Japanese war memories in popular film : memorialising victimhood and agency in post-war Japan

Abstract

This papers aims to explore how popular Japanese war films have memorialized the Japanese experience of World War Two, and in the process mediated Japanese war memories to the post-war generation today. The nature of Japanese war memories during the post-war was conditioned by a strong sense of national victimhood, which excluded memories of Japan’s aggression towards Asia, and was reflected in popular war films. The 1990s onwards however saw the increased awareness and acceptance of Japan’s wartime responsibilities towards its Asian victims by the Japanese people, and yet at the same time, there remained a strong desire to memorialise the Japanese war dead in the Yasukuni shrine. Looking particularly at the films Grave of the Fireflies, In This Corner of the World, and The Eternal Zero, I argue that the changes in the memorialization of the war, from a focus on Japanese victimhood and suffering previously seen in Grave of the Fireflies, towards positive remembrance and highlighting the agency of individuals, seen in In This Corner of the World and The Eternal Zero reflects the changes in the Japanese memory-scape, where Japan seeks to look beyond its own victimhood.