Mushroom clouds appear in just about every episode of “ Time Bokan ,” for example, as the villains blast off into the sky after defeat (think Team Rocket from “Pokémon” ). References to and inspiration from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can be found throughout all of the last 75+ years of animated series and movies coming out of Japan, from “ Astro Boy ,” “ Ultraman ” and “ Ultraseven ,” “ Doraemon ,” “ Time Bokan ,” “ Akira ,” “ Neon Genesis Evangelion ,” “ Code Geass ,” to “ Attack on Titan ,” just to name a few. As a field and art form, however, Japanese-made animation didn’t really take off until the post-war period, and influence from that period of time still reverberates throughout the entire culture of anime to this day. Western animation first appeared in Japan in 1909, and the appearance of the first Japanese-made animation followed closely behind, in 1915. Let’s start with the basics, of course: Anime. Why am I bringing this up though? Because what better way to contribute to a brand-new column on Inkstick meant to explore the connections between random and fun (or sometimes serious) pop culture phenomena or icons with nuclear weapons and national security than with a brief glance at the medium that’s defined over half of my life so far?Īs much as I want to write a full 50-page thesis discussing the manifestations of the influence of the nuclear weapons age in Japanese anime, I’ll spare you with a superficial history of how Japanese anime got started, a brief look into a handful of titles, and shout-outs to the vanguards of the Harajuku aesthetic and fellows protestors who skip class to read manga and watch anime (myself not included in the skipping class part though *winkwink*). If you’ve been unfortunate enough to follow me on Twitter prior to June of this year, you’ve probably seen anime spam I post on main, but fear not, for I’ve officially moved all cringe-worthy “Haikyuu”-fangirl content to a separate account now. If you don’t know what that term means then you’re lucky, but for the sake of public education, it’s a somewhat derogatory term used to describe mega-fans of Japanese comics and animated TV series or movies referred to as manga and anime respectively. ![]() Frankweiler ),where we link pop culture to national security and foreign policy, is all about one of the columnist’s biggest passions: Anime. Army Air Force serviceman on the mission to document the nuclear device.This month’s installment of Inkstick’s new monthly culture column, The Mixed-up Files of Inkstick Media (inspired by From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. It is assumed that this photo was made by a U.S. It is not known exactly who made this photograph of the mushroom cloud over Nagasaki. It is estimated that another 30,000 died due to the effects of radiation in the aftermath of the explosion, with some deaths occuring many years later. While estimates on the death toll differ, around 40,000 were killed by the initial blast. At 11:02 a.m., the B-29 Superfortress, nicknamed Bockscar, dropped a plutonium bomb code-named "Fat Man." When the bomb exploded some 1,500 feet over Nagasaki, it did so with a force equal to roughly 20,000 tons of dynamite. At the time, Nagasaki was a major port city and naval shipyard. The mission was sent to destroy the arsenal at Kokura, Japan, but due to heavy cloud cover it moved to the secondary target of Nagasaki. On August 9, 1945, the United States detonated an atomic bomb on the Japanese port of Nagasaki. What do you think the reporter meant when he described the bomb as "a living thing, a new species of being, born right before our incredulous eyes"? ![]() It was a living thing, a new species of being, born right before our incredulous eyes." It was no longer smoke, or dust, or even a cloud of fire. A reporter for the New York Times who accompanied the mission wrote of the scene, "Awestruck, we watched it shoot upward like a meteor coming from the earth instead of from outer space, becoming ever more alive as it climbed skyward through the white clouds. Does this the image emphasize or de-emphasize the destructive power of the bomb? How? Where was the photographer located when he or she took this photograph? Why do you think the photographer took the image from this vantage point? (The image was taken from the air from one of the planes on the mission that delivered the bomb to Nagasaki.) From what point of view are we looking at the atomic bomb blast? Where can you find proof of this by examining the condition of the photograph? (The lines that are drawn on it indicate how the picture would have been cropped for various printings.) This image was used repeatedly by the New York Times from 1945 through the mid-1990s.
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