A few months ago I allowed Dragon/DML to put me on their mailing list, to be spammed ever since (once every other days, or so it seems) with whatever kits they are pushing, at the moment. Some of which have box art only describable as (at best) Truly Bizarre:
This being the most disturbing example to date: Hasegawa's 1/48 "'SHIDENKAI NO MAKI' NAKAJIMA KI44-II SHOKI (TOJO) LIMITED EDITION", one of several current boxings to have a Japanese "Anime"-type girl cartoon, depicted with the WWII warplane. For which space here does not permit going into all its mental/psychological deceptions, but suffice to say,the bottom-line message is:
"Buying this model will make you feel like a Cool Westerner, pleasured by Adolescent Girls."
In context of the additional disclaimer/subtext, understood "between the (visual) lines" to be:
"Sexual Pornography is OK, if in the Corporate pursuit of Sales, per Western Capitalism - and Pedophillia is OK, if in Japan."
Think about it: where TF does this End? Answer: NOWHERE. Because the starting point - for all the above - is the profoundly F'ed-up notion (really a maniacal religion, utterly lacking for any sort of moral compass) that Corporate Commercialism justifies anything (except loss of profits). Meanwhile Anime, for its part, has long gone (far) beyond soft-porn images of Teenie-Boppers to certifiably pre-pubescent pedophillia - a direct evolution, from the very deliberate commercial targetting of children.
All that's lacking today is to also fold in Military Aggression, and Fascism - Ooops - we're already there, with the above, too! Thus, we find not only Pedophillia (literally) astride a warplane - a Fascist warplane, at that - but now the Pre-Teen Sex Object is even wearing (modern) military garb, and scowling: the utterly perverse, psychotic visual jumble becoming Total.
Anime, to begin with, was never any homegrown reflection of Japanese culture, but a fundamentally anti-Japanese expression - self-evident in its hallmark, the grotesquely-exaggerated Round Eye:
Click on Image to Enlarge
Indeed in this, WikiPedia's picture of it, not only is the iconic Anime Eye distinctly NOT Almond-Shaped - i.e. non-Oriental - but even its exaggerated visual opposite: being taller even than it is, wide. (And for a good example of how incredibly full-of-shit WikiPedia is on the subject, see how, on the same page they try to deny it.) The fact is, Anime is - across the board - distictly Western-Centric: the very expression for "Westerner" in (at least one phrase in) Chinese, translating to "Round-Eye". Accordingly, other Caucasian features, too, are predominant in Anime: blue (or green) eyes, pink skin and light (or red) hair - exactly as seen above.
But, in the same Dragon eMailings above, there may be evidence of a backlash building:
Click on Image to Enlarge
This enigmatic boxing of the Hasegawa 48 A6M5 Zero, was described only as "The Revenge that was Buried in The Mountain": a poetic phrase clearly evoking the image (particularly for Japan) of a volcano. Immediately reminding me also of a Navajo saying, heard some 15 years ago, during a visit to Canyon DeChelle, Arizona, that: "The White Man has Sent a Hurricane to The Moon".
While that last clearly implies a coming payback - also, coincidentally (or perhaps not), for the USA - the Hasegawa box art (typically, for an Oriental Koan) may be interpreted in (at least two) nearly opposite ways. However I believe the artwork yields clues that the "Revenge" indeed refers to some coming payback by Japan, still-buried under "The Mountain" of US domination (not only of Japan, of course, but much of the entire world) since WWII.
First of all, note Japanese insignia remain, under the wings - something historically inaccurate, I am pretty sure, for any captured zeroes. The very fact that they are underneath - there further obscured within in jet-black shadow, unnaturally dark even for this picture - completing the visual statement:
"Although repainted in US markings, underneath it all we remain Japanese."
Furthermore, the falling drop-tank, released during a shallow dive, is the classic image of a fighter going into the attack - while the firey-orange background, not to mention text of pure fire, clearly saying things are already hot and about to - if anything - get hotter. Finally, the jettisoned tank of course carries the additional idea of discarding a Dead Weight/Drag, after it has Run Out of Gas.
A lot to draw out of some model box-art, perhaps - but WTF else could it mean? Nothing?
And lastly, in the same general vein of post-WWII US-Japanese relations, I also recently saw this:
Click on Image to Enlarge
Aoshima's box art for I-168, the sub that torpedoed Yorktown, in the background prominently includes a US carrier, ablaze and exploding - more than Yorktown ever did, at Midway. Indeed, the art looks to have drawn upon photos of Bunker Hill - the violence and devastation of which were among the worst ever recorded of a stricken US warship. In the box art further accentuated in tones of purple. Of course, model ship box art has long depicted violent demise of an opposing combatant - often far more vividly, and angrier than this. The difference - universally, up until now, AFAIK - was that it was ever only an Axis warship seen blazing, exploding and/or sinking.
True, many and many a German U-boat was, from the start, depicted visiting similar destruction - but always upon merchantmen. And I don't think any Japanese sub - nor, indeed, any other type of Japanese warship - has ever before been shown destroying any Allied ship, of any type whatsoever. This in stark contrast to widespread depiction - again, starting (indeed, even peaking) from earliest days, in the '50s and '60s - showing the pounding or already-completed destruction of virtually all types of Japanese adversaries: ships, planes and tanks alike. I even remember one - the Aurora IJA ("HA"? type) tank, showing the subject itself already destroyed - including even its dead Japanese tank commander, hanging over the hatch! (Somebody really should apologize to Japanese People, everywhere, for that one.)
What people don't often keep in mind about the Twentieth Century - captured in detail by maturing photography and cinematography, to be followed by generations, all over the world, becoming better-educated and more aware than ever before - is that This Time IS Different. And by today, the Japanese (along, of course, with a majority of the world's peoples) are - one way or another - about to come out from under Western Domination.
The choice of exactly how this happens - whether in great Upheaval and Trauma (as in the Old Days, through War), or in Rennaissance and genuine Progress - is up to us. Bringing to mind a classic scene from the movie "Contact", in which Tom Skerrit's cynical character opines to the effect that, "Unfortunately, (an honorable and decent world) is not the world we live in". To which the Jodie Foster character replies, "Funny, I thought the world is what we make it".
F-in' A Right!
Cheers,
- Matty
It's definately crazy
Posted by Don Murphy on July 8, 2015, 16:46:00, in reply to "WTF...is THIS...??!"
There is a cult in Japan (and to some extent in America as well) that is highly into Japanese anime from both an artistic and gaming perspective. It has tons of fans and for some strange reason, putting a "doe-eyed cutie" on to a product's box-art will increase sales. I can't put a finger on it, nor can any of my Japanese co-workers, but it is definitely a marketing campaign akin to putting an Apple lower case "i" in front of everything (iPhone, iPad, etc).
I play guitar as you know and I went to pick up an echo pedal from Japanese company Boss and it had one of those "girls" on the box. Why, I don't know. All I know is that someone in a boardroom in Tokyo has got it in to their head that the folk that follow that stuff will buy anything with that stuff on it.
Yes, you can feel it: how prurient and manipulative it is! And it gets a lot worse than anything shown above: just google(-images) "anime" and you'll immediately get cartoons of what look like 7-year-old girls, spreading their legs.
And for what - to make a buck? Is that all that's left to retail sales?
And right here we are treated to TV series' like "Ad Men" - with subtext that these depraved Corporate Shysters are "only human", with "understandable" weaknesses - completely ignoring the fact that this is a perversion, and a sickness.
Martin Luther King famously said, 50 years ago, that "(American society) was facing Spiritual Death". He was duly silenced - and by today we have this sh** - so I guess we can figure out what happened in the meantime...