![\"\"](\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F11192728-d058-43bc-abe2-e8831f1c5cdf_1200x895.webp)
<\/picture>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nGoing back to last July, I have covered reactions<\/a> to the Christopher Nolan movie in Japan \u2013 sight unseen, since it did not find a distributor there. Then a late-March opening was announced, and that did happen on Friday. Just in time for this brief SNL<\/em> comment, a lie but with bite, that it had been released in Japan \u201cwithout warning.\u201d<\/p>\n But what do the Japanese think of it?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s a holiday weekend so I don\u2019t have time for a deep dive but here are excerpts from a few articles. First, the BBC interviewed Hiroshima residents, watch here<\/a>.<\/p>\n NPR<\/strong>:<\/p>\n In the city of Nagasaki<\/a>, the second city to be devastated by a nuclear weapon, just three days after Hiroshima, housewife Tsuyuko Iwanai shared her thoughts as she exited the theater.<\/em><\/p>\n “The film was only about the side that dropped the A-bomb,” she noted. “I wish they had included the side it was dropped on.”<\/em><\/p>\n “But then I thought you might think about it differently, if you’re in a different position,” she added.<\/em><\/p>\n Indeed, one of the most controversial points about Oppenheimer is director Christopher Nolan’s choice not to directly depict the carnage<\/a> and agony that the atomic bombs unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but instead to focus on Oppenheimer.<\/em><\/p>\n Reuters reported that some cinemas<\/a> in Japan displayed signs warning moviegoers that the film contains images like nuclear tests that might trigger memories of the bombs.<\/em><\/p>\n New York Post:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cOf course this is an amazing film which deserves to win the Academy Awards. But the film also depicts the atomic bomb in a way that seems to praise it, and, as a person with roots in Hiroshima, I found it difficult to watch,\u201d said Hiroshima resident Kawai, 37<\/a>. Kawai, a civil servant, saw \u201cOppenheimer\u201d on opening day at a cinema just a kilometer from the city’s Atomic Bomb Dome. \u201cI’m not sure this is a film that Japanese people should make a special effort to watch,\u201d he added.<\/em><\/p>\n Some in Japan also took offense to the \u201cBarbenheimer<\/a>\u201d phenomenon \u2013 that associated \u201cOppenheimer\u201d with the comedy \u201cBarbie\u201d since both opened on the same day this summer \u2013 saying it trivialized what they endured from the bombs.<\/em><\/p>\n IMDB:<\/strong><\/p>\n Oppenheimer has finally been released in Japan, and despite the controversies, it has opened to a positive number at the box office.<\/em><\/p>\n According to Trade Analyst Luiz Fernando, Oppenheimer posts an estimated $800K<\/strong> opening day at Japan\u2019s box office. The report further claims this Cillian Murphy led has made two times more than what Dune 2 grossed on its pure Friday upon its release two weeks back<\/em><\/p>\n NME: <\/strong><\/p>\n With the film now having been released in the country, the Mayor of Hiroshima has been critical, saying (via Associated Press<\/a>): \u201cFrom Hiroshima\u2019s standpoint, the horror of nuclear weapons was not sufficiently depicted. The film was made in a way to validate the conclusion that the atomic bomb was used to save the lives of Americans.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:<\/strong><\/p>\n Suzuki Tatsujiro<\/em><\/a>, a nuclear engineer with advanced degrees from Tokyo University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who served as the vice chair of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission and is the vice director of the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition<\/a> at Nagasaki University, appreciated Nolan\u2019s investigation of \u201cthe social implications of scientific innovation and the relationship between scientists and politics.\u201d At the same time, he was disappointed the movie \u201cdid not address the responsibility\u00a0of the US government decision to drop the bomb\u201d and \u201cignored the voices of victims.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n AP:<\/strong><\/p>\n Some moviegoers offered praise. One man emerging from a Tokyo theater Friday said the movie was great, stressing that the topic was of great interest to Japanese, although emotionally volatile as well. Another said he got choked up over the film\u2019s scenes depicting Oppenheimer\u2019s inner turmoil. Neither man would give his name to an Associated Press journalist.<\/em><\/p>\n Others suggested the world might be ready for a Japanese response to that story.<\/em><\/p>\n