What’s shocking is how Japanese disaster film originated from its lean history and evokes people’s reflection on the embellishment of this topic (e.g., atomic bomb as a mushroom or other genres). On one hand, it draws the Japanese public to reflect on the destructions they have made and received during WW2 and serve as a complex psychological healing method that allays the horror in their mind. On the other hand, although in the 1960s the grandiose postwar reconstruction had once again put Japan on top of the world, some argue that it still nevertheless endures as an invisible scar in

Continue readingReading Response: William M. Tsutsui

The text shows how disaster movies are popular in Japan. I am analyzing its function in politics and socio-economic aspect. In my opinion, mentioning atomic bomb in movie does not only regularize the fear of the Japanese, but it is also a strategy for Japan to portray itself as a victim in the world war. The post-war movie from japan is only recording the trauma they received but ignored the war crimes they committed. Therefore, historical amnesia is shown in a lot of post-war movies in Japan. Secondly, in disaster film, the city is always deconstructed and reconstruct in a

Continue reading[Reading Response: William M. Tsutsui]

In the readings, the author showed the relationship between technology and ethnicity through the mysterious combination of machines and folks in China town, the externalized signs in Hong Kong, and the recognition of human-like beings. One part I think is worthy of analyzing is the “almost lifelike things,” which contains robots, doll… The reason why they are so unique is their combination of lifelikeness and lifelessness, which reflects the vivid artwork from ethnicity (lifelikeness) and high-tech, emotionless machine parts (lifelessness). According to Davis, the attraction of lifelike things for people begins from the fascinating structure of lifelessness and eventually reaches

Continue readingReading Response: Darrell William Davis

Disaster films have long been popular in Japan, and this could be explained by the historical background of the country. Japan is historically vulnerable to natural or man-made catastrophes – typhoons, earthquakes, wars, and so on. Therefore, those disaster films actually reflect the history of Japan and express the Japanese’s fear of catastrophes in real life. However, in many of these films, the disasters are often overcome eventually. For example, in the movie Gojira, although the monster Godzilla is extremely devastating, it is beaten down in the end. This implies that although the Japanese are terrified about the disasters, they

Continue readingReading Response: William M. Tsutsui

The “apocalypse” genre movie, which includes natural disasters and artificial calamity, was popular after WWII in Japan. Some scholars pointed out that this genre of film represented the history of Tokyo, a city that used to be a victim of several catastrophic events. They agreed that the “apocalypse” movie reflected the horror or trauma of the atomic bomb and the war. But critics have blamed this assertion as a “cynical trivialization” of the nuclear threats and failed to identify nuclear implementation’s ethical problem. According to Susan Sontag, these movies have a function that is not that polarized, reflecting reality to

Continue readingReading Response: William M. Tsutsui

There is a general conception that Japanese cities such as Tokyo in film, will face utter destruction and decimation under an existential threat or crisis. However, only to rebuild stronger after the crisis with limited difficulty and almost instantly under a superficial “self-healing process”.  Several artists and directors such as Murakami Takashi reflected on the devastation of WWII through injecting his creative style and trivializing the horrors Japan experienced1. Studio Ghibli’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind despite being set in a post-apocalyptic future, still portrays a hopeful world portrayed through Nausicaä fighting for humanity. To contrast this criticism

Continue readingReading Response: William M. Tsutsui