For some inexplicable reason, Japan produces a lot of anti-war art. It seems the trend started sometime around the mid-20th century. Even one of Japan’s biggest war franchises, Gundam, features a surprising number of anti-war themes. No explanation has been provided to date to explain why.
- Philomena Cunk, probably
Perhaps it coincides with the Hall of Records being mysteriously blown away in a firestorm… however, without a Hall of Records, we’ll sadly never know.
Care to explain ?
Pluto, which is based on the mini-arc “The Greatest Robot on Earth” of Astro Boy is an anti-war, anti-discrimination episode, and ironically, these incidents match the real life atrocities.
spoiler
The Persian Empire in the series was wrongfully accused of making weapons of mass destruction by the United State of Thracia (Bush on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq), and the 39th Central Asian Conflict (The Arab Spring) is a cause of this effect. Five (NATO countries) of the seven greatest robots on Earth participate in the war, which destroys the entire Persian empire, turning it into desert, and it is currently under the occupation of the United States of Thracia (occupation of Afghanistan) and under re-development. The members of the Bora committee (United Nations Special Commission) find scraps of robots and despite finding no evidence of destructive weapons, allows Persia to be crumbled to dust by the imperialist Thracia, who wanted to maintain their hegemony over the entire world. There’s also an anti-robot rights terrorist group that hate robots (related to racism) with advanced AI and high degree of consciousness to death and want them to be subservient just like machines of the past, but I’m not going to talk about that, because this is already a lengthy spoiler.
Also on Netflix, but you can pirate and watch eight episodes in one go.
Thank you for the explanation. I think I watches some episode when I was a kid but I don’t remember a thing about it.
I still remember Episode 31. It is one of the most painfully sad ones I still remember from fifteen years ago. Also, the Japanese opening theme is fire.
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Astro Boy / Mighty Atom is a manga series drawn by Osamu Tezuka in the 1950s and 60s. It was popular among young boys (both in Japan and outside) due to its action sequences, but has complex themes such as consciousness, human-robot conflict, war and the morality of violence.
How much of that bizarre nostalgia comes down to the show having been originally aired brutally re-cut, mistranslated, and basically rewritten so that it would fit “American sensibilities”? Censorship in “the freest nation that invented freedom, football, and guns for all amen!!!” is wild, yall.
For all their talk about how they’re the freest country in the world etc, the US is honestly weirdly rule-oriented and there’s a lot of surprising restrictions in different aspects of life – at least from this particular Finn’s perspective.
High school is an interesting example. I did an exchange year in South Carolina, and I was really struck by how strictly regulated school was. So things like needing a pass to go to the bathroom during class, or needing yet another pass that you have to get from an office if you’re even a minute late from class, not being allowed to be in the hallways between classes, not being allowed to leave school grounds, and so on. And don’t get me started on the whole pledge of allegiance thing.
Work seems to also be more regulated, with some companies having stricter controls on how employees spend their time, and for example policies on appearance (and I don’t mean just the service sector) and apparently some even have “fraternization policies” that forbid romantic or sexual relationships between coworkers.
Then there’s the Homeowners’ Associations – HOAs – which seem to have surprising amounts of power to regulate things about eg. the appearance of houses, or what you can and can’t have in your yard.
Varying levels of censorship in movies and TV has also been common through the years, some of it official and some just “this is how we do things”. Censorship of cursing and nudity is somehow especially odd since often violence is totally OK in the same contexts, but somehow showing a nipple or saying “fuck” will lead to the degradation of the moral fiber of everyone who’s exposed to that smut. I still remember the moral panic caused by a few hundred milliseconds of Janet Jackson’s nipple during some Superb Owl (🦉) thing or another.
And just as some background, on top of that exchange year I’ve spent probably a half a year if not more in the US, from vacations to eg. a zillion work trips I had to do at least once a month when I worked for a company headquartered in SF. Haven’t been to all that many states though, but more than just one anyhow; off the top of my head I’d say New York, Michigan, California, Florida, South & North Carolina, and Georgia.
I watched the first episode a few weeks ago and wow is it dark. I thought they were building up to the scientist’s kid having his mind put in a Robot body, but no. That child is dead and this Astro Boy is the scientist’s unhealthy coping mechanism.
Has it aged well? I’ve been curious to give it a shot, and I’m somewhat patient with old animes, but I think the oldest I ever went was the 80’s
Cartoons are wild as an adult
And then there’s Pluto, by Naoki Urasawa, which is what would happen if Philip K. Dick decided to write an Astro Boy story.
(It’s a reinterpretation of “The Greatest Robot on Earth”, and was supervised by Tezuka’s son, 100% worth a read)
man I thought I clicked on a different post and was so confused by the comments
Feels the same about Naruto
Removed by mod
History shows, again and again, how nature points out the folly of men
