An Exercise in Frustration

In my opinion Yuki Tananka’s “Japan’s Kamikaze Pilots and Contemporary Bombers: War and Terror” was an exercise in frustration. After my first reading I felt confused. The first four paragraphs gave so many statistics that my head was spinning. Once I made it through the numbers, I looked forward to learning something about the kamikaze pilots, as I knew nothing. This was to be a rather large letdown. I felt that the remainder of the essay was poorly organized and confusing. I decided to sleep on it and read it again for more clarity.

With a clear head, I sat down to reread the essay. Although, I found that I understood the text more clearly than my first reading, it was still a bit of a muddle. So, I tried to figure out why that was.  The essay was almost two separate topics. The first topic was about “who” the kamikaze pilots were. The second topic was a comparison of some similarities between kamikaze pilots and suicide bombers of today. I didn’t feel that the two topics flowed together very well.  Even the labels of “Kamikaze Pilots” and “Contemporary Suicide Bombers” seemed to separate the two trains of thought.  Another thing that bothered me was the incredibly long sentences. It felt as though there was too much to absorb in one thought. An example, “Undoubtedly war is an act of madness, its absurdity clearly shown in the paired (but imbalanced) actions and reactions of World War II: as Japan adopted kamikaze-style suicide attacks, the US used “strategic bombing” to indiscriminately kill hundreds of thousands of civilians, and finally engaged in atomic bombing attacks (Tanaka, 297).” I find it difficult to follow too many of these strung out thoughts. Even the “point form” themes that were given as reasons the pilots accepted their missions were lengthy paragraphs (296). By the time I reached the last paragraph in the section, I had almost forgotten what the point of the number (5) beside it was.

I decided not to read the essay a third time. Although I recognize that Yuki Tanaka is well educated, and a specialist in his field, I counted myself out as being one of his target audience.  Am I alone in this? Do you feel that you connected with this essay?

Works Cited

Tanaka, Yuki. “Japan’s Kamikaze Pilots and Contemporary Suicide Bombers: War and Terror.” Perspectives on Contemporary Issues. Ed. Katherine Ackley, Kim Blank, and Stephen Hume. Toronto: Nelson, 2008. 199 – 208. Print.