'Unbroken," Angelina Jolie's 2014 film about the late American Olympic athlete Louie Zamperini, will finally receive a theatrical release in Japan next year after inciting the ire of local groups who claim its depiction of Japanese prisoner of war camps is sensationally harsh and thus an expression of reflexive Japan-bashing. Although it's not likely these soreheads have watched the movie, it is likely, given their own reflexive response to anything seen as placing Japan in a negative light, that if they had, they wouldn't bother to note that the movie provides a moral balance. In one scene, the Allied POWs are moved from one camp to another, and pass through a residential area recently destroyed by American bombers. They see scores of dead civilians, proof that the Japanese people themselves suffered immeasurably during World War II.
Japan's civilian casualties have always been the elephant in the room when it comes to wartime responsibility. The Americans who bombed Japan indiscriminately have never addressed the purposeful targeting of civilians, while the government has never published the exact number of civilian casualties. Researchers estimate that more than 400,000 were killed in air raids, and that doesn't include the atomic attacks. The government didn't even try to find out how many children were orphaned during the war until Gen. Douglas MacArthur urged them to do so. They finally arrived at the figure of 120,000 — in 1981.
The Association of Civilian War Victims was formed in 1972 to address the issue of compensation for civilian victims of air raids. The group says that since veterans and veterans' survivors have received benefits over the years, civilians who also suffered should get something, but the government has always rebutted the demand by claiming that soldiers were employees of the state and civilians were not.