WW2 and Cinema in Japan

Title: Gojira (1954)

Director: Ishiro Honda

Cast: Akira Takarada, Momoko Kochi, Akihiko Hirata

Summary: A fire-breathing behemoth terrorizes Japan after an atomic bomb awakens it from its centuries-old sleep.

Title: Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Director: Isao Takahata

Cast: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi

Summary: A young boy and his little sister struggle to survive in Japan during World War.

Sup all it's Ari, and I'm here to remove your nostalgia goggles on old movies. So is this a review on one movie? No. Well, sort of but we'll get on with it! From all of the reviews I've seen about WW2, I haven't read any covering the war from a country besides the US. From Japan specifically, the only movie about the war is Tora! Tora! Tora! which includes the Japanese point of view for the attack on Pearl Harbor. However, with these films, it brings the message to the forefront, and we'll go into that now. For fair warning, I will be showing images of the war, some of them being mature.

We're going to have to get into history for this so strap yourselves in, no like seriously we're going to go deep with sources again. So where exactly do we start?

Yes. Ok no. Actually, sort of. Simple information of World War 2, while the Italians and Germans were fighting England and France in Europe, The United States was up against Japan due to the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, 1941. From 1944 to 1945 the US had air raided large cities in Japan, the deadliest of all the air raids being the Tokyo air raid of March 10 with napalm in the bombs. In that raid, roughly more than 100,000 of the dead were named and the rest still unknown.

Tokyo burns under B-29 firebomb assault, 26 May 1945

It wasn't until August 6 and 9 of 1945 where the United States launched two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Both of these attacks being the only two instances of atomic warfare. Both bombings killed roughly 120,000 people upon impact while tens of thousands later died from radiation exposure. With that, Japan surrendered to the US, and to this day, the world still feels the effects of those mushroom clouds.

Hiroshima Memorial Eternal Flame

So where do these movies come in? Well if you haven't seen either I recommend watching them since we'll be talking about some spoilers if you're brave enough to read on without waiting, good luck. Grave of the Fireflies covers this in a way that films like The Boy in the Striped Pajamas does well. This film shows the war through the eyes of children. What I like about Grave of the Fireflies is that it shows no real villain. Yes, in a way, the main boy is more of a villain; however, there's no way of saying who a villain is in their eyes. It could be the enemy, their aunt, the war itself, or society for not caring for them. We aren't sure since we see that everyone is suffering in some way.

And for Gojira, we see how Japan has been years after Nagasaki and Hiroshima. However, they clearly state the Nagasaki attack and H-bombs, as well as Gojira, being made from H-bomb testing. In this film, we know the apparent villain, Gojira but in reality the at the time, potential threat of nuclear war. Though for both films, the real enemy is war itself. Unlike Grave of the Fireflies, Gojira itself shows no mercy, and that's what Honda was going for. In a way Gojira is similar to Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb; each of them gives the message of nuclear war from one point of it. In Strangelove, it's more about the acceptance that there was a threat at that moment, while in Gojira it's a warning of the use from the victims themselves.

For me, I remember watching Godzilla, from the 1999 version with Matthew Broderick to the ones where he was a good guy, and it never went into my mind that he is an unstoppable force that can only be ended with more violence. As for Grave of the Fireflies, I didn't grow up with Studio Ghibli, just the trailer for Spirited Away in one of the VHS movies from Disney. It wasn't really until middle school that I saw those movies for the first time, and in high school when I saw Fireflies. While Studio Ghibli didn't impact my childhood as Godzilla did, I understand the message for both fully. There is never a real villain in war, and it isn't until the war itself ends that we fully see the repercussions until it's over. With that there are two scenes from the films that hit it home, in Gojira, there is a scene where a girl is wailing about the loss of her mother, and it just sent chills down my spine from how hard she was crying. And in Fireflies, it has to be where our main heroine dies; it hits us hard with no buildup, and there's no time to process it.

And with that I can see why both films have scenes with no music, you don't need it all the time to show the audience where they should feel sad, instead keep it silent, make the viewers uncomfortable then hit it hard to impact them. For me, this is the only film I've seen from Honda, and I can wholeheartedly say the way he has the camera move and how he shows Gojira makes you afraid or wonder, where is he? With Takahata, sadly he did pass away in 2018, and I may do something for the Tale of Princess Kaguya when it reaches the tenth anniversary in a few years, but he knew what to do, and he did it well, he knew he wasn't Miyazaki and made sure the audience knew too.

So for me, it's a bit hard to have final thoughts on two films. I guess because I haven't done two before and this is a big step, but I honestly can't just end it like this. Gojira tells warns future generations that nuclear weapons should not be used while Grave of the Fireflies tells us that there is no real happiness in war. To me I have to watch these videos with Fireflies first, then Gojira next, it shows us what happened during and after the war, but the main symbol Fireflies says it best for both films:

Like fireflies, all things will go out soon, whether it be war or innocence; nothing is eternal.

With that, I'm giving both of these films an A.

To find out what next week's review is, follow me on Instagram @scriptwizard1998 for a clue.

Till then keep those rosy goggles on till I rip them off your face. See you in the next review!