There is a thematic parallel between Japan’s calamitous historical past and its visual culture and artistic creation, predominantly characterised by the doom-laden fictional apocalypses. From natural disasters to the nuclear threat, to the burst of a beautiful bubble of economic prosperity, the historical vulnerability led to the perceivable pessimism and unhealable trauma expression in most aspects of its cultural output.
However, the reading expresses an interesting point of view to challenge the very established notion of the gloomy “aesthetic of destruction” with a contrasting kind of optimism and hopefulness that lay underneath the seeming surface of pessimism. For films of kaiju eiga theme like Gojira, cyberpunk action films like Akira, or disaster films like Japan Sinks, the message and morality conveyed are inherently optimistic, with reaffirmation of humankind and hope for reconstruction, and even often with light-hearted satire and humour.
History is inescapable and we always live under the socio-political consequences of the past. Before this reading, I already had some knowledge about Japanese visual cultures, but of course, all of them were interpreted with a conspicuous nihilist and escapist undertone. This reading thus offered a brand new and deeper explanation of Japanese visual culture, and many of them serves as metaphors for the hopeful future of Japan. The destruction was just a temporal challenge and necessary systemic reset for better progress. I am very inspired by this kind of optimism that arises from pessimism, and I think it is essentially necessary not only in visual culture, but also our attitude towards history and life in general.