I hate this guy, his comments are so smug about this shit. Even if it is his opinion, his reaction is just a massive jerk.
It really is glossed over in Japanese textbooks for public school. Unless someone specializes or does their own research in history of that era, they probably won't have a general opportunity to learn the gritty details of WW2.
Same with any countries history honestly.
Actually had this come up at one of the schools I teach in about 2-3 months ago when South Korea put a statue of the girl symbolizing the sex slaves, in front of their embassy in Busan.
The kids reaction I understood, the adults though, one that I regard as being extremely intelligent is what took be back a bit. The kids did not understand why people were being so emotional, screaming and crying ect. on camera. Their opinion was it wasn't their generations issue (the people on camera that is) and being that emotional is probably fake to make a point (slightly agree that it might be played up to get their point across) and they did not like that they were saying bad things about Japan, in their eyes it means them too, not the previous generations or government. So a few started saying things like "Well I hate them too!" without knowing anything about the situation, just out of pure reaction.
something something vicious cycle -eyeroll- but thats how this stuff goes. Very sure most of them forgot about it by now lol, they are kids after all.
The adult though she basically brought this up to me and was like its because they don't learn about the war really. They just know it happened and the bombs, thats about it for now. (Junior high school 2nd grade... about 13-14 years old) Then she said she never understands why either. I almost wanted to explain it to her, but kinda just left it at "it was stuff in the past, lets all just be nice to each other now and move on as better people." And this is someone I know is really smart but was kinda the "yup... they really don't learn that much" moment.
It was the same as an American. We learn the brutal details of the war, death numbers, how hard it was ect. But unless you take a university level class you probably miss many of the finer, more disheartening details about the various acts Americans did during our wars. Shit, a lot of the stories about Vietnam, Korean and Pacific really get me depressed when I randomly think about it. But also reminds me why I was taught about it, makes me want the Japanese government to go in more detail about history.
In general history in this country is taught in a very neutered way. Not just WW2 imperial stuff but like... ALL of it. A lot of history and science books are in manga form almost these days. Many comic panels to explain the concept and point, then maybe a few pages of text explanation. It's a pretty cool way to teach I guess. Maybe were the messed up ones for showing so many bodies to kids lol -shrug-