Showa & War
July 29th, 2009 by James
If you’ve watched much Japanese TV in the last week, chances are you’ve seen one of the commercials for the “Showa & War” documentary series:
The commercials play Showa era music along with film clips of events that took place at the time. As the VHS version of the documentary is prominently displayed, it would seem reasonable to assume that the target audience is older people who want to take a nostalgic look back at that period of history.
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I’ve heard stories about people being directly sprayed with DDT like this after the war, when so many people were suffering from lice and bedbugs, but I had no idea how widespread it was. God, how awful — and that was only one of the horrors of that time! Beats me how anyone might enjoy reveling in this sort of nostalgia, though.
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Seriously. “Hey remember when we were dirt poor and wearing paper monpe? I miss working in the war materiel factory as a 9 year old! Those sure were the times..” It’s a little crazy. The later post war era nostalgia I understand. I think the war era nostalgia for many people is about the shared struggle they went through. As I’ve heard from others, that period was indeed one of suffering, but also of kindness. People’s hearts were more open to each other then. Helping each other out with things like commodities was very common and helped form bonds between neighbors.
I don’t think people who lived through that time want to relish the wartime atmosphere so much as they can’t forget their struggles and want to come to share those experiences with others. Japan as changed a lot since that period and perhaps videos like this are an attempt to remind people of what happened in the past. Just a shot in the dark..
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