I have yet to research Senko no Night Raid very much at all. However, multiple reports have noted that something unusual is happening with episode 7, Jihen. For those who may not know, Senko no Night Raid is a spring 2010 anime about spies in China during the 1930s. Jihen will stream online in Japan between May 18th and May 30th, but it's not going to air on television and is being replaced by a counterproductive clip show episode--the series is only 13 episodes long. At this early stage, one can only guess about its fate on series' future home video release.
Why is this happening? Jihen is said to be about the Mukden Incident, a sabotage of Japan's South Manchuria Railway. It was a pretext for Japan's invasion of Manchuria and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The episode is reported to look at the affair from the Japanese side.
This is a controversial topic because while the Chinese were blamed at first, the general historical consensus seems to be that Japanese did it. In fact, at the time the League of Nations' Lytton report rejected the idea that the Japanese response to the incident was legitimate self-defense. Neither the League nor the U.S. Government recognized the puppet state of Manchukuo that was established as a result of the conflict.
Getting back to the Mukden Incident specifically, historians appear to differ about the details. Wikipedia's article on the subject describes the controversy over responsibility for it thus:
Until it's public exactly what position the episode will take is unknown, nor the tone it will take. These strike me as the possibilities: The episode could fault China, it could fault Japan and portray it as planned from the top, or it could fault Japan and take the middle and plausible view that it was was the result of militarists having free and unaccountable reign to basically do what they wanted. I suppose it's also possible that it could reference the incident but only deal with the fallout from it, and/or claiming that responsibility is a mystery.
I am personally left wondering whether it was deemed too controversial for TV out of a concern about domestic controversy more than a concern about offending China. Time will undoubtedly shed more light on this issue in the days to come.
Is there anyone who's been following the series that can offer an educated guess on which way it might go?
Why is this happening? Jihen is said to be about the Mukden Incident, a sabotage of Japan's South Manchuria Railway. It was a pretext for Japan's invasion of Manchuria and the Second Sino-Japanese War. The episode is reported to look at the affair from the Japanese side.
This is a controversial topic because while the Chinese were blamed at first, the general historical consensus seems to be that Japanese did it. In fact, at the time the League of Nations' Lytton report rejected the idea that the Japanese response to the incident was legitimate self-defense. Neither the League nor the U.S. Government recognized the puppet state of Manchukuo that was established as a result of the conflict.
Getting back to the Mukden Incident specifically, historians appear to differ about the details. Wikipedia's article on the subject describes the controversy over responsibility for it thus:
Until it's public exactly what position the episode will take is unknown, nor the tone it will take. These strike me as the possibilities: The episode could fault China, it could fault Japan and portray it as planned from the top, or it could fault Japan and take the middle and plausible view that it was was the result of militarists having free and unaccountable reign to basically do what they wanted. I suppose it's also possible that it could reference the incident but only deal with the fallout from it, and/or claiming that responsibility is a mystery.
I am personally left wondering whether it was deemed too controversial for TV out of a concern about domestic controversy more than a concern about offending China. Time will undoubtedly shed more light on this issue in the days to come.
Is there anyone who's been following the series that can offer an educated guess on which way it might go?