'The Terror: Infamy' highlights the Japanese culture's stoicism and their belief in 'Shikata Ga Nai'
AMC's anthology horror, 'The Terror' is on its second season 'Infamy', which, just like the name suggests focuses on a very infamous and shameful part of US history: the Japanese internment camps during World War II. From scooping the Japanese-American community into defecated cow sheds and horse stables to segregating the community with humiliating criterions, the horrors the community went through were at par with the evil spirits from Japanese folklores that were haunting the community side by side. But the story from Alexander Woo also does a brilliant job at never highlighting the stoicism inherent in the community, following a Japanese saying, "Shikata Ga Nai."
Literally translating to 'Nothing to be done,' the saying is parlayed exceptionally well through the character of Walt Yoshida - a man who refuses to cry even upon seeing his own father die in front of his eyes. Walt is a young man who has grown up amidst the mingling of the two strikingly different cultures, and while he wants to indulge the American free spirit, his family's honor and all their community stand for, keeps him grounded constantly.
We see the same reaction in case of Asako Nakayama, a Japanese woman who followed her husband to America some years after they had migrated. So when he gets snatched away from the family and confined to a detainment facility, shackled and tied to next to impossible jobs in extreme weather consideration, Asako dreams about slow dancing with her husband under fairy lights, setting the perfect tone of romance that's still alive in their relationship. But she doesn't exhibit any of that, not even a smidge of worry for her husband, on her face.
Amy Yoshida too feels strongly against the Americans confining the Japanese, but she knows family bonds and values them just as intensely as her brother Walt does. She takes up a job with the Americans just for her family's safety even though they killed her father in cold blood under broad daylight. While all of this feels like a fight for sustainability and survival, there's no denying the immense strength required to be this stoic and poised in the face of adversity, and that intrinsic aspect of Japanese people as a whole is showcased brilliantly through 'The Terror: Infamy.'
In an exclusive interview with MEA Worldwide, Lee Shorten - who plays Walt - tells us that "The things we’re capable of doing as humans - that's where the real horror is. And most of the great horror films, use the supernatural as a catalyst or a manifestation of human horror. But the difficulty we faced on The Terror: Infamy is that the Japanese Americans were pretty stoic on the whole. They have this saying Shikata Ga Nai. Nothing to be done. If you look at historic photos, you’d almost think they were just getting on with their lives. So as actors in order to be historically accurate, we couldn’t really lean into the horror of the camps in the way you might expect. You just have to hope that our viewers are able to empathize with the situation itself."
'The Terror: Infamy' airs on Mondays at 9 pm, only on AMC.
