HIEA 112 Final Assignment
In This Corner of the World (accessed 3/11 on Netflix):
https://www.netflix.com/jp/title/80192244?s=i&trkid=13747225&vlang=ja&clip=81177540
A clip of the scene on YouTube (0:00 - 1:52):
https://youtu.be/v83SdH4_ZM0 (accessed 3/16)
The end of the second world war was one of the most significant moments in modern Japanese history that had extreme societal and political impacts. The war was especially devastating to the ordinary people of Japan as they endured physical and psychological hardships for many years. The movie ‘In the Corner of the World’ tells the story of an ordinary Japanese woman who lived through the second world war. In particular, the clip I chose is set on August 15th, the day of the surrender. The main character Suzu, her sister in law, and her neighbors gather together to listen to the emperor’s surrender address on radio and the scene depicts the complicated emotions of the characters. This scene provides an individual woman’s perspective on the Japanese surrender and its significance for the ordinary Japanese citizens.
After listening to the speech, people had mixed reactions. For one, since the emperor used very formal and archaic language, it was difficult for some to fully understand the entire address. One of the characters in this scene asks with an confused expression, “does this mean we lost?”, showing that most ordinary people had a hard time grasping the entirety of the situation just from the emperor’s speech. In addition, the news came as a surprise for most Japanese people because “most people thought the important broadcast given in person by the Emperor… was to be one of exhortation, urging the people to redouble their efforts as the war was approaching the main islands” (“Diary of a Housewife”).
Keiko, the main character’s sister in law, stands up immediately, sighs and says “great, it’s over,” and leaves the room. Her reaction represents the relief that many people felt after hearing that the war has come to an end. Though propaganda rallied people for the war effort and national pride was high, people still had to live their everyday life with fear and scarce materials. The movie shows in detail the hardships people had to go through on a day to day basis, similar to the accounts in “Diary of a Housewife.” The food ration getting smaller and smaller, the bombings getting more and more frequent and the deaths of family and friends becoming a part of their daily lives as the war persisted. On top of simply surviving their daily lives with scarce food and materials, “ wartime propaganda… mobilized women for such activities as sending off troops to the warfront, raising funds for the war effort, and visiting injured soldiers in the hospital” (Kono). Women had to shoulder many responsibilities both inside and outside of the home. The surrender meant that these sufferings were finally coming to an end.
The main character Suzu expresses her anger, yelling “were we not determined to fight till the last one?”. Towards the end of the war, propaganda called for every Japanese person, even civilians, to take up arms and fight the enemy, even though Japan’s defeat was evident. As enemies approached the mainland, people “had been vigorously trained in the use of bamboo spears with which they hoped to pierce through the advancing enemy on their landing, or even to overturn armored tanks” (“Diary of a Housewife”). However, extreme nationalism was not the only reason behind people’s anger. Throughout this movie, Suzu lost many things to the war: her niece, her family in Hiroshima, and her right hand. She and the others accepted such tragedies as an inevitable sacrifice for the country’s victory. However, the surrender meant that these sacrifices were all for nothing. This is depicted in the next scene as she thinks to herself, “it’s flying away; everything we lived through, all the things we came to accept, and our reason for enduring.” It can be interpreted from Suzu’s anger that Japanese people’s determination to fight to the last person was not simply out of patriotism. They wanted to win the war in order to make their sacrifices worthwhile. Like Suzu says, people were only able to rationalize and accept these losses by hoping that at least their sacrifices would eventually bring victory to the nation.
Politically, the surrender meant the end of the Japanese Empire and the beginning of the US occupation. While these were all very important developments in modern Japan, I feel it also crucial to explore the emotional impacts of the surrender and what it meant for the tens of millions of Japanese citizens. After all, history is not just about political developments but more importantly about the experiences of individuals who lived through these times. Seeing the perspective of a woman living through the war in this movie helped me better understand what they were going through emotionally at the moment of the surrender. The scene vividly depicts the shock, relief, frustration, sadness, anger, and the mixture of emotions that people felt after hearing the news of the surrender. In the emperor’s surrender speech, he orders the nation to “unite [its] total strength to be devoted to the construction for the future” (“Imperial Rescript on Surrender”). However, seeing the devastating impacts the war had on the ordinary people, it is clear to me that accepting the surrender and moving on was not an easy task. The Japanese surrender led to a quick and swift political transition but for the people of Japan who had to live on with their trauma, it was a very slow and painful healing process.
