Beautiful Propaganda.

Hmm. What you're saying is pretty deep. But to be honest, I think you're reading a bit much into it. I do agree there was propaganda, but I don't think the entire basis for the movie was to love Japan... lol.

You really are an idiot, aren't you. There's a concept you seem to be completely ignorant of: "Point of View." When you go out to mow the lawn, do you consider yourself an evil mass murderer? That's what the buzz around the lawn is. In one hour, you will kill thousands of small, innocent panicking creatures--and you won't feel a bit of regret.

What Japan did during the thirties and the War is undeniably a very bad and evil thing--and there are plenty of people around the Pacific who will remind them of that fact until the Sun goes out. However, those actions are viewed as evil by those with a different point of view than the average Japanese who was living during that era. The average Japanese person in the thirties did not wake up in the morning thinking, "what evil and inhuman deeds can I accomplish today?" Instead, they would open their dialy newspapers and read about the horrible things the white colonial people were doing to the Asian peoples around the Pacific. Just as you, they would honestly think that their point of view was more correct than others' points of view. To them, things Japanese were better. The news and literature written in the only language they could read or understand reinforced that view.

I am not twisting or revising history. I am merely acknowledging a truism that there are very few people in the world who view themselves as truly evil. Even criminals will believe that they are doing the right thing through some form of rationalization. The evil people are always somebody else.

You're way off base.

1) Germany's laws against holocaust denial are illegal under international laws mandating free speech. Holocaust denial may not be nice, but the UN convention on Human rights and the EU Human rights charter both grant it legal protection. As does the first Amendment in the US.

2) the shine in Japan is actually the nations war memorial. It existed for over 100 years before WWII. It includes many civilians including children whose evacuation ship was sunk by the allies and students who volunteered as front line nurses during the Battle for Okinawa. Would you deny these people official recognition form the government?

3) Of those 20 million, more than half died due to hunger and exposure, and many would have died regardless of Japanese occupation. At that time China was in a very bad way. Famine was common as was disease. Many of these people also died after having been used as forced labor by the Communists and the nationalists. Many were marched to death. Sure there were horrific atrocities such as Nanjing/Nanking, but not everything was the fault of the Japanese.

4) Maybe you should look at that controversial textbook that keeps getting racked up every five minutes. If nationalism and war denial were wide spread then wouldn't this book be popular? In fact it is used by 0.04% of schools in Japan even though it is given way for free, and many of those schools that do use it are schools for learning disabled children who have to watch every last cent that they spend. Sure, there are a handful of politicians who deny war crimes, but there are US politicians who deny evolution and global warming, not to mention US war crimes.

You obviously know nothing about Yasukuni Shrine or Japan. Let me give you a wakeup call. Former Japanese Prime Minster Koizumi Junichiro is one of the most famous and controversial visitors to Yasukuni, yet he never once offered incense to a single war criminal in his life. He regularly visited the shrine and regularly made offerings there, yet there is no record of him ever making any offerings to anybody ever named as a war criminal. Not once.

Maybe you should look up Japanese culture. Yasukuni is a SHINTO shrine, not a Buddhist shrine. This means that you offer incense to relatives or close friends. It would be meaningless to offer incense to a war criminal unless you were a blood relative, or unless you served under them. In fact it might even anger the war criminal's spirit if a complete stranger made a meaningless offering.

Besides, who are you to say what is and isn't OK in Japan? You're irrelevant, a foreigner with no knowledge of Japanese history or customs. It's not as if Japan is demnading that YOU worship war criminals, is it?

Maybe you should be more concerned about who is buried in Arlington and what they did. There's plenty a man in Arlington who's have been executed as a war criminal by the Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Iraqi, and Afghans if they had half a chance. Every US leader who said that there were WMB in Iraq is a war criminal under international law. And every American who ordered that cluster bombs and Thermobaric bombs be dropped in civilian areas needs putting on trial.

English Language Anime: Dub it, don't pervert it.

I would definitely agree- and thanks for telling me about the poster, I don't remember noticed that detail. :-)
I own Grave of the Fireflies, actually.