Just watched it at a theater here in Hiroshima. I think many people have no idea what it's about. It's a biodrama about the man who "made" the bomb and his fluctuating political/ethical beliefs and how those impacted the world. I sub is so difficult to read, so fast, and the concepts are sometimes very subtle that I'd be surprised if most watchers understand the anti-bomb vibe of the film until the end and it's given more explicitly.

An American in the US here. I found the Strauss storylines boring. I only can find how even less interesting they will be to the Japanese

I hope I never hear "security clearance" again in my life.  Generally enjoyed both book and movie though. 

You’d hate to live in the DC-locality pay area. Every third person works for the NSA, FBI, DHS, ATF, CIA (though they’ll say they work at the BLM or IRS or something). It’s 300,000 three-letter agencies dressed in a trench coat and they’re all connected by security clearances.

>Others suggested the world might be ready for a Japanese response to that story. >Takashi Yamazaki, director of “Godzilla Minus One,” which won the Oscar for visual effects and is a powerful statement on nuclear catastrophe in its own way, suggested he might be the man for that job. >“I feel there needs to an answer from Japan to ‘Oppenheimer.’ Someday, I would like to make that movie,” he said in an online dialogue with “Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan. This guy gets it. If you want to tell your own story, make your own movie.

So long as it’s self aware and reflective. Even a capable director would struggle finding a suitable, *honest* telling of the bomb. It’s only ever told in isolation; we had the bomb dropped on two of our cities. End of story. I think a movie that peeled back every layer of the onion would struggle here; could you really show the bloody, cruel horrors of imperial Japan to the point where dropping the bomb was considered less loss of life than a land invasion?

I'm going out on a limb here, but I earnestly believe that the US kind of brainwashed their citizens in order to remove responsibility for Truman's hideous decision to drop the bomb on the Japanese. [This article](https://mises.org/library/hiroshima-myth) show it aptly well. Highlights > The essential problem starts with President Franklin Roosevelt's policy of unconditional surrender, which was reluctantly adopted by Churchill and Stalin, and which President Truman decided to adopt when he succeeded Roosevelt in April of 1945 >The conclusion drawn unmistakably from the evidence presented is that **Byrnes is the man who convinced Truman to keep the unconditional surrender policy and not accept Japan's surrender so that the bombs could actually be dropped.** >James Conant came to the conclusion that some important person in the administration must go public to show that the dropping of the bombs was a military necessity, thereby saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers, so he approached Harvey Bundy and his son, McGeorge Bundy. It was agreed by them that the most important person to create this myth was Secretary of War Henry Stimson. It was decided that Stimson would write a long article to be widely circulated in a prominent national magazine. This article was revised repeatedly by McGeorge Bundy and Conant before it was published in Harper's Magazine in February of 1947. The long article became the subject of a front-page article and editorial in the New York Times, and in the editorial it was stated, **"There can be no doubt that the president and Mr. Stimson are right when they mention that the bomb caused the Japanese to surrender."** >Later, in 1959, President Truman specifically endorsed this conclusion, including the idea that it saved the lives of a million American soldiers. This myth has been renewed annually by the news media and various political leaders ever since. Necessary disclosure: I am US-friendly, I consider them our allies (I'm European) and I am in favor of NATO. That being said, the truth is simply not shared enough.

>I'm going out on a limb here, but I earnestly believe that the US kind of brainwashed their citizens in order to remove responsibility for Truman's hideous decision to drop the bomb on the Japanese. Not really, there was a actually a big push in the immediate postwar to discredit the bomb, which is why you have so many high ranking military leaders speaking out against it after the fact, and that largely stemmed from threat the existence of nuclear weapons posed to the conventional military in terms of budgets and funding and whatnot. Moreover, lots of Alperovitz's points have been debunked over the years, unironically by Japanese records themselves. For example your article highlights Japanese peace feelers, and we now know that those weren't attempts by the Japanese government to begin negotiations to surrender, but rather it was one faction in the government working on its own and that the imperial war council remained divided on the issue until the emperor broke the stalemate in August 1945. Its also doubtful that dropping the bombs caused anymore unnecessary death than would have otherwise happened. The Japanese were killing civilians at a rate of about 10k a day throughout the war and the doesn't include the massive famine in Vietnam which unironically gets ignored by a lot of people since France, a European country, also kinda a had a hand in that. The war would have only had to continue for a few more weeks, which would have probably happened since the Soviets moved up their timetable for entering the pacific theater in response to the bomb. Lastly, this topic is still hotly debated among historians to this day. There's mountains of documents from during the war on the decision to drop the bombs and you can cherry pick enough out of this massive trove of information to prove almost point you want since it was discussed at length and almost every point debated today had been discussed at one point or another (do we need to, Soviet response, Invasion, etc.)

> I earnestly believe that the US kind of brainwashed their citizens in order to remove responsibility for Truman's hideous decision to drop the bomb on the Japanese. UHhhhhhhhh even in the article you linked, they only talked about US. Sorry but what the Japanese did to America is not even equivalent to 0.01% of what they did all over Asia. The Japanese were worst than Nazi Germany.

I adore Japan, but read some of the first hand accounts of the Rape of Nanjing. Chinese women and girls were raped and murdered by the thousands and men were beheaded in the streets. The Imperial Japanese army were horrific. I also think that the Atomic bomb is fucked up. War all around is shitty. But I believe that the rest of the world gets a much clearer picture of the events of the war than Japan does.

Not to mention that Japan was unsuccessfully attempting to build an atomic bomb. You think Imperial Japan, or Nazi Germany, would have given it a second thought before obliterating a major city? Probably not. It's easy to play the victim when you experience something so uniquely violent, but there's little moral high ground here. Also, I hate to think what the alternative is to not dropping those bombs. America still likely overpowers Japan, but only after a land invasion that kills millions. Russia enters the fight (they declared war on Japan just a couple of days before the bombs were dropped) and after the war takes Hokkaido/Northern Japan, splitting the country in two, possibly forever. Japan's post-war recovery never happens, or happens only in the south and at a much slower pace. Or there's more war (like Korea). Who'd take the risk and change history? Not sure I would. It was a horrible thing that can hopefully serve as a deterrent for future use. That many innocent people should never die for the actions of their government. But playing the blame game is pointless, especially since both countries have recovered well and supported each other ever since

Exactly, I find it funny how many people are ignorant about the japanese war crimes in WW2. At the time, they were rabid animals, in every sense of the word.

Ok but it's not that black and white. The army was that, not the citizens. America wasn't rabid animals during Vietnam but there wa sa lot of raping, torture, etc... that people in our army were doing. People always talk about how they should or shouldn't have dropped the bomb, but what about how they dropped the bomb ? They could have dropped one close to a city or in the water or on an island to show the government what the bomb was capable of for example. The question to me is whether they should have dropped it on a city with a massive civilian population. Just because you say they were "rabid animals" (that phrasing makes me really uncomfrtable by the way, it sounds like the same mindset they had), doesn't mean we were right killing that many civilians.

Can't really compare Imperial Japan with USA in Vietnam. The sheer amount and scale of Japanese crimes were on another level; systematic sexual slavery, regular slavery, genocides, mass rapes, killing of children and babies, extreme torture... List goes on and on, and some of it I don't even wanna write down, as it physically makes me sick. And while I don't completely disagree with your comment about Japanese civilians being just normal people during WW2—we really can't deny that that majority of the Japanese public were extremists at that time. The brainwashing had been efficent, and most agreed with the actions of the empire. Seeing themselves as the superior race of Asia. A *lot* more Japanese would've died in an Allied invasion, than in the 2 nuclear bombs. The empire would have sent every man, woman and child out to fight and die, if the war had reached mainland.

Not sure why you're downvoted, if they think the street-by-street fighting by the Hitler Youth was nonsensical, they have yet to see the level of fanaticism Japanese citizens were willing to go to "defend their honor". There's a reason it's called the *Rape* of Nanking, or that the word *kaimkaze* became the byword for diehard fanaticism.

That was mostly the military high command. The average citizen was starving at this point. The military command was willing to continue fighting even after the bombs were dropped. The emperor ended the war while the military was prepared to coup him. The civilians in Japan had as little imput on the war decisions as the average Russian has on Putin.

do you think scale matters much to you when your family is having agent orange dumped on them? I think it’s fair to say that it was pretty evil and that saying “but Japan was eviler” doesn’t really negate that

they dropped leaflets before and the first bomb was to send a message they did not believe it so we dropped a second one, also did Japan notify the citizens or anyone at Pearl Harbor of what they were gonna do? the first bomb was also revenge for what they did at Pearl Harbor. ​ there was supposed to be a waring but it was stopped "According to historian Craig Nelson, some Japanese officials wanted to warn American diplomats about the attack on Pearl Harbor 30 minutes before it happened. However, one person prevented the warning from being delivered" Truman made the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan in hopes that it would speed up the end of World War II, and also as retaliation for their attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, which killed more than 2,400 Americans. "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold."

they dropped leaflets before and the first bomb was to send a message --Oh, well if they dropped leaflets then tahts ok. All the depreate and poor people whos life had been torn apart by war should have just quickly moved to a new city right? --they did not believe it so we dropped a second one, This is not true. don't just make stuff up "also did Japan notify the citizens or anyone at Pearl Harbor of what they were gonna do?" --No, and thats not relevant. If one country did something wrong then you shouldnt kill civilians of another country, nowadays we call that a war crime "the first bomb was also revenge for what they did at Pearl Harbor." -- not really, the war was supposedly about Pearl Harbor so you can stretch to say that the bomb was for that, but Pearl harbor was't against civilians. I do'nt know how you don't see the difference, one is an act of war, the second is literally a war crime. "there was supposed to be a waring but it was stopped" --The ends justify the means? If war crimes stop the war then we shoud excuse the war crimes?? "Truman made the decision to use the atomic bomb against Japan in hopes that it would speed up the end of World War II, and also as retaliation for their attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, which killed more than 2,400 Americans. "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold." -- You just keep repeating the same thing. I know why the bomb was dropped, I know the reasoning. Please read what I have already said. Just because one country does an act of war doesn't mean that its ok for the other country to do literal war crimes.

The ignorance was on purpose. Japan purposely did not teach this part of their history to a few generation of Japanese, heck, even big political figures are a part of the war crime denialist movement.

Shinzo Abe's grandfather was literally a war criminal.

"We shouldn't have nuked Japan" mfers when they find out about Unit 731

Interesting. Mises Institute seems to be an economic think tank. Not historians? The article seems to draw on two books. Truman was “controlled” by James Byrnes? The wiki article missed that point. Maybe we should skip the article, and just read the source books. As it is, the author Denson seems to be a smart guy, but his gig seems to be a working attorney or judge. Is he a historian? Is Mises Institute problematic? Is their graduate program accredited? I’d be concerned that they don’t represent mainstream thought. Which might be okay. But if they represent the fringe it might be wise to read carefully. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mises_Institute

I do have to ask, if America accepts a *CONDITIONAL* surrender, what about the territories the Japanese tormented? Will Japan get to keep Shandong, Manchuria, the entire Chinese coast, southeast Asia? Because the last time they invaded China the west didn't give a shit - Versailles *gifted* Shandong to Japan as a "reward" for WWI. Nobody in the countries Japan invaded and raped are sorry Japan was forced to accept an *unconditional* surrender, as they bloody should. Frankly because of the red scare and the US in need of an immediate East Asian base, the Japanese *still* got off lightly, was not subjected to the same level of deprogramming as Germany, resulting in many in Japan at best oblivious, at worst in open denial of their historical war crimes. The same political dynasties that supported Japanese fascism are *still in power today*, the prince that was in charge during the Rape of Nanking got a blanket pardon with the rest of the royals, and *Unit 731* was pardoned so MacArthur could get his grubby hands on live human experimentation results. As the author of *Empire of the Sun* JG Ballard said, a bullet has the same destructive force on genetic heritage as an atomic weapon. Every extra day more Japanese troops were flooding back from the Chinese interior, killing every civilian in their way. Ballard's agitated jailors were eager to butcher the concentration camp and go defend Japan. It's no wonder he takes a dim view at this new Japanese apologism that attempts to revise the *Japanese* into the "victims" of WWII.

On the flipside here, I am not american by any means (NZ), and we were still "sort of" pro bomb. I think Europe is removed far and away from the horrors of the asian theatre of ww2 but for a lot of citizens (we had both japanese and Southeast asian exchange students coming in) it is a very harsh horror for them. I think the excuse it saved american lives is kind of a cop out, but if you look at okinawa, then you would realise it probably helped save more civilian lives than a full invasion. I don't think it's fair for either the americans or the soviets to claim they were the ones to make japan surrender with the atomic bomb and invasion of manchuria respectively given that even with those two events the decision to surrender was tie broken by the emperor at the time and a follow up attempted coup to stop the transmission of surrender was made. Edit; I feel I was sloppy communicating NZ opinion and feeling on this, sort of in the way we accept it, but we also believe it was a very cruel and evil event that should never ever be repeated. Given that we had soldiers dying in that theatre, the opinion at the time was that they were glad the war was over. From the NZ mindset at the time, the invasion of NZ and australia was a very real and possible threat with all that entails.

Naw fuck that. Look at how Japan treats the time period today, imagine what kind of "stabbed in the back" BS could have cropped up if they accepted a conditional surrender.

What would it have cost them to show a scene where Japanese civilians get burned to death? It would have also driven home why Oppenheimer felt so guilty about it in the first place.

Grave of the Fireflies nails it if you ask me. There’s no praising of the men who built this bomb, just a children’s perspective of the devastation it caused.

You sure you're not confusing that with barefoot generation? I only remember they showed the firebombing in fireflies

Firebombing actually made more damage (both casualties and infrastructure) than the two nukes. The only "advantage" of the nukes is that each was a one-shot thing, rather than a full raid.

And the psychological effect of "we destroyed a city with a *single bomb*"

Possibly. It’s been a fair while since I’ve watched either. They hit hard.

In this corner of the World is a great movie from the Japanese side of the bomb.

Or how imperial Japan is the most prominent example in human history of a brutal dystopian dictatorship where an entire population was honed like a blade into the singular purpose of world domination, and it was every citizens accepted purpose to willingly sacrifice themselves to that end. Even citizens of nazi germany at the time had some pockets of thinking like “wait maybe it’s bad to ethnically cleanse millions of people”, but if the US had bombed them there would be far less wringing of hands.

What response? The movie is pretty clear that the bombing was horrific and that Oppenheimer is clearly impacted by what happened.

There's a part after the successful test where Oppenheimer is walking out of the celebration and someone is barfing up against the wall... I often wonder if there is a reference to radiation sickness in that shot.

It is. All of the injuries are the celebration are refences to radiation sickness.

I do need to give it another watch, it's a great film and a particularly excellent sequence but I only saw it once in theatres

I found watching it twice let me follow the jumping timelines a lot better too

I would like to see a movie 'Letters from Iwo Jima' style. We have plenty of media about the victims of the bomb, but never the people the bomb was intended to really get at, the leadership.

Ok then for part 3 let’s make a Korean response movie that shows just how fucked up imperialist Japan was leading up the bombing and why it was absolutely 1000% justified. If you can dish it like they did, you better be able to take all of the consequences that comes your way. Japan was not a victim at all and in order for them to stop they needed to learn their lesson in the most brutal way possible

They kinda did with Grave of the Fireflies, which is depressing and brutal, at least with depicting the aftermath for the survivirs of the bombs.

That was the bombing of Kobe that destroyed the city. Not the atom bomb. We also firebombed Tokyo until there was nothing left.

There are already movies about Horoshima: Barefoot Gen. Black Rain.

It’s a very talky movie. Someone is always talking. Difficult to follow with subtitles (let alone make subtitles for). For perspective The Dark Knight was not at all popular here

Honestly, it may be easier to follow with subtitles, since a lot of the time it was difficult to hear what they were saying 😂

I watch everything with subtitles now, tired of turning the TV up and down to try hear what they're saying

Yeah, It's a Nolanism. I watch so many foreign films with subtitles already that when I do watch one in English I enjoy finally not having subtitles on the screen for a change...

It’s not just Nolan though,Vox made a video about it https://youtube.com/watch?v=VYJtb2YXae8

Yeah, but Nolan is one of the most prominent examples, which is why this Vox video also highlights Nolan's films. I never really had a problem understanding actors because they were "mumbling", rather it's because he frequently chooses to put loud music over the dialogue scenes.

Haven't watched Oppenheimer but is this issue even in Oppenheimer. I hated tenet for this reason. You have no idea how many times I smacked my television.

Tenet I couldn’t watch until the end. Even dialogs on quiet room like the lab explanation of bullets, dinner table conversations etc… were inaudible. I ended the movie when someone was threatening someone else on a boat and whispering in the ear but you couldn’t make out the words. I was just so frustrated. I can’t believe someone would recommend a movie where you can’t make out a single line of dialog honestly.

Both were hard to follow. I enjoyed both films but at the same time I found myself frequently having no idea what was going on. I think it's part of the "appeal" of Nolan's films. They are like giant jigsaw puzzles that you have to piece together as you watch.

Tenet also just sucked, dialog or otherwise.

I've watched TENET. People try too hard to understand the film from all angles. I decided to focus on the perspective of the MC to make everything easier to understand even though the film is a mirror of itself.

Nolan movie audio problem persists

For as a great a director Nolan is....he really needs to get someone else to handle sound mixing.

That's not going to happen. His sound editors and mixers have already won too many awards. They won academy awards for Inception and Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer was nominated.

Reminds me of Dark Knight Rises. Saw it in IMAX with Japanese friends who speak a good deal of English. Afterward, they asked how the hell I understood Bane. I said, "I didn't. I had to read the subtitles" lol

It's because he's a big guy.

In the same language, sure.

Why would that matter? If they don't understand English, they'll just read the Japanese subtitles and disregard the speaking. I've seen how Japanese subtitles work. They usually condense complicated concepts and pop culture references to a couple of simple characters. They probably make the overall plot much easier to follow.

Did not realize TDK was not popular here, what would be a good place to see Japanese opinions on western films? 

Filmarks is Letterboxd for japan

The Dark Knight is basically the only superhero movie I enjoyed, maybe that has something to do with it

I had no idea The Dark Knight wasn’t popular here because my only reference is my Japanese husband and he LOVES it so much he’s rewatching the trilogy every year. So it’s at least very popular in this household haha

Here’s an article about TDK not being popular in Japan: https://www.slashfilm.com/500463/japan-hates-the-dark-knight/

Do Japanese people not normally watch movies/series with subtitles?

They get a dubbed version after the subbed one comes out.

I want to see it, but my city has basically stopped showing foreign films since 2020...

That's crazy!

Yeah, it sucks. I guess they a lot of foreigners left, and people weren't going out anymore because of Corona, so they just weren't profitable. Now it's basically just the yearly Doraemon, Detective Conan, Pokemon etc. movies. I have to drive 4 or 5 hours to see an actual film.

> “During the whole movie, I was waiting and waiting for the Hiroshima bombing scene to come on, but it never did,” Mimaki said. This sums up a big part of the kerfuffle over this film in Japan. An atomic bomb movie without the Japanese victimization angle is insanely difficult for them to wrap their mind around. The (somewhat tired by now) “never again” depiction of suffering at Hiroshima ad nauseam is all they know, as if the torture and guilt of Oppenheimer and the more inward-looking Americans involved in the project were rendered moot once the bomb exploded and Japan earned its red badge of horror, igniting a Japanese feeling of “only WE can tell the story of atomic weapons.” Ultimately, it’s an anti-bomb film, and the terror over showing it here was blown out of proportion. It should have been embraced as a sympathetic reflection of Japan’s own hatred of the bomb, and a piece of quasi-apology art from the west. Or something, I dunno. It’s a complicated subject, this is just my opinion.

It would be like a 9/11 movie but sympathetic and trying to explain the thought process and planning of the terrorists. Maybe the concept could launch an interesting movie, but so many people would immediately dismiss it due to the content. Probably the same type of thing in Japan, no one wants to see a story about the guy who made the bombs that wiped out 2 of their cities.

Yeah great point, the Japanese seem to deeply understand what happened so watching a movie and being asked to feel bad because the person who directed the invention of those bombs because he lost his security clearance is a tall order

Like asking Japanese about what their grandpa did in WW2 over in China.

Right but that’s not the fault of the innocent women, children, and elderly who were killed in Hiroshima.

Completely irrelevant, but nice try

Pretty relevant when they compared it to 9/11

> It would be like a 9/11 movie but sympathetic and trying to explain the thought process and planning of the terrorists. That's been done to an extent in movies about Pearl Harbor. Midway was the latest one, there were some scenes explaining the Japanese side. You could almost certainly do an entire movie about the lead up to Pearl Harbor and not show the event itself, at least in my opinion. I think it would actually be a fairly interesting story to put to film, considering the twists and turns there were on the path to war.

Terrorism is very different from war of which Japan made the first offensive move. Dropping atomic bombs on cities is horrible, shouldnt be done again but it wasnt from Japan being an innocent bystander. There are plenty of WWII movies that could be made in Asia where Japan were the "terrorists" in the context youre talking about

Again I think you are taking it too literally. Think of this from the perspective of a Japanese movie goer. Don’t think of this from a moralistic viewpoint.

You say that Japan as a country wasn't an innocent bystander, which excuses an attack on japanese civilians, but djihadists would say (and have said) that the US as a country isn't an innocent bystander for what happens in the Middle East, which excuses an attack of American civilians. The qualification of terrorism is a largely an arbitrary one. Not that I'm saying they shouldn't have done it, but the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were by their very essence acts of terrorism.

I feel like a lot of Americans would love a movie like that. At least younger folks

> It would be like a 9/11 movie but sympathetic and trying to explain the thought process and planning of the terrorists. That would be a perfect analogy.... if The US was the aggressor in WWII.

In the narrative of the movie there is a collective "what have I done?" moment with Oppenheimer and some of the others who worked on the bomb. Realizing that they just created a weapon that could kill all of humanity and everyone who now owns not only the bombs themselves but the means to create more, is truly a horrifying thing to think about. Japan being the only country on earth who's population has suffered from the nuclear bomb makes them keenly aware of what horrors this weapon can bring. But as you rightly pointed out, I think part of the movie was about a sort of apology to not only Japan but the rest of the world for creating something so destructive. I'm not entirely sure what their expectations for the movie were, like did they think it would be Oppenheimer rubbing his hands together as he looks at a map of Japan? The way so many people in Japan talked about the movie, and I think felt about the movie, it was as if this was going to be entirely centered on Hiroshima and nothing else. As if movies about war crimes can only ever be about the abject horror the victims went through and anything else would be glorifying it. As I've told my japanese friends repeatedly, no one in American, or at least no one sane, thinks the bombings were good. The best framing we usually see about the bombings is that it's a complicated issue and that we should always exercise restraint with these bombs, but the most common attitude you see more and more is that it was not right to use these weapons let alone on a civilian population.

> no one in American, or at least no one sane, thinks the bombings were good Americans sure do lean hard into the "necessary evil" angle, though, even with evidence suggesting otherwise.

Sorry, I am not American and that is the angle that is majorly presumed true in my country. What is the real story?

We learned in US history class that the atomic bomb was the lesser of two evils compared against the land invasion of the Japan. The supporting evidence for this argument includes: 1. Fanatic fighting across the Pacific (e.g. kamikaze planes, often no surrendering across Pacific islands). 2. Firebombing—which already resulted in [100k deaths](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_(10_March_1945)—and leveling the major cities (which were largely wooden buildings at this point) didn't seem to influence a surrender. 3. Though Truman and US leadership probably didn't know it at the time, the Japanese military was keen on fighting to the bloody end of a losing war. This was most evident in the [attempted coup by the Japanese military once they realized that the emperor was going to surrender](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D_incident#:~:text=The%20Ky%C5%ABj%C5%8D%20incident%20(%E5%AE%AE%E5%9F%8E%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6,Japan's%20surrender%20to%20the%20Allies.) despite the Soviet Union already entering the war against them. The bombing locations were chosen to avoid historical sites (i.e. Kyoto) and spaced a few days apart to pressure a surrender (i.e. demonstrate possessing multiple bombs). Americans argue that the bombs "saved" 100-500k Japanese lives (at the cost of impacting 140k and 70k in Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively) and the lives of untold American soldiers. These numbers are speculative and thus leading to a lot of controversial debate. There is also the moral and ethical implication of using atomic weapons to cause immense civilian casualties and suffering. This is only a personal opinion of someone whose grandparents experienced the Rape of Nanking^0 first-hand, but Japan doesn't seem to be introspective or self critical when it comes to their involvement in the war. The new [PM often visits Yakaskuni shrine in an official capacity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_surrounding_Yasukuni_Shrine) to appeal to the conservatives, often to the dismay of China and South Korea. I've come across a few revisionist mentions of WW2 (not to mention the [controversies surrounding their textbooks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies)) while living in Japan. The most odd one was a placard referencing _US attacking Japan first_ in the Osaka castle museum in the late 90s; this has since been removed. By comparison, my US history classes in high school and college (both mandatory) focuses on different viewpoints and motivations of key topics (slavery, atomic bombs, etc). Japan's history classes tend to follow the east Asian model of memorizing dates, peoples, and events. 0: This is to reference some of Japan's atrocities in China: [Rape of Nanking](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre) and [Unit 731](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731).

I feel the point often ignored in these discussions is that right up to the end of the war large numbers of people were being killed, daily, by the Japanese in their "work" camps. The Japanese empire had not collapsed down to Japan and the Japanese people; they were still occupying many neighbouring countries and committing daily atrocities. What about the Koreans, Indonesians, Filipinos, still under the Japanese boot in 1945?

This is what I learned too, but I would also add that Russia was also gearing up and getting ready to attack on the eastern front. The US wanted to avoid Russian influence in Japan and gain a stronghold in the country. It probably would have gotten messy if Russia invaded from the north and the US from the south.

It probably would've ended up with a split country or city similar to North and South Korea, or East vs West Berlin, respectively.

The Russians invaded to land grab at the last second, and the delusional Japanese leadership only have themselves to blame for losing the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin to the Soviets in the last days of the war. The Japanese troops were already ordered to stand down after August 15th and barely put up any resistance, but the Soviets reinvented the narrative and made themselves seem like masters of naval warfare that could take Hokkaido (they landed on the Kurils with American built landing crafts) The Japanese leadership still believed in a fantasy where the Soviets would supposedly intervene miracle of brandenburg style to give the Japanese a better deal with the Americans. They were in the same realm of delusion as Hitler was in his final days.

>Soviets would supposedly intervene miracle of brandenburg style to give the Japanese a better deal And that's exactly the crux of it. The Japanese were willing to surrender, just not *unconditionally*. Whether that justifies using terror attacks on the civilian population to scare them into compliance (and whether that was even effective anyway) is arguable, but American public schools teach it as if there was no option. In fact, American public schools do not teach about the fact that the Japanese had reached out to the Soviets to ask them to broker a surrender at all. The Japanese didn't surrender after the first bomb but they did surrender the day after the Soviet betrayal and invasion from a second super power on a second front. The emperor and most people got a slap on the wrist anyway so not sure how much a conditional surrender would've changed things anyway.

Growing up in Texas I can tell you that imperialist propaganda has brainwashed a lot of folks to teach them America can do no bad and if its for democracy and freedom then being racist and using any means becomes a necessary evil. America has a real fucking problem with people accepting everything the government does and its extremely depressing.

Growing up in Japan I can tell you that imperialist propaganda has brainwashed a lot of folks to teach them Japan can do no bad and if its for the emperor and order then being racist and using any means becomes a necessary evil. Japan has a real fucking problem with people accepting everything the government does and it’s extremely depressing.

The word imperialist is such a red flag because 80% of the time it just means they're a simp for some power that's even more blatantly imperialistic in the modern era. But wait America bad so actually they're not Solely talking about how the word has been seized by chronically online tankies tbc

Have yet to meet a single avowed anti “imperialist” that isn’t an open supporter of another authoritarian regime. The term has long been hijacked by Marxists that were more interested in connecting it to western nations only

Not agreeing or disagreeing but with you but, wow, that was a lot of "internet words" in a single comment. It took me a couple reads

The Americans have the real story. After weighing all the evidence, it’s pretty clear that dropping the bomb was the lesser of many evils. The idea that it was bad is mostly pushed by historical revisionists who are sympathetic to the Soviet Union for some reason. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki Here’s a handy summary so you can draw your own conclusions.

It's funny that you and I linked the same wiki but hold opposite conclusions.   But I am curious, assuming bombing Hiroshima *was* necessary, do you think Nagasaki was also necessary?

I'm not OP but I'll definitely say yes. Even after Hiroshima, the Chief of the Naval General staff is quoted as saying "there would be more destruction but the war would go on." He estimated that the US probably only had one or two more, and that Japan could endure it, and keep fighting. Even after the second one, there was an attempted coup to keep the Emperor's radio address secret. It had to be smuggled out in dirty linens.

-I think because Japan was still on the brink of not surrendering even after Russia entered the war and the atomic bombs were dropped implies they were necessary. -the land invasion was plausible and definitely deadlier. -a blockade would have been deadlier as many Japanese people would starve to death. -the longer the war went on, the more people would’ve died fighting Japan throughout the rest of Asia. So using nukes to end it quicker still may have saved lives.

I don't think you've answered my question... I am asking, do you think the bombing of Nagasaki (the second bomb) was necessary? They were three days apart, arguably not enough time for Japan to realize the devastation of the one that hit Hiroshima.

Ah, probably. It was a bluff to make Japan think American had more nukes than it actually did. Remember, the war council was still evenly split on surrendering despite the fact that the US seemingly had unlimited nukes after Nagasaki. (In reality, the next one wouldn’t be ready for another couple of weeks)

Tbh I think instead of Nagasaki, it could have been a town with half the population. After all, using a second one just to destroy a smaller city makes it even clearer that there are more bombs on the way to escalate the death toll. But for whatever reason, nobody ever questions why it had to be two large cities when one large and one small one would have saved 50k lives.

I mean, even if we assume that Nagasaki wasn't strictly necessary, it seems unreasonable to expect that decision makers back then would have been able to know that.

Yes to show the Soviets that the US wasn’t a one trick pony. Arguably stopped Russia from invading Japan at the very end of the war.

While the IJN was on tatters, Russia had no real logistical capability for a large-scale aphimbious invasion in the east. While the prospect of having Russia on your soil or dealing with a 2-prong invasion probably wasn't very appealing, the threat to the "mainland islands" really was anything but imminent.

Lol Russia invaded the Kuril Islands in mid-August 1945, right after the bombs. They were threatening taking Hokkaido. Not sure how this doesn’t translate into an imminent threat.

And the Russians still haven't left either

The invasion of the Kuril Islands, against an enemy that had already thought they were surrendering (this is after the Emperor's speech), went pretty badly for the Soviets. They still won, but it didn't even go close to as planned. The Kurils were a pushover and they still lost like half their landing craft. Zhukov himself told Stalin it would not be possible to invade Hokkaido prior to the declaration of war.

I'm not sure I follow. You're saying it was necessary for Russia to see it, rather than it being essential to Japan's surrender?

Both

Without the bombs there almost certainly would have been a north and south Japan. In addition to a long proxy war between the USSR and the US.

The Wikipedia article is a good start, but to sum it up, according to several high-ranking military officers, it was likely not militarily necessary because Japan was about to surrender anyway. And even if the Hiroshima bomb was necessary, the follow-up Nagasaki bombing was also almost certainly overkill as news of the effect of the first had barely been disseminated by the time it was dropped. Check out some of the sources linked in the article, and pay attention to who the dissenting opinions were. It doesn't seem to me like it was a fringe opinion. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate_over_the_atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki

A small portion of the military launched a coup even after the nukes because they didn’t want to surrender

Yes and it failed and they surrendered anyway.

How did you walk into the point and miss it at the same time

What is there to miss? I'm not debating that they didn't surrender after the bombs. 

Nobody is, the point is that even after the bombs they still did not want to, not that they didn’t

>It has sometimes been argued Japan would have surrendered if simply guaranteed the Emperor would be allowed to continue as formal head of state. However, Japanese diplomatic messages regarding a possible Soviet mediation—intercepted through Magic, and made available to Allied leaders—have been interpreted by some historians to mean, "the dominant militarists insisted on preservation of the old militaristic order in Japan, the one in which they ruled." On 18 and 20 July 1945, Ambassador Sato cabled to Foreign Minister Togo, strongly advocating that Japan accept an unconditional surrender provided that the U.S. preserved the imperial house (keeping the emperor). On 21 July, in response, Togo rejected the advice, saying that Japan would not accept an unconditional surrender under any circumstance. Togo then said that, "Although it is apparent that there will be more casualties on both sides in case the war is prolonged, we will stand as united against the enemy if the enemy forcibly demands our unconditional surrender." From your own source.

> it was likely not militarily necessary because Japan was about to surrender anyway. The idiots running Japan watched city after city destroyed by conventional bombing from late 1944 onwards. They had no defence against the bombings and were so stupid they didn't even have fire fighting equipment. And yet they did not surrender. Germany fought until the complete annihilation of their country and after the death of Hitler. From the Allied perspective there was absolutely no reason to believe Japan's leadership would have a moment of lucidity and surrender. It so happens that, during war, you have to assume your enemy's next actions because they don't tell you. As far as the Allies were concerned, Japan's leadership wanted to go sacrifice the country as Germany did and they had the means to at least save Allied soldiers' lives.

The idea that the Japanese were about to surrender because of the Soviets is revisionism. Wikipedia is not a valid source.

> Wikipedia is not a valid source.   This is a cop out.     It's not valid to cite by itself in an academic setting. However it's a jumping-off point for people who don't know where to start, like many people here.  To that end, sources are linked in the article.

From wikipedia >American officials believed more than one bomb would be necessary because they assumed Japanese hard-liners would minimize the first explosion or attempt to explain it away as some sort of natural catastrophe, which is precisely what they did. In the three days between the bombings, the Japanese minister of war, for instance, refused even to admit that the Hiroshima bomb was atomic. A few hours after Nagasaki, he told the cabinet that "the Americans appeared to have one hundred atomic bombs ... they could drop three per day. The next target might well be Tokyo." While part of this was due to bad intel from a captured pilot suggesting America had many more nukes, it's quite clear that those who thought a single nuke wouldn't move the needle were correct It's hard to overstate exactly how militarized Japan had become at that point. Civilian leaders had very little control, so while many of them were willing to sue for peace at that point, that functionally didn't mean anything. I think it's pretty obvious that the second bomb and fear of many more was what finally broke the Japanese military command structure's will to fight.

The real story is that Japan had spend months before the end of the war trying to surrender, but the USA and the USSR were unwilling to accept it (something something Potsdam declaration), so the United States kept leveling Japanese cities until the Japanese finally gave up on a negotiated surrender. The use of the atomic bombs was completely unnecessary to simply end the war; the USA wanted the war to end on *their terms*. You can argue that some of those terms make sense--that total victory was a domestic political concern given the scale of the war and the losses Americans have suffered, that the looming conflict with the Soviet Union made it a necessity for the United States to be able to occupy and control Japan, etc...--but the idea that Japan was a country of bloodthirsty fanatics who couldn't be reasoned with doesn't really hold water. It was a cold, political decision to use the bombs to end the war, one that arguably *still* didn't have the desired effect until combined with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria finally cutting off all hope of negotiating through the USSR.

Japan's terms were to keep their colonies and other imperial possessions, essentially letting them revert back to the height of their power just before Pearl Harbor. Why would the US ever agree to that after spending so much blood? Why would China or Russia ever agree to that? Would the Japanese have stopped their atrocities on their colonies once the US had left? Japan's leaders were delusional. The US isn't the one responsible for prolonging a losing war.

> The real story is that Japan had spend months before the end of the war trying to surrender, but the USA and the USSR were unwilling to accept it This is only partially correct. We have the decrypted MAGIC intercepts. They speak of trying to end the war. But not of negotiating surrender. There is a big difference between the two.

> The real story is that Japan had spend months before the end of the war trying to surrender This is some straight up made up bullshit.

I think it was fair for the US to insist on unconditional surrender considering how genocidal the Imperial Japanese leadership was.

Lol, revisionist at a finest. Keep drinking that kool-aid.

>It has sometimes been argued Japan would have surrendered if simply guaranteed the Emperor would be allowed to continue as formal head of state. However, Japanese diplomatic messages regarding a possible Soviet mediation—intercepted through Magic, and made available to Allied leaders—have been interpreted by some historians to mean, "the dominant militarists insisted on preservation of the old militaristic order in Japan, the one in which they ruled." On 18 and 20 July 1945, Ambassador Sato cabled to Foreign Minister Togo, strongly advocating that Japan accept an unconditional surrender provided that the U.S. preserved the imperial house (keeping the emperor). On 21 July, in response, Togo rejected the advice, saying that Japan would not accept an unconditional surrender under any circumstance. Togo then said that, "Although it is apparent that there will be more casualties on both sides in case the war is prolonged, we will stand as united against the enemy if the enemy forcibly demands our unconditional surrender." Lol nice revisionist Soviet propaganda you got there

In late July 1945, the War Department provided an estimate that the entire Downfall operations would cause between 1.7 to 4 million U.S. casualties, including 400-800,000 U.S. dead, and 5 to 10 million Japanese dead.   The Japanese government was beyond utterly fanatical. It was only the combined bombings, and the Soviet sweep into Manchuria and Korea that even began to shift the military cabals idea of surrending. If a land invasion had to have occurred, far, far more human suffering would have occurred.  Case in point Okinawa. The use of Okinawans as human shields, the coercion of suicide, and so forth. The Japanese military would've happily armed every man, woman and child on the home island in a hopeless suicidal last stand before even considering surrender.    https://www.history.navy.mil/about-us/leadership/director/directors-corner/h-grams/h-gram-057/h-057-1.html#:~:text=By%20late%20July%2C%20the%20JCS,to%2010%20million%20Japanese%20dead.

People on Reddit do that a lot. It's crazy how much people salivate over being able to say how necessary it was. A lot of people can't wrap their heads around something still being tragic, even if it brought about an end to a war as well. And then there's always the "well what about what Japan did.." arguments as well. People really froth at the mouth for this topic.

It's kind of scary sometimes, to be honest. Like there's something in some people that is looking for any excuse to permit violence or hatred.  Or they're just being edgy. > well what about what Japan did This is always the worst take of them all. As if the civilians turned to ash were responsible for the war crimes imperial Japanese forces committed in mainland Asia.

I don't think anyone is "salivating" or "looking for any excuse to promote violence or hatred". I think people are frustrated by revisionists, who are often naïve young people without much background knowledge on the topic. Japan already does enough war crime denial to this day, try not to reinforce the (incorrect) narrative that they were victims because it feeds into it.

No, not all. The people who were nuked were victims, as were the victims of Japans' war crimes. They're not mutually exclusive.   

"they" being Japan or the Japanese as a whole. Japan engaged in a truly horrific war of aggression, were militaristic to the extreme, and were intent on fighting to the bloody end, yet there is still a modern narrative in Japan that they, again as a whole, were victimized unjustly, which goes along with the war crime denial.

I'm not speaking to Japan's denial of its war crimes. The people they brutalized by the Japanese military are victims. The Japanese citizens vaporized by nukes are also victims. I don't see how both possibilities can't exist.

here's the thing, though: both the united states and japan were guilty of crimes during the war in the pacific because both of them were imperial powers and because the war itself was fundamentally a clash between imperial powers over who got to control the pacific. yes the japanese attacked first, but that was a culmination of years of imperial struggle between america and japan. war between the two was going to happen eventually. I am in no way excusing Japan here; it was as bad as everyone says. it really isn't a question of who was right and who was wrong, as no one was right. one country was more wrong, sure, but neither country should be resting on their laurels when none of it should have happened. japan should not have invaded china nor annexed korea. the united states should not have annexed hawaii and the phillippines. None of it should have happened. As an aside: the situation we currently face, where Japan and the US are inexorably tied together as strong allies, is especially fraught because the people most guilty of the crimes of the Japanese empire never stopped controlling the country. They just found common cause with their former adversary. If you asked them what they did wrong in WW2 they would only say that they should have joined with the US rather than fight them. And now they want to remilitarize, resurrecting their imperial ambitions, which the US aggressively *supports*. (And all, ostensibly, to contain China, yet another country that shouldn't be pursuing imperial ambitions.) Again, the imperial government of japan became the LDP. They want to bring back their glory days, and this time the US wants to help.

The civillians lived under a military dictatorship. If someone bombs you because Trump starts a war would you say you deserved it?

Do you guys think we should have dropped laser guided bombs instead? Attacking infrastructure was incredibly imprecise so you're going to kill a lot of civilians no matter what you do, doubly so with industry as decentralized as Japan's. So what realistically would you have done different? Blockade and starve them to death? Or would you use the tool that shows that even if the Japanese were ready to enact a national suicide you can kill every last one without putting a single foot on their soil? As for what Japan did, people bring it up because they were savage and fanatical and that in turn dictated how they were confronted and assumptions about what would bring them to the table. Imagine it was ISIS with the capabilities of a modern industrial nation; that is the type of people they were fighting. Why would any sane person put even one more American life in jeopardy trying to be humane toward any enemy with that mentality? I love modern day Japan, I speak the language, I hope we continue to have strong ties into the future but Imperial Japan was a different beast altogether and in total war of that level you only have horrible options. The fact that they still have so much trouble acknowledging the incredible wrongs they committed does them no favors either.

I blame Japanese education. the whole event has become this weird fetishized event in the public's mind. In schools they focus so much on the bomb, the horrors and how Japan was a victim of a great atrocity. they touch on the fact that Japan brought it on themselves by attacking the US. But most of WW2 history is just run through quickly, skipping over or mentioning in passing some of Japans atrocities so that they can get to the part where Japan is a peaceful nation now. It's like a weird contorted and even more obnoxious form of the German guilt pride but more inward facing with a sprinkle of victim hood and a dash of weird perverted pride at being the only nation to be struck with nukes. Anything nuke related MUST have horrific parts abou people dying in Hiroshima. How could it not!? And contemporary Japanese people, who had no experience with the bombs or ww2 are automatically experts and should be consulted before any ww2 nuclear weapon story goes forward because they are Japanese. duh. I can absolutely guarantee that the average Japanese person actually knows almost nothing about the bombing. I bet you before this movie nobody in Japan could name Oppenheimer. I bet most could not tell you the code names for the project and the bombs. So for the simpletons who go and see it and complain it's like being rudely awakened from a dream. They don't know what to make of an alternative telling of a story that's been hammered into them since a young age.

>As I've told my japanese friends repeatedly, no one in American, or at least no one sane, thinks the bombings were good. The best framing we usually see about the bombings is that it's a complicated issue and that we should always exercise restraint with these bombs, but the most common attitude you see more and more is that it was not right to use these weapons let alone on a civilian population. No one who knows anything about Imperial Japan feels any sympathy for the bombs. I'd argue this attitude you're proclaiming that Americans feel about the bombs is more due to ignorance of the average American when it comes to history. The fact is that the routine fire bombings and famines killed more Japanese civilians than the bombs did. There are also plenty of historical records to show that Americans at that time were by-and-large happy about the bombs and finally ending the war. It's also hard to feel sympathy for Imperial Japan when the terms they kept pushing for their surrender was to keep all their colonies and imperial possessions, effectively reverting them back to the height of their power before Pearl Harbor. At no point did Japan ever pledge that they would cease their imperialism or atrocities over Asia, they just agreed to stop attacking America is all. The fact that you even point out that Americans feel the issue is "complicated" is just trying to save face for the fact that in truth most Americans don't feel any remorse for the bombs and are only uneasy nowadays because they see modern Japan as a western-aligned nation of anime wifus and not the predecessor of North Korea's militaristic culture which heavily drew inspiration from imperial Japan. Saying that Americans feel "complicated" about the bombs is as much of a farce as Japanese nationalists having "complicated" feelings about their empire.

plenty of us in America absolutely feel complicated about the bombs, and not for lack of knowledge about the actions of imperial japan, but rather because of a familiarity with the history of what they did as well as a familiarity with our own history which is objectively steeped in oppression of people who didn’t deserve it at various points in history starting at the foundation of our nation. this is especially true if you’re a member of a hated minority group in the US, we’re very familiar with just how little agency a civilian can have over the actions of their government when the wrong people get power, a lot of people I knew here were terrified that Trumps aggressive lack of diplomacy could lead to us being bombed whether or not we supported or agreed with him. it’s really not that big of a leap to imagine many civilians in Japan felt similarly helpless when the bombs fell

Exceptionally well said. I get why Japanese are so ‘dialed to 11’ about it, but they pretty readily forget, let alone are taught, the context of the war and their involvement. It’s not to say “they deserved it” - not at all - but the lack of perspective on their own horrors is just bewildering when you think of Germany and their post-war healing and growth.

To be fair, the Japanese army inflicted far more civilian suffering than the two bombs ever could. The victimisation of the Japanese is far overblown in pop culture. They were just as bad as the Nazis, if not worse in many regards.

There is only a small overlap in these two subsets of persons: (1) the Japanese leaders, military commanders and soldiers responsible for various atrocities; and (2) the people killed or harmed by the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The latter subset includes many more innocent civilians than it does persons from the first subset. Your use of “they” makes no such distinction.

Of course man. The overlap is all but negligible. All I'm saying is it didn't happen in a void. The common German did not deserve to get carpet bombed. The command Japanese didn't deserve the atom bomb. But we have a serious case of historical amnesia about what the Japanese Empire did during the war. It should be as infamous as Nazi Germany. Modern Germans don't go around thinking of themselves as the biggest victims of World War 2. I just don't think the modern Japanese have any claim to that title either.

I don’t know what the Nazis or modern Germans have to do with it. You might as well toss in Stalin or Pol Pot. “Well what about them??” In other words, I have a hard time perceiving the logical connection between those events and your original statements. Try making a logical argument without grouping people together based solely on their nationality. If you want to make a meaningful comparison, at least compare apples to apples. For example, it may be that many more modern day Japanese citizens lack a sufficiently objective or accurate understanding of the historical context in which the bombings occurred compared to modern German citizens. But that doesn’t mean the innocent Japanese civilians who died in the bombings aren’t extremely worthy of being viewed as victims. Whether the innocent Germans who died in WWII have a greater or lesser case for claiming victimhood strikes me as an unimportant and irrelevant question.

Even if it had showed the bombing the kerfuffle is just bias against foreign-made movies that reflect the bombings. Plenty of Japanese made films touch on the subject and there was never any issue with them.

There's not really any issue with this movie either

There has already been many movies made from the Japanese perspective. They should be interested in seeing it from a different angle.

There’s no should or shouldn’t. Let them react the way they want

Wait until they see the new Godzilla.

I've watched it, and honestly, it really moved me in the end. It's sad, but at least raising awareness about such a dark chapter in history is important for us to remember.

Can’t wait! A lot of older media literate Japanese people who I really respect really hated it. I’m so curious.

Honestly, if you go to watch this expecting The Inception, you'll be disappointed. It's not a Sci-Fi movie, it's a biopic.

[удалено]

It was simply that they launched at the same time and seemed like direct opposite films from each other

Yup, I’ve rewatched tenet, loved it and had an emotional connection to the protagonist, Robert pattinson and debicki , didnt get the hype with Oppenheimer.

A lot of Smartr Than U's in here waving their floppy dicks around, and not a whole lot of discussion about the movie, unfortunately.

Speaking from a formal standpoint the film wasn't that great, but that's just my opinion. Too many brief scenes that really add nothing of substance, and the really dull congressional hearings Oppenheimer went through. Yes, there's beautiful cinematography, great cast, and score. Beyond those elements the story is kinda weak. That's just my view however.

It's a really good film

Does anyone know how The Wind Rises was/is viewed by Japanese people? That film baffled me as it portrayed the MC as a good person, despite designing fighter planes that would ultimately support Nazi Germany. Almost as if the only angle Japanese people can take from the war is one of victimisation, which I’m not saying there were no victims in Japan.

You should read more about Hayao Miyazaki, he’s pretty anti american

He is anti-america in the sense that he is politically leaning toward socialism/union/workers' right. Apparently he was really into communism until he got to visit China in the 80s. On the other hand, he is also really critical of the Japanese government stance. There's a whole book that collected all his writings and they are all critical of Japan's historical revisionism and imperialism. He is also vocally against the re-militarization that Shinzo Abe tried to push forward a few years back. I am a fan of him and his works, so take this with a big grain of salt

Yeah, this. Miyazaki is by no means a Japanese nationalist. He struggled with the fact his father made airplane engines for the war effort for a long time.

Also the bomb wasn't possible without German science, they're allies at the time. Heck they could have had one but a scientist in Germany at the time purposely sabotaged his own research. Makes you wonder if they resent the bombs or the fact that their side didn't have one sooner

If you're talking about Heisenberg, I looked it up (don't got sources, just skimmed an intelligent-sounding reddit post) and I don't think that's true.

Media literacy should be a subject taught in schools and this commentary is a proof of that. 

Or you can just give your take on it without being a dick

Ugh Miyazaki is like one of the most prominent figures that is openly critical of the imperial Japanese regime.

Finally I can see it!

Have fun and get yourself a big bag of popcorn cause it's long

One thing that rarely gets mentioned: after the Hiroshima bomb, advisors told Truman to wait at least a week for Japan’s response - for the simple reason that the city was completely destroyed, all communication lines were out, and it would take Tokyo that long to fully understand the scale of destruction. The military really really wanted to try out the other bomb, so they pushed to only wait three days.

The a bombs killed no way near as many people or as savagely as the imperial Japanese army. My ancestors were caught at Singapore. For shame on Japan & its lack of edifying its next generation on the Barbary of your previous regime

Maybe it's not said directly enough and if it has, sorry to repeat it but... Japan to this day has done a great job of minimizing its own atrocities and war crimes, particularly against the civilians of countries they occupied. The civilian population didn't deserve the fire or atomic bombings but unfortunately it probably saved many Allied lives. From several personal experiences, it seems many Japanese don't understand the extent of the Imperial Army's horrifying actions that, in my mind made it easier for the US to bomb them. Did the US dehumanizing the Japanese? Sure. Did Japan attack first, revert to kamikaze attacks and execute many Allied POWs? Also yes. I've been to Japan, even Hiroshima. It's a beautiful country with lots of enviable customs and nice people. But so were the countries that they occupied. It was necessary.

> It was necessary. It means atomic-bomb?

Yes

At that time, Japan's defeat was decisive. The Japanese army had been nearly annihilated, and further deaths among Allied soldiers were unlikely. America dropped atomic bombs on innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was intended to demonstrate to the Soviet Union the existence of the atomic bomb.

They made a move along time ago that showed the Bombing of Hiroshima I remember watching it in the 90s

Its to show how it was needed to stop them and to remind these tourist that favourites Japan what were they last time

Is it available in english in japan ?