The engagement through warfare between Japan and the United States is presented to have employed destructive racism, but the two sides eventually became allies. Racism created regrettable animosity between the two sides. Dower provides that “To over fifty million men, women, and children, it meant death. To hundreds of millions more in the occupied areas and theaters of combat, the war meant hell on earth: suffering and grief” (Dower 3) regrettably, the war was majorly “fueled by racial pride, arrogance, and rage on many sides.” Both sides of the divide presented their race as superior and deserving more space, resources, and respect than the other. While the US viewed the Japanese as an inferior race similar to apes and therefore subhuman, the Japanese viewed the Americans as agents of doom whose agenda in Asia is to impose impurity in racial composition. While the Americans and Europeans regarded their occupation and colonization of Japanese and other Asians as a religious practice of bringing light to the “primitivism, childishness, and collective mental and emotional deficiency” in Japanese (Dower 9), Japanese viewed Americans as “monsters, devils, and demons” owing to their merciless engagements with people their saw as others. The racist based animosities between the two sides were strong and dangerous, particularly with similar military approaches. Neither of the two warring sides would abandon the battlefield, whether winning or losing. Every person in the war would fight to the bitter end. The result was the deaths of military personnel and civilians by the millions through direct attacks by the enemy or indirectly through severe impacts of the war.
The loss due to the war and realized similarities between the warring sides is a significant pointer for the two to come together. The United States recognized the strength and cruelty of the Japanese and that the Japs were determined to their course. The Japanese were suffering more losses than the Americans as the war was mainly fought on their soil. Both Japan and the United States were also anti-communists. They were facing a common enemy, and a combined force towards the USSR would positively be achieved than wedging in the highly destructive war. The two warring sides could therefore see each other as allies in their racist engagement.
The perceived friendship between Japan and the United States relates to the relationship between Noge and his family in Kurosawa’s No Regrets for Our Youth) Noge is misunderstood as a spy due to his involvement with revolutionary movements at school and matters of national liberation. His marriage to Yukie and his arrest on suspicion of espionage made him an enemy to his community. His family rejected him eleven to deny him a decent burial. They later celebrate him as an advocate for a better life when it dawns that he stood for the betterment of his people. The family found peace. The process was gradual as it required time and proof to accept. The Japanese and the Americans resolved their major differences when they released the danger of racist treatments and the beauty of their similarities. This process was also gradual as it demanded mutual trust especially in among ordinary citizens.
