Tokyo cinema decides against screening 'Yasukuni' documentary

`please pass me my spine`

 

What is this truth you speak of? And what makes you think Japan can't handle it.

Please offer proof.

 

We'd all have been happier if he'd made it a comedy with Jackie Chan and Jim Carrey.

 

Look if you are going to go there, why stop there.
History is full of two-sides but usually we only hear one,and it always tends to be on the negative.

No, I haven't seen it - have you? Can you say without any doubt that it is completely balanced.

I am not being pro-Japanese here, all I am saying is the J-Government feels a bit concerned, who are you or we to tell them they are over reacting.
And your last part, Germans can handle the truth, but Japanese can't?" I understand it as at the moment, it is illegal to talk about the Holocaust where as numbers are disputed. Also, Germany has caved in so much to being anti-this and that, it is hard to imagine they were once a Nazi country.

 

If the market is there then why not show it?

 

Germany has caved in so much to being anti-this and that, it is hard to imagine they were once a Nazi country. Yes, it is. And most people would consider that a pretty good thing too.

I am not being pro-Japanese here, all I am saying is the J-Government feels a bit concerned, who are you or we to tell them they are over reacting.

To answer that question, we are people exercising our democratic right to comment on this matter.

Can you say without any doubt that it is completely balanced.

Can any work such as this be completely balanced? If, perhaps, it does lean slightly against Yasukuni, then it would do so to act against the biased view of history that the people at the shrine hold. I've been there and seen the video, which was hardly a paradigm of objectivity.

Apecnetwork, the truth that jerseyboy refers to, I think, is the fact that Japan, like Germany, committed horrendous war crimes and has not really done as much as Germany has towards firstly, admitting that they occurred and secondly, acknowledging the wrongness of them. Furthermore, war criminals are enshrined at Yasukuni and therefore venerated there. This could be considered a bit insulting to the people who died at their hands and probably irritates their descendants. I don't think I've heard of any mausoleum or tomb dedicated to the memory of Nazi war criminals.

As to proof, well, you have internet access, and google is relatively simple to use. Go to it, O seeker of proof!

 

"Are you crazy? There is EVERY REASON to be afraid, as spidey says."

Nope, I;m not crazy at all. Simply not as paranoid or biased
as some of you.

"It is not the LDP's job to act as the "truth police", and decide what is or is not an appropriate view of history. They are a poitical party, dominated by a bunch of old hacks.
Not historians."

No, it's their job to know where and how government funding is being spent. This is the same in any country.
If there was no government funding at all, then there would
bean argument.

"And, they have way too cozy a relationship with the right-wingers/nationalists."

Sorry but I don't subscribe to that paranoid school of thought. All ther black truck retards I've ever run into
were fringe nutbags that the average JP citizen considers
to be a noisy annoyance. The real "right wing" of todays
Japan are some of the worlds largest heavy industruies and
electronics firm already in cahoots with the major US military
industrial complex.

"This is like Abe forcing NHK to edit a show a couple of years back.The population has the right to judge for themselves the content of a film, book, television show, etc. Not some LDP-heavyweights with a purely political agenda.
Sad trend."

So it shouldn't have been government funded in the first place. Then no politician could say anything without making a fool of himself.

 

I usually download movies because they are too expensive in Japan. But I am 100 percent going to this one... Maybe twice!

 

You seem to be under the assumption that ashes of the war criminals reside in Yasukuni.

The graves of the war criminals are located in various places in Japan so the comparison in that sense is absurd.

 

A total of 12 convicted and 2 suspected Class A war criminals ("crime against peace") are enshrined at Yasukuni. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasukuni

Does it seem quite so absurd now?

 

Let me address your less than impressive responses in order:
The proof, apec, as soothsayer points out, is the respective countries' histories of the past 60 years or so. Did you read Merkel's comments in Israel this week? If so, please provide me a single instance where the PM of Japan has come even close to using terms like "shame" for the pain Japan inflicted on millions of Asians. Or the over $40 million in voluntary reparations Germany has paid to Jewish survivors of the holocaust?
skip, your post leaves me baffled. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.
No, I cannot say if this movie is "balanced". But neither can some LDP a**holes to have an agenda of their own. Besides, this is a movie, not a nes show or educational film, it does not need to be "balanced". It is up to the audience to determine their own opinions.
Ossan, your arguments are simply logic-defying.
First-off, saying that the LDP should keep its nose out of this movie's content does not made me "paranoid". Instead it simply makes me a defender of free speach.
Second, it is NOT the LDP's job to determine whether this film was a good use of government funds. That is an absurd argument. Following that logic says that only things that reflect the LDP's view of history deserve public funding. That is not democracy or freedom, that is pure control of thought, and is more akin to what Putin is doing.
Finally, your bullsh*t about the association between the LDP and the right-wingers is laughable. Since when does some have to be in a sound-truck to be considered a nationalist?
I guess you missed the LDP folks who decided that the folks in Okinawa really were not encouraged to commit suicide by the military, or the ones, Abe included, who said the comfort women were not really coerced, or the ones who argue that Nanjing was not an atrocity?
Please, you are either deliberately ignorent of the reality, or just willing to accept it like the majority of Japanese are.
Those that see the truth are not paranoid -- just realistic, and objective.

 

Why would it seem absurd? How is enshrinment to Yasukuni even comparable to a Tomb/Mausoleum where the latter has remains of the body?

 

I have to wonder whether Kyodo News researches its stories fully and have to wonder why JT has to go with this story ?
It was reported in The Guardian newspaper today that the film was withdrawn because the director received threats of violence from a rightwing group if the film was shown. The director himself was quoted.
Shouldn't that be the true headline behind the films withdrawal ?
Is someone keeping that quiet here in Japan ?

 

"Ossan, your arguments are simply logic-defying.

Not at all if one is objective and not biased.

"First-off, saying that the LDP should keep its nose out of this movie's content does not made me "paranoid". Instead it simply makes me a defender of free speach."

It also makes you Paranoid.

"Second, it is NOT the LDP's job to determine whether this film was a good use of government funds. That is an absurd argument."

It may nopt be their job, but you can not deny that they have a right to make a determination because governbment funds were used.

"Following that logic says that only things that reflect the LDP's view of history deserve public funding. That is not democracy or freedom, that is pure control of thought, and is more akin to what Putin is doing."

Bullshit. This is what happens in every country in the world,
and you don't have to to go to Russia. Any even partially government funded artistic project can become the subject of scrutiny.We've closed Art Galleries in the US because government funds were used and the artwork contained arguably
"pornographic" works. Without the government funding involved
it would be simply outright censorship.

"Finally, your bullsh*t about the association between the LDP and the right-wingers is laughable. Since when does some have to be in a sound-truck to be considered a nationalist?"

What, you think they're leftists? Communists? Maoist rebels?
You don't think they are right wing?

"I guess you missed the LDP folks who decided that the folks in Okinawa really were not encouraged to commit suicide by the military,"

I didn't miss it. You are the one who missed the point that
tht it all had to do wth Government funding, and that there was a credibility gap among the those giving testimony.
Anytway OT.

"or the ones, Abe included, who said the comfort women were not really coerced,"

Some women were coerced, some were recruited. Yes, there were recruitment ads run. Some joined knowingly and willingly, some
did not and were duped, often by middlemen. Some may have been kidnapped. There's ample evidence to support all of these scenarios, and one view doesn't cover it all. Therefore,
Abe's comment wasn't incorrect. But again OT.

"or the ones who argue that Nanjing was not an atrocity?"

What is relevance of bringing up the extreme JP right wingers position? OT.

"Those that see the truth are not paranoid -- just realistic, and objective."

I find your views not only paranboid but severly biased and
as far removed from objectivity as one can get.

 

Fair point. I stand corrected for the moment.

Well done, also on splitting hairs to the point that you apparently missed the aim of my original argument, which was to say that Germany, unlike Japan, has never attempted to honour their war criminals.