I’m kinda late into the party for this and I’ve said this before in the MHA thread but I think this bears repeating here in the more crowded thread because I don’t see anyone saying this. This is very political and I’d hate to turn this thread into a shitstorm, so this will be my only reply on the matter in this thread.
No, naming the Doc Maruta isn’t the same as naming a villain “jewish” (in other words, naming a highly immoral character after the victim of immoral actions) that’s just an apples to oranges comparison and I hope this silly comparison stems from a place of ignorance, not malice.
For one, the term is used by the japanese to refer to the human experiment subjects. The victims themselves don’t use this term as their identity whatsoever. If anything, the use of the term highlights the actors who did the atrocities — the japanese empire. Saying that this somehow means the words is used against these victims or, god forbid, that the author is an apologist is nonsense.
This is why you should not make the comparison I said above as that comparison is inaccurate at best and misleading at worst.
Second, the word was also used as the name of the program itself. So saying that the author is naming a highly immoral character after the victims without stating this fact is already misleading.
Like I said above, the use of the word highlights the atrocious action and the actors of the said atrocities.
Yes, you could argue that the word is also used to describe the victims but that argument ignores these two points that I stated.
I’m very disappointed in the twitter influencer who brought more attention to this issue while ignoring these contexts. Many people in the western hemisphere are not knowledgeable or downright ignorant about the topic of immoral actions of the japanese empire in WWII, so this could be their first contact with the subject and it’s misleading from the start.
I also have said this before in the MHA thread: the Doctor was never painted in any sort of positive light whatsoever, and the story has alluded multiple times that he is engaged in highly immoral acts. Experimenting on freaking children and stealing dead bodies is by no means a small issue, and the use of this term highlights just how horrible the author thinks the Doctor’s actions are.
and yes, I’m from one of the nations that bears the brunt of japanese imperialism in the past, because apparently dismissing someone because “you have no say in this” is somehow an argument that makes sense
www.animenewsnetwork.com