VOX POPULI: Godzilla shows us our inability to come to grips with the past
What attracts Godzilla to Tokyo? Why does he attack the Japanese capital over and over?
The Diet building has been repeatedly reduced to rubble since Godzilla made his film debut in 1954.
What does this monstrous creature embody?
Literary critic Norihiro Kato (1948-2019) wrote that Godzilla is a “ghostly aggregate” of Japanese soldiers who died in World War II.
In “Sayonara Gojira-tachi” (Goodbye, Godzillas), Kato theorized that the monster keeps emerging from the South Seas because we have yet to really face our own war dead.
The soldiers were “sacrificed for the defense of our precious nation,” but they also served as “the vanguard of a war of aggression.”
Our postwar Japanese society has not yet “absorbed” these two different aspects of the war dead, argued Kato, who never stopped thinking about how the nation dealt with postwar issues.
And now, there are some disturbing developments concerning Yasukuni Shrine, where the nation’s war dead are honored.
Maritime Self-Defense Force members were found to have visited the controversial shrine as a group on the heels of another group visit by Ground SDF members.
And for the first time in its history, Yasukuni Shrine has picked a former SDF commander as its chief priest.
As if an old wound is flaring up, these developments are quite unsettling.
What, exactly, is making the ties stronger between the SDF and Yasukuni Shrine now?
While remaining deeply apprehensive of any reversion to the prewar system, we need to keep a close eye on what is going on in the background.
The 1954 Godzilla smashed up the Diet building and then abruptly changed direction.
Whatever the reason, he bypassed the Imperial Palace and headed to Tokyo’s “shitamachi” working-class district.
Kato wrote: If a new Godzilla film were to be made, how about making him go to Yasukuni Shrine?
--The Asahi Shimbun, March 22
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*Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.