[Video] How Japanese drama Vivant sparked an online China-Japan proxy war

Vivant first aired in 2023 and became one of Japan’s biggest television hits in a decade. Its second season premiered in July with a larger budget of about 120 million yen (US$780,000) per episode, and the opening episode drew the highest household rating of any Japanese drama this year, according to Japanese media.

Produced by broadcaster TBS for its prime Sunday night slot, the drama follows Beppan, a fictional secret intelligence unit inside Japan’s Self-Defense Forces (SDF). The SDF is the country’s de facto military, which its post-war constitution says it cannot officially have.

Season two makes China the villain

One thing changed. In season one, the enemy came from Balka, a made-up Central Asian country. In season two, it is Xinxi, a fictional intelligence agency with clear links to China.

In one scene, Xinxi agents torture captured Japanese operatives, cutting off one man’s fingers and stabbing him in the abdomen. A Beppan agent rescues them and escapes by plane, warning as he leaves that the West will retaliate if his plane is attacked.

In China, the scene was received as an insult. State broadcaster CCTV said the show was “deliberately smearing China”, while the Global Times said the torture scenes bear “striking similarities” to what invading Japanese troops did to Chinese people during World War II. CCTV added that the drama glorifies Japan’s military operations overseas and blurs the limits of what the SDF is allowed to do. China Daily even released an AI-generated song mocking the show.

The government spoke up too. Foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said forces in Japan were using cultural products to vilify China and spread anti-China sentiment. On 1 November, China’s defence ministry released a video titled “Who’s Turning History Upside Down?”

The pressure also reached brands. Sanrio, the company behind Hello Kitty, had launched a line of Vivant-themed plush toys in July. On 28 October, its China arm announced on Weibo that it was ending the collaboration, saying the content was “inconsistent with Sanrio’s corporate philosophy”. A Japanese-language notice followed on its corporate website the next day.

Wartime history and Takaichi’s remarks fuel the anger

The anger starts with history. Imperial Japan invaded China in the 1930s, and millions of Chinese died. The torture of captured resistance fighters is well documented and taught in Chinese schools.

In Vivant, it is Chinese agents doing the torturing, and the Japanese are the heroes. To many Chinese viewers, the roles of perpetrator and victim have been reversed.

Recent remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi have made matters worse. Last November, Takaichi suggested Japan could respond militarily if China attacked Taiwan. Beijing called that a red line. Since then, China has restricted rare earth exports to Japan, told its citizens to avoid travelling there and stepped up military patrols near Japan. Japanese concerts and film releases in China have been cancelled or delayed. Then in October, Takaichi told parliament she was recording Vivant to watch over the year-end holidays. CCTV seized on the remark to call the show part of Japan’s “cognitive warfare”.

The online proxy war

On one side, many Chinese netizens see the show as an insult to China and to the history it lived through. They reject the “it’s just fiction” defence. Chinese war dramas, they argue, are based on things that really happened, while Vivant takes real wartime atrocities and pins them on modern Chinese.

On the other side, many foreign viewers, along with some Chinese critics, have come out in support of the show and of Japan. Their argument is that spy thrillers need villains. They also point to China’s own screens that heavily leveraged on anti-Japanese sentiments.

Some analysts go further. William Chou, a Japan expert at the Hudson Institute, told The New York Times that China is “hunting for excuses” to fuel outrage, and that Vivant makes a useful target simply because it is popular.

The power of fiction

TBS has said the show is entirely fictional and not meant to belittle any country. It would also look into whether the violent scenes caused viewers excessive fear or discomfort.

Yet even fiction carries power. It shapes public opinion, fuels social movements and can sometimes sway diplomacy.

A few months back, Chinese hit film Dear You generated discussion as a possible “United Front work”, meaning soft propaganda aimed at overseas Chinese. Last year, a wave of Chinese World War II films like Evil Unbound put Japan on edge, with Japan’s embassy warning its citizens in China to stay vigilant against anti-Japanese sentiment. In 2023, Vietnam banned Barbie over a single map that appeared to show China’s claims in the South China Sea. And streaming versions of the anime Demon Slayer in South Korea altered a character’s earrings after viewers complained that they resembled Japan’s wartime Rising Sun flag.

Yet the same screens have also built bridges. Generations of Chinese fans grew up on Japanese anime, while Chinese historical fantasies and idol dramas have won devoted audiences in Japan.

May the stories told next carry the lessons of war and the hope of peace.

Related: When politics divides, can content creators bring China and Japan together? | Japan tests China’s willingness to revive people-to-people exchanges