Chinese TV network to air “Japanese devil soldiers” cartoon
Global Voices’ Oi wan Lam has reported that the Chinese TV network CCTV will soon be airing “Devil soldiers in Mao-er Mountain” (帽兒山的鬼子兵).
The background of the cartoon is 1930s-40s (during WWII), in a village near a mountain (Mao-er) in Heilongjiang. The story is about the interaction between 3 Chinese kids and 5 Japanese soldiers.
Supposedly the Japanese soldiers are depicted as mean-spirited idiots who are easily tricked by the clever Chinese children. It also has a catchy anti-Japanese theme song:
I irritate the devil soldiers
I playfully torture the devil soldiers
I play and irritate, with hits and kicks
I spoof / torture the devil soldiers to death!
One Chinese blogger is quoted saying that he believes CCTV’s decision to air the cartoon is a response to the recent scandal about an Japanese porn game (read my update about it here) that was seen as an insult to Chinese culture. The Chinese respond to an obscure Japanese porn game by deciding to nationally televise an anti-Japanese cartoon….sounds like a rational response, doesn’t it?
For more information check out the post at Global Voices and this site (in Chinese, but it has lots of pictures!).
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what’s up with hitler ’staches? did hitler take that from the japanese or did they take it from him? or was it just popular back in the day and hilter is merely the most recognizable person sporting the style? i even watched a bruce lee movie (fist of fury) and one of the japanese had a hitler stache
Im not saying this kind of stuff is good but its been done in the west over and over with Nazis in movies and TV shows. Nazis are often shown as being silly stupid buggers who are easily tricked. How about Shultz and Klink in Hogans Heros? The British comedy Hello Hello (is it spelled ‘ello ‘ello? i forget…) did similar stuff.
Personally I’m getting tired of the Chinese demonizing Japan in regards to WWII. What the Japanese did army did was terrible but what Mao did to the entire country makes it pale in comparrison. What CCTV does is related to what the government of China wants, which is to keep the focus on something other than itself.
yeh, even the 3 stooges and bugs bunny made fun of the nazis. but that was waaaayyy back then, when they were our actual enemies. that’s more of an us vs them kind of thing, which is pertty natural during war. no one’s making that kind of stuff nowadays are they? well, besides china?
although if you’re talking about neo-nazis being portrayed as idiots, well of course they would be. the only people that would join are extreme bigots who are inherently idiotic.
Uhm, I believe we in the west, and the rest of the world, are able to separate Nazis from the rest of German society. I don’t see that distinction being made in Asia between Japanese soldiers in world war 2 and Japan today.