Notes upon viewing "Letters from Iwo Jima"
Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.
- General George S. Patton
I just finished watching "Letters from Iwo Jima" (with the English dub) on TV, which I've been dying to watch ever since I found out who Kazunari Ninomiya was (well, I found out who Jun Matsumoto was, and then I found out who Kazunari Ninomiya was, but whatever). Fittingly, it aired on the last day that my grandparents were in America; my mom had told me to tell my grandpa especially to watch the movie, since he had fought in World War II against the Japanese, and indeed I was quite curious to know his opinion on the Japanese before and after seeing the movie (especially since we're such a Japan-loving family. Trufax). Unfortunately, they were asleep long before the movie started...
Now, the movie is beautifully shot, and Nino has gotten heaps of accolades from people who haven't the faintest idea who Arashi is (and all the better for it!), and you get the general message that War is Wrong No Matter Who Is Fighting and all of that (one of the reviewers on IMDB compared it to "All Quiet on the Western Front," which I find a pretty apt comparison in that it takes a sympathetic look at the "enemy" side), but I couldn't get into it as much as I wanted to. If I felt sad at the end (and I did - that last scene where snippets of the letters are being read as the letter fall to the ground is SO poignant and beautiful) it wasn't really for the characters in the movie so much as it was for the fact that dying SUCKS and OMG NINO~! Weak, bloodied Nino who is the only Japanese dude to survive the battle and is the only Asian face in the line of wounded soldiers at the end~!
I think the main reason for this weird, disconnected feeling is not so much the whole "Hey, it's Nino from Arashi!" thing as it is the whole "English dubbing is weird!" thing - Nino is obviously a capable actor, as audiences of all kinds on both sides of the Pacific can attest (I LOVED him in "Stand Up!" and let me reiterate that I have no problem seeing him - or Matsujun - in roles separate from their boyband selves) but I just couldn't connect with him as Saigo when someone else's voice was playing over his. The whole "WTF THAT'S NOT NINO!" thing really jarred me out of the picture (and also I fell asleep during the battle scenes at about 1 AM, but that's another story). I found rhis really interesting because it points to how Japan has become so ingrained into my life; I'm way more comfortable hearing Japanese voices and reading English subtitles than preferring to hear an English dub like a lazy American (or my parents, who hate reading subtitles).
As trivial as it sounds, I still struggle with my identity as a non-Japanese person who loves Japanese stuff. I often ask myself, am I a weeaboo? This question has been bugging the crap out of me ever since I started getting hardcore into animes and dramas again. I've been called an otaku by a Japanese dude who is a self-proclaimed otaku, which may be bad enough, but I'd rather be an otaku in the sense of "pathetically nerdy Asian person" than a "wannabe Japanese person." I love the idea of going to Japan, and I am fascinated by many different aspects of the country, but I certainly do not want to be lumped in with the wannabes who give non-Japanese fans of Japanese entertainment a bad name. You know the ones I'm talking about: the (usually white, but whiteness isn't so much the point anymore) kids who only take Japanese to watch anime, proceed to butcher the language, give themselves unwarranted Japanese nicknames, go for either really mainstream anime like Naruto (or, more increasingly, Death Note) or really weird/obscure shit and act all elitist about it, throw around baka and kawaii and sugoi for no apparent reason (well, that's going back to butchering the language), deify and overidealise Japanese culture, etc., etc.
Now, my first impulse is to distance myself from these people right away with the fact that I have been exposed to Japanese culture my entire life just by virtue of being Asian; granted, most of the exposure is either through
(1) technology (if there is anything at all that people around me accept about Japan without exception, it is the perceived superiority of Japanese cars and electronics)
(2) eating certain Japanese foodstuffs (I can lord over the fact that I grew up eating Pocky, ramen and sushi as "normal food" long before I was aware of the anime fanworld's obsession with said foodstuffs)
(3) World War II stories about the different ways that my grandparents and the people around them avoided getting raped or killed by the Japanese army (my favourite is the one where my stepdad's aunt got rolled up in a rug and hid in the corner for like an hour while the soldiers searched the house) or
(4) the alleged Japanese ancestry of my grandfather, whose surname doesn't seem Japanese at all, but my family is convinced that it somehow is a Filipinised version of a surname from the island nation due north to our own. He can pass for Japanese, though, I think - I swear he looks like Yankumi's grandpa from Gokusen.
Also, growing up in California Japan was always mentioned and learned about in the lineup of Learning About Other Cultures, even though I don't remember a single Japanese kid being in my classes in Daly City. The closest we ever got was Mrs. Kubota, a white teacher who married a Japanese man, taught us origami and read us children's books about kids in Manzanar along with your standard Eric Carle/Maurice Sendak type books. Then in fifth grade we learned about Sadako and how to make paper cranes (OH GOD THE PAPER CRANES), and my teacher at GATE taught us a bit of Japanese (your standard greetings, some conversation and two lines of hiragana before the year ended) since he had taught in Japan. Then there was the whole Sanrio-Nintendo-Sailor Moon-Pokemon wave (with Dragonball on the side), which got everyone interested in Japan, although my cousin Mayeth had been sending me Yu Yu Hakusho trading cards and Slam Dunk beach towels since we were little. Towards the end of elementary, I befriended Toby, a boy with a healthy fascination with Japan that continues until now (as does our friendship! although the both the fascination and the friendship have slightly changed in focus). Then, in high school, I joined the anime club (which was about 3/4-Asian and 1/4-White, an admirable feat in our heavily white school) and acquired the nickname "Duckie-chan" (which was given to me, of all people, by a Mexican dude who was my best friend in the first half of elementary school). However, my fascination with Japan only really exploded after last summer, with Ouran and all that followed afterward... by the way, I think the fact that I finally got fast Internet at home and became able to talk to someone named Adria[a]n without getting homicidal after two years had a lot to do with my belated plunge into the Mer du Japon...
My point is, Japan has always been a part of my vocabulary, my awareness, my diet, my interests, and possibly my bloodline - so why do I feel so guilty when I get excited over the latest J-drama or Arashi single or Japanese purchase (Uniqlo top in London, sushi in Paris, Hana-Kimi DVD in Cagayan de Oro, ramune bottles in Los Angeles...) or even a trip to the local freakin' Daiso? (I went to buy some presents for my cousins and a folder for my school stuff and I just about had a conniption when "Flavor of Life" came on the PA system, especially after marathoning Hana Yori Dango although I had downloaded and loved the song long before watching.) I am a little too addicted to animes and dramas, yes, but I think that's more indicative of my addictive personality than rampant weeaboo-style Japanophilia. Not to mention the fact that my relatives, friends and I grew up on anime, ramen noodles and Pocky long before I knew that any of that had a special, Wapanese-related meaning. Hell, I had white friends who were way more obsessed with anime and J-culture than I was and I didn't think twice about it until, like, college (with my discovery of internet memes and acquisition of Asian American Studies as a second major). So why do I feel so weeaboo-ish when I (and the whole of my family) have loads more street cred than your average Narutard? Perhaps it's guilt for being a wee bit more whitewashed than the rest of my Filipino friends COMBINED WITH the guilt of liking Japan after hearing my grandparents' stories...
I just want to be able to enjoy my stupid dramas and animes and Arashi songs without this voice in the back of my head (sounding suspiciously like my parents') taunting me for liking Japanese stuff so fucking much. SO WHAT if I love the cute packaging? And green tea? And sushi (except eels, cos eels fucking gross me out and remind me of snakes I HATE SNAKES OH MY GOD)? And takoyaki? And ramune? And the pretty, pretty Japanese boys? And the weird, funky, multilayered Tokyo street style that doesn't look right on me becaus I'm too fat for an Asian? And Pocky and YanYan and all the other junk food I always got when my mom went to the Asian market (which may or may not have contributed to said fatness)? And anime? And dramas? And Pizzicato Five and Utada Hikaru and and Gackt and Matsujun and Nino and Sho and Ohno and Aiba? And Dream of the Fisherman's Wife? And Haruki and Takashi Murakami (no relation)? And trips to Japantown and Little Tokyo and Uniqlo and the Rue de Sainte-Anne where all the Japanese stuff is in Paris and the Daiso five minutes from my house? And The Ring? And the Southern All Stars CD that came with my very first used car, which was owned by a Japanese dude? And Sanrio? And learning Japanese just for the lulz and anime watching and possibly marrying Matsujun or Shun or Mamo or Shirota Yuu, like my dad says I will and for the sheer joy of learning another language (or 20, like Jose Rizal)? And the weird-ass TV shows? And rice rockets? And ninjas, since the fucking ninjas always get mentioned when talking about Japan?
Does anyone actually care about this besides me, anyway? I think most of it is the guilt that I like Japan so freaking much while knowing that fighting the Japanese is the reason why my grandparents even met, married and had a daughter that ended up having me. But it's funny how things turned out - had Gramps been born just a few degrees latitude north Nino could have been acting out his story, or he could have been one of the soldiers that people in our province became victims of. And I ask him, how does he reconcile the facts that he may be descended from the Japanese and his descendants love Japan when he fought so valiantly against that same country? He says he can tolerate the Japanese because their way of thinking is different now... but is it really?
- General George S. Patton
I just finished watching "Letters from Iwo Jima" (with the English dub) on TV, which I've been dying to watch ever since I found out who Kazunari Ninomiya was (well, I found out who Jun Matsumoto was, and then I found out who Kazunari Ninomiya was, but whatever). Fittingly, it aired on the last day that my grandparents were in America; my mom had told me to tell my grandpa especially to watch the movie, since he had fought in World War II against the Japanese, and indeed I was quite curious to know his opinion on the Japanese before and after seeing the movie (especially since we're such a Japan-loving family. Trufax). Unfortunately, they were asleep long before the movie started...
Now, the movie is beautifully shot, and Nino has gotten heaps of accolades from people who haven't the faintest idea who Arashi is (and all the better for it!), and you get the general message that War is Wrong No Matter Who Is Fighting and all of that (one of the reviewers on IMDB compared it to "All Quiet on the Western Front," which I find a pretty apt comparison in that it takes a sympathetic look at the "enemy" side), but I couldn't get into it as much as I wanted to. If I felt sad at the end (and I did - that last scene where snippets of the letters are being read as the letter fall to the ground is SO poignant and beautiful) it wasn't really for the characters in the movie so much as it was for the fact that dying SUCKS and OMG NINO~! Weak, bloodied Nino who is the only Japanese dude to survive the battle and is the only Asian face in the line of wounded soldiers at the end~!
I think the main reason for this weird, disconnected feeling is not so much the whole "Hey, it's Nino from Arashi!" thing as it is the whole "English dubbing is weird!" thing - Nino is obviously a capable actor, as audiences of all kinds on both sides of the Pacific can attest (I LOVED him in "Stand Up!" and let me reiterate that I have no problem seeing him - or Matsujun - in roles separate from their boyband selves) but I just couldn't connect with him as Saigo when someone else's voice was playing over his. The whole "WTF THAT'S NOT NINO!" thing really jarred me out of the picture (and also I fell asleep during the battle scenes at about 1 AM, but that's another story). I found rhis really interesting because it points to how Japan has become so ingrained into my life; I'm way more comfortable hearing Japanese voices and reading English subtitles than preferring to hear an English dub like a lazy American (or my parents, who hate reading subtitles).
As trivial as it sounds, I still struggle with my identity as a non-Japanese person who loves Japanese stuff. I often ask myself, am I a weeaboo? This question has been bugging the crap out of me ever since I started getting hardcore into animes and dramas again. I've been called an otaku by a Japanese dude who is a self-proclaimed otaku, which may be bad enough, but I'd rather be an otaku in the sense of "pathetically nerdy Asian person" than a "wannabe Japanese person." I love the idea of going to Japan, and I am fascinated by many different aspects of the country, but I certainly do not want to be lumped in with the wannabes who give non-Japanese fans of Japanese entertainment a bad name. You know the ones I'm talking about: the (usually white, but whiteness isn't so much the point anymore) kids who only take Japanese to watch anime, proceed to butcher the language, give themselves unwarranted Japanese nicknames, go for either really mainstream anime like Naruto (or, more increasingly, Death Note) or really weird/obscure shit and act all elitist about it, throw around baka and kawaii and sugoi for no apparent reason (well, that's going back to butchering the language), deify and overidealise Japanese culture, etc., etc.
Now, my first impulse is to distance myself from these people right away with the fact that I have been exposed to Japanese culture my entire life just by virtue of being Asian; granted, most of the exposure is either through
(1) technology (if there is anything at all that people around me accept about Japan without exception, it is the perceived superiority of Japanese cars and electronics)
(2) eating certain Japanese foodstuffs (I can lord over the fact that I grew up eating Pocky, ramen and sushi as "normal food" long before I was aware of the anime fanworld's obsession with said foodstuffs)
(3) World War II stories about the different ways that my grandparents and the people around them avoided getting raped or killed by the Japanese army (my favourite is the one where my stepdad's aunt got rolled up in a rug and hid in the corner for like an hour while the soldiers searched the house) or
(4) the alleged Japanese ancestry of my grandfather, whose surname doesn't seem Japanese at all, but my family is convinced that it somehow is a Filipinised version of a surname from the island nation due north to our own. He can pass for Japanese, though, I think - I swear he looks like Yankumi's grandpa from Gokusen.
Also, growing up in California Japan was always mentioned and learned about in the lineup of Learning About Other Cultures, even though I don't remember a single Japanese kid being in my classes in Daly City. The closest we ever got was Mrs. Kubota, a white teacher who married a Japanese man, taught us origami and read us children's books about kids in Manzanar along with your standard Eric Carle/Maurice Sendak type books. Then in fifth grade we learned about Sadako and how to make paper cranes (OH GOD THE PAPER CRANES), and my teacher at GATE taught us a bit of Japanese (your standard greetings, some conversation and two lines of hiragana before the year ended) since he had taught in Japan. Then there was the whole Sanrio-Nintendo-Sailor Moon-Pokemon wave (with Dragonball on the side), which got everyone interested in Japan, although my cousin Mayeth had been sending me Yu Yu Hakusho trading cards and Slam Dunk beach towels since we were little. Towards the end of elementary, I befriended Toby, a boy with a healthy fascination with Japan that continues until now (as does our friendship! although the both the fascination and the friendship have slightly changed in focus). Then, in high school, I joined the anime club (which was about 3/4-Asian and 1/4-White, an admirable feat in our heavily white school) and acquired the nickname "Duckie-chan" (which was given to me, of all people, by a Mexican dude who was my best friend in the first half of elementary school). However, my fascination with Japan only really exploded after last summer, with Ouran and all that followed afterward... by the way, I think the fact that I finally got fast Internet at home and became able to talk to someone named Adria[a]n without getting homicidal after two years had a lot to do with my belated plunge into the Mer du Japon...
My point is, Japan has always been a part of my vocabulary, my awareness, my diet, my interests, and possibly my bloodline - so why do I feel so guilty when I get excited over the latest J-drama or Arashi single or Japanese purchase (Uniqlo top in London, sushi in Paris, Hana-Kimi DVD in Cagayan de Oro, ramune bottles in Los Angeles...) or even a trip to the local freakin' Daiso? (I went to buy some presents for my cousins and a folder for my school stuff and I just about had a conniption when "Flavor of Life" came on the PA system, especially after marathoning Hana Yori Dango although I had downloaded and loved the song long before watching.) I am a little too addicted to animes and dramas, yes, but I think that's more indicative of my addictive personality than rampant weeaboo-style Japanophilia. Not to mention the fact that my relatives, friends and I grew up on anime, ramen noodles and Pocky long before I knew that any of that had a special, Wapanese-related meaning. Hell, I had white friends who were way more obsessed with anime and J-culture than I was and I didn't think twice about it until, like, college (with my discovery of internet memes and acquisition of Asian American Studies as a second major). So why do I feel so weeaboo-ish when I (and the whole of my family) have loads more street cred than your average Narutard? Perhaps it's guilt for being a wee bit more whitewashed than the rest of my Filipino friends COMBINED WITH the guilt of liking Japan after hearing my grandparents' stories...
I just want to be able to enjoy my stupid dramas and animes and Arashi songs without this voice in the back of my head (sounding suspiciously like my parents') taunting me for liking Japanese stuff so fucking much. SO WHAT if I love the cute packaging? And green tea? And sushi (except eels, cos eels fucking gross me out and remind me of snakes I HATE SNAKES OH MY GOD)? And takoyaki? And ramune? And the pretty, pretty Japanese boys? And the weird, funky, multilayered Tokyo street style that doesn't look right on me becaus I'm too fat for an Asian? And Pocky and YanYan and all the other junk food I always got when my mom went to the Asian market (which may or may not have contributed to said fatness)? And anime? And dramas? And Pizzicato Five and Utada Hikaru and and Gackt and Matsujun and Nino and Sho and Ohno and Aiba? And Dream of the Fisherman's Wife? And Haruki and Takashi Murakami (no relation)? And trips to Japantown and Little Tokyo and Uniqlo and the Rue de Sainte-Anne where all the Japanese stuff is in Paris and the Daiso five minutes from my house? And The Ring? And the Southern All Stars CD that came with my very first used car, which was owned by a Japanese dude? And Sanrio? And learning Japanese just for the lulz and anime watching and possibly marrying Matsujun or Shun or Mamo or Shirota Yuu, like my dad says I will and for the sheer joy of learning another language (or 20, like Jose Rizal)? And the weird-ass TV shows? And rice rockets? And ninjas, since the fucking ninjas always get mentioned when talking about Japan?
Does anyone actually care about this besides me, anyway? I think most of it is the guilt that I like Japan so freaking much while knowing that fighting the Japanese is the reason why my grandparents even met, married and had a daughter that ended up having me. But it's funny how things turned out - had Gramps been born just a few degrees latitude north Nino could have been acting out his story, or he could have been one of the soldiers that people in our province became victims of. And I ask him, how does he reconcile the facts that he may be descended from the Japanese and his descendants love Japan when he fought so valiantly against that same country? He says he can tolerate the Japanese because their way of thinking is different now... but is it really?