The Last Himeyuri, ひめゆり — Yukio sonnet
"cleaning the wounded" ZJC (2008)
This is Yukio, a 10 year-old girl from the story I am trying to tell of the Himeyuri nurses of Okinawa. The goal of this movie is not to judge one side or another but to tell a story; however, being an American born many years after all this happened, it is much harder to be non-biased than I ever thought. Perhaps it is impossible.
I chose to make an animated movie based on the events surrounding these girls for the simple fact that the medium known as anime, that is, animated movies from Japan, has the potential to be astounding. It is true that in the last twenty years or so American cartoons have been created with messages so simplistic that even ape creatures with sub-par intelligence cannot fail to get the meaning (“Teasing hurts!” “God is good!” “Lying to Homeland Security is bad!”) but the beauty and craft being used today in Japan rivals anything Hollywood has produced; and because it is a drawing anime can do things live-action movies simply cannot … plus the more obvious fact that I can get this project done on a shoe-string budget, poverty having its limitations.
However, having said all that, I find it frustrating that Japanese anime, much like some modern American poetry, has shown the tendency over the years to reach for the lowest common denominator again and again. I find it rather pathetic that, when boiled down to its roots, most stories being told in anime appear content to revolve around only a couple of themes — most of which are geared at 12 year-old male fantasies of big-breasted girls with big guns causing big explosions in one form or another. Much like our current instance that poetry needs to confuse to be deemed deep (“It all has to mean something!”); I am sure there are plenty of consumers who feel that animated porn-brain-candy is as far as the art needs to go, thank you very much.
But there are real stories out there that need to be told; I write this at a time of scandal within the Japanese public school system concerning textbooks (i.e., the histories currently being taught to the next generation) that rewrite the Imperial Army's role and actions not only on Okinawa but all during the first half of the century leading up to WWII as almost benign:
“Reflecting [on] Japanese tendency towards self-favoring historical revisionism, historian Stephen Ambrose noted that the Japanese presentation of the war to its children runs something like this: 'One day, for no reason we ever understood, the Americans started dropping atomic bombs on us.'”
This is, of course, not an isolated event — as Winston Churchill noted, “History is rewritten by the victors” … or at least their children. I live in a country that prides itself on the democratic ease of our collective amnesia over things we just did (“What? We allowed our President to invade Iraq? I thought my edgy bumper sticker put an end to war! Say, let's pull out!”) but instead of allowing our institutions to gloss over, dumb down or simply rewrite activities that have occurred in our country's name, wouldn't it be better to bring these issues into the spotlight for discussion and discourse?
That leads to a problem, however; it is frightfully easy to make a bold claim like I don't want to judge other people when trying to tell a story such as this … but actually doing it is another thing. Perhaps I am incapable of being non-biased? I do not know.
To tell the stories of the Himeyuri nurses is to tell of teenage girls willing to sacrifice themselves for such issues as patriotism, their families and Okinawa homes, as well as a deep fear of what the invading army would do to them if they were caught. It is a story of the Japanese Imperial Army that exploited these fears and the local population, using them as cheap labor, indentured soldiers, human shields against an enemy it had no hopes of defeating. It is also a story of an American army that carpet-bombed the civilian Okinawa population with missiles and rockets; that had no qualms about going cave to cave across the island, burning alive anyone — solider, civilian, mother, father and child — who didn't immediately surrender. “The Battle of Okinawa has one of the highest casualties rates throughout World War II: the Japanese lost over 90,000 troops, and the Allies (mostly United States) lost over 50,000 men in combat. It is unknown the exact number but conservative estimates put the number of civilians wounded or killed in the 'hundreds of thousands.'”
Perhaps I won't be able to be as nonjudgmental as I hope; coming as I am from the safety of a life in Michigan, United States, in the year 2008. Even though all of this takes place twenty-five years before I was even born it is a story I don't want to forget; even if cartoons and poetry seem a simple way of telling it, it is better than not telling it at all.
Since this is a cartoon and I'm not good
drawing and it is a history and
it is not mine, yet; I would, if I could,
draw the last Army Medic Unit – bland
and blank – right before our bombs start falling.
I love color so right before fire claimed
them, I'd show you the young nurses picking
maggots from the bandages of the maimed.
The job of ten year-old girls; every grand
image that words protect you from seeing.
Since this is a cartoon full of unnamed
lives, full of childlike morals that demand
nothing from us; only that once hurting
others made us both humble and ashamed.