-Ciao!

Pepsiman

PS: If the formatting is off, I apologize. I tried to maintain the paragraph structures as best as I could when copying and pasting from Open Office, but the blog unfortunately freaked out. (Indentations apparently aren't welcomed in such instances.) I tried fixing as much as I could, but if you still find things wrong with it (ie: the stubbornly botched bibliography), chances are it's not an issue in the actual paper being turned in. I just don't have the energy at the moment to take care of any more errors. Thanks for your understanding.

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If one were to make a judgment about Japan based on its coverage within Western media, more likely than not it would come out being as something at least somewhat positive. Exotic, yet progressive, it is a land which has for decades been envied for its technological and economic prowess in a region where many of its peers still have a ways to go in development. Much less covered, however, are politically dissenting opinions towards the United States in news items. This is not necessarily surprising, though, if only because of a certain predictability to it all. Even on a superficially historical level, it is not a particularly difficult guess to make at all that there are indeed anti-American sentiments in different sectors throughout Japan. After all, when not even a century has passed since the atomic bombings at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, there are bound to be lingering feelings of resentment from what already was a difficult era. But, World War II-era events contribute but one facet of what is actually a much more historically nuanced set of opinions, however. As other periods of Japanese history show, there is actually a fairly sizable back catalog to which anti-American opinions can refer. From forced port openings with imperialistic undertones in the 19 century to post-World War II occupation and constitution rewriting, those critical of the US have plenty of material to fall back upon and, as this paper will later discuss in great detail, has a profound impact on not only political thoughts, but even the common people's own entertainment media. To therefore call Japanese anti-Americanism pervasive and influential far underestimates its power; it may very well influence the island nation's own future.

Although anti-Americanism sentiment can be directly traced back to the latter 1800s, a proper context needs to be provided so as to understand the implications of events centuries later. Thus, let us go back to the 1630s, a time in which a style of foreign policy later known as sakoku was enacted. Brought about by militaristic and Christianity-related fears stemming from an increasing prominence of foreigners within Japan's internal affairs, the idea behind sakoku was quasi-isolationist in nature without being completely cut off from the world. In order to prevent any unnecessary outside influences from coming into the country, trade relations were limited to four political entities: Holland, China, Korea, and the Ryukyus, a string of islands which includes Okinawa. Except for Korea, the one nation which maintained full diplomatic relations with Japan at the time, sakoku prevented the other nations from going beyond trading in their political interactions with the Japanese. (Kazui, 288) As is made easily apparent, all of the members of that list lie within Asia, save for Holland, whose ties were not severed despite being a Christian country because of their relation with the East India Company. The end result of all of this was that Japan “was at least never placed in a position of inferiority in its dealings with other nations,” enabling it to effectively quarantine itself from the world. (289) By being able to negotiate on its own terms without inadvertent repercussions involving other nations, sakoku enabled Japan to operate entirely its own way successfully for more than two hundred years.

Such would remain the case until 1852, when the United States set into motion its own plans to persuade the Japanese to open up its own ports for the Americans. Under the directive of President Fillmore, this was carried out through a commodore by the name of Matthew Perry, the man who would become the iconic figurehead of the efforts. The motivations for doing so were three-fold. First, the United States wanted to have access to Japanese ports as a way to restock on coal for their ships in the east. Although Hawaii was already being used for this purpose, Japan had the potential to provide a better opportunity for American ships in the area. Secondly, there was an interest in being a trade partner with the Japanese despite the restrictions already posed on the previously-listed nations. The mentality was that an additional nation to barter with meant another potential stream of revenue coming back across the Pacific. Finally, there was also the more tangential desire of ensuring shipwrecked sailors' safety. There had been a prior history of American seamen receiving poor treatment upon ending up on Japanese shores and there was an interest in personally assuring that the precedent did not continue. (Griffiths)

Perry did not arrive in Japan a year later unprepared, as he was armed with the United States' East India Squadron in tow as a show of force. (Naval History and Heritage Command) It is at this point that we can begin to see genuine anti-American opinions take shape, for the commodore's arrival was not without ominous-looking undertones. As John Smith Sewell wrote of the encounter later in his own book titled The Logbook of the Captain's Clerk, “And when the great man landed they gazed with wonder, for no mortal eye (no Japanese mortal) had been permitted to look upon him before. In all negotiations hitherto he had played their own game and veiled himself in mystery.... This was not child's play.... Commodore Perry was dealing with an oriental potentate according to oriental ideals.” (157) The effect is further emphasized when considering the description of the ships which accompanied him, said to be large, black, imposing, and armed to the metaphorical tooth. (155) This image of the fleet in particular would go on to be etched in Japanese memory for many generations after the event had taken place. After failing to turn the Americans away and make them use the Dutch port at the very least, the Japanese acquiesced and started the negotiations, partly due to the sheer force that accompanied Perry on his trip. (History Channel)

Work thusly began in earnest of July that year, when a request was made to create a treaty that would satisfy the goals Perry set out to make a reality. The culmination of the efforts took place on March 31, 1854, when the Treaty of Kanagawa was signed. This enabled the United States to do several things. Not only could it use additional ports in two other cities, Shimoda and Hakodate, but it was also allowed to set up a consulate in the former city. Furthermore, Japan did indeed agree to help any American citizens who ended up on its shores as a result of shipwreck. After the signing of this treaty, the metaphorical dominos proceeded to fall, providing openings for other nations to pursue similar opportunities with Japan, ultimately catalyzing the nation into modernity. (Naval History and Heritage Command)

Like other nations in similar positions during the time period, the manner in which the United States pursued relations with Japan were perceived as having imperialistic undertones. When considering the imagery and the very real threat of enduring military action if a disagreement arose, the opinions were all the more solidified.  Nevertheless, while Perry's port openings contributed greatly to anti-American sentiments as they are today in Japan, in reality they contribute only half of the historical pieces to the entire puzzle. For the other half, we must turn to World War II, its aftermath, the conduct of the two sides involved in the Pacific Theater.

As any respectable American history class is bound to teach, Japan's involvement in Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 was one the major reasons behind President Roosevelt's decision to finally have his country enter World War II after originally pledging that he would stay out of it. In terms of historical impact on anti-Americanism, however, it is wise to focus primarily on three periods: the events leading up to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bombings themselves, and what happened afterwards. Thus, beginning with the first period, after the United States successfully captured Okinawa, diplomatic discussions commenced pertaining to whether Japan should surrender and, if it did, what the legal conditions ought to be for doing so. As Bill Gordon points out in an essay of his on the topic, many people within the Japanese government were open to putting an end to it all and accepting the terms set forth by the Allies. The reason why this relatively peaceful-sounding transition into submission is not in the history books today lies within the objections of nationalistic militants still in power at the time. Their main point of contention was the treatment of Emperor Hirohito, as one of the terms of surrender involved having him step down. Adamant in their opinion on the matter, the negotiations broke down, despite prior knowledge of the threat included in the Postdam Proclamation. In effect, it assured that “The alternative for Japan is complete and utter destruction.”

Arguments over the emperor were not the only worry which eventually compelled the United States to drop the atomic bombs upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The threat which the Soviet Union posed if it involved itself in Japan was another factor. Not only were American leaders not keen on sharing occupational duties with their political rivals, but they were also of the belief that the bombings would be demonstrative of their nuclear weapons capabilities. If the Soviets could witness such power for themselves, it was believed, then America might be at an advantage when it would come time to discuss Eastern Europe post-World War II. (Gordon) Also, it was argued that to invade the main portion of Japan after taking Okinawa would prove to be too costly to American personnel, given the tactics employed by Japanese soldiers at the time. (Bauer) This, however, has been disputed; data examined after the fact indicates that the Japanese military was in no position to seriously fight back after Okinawa. Douglas MacArthur and Dwight D. Eisenhower also went on the record believing that the bombings themselves were not needed in order to achieve victory. (Gordon)

Nonetheless, the stage was eventually set for the devastation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The former was bombed first on August 6, 1945. Despite the havoc it wrecked, including the 80,000 people who immediately died upon detonation, the Japanese military was not deterred. Having had some intelligence about the bomb before hand, officials concluded that the United States had very few of those bombs in their supplies. Their worries at the time were mainly about incendiary bombs, which were much more numerous and still destructive in their own right. At this point in the war, they did not immediately opt to surrender. This provoked the United States to perform an encore with Nagasaki on August 9. The resulting casualties were less than Hiroshima's, but remained high anyway, with a count of 40,000 having died instantaneously. Even after this second attack, the Japanese government still required internal deliberations in order to determine their course. Although the prime minister at the time, Kantarou Suzuki, believed that surrendering was the best option, he himself did not make the final call. Wary of a potential military coup if he himself ordered an end, he in turn asked for Emperor Hirohito to make the decision, as nobody disputed the absolute highest power. Agreeing with Suzuki, he called for an end to the Japanese involvement in World War II, providing justification by stating that  “this is the time when we must bear the unbearable to restore peace to the nation and to the world.” (King)

Having unconditionally surrendered, Japan then entered a roughly seven-year period of time in which the Allies occupied the island nation, although the United States was the main country involved in the effort. During this time, a number of political reformations were enacted in order to mold the nation as was seen fit. (New York Metropolitan Museum of Art) Arguably, though, the most important one involved the editing of the Japanese constitution, as the addition of Article 9 during that period resulted in Japan officially adopting a policy of pacifism. The English translation provided on the Prime Minster’s web site below details what the constitutional idea of pacifism specifically entails:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

In layman’s terms, Article 9 forced the Japanese government to give up its military power, although its interpretation today allows for enough forces to be present such that its own borders can be properly defended. The main point to take out of it, however, is that Japan banned itself from officially engaging in war in the future, something which still has significant support from even the youth today, despite dissenting opinions deeply related to anti-Americanism. (Associated Press)

The latter half of 1951 marked a turning point for the occupation of Japan, as the signing of the Treaty of San Francisco eventually resulted in the United States concluding its occupation the next year. One must be careful when discussing the semantics of this event, however, for an ending to the occupation did not automatically equate to a complete pull-out of every single American soldier. This is made easily apparent when noting that they still have a presence in Japan to this day. The reason for this is simple: Since Article 9, at its inception, effectively made maintaining any sort of military illegal for the Japanese government at the time, they were left without much in the way of defense at all. Thus, a separate treaty was signed simultaneously so that the United States could fill that particular void. (Lu 499) The difference between this deal and what existed before was that the United States was not openly granted any political influence as it had possessed during the occupation. (Japan-US Security Treaty) Nonetheless, the fact that the American military would continue to have a presence, even in a politically lessened capacity, was interpreted by a sizable portion of the population as an indication that Japan had not yet become truly independent again when polled about the matter. (Lu 504) This tangentially ended up becoming a partial basis for one of the varieties of anti-Americanism detailed below which exists today.

With the history of Japanese-American relations concisely divulged, it is now possible to adequately detail what specific anti-American opinions have actually manifested in the land of the rising sun. Doing so entails simultaneously detailing the manner in which such thoughts are expressed, however, which are an anomaly when compared to cases involving other countries. Whereas Western nations and Latin America have a tendency to vocalize such statements primarily within political realms, Japan is not keen to staying exclusively within only that realm for their own expression. Political leaders certainly play their role in making those feelings less and less transparent, but the power of the nation's outlets for popular culture, whether it be in television, film, or literature, cannot be denied, either. Other tangential historical events, such as the legitimization of comics for serious intellectual discourse have made this additional avenue possible. Thus, let us now shift our focus towards the two routes most often employed by anti-American opinions, first by discussing the overt political route and then, more intriguingly, the popular media route.

Within the realm of politics, anti-American sentiments can be separated between left and right-leaning orientations, even if the division is not always completely clean-cut. Leftists have a tendency to be more specific and topical in their opinions, targeting American conduct in areas such as the formation of the Japan-US Security Treaty, the Vietnam War, nuclear submarines, and other issues. This can be interpreted as a Japanese effort to keep an eye on the United States’ actions abroad, even if they cannot be kept entirely in check. The need to be heard is greater than the need go beyond it, thanks to constitutional restrictions. The right, on the other hand, is more concerned with abstract matters, especially the implications of Americanization on Japanese society. Dating back to the days of the occupation, Harry Hootunian aptly summarizes the root in his essay “An 'Etiquette of Anti-Americanism.”

“The American military occupation of Japanese was directed by General Douglas Macarthur… who, shamelessly playing the role of an imperial Roman proconsul lacking only a toga, effective ruled the country as a distant colony of a vast empire. The way in which the U.S. occupation differed from other, historic examples of imperial colonization originated in the decision to remake the Japanese and their society.” (205-206)

The events thusly created a quandary in which Japan has since struggled to retain what it means to be Japanese in a world largely influenced by American ideals. In political practicality, the mindset has been used during times of intense trading competition. This was especially true during the 1970s and 80s in which that line of anti-Americanism was used in order to justify competitive Japanese efforts at the time. (208)

But for those looking for a more accessible forum in which to begin to understand anti-Americanism within Japan and what it genuinely entails, one can do no better than to turn to the country's popular culture. Although it is certainly true that not every single book, television show, and movie do not carry such undertones, there are nonetheless a number of influential works which carry such messages, even if their execution is more subtle than that of politicians and the works as a whole are not designed to be wholly anti-American per se. Rooted both in the Japanese people's search for a genuine identity which is not muddled entirely by Western influences, as well as historical memories involving a foreboding American imperialism dating back to Commodore Perry's actions, anti-Americanism is a recurring trait within much of the popular media, if not an outright dominant theme at times. It is therefore a mixture of both historical afterthoughts and politics, albeit without any overt leanings. Thanks to the boom in importation of Japanese-made animated films and graphic novels, especially within the United States, popular media has also proven to be the most common means by which people outside of Japan come to be exposed to that particular brand of anti-Americanism. Although it is impossible to completely catalog every incarnation of anti-American concepts within the bounds of a research paper, it is critical to at least examine a few iconic examples in order to gain an understanding of how those sorts of feelings are conveyed in a common, everyday manner as consumed by the ordinary citizenry. For the purpose of conciseness, two different properties are provided below.

Keiji Nakazawa's Hadashi no Gen, known in English as Barefoot Gen, is a landmark title known by many in its native land, its influence going so far as to often be included in elementary school libraries. (Asai) This is despite the graphic novel's inclination to show the bombing of Hiroshima and its aftermath in a graphic, unflinching manner. While its importance in the literary world is often attributed to its criticism of the Japanese imperial system, which he partially blames for the events of World War II in his home country, as well as the conduct of participating nations in it in general, Hadashi no Gen has no qualms about expressing less-than-flattering thoughts towards the United States when compelled to do so. The depiction of the actual bombing, during which Nakazawa himself was actually present, is especially vehement in its criticisms towards America. While this is done out of a mentality that the Japanese were victimized during World War II (Shimazu 112), the author explained his motivations for drawing the event in that manner during an interview with Motofumi Asai.

“What differs about the death of my father from Barefoot Gen is that I myself wasn’t at the scene. Mom told me about it, in gruesome detail. It was in my head, so in the manga [Japanese comic] I decided to have Gen [the titular character] be there and try to save his father.... At the time, Mom said, she herself was already crazed. She was crying, 'I’ll die with you.' Fortunately, a neighbor passing by said to her, 'Please stop; it’s no use. No need for you to die with them.' And, taking her by the hand, he got her to flee the spot. When she turned back, the flames were fierce... Mom told me this scene, bitterest of the bitter. A cruel way to kill.”

The imagery of the scene itself, which includes bodies with melted skin and burning animals amongst other things (Nakazawa 253-256), vividly details the damage which American actions caused, making no effort whatsoever to avoid holding the foreign power accountable for the bombing. Through that method, younger generations of Japanese people are able to be exposed to wartime memories, thereby enabling awareness of the events to remain within public consciousness. (Asai)

Literature is not the only medium in which anti-American sentiments are prominently transmitted, however. Television shows have, at times, made strides to discuss the implications of American history and its current foreign policy initiatives over the airwaves, often within fictional series containing ongoing plots. Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (henceforth shortened to Code Geass) is a more recent example of this, having first been released in 2006. (Anime News Network) Much like Hadashi no Gen before it, Code Geass does not beat around the colloquial bush in its display of anti-Americanism. Indeed, the very premise of the show itself involves an alternate historical timeline in which the United States is a territorially-driven imperial power in the vein of Britain in its historical heyday, going so far as to be territorially renamed “Britannia.” (Garten) Japan is the main setting in the series, having lost its sovereignty and become integrated into the larger American empire. Code Geass is thusly concerned with discussing the implications of American imperialism should it ever become more large scale than it is perceived to be today. Of especially major note is the identity crisis for the Japanese people which comes after the assimilation into the American empire. Throughout the course of the plot, Japan is officially known as Area 11, a name whose generic nature is intended to strip the native people of any cohesive identity. Without a national or cultural identity to call their own, the “former Japanese” are thusly meant to lose the willpower to retaliate and instead merge with the rest of the American population, if not as equals. There are legal means in the series which serve to make the Japanese a nationalized American citizen, but doing so is perceived to be a betrayal of one's true political and cultural identity.

It should be noted that this thematic discussion in particular, the Japanese identity crisis, is what makes Code Geass' anti-American undertones especially powerful. This is primarily because the problem already exists in Japan today. As Harry Harootunian again points out in his essay, the catalyst for it can be attributed to America's post-World War II actions, most notably with regards to the military occupation. “Since the 1950s,” he writes, “Japanese have increasingly described this unequal relationship as a form of feminization and infantilization that has ultimately undermined any claim to forming a stable self-identity—what it means to be Japanese.” What Code Geass thusly does is elaborate on this fear and provide a plausible evolution for it under its plot's political circumstances. Rebel groups do indeed form over the course of the story, but there is always an underlying fear that even if the Japanese do try to fight for their right to an identity, the work will all ultimately be for naught. Since Japan has already been forced to abide by Western conventions for so long, it is thought that it may simply be too late to reclaim that which makes Japanese people intrinsically Japanese. They may be forced instead to permanently adopt a hybrid identity which merges fractions of what was once a Japanese whole with a tacked-on Westernization to boot. Code Geass' ability to talk about these things and show the resulting after-effects, even within a fictional political climate, is what makes its anti-American themes notable within Japanese entertainment circles despite its young age. The events and its players may not be completely identical in reality, but the Japanese have been receptive because it more openly portrays current frustrations with America that would otherwise remain quiet due to today's political dynamics between the two countries.

Anti-Americanism in any part of the word is an extremely complex concept to disseminate, but for Japan it is especially true. Ultimately a combination of historical scarring and a desperate search for an identity in a world which continually attempts to force one upon the nation, the manifestation of anti-Americanism is far and wide in Japan. Look in the political rhetoric or the popular media and sooner, rather than later, one is bound to bump into it. Its implementation, however, is a unique brand in and of itself, for it makes oxymorons oddly compatible. Anti-Americanism in Japan embraces both concern and confidence, condemnation and understanding, delicacy and rashness. It is quick to recognize its own failings as a nation without neglecting the United States' role in its affairs. Nowhere else in the world could such opposite pairings ever hope to blossom together, but in Japan it is more than possible; it is the reality there. Anti-Americanism is perhaps one of just many byproducts from such metaphorical conflicts, but it is most certainly one of the most vivid and, in the end, may very well influence its relations in the future. It is simply too imbued in the citizenry to ignore its potential impact in the years to come.

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