Everytime I see Bill Wurtz’s History of Japan” video get shared or linked, I cringe a little bit inside.

Here’s the video for those who have not yet seen it.

Yes, it’s in a very much jokey tone.

Yes, I should not be taking it seriously.

But, why does it fail to mention Japanese war crimes?

You will rarely or never see a German history retrospective video fail to mention the Nazis.

It just seems like that the Chinese, Korean and the many other victims of the Japanese during World War 2 don’t really matter compared to what happened in Europe. Yes, it’s just one video, one video that has received nearly 30 million views as of me posting this and is shared frequently by teenagers and young adults alike to ‘learn’ a bit about Japan.

The last generation of survivors from World War 2 are passing away. You can argue that retribution has been had and that Japan was punished for what it did during World War 2, but honestly, they really did not.

Many Japanese war criminal were pardoned through special deals.

Many Japanese war criminals went on to serve in the post-war government, many of their collaborators as well, in the Korean and Taiwanese governments.

These days if a Nazi is found, they are bought to trial but Japanese war criminals can walk scott free.

Many of these war criminals are enshrined as war heroes by the Japanese government.

Many of these war criminals’ descendants do not hold their heads in shame and instead defend their ancestors actions, look at Shinzo Abe, the current leader of Japan.

I mean I could go on with this and talk about how Japan recently tried to cook up a plan to spread bad PR about China (I mean do you really need to?). How they still try to claim land despite their imperialist past. How within the core of society there, well the very old core, there still thrives a very racist and xenophobic society.

Living in Australia, I see enough Rising Sun badgers and insignias. It’s fine, many people don’t understand, it’s like a Jewish person seeing a Nazi swastika but honestly, can we teach history as history and not as a joke?