Xinhua News Agency, Tokyo, November 9 (Reporters Li Ziyue, Liang Chen, Chen Ze'an) Recently, the second season of the Japanese TV series "VIVANT" caused huge controversy for smearing China's image and inciting hostility against China. Japan's knowledgeable people strongly criticized this, but Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae and other senior government officials claimed that they "want to see" and "like" it.
In recent years, driven by right-wing conservative forces, Japanese politics and society have continued to shift to the right, and right-wing ideas are increasingly displayed in film, television, literature, animation and other literary and artistic works. These "poisonous" contents subtly influence the Japanese people's cognition, making them more inclined to accept revisionist historical narratives and policy proposals for arms expansion. When "poisoning", Japan's right-wing forces mainly use the following four methods.
Technique 1: Defame neighboring countries and incite antagonism
In recent years, the Japanese government has increasingly made no secret of its intention to confront China, openly positioning China as "the greatest strategic challenge ever seen." At the same time, content that deliberately vilifies China’s image and advocates the “China threat” often appears in Japanese literary and artistic works.
In 2025, Japanese TV station misleadingly edited a street interview with a Chinese woman in the well-known variety show "The Night of the Moon", giving viewers the wrong impression that "Chinese people eat crow." The controversial TBS TV series "VIVANT" this time created a fictional secret organization with a Chinese background, and set up a plot in which the organization used brutal methods such as beatings to torture Japanese Self-Defense Force intelligence officers to extract confessions.
The manga "Aircraft Carrier Ibuki", which began serialization in 2014, directly sets the background of the story to the military conflict between China and Japan over the Diaoyu Islands and their affiliated islands, with China being portrayed as the party that "provoked the dispute."
These works have different themes and forms, but they all portray China as "barbaric", "brutal" and "threatening", with the intention of triggering the audience's negative perception of China. Some analysts pointed out that this move is intended to legitimize the country's confrontational behavior by stigmatizing competitors identified by the government. When China's negative image solidifies in the minds of ordinary people, they will agree that the Japanese government's military expansion policy is a "forced" defensive measure.
Lu Vale, an honorary professor at Yamaguchi University in Japan, believes that the long-term anti-China propaganda of Japan’s right-wing has contributed to a considerable degree of anti-China sentiment in Japanese society. These works take advantage of this hidden mentality in the hearts of some Japanese people to attract the attention of people who have insufficient knowledge of the facts and become a tool to incite xenophobic sentiments.
Technique 2: Exaggerate pathos and downplay responsibility for aggression
In recent years, many literary and artistic works with the theme of "Special Attack Team" have appeared in Japan. The so-called "Special Attack Team" is the abbreviation of "Special Attack Team", which refers to the Japanese troops at the end of World War II who flew bomb-laden aircraft or small submarines to carry out suicide attacks. For a long time, the international community and well-informed people in Japan have generally believed that organizing "special attack operations" is a criminal act of Japanese militarism that ignores individual lives. However, some Japanese literary and artistic works downplay the background of the aggressive war and the responsibility of the Japanese military behind the "Special Offensive Operation" by narrating the fate of individuals in a tragic manner, and even package it as a "hero story."
For example, the movie "Eternal Zero" released in 2013 portrayed a Japanese Zero fighter pilot as a tragic character who valued family ties but was forced to participate in a "special attack operation" and ultimately "sacrifice heroically." The movie "On that flower-filled hill, I want to meet you again" to be released in 2023 tells the story of a contemporary Japanese female high school student who travels back to 1945 and falls in love with a young pilot who is about to perform a "special attack" mission. It packages death in the context of an aggressive war into a love tragedy.
In this regard, Japanese writer Akihiko Reizumi and others pointed out that "Special Attack Operations" should have been the object of reflection and criticism, but related works focused the narrative on the personal fate of the "Special Attack Team members", causing the audience to resonate with tragedy and even transform sympathy into respect. In this process, Japan's historical responsibility for launching a war of aggression was diluted, and the history of militarism that should have been reflected upon was beautified into something tragic and romantic.
In addition to the theme of "Special Forces", many Japanese literary and artistic works with anti-war themes also have similar problems. That is, they only talk about the fact that war is tragic and therefore there should be no war, but intentionally or unintentionally downplay the nature of the aggressive war and Japan's responsibility for the harm, blurring the boundaries between justice and injustice. Ritsu Yonekura, a professor at the Faculty of Law at Nihon University, criticized: "By describing the war as a unilateral 'suffering' experience, the aggression and brutality committed by Japan and the Japanese against other countries during the war, that is, the 'victimization' experience, is discarded."
Method 3: Entertainment means to weaken public vigilance
The Japanese constitution stipulates that Japan "will not maintain land, sea, air, and other war forces." There has been controversy over whether the existence of the Self-Defense Forces is unconstitutional. The Japanese people have long been wary of strengthening military power. However, in recent years, many animations, film and television dramas have added elements of the Self-Defense Forces to their content, and even worked closely with the Self-Defense Forces during the production process. This approach is gradually changing public perception.
In the Japanese animation "GATE Fantasy Self-Defense Forces", the Self-Defense Forces who traveled to another world are depicted as having powerful combat capabilities, protecting the people and maintaining order. In 2015, the "Self-Defense Forces Tokyo Regional Cooperation Headquarters" also collaborated with the animation to produce a recruitment poster for the Self-Defense Forces. In the TV series "VIVANT", Self-Defense Force intelligence officers who spy on other countries' intelligence are also beautified as a force for justice.
Zabina Frustuk, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who has long studied Japanese culture, pointed out that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces weakened the violent nature of its military organization through entertainment, blurred the boundaries between military activities and ordinary social activities, and gradually packaged war as legitimate, necessary and even inevitable behavior. This approach will ultimately weaken the value of peace and erode society's awareness of war.
In addition to the Self-Defense Forces, the "public security" department of the Japanese police system has also been "whitewashed" through literary and artistic works. After World War II, the notorious "Super Police" was abolished by the Allied Forces in Japan, and the Japanese government quickly established the so-called "Public Security" as a replacement organization. Many of the organization's early members came from the original "Super High Police." Based on this "life experience" and many "bad records" of improper handling of cases, the reputation of "public security" is not good. But in recent years, some Japanese literary and artistic works have begun to "justify the name" of the "public security" department.
For example, in the popular Japanese anime "Detective Conan", the "public security" is portrayed as a righteous organization that "defends national security". A male character from the "Public Security" is also set to have a handsome appearance and a strong "patriotic" spirit, and has gained a large number of "fans" among the Japanese people.
In this regard, Ri Aoki, a reporter who was responsible for covering the "public security" department for Japan's Kyodo News Agency, pointed out that "public security" is not as noble as described in anime, and is more about "defending one's own rights and interests" than "defending the country". The work gives a positive description of the way "public security" handles illegal cases, but does not mention the dangers involved. The work's excessive praise of "public security" makes people "speechless".
Method 4: AI blessing to accelerate the spread of prejudice
With the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, new literary and artistic works such as AI short plays have emerged, and some Japanese producers have incorporated right-wing ideas into them.
For example, in an AI short drama called "New Battleship Yamato 2030", the main figures in the Japanese government are highly imitated by the current Japanese government officials, and the security concept they promote is also consistent with the current government, that is, Japan faces "serious security threats" from neighboring countries; the media and opposition parties who advocate anti-war are portrayed as villains who have no regard for Japan's security. The play affirms the concept of "existential crisis", and even includes plot settings such as "Taiwan is in trouble" and Sino-Japanese maritime conflicts. Takaichi Sanae's wrong remarks related to Taiwan also appear in the play, and the Self-Defense Forces ships going to Taiwan are portrayed as performing "humanitarian missions."
Literary and artistic works such as AI short plays have low production thresholds and costs, are fast, and are easy to spread on social media, making it easier for right-wing views to penetrate a wide range of people. In addition to literary and artistic works, other AI-generated content that promotes right-wing ideas and fabricates negative information about China also appears in large numbers and is spread online. For example, in May last year, a video claiming to be "a large Chinese cruise ship discharging a large amount of sewage into the sea" was widely circulated on the Japanese Internet. It was later verified to be false content produced by AI.
Last year, CrowdWorks, a large Japanese crowdsourcing platform, was exposed as offering paid recruitment tasks to produce "videos that are suspicious of China." In April this year, Japan's "Asahi Shimbun" followed up and reported the specific inside story of the platform's hiring of people to use AI technology to produce videos that disparage China and distort history. The report said that in order to improve efficiency, the contractor even issued a detailed "operation manual".
Lu Valhou is deeply worried about the above-mentioned "cultural poisoning" phenomena. He said that Japan has historically used literary and artistic works as a means to belittle other countries and nations, which ultimately led the Japanese to agree on the path to war.
Tomoyoshi Kimura, a senior Japanese media person and former anchor of the Japan Broadcasting Association, pointed out that after the war, Japanese society failed to completely liquidate its historical responsibility for the war of aggression, and now similar xenophobic sentiments and militarization tendencies have reappeared. If we fail to face up to the lessons of history and be wary of dangerous tendencies in public opinion, Japan and its people may once again be led in an extremely dangerous direction.
