戦後80年が意味するものEighty Years After War – What It Truly Means

Eighty years from the day marking the end of World War II, which Japan will reach the day after tomorrow, can we truly say that something significant has changed compared to that time? Certainly, there was the great postwar reconstruction, and Japan’s population reached the scale of 100 million, achieving by the 1980s the dream of elevating the entire population into the middle class, in effect becoming a “practically socialist nation.” Yet, can we simply say these were the results of the existing system being fundamentally transformed by the great event of wartime defeat? I have always been skeptical of such simplistic, one-sided evaluations, and I feel rather that it was precisely because the wartime system was skillfully preserved that this so-called miracle of history occurred. Japan, which realized the ideal of a practically socialist state earlier than the Soviet Union, was unable to change this system (or ideology) after the collapse of the bubble economy in the 1990s and after the Soviet Union’s fall. Over roughly thirty years, the entire population fell from the middle class into poverty, and today the nation has reached a future where decline cannot be stopped and everyone is exhausted. This is because the greatest driving force behind Japan’s postwar recovery was, above all, the total war system established during wartime. I believe this total war system will re-emerge in an unexpected form in the future.

Sociologist Yasushi Yamanouchi once called this structure the “total war system,” pointing out that the system of total war under the former Imperial Japanese military during World War II remained deeply rooted in the Japanese people after the war, becoming the driving force that enabled rapid recovery. Furthermore, critic Shichihei Yamamoto, in his book Kuki no Kenkyu (A Study of Kuki), described how the military, ignoring numbers and scientific data and leaning into reckless spiritualism, could be explained through the unique concept of kuki (空気) within Japan’s village communities. He pointed out that this kuki was even more strongly inherited after the war.

In fact, as we approach eighty years since the end of the war, I harbor doubts that the essence of the wartime system has shifted at all during these eight decades. The power dynamics formed in that era are so solid that, even if things seem greatly changed on the surface, the wartime system has continued to take root within Japanese society and the mental structure of its people. In history, such structures often erupt suddenly due to some event, becoming the greatest driving force in building a similar system again—precisely because, in those moments, people lose their senses and their ability to reference history. It could be just like the time when the land was reduced to ashes, only to suddenly become one of the world’s leading cities. Who can say with certainty that such events will not happen again, albeit in a different form?

Even now, eighty years after World War II, war has not ended globally, and struggles involving nuclear-armed power projection continue. Economically, the shift from unipolar dependence to multipolar balance is far from easy, and the 2020s have made it clear again that global unification is impossible. Furthermore, military spending in European countries seeking to reduce dependence on the United States has begun to accelerate, and particularly in Germany and Italy—nations that were Japan’s Axis allies during the war—there are moves to increase defense budgets and reintroduce conscription with an eye toward the future. Considering these developments, it seems inevitable that Japan will follow a similar path, and the differing directions taken by Germany and Italy seem to reflect Japan’s own possible future. In light of history, it is foreseeable that forces strongly opposing the entrenched bureaucracy will rise in Japan as well, and in that process, the wartime system may skillfully revive in a modern form. This is because it was never truly dismantled after the war. Evaluations of Japanese culture and history, still largely superficial, will waver before this reality, because this structure has so rarely been spoken of.

This structure is hard to see from the outside, but one of the most effective ways for me to understand this sensibility is through film. Two films in particular symbolize how Japan’s wartime system has survived into the postwar era: Japan’s Longest Day (1967), directed by Kihachi Okamoto, and Shin Godzilla (2016), directed by Hideaki Anno, known for Evangelion. At first glance, these two works might seem unrelated, but in fact, Anno deeply admires Okamoto and has incorporated many of his techniques and homages into his own films and anime. Anno himself has often spoken in interviews of the great influence Okamoto had on him, and Shin Godzilla is clearly a modern continuation of Japan’s Longest Day, serving as Anno’s response in honor of Okamoto.

The timelines differ greatly. Kihachi Okamoto was a direct witness to World War II, and the film, featuring an all-star cast, included many actors who also experienced the war. For example, Toshiro Mifune played the most challenging role—that of the Army Minister. Most of the cast had directly experienced the war, and some had fought on the front lines. Their portrayal of politicians who made no decisions is remarkable in itself. The film gradually exposes the fundamentally “unable to decide for ourselves” nature of Japanese political structure, in which Shichihei Yamamoto’s kuki (空気) and Yasushi Yamanouchi’s “total war system” are clearly visible. And the key question is: did anyone take responsibility? A close viewing reveals that, in reality, no one did. This was not only true of politicians but of the people as a whole. In fact, after Emperor Showa’s Gyokuon-hoso on August 15, countless accounts emerged of people saying, “I was deceived.” In effect, no one bore responsibility for the war. Even the scene of the Army Minister’s seppuku leaves unanswered the fundamental questions of why the war happened and why such devastation was necessary; instead, after the surrender broadcast, the palatable term “democracy” was quickly on everyone’s lips.

I believe the greatest problem in modern Japan lies in the bureaucracy established by the Choshu domain’s influence in the Meiji era, a system that continues to this day. Anno’s Shin Godzilla portrays this preserved structure in a completely different form. While it may appear to be an entertainment film at first glance, a deeper look reveals that, much like Japan’s Longest Day, it meticulously depicts a Japanese system in which no one decides and no one takes responsibility. The film is also constructed with the events of the March 11, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake in mind, capturing politicians and bureaucrats who, even in the midst of massive loss of life and suffering, prioritized obedience to a meaningless bureaucratic system over saving lives. In reality, at that time, bureaucratic mentality had spread nationwide, and it was this prioritization of system maintenance over responding to the tsunami and nuclear disaster that resulted in countless deaths and victims, showing that nothing had changed since wartime.

Anno, by embodying this in the rampage of an unknown monster—Godzilla—depicts how the upper echelons fall into dysfunction when faced with an uncontrollable crisis. Yet even then, no one makes decisions, and they spend their time maintaining a useless bureaucratic system, holding endless meetings according to manuals without resolving anything. Baseless optimism and avoidance of responsibility are prioritized, while the suffering caused by Godzilla is effectively discarded out of sight. The film climaxes with the annihilation of key figures in the upper echelons (Cabinet and bureaucracy) by Godzilla’s attack, the destruction of Nagatacho (the National Diet) and Kasumigaseki (bureaucratic ministries), and finally, only after everything is lost, new people—cornered into having no choice but to act—begin to take responsibility themselves. Throughout this process, the shadow of the United States and U.S. Forces in Japan constantly looms in the background.

Even now, after eighty years, nothing has truly changed. Why is that? Because the enduring symbol of Japan’s refusal to fully accept its World War II defeat continues to survive.