(no subject)

[michifugu]

It's really interesting whenever I see people (especially Americans) accusing some Japanese media of being pro-Japanese imperialist, yet at the same time they worship American/Hollywood media, which clearly promotes pro-American imperialism, or Chinese games where most of the political narratives are very pro-authoritarian — even going as far as booting out voice actors because they happen to disagree with the Uyghur genocide.

Like, sure, Japan isn’t innocent and has some media that's pro-Imperial Japan. But most of these people love to generalize an entire nation just because 1–2 pieces of animanga have pro-Japanese imperialist themes, and suddenly Japan as a whole is labeled a fascist country. It’s absolutely fucking ridiculous.

As an Indonesian (coming from a country that was colonized by Japan during WW2, and with great-grandparents who were forced into being romusha/slaves), I feel like I have more say on this. Honestly, I have more problems with American media that aggressively pushes pro-USA imperialism than with some crappy right-wing animanga. Japan today isn’t a colonizing nation, and there’s a lot of popular anti-Japanese imperialism media within Japan itself. Not to mention, most of the pro-imperialistic stuff isn’t endorsed/funded by their government (As Far We Know)— meanwhile in American media, imperialist narratives are often endorsed and funded by the government to push "USA globalization" propaganda.

You can see it everywhere: Hollywood movies that "victimize" American soldiers deployed to countries the USA itself destroyed, depicting the local people (and especially the soldiers who resist) as "evil" and "barbaric." There’s a lot of American colonialism allegory being normalized in Marvel and Disney films, and so on.

And China isn’t innocent either, with them imitating their neighbour border (see the South China Sea debacles), the Hong Kong/Taiwan/Uyghur situations, and even gacha games booting out VAs just for participating in a stage play about the Uyghur genocide.

But I rarely see people treat American and Chinese media the same way — despite there being mountains of evidence of them promoting imperialist or authoritarian propaganda. don't get me wrong I'm not going to judge you if you enjoyed USA/China media, I am one too, but I am specifically talking to Annoying People that just want to do performative Activism by dunking japanese media as this heckin' fascist and want to have excuse to dunk whole nation as horrid fascist country.

I'm not saying you can't criticize Japanese media that pushes pro-Imperial Japan narratives — you should criticize them. But if you act like Japan as a nation full of fascist because of that, while you turn a blind eye to American and Chinese media doing the same or worse, it’s very fucking clear you have huge biases — or worse, you’re one of those liberals who think "it’s okay if America does it."

If that's your stance, then honestly, your opinion or criticism of Japanese imperialism is fucking garbage and carries zero fucking weight, especially while you continue licking the boots of active imperialist countries that are STILL ruining Third World countries and still funding genocides. Fuck off
this post was made after I see article that say Animal Crossing is Nintendo Promoting Japanese Imperialist Ideology while the same fucking journalist glazing The Last of Us & fans of Marvelshit, I want to fucking explode.

Comments

[geraineon]

In my experience watching EN speaking U.S. fandom people... there's a lot of binary/reductive thinking (at least the louder ones tend to be like that). One country must be good, the other must be bad, etc.

(tbh, the chinese media fandom side is not much better because lots of people are either China Good [because China Bad is a U.S. propaganda] or China Bad [but they will still continue to consume media while being racist and xenophobic to everyone else]).

What sparked this off anyway? Has there been a discourse about JP media?

[michifugu]

yeah, fandom in the US tend to be less nuanced about things. I wrote this after seeing an article claiming that Animal Crossing is Nintendo spreading imperialist Japanese propaganda, which is just so stupid. I also saw people on Twitter saying that the demons in Frieren are a sign that Japan is xenophobic or racist, because they think the demons are some kind of allegory for racism or fascism. That’s dumb, like, it’s just the usual “evil race” fantasy trope, which Western media uses too. It’s so annoying how Americans always act like if a country has some media with questionable ideology, then suddenly the entire country is fascist and evil. While completely oblivious that US & Western also instill a lot of propaganda in their mainstream media.