Film confronts Japan on wartime past

[Captain Japan]

Film confronts Japan on wartime past
'The Ants' tells the story of soldiers who continued fighting on in China after Japan's surrender on Aug. 15, 1945.

TOKYO − On the 61st anniversary of Japan's defeat in World War II, wider discussion of the conflict's meaning to the nation is still controversial - and avoided.

But in a handful of theaters in Japan, "The Ants," a recently released documentary about Japanese troops left in China after the war, is an attempt to remind Japanese of war memories many would rather not acknowledge.

The film, showing at theaters in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, has not gotten the national release and media blitz of war films that have taken a more nationalist tack. But it has played to packed theaters, prompting managers to add more showings.

From politicians to the major media, many here shrug off war memories, something that has cast a profound chill over Japan's relations with neighbors that it once occupied. In anticipation of today's anniversary, South Korea warned Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi not to visit Tokyo's controversial Yasukuni war shrine, where war criminals are memorialized. Protesters in Tokyo seconded that sentiment....more...

[Buraku]

I read about a year ago there were a few 70 plus year old Ganbare!/Kamikaze Japanese still fighting in philippines
Hiroo Onoda was the most famous or infamous of the Japanese holdouts, Onoda perhaps eating other members of his group like a Hannibal group. He waved thew white flag 29 years after Japan's formal surrender, and 15 years after being declared legally dead in Japan. When he discovered that Tojo and Hirohito had lost the war, he wept openly and thought of doing seppuku.
Shoichi Yokoi was another and brought back his rifle from Guam jungle, which he said he wanted to return to "the Honorable Emperor," and said he was "sorry I did not serve his Sungod Emperor to my satisfaction." He had seen reports of Japan's surrender in leaflets and newspapers scattered about the island but refused to surrender because even during the 1970s he still thought they were American propaganda. "We Japanese soldiers were told to prefer death to the disgrace of getting captured alive,"

[Greji]

Shoichi Yokoi was another and brought back his rifle from Guam jungle, which he said he wanted to return to "the Honorable Emperor," and said he was "sorry I did not serve his Sungod Emperor to my satisfaction."

The rifle gig had to be a media manufacturing stunt. The reason was that after discovery, Yokoi was held in Guam longer than expected. That reason which was never officially announced, was he that was suspected of the murder of one or possibly two of his "holdout" mates! The lead detective for the case of his discovery had put together a prima facie case that Yokoi had killed his last surving mate in an attempt to keep the dwindling food caches they had been stealing from the locals for himself. They also believed he and that mate may have done in one or more of their other fellow troopers as the chance of starvation and/or discovery increased. The Guam Police kept Yokoi for a while in attempts to establish this case, but were unsucessful and given the vast media pressure with the cries to get this "so called" hero back to J-land. Whether they could have made a case or not, he was not allowed to leave Guam with a weapon. Where this story and/or rifle came from, your guess is as good as mine, but again, I certainly wouldn't put the always reputable J-media too far out of mind.