Oppenheimer finally premieres in Japan: Here's how Japanese reacted to depiction of Hiroshima-Nagasaki atomic bombings

Oppenheimer finally premiered Friday in Japan, the nation where two cities were obliterated 79 years ago by the nuclear weapons invented by the American scientist who was the subject of the Oscar-winning film. Oppenheimer, the biopic of the "Father of the Atomic Bomb," finally releases in Japan Toshiyuki Mimaki, who survived the bombing of Hiroshima when he was 3, said he has been fascinated by the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, often called “the father of the atomic bomb” for leading the Manhattan Project. But the telling of Oppenheimer’s story in a Hollywood blockbuster would have been unthinkable several decades ago, when justification of nuclear weapons dominated American sentiments, Maeshima said. “This movie can serve as the starting point for addressing the legitimacy of the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as humanity’s, and Japan’s, reflections on nuclear weapons and war,” he wrote in his commentary on Oppenheimer, published by the Tokyo Bar Association.