Rashomon and Japanese Politics alike?

One good characteristic of the Japanese is that they are able to get an idea out of its core and eventually make it Japanese. Japanese Politics' value system and system structure were both compromise and in both traditional and modern elements. However, it can lack internal resources to change its political system. From Takeshi Ishida's book Japanese Political Culture he divided the development of Japan into two stages.
First, The period starting from the Meiji Restoration up to the end of World War II. It was the turning point in Japanese History, when the Samurai from han ousted the Bakufu and proclaimed the restoration of power to the imperial dynasty which reigned in japan for almost thousands of years. The momentous changes were followed by the ending of the traditional Samurai monopoly of military service in 1873. After which various changes in the government were implemented as thought to be something that would make Japan a better state.And, lastly, the period when of Japan's defeat in World War II up to the present. In this period was already the rising of modern Japan.

Japanese Politics is as complicated as other politics there is. As different personnel tries to held up to power, Politics it self is already making ways for its own political interest. The simple logic I can use to understand this clearly is that, there are a lot of things that is only good only when it is at its best and is useless if it has none.

The movie Roshomon on the other hand, is a film about a wife who got raped and her husband being murdered. There were witnesses in this scene, the rapist himself, a medium and the dead man. The movie was set in a way where the viewers will think of the answer to the question--"What really happened in the story?" Why am I trying to put these two different topics into one? Primarily because Japanese Politics and Rashomon are similar in a lot of ways. One of these similarities is that like Japanese Politics, there are a lot of versions of it and only the people are to decide whatever they would like to believe in. Japan lacked the internal resources to its political system until it was defeated by the allied forces. Japan introduced various reforms ordered by the occupation authorities. Hence, the attitude of conformity and competition was stable enough to Japanese Politics despite its social changes before and after WWII. Moreover, Like the Samurai's wife she was only as good as her importance to his husband. Japan is a very powerful country and, so with its leaders they only considering thing s t be important only if it is useful to them. This has been proven in Japanese History when leaders are to change sides just to fulfill their own interest. Another similarities that I can see is that like the woodcutter and the commoner in the movie Rashomon, Japanese Politics would work hard just to cover up its flaws. It tries to portray a very string government even if it is really not. In fairness to Japanese Politics it is really indeed a good move to exercise deceit to avoid chaos and alike. And lastly, I imagined the priest in the Roshomon movie as something to be compared to Japan's image of Gandhi, where they project ultranationalism and used nonviolent action as a mean to carry out social change toward realization of justice.

Why or Why not? (Jagopol Online Session 1)

Comparing or Comparison is one way knowing the flaw of something. By doing so, you can criticize whether a decision is wrong or not. Furthermore, it allows us to discover more about other things around us on how things are alike or different.

In Comparing Countries we can discover why some countries are better off than the other, and or why some countries are alike. From the book "Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics"By Todd Landman , he explains than comparing countries is one good way of analyzing how countries were able to came to be on their success and failures, it is more of a behavioral thing where the outcome depends on how the people involved acts as actors. Moreover, being able to classify the differences and similarities of other countries can make the world of politics less complex as it is already is. Also, it will be easier to make future predictions on countries that are bound to experience the same struggles or success of other countries. Even though Todd Landman made a very good argument, I believe that comparing one country from another is not enough to be able to predict its future. Yes, there is a possibility for it to happen but it is as great as the possibility for it not to happen as well.

Among all other countries, I firmly believe that Japan is one of the important state besides the United States. It is an innovative state where it embraces all changes that suits its needs and development. Other than being important, it is surely impressive for having a very "colorful" political experiences. When I say colorful meaning it experienced a lot of changes in its government for the last centuries and still it was able to cope up with the changes, because unlike other countries Japan was able to embraced the changes that is happening to them as they flow along with it. Moreover, Japan's politics is not that different with other states and it also it experienced a lot of success and failures where other countries can really learn from. One example of this is after the WWII, where after few years time they were able to stand up and even made it to top of the economy among other countries.