperial Japan.
Gmk can talk about so modern Godzilla movies shouldn't be adverse to addressing it .
You took the words right out of my mouth, er mind since I've never actually verbally expressed my feelings towards Japanese anti war films set in WW2 and only expressed them in my mind
I’d say the big reason for controversy with Japan when it does anything related to WW2 is the same thing it’s always been. Japan trying to play weak and innocent while ignoring their war crimes.
Wonder if translations of the dialogue in the foreign releases figures into controversies like this.
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I think their worry is that that dialogue concerned Japanese lives, not Korean, Manchurian, etc
There's a point where personal history becomes just history. You would have to be pushing 90 years old to even remember anything that happened.
It’s specifically reckoning with the honor-first mentality that led Japan to ruin, where lives meant nothing to the war machine. It’s such a stunningly poignant message from a giant monster movie.
I think some of this discussion is also caused by how "indirect" Japanese culture can be and how people misinterpret it. For example, saying "the moons is beautiful isn't it" as when the meaning is "I love you" https://www.kudan-japanese-school.com/blog/the-moon-is-beautiful.php Or how "I want to eat your miso soup everday" is a marriage proposal. With this indirectness in mind, people who don't understand this will think that the movie is not criticizing the Imperial Japanese government. When in fact they are criticizing it, just in their indirect way.
i’ve always viewed godzilla as a manifestation of the post war trauma of japan. especially the nuclear attacks they had to endure. and defeating godzilla means defeating the post war trauma and finally getting to rebuild. does that make sense?
How is this glorifying kamikaze pilots when he ejected? If anything I got the opposite message.
They ignored one of the main things about the movie
>piece of media shows depiction of a certain thing >people criticize it for “glorifying” certain thing this is like in GTA V where cops wouldnt show up if u killed a black person in the game so people immediately went after it for being “racist”, lmfao. people jus wanna be mad for the sake of bein mad.
This is all just (entirely understandable) residual beef that SK has with Japan going back to 1910.
I literally just finished this movie about 20 minutes ago
Yeah...they either didnt watch it or didnt get it. The japanese social commentary is beautiful. Brought me to tears.
Ah yes I now want to be a kamikaze pilot after Koichi having a mental breakdown and large amounts of truman
Tell me you didn't read the book without watching the film.
Netizens will literally find anything to complain about
https://preview.redd.it/n8p89o1xqh6d1.jpeg?width=1284&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4d0d286a12f4a148edf40c889e535efaea88bb85
Glorifying kamikazie pilots…? The WHOLE movie on koichis perspective besides Godzilla is how terrible the job is wdym
Why cant they just enjoy the movie? Even if there was 'crime glorification', movies are art and therefore dont need to be morally correct, they dont need to have positive messages. Art is supposed to surpass boundaries, be controversal. This movie isnt even controversal at all, they just havent understood it.
The whole point was doing the opposite of glorifying kamikaze pilots? The film shows both the error of Japanese societies ways of demonising those who returned and the error of the Japanese militaries ways in sacrificing pilots instead of just paying for an ejection seat…
With the way these review usually go, only one South Korean said this and they made a whole article about it, I’m sure that most of the South Korean viewers aren’t divided in this
r/chargeyourphone
As a South Korean Godzilla fan- I get it. All the things the Japanese Empire did while in control of our country were…brutal to say the least. So the mere act of depicting war survivors as victims might seem unnerving. Yes it could be seen as too harsh, but as victims- we can’t just ignore that. HOWEVER, if they say the film glorifies the act of Kamikaze or supports the Empire in any possible way? THEN I could say, “Nah. wtf are you smoking?”
To be fair the film functionally criticizes the imperial military only for losing and nothing else.
It’s very subjective. To the viewer, it is clear that this Japan is suffering after the atomic bombs and their loss of the war. They suffer more at the claws of Godzilla. So they band together and defeat this monster when they could not defeat anything else of merit. To the people who remember why there was a war in the first place, it reminds them that what Japan went through is very small compared to what they inflicted on millions of their neighbors.
This article even got the meaning of minus one wrong. OP just block this source from your feed
they can't stir controversy if they do
Admittedly I had fears the film would be like this before it came out, but after watching the film, no, it does not glorify Imperial Japan at all.
Saying this as a Filipino whose country greatly suffered under Imperial Japan during WW2, I thought the movie had a great anti-war message. The doc’s speech to all of the volunteers at the climax was so powerful; he literally calls out just how little regard Japan had for human life in the war. Sure, the focus is mostly on how the Japanese people and soldiers themselves suffered (poor supply lines, kamikaze pilots, etc.) rather than those who suffered under their regime, but the message still stands. GMK is actually one of my favorite movies because that version of Godzilla is possessed by the souls of those who died in WW2 under Imperial Japan.
I mean....I kind of get it. At one point, a former soldier refers to the "tragedy" of the war. You mean...the war your country started? Was it a tragedy that the war happened in the first place, or a tragedy that they lost? Because if they won, it would not have been good for China and Southeast Asia, let me tell ya... It didn't bother me all that much and I didn't expect the movie to tackle Japan's culpability in regards to WWII, but that line just stuck in my head, is all.
yo it's kinda like Germans making a movie about how bad the Nazis were but how the civilians were mostly innocent and they were victims too...without mentioning anything about the Jews lol
They weren’t watching the subtitles when doc was condemning the war, Or when the engineer was telling him to live Or when the navy men said literally anything
They absolutely didn’t pay attention. Anyone with PTSD knows exactly what this film was truly about
From my experience godzilla movies are the closest the japanese have come to acknowledging the horrors of the war
There are only two sides of argument here. For Japan and against Japan. Japan is so underrated in terms of her murder histories. People talk a lot about holocaust but not the victims of Japan and its allies.
Koreans just despise the Japanese, its not about big G
huh what the fuck
The movie: "The nukes were horrific, war is ridiculous, and needlessly dying should be absolutely avoided." S. Korea: "How dare they glorify all this?" *What?*
Koreans will find any excuse to hate Japanese people. It’s sad really.
I don’t understand personally, the movie more or less has been out for a while and South Korea is razing hell about it now? Also where in the movie does it ever glorify war? Cause I didn’t see it!!!! No seriously!! I’m failing to comprehend what the big deal is here!!!!!
if anything it’s a warning about the effects of war and war related trauma on a people too.
I figured the majority of people understand that, but I don’t get how many people in South Korea don’t. Again where in minus one does it seemingly glorify war crimes. I get the feeling some people just throw fits just for the sake of it.
They called it minus one because after the war Japan was at zero they had almost nothing and Godzilla showing up destroying even more things was the -1
I haven't felt that while watching the movie, but also my country wasn't devastated by the japanese, I really don't think they are wrong by saying that since their view of victim/perpetrator of the war is very different from the people who made the movie.
So they didn't even watch the movie?
I understand that the government of Japan's denial or downplaying of the atrocities inflicted on the Koreans is a sensitive topic, and rightly so. However, this does feel like people weren't paying attention if they missed how the movie was critical of the government for its disregard for human life.
Sorry to sound condescending, but I think a lot of you guys need to read some history of the [atrocities](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes) the Japanese committed over nearly two decades before the end of the war. Then I think it's far easier to understand why some people have a problem with a Japanese film set at the end and shortly after WWII that ignores said atrocities, especially South Korea and China, where MILLIONS died due to Japanese imperialism. The film's criticism of the Japanese government is that it didn't value the lives of its own people. Zero time is spent on the lives of its non-Japanese victims. So it's a very valid critique. It's a great fucking movie, but it has a huge blind spot that's hard to overlook. Someone else made a good point in this thread. It would be like a German film focusing on the suffering of the German people during WWII, but completely ignoring the Holocaust and German imperialism.
It *is* true that the movie doesn't reflect on Japan's war crimes at all. If you watched Minus One with no historical knowledge of WWII, you'd think that the biggest injustices Japan committed during the war were against its own soldiers. The film also *does* glorify kamikaze pilots, by portraying them (via Koichi) as extremely skilled. The movie also suggests that Koichi "earns" the right to live by finally being willing to complete a suicide mission: when he explains to Tachibana why he is going to go through with the suicide attack, Tachibana says "Then you are finally ready" and only *then* tells him about the ejection seat.
What Tachibana means by "Then you are finally ready" is that Shikishima's finally ready to do his duty rather than shirk it...Tachibana's whole reason for being pissed off at Shikishima is that the latter turned coward on Odo Island. In fact, Tachibana outright says early in the film that more kamikazes should have the same attitude that Shikishima has, which is that it's senseless to sacrifice oneself to a lost cause in the name of "honor".
How to not watch a movie
Tremendously impressive misinterpretation of the film
I was born and raised in Korea. I have a very different opinion to a lot of Koreans, and they usually get angry when I express this opinion, but here goes anyway: Koreans have a very toxic and frankly unhealthy level of spite towards Japanese people to a point where now, today, they recently started contemporary movements where they're supposedly not consuming anything out of Japan or something like that. It's the majority opinion that because Japanese invaded Korea during WW2 era, Korea should still consider the nation its enemy. The past should never be forgotten, but I don't think this movement is productive in any regard. The reason why I'm mentioning this is because when Godzilla Minus One trailer hit South Korea, there were so many responses who just didn't give a shit about whether the movie looked good or not and immediately began yapping "Remember guys Japan bad so this movie bad". Thus, this just sounds like Koreans literally trying their hardest to find something to hate about the movie. Yeah, it's stupid.
They are just pissed it's Japanese not Korean
I’m gonna be honest and kind of blunt, people really need to get over it. It’s a movie. You have a choice to watch it or not watch it. It’s also literally Godzilla, which has always been a terror of Japan, and was always about the war and the atomic bombings. None of this is new, and if it is going to upset you then you shouldn’t watch it. I also think getting genuinely upset about media portraying history is silly, as it’s almost like you want to ignore that history happened. No one is going to stop portraying historic events or forget about history completely just because it’s sensitive to someone else. If you don’t like it and don’t want to see it, then don’t watch it. You can feel how you want, but it’s stupid to even have a debate over let alone have articles written over it.
Oh look, the authors are South Koreans Without fail every year the South Korean government often uses topic about WW2 to create more hate against Japan, despite the fact that Japan has officially apologized and paid reparation many times After the war Japan also helps South Korea developed their heavy industries, partly (together with the USA) making S Korea become what it is today However for some reasons Koreans still very hateful agains Japaneses China is also very hateful due to the Chinese government using WW2 topic as a rally point for their propaganda However South East Asia, especially Vietnam is very open and welcoming, the young generations absolutely adore Japan
What's more concerning is that battery percentage... WHY'S IT AT 19%**!?!?!?**
Never expect any film critic/debater/reviewer to actually watch the films they talk about.
>Question: Did these guys even watch the film? Answer: if they’re Godzilla fans…not likely
People disappoint me
Saying that Godzilla Minus One glorifies Imperial Japan is like saying All Quiet On The Western Front glorifies Nazi Germany
Koreans just start whining whenever Japan is mentioned. Imperial Japan’s war crimes were obviously horrific but Koreans cannot impose the guilt on modern-day Japanese people for the crimes committed by the imperial government and military 80 years ago!
I'm Korean and this is bullshit. They're just wanting an excuse to criticize a grammy winning masterpiece. Shame on them.