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Japanese cartoonists present anti-war works in Nanjing

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-09-17 14:17

A cartoon exhibition marking the Victory over Japan Day, August 15, in World War II, and displaying anti-war works of 100 Japanese cartoonists is to go on show in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu province, an exhibition organizer said on Aug 12.

Zhu Chengshan, curator of the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Invaders, said about 100 cartoons would be displayed for the first time outside Japan on the "memorial day for the end of the war".

All the cartoons are originals. They display their Japanese authors' viewpoints of the 1937-1945 China-Japan war and their mixed feelings regarding their nation's surrender.

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The drawings, bearing captions such as "Come back home soon", "That Summer" and "That Winter", illustrate the disaster brought to China and Japan by the latter's invasion.

The exhibition will start on August 15 and will run for three months.

"Artists such as Tetsuya Chiba, whose work is going to be exhibited this time, are prestigious and influential in Japan. Even Japanese government dignitaries show them respect," Zhu said.

Zhu said many famous Japanese cartoonists had experienced Japan's surrender during their childhood. Some had "special feelings" toward Chinese people after travelling to China as children with their parents during the war.

The exhibition is co-sponsored by the memorial hall, Nanjing's International Peace Research Center and a non-governmental organization, "My day of August 15", which was founded in 2002 by famous Japanese artists.

During the War of Resistance Against Japan from July 1937 to August 1945, China battled its neighbor's invasion. In the Nanjing Massacre, a period of 40 days from Dec. 13, 1937, after the city fell, approximately 210,000 civilians were slaughtered and 90,000 Chinese soldiers died at the hands of Japanese invaders.