The Most Disturbing Human Experiment Ever

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[JonSudano]

The fact that someone in a lab coat could set someone on fire and watch as they die screaming can just go "Huh." and take notes is insane

[marvininabox]

Crazy how every detail of German atrocity is common knowledge, but things like this occurring simultaneously in Japan are almost occult knowledge

[WizardSylthfarn]

I learned about the atrocities of Unit 731 in one of my Japanese classes in college (taught by a native Japanese woman, born and raised in Tokyo). I later wrote an essay on it for my history of Japan class with a different professor, so this was more of something I was just watching because "oh yeah that's something I'm familiar with" and I enjoy Wendigoon's videos, but...honestly? There's some context missing from this that makes the actions of Unit 731 way, way worse.

It's not even that the people working at Unit 731 were "uneducated" or "tricked by their government". They knew full well what they were doing. What people don't seem to realize is that Japan has a history—and at the time was having an extremely strong period—of nationalism. Japan is actually the *only* Asian country to be considered a first world fully developed state. China and Korea are actually still developing (I've studied this as I double minored in International Studies in college). And I'm not saying that as something negative against Korea or China, but Japan went through rapid industrialization during the Meiji Era (from 1868 to 1912, or around the Victorian England Era if that helps contextualize it for you). During that period and *beyond*, Japan looked at Western cultures and deemed them "superior" compared to their fellow Eastern countries. There's even an essay written around this time titled "Goodbye Asia" that I read for one of my Japanese classes wherein the author *literally calls people from China and Korea savages for their beliefs and way of life?* Like think of how European colonizers treated Native Americans, and that's...pretty similar.

Essentially what I'm getting at is that Japan had been viewing their Asian neighbors as "below" them, and wanted to be seen as equal to European/Western countries. Unfortunately this...didn't actually work out so well for Japan considering racism is alive and well, so while Japan could consider itself "civilized", Western countries were like "umm, you're Asian tho :/" Please note that Japan has this horrible horrible history as well of being *incredibly* racist towards anyone not viewed as "pure Japanese."

I'm sure many people have heard of the "comfort women" during WWII as well—Korean women who were taken from their homeland to serve as a way to...put delicately...curb the urge of Japanese soldiers to have sex with random women. There's plenty of controversy around this, including people who still claim to this day that the comfort women either did it willingly or their families were "properly compensated." I think after watching this video alone, you'll get an idea of how bullshit that claim is. Children of these women would also later be discriminated against for being only half-Japanese, and similarly Korean immigrants and their children were murdered because of some "blood purity" culture. It's genuinely not so far off from the "superior Aryan race" ideology of Nazi Germany, which makes you realize how these two powers were able to work together so well.

But that dehumanization of their neighbors (be that from China, Korea, or any of the Soviet states), made it so much easier to commit these atrocities. Dehumanization is literally the first step of oppression, and if you don't view your subjects as humans (see: referring to them as "logs") it allows you to do what these researchers did. It's horrifying, and to me it's even more horrifying that we'll talk about things Nazi scientists did but Unit 731 is rarely covered.

Just a small disclaimer at the end of this for a couple things: Japan does still have serious issues with acknowledging what it did wrong during WWII. But that isn't a reflection of the Japanese population as a whole. While Japan's culture is much more collectivist (compared to many Western individualist societies), reducing a country down to beliefs that aren't shared by everyone is narrow-minded and fails to recognize that no culture is a monolith. However, the issues of racism and failure to acknowledge accountability are still prevalent even today. If people speak against the use of the "rising sun" flag of Imperial Japan, you should listen to them, because for many Chinese and Korean people, it's the equivalent of seeing a Swastika.

Other disclaimer: Wendigoon did a fantastic job covering this subject, and it's literally just the "I know about this" part of me that wanted to add some additional context. I definitely don't want anyone thinking that the researchers were just misguided or coming away with the misconception that they were uneducated when it's quite the opposite. If you read this whole essay of a comment, thanks! Hope you learned something. Sorry for leaving such a long comment too on a months old video...

[ocker]

It's insane to think that this was almost completely lost to history, it makes you wonder what other horrid things are just entirely unknown

[NotRealPhil]

Ah yes, another calming bedtime story from Wendi

[mark_lgaming]

People don’t usually talk about Japan in the same vein as Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy in terms of their atrocities against humanity, but they absolutely deserve to be mentioned in those same conversations.

[seangambone]

As depraved as it is, the worst of anything is that we think that governments won't do it again.

[jedicanes]

This is the perfect example of the reason we study history
We study history because if we don't remember the evil, it is inevitable to repeat.

[Offline]

The fact that this atrocity was almost lost to history makes me wonder about all the horrors that _were_ lost and maybe even the horrible things going on right now that we may never know about. It's terrifying.

[elturtle]

The horrible thing is that we don’t have survivor perspectives. Only perspectives from the abusers, who I’m sure omitted the more cruel details beyond what they deemed to be the broad, cleaner description.

[Anino_Makata]

The fact that Unit 731 nearly got away with being forgotten to history is troubling. Because what mistakes we neglect will eventually repeat itself, in one way or another. Thinking on the paradigm of the Unit being created and operating just a couple lifetimes ago, not even a century behind us... the chilling notion that had we not been reminded of their atrocities meant seeing another form of Unit 731 in our time on Earth is harrowing.

[movmentztv]

The pregnant women, children and babys is the most heartbreaking of it all. to harm a child is insane

[kosmickalamity]

Crazy that he got a raid sponsor for one of the least advertiser friendly topics he could possibly cover

[yossy]

I'm Japanese. Even more terrifying is that an increasing number of Japanese people recently claim that Unit 731 was just a quarantine unit and didn't commit any atrocities, saying the stories were made up by Chinese. It's very shameful and disgusting.

[dennismortberg]

Don't think that we're separated from this level of evil by time. Many people still have grandparents who were alive when these experiments took place. The world is still capable of this horror and people are still capable of going along with it.

[linkLoverAG]

Its also insane to me to know near the end of WW2 Japan was actively starving and civilians were dying as a result. In fact, if the bombs hadn't been dropped, the backup choice to getting Japan to surrender was to put the country under a blockade and starve them out. They were more willing to send their spending to these torture labs than they were to supply food and water to their own dying civilians.

[onlygalactic]

Japan: wow USA took this too far with nuclear weapons and killing our civilians.

Also Japan:

[Elpresidente]

World War 2 really was the darkest period in Human history. Between Unit 731 and the Holocaust, it's really depressing to know that people are capable of such barbarism and pure evil. May the victims rest in peace.

[Joeyisagonnawin]

7:11 For some reason, I imagined this like a card game.
"I wager Biological warfare."
"I see your Biological warfare and raise you one Nuclear warfare."
"I fold."

[foxwhistle]

I learned about this because of My Hero Academia. One of the main antagonists of that series, Kyudai Garaki, was originally named Maruta Shiga in his debut chapter. After only 1 week of the chapter's release, the name was quickly changed and the Mangaka, Horikoshi Kohei, apologized for the insensitive nature of the character.