When Tokuso Hamai saw the colored edition of an old black-and-white photo of a picnic held under the cherry blossoms sometime before World War II, forgotten memories of the circle of relatives, most of whom died in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945., spilled in.
“In colorized photos, people come to life,” said Hamai, now 86. “I often played near (the picnic site), and sometimes I would do some naughty things and get scolded by my father.”
The power of a colorized photo to reignite lost memories was eye-opening for Anju Niwata, a student who gave Hamai the colorized photo as a present three years ago.
The 75th anniversary of the end of World War II is Saturday, and Niwata, now 18, said she hopes it will bring attention to her project with a Tokyo University professor to painstakingly colorize photos using artificial intelligence and their own research to spark lost memories for the rapidly aging generation who experienced the war.
“Seeing Niwata share the colorized pictures with Hamai, and then watching him recall his old memories one after another, made it feel like the ice around his frozen memories was melting away,” said Hidenori Watanave, the professor who taught Niwata how to colorize monochrome pictures using AI.
Niwata and Watanave call their photo colorization project “Rebooting Memories,” and they published a book last month of the colorized versions of about 350 monochrome pictures taken before, during and after the war.
Watanave and Niwata use three different types of AI photo coloring software. The AI is useful in identifying the accurate colors of natural things, such as the sea, the sky and human skin, but it cannot accurately colorize human-made objects like roofs and clothes, Watanave said.
So Niwata and Watanave painstakingly finish the AI-colorized photos by hand to get more accurate colors based on the photo owners’ memories and advice from experts. They also look through historical documents and archives that show what the colors should look like.
Some photos take a few months to finish.
For Watanave, Twitter has become a powerful platform to pursue the colorization project.
When he posted a picture of the Hiroshima atomic bomb mushroom cloud that the Al software had colorized as white, a film director suggested that it should be more orange.
Watanave checked the testimonies of those who saw the mushroom cloud and also researched the components of the atomic bomb to see if it could actually make an orangish color.
After he confirmed that it could, Watanave added orange to the picture.
While the accuracy of the color is important, Niwata and Watanave said the most vital thing is that the colorized photos match the memories of the photo owners.
Time, however, is running out; the average age of the atomic bomb survivors is about 83.
There are often moments of wonder when the elderly see the revitalized photos.
When Niwata showed the colorized version of a family photograph to a war survivor who had dementia, for example, he remembered the type of flowers in the photograph; just a few weeks later, he was unable to speak.
Niwata said that publishing the colorization book during the coronavirus outbreak has made her think about the pandemic’s link to the war.
“Our everyday lives have been stolen away by the coronavirus in a flash, which I think resembles what happened in the war. That’s why I feel like now is an opportunity for people to imagine (wartime life) as their own experience,” she said.
Watanave hopes that using new technology will help younger Japanese feel more of an attachment to those who lived through the war.
“People are forgetting wartime memories. We need to revitalize those old memories by using the latest method of expression and delivering it to the hearts of many people,” he said. “By the time we mark the 80th or 85th anniversary, we need to come up with a new way of expressing (wartime memories).”
What’s with all the Second World War articles? When I was 12 in the UK, I always used to talk with my buddies and role play events regarding Japan and World War 2. But then I grew up, and realized it was nearly 100 years ago and not even on the surface anymore, whilst we never forget, it gets tiresome all the articles on this in twenty twenty
I have always been extremely anti-robot and anti-ai, but there are two places that ai should only be. Very heavenly regulated in the space science industry and the health industry. No where else.
This kind of action is really meaningful.
Memory like history is subject to interpretation. So it depends on the story that these memories are used to to tell. A reminder of the horrors of war which must never be started again or we were victims?
You decide.
Seriously? Another article of their WW2 thing?
Why Japanese need this revisionism and victimization of that portion of history?
I come from the other two countries who fought and lost “rightfully” the war.
I’m German-Italian,we were wrong and we apologize,we keep study that part of history to remember and that’s it.
But man,the Japanese are really willing to rewrite their own history.
Dear’s PEACE PREVAIL ON THE EARTH. PEACE SPREDING TO THE WORLD,
William77Today 05:42 pm JST
Seriously? Another article of their WW2 thing?
Why Japanese need this revisionism and victimization of that portion of history?
The Japanese harp on WWII for the same reason that they refuse to give up the first paragraph of Article 9 which prohibits the use of war to settle disputes. They don’t ever want to repeat it. So where is this “revisionism”? Japan has never claimed to have been bombed by the U.S. for no reason. And the civilians of Japan, along with Germany, Italy, Russiam China, every country were “victims”.
You always try to play the professor in all of your posts and most of the time with arguable statistics.
And yes there is revisionism in Japan,have you ever heard of Nippon Kaigi?
Which a good bunch of heir government is implied,your propaganda sometimes is sickening.
And yes there is revisionism in Japan,have you ever heard of Nippon Kaigi?
Exactly.
William77Today 06:21 pm JST
You always try to play the professor in all of your posts and most of the time with arguable statistics.
And yes there is revisionism in Japan,have you ever heard of Nippon Kaigi?
Which a good bunch of heir government is implied,your propaganda sometimes is sickening.
Here are some facts which are not arguable.
Nippon Kaigi, founded in 1997 and has 38,000 members. Has some influence upon the LDP. Actual damage to other countries, zero.
The CCP, founded in 1921. Has 90,500,000 members and fully controls China. Actual damage to other countries, too many to fully list; Tibet, Uighurs, breaking the promise of Hong Kong, threatening Taiwan with military force, taking over the South China Sea and other nation’s territories, attempting to take the Senkakus from Japan in the East China Sea, starting a conflict with India, on and on and on.
Yeah. It was over 80 years ago. A lifespan. Worth remembering, as if that is a ‘value’ assignment. Certainly. The casual comments viewed in the media and posts about war with China, ignore what the result of such an encounter would bring. To look at the current destruction in war zones, which are horrible, pales before an all out war between so called superpowers. WW2, it should be impresses into the mind, in order to realize what such entails. WW3 would bring the destruction and ruin of all.
It is amazing how well the colorisation AI works. There are some fine examples provided by Tsukuba University. You can upload your BW image and colorise it. See what you think.
http://iizuka.cs.tsukuba.ac.jp/projects/colorization/web/
Those are big slices of watermelon!
I don’t mind seeing this stuff. With all that is going on in this world, it is good to remember why we don’t want to repeat WWII. Amazing AI work. Would love to see non-war stuff as well done up the same way.
WW2 keeps cropping up because for a number of reasons, i.e. what GHQ did (reinstating class A war criminals to power who then formed the LDP) still defines today’s Japan.
“What’s with all the Second World War articles?”
“Really? Another article about World War II?”
I guess other people don’t pay attention to birthday years. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of the war. That’s why there are more stories than the same in 2020 compared to 2019 or 2018. You can expect a lot of politics at this time of year on at least another 3 anniversaries in the future: the 80th in 2025, the 90 in 2035 and the 100th in 2045. I agree that this is an exaggeration, and I hope that the exaggerated policy does not mark the 85th (2030) or the 95th anniversary (2040).
Oh, the irony of those who come to a connected to Japan and complain about newspaper articles about the Japanese memory of World War II and the atomic bombings. If you don’t like it, don’t come to this. Array Unbelievable how misleading this is. I bet those same people wouldn’t complain if their home country had constant reminders of how their country dealt with global wars. Hypocrisy as usual.
Japan’s self-defense forces have not been implicated in any action that resulted in anyone’s death in 75 years. Few countries can say that.
Japan’s self-defense forces have not been implicated in any action that resulted in anyone’s death in 75 years. Few countries can say that.
That’s not entirely true. The JGSDF engineering unit operating in South Sudan in 2016 provided ammunition to South Korean army ensembles under sustained attack to preserve the city of Bor.The South Koreans had spent almost all their ammunition fighting insurgent attacks.The Japanese provided the South Koreans with the additional ammunition they needed to defeat the insurgents and protect the city.No, JGSDF troops did not devote directly to insurgent forces, but the ammunition from South Korean rifles did.These munitions made a difference and the forces of the Republic of Korea, however, without this ammunition, they would have been hit.
Oh, the irony of those who come to a connected to Japan and complain about press articles about the Japanese memory of World War II and atomic bombings.If you don’t like it, don’t come to this. I bet those same people wouldn’t complain if their home country had constant reminders of how their country treated global wars.Hypocrisy as usual.
Oh boy, I agree with that.
It is ironic (blatant hypocrisy) that most of the weapons and apparatus of the army produced come from the “Western Hemisphere”.
Japan, including China and the rest of Asia (excluding the Middle East) have been pacifists in recent decades, compared to many “actors” and “agitators” in the same region.I wonder why.
If other young people do not realize why we want to report on World War II on the 75th anniversary of its end, then our schooling formula has failed miserably. The average age of death in one aspect of my family circle was 29 in 1945. If we don’t remember, we’ll do it again.