In our current political climate, it is more important than ever to understand how war is memorialized and remembered. As the Japanese government reinterprets the pacifist Article 9 of the Constitution, this project addresses the memorialization of WWII and the Asia Pacific war in popular culture, aiming to understand how national memory is affected by film trends. How to people remember war, and how do these memories change over time? Interviewing Japanese film fans who regularly attended cinema screenings between 1945-1979, my research aims to incorporate the voices of everyday viewers into a field of study dominated by critical and academic writing. Understanding viewership is key to understanding the political implications of popular culture.