<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV>Aaron has translated Ikui-san's revision of an Asahi Shinbun article for Japan Forum. Here are a couple nuggets: </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">What is intriguing is that a hero like Saigo is exceptional less in Japanese history than in the history of Japanese film. It is well known that not all Japanese during the war were fascists and that it was not rare for common soldiers at the front to privately express discontent like Saigo. But the depiction of low-ranking grunts complaining in Japanese film up until now has been significantly different. One basically did not see a soldier who clearly looks as weak and as insignificant as Saigo baring his grievances so openly and incessantly in films by Japan’s major studios (the producers’ casting of the idol singer Ninomiya Kazuya in this role was astute). That’s why, as the narrative progresses, Saigo gradually approaches the image of the common man one occasionally sees in American cinema. Yet the great majority of Japanese spectators were not conscious of this.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Viewed from this perspective, one realizes that the peculiar praise of Letters as “a movie a Japanese should have made” bore a simple meaning for most Japanese viewers that was not at all unnatural. To put it a different way, it suggests how much the manners of American cinema have become close and familiar to today’s Japanese audiences. In most cases, the history that cinema depicts belongs not to the past but to the present, and in an interesting fashion Letters foregrounds “which present” contemporary Japanese viewers are living in.</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"> </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">...</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">In Flags of Our Fathers, there is not a single high-ranking officer or politician worthy of respect, while in Letters from Iwo Jima, the most esteemed figure is the enemy who dies. It is for this reason that this combination of films bears a great political significance in American society that is not found in Japan.</SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Find out what it is by directing your browser to: </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><A href="http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2417">http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2417</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Markus</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Trebuchet MS" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;"><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></SPAN></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>