The Islands Where the Japanese Empire was Born (and Died) 

i find all of your videos incredibly sobering. it's good to know that people like you tell the stories nobody else will. have you considered doing the Golan Heights? essentially the worlds largest concentration camp, with 2 million fences off inhabitants who are regularly shot by IDF snipers.

Ok...not to nit pick....it wasnt just the Americans fighting the Japanese....British, Australian, Indian and alot of native ppl were involved....

Asia: Japan fought against the whites who were enslaving Asia for hundreds of years, not against the natives. What do you think the whites were doing in Asia? Charity? There were only about 60 countries in the world at the time, of which only 10 non-white countries were not yet colonized by the whites, and the figure was decreasing. Japan was the last country in Asia remaining totally independent, and within several years of the War all the countries were freed. Who do you think formed and trained their armies in Asian countries, which fought against the West when they came back to recolonize after the WWII? You think the Asians were holding US guns or Japanese guns? Or, do the guns grow on trees? For example, today, some 3,000 Japanese lay buried with decorations in Kalibata Heroes Cemetery in Jakarta, Indonesia. Everybody in Indonesia including those in the first subsequent independent Government and Army like the first President Sukarno, Bun Tomo, Aramasa, Sanpas, Hatta, etc. were holding Japanese guns and fighting with the Japanese. On November 5th and 6th, 1943, the first Greater East Asia Conference was held in Tokyo, Japan in which seven Asian countries participated: Japan (Prime Minister Tojo); Republic of China (Wang Jingwei); Manchuko (Prime Minister Zhang Jinghui); Republic of Philippine (President José Paciano Laurel); Burma (Prime Minister of Independent Burma); Thailand (Wan Waithayakon, the Prince of Thailand); India (Chandra Bose, the military legend for the independence of India, and representing the Provisional Government of Free India). Note that Japan participated as Japan, not as the Empire of Japan, because after the War when order is restored, Japan was going to disband the empire. This is the first international meeting held by non-white nations and the Greater East Asian Joint Declaration was unanimously adopted: 1. The countries of Greater East Asia through mutual co-operation will ensure the stability of their region and construct an order of common prosperity and well-being based upon justice. 2. The countries of Greater East Asia will ensure the fraternity of nations in their region, by respecting one another’s sovereignty and independence and practicing mutual assistance and amity. 3. The countries of Greater East Asia by respecting one another’s traditions and developing the creative faculties of each race, will enhance the culture and civilization of Greater East Asia. 4. The countries of Greater East Asia will endeavour to accelerate their economic development through close co-operation upon a basis of reciprocity and to promote thereby the general prosperity of their region. 5. The countries of Greater East Asia will cultivate friendly relations with all the countries of the world, and work for the abolition of racial discrimination, the promotion of cultural intercourse and the opening of resources throughout the world, and contribute thereby to the progress of mankind. The significance of this declaration was that for the first time in the human history, the equality of countries as well as the abolition of racial discrimination were adopted. After the French Revolution in the 18th century France, the human rights were declared for the first time in the human history, challenging the order ruled by royal families. But against this new order, Coalition Wars were waged by military alliances of old order countries. Even though France lost the wars in the end, the spirits of human rights prevailed, and all European countries subsequently adopted democracy. Likewise, it was Japan that proposed for the first time in human history the abolition of all racial discrimination to the League of Nations in 1919 in an attempt to end the white colonization and enslavement that lasted for hundreds of years. This proposal was rejected by the US, and soon anti-Japan encircling net was formed. Even though Japan lost the War in the end, the spirits prevailed, and within several years of the War, all the Asian countries gained independence, followed by African countries. To erase this fact from written history, and to record Japan as an aggressor, the US banned Japan to use this word, the Greater East Asia War, in academies, education and media; burned more books than Hitler did; and rewrote the history as Churchill proudly said “History is written by the victor." This censorship still continues today.

You say that like Britain didn't do similar stuff immediately before, or like Japan didn't do similar stuff immediately after.

Britain was epically worse.

Says someone with zero knowledge of history if they think Britain was worse.

the British have invaded almost 90 per cent of the countries around the globe but yes japan did some seriously horrifying shit to everyone they invaded there isn't a word the describe the amount of rape and murder that japan visited upon their conquests many armies tended to rape the population of conquests throughout history but japan took it to another level entirely

You're forgetting all the democratically elected governments replaced by military dictatorships by the US in the last 100 years. Almost every country in Latin America got one at least once, to start with.

Chris Hadfield's Rare Earth keep up the good work!

Chris Hadfield's Rare Earth didn't even notice :)

I really like this, it was really powerful. It moved me that just 15 meters stood between two worlds, an expansionistic empire and a crumbling nation. Good job. What was the intent for making this, though? What made you come out to a remote island in the middle of the pacific and make this?

Oh, I just went to the channels home page and watched the series intro video. I like the idea for the series. Keep up the good work. By the way, how many takes did it take till you got this one?

Not bad at all considering the wind and ocean noise going on in that scene that could have made it much worse.

Taoism: Fuck you, obey the law. God I love Bill Wurtz

@@tinycockjock1967 is that not legalism?

@@reizayin Technically correct, yet it's more or less the pattern of every control-ideology/religion.

@@LegendOfTheOld taoism wasn't a control ideology/religion, it was a more a set of values along with some mythology

@@dvf1736That's what THEY always try to sell you. Exactly the same - wrong - thing is peddeld about buddhism. There are temples in Daoism, there are priests who tell you what to do, there are sacrifices to make and most of all the main diety is Yu Di a diety to simply and purely glorify the monarchy - of the song dynasty. Don't get sold on bullshit.

The Americans said with their huge gunboats.

-Bill Wurtz

Murica: don't worry lil guy we just want to giv you some candy. Japan: oh shit candy give me some of- Murica: *nuke×2*

Bear in mind we forced Japan to start trading with us. But we let Japan self rule. The ones who were not prepared for change were the Shogun masters who were treated like Gods. While the average peasant did not even have the simple right to live under the old rule. They welcomed the right to improve their place in life.@@AzariusR

@@AzariusR I'm from Japan and we are grateful for what the U.S. has done for us over the years. We could've been treated with much worse for our brutality, but we ended with strong allies to the end. We are now brothers! 🇯🇵🇺🇸

My grandpa killed hundreds of Japanese in WW2

Japanese people is very polite, the culture and people is good. But everything is not all positive, like he said in the video, imperial japanese lead to the aristocracy, the japan imperial has so many sins in the war, the killing of civilian, sex slave. Too bad that now many japanese becoming right wing and denied any wrong doing about this.. I have some of japanese friend but seeing japanese slowly going to that side again makes me sad and mad at the same time

I found it as biased as what is taught on the subject in Western textbooks.

Kumat Mebro God bless him.

What is biased about the media, and the western educational system's approach to the Japanese Empire? I found this video itself a bit biased, with the heavyhanded pushing of an idea that Japan was simply trying to survive by being an Empire, when what happened in reality was that the Japanese saw how increadibly powerful the West had become, and wanted to imitate them, and be powerful and mighty as well.

+

Please. They might started it with a just intention. But the empire lived long enough and choosed to be the villain. Ask the southeast asian, how awful living under tojo briefed rule, compared to quite a long time under western imperialist.

I'm a history buff and even I didn't know!!

Well put

What kind of bullshit reason is that. We are so afraid to end up like our neighbours let's exploit them ourselves instead.

i wonder why he changed it

There’s a movie called “Emporer”(2012) that had one of the Japanese generals say this exact thought. “America, Britian, Dutch, French, have all done what attempted to do now, yet we are seen as Evil and Demonic” (just summed it. Not word for word). That statement kinda caught me by surprise.

Your motivation, to do something about it. ?

@@billpetersen298 Every time I kayak I bring a bucket and grabbers to snag trash out of the mangroves, and when I take morning walks on the beach I pick up the manageable trash. Have for years. But you come back the next day and its like you never bothered. It is a systemic issue more than a localized one.

Ancient Laws he took ur advise 😁

So tits and a giant red arrow/circle?

Mishak Heyman It's not good being white in South Africa. 😕

My dad Never loved me it's not good being black anywhere else

well said

reviveempires Thank for the bits of information that missed in the video. It's really interesting to help understand why Japan did certain things in their history as we don't have much unbiased informations about it online

reviveempires still evil though. Conquering countries isn't very fun for everyone

@@user-no2vw8tm2s I think the point is that the Imperial period lasted for some 80 years before Japan began aggressively conquering the rest of the Pacific (aside from annexing Korea and resisting Russia's attempts to do the same to Manchuria). A lot more happened in those years, and there were a lot more reasons for their expansion than this video suggests.

@@Wlerin7 If you have to say aside from ______ then it's already over. I doubt the Koreans appreciated it.

Wait, Denmark is Germany's Canada.

Spain also wants the Portuguese "Wild Islands"

The Chinese and Japanese are always disputing ownership of this or that speck of rock over there.

In the case of Hans island the "fight" consist mainly of producing tacky trucker hats and leaving hard liquor for each other on the island (which might count as attempted poisoning, depending on the quality).

I always wonder about all these island disputes...do the countries hold disputing sessions every year or something??

They don't deserve closure either

I'm colourblind. It is kind of a "take what I can see" situation. :)

@@RareEarthSeries what kind of colorblind?

This one didn't even have a script! :) I didn't start writing scripts down until nearly into Cambodia, I think.

@@RareEarthSeries then my good sir, I stand, take off my hat, and applaud in awe. It's marvellous, all of it. Keep telling us these stories.

It is virtually impossible for me to see colour, but I'll try my best as we move forward.

Oh, I did not know you were colourblind! Yeah the video itself looks like it's only 20% of normal colours, very grey and only shades of green. Basically no blues at all, except for your shorts which are very dark grey/blue and completely no red. This is ofcourse only meant as feedback, not any negative criticism. It mostly struck me because I've seen those islands, and they might be one of the most vibrant and colourful places I've ever seen.