Osaka International Peace Center - Osaka

(This episode I am sharing was from many years ago when we visited the peace center around 2005-6?) I found it offensive to see the self-pity, or, I got angry to see the manipulation still today that the Peace Center was misleading the visitors, by taking advantage of the language barriers. The contents of the Peace Center is ironically displaying shallowly the sadness of the aftermath of the bombed cities, WITHOUT mentioning why their cities were bombed from the start. Without this core information being well hidden (and heavily guessed) and not enough facts were displayed anywhere, and, without discussing the humanity based on honesty, but, rather the center, I question being set up to justify "(let's forget the war but) hey, it was not nice we got bombed." The whole exhibition was corny and very distorted, especially in English Captions, noticing that it was heavily sketchy and beautified, too different from Korean translation. The English narration encourages readers to sympathize with the bombed Japanese cities and the people of the past, as the sad victims (and naively repeat, let it not happen again, but, conveniently made visitors forget Japan started the War and killed other Asian Country people for decades before Bombing) but, in Korean caption, the Imperial Japan (the Pacific War they started) was mentioned briefly to avoid any conflict. I called for the curator, for next 1.5 hours to complain about the discrepancy of the translations of the Korean and the English to the Curator, who insisted he spoke English well, then, he pretended he did not understand anything we told him of the two different narrations in each picture throughout the exhibitions. We started to question that this peace center is perhaps, a propaganda setup. Please, someone who can read Korean and English check out if the peace center actually has corrected their bad captions, to remove the manipulative English captions and have become more objective toward the history, and, be truthful of their exhibit, remaining under Humanity category, today. If not, this is the good comparison to Germany. Japan is still in denial for what they did to other human beings after 75 years since they lost war. And, they change their war stories in the recent decades, just like the distorted English Captions in the Peace Center we saw. They learned no lesson on humanity.

The museum's "Peace" title is overly broad. The exhibits are almost all about the WWII bombing of the city. It's a fascinating study of the controversial Japanese approach to WWII than anything else. The overall impression is "one day, out of the blue, the city was bombed. The poor children!" The minimal background and context, and a narrow focus on being victims, infuriates peoples from Asia who were brutalized by the Japanese, but fascinated me.

It's hard to find, but it is worth visiting. It doesn't look much from the back (google maps led me to the back entrance), but it looks better if you're coming from the Osaka Castle Park. The background was lacking, as they did not mention why the war started. Most of the exhibits are about the air bombings that happened in Japan, not much about what happened in the other parts of the world, it was not very extensive in that regard. Use of English translations and reading materials can be improved, especially on the video clip.

It's a nice stop over from Osaka castle, it's a WW2 museum. I went in without expecting much. Shows the rise of Japan's industrial revolution till where the war started and how people had to take shelter from the air raids. Basement has displays to show how it was like during the raids and how scary it was. Top floor is more towards nation building after the war. Where they show how Japan recovered till it is what it is today. I recommend going to it if you have time. The museum is old, so don't expect too much from what a morden day museum can offer. Entry fee should be less than 1000yen if i remember correctly.

If you’re in the park, it is worth checking out the exhibits in this museum.

Very well constructed museum. Very moving and somber. The displays had the right balance of information and emotion (ie more informative and less emotive). There was an excellent reflection and prayer area at the end. This is a must see when visiting Osaka.

In these 3 storey building, you can feel the athmosphere before, during and post-war periods in Japan, which is a very sobering experience. If you want to take a photographs inside the museum, you need a permission from the staff. The entrance fee is free of you are students or special appointed person. You can also watch the movies of the war victims in Osaka on the movie room yet the movies only play for several times a day.

Incredibly sad to walk through and see that they, in fact, did remove most exhibits and signs that Japan was an aggressor in WW2. I read a paper on the political party that renovated the museum and their attempt to rewrite history; looks like their attempts were successful. You will no longer find mentions of the atrocious actions the Japanese military carried out across Asia, no more mentions of their imperialist missions. Only a pictures and dialogs that paint themselves as innocent victims. Only displays of the osaka bombing without context as to why japan made itself an enemy of the world(excluding the nazis) at that time.