While it is clear the movie portrayed him quite sympathetically, how blameworthy do you think Jiro was for the acts of Japan in the war?
Certainly his designs assisted the Japanese Imperial forces - but he also was personally anti-war and just wanted to build beautiful airplanes. He likely also had little choice given the authoritarian government.
Thoughts?
"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Surely, when a country is at war, it's the duty of every citizen to help in the war effort, whether it's by serving in the armed forces, doing voluntary work or continuing with his/her usual job, whichever is necessary? Jiro is no more blameworthy than a rank-and-file soldier, a farmer or an office worker. He's doing his job to the best of his ability. Translate this to Britain or the USA in 1941 to think about it without the hindsight of history.
shareAh, the "Nuremberg Defense" -- ethically contemptible each and every time I hear it.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
Being active in your own country's war efforts does not equal participating in war crimes. After all, when your sons and your country are at war, it is not difficult to want to help. But fighting in a war or growing food for soldiers or building planes is far different than executing innocent people in concentration camps.
shareMaking "duty" arguments to justify it constitutes the Nuremberg Defense.
shareIf we applied the law of war in Nuremberh, we should have hanged every allied generals, too. (volontary strike on civilians ex: Dresde, Hiroshima....)
History is always on the side of the winners.
By the way, Japan was willing to surrender long before Hiroshima...
We should Wonder why we pick up so much Nazies to go to the moon, too...Or to fight communism... (Paperclip someone ? Von Braum ? Klaus Barbie ?)
I guess there are good and bad Nazies...
To complete this. We'd better go straight shoot our ennemeis at the end of war.
Because on a legal point of view, Nuremberg was a fake trial.
A great show, but losts of 'proovss' had been debunked.
As an example, Katin masacre had been credited to ... Germany. (Thanks Nuremberg for sparing Stalin crimes)
'I had orders' worked perfectly for the 'My lai' massacre(one light sentence, everybody else was free)
"it's the duty of every citizen to help in the war effort"
Says who? The country. It's simply impossible to judge Jiro or anyone similiar to him, they are somewhat victims of the circumstances they were put under; so I'm not doing so. I was simply annoyed by that single statement, what the goverment does doesn't have to represent what each citizen wants. It shouldn't be anyone's duty to support a war they don't believe in. Although I understand you could be simply referring to the mentality at the time.
It's worth remembering also that people only knew what they were told, by their own governments. We have such an overabundance of information nowadays that the difficultly is to filter and evaluate it; they had only very limited radio broadcasting and public announcements to give them any kind of picture of what was happening.
shareOh right, yeah of course I understand that. I assumed you're trying to argue that it's your responsibility to support your country at war, rather than simply referring to the their contemporary mentality. I apologise. The idea that it's anyone's responsibility to support war just really set me off, but I understand that pretty much all the troops during wars did so in good faith, even the nazis portrayed as dehumanised monsters now. They viewed the world the way their government wanted them to.
sharehow blameworthy do you think Jiro was for the acts of Japan in the war?
Of course he did personally order the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and firebombed Tokyo to destruction... oh no, wait a minute, that might have been somebody else.
shareBut that does raise the same question - how blameworthy are the engineers who create the weapons? Do they share any of the blame with their politician masters who decide to use it, and/or the pilots who follow orders to unleash it.
"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Allegedly, "Soon, many Manhattan Project scientists were feeling guilty for having helped make a nuclear weapon".
Maybe you want to read http://www.amazon.com/Hiroshima-America-Robert-J-Lifton/dp/0380727641 , maybe you don't.
"oh no, wait a minute, that might have been somebody else."
Ignorant statement used to legitimize your weak 'neutral' position on WW2 and Japan. I could speak about many things not least the diseases bombs being designed and tested by the Japanese high command in China during WW2 (that people, worldwide, still die from today - have you counted the victims of that ..it far outnumbers Nagasaki and Hiroshima).
The alternative to the bomb (which as you must know no-one outside the high command in the US knew about - for good reason) would have been far worse for the Japanese people then two bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima (in fact there wouldn't have been a Japan if you know the details). And the reasons for hitting these two places shouldn't be lost on you. One was where illegal military vehicles like some very famous battleships (and maybe ..planes) were being built before the start of WW2. A place where slave allied labor was still being used at the time when the bomb was dropped there. The other location was known (amongst other things) as the place that secretly housed the families of the 'higher ups' in the Japanese war machine.
My family were very well placed in WW2 to know much of the shame of Japan during that time ..no matter what arguments have been used since in the Japanese educational system to neutralize/legitimize the acts in that time to younger generations. One day i hope that modern day Japan (a MUCH changed place) will revisit its history of that time period and deal with the huge gaps in its collective knowledge that it (and many of its subjects/people) 'self imposed' on its population (although other countries did allow this to happen to help the 'rebuild' process in Japan after WW2). If you want better relations with countries like China (for example) that might be a good place to start.
Yes, I hope so too - probably most people do. I'm not Japanese, btw, I'm British. All I'm saying is that no one individual can be blamed for the entire course of events, and that he was just doing his duty as he saw it.
shareJapan started the war and conducted it with brutality especially towards non combatants. The destruction of Japan? Japan had it coming. See then difference?
shareI don't see big difference...
The Allies with bombing campaings in the major cities of Germany and Japan killed so many civilians... It is the same kind of atrocity the Axis and the USSR are accused of.
Of couse there is a difference in killing people in bombind and doing so in concetration camps, in Gulags or in biological experiments; but it is sistematic murderer of innocent people anyway. (Not to mention the 3 million indians Chuurchill made starve to death).
There were no good guys in WWII. All of them were bad ones.
The fact the Axis was just the epitome of evil doesn't make their oponents less despisable.
He created a tool. It could have been used to defend Japan against foreign threats or to wage a war of conquest against Japan's neighbors. It was someone else that chose the latter.
Its arguable that he should have known from the political climate at the the time that the zero would be used for evil but even then he didn't have a crystal ball and was perhaps just naive. He's an accessory at most. Ultimately the responsibility lies with the people who ordered and willingly carried out the various acts.
I don't think it was arguable at all. The film made it very clear through Jiro's dreams, visions, and conversations that he was well aware that much death, devastation, and horror could and would likely result from the project. I give the film makers a lot of credit for not taking the easy way out by portraying what you describe: a starry eyed, naïve inventor blind to the larger context.
The movie presents a lot of ambiguity about the morality of the project, and I'm glad someone stated this discussion thread.
by blaircam » Thu Jul 3 2014 19:15:24
IMDb member since April 2001
While it is clear the movie portrayed him quite sympathetically, how blameworthy do you think Jiro was for the acts of Japan in the war?
Certainly his designs assisted the Japanese Imperial forces - but he also was personally anti-war and just wanted to build beautiful airplanes. He likely also had little choice given the authoritarian government.
Thoughts?
"They who... give up... liberty to obtain... safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
[deleted]
What you're suggesting is essentially absurd.
Building aircraft for the military, even if that military is the enemy, doesn't make you a war criminal or somehow culpable. That is a lawful occupation and unless the person in question is directly participating in some sort of crime against humanity in the process, you can't really say they are guilty of anything.
You're basically saying in hindsight that Japan should have just not had a military.. which is ridiculous.
[deleted]
Bear in mind, at the same time, American car manufacturers, Ford and GM built cars for the Nazi's during WW2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.h tm
These American companies were nazi collaborators. However, our own history have whitewashed this fact with both corporations trying in vain to suppress the truth. Both continued to build vehicles for the Nazis well into the war.
A snippet from the Washington Post:
'The relationship of Ford and GM to the Nazi regime goes back to the 1920s and 1930s, when the American car companies competed against each other for access to the lucrative German market. Hitler was an admirer of American mass production techniques and an avid reader of the antisemitic tracts penned by Henry Ford. "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration," Hitler told a Detroit News reporter two years before becoming the German chancellor in 1933, explaining why he kept a life-size portrait of the American automaker next to his desk.
Although Ford later renounced his antisemitic writings, he remained an admirer of Nazi Germany and sought to keep America out of the coming war. In July 1938, four months after the German annexation of Austria, he accepted the highest medal that Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner, the Grand Cross of the German Eagle. The following month, a senior executive for General Motors, James Mooney, received a similar medal for his "distinguished service to the Reich."'
another snippet:
As war approached, it became increasingly difficult for U.S. corporations like GM and Ford to operate in Germany without cooperating closely with the Nazi rearmament effort. Under intense pressure from Berlin, both companies took pains to make their subsidiaries appear as "German" as possible. In April 1939, for example, German Ford made a personal present to Hitler of 35,000 Reichsmarks in honor of his 50th birthday, according to a captured Nazi document. Documents show that the parent companies followed a conscious strategy of continuing to do business with the Nazi regime, rather than divest themselves of their German assets. Less than three weeks after the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, GM Chairman Alfred P. Sloan defended this strategy as sound business practice, given the fact that the company's German operations were "highly profitable."
"When we awoke on the morning of December 8, 1941, we found ourselves — without any foreknowledge — to be embroiled in war... Since then, the majority of us who had truly understood the awesome industrial strength of the United States never really believed that Japan would win this war. We were convinced that surely our government had in mind some diplomatic measures which would bring the conflict to a halt before the situation became catastrophic for Japan. But now, bereft of any strong government move to seek a diplomatic way out, we are being driven to doom. Japan is being destroyed. I cannot do [anything] other but to blame the military hierarchy and the blind politicians in power for dragging Japan into this hellish cauldron of defeat."
Know who wrote that.
It was Jiro.
Should he have done more, perhaps like a lot of other Japanese he should have but there would have been dire consequences for him if he did decide to speak out.
"Any plan that involves losing your hat is a BAD plan.""
I wrote a great big blog entry addressing this difficulty, among others, in the movie (which I loved). You can read it here if you want: http://petrifiedfountainofthought.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-kami-electrified-world-hayao_12.html
The movie is very critical overall of Japanese Imperial aims, explicitly linking the Japanese government to the German Nazi government in several ways: We are shown one of the first points at which the Japanese ally themselves with Germany and receive military aid from them. The German military treats Jiro and Honjo with contempt and suspicion, but later the Japanese military brass are shown as loud and empty suits as well. (Actually, those shots of them shouting incoherently echo those bullies Jiro stopped at the beginning of the movie--same facial designs, same incoherent voices.) When Jiro sees the man being pursued by the secret police in Germany, it's initially a judgment of the Nazis--but later, Jiro himself is seen hiding from the Japanese secret police. It is no accident that it is the German, Castorp, who talks to Jiro at the hotel about the Japanese aggressions and crimes. Miyazaki is saying to Japan--we all agree the Nazis were awful, but Japan was doing all the same stuff.
I wrote in my essay:
More than that, the film is about the nature of art, its possibilities and its costs. Jiro’s planes were used by the military to wage war, as they were designed to do, though he disagreed with the wars that were fought. They were also used for suicidal kamikaze missions, something they were not designed to do. The comparison to filmmaking may seem tenuous, but: the first animated feature in Japan was a propaganda film for children called Momotaro’s Divine Sea Eagles that celebrated aerial bombing and empire building. Many animators were put to work as part of the “Shadow Staff,” creating instructional films for flying planes and driving tanks.10 Some of these animators would go on to establish the post-war animation industry that Miyazaki later joined. Among the larger film industry, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu all made films which could be considered nationalist or propagandist during this period. The issues here cut to the heart of Miyazaki’s art form.share
TWR represent the culmination of Miyazaki’s own dream of flight. His love of aircraft has always focused on the early days of man’s attempts to fly--machines made of wood and cloth constructed in a garage, or imaginary machines whimsical in design. This film maps the point at which the romance of flight died, when airplanes became sleek metal, mass-produced and inhuman. A great era in human imagination gives way to first destruction, then banality: who now but a child finds a commercial flight wondrous? It is no accident that Miyazaki frames Jiro before the shattered 1MF10 just as he framed Lana and Colonel Muska before the robot in Castle in the Sky. Both plane and robot are man-made creations of great power and potential, metonyms for technology as a whole; they can be used for death or beauty, evil or good. Nor is it coincidence that the shots of Japan’s destruction mirror the Seven Days of Fire in Nausicaa. That scene had always called to mind Hiroshima and Nagasaki, now the reference has been brought full circle. For all his movies’ apparent optimism, Miyazaki has always had an essentially tragic, pessimistic view of humanity/human nature. Mankind brings destruction on itself and its world, over and over again, and it may be only a matter of time before we finish ourselves for good.
Miyazaki does judge Jiro, but he also loves him. He sees in him both himself and his father, as well as a childhood hero whose feats deserve to be remembered. Jiro is pursued by the secret police and is only protected by his company because he designs their planes. He is opposed to the war, but always pushes aside this worry in order to focus on his dream. His dream becomes obsessive, taking him away from his dying wife. In the end, it is not clear what his accomplishments were worth. This is not lionization, but the critics are right that it is not condemnation either. It is something far more difficult and rare: empathy, understanding, identification. If Jiro seems flat or simplistic, it is because Miyazaki is farther inside the character than he has ever been; he is no longer observing behavior, like with, say, Kiki, but expressing personal longings.
Gather 'round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun,
A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience.
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown,
"Ha, Nazi, Schmazi," says Wernher von Braun.
Don't say that he's hypocritical,
Say rather that he's apolitical.
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.
Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude,
Like the widows and cripples in old London town,
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.
You too may be a big hero,
Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.
"In German oder English I know how to count down,
Und I'm learning Chinese!" says Wernher von Braun.
--Tom Lehrer