Okay, Japan used to be the country where patience was golden, and faithfulness was a must to study anything. So, if you study with a master, you stay with that master 10 years, right? Now, that’s the old Japan, and funny thing was it actually continued that sense of faithfulness. You are hired by the company, and you stay with the company throughout your life. My father only worked under one job until he retired, and that was the norm. ((Hellbox))

In the end of 60s, we really questioned that because that value had made Japan as one country, fascistic country, and Japan had done a terrible, horrible invasions to the neighboring Asian countries. And Japan was defeated, with a good reason. The war would have never been won anyway. It’s a stupidity that Japan had started that war, and it’s brutal how Japan — how they conducted that war. ((Keen Readers)) But instead of grappling with that, some people started to call ending the war rather than being defeated. ((Basement)) So, it’s just a kind of changing the subject matter or changing the fact in a way that is easier. So, I think especially with an atomic bomb and all the air raids that had happened in Japan, the soldiers who went abroad, came back, and didn’t speak much about it, with good reason.

People who were in Japan, mainly the — the women and older people, and the kids, they had a lot of hardship because the US by then, towards the end of the war, was merciless. ((Suffered Very Much)) They were like bombing all the big cities with the civilians very much just living their day to day lives. So, at the end of the war, I think Japanese people didn’t really grapple with the fact that Japan was the invader. Many people felt they were victims of the war. And in a way it was, because it was a militaristic, fascist country, but at the same time it was because of the weakness of the system, and the way that how people could have, but couldn’t really oppose the war. So, all those things were really strong questions to us. So, it didn’t occur to me or Koma, it was never in our mind to be a good student. We already left that behind by dropping out of the prestigious university scholarship, right, in a way.