Inspiration from Japanese manga
Recently, I just finished reading a manga series called The Silent Service by Kaiji Kawaguchi. It was first released in 1988 and ended in 1996. This is not another dumb, silly manga. To me, The Silent Service is 
one of the best manga I’ve ever read. The Silent Service is the story of Captain Kiada Chiro of the US-Japan jointly-developed nuclear submarine (Codename ‘Sea Bat’), who later declares his submarine as an independent state, Yamato, and offers the way to reduce nuclear weapons using just nuclear submarines because the world is connected with the sea.
The story set piece during the Cold War, thus Kiada’s idea is almost impossible in the time when many countries accumulate atomic bombs to threaten the oppositions. Yamato faces waves after waves of attack from the US and USSR and, with Japan’s support, finally convince the world to accept the idea of independent nuclear submarines to act as nuclear regulator of the world.
This manga has much more detail to write it down here. But the thing is, I was so inspired when I read it. I think Japan delivers tons of messages to its people through manga. And the writers also have high responsibility to do so. They consult the experts or do the researches on what they will write about. Moreover, since manga is fictional, they can deliver “imaginations”. They deliver many out-there imaginations and complicated messages though graphical, easy-to-understand media and I kudo them on that. I think it’s even appropriate to say that Japan built its nation from manga. Many gadgets or technologies we have today were once appeared on Doraemon; this is a proof of the above statement.
I look back to Thailand. What do we have? Stupid, brainless, bad-acted soap operas? This is what we want for our children? This needs to be changed quickly. Because, seriously, what Thai media we feel comfortable enough to let children watch, read, or listen to?
I think I need time to find the answer.
