Viewing items with Tag: "history"

Many of you, gamers and 733+ hackerz especially, will be familiar with the term "all your base are belong us", but how many of you know where it actually comes from? Turns out its a Japanese Engrish blunder that the geek hordes quickly made famous. It was originally used in a badly translated Sega Genesis (thats Master System, right? Sorry, my early console history is a little sucky. All I had was an Amstrad, then straight to a 386 PC) game called Zero Wing, check it out on the video.



Do you know any other classic geek terms and phrases that came from Japanese?

Not so long ago Japan was in trouble with China for glossing over Japans wartime aggression regarding The Rape of Nanjing in the 1930s.

Now Japan is off again trying to sweep more of its less proud history under the tatami. They of all people should know that tatami isnt that great for hiding history, and trying to hide these 'incidents' as they call them, is only going to draw more attention to them.

Here are some links to more papers on the textbook war and post-war Okinawa, thanks to Mike over at ShigaJet:

The Battle of Okinawa in Japanese History Books

more papers on post-war Okinawa


and here are some quotes from the article at New York times:

The Ministry of Education ordered publishers to delete passages stating that the Imperial Army ordered civilians to commit mass suicide during the Battle of Okinawa, as the island was about to fall to American troops in the final months of the war.

During the 1945 battle, during which one quarter of the civilian population was killed, the Japanese Army showed indifference to Okinawa’s defense and safety. Japanese soldiers used civilians as shields against the Americans, and persuaded locals that victorious American soldiers would go on a rampage of killing and raping. With the impending victory of American troops, civilians committed mass suicide, urged on by fanatical Japanese soldiers.

This island in Nagasaki Bay was bought by the Mitsubishi Corp. in 1890 as a platform for mining coal under the sea. Workers, who lived on the island, eventually required high rises which now combine to make the island look like a battleship. Legend has it that the U.S. navy fired on the island in WWII thinking it was an enemy ship.



In 1959 the population on the island rose to 83,476.2 inhabitants per km², supposedly the highest population density ever recorded anywhere. By 1974 petroleum had taken over coal as Japan's fuel of choice and Mitsubishi shut down the mine, giving everyone a limited time to evacuate. The result is a ghost island that's remained relatively untouched to this day.






Saiga Yuji has outstanding photo sets both before and after the island was evacuated.

A book just came out from my favorite source on Japanese films, Midnight Eye. The book serves as a companion to the Midnight Eye website which has festival news, interviews with directors, and lots of reviews. Among other things, they credit Svankmajer-influenced "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" as resurrecting the current Japanese film industry.




"In his foreword, Nakata paints a very grim picture of the Japanese film industry in the late 1980s/early ’90s. Talented and creative directors were forced to work like slaves for the struggling studios, cranking out soft-core porn or cookie-cutter yakuza flicks for the straight-to-video market. Japanese contributions to international film festivals had all but come to a halt, and many outside Japan wondered what happened to the country that gave the world Kurosawa and Ozu. In the early ’90s, the major film studios, all with histories of nearly a century, started to severely cut back on production or go bankrupt, and it seemed as if the entire industry was prepared to finally concede defeat to TV and the internet.

Then the unexpected happened: a renaissance revitalized Japan cinema. Shinya Tsukamoto’s ultra-low budget "Tetsuo: The Iron Man" (1989) took Rome’s Fantastic Film Festival by storm, winning its top award and sparking a new international interest in Japanese film. "Shall We Dance" (1996) became the top grossing foreign film in the U.S. and inspired a Hollywood remake. Nakata’s "Ring" (1998) introduced J-horror to the world, and was remade first in Korea and later in Hollywood. In 1999, Kiyoshi Kurosawa accomplished the astonishing feat of having three separate films play in three of the world’s biggest film festivals in Cannes, Berlin and Venice. Hayao Miyazaki’s animated spectacle "Spirited Away" (2001) became the biggest earner of all time at the Japanese box office, a record previously held by Titanic."


Japan Today has a book review,
Or check out the Midnight Eye website.

When I got to Japan there was this "Wow! Japan is for me" feeling when I heard they see a rabbit in the moon. Unfortunately, instead of the left-looking rabbit on its haunches that I see, they see a worker bunny looking down.


Q. Many Japanese people have told me that instead of seeing a "man in the moon" in the moon's craters, they see a rabbit. Where exactly is the rabbit?



A. Can you see a rabbit making rice cakes in the image at left? Both Japanese and Chinese people see a rabbit in the moon instead of a smiling face. Not only do they see a rabbit, but they believe it is making mochi (rice cakes). The origin of this idea comes from a play on words. The word mochizuki has a double meaning in Japanese. Although it is written with different kanji, it can sound like either "making ricecakes" or "full moon".



More SAQ(Seldom Asked Questions) at Japanzine.