Bonus Perspectives: UK Riots, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Punisher Films, and "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
Bonus Perspectives: UK Riots, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Punisher Films, and "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"
The U.K. is in turmoil, Nagasaki's mayor snubbing Israel causes controversy, a rare video game adaptation of a novel, and more.
Bonus Perspectives is a weekly column series containing my thoughts on the latest Western news and Japanese news, as well as film, television, music, book, and video game recommendations. It’s free for all subscribers to this Substack, but if you enjoy my writing, consider opting for a paid subscription. Doing so will give you access to exclusive in-depth pieces and my entire backlog of work. Your support is greatly appreciated!
Riots Rage Across the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom descended into violent riots earlier this month after three girls were stabbed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party on July 29 in Southport. Alice Dasilva Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King, 6, all died in the attack while ten other people sustained serious injuries. This horrific event sparked widespread protests across the country, with rioters causing damage everywhere from Liverpool to Belfast.
Misinformation around the suspect immediately spread before the bodies were even cold, with anti-immigration rioters believing him to have been a migrant connected to Islam. It was not until days later when police announced that 17-year-old Axel Muganwa Rudakubana had been charged for the stabbing. Currently in custody, he is not an illegal migrant or asylum seeker, but a native to the U.K. born in Wales to Rwandan parents. While little is known about him, he appears to fit the profile of many teenage killers with no prior criminal record and poor social skills. A motive still has not yet been revealed, but local police do not believe it to be terror-related.
As with most riots, however, emotions run high before all the facts to come in. Southport locals erupted into violent outrage, targeting a mosque and attacking police. Never mind that Rudakubana’s family are devout Christians and that Christianity is the largest religion in Rwanda with Muslims being a minority. Again though, rioters do not wait for facts. If it isn’t clear already, let me take this opportunity to unequivocally state that I condemn both Rudakubana for his senseless crime and these rioters for the incredibly stupid destruction they have caused. Both should be punished to the fullest extent of U.K. law and I hope that justice is served.
With that throat-clearing done, it’s clear to me that the chances of there being nuanced discussion around this event are less than a snowball’s in Hell. I initially attempted to do this on Twitter last week, but temporarily forgot that it was Twitter, which is only slightly less of a trash heap than the dumpster fire photo above this paragraph. I was accused of everything from being a weak-willed centrist to an apologist for mass migration, so here I am now with my lowly column trying to check all the boxes in addressing every side.
Firstly, I think riots are almost always counterproductive. They achieve very little apart from millions of dollars in property damage, people being injured or even killed, and make it extremely unlikely that any political goals will actually ever be met. Those who had nothing to do with Rudakubana’s stabbing did not deserve to have their businesses and places of worship attacked, while these riots are only causing financial strain on neighborhoods that are already suffering economically. Less reported by the media is that violent counter riots have also occurred, which only reminds me of Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous speech on violence begetting violence.
At the same time, I think both the left and right are often hypocritical with what kind of violence they condemn. I fully remember the utter ridiculousness of 2020 in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Books such as “In Defense of Looting” were unironically being promoted by outlets like NPR, while other outlets tried their best to frame violent protests in cities like Portland and Kenosha being literally on fire as somehow “mostly peaceful.” It was wrong when the left did it in 2020 and it’s wrong that people on the right can’t bring themselves to condemn these riots either.
But let’s address the other side of this debate, which is why these riots happened in the first place. The resulting violence has ensued because for too long the United Kingdom prioritized illegal immigrants over its own people. As a small island country, the U.K. cannot afford to have boats carrying tens of thousands of illegal migrants every year and it’s understandable why locals are opposed to more people taking up their already abused welfare system. When you pair this with the reality that White Britons are on their way to become a minority in their own country, as studies have repeatedly shown, it’s no surprise that more locals are disgruntled than ever before.
In his recent column for The Spectator, Douglas Murray points out how many of this month’s riots have taken place in towns where the unemployment rate for locals has not improved in 13 years. The foreign-born workforce, however, rose from 14 percent to 21 percent. Despite the U.K. government promising to help its own people, it has tried to put a band-aid on the problem with cheap immigrant labor which does little to actually benefit the existing population. These are towns which clearly feel left behind. But instead of addressing core issues like these, the U.K. government is trying to double down on its already draconian social media policies under the guise of fighting hatred. While I’m all for combating misinformation, we know from past precedent that the U.K. will arrest people just for telling mildly off-color jokes online.
As someone who also contributes to The Spectator, I recently wrote a piece on how Japan won’t repeat the West’s mistakes on immigration. The Japanese government has increased immigration over the last 20 years, but at manageable numbers and with strict screening standards. Skilled workers who come here must speak Japanese and have the relevant qualifications for their field, while existing strong legal and social bulwarks prevent rapid cultural change. The U.K. government did not exercise the same caution and is now in a mess of its own making.
I am an immigrant to Japan who also comes from a family of immigrants that moved to America and Canada. In all of our situations, we learned the local language and worked hard to become a contributing member of our adopted countries. It is for this reason why I remain steadfast in my opposition to illegal immigration and only believe that those completely willing to integrate should be accepted as legal immigrants. Illegal immigration makes all of us look bad, while legal immigrants who are ungrateful to the countries that accepted them should never have come in the first place.
As I mentioned earlier, however, I do not expect there to be any nuanced conversation gained from these riots and their aftermath. The protestors who resorted to violence will not succeed in having their grievances heard, while those who exist in a different reality and act like mass immigration has not been a disaster for the U.K. will only double down on their views. Meanwhile, the authorities have done an awful job addressing the causes of the violence and are only pouring more gasoline onto the fire. At the end of this, three children are dead and a small town is in mourning. It’s a shame no one will learn anything from this.
79th Anniversary of Japan Atomic Bombings, Israel Snubbed From Nagasaki Peace Ceremony
Japan made international headlines recently for a few reasons. The first was the Japanese stock market experiencing its worst crash since 1987, only to rebound shortly after. Many messaged me about what this means, but economics is about as far away from my expertise as you can get, so as always I recommend reading my fellow Japan colleagues Gearoid Reidy and Tobias Harris for their thoughts. If I was good at math I’d probably be in a far more lucrative field, but to quote Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File, which I recommended in last week’s column, “I can make two and two into something different every time I put those particularly unreliable digits together.”
Another piece of notable news is the Japanese government’s prediction of the Nankai Trought earthquake, which could potentially kill over 320,000 people. Again, I received many messages about this, but there’s not much I can really say about something that may or may not happen. Living in Japan always carries the risk of needing to deal with natural disasters and there’s only so much you can do to prepare for them. Kyoto is generally safer than most other places, but I suppose those could become famous last words one day. I once again direct you to Gearoid’s column on the topic, which more or less mirrors my own thoughts.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that he would not be seeking re-election next month, but I’ll save my thoughts on that for next week’s column.
Instead, I’ll weigh in on something that I’m sure won’t be controversial at all: Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Israel. We’re one year away from marking the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombs that ended World War II, but the mood was still more somber than ever and unexpectedly politicized for the 79th after Israel was disinvited by Nagasaki’s mayor for the city’s annual peace ceremony. I suppose I should first address what I think about the Allies’ fateful decision to drop the atomic bombs. Like with the U.K. riots, this is yet another extremely complex topic that social media tears to shreds with no attempts at nuance. Given my field of international relations, I’m inevitably asked for my opinion on this incredibly difficult question: was it the right choice?
More or less, I think dropping the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was the least worst option in ending the bloodiest conflict the 20th century would ever see. I subscribe to the notion that the militaristic aspects of Japan’s government were not planning to surrender and that a conventional land invasion of Japan would have lead to untold casualties on both sides. Historian Max Hastings’ excellent book, Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45, dives into how unrelenting Japan was until the very end and refutes the idea that many have even today that those in power would have surrendered if the bombs were not used.
We know this because Japanese militarists attempted a coup against Emperor Hirohito up until the very last night of the war in what is known as the Kyujo Incident, which is something the vast majority of people are completely unaware of despite the enormous historical ramifications had it not been stopped. Until its defeat in 1945, Japan was a brutal empire responsible for atrocities like the Rape of Nanking and the inhumane treatment of Allied POWs. These are things the Japanese government has repeatedly acknowledged and apologized for, but they did happen and I am not on the side of historical revisionists who pretend otherwise.
This alone does not justify the use of nuclear weapons on civilians, but the mentality of the Allies at the time was no different than its conventional bombings of Japanese and German cities which killed far more people. While a few scientists did protest the atomic bombings, this was mostly out of concern for the inevitable arms race that would follow. The effects of atomic radiation on human beings is something only now understood in hindsight, and the Allies simply wanted the quickest way to end the war. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings are ultimately a debate that will continue for centuries, but my position is that a war which started with immense bloodshed could only have ended with immense bloodshed either way. We can only do our best to learn from its lessons.
Bringing us back to 2024, Nagasaki Mayor Suzuki Shiro created what was completely unnecessary controversy by not inviting Israel’s ambassador to his city’s memorial service marking the event. It’s notable that Ambassador Gilad Cohen did attend the ceremony in Hiroshima, only to be protested against by pro-Palestinian activists. Mayor Suzuki claimed that his decision was not political and instead out fear that protests would distract from the memorial service, but I find this hard to believe.
In response, the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Canada chose to not send its ambassadors to the peace ceremony, which naturally only created even more controversy. Ambassador Cohen went to a separate service in Tokyo with his American and British counterparts, which shows that this entire situation could have easily been avoided if Mayor Suzuki had a spine and did not cave in to the mob.
The war in Gaza is yet another complex topic that is rarely ever discussed with nuance, but my position has consistently been that I support Israel in its fight against Hamas. Palestinians deserve a better lot in life than what they currently have, but they will not get it under a theocratic Islamic regime of terrorist thugs who carry out atrocities like what happened on October 7 last year. It’s an extremely difficult conflict that requires far more discussion than what I can get into with this week’s column, but needless to say I unequivocally believe in Israel’s right to exist and defend itself.
For that reason, I think the G7 nations were fully within their rights to show solidarity with Israel. The Japanese government’s official position is that it supports a two-state solution between Israel and Palestinian Authority, but the mayor of Nagasaki is a local politician with his own views. It was an incredibly daft decision for him to snub Israel’s ambassador because all it did was turn what should have been a solemn day of mourning into a politicized affair. I’m not happy about it, but the resulting controversy is entirely Suzuki’s fault, and Israel does not have to stand for being humiliated. Let’s hope the 80th anniversary ceremonies cut out this nonsense.
What I’m Watching — The Punisher Films are Pure Visceral Fun
Alright, I promise this will be the last column for awhile discussing comic book movies. I’m admittedly getting kind of tired of them after watching so many around Deadpool & Wolverine, but what better note to go out on than with some underrated classics. I’m talking about the three cinematic adaptations of The Punisher, an anti-hero who has always been one of Marvel’s more compelling characters.
Unlike Captain America or Spider-Man, Frank Castle has no qualms with torturing and killing as many criminals as possible under his own personal code of justice. Often times this results in him becoming an antagonist, while the moral issues explored in his comics are much deeper than what you normally get from standard superhero stories. Naturally, this makes Punisher much harder to adapt into other media for general audiences, but there have been a few attempts.
In 1989, Dolph Lundgren played the first cinematic incarnation of Frank Castle in The Punisher. While released theatrically overseas, Americans only got this film via the home video market. I can easily imagine it being a popular VHS tape back in the day given the popularity of films like First Blood and Commando, as The Punisher is certainly in the same vein. Lundgren plays a cooly taciturn Castle, but the story only briefly touches upon the tragedy which turned him into The Punisher. The lack of a white skull on his clothes is a disappointment, but otherwise it’s a surprisingly enjoyable action thriller with well-choreographed scenes and pretty decent acting. Considering that almost all comic book movies back then were terrible with the exception of Batman, I’m amazed at how well this one holds up.
15 years later, another film also titled The Punisher hit theaters. Starring Thomas Jane as arguably the best version of Castle, this low-budget flick has aged surprisingly well amid a sea of generic Marvel movies that do nothing interesting with hundreds of millions of dollars. Jane adds a necessary emotional aspect to the character and does a ton of convincing acting with only pained facial expressions.
His origin story is much more tragic than in the comics, with his entire extended family being massacred by the mob instead of only his wife and children. Punisher ‘04 plays loose with the source material in taking elements of various comic storylines, but is generally respectful to the spirit of character despite shifting the location from New York City to Tampa, Florida. The critics don’t know what they’re talking about with this one, it’s more than an enjoyable movie.
The same can also be said with Punisher: War Zone, starring the late great Ray Stevenson. While Jane’s Punisher focused on the more contemplative elements of the character, Stevenson is pure military muscle and carries a stoic samurai-like presence. Right from the outside, it’s clear that this film is the more action-oriented of the pair.
It also had a similarly minimal budget, but every cent is put toward incredibly entertaining shoot-outs and fight scenes. Punisher: War Zone is the kind of bloody action film you could never imagine Disney doing today with its Marvel characters. While Deadpool & Wolverine did get away with its R rating, something like this is too dark and visceral for the House of Mouse to tolerate. I love it.
I have not yet seen the 2017 Punisher Netflix series starring Jon Bernthal. Of those shows, I’ve only watched Daredevil Season 1 and Jessica Jones Season 1, so it will be awhile before I get caught up. I’ve heard mixed things from fans of the character, but I intend to watch them all in preparation for next year’s release of Daredevil: Born Again, which is also set to have the Punisher return. As someone just getting into the comics for the first time, I find him an incredibly compelling character which allows for exploration of darker subject matter rarely seen with other Marvel properties.
What I’m Listening To — The Wonderful Film Music of Michael Giacchino
Film music is unfortunately no longer what it once was. While in the past composers like John Williams and Ennio Morricone produced gorgeous scores which were a vital part of movies like Star Wars and A Fistful of Dollars, modern Hollywood productions rarely feature music as a central storytelling element. Everyone knows tracks like the Raider's March from the Indiana Jones series or the main theme from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, but you’d be hard-pressed to find as many memorable pieces in most films coming out today.
Film scoring in general has largely pivoted away from being a prominent melodic element and is now far more subdued. One person is rarely responsible for the music that makes it into the final cut of a film, with teams of editors and technicians ultimately deciding how everything will sound. With how formulaic most blockbusters are these days, their respective soundscapes have turned generic as well. Hans Zimmer is probably the biggest name responsible for this, as his approach to sound has basically lead most of the industry to ape The Dark Knight or Inception.
For my money though, I think Michael Giacchino is currently producing some of the best and most memorable film scores currently out there. He originally got his start composing for video games, which brought him significant attention as his orchestral music for The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Medal of Honor sounded like the natural successor to what John Williams had done before. One has to remember that Western games rarely featured this kind of high quality sound, which put Giacchino ahead of his time.
Giacchino’s music has often leaned toward retro and classic influences, with his scores in Pixar productions like The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Up all being exquisite throwbacks to more old-fashioned eras of scoring. When it comes to more expensive blockbusters, Speed Racer utilizes playful jazz cues and Star Trek evokes epic space odysseys, while his work for the Mission Impossible and Jurassic World films skillfully weave in existing themes that audiences have memorized to heart for years. Probably most impressive is his score for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story which had to be completed in four and a half weeks. John Williams would be proud, I’m sure.
Personally, I’m the biggest fan of Giacchino’s scores for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Apart from Alan Silvestri’s main cue from The Avengers and occasional one-off songs like “Star-Spangled Man” from Captain America: The First Avenger, the MCU has often suffered from a lack of memorable themes and the generic Hollywood soundscape I previously mentioned. Giacchino, however, has easily produced the best music of the entire franchise with Doctor Strange and the Tom Holland Spider-Man trilogy.
Ditto for The Batman, which is probably the only truly noteworthy score in DC’s current line-up of films. With its Frederic Chopin-inspired main theme and haunting piano medley over the credits, it calls back to a time when film music actually stayed with audiences after leaving the cinema.
Recommendations:
“The Incredits” from The Incredibles
“Le Festin” from Ratatouille
“Thunderhead” from Speed Racer
“Married Life” from Up
“Your Father Would Be Proud” from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
“The Master of the Mystic End Credits” from Doctor Strange
“Spider-Man: Homecoming Suite” from Spider-Man: Homecoming
“The Batman” from The Batman
“Sonata in Darkness” from The Batman
What I’m Reading — Graham Greene’s The Quiet American Remains a Thought Provoking Classic
It’s often difficult for modern readers to get into 20th century literary classics because of the older prose style, but Graham Greene is probably one of the most accessible writers one could ever recommend. He was the rare novelist who could craft a thrilling tale, but also dive into complex political, religious, and societal questions with the experiences of a seasoned journalist who had traveled the world and seen its farthest destinations. He even had a hand in a few screenplays, with his most notable work The Third Man being widely acclaimed as one of the greatest film noirs of all time.
It was only this week when I finally sat down to read my first Greene novel, which happened to be The Quiet American. The Vietnam War has been a fascination of mine for the last few years, so I’m always interested in checking out any book or film that dives into this tragic, but often very misunderstood part of Cold War history. The Quiet American, however, is not about the war in Vietnam as us Americans remember it. More prophetically, it is about the First Indochina War (1946-1955) which pitted the French against Viet Minh forces lead by Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap. Consider it as essentially the forgotten prequel to the more famous main event.
Then again, history often repeats itself. Greene’s novel is famous for its criticism of early U.S. involvement in Vietnam during the 1950s which as we all know, would eventually spiral into the disastrous fall of Saigon at the hands of communist forces 20 years later. The story features a love triangle subplot between an American CIA agent, a British journalist, and a Vietnamese woman which serves as an intriguing allegory for the political situation of the era. Thomas Fowler, the narrator of the story, is an aging, cynical reporter who represents the dying embers of mid-20th century British colonialism, while his American rival Alden Pyle has naive ambitions of introducing democracy to the people of Asia. Both are after Phuong, a beautiful Vietnamese woman whose background and personality Greene intentionally leaves vague, symbolizing her people’s lack of agency amid the greater powers around them.
Despite these complex themes, The Quiet American is never hard to read or follow. While 2024 audiences may have to pull up Wikipedia to have more context around 1950s Asian geopolitics, Greene’s unpretentious writing style manages to be both eloquent and simple at the same time. Western readers in 1955 were immediately attracted to the lush descriptions of Vietnam, but the book still holds modern staying power thanks to the beauty of Greene’s prose. You want to keep reading for the plot, as well as to soak in all the exquisite details on each page.
Many have debated for decades if The Quiet American is an anti-American novel, but Greene’s prediction that Vietnam would be impossible for the West to win proved to be accurate. Greene himself had complicated political and religious views. He wavered between Catholicism and agnosticism for most of his life, which is reflected in much of his work including The Quiet American. An ardent anti-imperialist, he was sympathetic to some communist leaders like Fidel Castro, but later grew more critical of them as the realities of their authoritarianism could no longer remain suppressed toward the end of the Cold War.
As someone more right-leaning, I still enjoyed The Quiet American for the questions it raised and for its focus on crafting an engaging narrative with well-written characters. Truly good books go beyond the politics of their writers, which is why Graham Greene was able to reach a wide audience, even among those who might not have always agreed with him. I look forward to reading more of his work.
What I’m Playing — I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream is Mature Video Game Storytelling Done Right
Video games based on literature are relatively rare, but I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream existing defies all reason. Harlan Ellison’s disturbing 1967 short story about an artificial intelligence who wipes out all of humanity except for five people is probably the last concept suitable for interactive entertainment, and yet developers Cyberdreams and The Dreamers Guild somehow got away with it.
Released on personal computers in 1995, this interactive adventure game takes Ellison’s story and greatly expands the lore. The original narrative revolved around the supercomputer AM torturing five individuals in the most sadistic ways imaginable, while the game explains why these people were specifically chosen. Split across five playable routes, the player learns about each protagonist’s tragic backstory and the life-altering mistakes they made along the way. Like most adventure games of the era, the puzzles are deviously difficult, doing things in the wrong order often requires starting from the very beginning, and it’s practically impossible to get the best ending without a walkthrough. Yet despite all that, this is one of the most thought-provoking titles I’ve ever played.
While video games adapted from other media often have little to do with the original creator, Harlan Ellison had active involvement with I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. The author regularly worked on fleshing out the story with the game developers, while he himself fittingly provided the voice of AM. The voice acting overall is of exceptional high quality, which is a far cry from most other titles released during the 1990s. The artwork too skillfully captures the nightmarish imagery Ellison created with his story, and I can only imagine how difficult a task it must have been to bring the more abstract concepts into a visual format.
These days many often credit big-budget video games like The Last of Us Part II as being groundbreaking with supposedly exploring mature themes, but I find most of them incredibly pretentious and trying too hard to be edgy. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, on the other hand, dealt with serious subject matter like rape and Nazism years before most considered video games as a valid storytelling medium. Few games even today are willing to touch such themes because of the sensitive political climate. The success of the game’s writing is largely due to Ellison’s own input, as he was probably one of the only writers of his generation to have direct involvement with video games.
Legal issues for years prevented I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream from being re-released, but in 2013 the game finally hit GOG and continues to find new generations of players. It regularly goes on sale and is compatible on virtually all PCs and Macs, so there’s no excuse to not play it. This is one of the rare games that really caused me to consider difficult ethical issues — and I highly doubt that anything like it will be created again.
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