OUTPOST | The Devil Still Dances: Cute Faces Masking Bloody Fangs

Cute anime girls morph into colossal warships in an attempt to reverse the "tragic capsizing" of a guilty fleet; time-traveling "prophets" lead you to capture Hawaii in the US, helping Japanese militarism "rewrite its destiny"...

Built on saccharine cuteness and fueled by adrenaline-pumping excitement, this blend of cuteness and passion sends dopamine levels soaring and leaves audiences mesmerized.

Such is the allure of Japanese ACG (anime, comics and games) culture. Countless teenagers become hooked, learning about "Kanmusu" (fleet girls), coming to know "Takano Isoroku," and even witnessing "Japan's victory"...

But do people realize that beneath this cute facade lie the blood-drenched fangs of militarism?!

The anime Deep Blue Fleet depicts Japanese militarism reversing its defeat with the help of futuristic technology; the game Kantai Collection anthropomorphizes warships of Japan's Combined Fleet as cute girls and radically rewrites the course of the Pacific War; the light novel [New Life+] Young Again in Another World features as its protagonist a Japanese soldier responsible for grave wartime atrocities; the manga My Hero Academia names a villain after a term used to refer to victims of Unit 731; and Dot Pixis, a key character in Attack on Titan, was modeled after Yoshifuru Akiyama, who took part in Japan's wars of aggression, including the First Sino-Japanese War and the Eight-Nation Alliance invading China. The author not only publicly acknowledged this but also expressed "reverence" for Akiyama.

Japan's grassroots narrative of opposing Japan's defeat rather than the war itself and its official pursuit of becoming a "normal country" are essentially two sides of the same coin for Japan's right-wing forces.

The cover of Japan's 2026 edition of the Defense White Paper features anime characters; the children's edition of the Defense White Paper, which plays up "threats from neighboring countries," is given a layer of "kawaii" camouflage; The Japan Self-Defense Forces' recruitment posters targeting young people are packaged as anime tie-ins celebrating "hot-blooded youth"; and even the Liberal Democratic Party's push for constitutional revision is cloaked in "heartwarming manga"...

History must not be falsified, and justice must not be challenged.

No matter what tactics Japanese right-wing forces employ, the outcome will be the same: those who turn back the wheel of history are bound to repeat past mistakes, while those who betray historical justice will ultimately face the judgment of history.