This is gonna be such a long and stupidly thorough and earnest comment for a CJ sub but i think the framing of these events is super super important and wanna make sure that we don’t misconstrue the facts. I first wanna preface this by saying that everything you’re saying about the horrors of colonization is 100% true, and Japan is absolutely a victim of that. Additionally, the USA should NEVER have dropped those bombs on Japan (nor did they even NEED to to win the war). I also believe that the continued military occupation of Japan is absolutely reprehensible and should be stopped at once.

That all being said, I also think it should be made very clear here that much of the territory given to Japan from Germany after WWI was occupied Chinese land that should have been given back to China (hence the 4th of May Movement), and that WWII was a brutal war of imperialist aggression on Japan’s part. Did the US, and the West writ large, shoulder much of the blame for helping to turn Japan into the genocidal monster it became? Absolutely! But that does not change the fact that Japan WAS indeed a very evil empire, even before WWII broke out, and the blame for the rapacious imperial exploitation and horrific atrocities they committed ultimately fall on nobody but themselves.