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Exposing Imperial Japan

Exposing Imperial Japan

Viewing the suffering of colonized people through the lens of the colonizer's propaganda

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Japanese Keijo Nippo reporters interviewed Korean abductee...
A tour of Sinuiju Yamato Imperial Boarding...
Korean high school student uses anonymous tip...
Forgotten Korean Suicide Attacker ‘Hero’ celebrated by...
Governor-General Koiso blamed excessive chili peppers for...
In October 1922, a hit squad of...
Korean writers in the ‘Korean Literary Association’...
The Korean people were allegedly descendants of...
Why did many Koreans “voluntarily” enlist in...
U.S. soldiers guard the Gyeongseong Ilbo (Keijo...
Korean director of Straits of Chosun (1943)...
Tracing the origins of the myth that...
Onerous regulations prescribing long lists of permissible...
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister...
A mere 3 days after surrender, liberated...

Category: Military

Military

A Rare 1944 Korean–Japanese Bilingual Propaganda Poster Promoting Forced Labor Conscription

2025-10-28

44

649

This is a very rare Korean–Japanese bilingual wartime propaganda poster, published in Keijo Nippo (Gyeongseong Ilbo) on October 7, 1944.

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Korean Workers

Terrified by rumors of forced labor conscription under the Imperial Army, young Korean women rushed into marriages to escape, prompting officials to hold April 1944 press conference to deny and deflect

2025-10-20

68

880

This is a 1944 article featuring a damage-control press conference held by Imperial Japanese authorities to publicly address growing panic

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In May 1945, Imperial newspapers in Korea described a hypothetical atomic bomb using nuclear chain reactions that could destroy an entire fleet with a “single matchbox-sized device”
Military

In May 1945, Imperial newspapers in Korea described a hypothetical atomic bomb using nuclear chain reactions that could destroy an entire fleet with a “single matchbox-sized device”

2025-08-19

191

1655

I have been going through Imperial Japanese newspaper articles from over 80 years ago that the National Archives of Korea

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Military

21-year-old Kamikaze pilot Han Jeong-sil (한정실, 韓鼎實) delivering his last testament for radio broadcast before flying to die off Okinawa on June 6, 1945

2025-07-29

282

2707

In June 1945, as Imperial Japan was losing a brutal war against the United States, Korean support for the empire

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Military

The film that tried to make Koreans see Imperial Japan as their “Omoni” (Mother): Inside the 1945 propaganda movie “Love and Vows” (愛と誓ひ, 사랑과맹세)

2025-06-24

324

2488

This is my review and analysis of a deeply unsettling Imperial Japanese propaganda film, Love and Vows (愛と誓ひ), which was

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Military

In 1945, Imperial Japan trained almost every able-bodied Korean man, woman, and child to stab Americans to death with bamboo spears in suicide combat militias under direct Imperial Army command

2025-06-15

342

2278

mobilizing Koreans in Let’s look at three articles from Keijo Nippo (the official Japanese colonial newspaper in Korea) published in

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“If Japan loses, Koreans will fight each other, divided by foreign powers”: June 1945 warning by Korean collaborator (박춘금, 朴春琴) who urged authorities to redirect Korean nationalism into support for Imperial Japan
Military

“If Japan loses, Koreans will fight each other, divided by foreign powers”: June 1945 warning by Korean collaborator (박춘금, 朴春琴) who urged authorities to redirect Korean nationalism into support for Imperial Japan

2025-05-31

344

1517

This is a translation of a Japanese newspaper roundtable discussion from June 1945, held just two months before Imperial Japan’s

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“Even Dreams Must Be in Japanese”: Imperial Japan’s Chilling Wartime Propaganda for Korean Assimilation
Japanese Language

“Even Dreams Must Be in Japanese”: Imperial Japan’s Chilling Wartime Propaganda for Korean Assimilation

2025-04-23

350

1117

These propaganda cartoons, serialized in 1943 during the height of Imperial Japan’s war mobilization, were aimed at the Korean audience.

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Propaganda cartoons from 1943 depict cheerful Koreans enjoying Imperial Japanese rule as they are sternly warned about eavesdropping Western spies
Military

Propaganda cartoons from 1943 depict cheerful Koreans enjoying Imperial Japanese rule as they are sternly warned about eavesdropping Western spies

2025-04-15

384

893

These propaganda cartoons, serialized in 1943 during the height of Imperial Japan’s war mobilization, were aimed at the Korean audience.

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Military

Forgotten Korean Suicide Attacker ‘Hero’ celebrated by Imperial Japan: Park Gwan-bin (박관빈, 朴官彬) charged into an Allied machine-gun nest clutching an anti-tank explosive during the Burma Campaign in Dec. 1944

2025-03-06

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In the annals of forgotten history, few figures exemplify the complex and tragic reality of Korean soldiers in the Imperial

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Posts pagination

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Recent Posts

  • “Demonic Americans”: How Imperial Japan Tried to Turn Koreans Against U.S. Missionaries in 1944
  • A Rare 1944 Korean–Japanese Bilingual Propaganda Poster Promoting Forced Labor Conscription
  • Terrified by rumors of forced labor conscription under the Imperial Army, young Korean women rushed into marriages to escape, prompting officials to hold April 1944 press conference to deny and deflect
  • Koreans tried to bribe their way out of Imperial Japan’s forced labor conscription, but patriotic student informants turned them in (June 1945)
  • In 1944, Imperial Japan launched an “all-out campaign” to erase Hangul from public life, mobilizing teachers and Korean youth to destroy Korean signs, books, and even phonograph records

Recent Comments

  • vong quay on Imperial officials fanned out across rural Korea visiting townships one by one to indoctrinate villagers in Imperialist ideology in ‘Grassroots Penetration’ Campaign (March 1944)
  • act-two on Koiso’s 1943 ‘Great Leader’ Strongman Tours: Surprise village inspections to intimidate local leaders and impose Japanese language and culture all over the Korean countryside
  • laser marking machine on Koiso’s 1943 ‘Great Leader’ Strongman Tours: Surprise village inspections to intimidate local leaders and impose Japanese language and culture all over the Korean countryside
  • zorse on April 1945 Seoul dining: the public endured price-gouging and scraps, while privileged Japanese and Korean collaborator elites drank and feasted behind closed doors

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  • Imperial Japanese penal official said Korean 'ideological criminals' (independence activists) were 'not well made as human beings', but 'if only their thoughts could be corrected, then they will get better' so they can be 'used' for wartime labor, but 'this is not the case with ordinary criminals'
  • Nostalgia for Imperial Japan and its undercurrents in Kishi Nobusuke's legacy in postwar Japan, in Park Chung-hee and Chun Doo-hwan's legacy in South Korea, and why access to wartime newspapers of Japan-occupied Korea is important to combat historical misinformation by the far-right in both countries
  • Simon Young Kim (김영근), a South Korean violin virtuoso and disciple of famous violinist Jascha Heifetz, Simon was once my teacher and mentor, and his son was my best friend in elementary school
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