Koreans at Matsushiro Underground Imperial Headquarters and Wada Noboru

The purpose of this article is to explore the issue of war responsibility as it has been dealt with in Japanese children’s literature after the Fifteen Years War. Historically, Korea and Japan have lived together through very close exchanges in the social, economic, and cultural spheres. However, when the issue of colonizer/colonized relations during the Fifteen Years War is raised the relationship between the two countries rapidly deteriorates. This seems to arise from a lack of understanding and different approaches to the war. With this in mind, the article surveys the discourse of Japanese children’s literature relating to the issue of Japanese responsibility for war, looking in particular at the work of Noboru Wada, which is unusual in dealing with the problem of the forced conscription of Koreans by Japan during the war and portrays the Japanese as perpetrators. It thus explores how children’s writers have put into practice the idea of the responsibility for war through a change of perspective on war from an ‘event’ to a ‘relationship between people.’