“Good luck with the exam!” US comic depicting Japanese WWII pilot met with chuckles in Japan

Although they are sometimes considered to be the pastime of kids and teenagers, modern comics and graphic novels often deal with some incredibly heavy and moving content. Craig Thompson’s Blankets, for example, is a spellbinding journey that will melt any adult’s heart, and despite using mice as protagonists, Art Spiegelman’s retelling of his Holocaust survivor father’s experiences in Maus was so moving that it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1992.

The following American comic deals with equally heavy content: the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941. The comic lost a little credibility amongst Japanese readers earlier today, however, when one netizen noticed that it shows one of the pilots preparing for the attack by donning what appears to be a headband much more likely to be worn by school kids studying for a big exam than someone going on a mission from which they may not return.

Shared by Twitter user ★gurosuke earlier today, this page from an as-yet-unknown American comic has, unfortunately, been raising eyebrows and smiles across Japan.

▼ “A member of the Special Attack Unit is preparing a little too hard for his school exam in this Pearl Harbor comic”

Although it does indeed look very Japanese with its red sun and stylish kanji characters, the bandana this pilot is slapping around his head here actually reads 合格 “goukaku“, which means “success” or “pass in an exam”. We’re not going to be mean and make fun of the comic here since we have no idea what this character’s background is – for all we know this bandana could have been passed down to him, or he could indeed have been studying for a big test in the near future – but we have to wonder if this pilot’s commanding officer didn’t ask him what on earth he was doing when he produced this strip of cloth…

“I wonder which school he’s applying to!?” chuckled one Japanese netizen. We know this comic is retelling a very serious story, but after reading that we couldn’t help but smile ourselves…

Image: Goods from Japan

Source: Hachima Kikou (Japanese)

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