Tanaka, Motoko. Apocalypse in Contemporary Japanese Science Fiction. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Print.
"Apocalyptic themes in Japanese culture can be observed not only in the Buddhist notion of cyclical life but also in premodern legends which describe natural disasters such as major earthquakes and the subsequent recreation of communities. Japanese new religious movements in the Bakumatsu and Meiji periods (from the 1860s to the 1900s) featured strong apocalyptic beliefs and advocated for radical social reform in the modern era" (2).
Same paragraph as above, cont: "The Japanese apocalyptic imagination, however, underwent drastic changes following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombings continue to be among the most prominent tropes in Japanese postwar culture, with science fiction anime (animation) and manga (comic books) depicting future cities devastated by nuclear wars. Japanese postwar fiction in various genres deals with the total destruction of the self, the community, the nation, the Earth, or the universe caused by the misuse of advanced technologies. The traumatic experience of defeat in World War II has shaped Japanese contemporary culture by destroying the traditional identity of Japan and the Japanese people."
