Last few minutes of “Victory Through Air Power” Disney made WWII propaganda film that shows Japanese octopus being attacked by American eagle. (Trying to get hold of a copy of this.)

Japan Menances World Trade pamplet (1944)

The following very pretty pamphlet cover was printed in 1944 by the ‘Ministry Of Information’. It shows a black Japanese octopus with rising sun behind it with the caption: “Japan Menaces World Trade”. The Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives list it as a “leaflet on raw materials made unobtainable by Japanese conquest in the Far East, with pictorial statistics in black and red”¹. The “symbols of industry”² are more graphic than in the earlier l’etat monopoles of France, or monopolies of the USA. They appear to include: Tea, Rice, Textiles?, Tyres, Ingots of metal (gold?), Palm Trees?, Sugar, and some strange juicey pumpkin thing (coco, coffee?).

Notes

1. Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings College,http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/cats/embleton/em50-01-.shtml (Accessed: 16th March 2009)
2. ibid.

Tako No Asirai (Octopus Treading) by Kobayashi Kiyochika. (1904)

One of those rare examples where the octopus is pro-cause ¹. Japanese officer sitting on an octopus that is capturing ships disguised fish. Russo-Japanese War. Part of a series: Nihonbanzai hyakusen hyakusho (Long live Japan: one hundred victories, one hundred laughs). Image source and information: Library of Congress http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g07292 (Accessed 4th Jan 2009)

US Marines vs Japanese Octopus (Wise, 1944)

Where pulp meets propaganda. United States Marines No. 3. (1944) published by William H Wise featuring a US Marine using a flame thrower to fight a buck-tooth Japanese octopus (Tojo)¹.

In a related note: The United States Marines did use flame throwers against the Japanese at the Battle of Iwo Jima in Feb-Mar of 1945 and it has been argued that comics such as these aimed to both dehumanise the enemy and make the use of flame throwers palatable².

“The Marines learned that firearms were relatively ineffective against the Japanese defenders and effectively used flamethrowers and grenades to flush out Japanese troops in the tunnels. One of the technological innovations of the battle, the eight Sherman M4A3R3 medium tanks equipped with the Navy Mark I flame thrower (“Ronson” or Zippo Tanks), proved very effective at clearing Japanese positions. The Shermans were difficult to disable, such that defenders were often compelled to assault them in the open, where the Japanese troops would fall victim to the superior numbers of Marines.”³

IMAGE SOURCE: Superdickery, ‘Propaganda Extravaganza’,http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=35&Itemid=49&limitstart=32, (Accessed: 10th Jan 2009)

Footnotes:

1. United States Marines (1944) 3 comic book, My Comic Shop.com,https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?tid=378121&SetShowNotes=Y#7944091
2. Adam Eli Clem (2005), ‘Octopus & Propaganda’ Tonmo forum post,http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showpost.php?p=43904&postcount=140
3. Wikipedia, Battle of Iwo Jima,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Iwo_Jima

Octopus-Samurai and Farmer (Hokusai, ~1839)

One of the earlier octopus political cartoons/caricature comes from Japan by Katsushika Hokusai. It depicts an octopus dressed as a samurai sitting on a pile of potatoes. It is in a pulling competition with a farmer over a mattock. The Pacific Asia Museum (2006) summarised the context in which this painting was created:

It has been suggested that this scene represents the struggle between the samurai warriors and the farmers of the Edo period. In 1838, a year before the drawing was made, there was a poor rice crop, so there was a shortage of rice in 1839. Hokusai’s image may represent the farmers’ hatred of the oppressive samurai landlords, which sometimes led to revolt. Hokusai, who himself came from a working-class background, may have been criticizing the injustice of the social system of his time. ¹

Octopus-Samurai and Farmer (Katsushika Hokusai, ~1839)

SOURCE:
Katsushika Hokusai (circa 1839): Drawing, ink on coloured paper, http://www.pacificasiamuseum.org/japanesepaintings/html/essay3.stm(Accessed: 13th Jan 2009).

Footnotes

1. The Nature of the Beast: Animals in Japanese Paintings and Prints (2006), Pacific Asia Museum http://www.pacificasiamuseum.org/japanesepaintings/html/essay3.stm (Accessed: 13th Jan 2009).