As some other commenters have pointed out:
It is lamentable that the focus is almost always on the atomic bombing itself instead of why it came to that point at all.
Many Asian countries feel scant sympathy toward Japan. From Indonesia to Malaysia to the Philipipines or even worse and for much longer, in Korea and China. In each of these countries the Japanese perpetrated massacre, forced labour, gang rape and forced prostitution in the millions. Even European women who were stranded in their former colonies were not spared. In fact their diaries are the foremost historical sources.
Their brutality is such that the hatred towards colonialist European nations were ameliorated and pretty much forgotten these days. It's sickening to me that outside East and Southeast Asia itself, most of the world only remember Nagasaki and Hiroshima when it comes to casualties in the Pacific theatre of WW2.
This sympathy felt even more misplaced considering even to this very day, unlike Germany, Japanese historiograpy deliberately downplays Japan brutality during occupation or that there was any aggression on their part at all. Most Japanese college mates in the US that I've talked to were not even aware that Japan occupied my country for years resulting in millions of casualties.
There are also well-maintained shrines (like Yasukuni) to the Japanese war criminals frequented even by high-level politicians (former PM went there, current ministers went there). Imagine that in current Germany!
The Yasukuni situation is more complex than "the shrine for war criminals". A lot more people are enshrined there, the war criminals are a tiny fraction (and were only added in 1978, while the shrine was established 109 years earlier). To give you an example of an important and less controversial figure enshrined there: Sakamoto Ryōma. There are 2+ millions souls enshrined there.
What did nyc or the US do to deserve 9/11? On the other hand what Japan has (usually brutally) killed way more innocent people in Asia than those killed by the A-bombs
Many Asian countries feel scant sympathy toward Japan. From Indonesia to Malaysia to the Philipipines or even worse and for much longer, in Korea and China. In each of these countries the Japanese perpetrated massacre, forced labour, gang rape and forced prostitution in the millions. Even European women who were stranded in their former colonies were not spared. In fact their diaries are the foremost historical sources.
Their brutality is such that the hatred towards colonialist European nations were ameliorated and pretty much forgotten these days. It's sickening to me that outside East and Southeast Asia itself, most of the world only remember Nagasaki and Hiroshima when it comes to casualties in the Pacific theatre of WW2.
This sympathy felt even more misplaced considering even to this very day, unlike Germany, Japanese historiograpy deliberately downplays Japan brutality during occupation or that there was any aggression on their part at all. Most Japanese college mates in the US that I've talked to were not even aware that Japan occupied my country for years resulting in millions of casualties.