Hiroshima 80th Anniversary: How the Event Helped Shape Modern Anime

Today is the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, which helped end the War in the Pacific. Let’s look at the Hiroshima 80th anniversary, and explore how the event has influenced modern Japan, including the anime we all grew up on.

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Remembering the Hiroshima 80th Anniversary

COVID-19 was frustrating for a lot of reasons. As a Japan blogger, I was low-key annoyed that all the historic 75th anniversaries — the Great Tokyo Air Raid, the bombing of Hiroshima, the end of the war on August 15 — were drowned out by anxiety over COVID deaths and drama about masks and lockdowns. This made it nearly impossible for anyone to reflect on the important anniversaries around the end of the war. Five years later, COVID is largely behind us, and we can look back at how much the world has changed over the past eight decades.

The Hiroshima 80th anniversary is a good moment to look back on all the changes that have come since the end of World War II. Thanks to the wise policies of the Allies during the Occupation, Japan was guided away from its militaristic ways and towards a better future for all of us. The country was able to keep its dignity as it became a peaceful, democratic nation. Today, when Japanese see images of the hyper-militaristic North Korea on TV, they snicker to themselves and say, “I can’t believe we used to be like that.”

I’ve met many Japanese people who were alive during the war who expressed positive opinions about the outcome of WWII. I’ve been told, “It’s good that Japan lost the war,” often. Japanese of my mother-in-law’s generation are always full of praise for Douglas MacArthur for redistributing land away from those responsible for the war and into the hands of everyday Japanese citizens. On the other hand, some, such as Yamato creator Leiji Matsumoto, believed it was a terrible thing that Japan was forced to renounce its military.

Massive destruction from 1982’s Macross.

Is Anime’s Love of Visual Destruction Tied to Hiroshima?

One of anime’s defining traits is its willingness to tell huge, emotionally-charged stories that often involve mass destruction. From Super Dimensional Fortress Macross to Akira and Evangelion, many series use large-scale devastation as a core visual theme. Whether it’s cities being leveled in dramatic fashion or entire planets engulfed in fire, Japan has always had a fascination with telling dramatic stories about destruction.

But why is this? Before the first Godzilla films, there wasn’t much of a market for stories about cities being destroyed. But anime managed to find beauty in destruction — in shattering glass, crumbling skylines, and cleansing fire. It’s hard not to see the influence of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in this.

Using allegory for destruction with Godzilla SP.

Hiroshima is Still a Taboo Topic

Yet despite what seems to be a clear influence of the first atomic bombings on Japanese pop culture, overt references to Hiroshima are extremely rare. Outside of works like Barefoot Gen and Grave of the Fireflies, direct references to the horrors Japan experienced during the war are almost entirely missing from anime. Instead, the themes are communicated through fictionalized stories of alternate worlds or futures. The most famous example of this is, of course, Space Battleship Yamato.

Another great destruction scene from Megazone 23 Part II.

My Fascination with WWII History

As an American who emigrated to Japan, I’ve always been fascinated with WWII history from the Japanese perspective. I learned surprising trivia, including how the final bombing of WWII took place about 2 km from J-List, at the Fuji Heavy Industries plant in Isesaki at 3 am on August 15, just hours before Japan’s surrender. Also, that an oddly wide and straight road in nearby Ota City was a remnant of the Nakajima Aircraft factory, believed to be a runway for fighter aircraft by locals.

I even acquired a family member who fought in the war. My wife’s uncle Kumakichi was a gunner on the IJN Ise, an old-school battleship that got upgraded to a half-carrier after the Battle of Midway. I loved taking my half-American kids over to his house on New Year’s Day to hear his stories of a time when the peaceful relationship between Japan and the US was very different.

Thanks for reading this blog post about the Hiroshima 80th anniversary, and how much the world has changed for the better since then. Do you have any thoughts on the anniversary? Put them in the comments, below!

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