Pluto - Volume 8 (final)

The final volume of Pluto came out. For those of you that are not familiar with Pluto, it is a Japanese comics series by Naoki Urasawa based on a story out of the great Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy (鉄腕アトム). The series received lots of media attention before it even started. Urasawa, who is thought to be one of the most talented and successful cartoonist of his time, taking on a spin-off of his childhood influence, Tezuka's masterpiece, Astro Boy, had drawn mixed responses. The Pluto story arc is considered to be one of the best works done by Tezuka, the founding father of the Japanese anime industry, and there were suspicions that it might be too big of a story to handle even for an accomplished cartoonist like Urasawa.

When the much anticipated first volume of Pluto came out, people were pleasantly surprised by the take that Urasawa has taken on it. The story is told from a point of view of Gesicht, a German police inspector robot that makes a relatively brief appearance in the original. Although most of the major characters are shared between Pluto and the original, Urasawa has managed to make them his own characters by changing their looks greatly (yet still identifiable) and also supplying them with rich side-stories that were not part of the original story. The added side stories have introduced a lot more depth to Pluto compared to the original and you really get to know each of the characters, their personalities and where they are coming from. Urasawa's interpretation of the Pluto story arc was so superb that even though for those of us that have read the original know exactly what would happen next, still kept us highly curious and excited about how he would unfold the story.

In the final volume of Pluto, Gesicht is deceased and the story revolves around Atom who has inherited Gesicht's computer chip and hence all of his memory. The story touches on many issues we have in our society today such as war and war-time crimes, racism, environmental issues, etc. As they are in the real world, these issues are not solved easily. Pluto, like its original Astro Boy, is not a comics series that everything resolves at the end and everyone is happy. Rather, its aim, I feel, is to make us aware of how imperfect this world we live in is. It is ironic that the message of world peace that Tezuka has tried to communicate in Astro Boy over 40 years ago is still very much relevant to our world today in 2009.

Patriotism in Japan

Swarm of soccer fans heading to the stadium
Originally uploaded by stonetako920.

I happen to live 5 min walk-away from one of the largest stadiums in Japan, the Nissan Stadium (seen in the background). Today, there was a FIFA World Cup Asian Qualifier game against Qatar hosted there. As you can see, the streets were swarmed with people in blue jerseys, the Japanese national soccer team uniform. This happens at least a few times a year and I have grown accustomed to this.

The national sport of Japan is Sumo. And aside from that, baseball probably is the most-watched sport as far as domestic leagues are concerned. Most TV stations don't even broadcast J-League (the Japanese professional soccer league) games during the prime time whereas professional baseball games are aired live at least a few times a week during its season. However, when it comes to international soccer matches, EVERYONE watches them, even those that don't follow soccer normally. It's really a national event and you see your workaholic co-workers leaving work early for once just so they can catch the game.. and next day, that's all people talk about. I found this a bit surprising and quite frankly taken aback a bit after having lived in US for some time. I had never seen any single sport event being discussed in US at the level that these soccer matches were in Japan.

This brings me to a curious topic of the manifestation of patriotism in today's Japanese society. Expressing one's patriotism for his/her country is almost considered a taboo in Japan. Japanese people in general are not comfortable about the idea of "being proud to be Japanese", "representing one's country" or "serving one's country". I have had the pleasure to meet with people from various countries around and I really haven't seen this with people from any other country. They may have issues with their own country but at the end of the day, they are still proud of their home country and what it stands for. But somehow, the same cannot be said about Japan. And I've always found this troubling.

By patriotism, I don't mean supporting the current government. People can be critical of their own government. People don't have to be supporting every decision made by their government. I believe we can all agree regardless of where you are from that government makes mistakes more often than we would hope. What I mean by patriotism is that being proud of the country you are from and the person you are as a result of having been brought up in the environment. And being able to proudly support and represent the community. I see a serious lack of this sentiment towards their own country amongst Japanese people.

I have been supporting Tokyo's 2016 Olympics invitation movement. However, whenever I talk to people about this, I get a response like "Why should we spend our tax money to host another Olympics?" "What good is it going to do to me?" And I just think it's sad that they are unable to find any motivation beyond their personal well-being in supporting a movement like this. It's about your city and your country and it's not every day that we get a shot at something grand like this. And Tokyo has what it takes to make it happen as far as infrastructure and technologies are concerned. But there's one thing critical that's missing and that's the support and motivation of the local community.

I think history has a lot to do with this. It is no secret that the militant government utilized patriotism as its tool to brain-wash its own people during the WWII which eventually led to crazy suicidal missions such as Kamikaze. People in Japan to this day still associate being patriotic with the war. Also, the fact that the majority of Uyoku (right-wing) people nowadays are affiliated with Yakuza, Japanese mafia, doesn't help in improving the already negative image of patriotism. As a result of these factors, making a comment even remotely patriotic could potentially get people to think you are either a militant or a yakuza-affiliate; neither of which are well-accepted in the society and hence people have to come to refrain from showing their support for their own country, how unfortunate.

So I got side-tracked a little but I find it quite interesting and rather astonishing to see the level of enthusiasm and support for the national soccer team in the society where being a patriot violates the taboo. The entire nation backing the team and cheering "Nippon!" at the top of their lungs. It is almost as though that their secretly suppressed patriotism have sprung out of the shell and exploded.