About two years ago, an international channel in Australia (SBS) put to air a very good and informative documentary piece about WWII in Asia. It covered tragedies such as the comfort women, the deaths of innocent people and most of all, the sufferings and damages inflicted by the Japanese forces.

What was (pleasantly) surprising about it was that it's made by a Japanese TV crew fully sponsored and supported by one of Japan's biggest TV networks (Fuji TV) - though, it's still classified as an "independant" project.

Anyway, the documentary interviewed former soldiers who were responsible for some of the tragedies and all were brutally honest and gave upfront accounts of what happened. For example, one of the former soldiers told of how after he and two other colleagues had brutally raped a Chinese woman, then chucked her down a well...only to have her infant son jumping after her and in a moment of panic, one of the other soldiers chucked a grenade into the well. I almost broke down when the former soldier put his hands in his face and wept for the dead woman and her son. No sugar-coating was available - only cold hard facts.

And another touching thing about the documentary was that it also showed a lot of projects being put forward in Japan to try and force more neutral and factual perspectives on WWII in Japanese history text books. For example, there was this scene where a former soldier was taking his granddaughter to a Japanese museum on WWII and when she asked him (while pointing to a poster) "is it true that the Chinese killed many Japanese civilians?", he replied "no, it's not true. Many Japanese soldiers killed a lot of innocent Chinese people".

And before anyone accuses me of 'Japan-bashing', I love Japan and the Japanese whom I've met so far have are friendly and polite. I just posted this message because I want to show that not all Japanese people are willingly blind or ignorant of what had happened in those tragic 7 years. If people can be like one of those former soldiers in the documentary who went to China to visit one of a former victim's family to say "I'm sorry for what I've done to you", then I guess there won't be so many bashing comments in this generation.

Thank you,

that was very well written. There have been a number of documentaries discussing the atrocities of Imperial Japan during WWII. However many of these never made it into mainstream.

terrible.

Oh, I've seen many Japanese documentaries about WWII.

What really surprised me was that they seemed rather open and honest about their country's involvements. And the facts they gave (such as the infamous Rape of Nanking) was in synch with those from American and British-made documentaries I've seen. I actually expected a few "factual blemishes" and some form of bias towards those Japanese soldiers, but I was proved wrong (thankfully)

Barker needs to read this. Especially on the part of trying to distort history.

i so wanna watch this documentary

It's too bad the film isn't popular in Japan.

the extremists would probably try to censor the film

What is with you and reviving old threads?

Are you detuned radio?

I doubt it. Detuned Radio doesn't revive old threads on a consistent basis.

I missed to watch this interesting program.So I can't say anything about this.
However,in total,many published matters just following leftist and outside Japan have been making in Japan.
Questing truth and being neutral are necessary when publishers are handling these touching things.