Thanks for the recommendation, looks interesting.

The

The difficulty in ending a war when the side in question is batshit crazy.

The only problem is where to watch it for free.

Because in the end it was stopped by one senior officer casually walking in and telling them to stop… Yes it’s fascinating but the idea some people have that it was "a close call“ or a "general uprising“ is ludicrous

Its fascinating because there were some in Japan that wanted this to end but the way the government was set up it just kept going.

Yes. Him and the man playing the emperor. Ironically, 80 years ago in Japan, doing that would probably get you killed for disrespect.

Tojo is one of my aunt’s crushes

Great movie. I reviewed it briefly in an a WW2 anime "Top 5" review I did somewhere. I should give it an updated review.

@@JohnnyJohnsonHistory I agree! I enjoy your single form videos because you dive more into the contents of a movie.

He's a handsome fella 😊

Absolutely agree. It’s crazy how misunderstood Japan‘s way to surrender is still today. Yes, it’s too complicated too lesen from 2-3 sentences in a school book but the "atomic bomb was dropped, war ended“ view on the topic most people have is also not doing the reality of the situation any justice

1) Good avatar, I'm a major B5 fan. If you're a journalist the airlocks are entirely safe 😏. 2) Since most people learn via film/series more of them need to be made about the pre-war years (Babylon Berlin’s a great prequel to WW2 as well as Noir series) and post war years. Aftermath by Jahner is a good book about post WW 2 Germany. WW 2 didn’t just kick off in 1937, at reenactments I try to talk about the pre and post war years.

It's in KZfaq. You had to endure the subtitle though. It was not that bad, just I think the subtitle author lost his keyboard.

I've had that talk before in a college speech course. We had to do a speech in front of the class of something controversial and I made mine about how the atom bomb drops ended WWII in a less horrendous way. I recall when I said that in front of my class some girls gasped. I can understand why. But I painted a picture of how WWII was happening in the Pacific. All these battles against the fanatical Japanese that got only bloodier and more stubborn the closer the US got to Japan. The worst was when we got onto islands that were actually Japanese territory with their civilians. Saipan was the first place the US landed that had a sizable Japanese civilian population. A bunch of civilians committed suicide because the government had been telling them the Americans would mistreat them. The Battle of Okinawa had massive civilian casualties, complete with the Imperial Japanese Army having soldiers dressed up as civilians and hiding among them while fighting Americans. Japanese broadcasting company NHK actually has a fantastic documentary on this battle I highly advise you to watch. Don't watch it on YT because it's uploaded with lots of parts cut away. NHK actually has a site hosting the full documentary. Complete with interviews of military veterans from both sides as well as civilian Okinawans. There's also all the plans of preparing the home islands for the expected Allied invasion. They were preparing civilians with bamboo spears. The military was intent on the Japanese people's destruction with the loss of the war. I went over the details of Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan that was being prepared. Units from Europe were being brought over. The entire US Marine Corps would have been involved. Other Allied nations were going to have ground units involved as "payback." The expected loss of life, particularly the Japanese, was going to be horrendous. The two atom bomb drops were a terrible event. Over 200k people were killed. But that's a drop in the bucket compared to the Allies landing in Japan and fighting through the cities, hills, mountains of the country killing whatever resistance was found. ----- There's also something I did not cover in that presentation. It was the US military's blockade of Japan. First by submarines and then by mining waterways with B-29 bombers. It effectively cut Japan off from imports, i.e. strategic resources and FOOD from the Asian mainland. Japan was starving. When the war ended and the Allies finally were ashore in Japan, the country was in dire shape and emergency shipments of food were sent to help stave off mass famine. If you want details of the aerial mining of Japanese waters, look up "Operation Starvation." It's a little known but immensely successful op done by US heavy bombers. Arguably the most effective use of American heavy bombers in all of WWII.

The Soviets were never going to invade japan in any meaningful way, they did it have the resources to do so

@0 years ago there was some controversy, but we now know Japan was not motivated by fear or actions of Russians. It was the atom bombs that ended the war probably saving five millions people. The Soviets had zero amphibious invasion experience, and no assets to do it with. Neither an invasion nor constant transport of supply needed.

@@jb76489 Exactly. The Russians did not have the resources, nor the experience nor the equipment (landing craft that could handle those straights). Not for an invasion nor for supply of invasion forces

Japan lacked the sea lift capacity to bring the kwangtung army home. Their fate was therefore irrelevant to the decision making. They could not be fed, armed, or moved home so they were as useless to the military as soldiers in Rubaul. What the USSRs invasion did do was close off the delusion that Japan could negotiate a cease fire via the USSR. Reports from the cabinet indicate consternation that the declaration of war meant that they could not get negotiation and delay via USSR mediation.

@@p.strobus7569 Lol no, Japan still had a few of its fleet intact defending the home islands. Whether Japan could take the Kwantung army back to the homeland or not still made it an important force as it was one of the last remnants of the imperial army that was still mostly intact with a good strength prior to the Soviet offensive. Whether you like it or not part of Emperor Hirohito's decision to delay the surrender was because he knew the Kwantung army still existed and Manchuria was still a strong Japanese colony. When the Soviets destroyed it, he just lost all hope.

@@ramananrampragash6790Which operational large battle ships did. Japan have in August of 1945? Maybe you can help enlighten us here. Not too mention the total destruction of the Japanese merchant fleet (you know - the ones who could actually 4:32 transport the troops…) from winter 44 till spring of 45 by American unrestricted submarine warfare already had Japan starving and out of resources and millions had starved to death across the Empire since inner Asian trade had come to a complete stop.

油などの火災を消す為です。

@@user-qi5rw8kn7b はい、そうです。

Ah yes, the fantasy of the heroic rapist oppressors. Y u proud to be delulu?

@@user-sachsjp True.

For two reason: The US wanting him to have an easier time occupying Japan and changing it. Tojo and others taking all of the blame on them. Determining the guilt of the emperor is very difficult since even his seal on documents doesn’t necessarily mean he read and / or stamped it but ironically by the ver troubling allied logic of commanders being responsible for their troops even if they didn’t know what they were doing (the logic used to condemn the general who took Nanjing but was sick and not around for the massacre and the Philliines commander who both embarrassed the Americans and British and got executed for his troops burning down Manila without his order) the Americans would have had to trial Hirohito just for consistency… But the Tokyo war crime trials were anyhow an embarrassing mess letting a lot of truly evil people go and condemning others to death for dubious reasoning. All to save the emperor

@@bingobongo1615 Japan would easy to occupy regardless. Hirohito's quilt was very obvious.

Lol that's a new one

Your mother.

Is there anything specific you disagree with? Or just a dustball comment?

@@JohnnyJohnsonHistory good luck

That's a lot to put on one guy. My understanding was that he was more figurehead/rubber-stamp for a collection of military/political/industrial interests keen on growing the empire.

Japanese politics at that time was very chaotic, and the two major political parties, the Rikken Seiyukai and the Rikken Min-kai, both practised kin power politics, and the people were disappointed with them. In addition, the imperial sect in the military assassinated even the emperor's aides, and the soldiers and the people themselves wanted the emperor's government. However, Emperor Showa continued to insist on the constitutional monarchy.

How can you spoil a historically accurate film?

What's there to spoil? This isn't a cheap romantic flick. It details the last days of Japan's surrender in WW2 accurately.

There's probably 7 snotty nerds the world-over who know Japan lost the war, so yes you can. No, sorry, only joshing, nice video. Only just recently found your channel but it's great. I'm definitely going to give it a watch.@@JohnnyJohnsonHistory

The nuke just one of many reason why Japan surrender it not the main reason why Japan surrender as both the navy and army after first bomb and second bomb go off still wanted to fought on.

Oversimplification of why the Japanese surrendered. But the atom bombs were major contributors. The Soviets entering the war was another major contributor. Not only for the massive increase in forces fighting against them, but the Japanese were hoping the Soviets would help them negotiate a more favorable surrender. And the stranglehold the allies had on Japanese shipping, cannot be forgotten.

Same here, my grandfather was at Okinawa.

@@flarvin8945 Question does the Soviets even have enough boats to ferry their troops and equipment? unless the allies let have some of their shuips

@@ronanchristiana.belleza9270 if Japan didn't surrender they could have invade Sapporo , for boat they can start building small landing craft and move stuff from the west to east and also start receiving american made LST. Sapporo isn't as heavy defense as Kyushu and honshu , so it will be much easier for the Soviet then american and Brit

Nah. It’s kinda different due to the events being so different. It is rather a historic retelling of the records we have about those days in August. Harder to watch for normal movie fans but quite rewarding for history fans but no crazy performances like Hitler in Downfall. Still a few inaccuracies in the movie but still very faithful.