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“To Protect Japan's Peace We Need Guns and Rockets:” The Military Uses of Popular Culture in Current-day Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Sabine Frühstück
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The original tune quoted above, “Let's Join Jieitai,” was mockingly performed and recorded by Takada Wataru in 1969 as an anti-war song. The National Broadcasting Corporation immediately banned the song as Japan mobilized in support of the US in the Vietnam War, an incident that became emblematic of the fraught relationship between the Self-Defense Forces and Japanese popular culture since the end of the Asia-Pacific War.

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Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 7 , Issue 34 , August 2009 , e2
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
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Copyright © The Authors 2009

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