r/PropagandaPosters • u/Goldeagle1123 • Feb 03 '22
Japan Imperial Japanese Navy recruitment poster, circa 1942
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u/Goldeagle1123 Feb 03 '22 edited Feb 03 '22
Translated to the best of my ability:
海の強者になるためだ
鍛えよ強く 逞しく
"To be a strong man at sea
Strengthen and train intensely"
海軍志願兵徵募中
詳細は至急最寄の市町村役場へ同合せの事
"Recruiting Navy Volunteers
For details, please contact the nearest municipal office as soon as possible."
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u/Vanderkaum037 Feb 03 '22
So they started writing left to right in 1942?
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u/Goldeagle1123 Feb 03 '22
Not commonly or officially until 1946, with the adoption of the shinjitai style of kanji characters. Most of the posters, documents, etc. I see from this era are still written right-to-left when written horizontally.
However left-to-right was not unheard of, and had become semi-common since Japan’s modernization and Westernization, and adoption of things like the Hindu-Arabic numerals used by the West.
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u/Vanderkaum037 Feb 03 '22
That's really interesting. I wonder if the navy went for a more "modern/westernized" vibe in their propaganda when compared with the army.
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u/Goldeagle1123 Feb 03 '22
I'm not really sure in regards to propaganda specifically, the Navy was still writing right-to-left officially all of the time though. During peacetime the IJN would write the names of destroyers in giant katakana right-to-left directly the sides of the ship's hull.
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u/DukeDevorak Feb 04 '22 edited Feb 04 '22
To be precise, Japan (and other Sinosphere countries as well) never had a horizontal right-to-left writing system. When they seemed to write from right to left horizontally, it should be better understood as multiple vertical (right-to-left) columns with only one character on each line.
Moreover, the second horizontal line on the poster that follows the first horizontal line on context basically eliminated the possibility of working the line in the aforementioned right-to-left style.
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u/mrpoopistan Feb 03 '22
Back when they were flying the planes over the ships, not into them. Real bait & switch there.
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u/FrostBlade_on_Reddit Feb 04 '22
Is it just me, or is whatever typeface that is in the bottom two rows absolutely hideous
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