[ SECRET POST #2293 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2293 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 05 pages, 105 secrets from Secret Submission Post #328.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[truxillogical]

Okay, yes, the disaster was depicted with a bandaid and an icepack--because the comic is about countries being depicted as very cartoony human beings. That's how you show someone being hurt. Sheesh, stay away from political cartoons; you'd be amazed at what trivial sorts of things those use to convey the concept of all manner of atrocities.

Secondly, Japan isn't trivializing anything. Japan does deal with frequent earthquakes, and it does have plans in place for disaster efforts, and it has the money, the manpower, and the organization to implement those plans.

I thought this comic did a good job of capturing the mindset when the earthquake happened. My cousin went to do mission work in Haiti shortly after their earthquake. She's still there and it still hasn't fully recovered. At the time of the Japanese earthquake, it was still in absolutely horrible condition. But people and the media forgot all about continuing aid to Haiti in light of the New Crisis in Japan, even though Japan really did have things much more under control because they are a well-organized, first-world country.

That's all this comic is doing. It's not trivializing the crisis--it's pointing out that the Western media reaction to it was basically to treat Japan like the new Haiti, against their wishes, and to only focus on Japan instead of other, smaller areas that had also been affected and needed help.

[(Anonymous)]

OK, so, why you do have a point that a lot of media kind of latched onto Japan as the new "in vogue" charity, but really, coming from someone who was living in Japan at the time of the earthquake and still is. Japan was not prepared for this. Beside a large scale earthquake that resulted in a tsunami so large that Japan has redone their existing tsunami ranking system, you also had a nuclear meltdown(which of course drew a lot of attention to disaster) that has forced thousands of people evacuate their life long homes.

I know now two years later it seems like Japan has recovered, but that's not true, Japan, while small, is bigger than Haiti and the part that was directly hit by the disaster, you still have people living in temporary housing in places like school yards, and that area was already in a state of decline due to a rapidly aging population and younger people emigrating to places like Tokyo, which now has the effect of making it harder to revitalize these areas.

So, yes, depicting Japan has having just a band-aid and an ice pack seems very trivializing to me.

[(Anonymous)]

But the comic was made before the nuclear disaster. Just pretend Japan has a concussion you will feel better.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

The nuclear didn't happen after the quake/tsunami, it happened as a direct result of it, and while, yes it didn't reach it's worst state until a week later, it was a still a big fucking deal because a nuclear plant had lost power and if you don't get it back on in a quick enough time, bad shit will happen, end of story.

OK, so the comic is dated March 12, 2011, and given that Scandinavia isn't that far behind Japan in terms of time zones, I could maybe say not realizing the full scope of the damage yet because of lack of news, and I have no idea if she ever said anything later as news came out, but in retrospect this comic looks damn foolish/callous and uncouth.

Also, don't just sit there and tell me to act like Japan just had a concussion, did you somehow not comprehend the part where I was in Japan during the quake? The whole point of my original comment is that this comic grossly downplays what happened in the Tohoku region, and pretending that it's a concussion is still down playing the terrible things that the people of Tohoku went through and the hardships many of them still live with today. (Like the fact that many of the people who lost their homes are still living in temporary housing on places like public parks and school grounds, and many, many other things.)

[truxillogical]

That's fair. I mean, honestly, we're still feeling repercussions from Katrina in Louisiana. (And yeah, I forgot about the whole Imminent Nuclear Doom aspect of it).

And I guess I get that it feels trivializing, but at the same time, again, I keep coming back to the mindset of political cartoons, where big ideas are portrayed in small ways. But it's fair to feel like that wasn't enough to portray the disaster.

I guess I just felt like the point of that comic was more America and Europe's tendency to rush from disaster to disaster, depending on what the media said was more "cool."

[(Anonymous)]

The art style doesn't excuse the content, sorry. She could've done more and still be 'cartoony', like bruises or putting Japan even a crutch. A band-aide and icepack don't cut it.

And also, while Japan does have means of taking care of itself, you can't deny that Japan needed assistance and that people were justified in being worried and making donations. They absolutely did not have it 'under control', first world country or not. It was a disaster, and the fact that it happened to a first-world country in no way minimizes it.

And I disagree, in case you didn't notice. I felt the comic made light of the disaster, for the reasons I've mentioned. I saw no where mentioned where Japan didn't want the aid, so you're welcome to provide a source to that.

But as I said to the other poster, you've already made up your mind about me and about the comic, so I'm really just wasting my time.

[truxillogical]

Wow. That's, um...that's some hostility there, anon.

You have some issues with this. I'm sorry that she didn't represent Japan as beat up as you believe the cartoon representation of a person should have been. The whole comic, if you haven't noticed, is based on representing big, often bad (like, say, wars) in small, cartoony ways. Again, much like any actual political comic from the past hundred years.

Does the comic make light of a disaster? Ye-ees? But not in a way that dismisses it. You can do both, actually. Check out people from Louisiana who almost immediately started snarking about Katrina, while at the same time regathering themselves, helping out, or mourning. Sometimes in the wake of a disaster, you need that levity.

Japan did not need the assistance as much as the smaller islands and places still struggling with previous disasters did, but Japan was the country getting all of the media attention, and therefore the lion's share of the aid. Again, that is the whole point of the comic.

But yes, you are wasting your time. Not so much in trying to have a discussion or an argument, but in being so angry, years later, about a silly, one-shot comic.

(I mean, heck, Humon's made way more tasteless, indefensible comics. This just seems an odd hill to die on.)