Today is the 65th anniversary of the Great Tokyo Air Raid. On this day, 300 B-29 Superfortresses flying out of Guam dropped 2,000 tons of incendararies over the most densely-packed residential parts of Tokyo, causing 100,000 deaths, greater than from the individual atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nakasaki. It was a very sad event, the tragedy of which can be appreciated by watching the excellent Studio Ghibli film Grave of the Fireflies, which I plan to watch with my kids tonight as part of their dual American/Japanese heritage. Note that the Touhou character in the picture below is saying, “Lucky Strike!!” This is related to an odd Japanese urban legend that the iconic Lucky Strike cigarette logo is supposed to represent the mushroom cloud of Hiroshima as seen from above. (The logo actually dates from 1917.) Interestingly, this common belief doesn’t stop Japanese smokers from reaching for the brand, nor do Japanese artists consider it odd to draw cute moe art of the B-29 Superfortress, which presumably caused so much pain to the Japanese. (This kind of reminds me of Astro Boy’s Japanese name of Tstsuwan Atom and his sister Uran, e.g. Uraniam.)
It speaks volumes that Japanese artists can create moe art like this.
