Thursday, December 31, 2009

Tennoheika Banzai!

And Happy New Year, 1937!

From all the folks here at Imperial Japan!

Loved this series of New Year's Cards reprinted at the ever-informative Pink Tentacle, who also tells us about the flight of the Kamikaze, the first Japanese-made aircraft to make the trip from the Land of the Rising Sun to Europe. Something about the precociously delightful urchins with their Hinomaru (日の丸), toy battleships and planes, the artless depthlessness of the artwork, the weird combination of ukiyo-e coloring and draftsmanship with the artifacts of the aggressive Japanese military of the late Thirties...

...it's perfect!

Yes, they're now an aging nation of pacifists perched on the Pacific Rim mollifying their senescence with tentacle porn and bad pop music.

But sixty-two years ago they were flying, all right, and pretty soon they were gonna use all this technology to tank up the Kates and fly over to visit the big boys with the big toys, so sorry, regrettable incident, wake up call from Tokyo, Yankee!

We got yer New Year right here!

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