Having read through the text, it looks pretty much boilerplate Japanese apology.
Probably the same boilerplate that Sony used in 2011 and again this year. And will use every time this happens again.
People dressing up as Wermacht isnt common here but I’ve seen it often enough that its not uncommon either. In fact one of the local monthly airsoft magazines has a feature every issue of a girl about the same age group as these idoru dressed up in WWII uniforms. Most often German.
Here are photos I took of a sales booth at a military surplus/airsoft event in May 2016 showing the woman working there enjoying a seltzer and tables showing some of the product for sale:
One row over was a frenchman from a military surplus shop outside Paris. I was there with two other frenchmen at the time. No one was happy about this. I made a point to speak to the owner of the event about this.
I didnt take pictures of the attendees who were in various German uniforms including Wermacht & Waffen SS replicas. Unfortunately that doesnt register so much with me any more.
Not entirely correct. The Diary of Anne Frank is read by many Japanese and IIRC the Japanese are the #1 visitors to the Frank House in Amsterdam. There is even a holocaust museum in Hiroshima. Nonetheless what people here respond to is the very powerful iconography and design of the Reich’s uniforms & weapons.
What people here often lack is any connection between the past and the present. This isnt just the past of the world outside Japan but very much Japan’s own past. Before anyone inserts the standard net.warcrimes rant, my comment here is far more broad than the 20th Century.
It is precisely the emotional impact of the design which draws people to it and not just here. Not for the “shock value” or ideological reasons but for the power of the design itself.
Some military uniform designs are in fact very powerful at capturing people’s imaginations. Gibson wrote an entire novel where this fit deeply in the plot line. Early this year or maybe last year, a company in Kyoto did a series of men’s kimonos based on current US camouflage patterns. Actual silk printed ACU or MARPAT for example:
(sorry for the poor quality, I took pictures of the magazine to show someone, never bothered scanning it and am too lazy/tired now to dig up the company website.)
Actually the IJA/INJ had some very stylish uniforms, especially for officers. As for ideology, well, um… perhaps you havent really read much on late 19th/early 20th century Japanese history? Rest assured, theres plenty out there in English detailing the well formed, detailed and wide spread (domestically) ideology. Two keyphrases to start your search are “Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere” or “Eight Houses, One Roof”.
WIthout getting into the arguments over ever increasing Chinese statistics, I think we have a very different understanding of the word “similar”. To put it another way, 70 years after the fact the world Jewish population still hasnt recovered to its pre-WWII numbers but since 1950, China’s population has more than tripled:
Basically no matter how good the IAJ was, the impact (to say nothing of the Intent) is different.
