Mജany people might look at the Gundam series and other mecha-centric anime like it as glorifying the act of war. Series creator Yoshiyuki Tomino mentioned in a recent interview that glorifying war is the last thing on his mind. He muses that, in recent years, popular anime franchises such as KanColle and Gir🦋ls und Panzer have often failed to treat war with the gravity it deserves.
In the interview with Japanese newspaper , translated by Anime News Network, Tomino remarks on the national dialog about war: particularly in August, near the anniversary of V-J ☂day. There are many c⛄onversations in Japan about the victims of war, but not as much thoughtful discussion of things such as the Japan Self-Defense Forces as he'd like. This is where the conversation turns to public perception of the military - of which he says "There's nothing cool about it. After all, war must not happen."
Tomino also questioned the wisdom in the JSDF establishing things such as a Space Operations Squadron while Japan is facing simultaneous crises in energy, food, water, and waste plastics. Public perception of military sometimes plays a hand in faꦫcilitating these types of decisions: a Space Squadron sounds much "cooler" than clean energy to those surrounded by media glamorizing tanks and heavy artillery. This is a situation in which𝐆 treating wartime imagery with more gravity may have benefited the public.
Despite having his doubts about the popular portrayal of warships and tanks in media, Tomino wasn't speaking against any portrayal of war, ever - he actually had praise for a 2016 movie, In This Corner of The World, for its portrayal of Japanese citizens and t🍌he ways the military closed in on civilian life during the second world war. However, themes of war are sadly more often included purely for entertainment spectacle.
War has, in many ways, become an extremely commonplace setting in games and pop culture. There are franchises upon f🔯ranchises built on it; whether it's Call of Duty, Axis and Allies, or, yes, KanColle. It becomes very easy to discuss and portray the machina൲tions of war in a way that survivors of these events may find abhorrent. Tomino's interview reminds us it's critical to understand the way we look at military organizations and how they appear in media we consume, lest we make light of the impacts of real war.
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