I'm Not Convinced - Do You Think the Rest of Asia Is?

When I went on the tour of the DMZ, not only did I see scary South Korean soldiers, puny-looking North Korean soldiers and jovial American soldiers, I also saw the cartoon renditions of the SK soldiers. I had to laugh because I had seen the actual soldiers up close and they were really intimidating. And here is a rendition of the soldier, made cute to Hello Kitty proportions. Yeah, right like I am going to warm up to that when I have seen them in their tae-kwon do stances less than two feet from me.

The same thing happened in Japan - that is, making the military look cute. Quick lesson for those that aren't in the know (or you probably are given all the news coverage on the comfort women and Yasukuni Shrine): up until the end of WWII, the Japanese Army had a pretty bad reputation from China all the way down to the northern tip of Australia. So, when the Americans rolled in, they instituted the infamous Article 9 in the new constitution which pretty much forbidded Japan to have a "military." However, a loophole was created; in place of a military toting guns and shooting about, they have the "Special Defense Forces" since Japan needs to have some form of self-defense right? Riiight. According to a history professor of mine, if you really take into account the size and the amount of money spent for the Japanese SDF, it's in the top 5 in the world for military size and expenditure. Nonetheless, they don't shoot.

They are only in a support mode, as indicated in the following advertisement. Note that this is an advertisement, NOT a cartoon mocking the army or making jokes:According to the Japan Times, this was created as a part of an ad campaign to make the Japanese military look less evil and more approachable, since there are still MANY cans of worms open regarding the opinion of the Japan and its military. When one of my friends who is from Asia (but not Japanese) told me that she told her family that she had some reservations about the scholarship (got the same one as me, but going for the Master's degree) because sometimes she feels like she isn't really doing anything productive (seriously, neither do I, I literally have no obligations to anyone in terms of producing anything final as far as I know which is sort of ridiculous and my advisor doesn't even know what is required of me as well); one of the members of her family then said to her, "Don't worry about that, remember what they [the Japanese] did to us." Translation: "The Japanese owe us big time for what they did to us."

Point being, it's going to take a lot more than a cute cartoon to change the opinion of the Japanese military in Asia, stripped-down as it is.