Development of Japanese Animation up to the End of the Second World War

2010 ◽  
pp. 58-75
Author(s):  
Tze-Yue G. Hu
2018 ◽  
pp. 123-142
Author(s):  
Rayna Denison

Japanese animation has longstanding links to nationalism. For example, relatively early in its history, Jonathan Clements quotes sources suggesting that animation was used to promote the singing of Japan’s national anthem before film screenings, through a short film called Kokka Kimigayo (The National Anthem: His Majesty’s Reign, 1931) made by Ōfuna Noburo. It is ‘hence liable to have been one of the most widely seen pieces of domestic animation in the 1930s’ (Clements 2013, 47). Animation’s links to nationalism in Japan developed further during the Second World War, which marked a pivotal moment in Japanese animation production. Thomas Lamarre argues that this animation was not simply nationalistic, but that it was also racist and speciesist. Analysing Momotarō: Umi no shinpei (Momotarō’s Divine Army, Seo Mitsuyo 1945) and Tagawa Suihō’s Norakuro manga and anime Lamarre argues that ‘Speciesism is a displacement of race and racism (relations between humans as imagined in racial term) onto relations between humans and animals’ (Lamarre 2008, 76). The semi-covert depictions of differing nations as different animal species within Japan’s World War II animation subtended state discourses about enemies and a planned Co-Prosperity Sphere in Asia.


Author(s):  
Corinna Peniston-Bird ◽  
Emma Vickers

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (185) ◽  
pp. 543-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingo Schmidt

This article draws on Marxist theories of crises, imperialism, and class formation to identify commonalities and differences between the stagnation of the 1930s and today. Its key argument is that the anti-systemic movements that existed in the 1930s and gained ground after the Second World War pushed capitalists to turn from imperialist expansion and rivalry to the deep penetration of domestic markets. By doing so they unleashed strong economic growth that allowed for social compromise without hurting profits. Yet, once labour and other social movements threatened to shift the balance of class power into their favor, capitalist counter-reform began. In its course, global restructuring, and notably the integration of Russia and China into the world market, created space for accumulation. The cause for the current stagnation is that this space has been used up. In the absence of systemic challenges capitalists have little reason to seek a major overhaul of their accumulation strategies that could help to overcome stagnation. Instead they prop up profits at the expense of the subaltern classes even if this prolongs stagnation and leads to sharper social divisions.


2017 ◽  
pp. 437-446
Author(s):  
Maria Ciesielska

Men’s circumcision is in many countries considered as a hygienic-cosmetic or aesthetic treatment. However, it still remains in close connection with religious rites (Judaism, Islam) and is still practiced all over the world. During the Second World War the visible effects of circumcision became an indisputable evidence of being a Jew and were often used especially by the so-called szmalcownicy (blackmailers). Fear of the possibility of discovering as non-Aryan prompted many Jews hiding on the so-called Aryan side of Warsaw to seek medical practitioners who would restore the condition as it was before the circumcision. The reconstruction surgery was called in surgical jargon “knife baptizing”. Almost all of the procedures were performed by Aryan doctors although four cases of hiding Jewish doctors participating in such procedures are known. Surgical technique consisted of the surgical formation of a new foreskin after tissue preparation and stretching it by manual treatment. The success of the repair operation depended on the patient’s cooperation with the doctor, the worst result was in children. The physicians described in the article and the operating technique are probably only a fragment of a broader activity, described meticulously by only one of the doctors – Dr. Janusz Skórski. This work is an attempt to describe the phenomenon based on the very scanty source material, but it seems to be the first such attempt for several decades.


2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-37
Author(s):  
Merja Paksuniemi

This article seeks to demonstrate how Finnish refugee children experienced living in Swedish refugee camps during the Second World War (1939–1945). The study focuses on children’s opinions and experiences reflected through adulthood. The data were collected through retrospective interviews with six adults who experienced wartime as children in Finland and were evacuated to Sweden as refugees. Five of the interviewees were female and one of them was male. The study shows, it was of decisive importance to the refugee children’s well-being to have reliable adults around them during the evacuation and at the camps. The findings demonstrate that careful planning made a significant difference to the children´s adaptations to refugee camp life. The daily routines at the camp, such as regular meals, play time and camp school, reflected life at home and helped the children to continue their lives, even under challenging circumstances.


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