[Vettezuki]

So I watched Letters from Iwo Jima on DVD. Regrettably, I have to say I was a little disappointed. It is a fictionalized story that is ostensibly portraying some Japanese perspectives of WWII and the Battle of Iwo Jima. Now, keeping in mind I'm a bit of a military history buff and I'm deeply interested in Japanese language and culture, the movie basically comes off as what it is, a Hollywood imagined perspective. The history of course is sadly, almost infinitely more sad. The story does curiously, perhaps accidentally, touch on some fascinating aspects of the Japanese war effort, particularly the division between the Navy and Army. However, the movie sort of suggests the Army is somehow "honorable" and the Navy are sort of pricks. History might say otherwise.

Nevertheless, perhaps the main idea that we are all people, limited to one degree or another by the lives we are born into still resonates. Just after watching the movie, I checked my email and received a perfectly ordinary email from my Japanese colleague in Japanese. Wouldn't have been possible just 62 years ago.