Okay, so I'll admit it. I have an interest in World War II stuff. Fo realz. I don't know about you, but I always found it fascinating. How one man could take hold o f so much power, how a whole world with many different ideals can get involved, how it affected the lives of humans... it all interested me. Even though I am not for wars, I don't like them at all and think most of them are pointless, the World War II era intrigues me. I like history, though would not major in it because of how much went on (look at China alone!)
and I have trouble remembering the dates of some major historical event. Well, you could imagine how I was actually happy doing research for this research project. We got to pick our own topics and basically write what we want. Honestly, World War II didn't even occur to me as a topic, instead I wanted to do the history on Anime Conventions, but that deemed too difficult. I hope you enjoy my essay~! ^_^
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With every anime or manga, there is a set time period in which the series is taking place. If there is not time period stated, it is to be assumed that it is currently taking place or around the same time as the release of the manga or anime. Some examples of the most popular anime and manga that includes a set time period would be Inuyasha (Sengoku Period; about 1467 to 1573), Slam Dunk (during the 1980s when it was released), and Macross Frontier (set in 2059). For this project, I would like to look at the anime and manga that are focused on World War II era and analyze their purpose and target age. The anime and manga that I will be using is Mein Kampf, Adolf, Momotarou’s Attack on America, Barefoot Gen, and Grave of the Fireflies.
“Propaganda is a weapon” read one of the speech bubbles by Adolf Hilter in the manga version of Mein Kampf. Mein Kampf is the story of Hitler’s struggles and his rise to power. Mein Kampf was created as part of the Manga de Dokuha (“Learn with Manga”) series. Manga de Dokuha releases historical and literacy books, such as Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. The purpose behind releasing these types of manga is to educate the readers on how such an event has happened and the psychological reasoning from the author’s (in this case, Adolf Hitler) perspective in a way that makes it more understandable or fun for the readers. In Mein Kampf, it demonstrates how Adolf Hitler was treated as he was growing up that may have affected his psychological mind, how he was able to take control on the German Workers’ Party, and how he was able to capture the attention of Germany.
Mein Kampf was not aimed at any specific age group; Mein Kampf was written for anyone to read. When Manga de Dokuha had released the Mein Kampf manga, it followed the same “any person” format as the original Mein Kampf, which many young Germans read during their schooling years. According to freelance writer Thomas Bertrand, “War-lovers, ignorant people or fans of Japanese militarism are clearly attracted by this kind of publication, even if they don’t necessarily believe in the Nazi ideology.” This type of manga is not just limited to those types of people. To some people, a historical manga like Mein Kampf can be an eye-opener on what life was like during a certain period.
The propaganda used by Adolf Hitler portrayed in Mein Kampf the manga version was more of an emotional approach. In order from the German Workers’ Party where he first gets the attention of the people, shortly after introducing the word “Nazi” to the German Workers’ Party, and when he was presenting one of his most famous speeches in front of the nation. During each speech, he pulled at the heartstrings of the crowd. He would use emotion to the audience about being loyal to your country as well as the reason why Germany was facing a poverty-stricken country was because of the Jewish people, in his opinion. As it was revealed in the manga, it was in Austria when this idea was implanted into his head by a homeless Austrian man who Hitler was basically repeating the man’s life – coming to Vienna to make a career of being an artistic only to be rejected.
Hitler learned how to appeal to the audience by his speeches through a teacher of his in Linz Austria. This teacher was his history teacher as revealed in both the manga version and the actual Mein Kampf. “Though he had no such intention, it was then that I became a little revolutionary” are the words of Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf . In the manga version of Mein Kampf, the teacher is depicted saying “It is my personal hope that Austria will reunite with her fatherland, Germany, one day. I believe that it is by uniting the people under one nation, that a pride for history and culture can be created. […] However, I do what you to remember one thing! Be proud that you are German.” According to Hitler in Mein Kampf, the German adults implanted the patriotic ideology in them by reminding the German children at a young age not to forget their ancestral roots in Germany.
Osamu Tezuka had also created a manga that took place during the reign of Adolf Hitler and World War II, coincidentally called “Adolf.” Adolf has the strange twist of fate for a Japanese reporter Toge Sohei and three men all with the name of Adolf: the German dictator Adolf Hitler, a Jewish person living in Japan Adolf Kamil, and Kamil’s childhood best friend Adolf Kaufmann who was a Japanese-German. The lives of these four main characters intermingle during the length of the five volumes. The main premise of this series was based on the rumor about Adolf Hitler being Jewish himself. Documents about his birth had traveled from Germany to Japan, causing a wild-goose chase to find the papers and destroy them and the people harboring them or find the papers and release them to the world.
“This is the story of three men named Adolf. Each Adolf lived a life that was very different from that of the other two… Yet the three of them were bound together by a single twist of fate. Now that the last Adolf has died, I will recount the story for those to follow” these words found at the beginning were later discovered to be the words of Toge Sohei towards the end of the manga. Toge Sohei (though fictional) wanted the audience to see how the lives of these three men were influenced by their surroundings and peers. Perhaps, it was to show how people can be easily manipulated into thinking a certain way or the brutality that arises out of the manipulation. Adolf Kaufmann, originally, was against the Germans attacking the Jewish people for that would mean killing his best friend Adolf Kamil. However, he was forced by the people surrounding him to join the Hitler Youth, which taught him to hate the Jewish people. He killed countless people, including Adolf Kamil’s own father, with little guilt. Kaufmann actually ended up working for Hitler, who was convinced that everyone around him including Kaufmann was a traitor. Hitler was so paranoid that he killed his true followers. Adolf Kamil, on the other hand, continued to fight for justice for the Jewish people regardless of his location (Japan or Isaeli) because of the worldwide hate that the Jewish people faced.
Due to the themes of this manga, the main audience would be young adults to adults. There are themes of violence, murder, rape, and revenge committed by the characters. Every heroic character has a flaw within them, which gives each character a more humanistic aspect. Although Toge and Kamil were primarily “good guys” in the story, they did commit crimes of rape (Toge) and murder (Kamil). On the other hand, characters such as Kaufmann and Hitler were negatively portrayed; they did have some notions of not being “pure evil/bad guys.” Kaufmann, as noted above, was against the idea of killing the Jewish people for that would mean killing his childhood best friend. When Kaufmann was top of his class, he had the honor with two other boys to meet Hitler. While Hitler spoke to the boys, he used a soft, almost parent-like tone. Showing these contrasts of character traits to a younger audience may make them question what has been taught to them about good and bad in the world. It might make the younger audience distrust all people and create the next Hitler?
Moving back in time to before America got involved in the war is Momotaro’s Attack on America was part of a 1942 propaganda film, which was filmed alongside of the bombing of Pearl Harbor; hence, the attack on “Demon Island” with tropical music playing only before the bombing took place. That island was supposed to be Pearl Harbor, the naval base in Hawaii. The whole purpose of this children’s anime was propaganda to influence the children to have the nationalistic ideals of the time. The Japanese government wanted children and the other viewers to glorify the battle and the war, to make the readers feel like they took can amount to great things.
In Momotaro’s Attack on America, instead of using humans as the workers, the creators and animators decided to use monkeys, dogs, and rabbits as the Japanese soldiers except for Momotaro. The American soldiers, on the other hand, were stupid, fat, lazy, ugly, alcoholic humans. The Japanese government wanted to promote the idea that everyone on the Japanese side was a team made up of members who would do anything for each other and their country; whereas the American side was more “for the individual person.” The propaganda here was to pull at the heartstrings of the audience to make them have hope for their country and the belief that they are able to help like the monkeys, dogs, and rabbits were able to do so.
When Momotaro’s Attack on America first came out, the targeted group was for the younger generation of the time; particularly between 5 and 10 years old. This may be one of the reasons why the Japanese animators used animals to act as the Japanese soldiers rather than to have humans. Children may not want to see their soldiers getting injured or in harm’s way, but the American soldiers were left human due to the Japanese, at the time, hatred against the Americans; thus fine to the children to watch. The animals, though they were bombing the Americans, were not actually killing them, but more or less bullying them. This gave the Japanese school children a very basic idea of what actually happened in the war. All they knew, or told, was that the Japanese were superior to those American bums.
For a more realistic approach to the travesty that followed after Momotaro and his animal friends had bombed Pearl Harbor, Barefoot Gen starts out just before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and moves through how it was affecting the people living in Hiroshima afterwards. Although written in the 1970s, Barefoot Gen may be one of the most realistic portrayals of how the war was affecting the Japanese people. Written by Keiji Nakazawa, it was loosely based on his experience. After the bomb was dropped, Nakazawa had described Japan at the time as “a hell of dying… and a hell of living… the painful tears of the survivors fell throughout the land.” The main character Gen is a young boy (age of six) was one of the survivors that was living on this hell on Earth. He had suffered during the nuclear bombing; had watched his father, older sister, and younger brother die before his eyes as their house crushes them; had to convince his mother not to kill herself and the baby within her; went through starvation due to lack of food; and was considered a burden to society when he and his mother needed a place to stay.
Barefoot Gen was written for the future generations to know what happened to the survivors during the Hiroshima atomic bombing. Nakazawa wanted to share his memories of what he lived through with everyone and anyone who was willing to learn about the tragic event that had occurred. Though he wanted to forget the painful memories, he pushed on to continuing the story until the end. The propaganda Nakazawa used was to describe how it was living during that time. Barefoot Gen shows how many propaganda signs and sayings were used by the Japanese at that time. For one example, in the first volume, the Japanese men are forced to attend a “Spear Drill” to prepare for any fighting they have to do. In the signs beside the instructors read, “Charge, fiery spirits of Japan! Destroy the American Devils! Destroy the British Fiends!” By calling the Americans and British names such as “devils” and “fiends” was placing the Japanese soldiers higher than the others. Within manga series in the 1960s, Tetsuya Chiba (creator of Ashita no Joe/Boxer Joe) was once quoted saying that manga at that time “presented war in a very aggressive light, as if the soldiers were actual superheroes. I felt that showing how we killed the enemy is not something splendid.” The Japanese in Barefoot Gen were glamorizing the Japanese soldiers as that, which was shown throughout the series.
As mentioned before, Barefoot Gen was created by Keiji Nakazawa to teach the younger generations about what had happened in Hiroshima during World War II. The age group for this series is unlimited or not specified. He created his manga to reach out to people of all ages – from school children to the teachers who did not know how to teach such a topic. Because of the sensitivity of the subject, it may have been difficult to present the reality of the war’s effects while making it relatable to the audience. It was only after the death of Nakazawa’s mother that he was “forced to confront the bomb.” Nakazawa’s mother’s bones were affected by the radioactive caesium within the bombs that during cremation, her bones had turned to ash instead of remaining whole. Nakazawa took this as a sign to let others know the truth of what happened to the people living in Japan.
Another story dealing with the effects of the war is Grave of the Fireflies. This is a story about the young boy by the name Seita (14 years old) and his younger sister Setsuko (4 years old) a few months after the war had ended. Their mother had died from an air raid, leaving the two children on their own in the cruel world, while their father was out on sea with the Japanese navy. The children were forced to face reality when their families rejected them and had to live in an abandoned bomb shelter. Like some Japanese at the time, Seita was forced to commit crimes just to support him and his sister by looting houses during air raids. Due to the lack of anything in Japan, Setsuko became ill from malnutrition and shortly dies. A few weeks after the death of Setsuko, Seita also dies from malnutrition.
The propaganda used in this film is similar to that of Barefoot Gen. It also tried to portray what life was like for the Japanese citizens in a realistic way. Although Japan is a “community-focused” society, anyone from the Hiroshima and Nagasaki areas after the bombing were treated as outsiders. People turned their backs on those in need, such as Seita’s aunt. Seita and Setsuko had no way to get food to survive so Seita was forced to steal from the neighborhood during a dangerous time, in which he could get killed.
Although Grave of the Fireflies may seem a bit more challenging on the younger generation, it was made to be watched by any person, regardless of age. This film could be enjoyed by any person from any generation. It allows those that want to know what Japan was truly like after the war to see what it was like. As the film goes on, people get more attached to the characters for they give off a presence of being real, not just anime characters.
“Why must fireflies die so young?” these were the words of Setsuko to Seita in Grave of the Fireflies. Within each anime and manga I had examined, each had a handful amount of people dying off due to the war. Manga and anime created a way to reach out to their audiences to make their message be heard. In Mein Kampf, it was to show how words could affect the way normal human beings think. Adolf, full of violence and death, spreads a similar message. The environment around a person could really change a person – for the better and for the worse – as seen through Adolf Kamil and Adolf Kaufman. Momotaro’s Attack on America was to promote the idea that even animals have the ability to help the Japanese army. Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies were created to show how much of a tragedy war could be for the human race.
When it comes to anime and manga about war time, specifically World War II, there is usually no set age group being targeted. However, the content may be a bit more challenging for children to fully grasp. In my opinion, historical or war manga and anime are best suited for those that of teenagers and older. This is mostly due to the themes of violence, death, and sexual themes that generally go along with this genre of manga. However, because they are in a cartoonish style to help the younger generations understand such realities that come along with being at war. In time period manga and anime, things that seem highly unlikely – such as Hitler’s rise to power – become more likely and relatable. That is the purpose behind time period manga and anime.
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Well, there you have it. I know you enjoyed reading about these series and the propaganda behind the workings as much as I did writing and reading them. If you are interested in links to read/watch them, please feel free to message me. Remember comments are always welcomed and appreciated. ^^
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