Generally the Soviet military did not treat civilians and or non combatants with the same respect Western forces did. Additionally the Soviet Union installed a series of puppet governments in Eastern Europe after the war having de facto conquered what were independent states Pre War.
Initially had a whole bit written explain some shit about my thought process but decided against posting it beyond the the bit in the spoiler below. Anyway look I've been reading up Axis war crimes the whole day and you know what? I realized calling them the moral equivalent of the infinite black abyss of a black hole so dark it hurts to look at was being way too nice to them. So yeah despite all the crap the Soviets did during the interwar, the 39-41 period and their "liberation" of Eastern Europe they weren't "dark grey" in comparison to the Axis. So I'm dropping them down to "grey grey" here. I'm still keeping the Wallies "light grey" because of how fucking far right the moral overton window gets shifted when one side contains Imperial Japan and the Nazis.
forums.spacebattles.com
Western historical productions really pale in comparison to most Taiga dramas that the Japanese are producing each and every year since 1963. I believe their rather storied history of violence against each other have led them to become rather earnest about their (pre-modern) history - though of course, they'll still steer clear from their WW2 atrocities at that.
Here's a nuance - it seems to me that this kind of frankness can serve not only as criticism or a call for rethinking, but also as a factor of normalization. "Taiga-dorama" really likes to put characters with ambiguous reputations in the spotlight, but the directors still like to hint at who is more positive and who is less. It's normal to see a scene where a character beats up a servant with the words "How dare you come here, stupid monkey!", and in the next one talks about obviously useful reforms.
The author probably didn't identify as such, but what's with all these ostensibly moderate TLs where the good ending is just Europe continuing to rule the world? Now I kinda understand why that one communist Japan ISOT is like that.
You'll have to elaborate.
forums.sufficientvelocity.com
Arguably OTL. It blew itself up and got split in half by two new kids on the bloc that were really adamant about decolonization.
Meanwhile a China that's about to do better than OTL snatches up all the European colonies the Japanese took. None of this French Indochina shit.
Beyond those dramas still having editorial stances over its protagonists and other characters, which — overall — normalises hierarchy and abuse, at least they still do leave for the audience to think for themselves in ruminating about the deeds of those historical figures. Your average salaryman may just see this as an affirmation that they had it good enough in the skulduggery of their work — but what about the members and voters of the Japanese Communist Party? Obviously — they'll have other ideas at that.
I honestly have a different approach. People need heroes - not to do all the work for them, but to show them how to do it. If we just show cruelty and moral ugliness, then we will only help to corrode the hope for a Bright Future with a pile of lies, senseless cruelty, and fear. All this makes people indifferent to everything, turns them into lazy cynics. Of course, working with historical material (especially with real historical figures) requires more delicacy. But we don't need another "Game of Thrones." Perhaps this is just the retrograde from Europe speaking in me, tired of the cynicism that surrounds us both inside and outside.
