{"id":95,"date":"2007-02-21T15:40:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-21T20:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/2007\/02\/comics-enriched-their-lives-5\/"},"modified":"2007-02-21T15:40:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-21T20:40:00","slug":"comics-enriched-their-lives-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=95","title":{"rendered":"Comics Enriched Their Lives! #5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bp2.blogger.com\/_2v-Vwo5ul9Y\/RdyvWIS8qXI\/AAAAAAAAAAM\/e5RP9eLSAyM\/s1600-h\/nn20070221f3a.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bp2.blogger.com\/_2v-Vwo5ul9Y\/RdyvWIS8qXI\/AAAAAAAAAAM\/e5RP9eLSAyM\/s320\/nn20070221f3a.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5034091278212311410\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As Japan sheds its postwar pacifism and gears up to take a higher military profile in the world, it is enlisting cadres of cute characters and adorable mascots to put a gentle, harmless sheen to its Self-Defense Forces deployments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Prince Pickles is our image character because he&#8217;s very endearing, which is what Japan&#8217;s military stands for,&#8221; said Defense Ministry official Shotaro Yanagi. &#8220;He&#8217;s our mascot and appears in our pamphlets and stationery.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Such characters have long been used in Japan to win hearts and minds and to soften the image of authority.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<div style=\"text-align: right;\">&#8211;Hiroko Tabuchi, <a href=\"http:\/\/search.japantimes.co.jp\/cgi-bin\/nn20070221f3.html\">The Associated Press<\/a><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/nielsenhayden.com\/makinglight\/archives\/008692.html\">Making Light<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Japan sheds its postwar pacifism and gears up to take a higher military profile in the world, it is enlisting cadres of cute characters and adorable mascots to put a gentle, harmless sheen to its Self-Defense Forces deployments. &#8220;Prince Pickles is our image character because he&#8217;s very endearing, which is what Japan&#8217;s military stands for,&#8221; said Defense Ministry official Shotaro Yanagi. &#8220;He&#8217;s our mascot and appears in our pamphlets [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[264,593,623,838,1057],"class_list":["post-95","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-comics-enriched-their-lives","tag-iraq","tag-japan","tag-manga","tag-propaganda"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}