History in Popular Culture: Comic Books and Cartoons

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Memories of past events, even war, make their way into cultures through a variety of mediums, including animation.  Below are presented a sketch of some of the more famous books pertaining to the war in the Pacific theater.

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On September, 22, 2004, a weekly publication of the Japanese ‘Weekly Young Jump’ magazine caused anger and protests over its ‘The Country is Burning’ (国が燃える: kuni ga moeru) comic series for its characterization of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre.  The comic series features the life of a Japanese bureaucrat in the tumultuous times of the early 20^th century.  The recent comic was protested by a group of 37 members of local Japanese assemblies, arguing that the Nanjing Massacre had never taken place and that the depiction of the massacre in the comic distorted history.  The publisher, Shueisha, has suspended the comic series for the time being.

See also Kwon Heok-Tae, "The Memory and Interpretation of August 15, 1945--Koreans' Perception of Japan as Reflected in Comic Book," The Review of Korean Studies 8:1 (March 2005): 85-102.

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