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Back in 2013, the ROK government made public the list of 230k Koreans who died in forced labor camps, died in the aftermath of the March 1 movement, or were murdered by the Japanese public following the Kanto earthquake. The list had been aggregated in the 1950s but
had not been released until 2013, according to Chosun Ilbo. https://www.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2013/11/19/2013111901719.html
Amnesty International estimates up to 200k women from all over Asia were forced into systematic sexual slavery in brothels run by the Japanese military. This is an ongoing point of contention between ROK and Japan, as the Japanese government has https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/08/south-korea-lawsuits-against-the-japanese-government-last-chance-for-justice-for-comfort-women/
repeatedly denied the existence of, downplayed the scale of "comfort women" (a euphemism for gross violation of human rights), or asserted that the women were volunteers who were in it for money.
Unit 731 of the Japanese military engaged in human experimentation on prisoners. No consent was given. One of my earliest, most vivid memories are of the film Men Behind the Sun (1988). I think I walked in on my parents watching it and was maybe 4 or 5 years old. I'm not going
to explain the horrors that were depicted in the movie, suffice to say that I still remember it. I think my parents let me watch with them because they expected I would forget. I have not. Here's NYT reporting on unit 731. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html
None of these issues were properly reckoned with. Nazi Germany had Nuremberg. Japan... had the US government declaring it the last bastion against the Red Wave of Communism in Asia, and they were so loathe to destabilize the country that they left the power structure intact.
No one in the imperial court who orchestrated the Japanese war efforts as part of the Axis powers during WWII faced any real consequences for their actions. In fact, they were rewarded for it and their children and grandchildren are political leaders of Japan, their
rise to power cemented by the hereditary transfer of political office, power, and wealth from father to son in what is supposedly a modern democracy. It has been in their vested interest to spread disinformation, obfuscate facts, diminish any acknowledgements they are forced
to make, to provide no real historical education to their people. The result is that the Japanese public has no idea what horrendous acts their governments perpetrated, they have no idea what the historical facts of WWII are other than that they were bombed, and do not understand
the animosity of their closest neighbors. Stuff like Hetalia is created and consumed with impunity and defiance by the Japanese media creators and public because of this ignorance that was carefully designed by the political elite.
The last time my friends attempted to speak out about Hetalia and to spread awareness on why Koreans found it so damn "offensive," we were ridiculed for being snowflakes, for being tied to the past, for attempting to bring "cancel culture" to something that was humorous and fun
(even before cancel culture was a thing) and harmless. We wrote off all of you as hopeless, by the way, and retreated into our own spaces because Hetalia was unavoidable. It was everywhere!
But it's not harmless. Just like calling everyone who's fervent about a cause a -nazi
But it's not harmless. Just like calling everyone who's fervent about a cause a -nazi
diminishes the breadth and impact and the sheer horror of their actions (six million! six! million! Jews!!!), joking about the Axis powers as some sort of neighborhood doofus friends comes dangerously close to validating the atrocities of WWII. After all, one of the greatest,
lasting damages of Trump's presidency is that his words and actions have emboldened alt-right white supremacists and have brought their hateful rhetoric into the public discourse, as if it belonged, as if it were some sort of legitimate school of thought. Hetalia isn't as benign
as you'd like it to be. It reduces the real-life horrors that millions of people lived through as source material for ....for what? For jokes? Hetalia's Chosun, I understand, has a birth date of August 15th. That is the day we celebrate our independence from 35 years of
Japanese occupation, yet the creator of Hetalia doesn't have the decency to respect that history or the intellectual capacity to understand its significance. I am not the only one who finds it an assault to one's dignity but the last time we spoke out, we were mocked for it.
Just this past week, Korean gamers pointed out to EA that components of TS4's new expansion pack Snowy Escape held references to motifs strongly tied to Japan's imperialistic expansion efforts and as such, were inappropriate. EA acknowledged this and announced that
those elements would be removed from the game upon release. The backlash has been unbelievable. This fight is an ongoing battle for us and is an act of pushing back against the history of colonization, still very fresh in our lives because it's our parents and grandparents'
lives. So it's very disheartening to see attempts at a serious discussion of Hetalia or criticism of it being written off as gringo colonization. It doesn't come from white fangirls, it comes from the descendants of people who lived through brutal oppression that sought to
erase our cultural identity. A lot of Korean traditions did not survive the decades of cultural assimilation imposed by the Japanese colonial government. Contemporary Koreans have been unrooted from our own folklore in the past century, so much of it lost during the
annexation and its aftermath. I think that's a reality that a lot of people can sympathize with in their own cultures but to be so blatantly ridiculed and ostracized time and time again when we speak out.... I can't keep doing it.
This thread was not in response to anyone in particular. I was just informed by a friend that a lot of people simply don't *know* the historical context which makes Hetalia's premise so wildly disrespectful and do not understand why so many people reflexively react negatively
to those willing to defend and consume it. I thought I owed it to my friends to explain why I react the way I do to it. It's a meandering thread and is a bit of an emotional word vomit. If you've made it this far, I appreciate you sticking with the thread and reading it.
I should have thought of this and closed off the replies but I am not open to discussions on the matter and will not respond to any attempts to defend the series or argue about what facts are facts.
