The Fifteen Years' War was a time of great turmoil and uncertainty in Japan. Various aspects of the country have been tested and pushed to their limits. During the occupation, race and gender began to evolve in ways that had never been seen before. The war had a huge impact on every part of a Japanese citizen's life. Both men and women began to take on roles that were completely new to them. Race became part of the definition of who people were. As the war progressed and American troops landed on Japanese soil for occupation, more drastic changes occurred. Economic difficulties and rations hit the population of the Land of the Rising Sun. Prostitution began to rear its ugly head and rape emerged. Through memory, research and vivid creativity, the evolution of Japan during the Fifteen Years' War can be analyzed with great care. Grave of the Fireflies is a tragic film from the late 1980s that draws on the problems of war and presents them explicitly to the audience. the public. It follows the story of Seita and his younger sister Setsuko as they fight to survive during the air raids of World War II. The film addresses several issues related to war, but the two most prevalent are gender and race. In the film, race is seen much less than gender. It is criticized with great subtlety and almost tact by the filmmakers. The male gender role is the most emphasized during the duration of the film. Men are supposed to exemplify the masculine standard and women are also inadequate unless they exude manly strength, hard work and courage. While before the war the roles of men and women were completely and precisely separated, Grave of the Fireflies offers a second opinion of the time period. When men became one hundred percent…half of paper…direct assistance from a male. In Comfort Women, in Japan, we still see the "weakness" of women. Rape and the sex trade have become a power play by individual men up to the highest levels of government. But it was also a story of strength and courage on the part of the women victims. The Pacific War changed many things in Japan, and the evolution of those institutions of Japanese society occurred rapidly. The changes, however drastic, however gruesome, however painful, were what shaped Japan's history and future. Works Cited The Tomb of the Fireflies. DVD. Directed by Isao Takahata. 1988; Japan: Toho Company, 2000. Cooke, Haruko Taya. & Cook, Theodore F. Japan at War: An Oral History. New York: The New Press, 1992. Tanaka, Yuki. The Comfort Women of Japan: Sexual Slavery and Prostitution During World War II and the US Occupation. New York: Routledge, 2002.