25 Japanese Reddit Users Share Their Thought on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

1.

Native Japanese in my 20s. The bombings are in our collective mind, the representation of the atrocity of war. There’s definitely a strong victim mentality and the general public do not imagine ourselves to be the aggressors of history. We are completely oblivious to the other s**t we have committed since the education system is structured in a way that let us sweep the past under the rug. We were graced by the US’s intervention that enabled us to erase any acknowledgement of our pasts and spent the last 75 years rebuilding our national identity around being meticulous hard workers. Our society is devoted to turning everyone into company robots,malleable with zero backbone (voter turnout for people in their twenties is about 30%.)We don’t think about politics and our knowledge of history is limited.So in short, bomb=bad=war, and that’s about it.

2.

Native Japanese here. I don’t have much to say about the political/tactical viewpoint since I’m not an expert, just a civilian. And I think that goes for most other civilians as well.The people who lived through it, or whose parents and grandparents lived through it, only know the suffering it caused. In school we were taught dry facts about war, very little emphasis on why any decisions were made. But we did learn a lot about the effects on the common people, to the point where I was tired of spending so much time on it. We visited the bombing sites, heard survivors speak, touched the keloid scars on their arms that still burn decades later. We folded paper cranes and were taught songs that denounced war and promoted peace, as though we were going to be able to make a difference. Today, most of us live quiet lives and don’t think about the atomic bombs, or the firebombing of Tokyo, or the land conflicts in Okinawa. But if asked, nearly every family has a war story, of would-be grandparents who died or children who starved because they were far enough from the conflict but were still affected by the wartime economy. It’s just part of life. We carry the inherited memory of suffering.

3.

Im native Japanese born and raised in Japan! As some of those fellow Japanese already mentioned, in Japanese education system the majority of focus is that we are the victim of the WWII and I did believe that for the longest time. I've been to the museum in Hiroshima and it's simply painful to see those images of people who were bombed. I never wish that to my worst enemy and nuclear weapon should be terminated from this world. but having said that, the US government did not have a better understanding of long lasting effect of nuclear weapons to begin with, and Japanese have even invading those neighbor countries and doing horrendous acts in such place China, Korea, and other South Eastern countries. Massacre and "recruitment"' of comfort women is simply not acceptable and intolerable. It's extremely infuriating that many Japanese media or politicians dismissed those act especially comfort women as something like "every country did that" or "it was a good paying job back then" (I'm looking at you Hashimoto) It saddens me to learn many Japanese friends of mine perceive this era of Japan is just a victim and don't know too much about other historical contexts, but at the same time, many of them don't speak or read in English or other language so it's difficult for them to be exposed to outside view. This might be a unpopular opinion but I did appreciate that Obama paid a visit there during his presidency. After all many people died because of the bomb and many people especially from Hiroshima still struggle with certain health issues.So....long story short. I'm feeling very conflicted.

4.

Native Japanese (half) here, grew up there through high school. The bombings themselves didn't directly affect my family because my grandparents lived in Tokyo and great-grandparents and extended family in the countryside. My grandpa died before I was born but he worked on a battleship in the war.My grandma would tell me how he used to tell her in secret her how Japan could never win, because the US had so much more natural resources, and was more technologically advanced especially as the war progressed. Of course he would have gotten in huge trouble if he had said any of this publicly. I grew up listening to stories and manga depicting the bombing, the aftermath, how people's skin would melt off, etc. I found it more facinating than anything. My grandmother would tell me stories about the surrender. I think (and my Grandmother agreed) that Japan was better off with the bombing as it brought an immediate end to the war. Far more Japanese would have died with a land invasion as the Imperial propaganda during the war was so thorough that civilians would have fought with spears rather than surrender. A lot of people were blindsided and confused by the Emperor's surrender announcement, which was done over radio with archaic (even for the time) Japanese.

5.

It’s a really conflicting feeling. For the longest time, I felt there was no justifying the bombings. The bombings really helped to paint the country as a victim of war when being taught in Japanese history classes & of course no one (including myself) would question it. It’s only when you learn about the other side of the coin & hear about the atrocities that are hidden in Japanese education - such as Nanking and Comfort women that you realise that Japan isn’t in the clear. To this day, I still do not like the fact that my country still go to lengths to forget about their own wrongdoings.In the end, war itself is tragic. The bombings caused a lot of japanese people to suffer but we aren’t the only victims of war. Although I come from a Japanese family, I see other tragedies such as the holocaust in the same light. As I personally didn’t suffer from war, I cannot say my way of thinking is correct.

6.

Native Okinawan here. Okinawa is where the Japanese soldiers decided to fight for the last battle of WWII. If it wasn’t for the bombs I feel as thought the Japanese would have never surrendered and would’ve been completely massacred on the final battle of Okinawa, along with even more Okinawan natives. The Japanese soldiers occupied our land and drove the native Okinawans to the mountains, scavenging resources from civilians and killing us if we didn’t give up our hiding spots. My great-grandfather was stabbed in the stomach for not giving up his hiding cave but luckily survived. It’s all terrible, but I can only imagine if those bombs weren’t dropped then what would have became of my people and the Japanese soldiers who were literally jumping off cliffs/disemboweling themselves/blowing themselves up, because they were told not to be captured as prisoners. I wish the Japanese had surrendered sooner, but they had too much pride.Fun fact: If you have played the original CoD world at war, the final stage is on Okinawa.

7.

I'm from Japan. My views of it are very different now that I live outside of Japan compared to when I was younger and hadn't left Japan. When I was younger i saw it as a horrible thing done to us, no excuses. No reason could justify the horrors of not only the nuclear bombs but also the firebombings. I saw it as the evils war and what warlike mindsets could do to humanity. Japan was 100% the victim. When I was younger it wasn't taught like Japan=Good, America=Bad, more of the bombs are the horrors of war and this is why war is never a good thing. Now that I live in the U.S. I see it's not as simple or black and white. I now understand why the bombs were dropped. I still believe it was a horrible thing, but I do believe it stopped the war which is a good thing. I now feel that what Unit 731 did is more of an example of what evil humanity can accomplish vs the nuclear bombs. But again, I no longer live in Japan and my view point will not be the same as people who have lived there their whole life.

8.

I’m from Japan and subsequently moved to the United States. When I was living in Japan we learned that a lot of people died and it was very sad. There’s a lot of popular media (anime, books, shows) that attempt to illustrate the horrors of the bombings. There were some educators who would always say that it was unfair that (UK and USA) were allowed to colonize and commit atrocities (African slavery, murdering Indigenous Americans) but when Japan attempted to expand, they were told it was inhumane. Once I moved to America, I was conflicted because it seemed to me that if it wasn’t for the bombings, the war would have kept going for awhile and we would have lost even more Japanese lives. At the end of the day, the Japan we know of today was created due to the pain and suffering from yesterday. So for me I would say that the bombings lead us to where we are today and I’m okay with that. There’s no denying it’s sad when civilian lives were lost though.

9.

Native Japanese born but now live in Canada. When I was a kid, it was easy to think of the nuking as pure evil with no reason. The nuke museum in Hiroshima is pretty shy about Japans role as the villain in the WW2. But you only need to learn a little bit of history to change your outlook on these things.The bomb ended the war years early and prevented a land invasion by the US in the face of a regime that had brainwashed the entire population into preparing for a suicidal fight to the bitter end, including training women and children how to fight with bamboo sticks. I think it is fair to assume the rapid post-nuke surrender saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the long run. A land invasion of Japan would have been devastating, a years long guerilla war on top of famine, a deranged Emperor who would rather everyone commit suicide than declare loss, there would be no Japan left. Untold thousands of American soldiers would have been killed too.

10.

I am Japanese, I wasn't raised in Japan because I'm a hafu but I have attended schools in Japan in summer. I remember learning it from an early age by reading books, I was about 4 or 5. I was always very interested in the darker sides of history, so I ended up knowing a lot about WW2 by the time I was around 12. I am not knowledgeable enough to know if it was a necessary decision, but I remember debating against the nuclear bombings as a 12 year old, and I still have those feelings to an extent.Like others said, Japan's history lessons are quite dry from what I've experienced. I think it depends on whether your teacher will teach what really happened beyond the textbooks. I learned about things like comfort women and human experimentation from random googling, or from other hafu friends. At first I didn't understand the animosity between Korea/China and Japan because EU countries didn't have that kind of relationship with Germany. I was around 11 thinking it was about other political/social issues, and being on random websites I didn't know had a bunch of propaganda was an issue.I think what happened ended up solidifying the victim narrative in Japan. Right wing politicians will deny and minimize the suffering imperial Japan caused, and you'll be surprised how many Japanese mothers you grew up with are ignorant towards the atrocities committed during that time. I always feel so frustrated that people buy into the right wing propaganda but it is harder to see pushback on media and social media towards it. For example, there are a lot more Americans or english speaking people that denounce historical revisionism and claiming america was a hero, than Japanese people doing the similar thing.Lastly, I do think the younger generation has hope. Everyone treats the bombings very seriously, everyone has seen a TV program or book for children from a young age about it. But at the same time we know what Japan did during ww2 was also horrible. I remember being in high school in Japan and asking about Filipino-Japanese hafu being more prevalent than others, and my friend telling me "the reason why it happened isn't very good". I think more young people are not trusting the right wing government and beginning to form their own thoughts, not even just with WW2 or historical revisionism but with women's and LGBTQ rights.

11.

Born and grew up in Japan, and moved to North America for the latter half of my life. Parents are from China.The education system never taught me why the government made the decisions that were made and only focused on the day to day of common civilians. It taught me mostly about the elders, women, and children that were trying to survive. I distinctly remember watching this animated film called "Hadashi no Gen" in class and feeling emotional. But while I felt that the war and bombing was tragic, I never thought the countries we fought against were evil or bad for doing what they did. Only after moving to Canada/USA, that's when I slowly started seeing the bigger picture.Unfortunately this is a difficult topic in my life and also a part of the reason why I struggle with my own identity to this day — I've had so many friends (and especially their parents) direct their frustration and anger to me, while I also didn't fit in back in Japan due to my background. For many years, I ended up avoiding talking and thinking about this topic because I didn't have a neutral party to talk to and learn from.I still don't know how to feel. On one hand I think the bombing was a necessary evil, but I also feel that it didn't require a tragedy of that scale to stop Japan as they were already struggling. I really wish the Japanese government would address and own up to their past wrongdoings and grow/learn from that. Honestly, the war was just so tragic for everyone and as an adult I'm still learning. I don't know, maybe I'm just frustrated that I felt stripped of the opportunity to learn and grow before being subject to microaggressions.

12.

Grew up in Japan for 11 years and went to a Japanese public school.Japanese education really emphasizes on how war is evil and gives the aftermath of the atomic bombs as a primary reason. We're reminded about the devastation caused by the atomic bombs through textbooks, anniversaries, and mangas/anime. I remember reading Hadashi No Gen and dive of the depictions of the war were very graphic.It's a double edged sword because on one hand it made Japan a very peaceful nation post world war 2. On the other hand Japan has a victim mentality when it comes to WW2 which is far from the truth...

13.

A bit late but native here. I was born and raised in Japan until I went to another country for university over a decade ago.I feel like it was a bit of an overkill to drop 2 atomic bombs, but given the stuff the Japanese government did, something had to be done. We don't really learn much about the stuff we did but more about the stuff other countries did which I think is bs. We can't learn from our mistakes if we just sweep it under the rug and not talk about it. As much as we are victims of the war (A bomb), we were the perpetrators too. It's very unfortunate that the civilians had to suffer the consequences though.Sidenote: It's a bit weird to me that some prime ministers and some cabinet ministersgoes to the Yasukuni shrine (where the war criminals are buried) and pray at their discretion. It's always news every year whether or not the prime minister will go to the shrine or not. But at the same time, the ultra right wing people are pretty scary so I would not want to mess with then.

14.

Am a native as well. In the annuls of history and necessities of war, I view it as inevitable. It was going to be used at some point by someone on someone. I understand the decision that killing civilians to lessen the casualties of your own soldiers is a logical decision.However one thing that majority of Americans do not seem to understand is the horror of the nature of the bomb. I have observed that the vast majority of Americans (I live in Texas) just seems to think a nuke is just a big bomb, and radiation poisoning just means people fall over dead like poisoned.That is not the case. Most people don't get vaporized, the majority that were unlucky to survive literally walk around like living corpses and melt to death over the course of hours to days. It. Is. Hell. On earth.It is one of the most inhumane weapon to ever have been devised.So next time you hear someone casually say "nuke em" let them know what they're saying is worse than firing squad or gas chamber executions.

15.

I’m hafu. I spent a lot of my school years going back and fourth between Canada and Japan. I don’t really have the opportunity to use English nowadays, so please excuse my bad English.In junior high school we learned about the atomic bomb. The history lessons were really cut and dry. “19XX Event A happened” “19XX Event B happened.” There was no “America bad, Japan good.” They even acknowledged we had anti-American propaganda. Japanese class, was where it got really emotional. We read short stories from the civilians perspective, like the black rain and about the pictures taken by an American photographer. But the overall message was “war is a really terrible thing. We should never repeat it again.” I went to an international school so our teacher also assigned us each a country and present what happened there during the war. This is how I learned about the Nanjing Massacre.After this year, I went back to Canada and learned about the war from the other side. Of course, I learned more about the Nazis but after we very briefly learned about Japans role and the Japanese internment camps in Canada things changed. I had classmates tell me that Japan deserved the atomic bomb, people went out of their way to tell me that it was necessary and of course this would bring up people making Godzilla jokes and laugh at the “stupid Kamikaze kids.” The worst was when some kids (who were probably unaware that I was Japanese, I look very white) slanted their eyes and did “I’m meeeelting” while re-enacting the atomic bombs.The entire time, all I could think of was the stories I read, our field trip to Nagasaki, the pictures we saw like the dead horses on the streets, the woman who had her kimono melt on to her skin, and the boy holding his dead brother standing over the crematorium etc… It honestly, makes me feel a little defensive.To get to the point, I agree that the atomic bomb was needed to end the war. However, I do feel uneasy admitting it because how it’s said with a complete lack of empathy towards the civilians. The government handled it horribly, they deserve the hate.

16.

I can talk about my personal opinion, with the caveat that I moved to the US when I was 14 and have been here for about a decade now.There's some part of me that thinks that Hiroshima was somewhat necessary to expedite the end of the war. Though I'm sure Japan would have surrendered, who knows how long it would've taken without the bombings. I believe, however, that we would've surrendered without the Nagasaki bombings, and that bombing was largely a show of force by the US to act as a warning against the Soviet Union, and also trying to knock Japan out of the war before the Soviets got involved on the pacific front (they failed, obviously, given the korean war).But after all the strategy and politics is done, there's really only sadness for the families that were killed during the bombings. Can you imagine, a whole city of civilians disintegrated in a flash, then thousands more dying painful deaths from radioactive poisoning? War is hell and more people have died from other bombings, but the sheer scale and efficiency of the atomic bombs were displayed only twice in history, and Japan's going to carry those scars in its culture for a long time.

17.

Native born Japanese here. I personally think that the nuclear bombings, while horrible atrocities, were a necessary evil for the survival of our people. My grandfather was a naval officer during the war and told me many a story of how indoctrinated people were back then. If the bombings never happened, so many more Japanese and American (possibly Soviet as well) lives would have been lost in an invasion campaign due to the our military's unwillingness to surrender. The entire mindset of our people would never have been reformed, and like what others have said, Japan would be a shell of what it is today.

18.

I'm a Japanese Canadian, born in Nagasaki. My parents and grandparents are all from Nagasaki and I got to ask my grandmother about it since she lived through it. Although she wasn't at the centre of the bombing, she saw the mushroom clouds from the school courtyard and thought the world was ending. She said she'll never forget that sight and the fear she felt on that day. I also got to visit the Peace Memorial and saw the photos, artifacts, and testimonies and it finally sunk in how devastating the bombing was to the people of Nagasaki since as someone who was raised in Canada, it didn't really effect me much growing up. My parents also told me that even to the younger generations, seeing all the loss that they experienced is something that was, and is, necessary to reflect on the atrocities of war. Speaking strictly about the bombings, I think the people of Nagasaki commemorate those they lost and the suffering the prefecture went through, rather than talk about who dropped the bomb and the events leading up to it.

19.

I am Japanese. Born and raised in Saitama before I moved to America a few years ago. My English is not strong so I apologize in advance if I'm not very eloquent. Going through both education systems, I have conflicted feelings over both the things my country did and the things America did to my people and my country. In my opinion, I dont think that either side can make any justification on things that happen during war. I'd rather not specify these atrocities as it's a very sensitive subject and some may not have the stomach to read it. In general, I think that a good first step for both my home country and America's is to accept that war happens, and it's genuinely awful, but we can still acknowledge those awful things that happened.

20.

I'm a native Japanese and my grandparents experienced the war. (I live in the US now) Make no mistake, Japan was not the victim; its people were. But in Japan, the narrative around the bombings are often told from very personal lenses, focusing on all the human suffering that the bombings caused. The education system does an insufficient job of teaching about Japan's role in the war. I worry that the emotional storytelling being louder than fact-based education has allowed Japan, as a country, to pose as the victim when it was in fact the aggressor. I worry that more and more, the narrative is getting warped and that the anger of the Japanese people, especially the younger generations, are getting directed at the wrong things.I've visited the Smithsonian exhibit of Enola Gay with other (younger generations) native Japanese... they were angry that the plane was there. How could they? they said. But they said nothing of the Japanese jets that were also on display. I think that says a lot.

21.

Native from Nagasaki here. My stepdad was in the US Navy so I kind of got both points of view going to both Japanese and American DoD schools. In Japanese curriculum, we are taught to focus more on peace and how bad war is and how it effected so many people while in American schools, it felt like it was more focused on “well they did this so we did that”. Every country involved in WW2 did unspeakable things, Japan included, whether they actively teach it in schools or not. Was Pearl Harbor warranted? No. Were the atomic bombs warranted? Also no. Involving civilians that have nothing to do with the government and military agenda is wrong either way. But as someone who has family members and who is personally battling health issues directly connected to the atomic bomb, I feel a little angry. Almost all of my family members have died from cancer from the radiation. My mother and I were far from born at the time of the bombings and we are both dealing with chronic illnesses that are likely caused by the lingering radiation and radiated food and water supplies, as well as the hereditary effects of being exposed to radiation, which is something that most people don’t think about nowadays.So long story short, am I angry that it happened? Absolutely. Does it hurt my heart knowing that my people were killed in that way? Yes. But is it a lesson learned on the effects of wartime weapons and how they should or shouldn’t be used? Yes.

22.

I'm Japanese (born in Japan, raised there as a kid, fluent in the language etc) and I'm probably going to be downvoted for not 100% following the prevailing narrative here that the bombings were necessary to end the war. There is evidence to suggest it was unnecessary. Obviously nobody can be sure of any of this as there isn't a way to go back in time, but it is far from being clear.Also, the atrocities and massacres committed by Japanese military forces should be denounced and should 100% be talked about (in detail in the Japanese education system), but it does not mean that civilians deserved to be killed in such massive numbers.The Japanese military were brutal and many acted horrifically. Thankfully my own grandparents' contribution to the war was fairly minimal and my grandpa didn't have to go fight...but they both were heavily affected by it. In the end though, despite the brainwashing of the government, they both came to become fairly liberal and open minded people. Despite conservative right wing nationalists and their trying to erase history, I do think more Japanese people are starting to have a more nuanced view of WWII. Change is slow, but if my grandparents were able to change their views, I have faith others will too.

23.

Japanese American here. I received an American education, so for the longest time I believed that the atomic bombs were justified because "the Japanese wouldn't have surrendered" / Pearl Habor / Nanking / Comfort women / Etc.When my father first told me of the Japanese side of the story when I was a freshmen in college, I laughed and said he needed to learn more history because "that's all Japanese propaganda". Little did I know that 10 years later I would start to take him more seriously.I was always aware of the concept of "History is always written by the winners", but this incident led me to really internalize the concept. Today I am much more agnostic and centrist when it comes to political ideologies.

24.

Native Japanese teen here. I think any war in history is something that should never be forgotten and should stand as a warning of what not to do in the future. War is killing for no real purpose other than a belief that someone can be fixed posthumously. That being said, I don’t think any Japanese person alive now really cares about WW2 or it’s outcome. Most have moved on with no real personal connection to what happened other than lineage. Present day Japan is a total mess with a toxic modern day culture with none of the original honor or code of ethics that made Japan what it was hundreds of years ago.