Ok review, just keep your ignorant political views out of it.

“Kenta presents the audience with a provocative and certainly understandable argument…”

Just what are you saying here? I guess bombing is somehow worse than what the Japanese did to kill similar (greater?) numbers of people during, for example, WWII. Unless you think that in some sick way using human captives for bayonette practice (as the Japanese did to the Chinese) is somehow more acceptable? Not to mention raping women, their daughters (teenage and below) before sticking a blade through them.

I guess I can see why you review splatter films, kiddo.

Thanks for the feedback Bill. I apologize for my ignorance, but I don’t have cable, and therefore have no way to watch Fox news.

You may want to research the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both bombs were dropped after the Japanese had been trying to negotiate a surrender.

From the wikipedia entry:
“Their use has been called barbaric as several hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, and the target areas were known to be heavily populated by civilians. In the days just before their use, many scientists (including American nuclear physicist Edward Teller) argued that the destructive power of the bomb could have been demonstrated without the taking of lives.”

Then there are also the firebombings of Japanese villages where an estimated 100,000 Japanese were killed, again, mainly civilians. The totals for these three examples are greater than the 100 - 300,000 estimated for the Nanjing Massacre. Granted this is much less than the total number of Chinese deaths at the hands of the Japanese, but we cannot say our hands are entirely clean when it comes to civilian casualties.

And America is not without guilt when it comes to atrocities. You may want to look into those committed by American soldiers in Vietnam, or Korea. Or the reports of US Soldiers raping Iraqi women in the current gulf conflict. Again they are not on the scale of the Japanese and German atrocities, but we cannot claim that we have a clean record in that regard either.

For evidence of American imperialism you may want to look into any number of the campaigns executed in the name of spreading democracy. Cuba, Mexico, etc. And America is not above bombing another country to take the heat off of presidential philandering.

Just because what our country has done is not as bad as what another country has done doesn’t make it right.

And you may want to take a look around the site. We review more than just splatter films. ;)

Again, pardon the ignorance and thanks for the feedback.

Okay, regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

The Japanese rejected the Potsdam Declaration on July 26. The Japanese stated that it was a copy of the Cairo declaration and that it did not wish to honor the resolution. The US wanted Japan to unconditionally surrender. The Japanese had refused.

The US clearly wanted Japan to accept Potsdam - no ifs, ands, or buts.

After bombing Hiroshima on August 6, the Japanese still refused to honor Potsdam, so the US bombed Nagasaki on August 9. The Japanese then surrendered and agreed to use Potsdam on August 15.

The reason why the US decided to nuke Japan was because, after seeing civilian suicides on Okinawa and other lands, the US believed that nuking Japan would result in less deaths than invading Japan. Also the US did not want Joey Stalin’s Soviet Union to take Japan and increase its influence in Asia, so the war had to end quickly too.

I visited Hiroshima, the A-Bomb dome, and the peace museum. If you have not been to Hiroshima, I would recommend visiting. The people have no animosity to Americans.

Chris you are an idiot.
First off, the Japanese did way more horrible things during World War 2 than the United States dropping off two atomic bombs. Yeah yeah, sure the U.S. was wrong, but AT LEAST THEY APOLOGIZED. The Japanese government hasn’t even apologized to the Chinese for the massive massacres and graveyards that have recently been found. The Japanese government wasn’t even found guilty by the US even though they have killed HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CHINESE CIVILIANS AND SOLDIERS. All because the US was scared of the Communists in the Asia Pacific.

To say the Japanese is a victim during the wars is an exaggeration to an unreasonable degree. You sir, need to take a good History lesson before you start typing blogs like this before you choke on your own words.

Hey Simon, I love you too.

I think this might be another case of drive-by hating, but just in case, I’ll give you a response. Please check my earlier post. What I am saying is that the United States has a longer history of worldwide deathmaking than Japan ever did. I’m not legitimizing the acts of the Japanese military (there are completely unconscionable), but asking that you not go blindly forth thinking our American actions have been entirely warranted.

If you’re really interested, you might want to check this article on US atrocities:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/122300-101.htm

And, if you really want to get technical about it, communist Chinese leaders have killed far more Chinese citizens than the Japanese Military ever did. The estimates for Mao alone range as high as 75 million. And the majority of this toll was amassed after WWII. We don’t criticize that, however. Maybe because of current US economical policy?

You too might want to look into a few history classes.

Actually, many Japanese films deal with the tragedy of WWII, but moreso the importance of global peace.

There are a lot of things they do not tell you in History books, mainly because they are written and published by the anglo male perspective. America itself was founded on bloodshed, practically stealing land from Native Americans and Mexico.

In WWII, the treaties sought to insult the Japanese and their honorific stance and bullish pride. It was meant to anger them. It asked a country whose citizens would commit suicide to defend, for unconditional surrender. Worse yet, it sought to force the Emperor to resign, Dig a little deeper (i.e: government documents) and you’ll see the stark strategy people refuse to reveal/accept.

This was a chance for America to frighten the rest of the world. America dropped the atomic bomb AFTER they realized their worst fear was moot: that the Axis did not have nuclear weapons. America dropped the atomic bomb AFTER Germany surrendered, and was the plan all along. Multiple incendiary bombs were released prior, a smart move considering vast Japanese wooden construction. And here at home, Japanese were stripped of their property, possessions, dignity, forced into Internment camps/horse stables, even forced to leave America. So you can see a simple apology would be meaningless.

While we do always welcome intelligent debate ;) we recognize that our reviews may ruffle feathers because we seek the truth, and are not subject to popular opinion. Let me repeat opinion. Hey, everyone’s entitled to them. If ours do not appeal to your own, retorting in a immature manner will only dilute your statement.

In the future I hope people will be open-minded and try to see both sides of the story before resorting to biased name-calling. Does that even really change the past?

America, like any other country, has its flaws. True patriotism, like unconditional love, is allowing yourself the ability to see these flaws, not see through them.