My Japan!

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Here is the type of thing Bert likes to read.

A wiki entry on the World War Two [WW2] "propaganda" movie, "My Japan"

"My Japan"

"My Japan is an American anti-Japanese propaganda film produced in 1945 to spur sale of American war bonds. The film takes the form of a mock travelogue of Japan, presented by an impersonated Japanese narrator."



Well - impersonated - sort of! Man appears to be a Nisei. Japanese-American doing his bit for the war effort. Dig the ever-smiling face, the Ming-the-merciless haircut, the flower arrangement.

This particular wiki entry tries to make some hay of the fact that this is a "propaganda" film. Uses statistics that are incorrect. NOT factual or accurate.

From the narration:

"Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Iwo Jima - you boast of them as major victories; to you they are. To us they are minor defeats - the loss of island outposts. You Americans are fond of saying 'look at the score.' Very well, look at it. You sent your finest troops against these outposts. They died by the thousands. Here they are massacred, slaughtered. But you took the islands, you say. Yes, we expected you to. That is why we garrisoned them with second-rate troops. The best of your lives for the worst of ours. WE TOO, know a thing or two about bargains. You have not yet faced the best of our armies. You have faced only ten percent of our worst!"

That the statistics are incorrect is not germane!! The narration would BE CORRECT FROM A JAPANESE STANDPOINT!! Even up to the final surrender, the Japanese public did believe the war was going just swimmingly and that the American forces were being annihilated right and left. Superior Japanese fighting spirit would always triumph over materially rich but spiritually weak American forces. The film IS CORRECT IN PORTRAYING THINGS AS THE JAPANESE SAW THEM!!

[In 1944, the Japanese for two weeks celebrated in a delirious manner the sinking of an entire American aircraft carrier task force in a naval battle near Formosa [Taiwan]!! A naval battle THAT DID NOT EVEN OCCUR!! Such was the mental state of the Japanese even at the end of the war!!]

coolbert.