Depends on which "Korea" you ask; I think most South Koreans were Japanese collaborators (can't seem to remember the name of their military dictator who was a big time Japanese collaborator)

I just think this is more something of a military kink where even you see Americans displaying medals of their Vietnam/Korea/Iraq-Afghanistan war medals (medals for horrible killings ?!)

The rehabilitation of the image of kamikaze is also a recent right wing nationalistic Japanese effort.

Research and interviews with rare survivors say that 60-70% of them were happy to sacrifice their lives for the emperor.

I can have sympathy for youths who are disenfranchised anywhere and who see the military as the only way out, but let’s not pretend that actual imperialist and racist fervor was actually real and continues to persist.

They committed great atrocities as a nation and frankly they have fought to reject any guilt in those millions of deaths and inhumane brutality that maybe even far exceeds any other war time villain in recent history.

Quote:
" My great-uncle was essentially forced into becoming a kamikaze pilot. In his final letters he repeatedly wrote “Mother, Mother,” over and over again. That’s not something I can read proudly without also feeling anger and sadness toward the government and military system that pushed young men into dying like that.

I can feel pride in him as a person while still condemning Imperial Japan and the war itself. Those feelings are not mutually exclusive.

He didn’t commit rape or massacre civilians. He died in a plane without even carrying conventional weapons, sent on a suicide mission by the state. This medal represents that tragedy to me more than glory. "

If you asked Southeast Asia countries, like Korea