I’m not Japanese and have never been to Japan so if you can shed some light on this question, it would be greatly appreciated.
I was reading this article and realized it doesn’t really answer the question in the headline.
**An Unholy Alliance: How the Unification Church Penetrated Japan’s Ruling Liberal Democratic Party**
https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-topics/c12101/
The article itself goes to mention that it is unfathomable how a Korean religious sect with anti-japanese sentiment became so tightly knit with the LDP. Yes there is the shared conservatism, but surely there are other grassroots Japanese conservative religious groups or cults to align with.
The quid pro quo of the seemingly unlikely duo is a mystery, no doubt. But my real question is how a Korean cult managed to infiltrate Japanese society, to the extent that Japanese “donations” were the largest single source of donor funds for the church?
Is it playing off a perceived guilt that Japan did Korea dirty during the occupation? Seems like a weak foundation, but that’s all I can think of. Are there a lot of Japanese that feel that? I wouldn’t be surprised at the opposite outcome, in fact that would make sense, but this is a head scratcher for me.
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/1aherfv/how_did_the_uc_become_so_big_in_japan/
3 comments
I would go way back and listen to Season 3 of Blowback, it doesn’t go into UC but is an extremely well researched account of US presence in this whole part of the world. Not much can surprise you after that 😅
UC was founded by K-CIA director. He was also a CIA asset and a friend of the Bushes.
The CIA had a huge role in the founding of the LDP.
> a Korean religious sect with anti-japanese sentiment
I might be a cynic, but except for the “Korean”, that described the LDP pretty well, imho.
It probably helps the very first series was UC. So from 1979-1994 every single series and movie was set in the UC. It wasn’t until G Gundam came along that we began to explore other universes/timelines.