Kanryuu Sonata
Korean culture is popular all over the world these days, including Japan. As part of the so-called Kan-Ryuu, or “Korean Wave”, Japanese feminine-types are watching Winter Sonata and swooning over its star, Bae Yong Joon (as reported in an earlier Japundit post), Korean barbeque continues to be a favorite family Friday-nite treat in Japan, and, just to prove idiocy is international, treacly Korean pop is gaining popularity across Asia. The Korean tourist board has a fair and balanced view of the Korean Wave phenonmenon here.
But guess what’s the number one-ranking book on Amazon Japan right now? That’s right, Ken-Kan-Ryuu, which loosely translates as the Anti-Korean Wave. According to the publisher, the manga book tracks the intellectual awakening of an “ordinary” high school student who finds history hard, but has the “vague understanding that Japan has done bad things to Korea.” Everything changes when he becomes a university student and realizes the “surprising truth about Korea and its history.”
After publishers “refused” to print the book for two years, the book was finally released last week. Already a bestseller, Amazon Japan warns that delivery of Ken-Kan-Ryuu should take two to three weeks (Amazon Japan usually delivers in two or three days).
What sort of slant does the book have? “This is an extremely dangerous book,” the book jacket warns. “Why did Korea invade Japan’s territory, the Takeshima Islands?” says another callout. “There is no need to apologize to Korea or offer reparations,” says another.
The book offers to tell the “truth” about a number of topics, including the World Cup, historical origins (anybody in the blogosphere familiar with what that means?), Bae Yong Joon, Koreans in Japan and the Japanese annexation of the Korean Peninsula.
Although the rhetoric is heating up, at least the Japanese SDF remains peaceful – and sexy.
Thanks for posting this, lifted my day.
Where is that photo from? Is the SDF in a sustained campaign to hype its seductive side?
August 1st, 2005 at 11:44 amJust type in “Peace People Japan” to Google Images and see what you get!
August 1st, 2005 at 11:52 amHere’s Morning Musume promoting the JDF.
August 1st, 2005 at 11:55 amThis manga book is terrible. Just when Japan seemed to be “getting it”, with the young people adjusting to a new world order and the truth of world history, along comes this anti-Korea Wave manga shite. Sad.
August 1st, 2005 at 12:59 pmI agree, but there’s always a group out there ready to screw up everything for everyone else. Except I didn’t know they were capable of propaganda like this on such a large scale…
August 1st, 2005 at 1:09 pmI’m assuming that “historical origins” has in part to do with the idea/fact that much of early Japanese culture came from Korea. Tombs, for example, bear paintings identical to those in Korea. Many of the great Nara and Asuka artists were presumably Korean. Many Koreans like to note that the Japanese effectively “stole” their culture.
August 1st, 2005 at 3:38 pmYeah, but if that’s the case, then what sort of slant does Kan-Ken-Ryuu adopt? I’m currently residing away from Japan, and can’t buy the book. If anyone manages to read it, please give a report!
August 1st, 2005 at 3:52 pmThe Korean actor’s name is Bae Yong Joon, Hate his guts, personally, but I just thought we should get the name right.
August 2nd, 2005 at 8:21 amChanged, and thanks for pointing that out. We have the entire “Fuyu no Sonata” on DVD, but I haven’t hooked the player up to the tv, yet, so there the collection sits, gathering dust.
Any reason you don’t like Bae Yong Joon? Is it a Jude Law type of thing?
August 2nd, 2005 at 9:10 am“Just when Japan seemed to be “getting it”, with the young people adjusting to a new world order and the truth of world history, along comes this anti-Korea Wave manga shite.”
I think you might missing one important point here.
Remember that the Korean Wave started because of the popularity of Korean TV and movies (with coincidental factors that have been bubbling for a long time, including more people traveling to South Korea, more people studying Korean, etc.). That hasn’t stopped.
What I’m saying is that Japan isn’t just A or B. Things coexist, just like in any other country.
And just because people buy and read a comic book, doesn’t mean they agree with it. The Japanese buy and read a lot of comic books, and they seem to be driven to keep up date with what’s topical and popular.
August 2nd, 2005 at 11:39 amThis has to be published in English!!! I just can’t wait!!! At last a manga that describes how I feel.
Chris
September 26th, 2005 at 7:52 pmYongsan Garrison, Seoul
Having read the original manga (thanks, JP!) I would have to say it’s a junvenile rant aimed solely at university geeks who would have once joined the Ayn Rand Objectivist club back in uni. Not a good manga.
September 26th, 2005 at 11:16 pmENJOY JAPAN
This manga doesn,t say false ,but actually It talks ironically. There is often interesting.
It is good when not doing too much seriously and reading happily.
If you want to know more about korea.
This site is good for you.
Don,t worry this site is written by Japanese.
i have this manga now
Content of this manga
South Korean’s disgraceful behavior in the Japan-South Korea World Cup
Amends demand of lie
Lie of Korean people in Japan
Japanese culture of South Korea plagiarism
Anti-Japanese mass communication
Is the South Korean the most excellent in the world?
Foreigner suffrage
Development of South Korea at colonial epoch
Takeshima invasion by South Korea
This author drew this cartoon so that Japan and South Korea may build up a
feeling of real friendship.
And, the highest advertiser of this manga was South Korea.
South Korea total mobilized the nation and criticized this manga.
The Japanese people were interested in this manga as a result.
If you want to know more about korea.
September 27th, 2005 at 12:07 amThis site is good for you.
Don,t worry this site is written by Japanese.
September 27th, 2005 at 12:08 amsorry mistake
Gimme a break, Googlist. The manga says a lot of frankly anti-Korean things.
September 27th, 2005 at 12:09 amIt should not worry about you so much.
The fellow who wants to read only has to read.
Do you know why Japanese like reading?
Because the mass communication in Japan doesn’t report any important thing, and important things are being written in books.
September 27th, 2005 at 12:34 amThere is freedom of publication though there is no press freedom in Japan.
September 27th, 2005 at 2:09 amHey,who said korean is poor?
They are very alogance poor.
I examined material thinking that Korean people protected it.
September 27th, 2005 at 3:17 amAnd, I learnt the thing that Korean people had kept telling the lie.
Japanese do not have what to Korean people are permitted any longer.
kokuryu｡
You said that this cartoon was the anti-Korean.
You are a little wrong like that exactly.
It doesn’t come to impeach them in such a halfway content.
The dignity of Japan was very damaged by their behavior.
Korean people say that they kill many Korean people by Japanese, plunder from Korea,
and deprived of the name and the character.
However, the population of Korean people is in colonial times twice.
Japan built a huge dam in Korea, built the railway, established the school, modernized the city, and the teacher in Japan taught a Korean language and a learning Korean language and Japanese were taught positively.
Korean people was given the suffrage of Japan and put it out to the assembly member.
Japan enriched Korea.
Korean people became a senior bureaucrat like the real name, and it
became the officer of the army and it became the movie director, Diet
member, the aristocrat, and a judge.
What is the return?
It is anti-Japan! They had Japan do a disgrace desire.
My resistance will be turned by not only an ugly politician in Japan but also
arrogant Korean people today.
Nobody can stop our patriotism any longer.
My anger doesn’t have settled what if reflecting keeping tell the lie for 60 years by Korean people neither or keeping the deprivation of the boast of Japan.
Kokuryu, your criticism may be right, but this manga is surely quite informative. It deals with a lot of issues which Japanese mass media has been avoiding for a long time, probably, due to the political reasons.
September 27th, 2005 at 10:58 amI guess many Japanese, especially young ones, are now starting to wonder what’s behind the Korea-Japan relationship.
Like I said, Foobar, having read the manga, I just can’t agree the manga is informative. It’s just that there have been so many good things recently – Korea relaxed its rules over Japanese cultural imports, the World Cup both countries hosted,increased visits between the two countries, and, of course, the Kan-Ryuu (Han-Ryuu), or Korean Wave in Japan and the rest of Asia.
I just don’t buy the argument that “Korea was so much better off after the Japanese came and developed the country” or “Korean labourers came to Japan voluntarily during the war.” That’s racism talking, and colonialism, and the manga does a great disservice to Japan and the Japanese people.
September 27th, 2005 at 12:13 pmI would call the joint hosting of the World Cup a “good thing”. It was held jointly as a result of Korean pressure, and in actual practice, I got little sense from the Korean side that they were involved in a joint activity.
Case in point: The Japanese had a poster design for the World Cup that featured the outline of a soccer pitch, complete with center line, viewed vertically.
The Koreans objected to this design because it resembled the first character in “Nihon” too closely. They insisted that the poster be redesigned to angle the pitch.
That pretty much speaks for the Korean attitude–in a lot of things–right there.
September 27th, 2005 at 1:22 pmSorry, make that last note read “not call”.
September 27th, 2005 at 1:23 pmOkay, you’re right – there’s a tremendous amount of weirdness on the Korean side these days. The cold war is over on the Korean peninsula these days, as they say, and it’s more than a little distressing to consider the amount of influence NORK has on the South Korean government.
However, let me flog a dead horse here: it took a lot of coordination between Korea and Japan to host that World Cup, which is a good thing, I would say.
September 27th, 2005 at 1:29 pmResistance in JAPAN are u crazy?
December 4th, 2005 at 2:49 pmdo u really know the history of colonization of KOREA? Well, I saw a picture from a Japanese solider who cut up the head of korean civilian laughing at it. Do you want to see it?
It really sick.
Do You really believe that Japanese force build up those kind of stuff?
I say Japan can lie for more than 100 years. They will lie until Korea become world 2nd largest industralized country.
I think that is impossible. Japan have large finacial support for propanganda.