In the paper “Oh No, There Goes Tokyo”, the author uses Tokyo’s frequent appearance in “apocalypse pop culture” as an inspiration to explore why these pop cultures appear so often, how they reflected different state of the Japan’s society in the past few decades, and their impact to the Japan’ society. The part I like the most is the changing styles and topics of apocalyptic films with relation to the social events that is happening in Japan, because I never realised when I was watching these films that they have so much connection. From post atomic bomb film like Karumen junjōsu to radioactive Gojira to Ultra Q to Japan Sinks, all mirrored different phases of post-WW2 Japan.
The author brings out the idea of catastrophic disasters as a motivation for human to unite, improve, and the apocalypse pop culture serves the purpose to provide nostalgia of these moments. I think it is very important to raise this idea because I almost forgot how nice the society can be if we strive for the same goal of peace. In modern day life, people are always competing with others, stressing out about the future, the society feeling more like a battlefield for individual interests than a true community. It is this kind of apocalypse pop culture that reconnect us with the good side of humanity, reminding us to always treasure what we have and live for the moment.