He grew up in imperial japan when they colonized Korea and committed atrocities against them, not the other way around. So it’s not like he grew up resentful of his oppressors, he was part of the oppressing group.

Not that it matters either way, this is the exact same excuse that people use for their grandparents making racist remarks. “they grew up in a different time” doesn’t justify bigotry.

Ohtani’s parents also seem like wonderful people in general. Emphasized humility and respect as core values which Ohtani clearly still carries today.

People also don’t get how different Korea - Japan relations are now than even 20 years ago. Japanese cultural imports weren’t fully legal in Korea until 2004, only two years before Ichiro’s messed up Korea comments.

Ichiro doesn’t even acknowledge your existence.

Speaking as a Japanese guy, I totally agree with this. Like there are definitely hard right political people on both sides that hate each other even in our equivalent of Gen Z, but they are in a distinct minority.

I’m in my early 40s, but one of my closest friends is Korean, and we bonded over a mutual love of Dragonball and streetfighter fighting games. People from my generation are definitely much friendly to each other thanks to the popularity of Japanese manga and anime.

Then K-pop and K-dramas took off in Japan, and you have a whole generation of kids in Japan who idolze Korean pop stars as well.

Toss in Ohtani, Demon Slayer, and all the other cultural crossovers and among the younger generation, you have like a small minority of hard line crazies that still hate each other and complain about their country’s young people falling in love with the “enemy” and everyone else wondering what’s wrongw ith them.

There’s still a lot of animosity, particular among people who were born in the md 1970s or earlier. Even a fair amount of it in my generation born in the 80s. But definitely the younger you get, the less of it there is.

That being said, we’ll always be sports rivals in national competitions, but I hope it’s more like a France/Germany world cup rivalry lol.

I mean, you might not like it. But that’s the undercurrent to why the Korea vs Japan rivalry feels so real… cause it kinda is.

“We got nuked, we’re the real victims now”

they didn’t deny what they did and actually tried to make amends. Japan basically gaslit themselves into thinking they weren’t that bad

Yea sorry but I can’t let this one slip. Japan has apologised literally dozens of times and paid billions in reparations. I’m talking every single Prime Minister has apologised at least once as well as numerous emperors (although Shinzo Abe’s apology was kind of walked back with later dumb comments).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_apology_statements_issued_by_Japan

Japan has also paid billions in reparations to China, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, etc.
In fact Japan paid \(30billion+ to China alone in the Official Development Assistance (ODA). Which is estimated at \)130 billion to $150 billion in todays value. That program continued to pay China all the way up until 2022 only when China became the world’s 2nd largest economy.
Many economists say that the ODA was a major factor in fuelling China’s economic expansion in the 20th century.

Everyone tries to compare Japan with Germany after ww2 but they are 2 completely different situations. The main difference between the separation of West and East Germany after the war. Which obviously made neighbouring countries more involved in Germany’s fate, and with Germany being ground zero for the cold war it was a lot easier to forgive them for their past as they had much bigger problems at hand (USSR).

Also Germany was very smart in the way it was able to separate itself from the Nazi party. When people think of ww2 Germany they think Hitler and ‘Nazi’s’ but most people couldn’t even tell you who was Japan’s leader at the time or the government. And whilst many try to just brush the Nazi’s off as a anomaly in German history, we can’t forget that there were literally millions of German’s cheering on the Nazi’s during their extravagant military parades even long after they had begun their invasions. This wasn’t some dictator that came into power through a military coup, Hitler was incredibly popular in Germany and was voted into power by the people.
On the other hand Hideki Tojo was NOT voted into power by the people of Japan, he came to power through a campaign of assassinations and coups by his military. Unlike the clear “Nazi Party” label for Germany, Japan’s wartime regime is best described as a military-dominated authoritarian state and Tojo didn’t have anywhere near the public support Hitler did.
Which is why I have a problem with the collective guilt people try to inflict on modern day Japanese people over 80 years after ww2 has ended. Their grandparents or great grandparents that fought in the war were basically mobilised slaves to a rampaging ruthless military dictatorship who answered to noone. Just look at the fate of the Kamikaze pilots. What kind of leaders do that to their own people.
And the sad part is in the end it was the Japanese people who suffered the most, not the military leaders. Whether it was the Tokyo fire bombing’s or the 2 nukes dropped. It was civilians who wore the brunt of casualties in both.