Existing comment:
Japan Views the Enemy:
The depiction of Westerners in Japanese propaganda was deeply influenced by the self-image held by the Japanese. They were taught that they belonged to a uniquely spiritual and physically pure "Yamato race" destined to emancipate Asia from Western domination and lead the world along the path of virtue. They were the "leading race" and the war was presented as an act of individual and collective purification.
If the Japanese were pure and moral, Americans and other Westerners were seen as materialistic, individualistic, and greedy. They were often portrayed as beasts, demons and deranged or degenerate humans. These demonic and beastly outsiders imperiled the sacred Japanese homeland and had to be utterly destroyed, even exterminated. This view of the enemy was influenced by folk beliefs concerning outsiders and the ambiguous gods or demons who could be forces for both good or evil. Claws, fangs, horns, and animal hindquarters were used to depict the Western beasts. The use of animal caricatures was almost entirely random, but they tended to be highly personalized; often creatures representing the enemy bore the face of Western leaders. They were brutes wearing the mask of humanity. |