The US military is using manga to teach a new generation in Japan about the importance of their half-century security alliance in a new comic book series.
The story features an American boy called Usa-kun — a word play on USA and usagi, Japanese for rabbit — who wears a hooded jacket with bunny ears and befriends a Japanese girl, Anzu Arai.
In the first issue of Our Alliance — A Lasting Partnership, to be published online today, the boy tells Anzu that he has come to defend her home because they are “important friends.”
The US is publishing the Japanese-language comic as both nations mark the 50th anniversary of their security treaty, and two days before the 65th anniversary of the US atomic bombing of Hiroshima.
US-Japan ties have been strained for the past year as a new center-left government in Japan for months publicly toyed with the idea of moving a controversial US airbase off Okinawa.
In the four-part comic series, the two main characters “explore and learn about the US military in Japan and its role in the US-Japan alliance,” a statement from the US forces said.
The US military chose the manga format because it is “a very common way of communicating in Japan,” said Major Neal Fisher, deputy director of the US forces’ public affairs office in Japan.
“A lot of people love manga ... Manga is a very light-hearted way to carry information” on where the US bases are, what they are doing and how they are cooperating with the Japanese forces, he said.
The US has 47,000 troops stationed in the country.
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