Neo Gomanism Manifesto Special - On War
Encyclopedia
is a controversial series of manga
written by right-wing Japanese manga artist Yoshinori Kobayashi
. It was published in a series of three volumes by Gentosha
as a supplement (hence the "Special" title) to the series serialized in SAPIO magazine from September 1995 onwards. There are currently no plans to translate these books into English
or any other languages. The series has been criticized by numerous people and groups for "rewriting history", including intellectuals Satoshi Uesugi, Shinji Miyadai
and Takaaki Yoshimoto
, The Academy of Outrageous Books
, and extending even to the overseas media in newspapers such as The New York Times
and Le Monde
. A verbal dispute over the manga's contents with Sōichirō Tahara has been published in a book called .
Besides the ideological criticism, the books have also been found to contain historical errors, clear manipulation of evidence, and illogical arguments. For example, the manga states that "The lands of Manchuria
did not belong to the present-day Chinese people", although it did not belong to the Japanese either. Also, the manga claims that only Japan remained independent while East Asia was colonized by the West (with a map showing all of Asia, including East, South and South-East Asia), but the independent nation of Siam and the Japanese colonies of Korea and Taiwan are ignored. Another important point is that the manga was mainly intended to agitate young readers with little to no previous historical knowledge of the issue.
The book may have been named after Carl von Clausewitz
' On War
(as both share the Japanese name Sensō Ron), but otherwise has no relation to it.
Adopts the author's revisionist
perspective of the Pacific War
. It was published in the context of a fierce dispute between conservatives and leftists over comfort women
, the Nanking Massacre
, and Japanese history textbooks
. At the time, Kobayashi was also one of the coordinators of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform
, and he also had the intent to write Volume 1 to assist revisionist textbooks published by the Society.
Another subject raised in this book is the argument that Japanese ideals up until the Pacific War have since ceased to exist among modern Japanese. In order to negate extreme prewar nationalism
and militarism, he argues that post-war Japanese have only been able to recognize the Pacific War in a negative light, and strongly asserts the brave exploits of Japan's patriotic soldiers, and how Japan fought for the liberation of Asia (see Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere).
Volume 2 was strongly influenced by the September 11, 2001 attacks
which had happened only the previous month. Kobayashi makes the inflammatory comment concerning al-Qaeda
's terrorism
, "Was it really an act of terrorism?", and describes the War on Terror
as a confrontation between the terrorists and the economic strength, military force and egotism
of a nation (namely the US
), and emphasises the importance of the ideals and moral principles of war, before linking this again to an affirmation of the Pacific War.
Although this is more of a digression from the main course of the book, he links the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
with the 9/11 suicide attacks, and repeats the (not unusual) opinions of military affairs critics of how the formation of terrorist organisations was possibly a result of the ending of the Cold War
.
The conclusive volume of the series, with a recap of the contents of 1 and 2, which while adding new opinions on the ideals and moral principles of war, also repeats the arguments of the previous volumes, reconsiders the affirmative viewpoint of the Pacific War, criticises the US military's actions in the Iraq War as tyrannical, and also attacks the blind obedience in the modern Japanese people's pro-American attitude.
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
written by right-wing Japanese manga artist Yoshinori Kobayashi
Yoshinori Kobayashi
Yoshinori Kobayashi is a bestselling Japanese author and manga artist...
. It was published in a series of three volumes by Gentosha
Gentosha
is a Japanese publisher, headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo. Gentosha publishes manga magazine Comic Birz, Web comic magazines GENZO, SPICA, Comic MAGNA, literary magazines Lynx, papyrus, as well as business magazine GOETHE.- Publications :...
as a supplement (hence the "Special" title) to the series serialized in SAPIO magazine from September 1995 onwards. There are currently no plans to translate these books into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
or any other languages. The series has been criticized by numerous people and groups for "rewriting history", including intellectuals Satoshi Uesugi, Shinji Miyadai
Shinji Miyadai
is a Japanese sociologist and is a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University.He has a Ph.D from Tokyo University for his research on Mathematical sociology. Using the method of game theory, he analyzed how the power of the state works in society...
and Takaaki Yoshimoto
Takaaki Yoshimoto
also known as Ryūmei Yoshimoto, is a Japanese poet, literary critic, and philosopher from Tokyo. He is the father of the famous Japanese writer known as Banana Yoshimoto and of the cartoonist Yoiko Haruno.-Early life:...
, The Academy of Outrageous Books
Tondemo
Tondemo means "outrageous" or "preposterous" in Japanese. Recently the word has gained another meaning thanks to the activity of Togakkai which annually award Nihon Tondemo-bon Taisho , which is a sort of combination of Razzie, Ig Nobel Prize and James Randi Foundation...
, and extending even to the overseas media in newspapers such as The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
. A verbal dispute over the manga's contents with Sōichirō Tahara has been published in a book called .
Besides the ideological criticism, the books have also been found to contain historical errors, clear manipulation of evidence, and illogical arguments. For example, the manga states that "The lands of Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
did not belong to the present-day Chinese people", although it did not belong to the Japanese either. Also, the manga claims that only Japan remained independent while East Asia was colonized by the West (with a map showing all of Asia, including East, South and South-East Asia), but the independent nation of Siam and the Japanese colonies of Korea and Taiwan are ignored. Another important point is that the manga was mainly intended to agitate young readers with little to no previous historical knowledge of the issue.
The book may have been named after Carl von Clausewitz
Carl von Clausewitz
Carl Philipp Gottfried von Clausewitz was a Prussian soldier and German military theorist who stressed the moral and political aspects of war...
' On War
On War
Vom Kriege is a book on war and military strategy by Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz , written mostly after the Napoleonic wars, between 1816 and 1830, and published posthumously by his wife in 1832. It has been translated into English several times as On War...
(as both share the Japanese name Sensō Ron), but otherwise has no relation to it.
Content of the books
- Volume 1 (published 1998-07-10, ISBN 4-87728-243-2)
Adopts the author's revisionist
Historical revisionism
In historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
perspective of the Pacific War
Pacific War
The Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
. It was published in the context of a fierce dispute between conservatives and leftists over comfort women
Comfort women
The term "comfort women" was a euphemism used to describe women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II.Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with numbers ranging from as low as 20,000 from some Japanese scholars to as high as 410,000 from some Chinese...
, the Nanking Massacre
Nanking Massacre
The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was a mass murder, genocide and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing , the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second...
, and Japanese history textbooks
Japanese history textbook controversies
Japanese history textbook controversies refers to controversial content in government-approved history textbooks used in the secondary education of Japan...
. At the time, Kobayashi was also one of the coordinators of the Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform
Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform
is a group founded in December 1996 to promote a revisionist view of Japanese history. The group was responsible for authoring a history textbook published from Fusōsha , which was heavily criticised by China, South Korea, and many Western historians for not including full accounts of or...
, and he also had the intent to write Volume 1 to assist revisionist textbooks published by the Society.
Another subject raised in this book is the argument that Japanese ideals up until the Pacific War have since ceased to exist among modern Japanese. In order to negate extreme prewar nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and militarism, he argues that post-war Japanese have only been able to recognize the Pacific War in a negative light, and strongly asserts the brave exploits of Japan's patriotic soldiers, and how Japan fought for the liberation of Asia (see Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere).
- Volume 2 (Sensō Ron 2) (published October 2001, ISBN 4-344-00131-1)
Volume 2 was strongly influenced by the September 11, 2001 attacks
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
which had happened only the previous month. Kobayashi makes the inflammatory comment concerning al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
's terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, "Was it really an act of terrorism?", and describes the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
as a confrontation between the terrorists and the economic strength, military force and egotism
Egotism
Egotism is "characterized by an exaggerated estimate of one's intellect, ability, importance, appearance, wit, or other valued personal characteristics" – the drive to maintain and enhance favorable views of oneself....
of a nation (namely the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
), and emphasises the importance of the ideals and moral principles of war, before linking this again to an affirmation of the Pacific War.
Although this is more of a digression from the main course of the book, he links the 1995 Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway
The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the , was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995....
with the 9/11 suicide attacks, and repeats the (not unusual) opinions of military affairs critics of how the formation of terrorist organisations was possibly a result of the ending of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
.
- Volume 3 (Sensō Ron 3) (published July 2003, ISBN 4-344-00356-X)
The conclusive volume of the series, with a recap of the contents of 1 and 2, which while adding new opinions on the ideals and moral principles of war, also repeats the arguments of the previous volumes, reconsiders the affirmative viewpoint of the Pacific War, criticises the US military's actions in the Iraq War as tyrannical, and also attacks the blind obedience in the modern Japanese people's pro-American attitude.
Chapter list
- Volume 1
- People Who Think Peace Comes Without a Price (平和をサービスと思う個人, Heiwa o Sābisu to Omou Kojin)
- Bland Generalizations (in the national dialogue on Japanese history) that Simply Go With the Flow (空気に逆らえぬだけの個のない論調, Kūki ni Sakaraenu Dake no Ko no Nai Chōron)
- An Explanation for Young People about Japan's Big Ol' War (若者のためにスケールのデカい日本の戦争の説明, Wakamono no tame ni Sukēru no Dekai Nihon no Sensō no Setsumei)
- The Individualism of People Brainwashed by (currently accepted views on) the Tokyo Trial (東京裁判洗脳されっ子の個人主義, Tōkyō Saiban Sennō-sarekko no Kojin-shugi)
- Snow Falls on an Island in the South (南の島に雪が降る, Minami no Shima ni Yuki ga Furu)
- The Birth of the Ethical Individual (倫理ある個の芽生え, Rinri aru Ko no Mebae)
- The Spirit of the Japanese Special Attack UnitsJapanese Special Attack UnitsDuring World War II, Japanese Special Attack Units , also called shimbu-tai, were specialized units of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army normally used for suicide missions...
(so-called "Kamikazes") (特攻精神, Tokkō Seishin)
Books written about On War
- Yoshinori KobayashiYoshinori KobayashiYoshinori Kobayashi is a bestselling Japanese author and manga artist...
and Sōichirō Tahara, , ISBN 4-344-40092-5 - Satoshi Uesugi, , ISBN 4-88591-543-0
- Shinji MiyadaiShinji Miyadaiis a Japanese sociologist and is a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University.He has a Ph.D from Tokyo University for his research on Mathematical sociology. Using the method of game theory, he analyzed how the power of the state works in society...
, , ISBN 4-87652-390-8 - Takaaki YoshimotoTakaaki Yoshimotoalso known as Ryūmei Yoshimoto, is a Japanese poet, literary critic, and philosopher from Tokyo. He is the father of the famous Japanese writer known as Banana Yoshimoto and of the cartoonist Yoiko Haruno.-Early life:...
, , Part 1: ISBN 4-7762-0010-4, Part 2: ISBN 4-7762-0011-2 - Michiaki Asaba, , ISBN 4-480-06173-8
See also
- Greater East Asia War (Pacific WarPacific WarThe Pacific War, also sometimes called the Asia-Pacific War refers broadly to the parts of World War II that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, then called the Far East...
) - Anti-AmericanismAnti-AmericanismThe term Anti-Americanism, or Anti-American Sentiment, refers to broad opposition or hostility to the people, policies, culture or government of the United States...
- Anti-Japanese sentimentAnti-Japanese sentimentAnti-Japanese sentiment involves hatred, grievance, distrust, dehumanization, intimidation, fear, hostility, and/or general dislike of the Japanese people and Japanese diaspora as ethnic or national group, Japan, Japanese culture, and/or anything Japanese. Sometimes the terms Japanophobia and...
- JapanophileJapanophileJapanophilia is an interest in, or love of, Japan and anything Japanese; its opposite is Japanophobia. One who has such an interest or love is a Japanophile...
- Yasukuni ShrineYasukuni Shrineis a Shinto shrine located in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is dedicated to the soldiers and others who died fighting on behalf of the Emperor of Japan. Currently, its Symbolic Registry of Divinities lists the names of over 2,466,000 enshrined men and women whose lives were dedicated to the service of...
- Historical revisionismHistorical revisionismIn historiography, historical revisionism is the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
- Manga KenkanryuManga Kenkanryu, translated in English as Hating the Korean Wave or Hate Korea: A Comic is a controversial Japanese manga written by Sharin Yamano with the theme of Korean-Japanese disputes and anti-Korean sentiment in Japan...
- ShogakukanShogakukanis a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, manga, non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan.Shogakukan founded Shueisha which founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hitotsubashi Group, one of the largest publishing groups in Japan...
- Asahi ShimbunAsahi ShimbunThe is the second most circulated out of the five national newspapers in Japan. Its circulation, which was 7.96 million for its morning edition and 3.1 million for its evening edition as of June 2010, was second behind that of Yomiuri Shimbun...
- Sankei ShimbunSankei Shimbunis a daily newspaper in Japan published by the . It has the sixth highest circulation for a newspaper in Japan, and is considered as one of the five "national" newspapers...
External links
Anti Gōmanism Manifesto (Japanese website counterarguing arguments presented in the Gōmanism series)- A cartoonist rewrites Japanese history - Le Monde diplomatique, 2001
- Cleansing History, Cleansing Japan: Kobayashi Yoshinori’s Analects of War and Japan’s Revisionist Revival - Rebecca Clifford
- The Extreme right party in Japan - Mangaka KOBAYASHI Yoshinori; Youngrok LEE's Comics Page Group Who Enjoys the Judgment of Debunking the Gōmanism Manifesto
- Japan File: Revisionist manga by Kobayashi Yoshinori
- Japan's Resurgent Far Right Tinkers With History - New York Times, 2001
- Scanlation project by Jun Fujita
- More translated excerpts
- Rumi SAKAMOTO: “Will you go to war? Or will you stop being Japanese?” Nationalism and History in Kobayashi Yoshinori’s Sensoron