Brought to you by Gifted Ones www.giftedones.net
Please do not stream or make profit from these subtitles.
Episode 210
The news of Japanese victories at Pearl Harbor and other fronts,
filled the people with excitement.
The whole nation stood united. Everyone hoped for final victory,
nobody complained of material shortage anymore.
Oshin, too, believed that Japan would win.
And she was willing to do her part to the fullest.
But she was very afraid of having Yuu become a soldier at the front.
It was her motherly instinct to protect her son.
Mr. Takagi's third son is going to the Army's Officers' Candidate School.
You convinced him to go?
Yes. He's a good boy.
His parents support the idea, and he has good grades in school.
Poor boy... He's only 14 or 15 years old.
We need more fighter pilots. We need more men helping out.
What if one of the boys that you talked into going there gets killed?
It's for our country! Nobody wants our boys to die.
But in order to win, we need more men!
Will you send Hitoshi and Nozomi, too?
Of course! It's our patriotic duty.
We can't let our personal feelings get in the way.
We must all serve our country.
Ryuzo and Oshin never dreamed that Japan would eventually lose the war.
In April of 1942,
Yuu was accepted into Kyoto Imperial University.
At the time, Japan was still winning many victories
in the Pacific and morale was high.
But by 1943,
dark shadows began to be cast over Japan's fortunes of war.
Father made fun of us when we began this garden.
Now he appreciates it!
He didn't think we would be short of food.
What a surprise!
Welcome home.
What brings you home?
These potatoes look good!
What about school?
You don't have to work at the factory?
There's not much work... No fish to make kamaboko.
Your father is mainly at the garment factory now.
You knew he was coming home?
Well...
I guess you two can sense these things.
So it's finally come.
I was ready for it. But Mother doesn't know yet...
I thought she'd know by know...
I don't think she noticed it in the newspapers.
That's why I couldn't bring myself to tell her...
But I'll tell her.
How long can you stay?
Did you leave your rooming house in Kyoto?
I mailed my important belongings,
and I told the lady there to get rid of all my other things.
That's good.
I will get something ready for you!
I'll tell her myself.
What is it?
I'm returning this book to you.
I'll get in trouble if they catch me with it.
Yosano Akiko was an anti-war poet.
She was calling out to her younger brother at the front to not die.
That won't work today.
- That book is... - I know.
I know how you feel.
I want to respect your wishes, too.
But one can't do his best at the front if one is afraid to die.
You're going?
There used to be student exemptions until now,
but it no longer applies to students in humanities.
I'm already 20, so I'm of age to serve.
I came home to tell you that I'm going.
So that's it... I'd read in the papers
that some previously exempt college students might be drafted.
But your father said nothing to me.
And I was afraid to ask...
He was keeping it from me!
- He was just worried about you. - You said nothing to me, either!
So I thought everything was all right!
I'd already decided.
Rougher times are ahead ahead for Japan.
America isn't that easy to beat.
But we must not lose!
I'm willing to give my life for that.
I want to do it for my family, and for my homeland!
I want to fight in order to live in peace.
I won't regret risking my life.
I was sent out to work at age seven...
Work was so hard that I ran away in the snow.
It turned into a blizzard and I was lost.
And a deserter saved my life.
I was with him in the mountains all winter.
He was a very nice man.
His name was Shunsaku.
He taught me a lot of things.
He always said that man should never kill one another.
He said that if I were ever involved in a war,
I should do my best to oppose it.
I can still remember his words...
He gave me this book.
But I didn't oppose this war... I couldn't!
Now I can't even protect my own son from it...
I should've done something to oppose it!
I didn't stand in the way of your father's work.
He's a war profiteer.
But I ignored it for the sake of my children.
I never dreamed that my own son would one day have to go and fight!
Now...
Now I don't know why I held on to this book!
You stopped me from going to Officers' Candidate School.
If I'd gone, I never would've been able to enjoy my youth as I have.
That's enough for me.
If something should happen to me, I don't want you to be sad.
I was able to live happily until the age of 20 because of you.
But Yuu...
I'll be all right.
I'm ready to die, but I won't die easily.
I'll come home safely.
Oshin...
Let's send him off with a smile.
If you cry, Yuu will suffer more.
Don't worry about your mother. I'll always be at her side.
Go and do your duty!
- Mother! - Yuu, be a man!
You will never understand how she feels!
You will never know the sacrifices she made to raise me.
I was always with her.
When she ran that eatery in Sakata.
When she was peddling fish in Ise.
She's not like you!
To die is easy...
But those who are left behind must suffer forever.
It's too cruel to think...
that hundreds of thousands of mothers, just like my own,
will have to suffer.
Killing one another isn't the only cruel aspect of war.
The ones who suffer the most are those
who have lost their loved ones, and have to go on living.
That's the cruelest part of war!
I wish I'd been born into a world without war...
I might not have been a filial son.
But, at least I wouldn't have been an unfilial son...
Oshin was full of regrets...
She knew that she alone could not oppose the war.
But she felt guilty for never having opposed it.
Translation: UTB Channel
Thanks to Avallac'h and XrayMind at D-Addicts.