Japandemic #17: Yasukuni Shrine and the War Museum 靖国神社

After some gamey, snackey videos, I thought it was time to tackle something a bit more serious, so today I went to the often controversial Yasukuni Jinja. It's a beautiful shrine, and so it's a pity this is often ignored due to it's association with remembering, and celebrating, Japan's military exploits in S.E. Asia.

The War museum was quite hard to swallow, but no more so than any other unnecessarily patriotic war museum, which I've seen plenty of in my own country. The one thing that I can never get over is how many people die for the concept of their "country", which I regard as insignificant. Would you die for your star sign, or for your blood type? I hope one day, saying "I am a proud American/Brit" will be met with the same ridicule as if you said "I am a proud Sagittarius."

Peace!

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Yasukuni Shrine
• World War 2
• Japanese culture
• tokyo
• 靖国神社
• 東京
• 日本
• 歴史
• 政治

[kreeboy411]

Excellent video.

Fav'd.

[Mantrousers]

@kreeboy411 Cheers dude. And thanks for all your other great comment so far. It's really appreciated. Peace

[lukemorse1]

pretty impressive dude, I've tried to stay away from there because the last time I was there all I saw were the nationalist and the vans and felt uncomfortable so I left.

[Mantrousers]

Yeah, it was pretty weird vibes in that place, especially the museum. But I'm still happy I went in retrospect.

[Maximusmadrica]

It's insane how war can change an individual, but humanity is strange that way. I sometimes question humanity, is war a form of population control for our organism to survive or is it truly evil that drives us to cause such atrocities. Really liked this video, fav'd it.

[Mantrousers]

Glad you liked it. Fav'd? Much appreciated :)

[Lobos222]

I dont think the Auschwitz museum talks about "incidents" to put it that way.

Some level of patriotism is to be expected from war museums, but what matters is if they tell the whole story or not.

I would like to go one day to see for myself how this museum represents history. Too what level is the criticism valid etc, but I kinda wonder if they had any information displayed about, for example, Unit 731 there?

[teacherlove70]

There are a bunch of stuff to learn about Yasukuni Jinja, and all that those stupid PRC supporters want to talk is about ww 2 criminals? They are so jerk!!!

Im planning to make a visit to this jinja because I know we can learn a lot things in this place. You cannot say anything unless you go to the place and study about this place.

[KFAshotgun]

Agreed. My thoughts are the same pretty much.

We're only cut of by invisible borders and oceans lol.

*liked*

[manbearpig084]

this is an amazing video, good job man!

[zerdos2]

I agree with your opinion with on patriotism. People using pride for their country to justify their mistakes doesn't seem right to me. Thx for the great vid, it really got me thinking about war crimes on world war 2 and beyond.

[CurmudgeonlyDoug]

I always was curious how other countries handle "sensitive" topics of history. The story of the torpedo pilot was interesting, though. I wonder if that was meant to be a beautiful thing? It really just frightened me...

Anyway, much appreciation for the covert video skills. ^_^

5 stars. Keep the good videos rolling!

[makeupsomethinglater]

Wow great video, really interesting

5 stars