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Initial comments
not sure about the title. the japan times article i cited calls the event "hyakunin giri kyoso" (100 head contest); maybe "100 head contest would be a better title?" also be nice to get 百人... in complete kanji. (i currently cant display japanese text). Nateji7707:58, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
The title's naming should depend on its purpose, whether it is primarily meant to describe the activity or to document the Nichi Nichi Shimbun article. Re-naming would be more appropriate for the latter but not necessarily the former, in my view. Shawnc01:25, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
Hm yes, "hyakunin-kiri kyoso" I think be a better name. Translated of course. -- Миборовский03:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
百人斬り競争 - Literally, 100 People Beheading Contest. 斬り means beheading in Japanese, it's a verb (well more accurately, a conjugation of 斬る, to behead). Don't change the name of the article. 160.39.225.21723:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
Discredited source?
Article says:"Contest to Kill First 100 Chinese with Sword Extended When Both Fighters Exceed Mark--Mukai Scores 106 and Noda 105". - This quote is clearly stolen directly from Iris Chang's discredited book "The Rape of Nanking", which is not listed in the references. Either remedy this situation, or I will remove the quote in question, along with any others that have been plagiarized. Bueller 00704:02, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Good catch on the plagiarized quote, but to call Chang's book "discredited" is gross hyperbole. Out of the dozens of historians both in the US and abroad who praised the book (Steven Ambrose for one), there have been maybe 3 or 4 who criticized it. Remember WP:POV, especially if it's wacky and unlikely to be supported. 24.29.58.3820:00, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Dude, you seriously need to get a clue. Before that book was released in Japan, the "daigyakusatsu-ha" (the group of Japanese scholars who believe that the massacre was ~300,000 people) begged her not to release it because it was full of so much GARBAGE that had already been discredited in Japan. They were afraid that the release of "The Rape of Nanking" was just going to set up a straw man that the Maboroshi-ha (the Nanjing-deniers) would have no problem knocking down. As it turns out, that's EXACTLY what happened. I'm not saying there was no massacre, but her book was absolute GARBAGE. There's serious scholarship being done on the subject on all sides of the matter. "The Rape of Nanking" for the most part just uses already-falsified propaganda. (Not to mention Chang's complete lack of any knowledge or cultural understanding of the Japanese, and her masking of the Chinese army's own scorched-earth program.) Bueller 00713:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Further, as is often the case with Nanjing, there is more material available in Japanese than there is in English. I will work on translating the Japanese page, and I will post what I find in the English article. If anyone here can speak Chinese, I invite them to do the same with the Chinese article. English scholarship in this field is particularly bad. Bueller 00704:19, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
Addition
Just a small addition. Thirty years after Japan's surrender, Yamamoto Shichihei wrote "Watashi no Naka no Nihongun" (私の中の日本軍) in which he dissected the original newspaper article that described the contest. It speaks of the Japanese officers "cutting straight through helmets" of over 100 Chinese soldiers with antique swords. The article also contained gross misuse of military jargon, suggesting that the original author had little understanding of military affairs. 219.163.12.7211:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC) Oscar_the_Grouch
As for "antique" swords vs. modern ones, the katana used during WWII were mostly hand-made family relics of very high quality and strength. Modern Japanese swords for export are usually mass-machined in China from plain stainless steel, and are universally weaker and less structurally sound than the swords hand-made by Japanese artisans. There are no legitimate sources posted on "katana vs. helmet", and I doubt if any exist. So I don't see how we can jump to judgement. 24.29.58.3820:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
From Japanese Misplaced Pages: 日本刀の性能 日本刀で人間を100人斬ることは不可能だとの指摘がある。当時の日本刀は指揮官用の指揮刀としての性格が強く、人を一人斬っただけでも刃がガタガタになってしまうものもあったが、軍刀は将校の通常装備品として多数戦場に存在し、「百人斬り」に必要な本数を調達するのは困難ではなかったとも言われている。しかし、わざわざ「百人斬り」の為に必要な本数を調達する事は現実問題としてありえないとも言われている。
And you're wrong about the studies. Although I've seen one study saying that it would in fact be possible to kill 100 people with one of those swords, I've also seen another saying that there was no chance in hell that they could have cut through an army helmet. I don't think it takes a genius to see that if this story had even the slightest bit of truth to it (which it may or may not), it was obviously exaggerated for the sake of "heroism". Like the guy standing in the hail of bullets at the end of the story. Regardless of whether or not this contest took place, I don't think it's possible for someone to slice through a steel helmet and bring the sword straight down all the way through someone's body in one stroke. Bueller 00713:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Given the events at Nanjing, it is likely that their victims were largely Chinese peasants without helmets. Remember that one of the Japanese official justifications for the killing of civilians in Nanjing was that they claimed that Chinese soldiers had shed their uniforms and tried to disappear amongst the general populace. --Torasap15:39, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
Contradiction
I added {{contradict}} template to the article because the lead makes no doubts that the contest happened, but last paragraphs make it convincing that it actually didn't happen. Nikola05:05, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I removed it, then added it back because I realized it does belong.
What seems clear is that (a) the contest was reported in newspapers, and (b) the contest is notable, given the events that followed (executions for war crimes, controversy, lawsuit). So the questions are (c) how strong is the evidence as to whether it actually occurred or not, and (d) if fabricated, did the military and newspapers cooperate on the story (to improve military and civilian morale, to sell newspapers)?
It would be very helpful if the sentence that includes "the killing contest itself was a fabricated story" were elaborated on - Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi presumably had specific reasons to conclude this was a fabrication, and presumably why it was fabricated. In particular, that the story served as a positive influence in Japanese culture, making the Japanese more aware of some of the wartime atrocities appears to be a comment about events from 1971 onward; it offers no insight into the actual fabrication (if such was in fact the case).
It's perfectly okay to say, in the article, that the reality of the contest is disputed by historians, or (if this is true) that historians today generally agree that the contest never happened, despite the newspaper coverage. If the contest never took place, that makes the article more interesting to the reader, who would want to know why the military and newspapers would collaborate for such a thing. (Speculation by editors, in the article, is not encouraged.) -- John Broughton(♫♫)21:03, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
--
I've just cleaned it up, the contradiction that was rather obvious to me as well. A check of my cleanup would be appreciated.
I hope the idea that it was a fabrication is more evident now, but I don't think it would be kosher to speculate on why the fabrication occurred (even if the reasons for it might be plain).
This issue is unfortunately not directly addressed in Wakabayashi's article.
But perhaps it is mentioned in Powell's contemporaneous My Twenty-five Years in China, which is listed in the article's bibliography but is not referenced anywhere in the article itself.
Referencing and citation: not checked
