Hi there, I am currently watching World War II in colour and a question keeps occurring to me every time Japanese troops are shown. Why did the Japanese armed forces seem to take much of the western style uniform without modification? Some of it is undoubtedly practical, even the most outlandish looking camouflage still looks like camouflage, but some of the more stylistic aspects are taken as well. Their navy uniforms look much like American or British uniforms at the time, down to the hats. Was there a decision made to use a more Western style of dress rather than continuing a local uniform tradition? And if so, why?
There had been a huge push for modernization and adoption of western technology going on for decades, driven by a fear of colonization or economic control by western powers. In particular, Japan‘s military had been intently studying western military tactics and importing a lot of western military advisors and military history books for years. The traditional Japanese soldier’s clothing was designed for efficiency in a different kind of fighting, with different weapons and different formations. The western uniform had been (theoretically) scientifically designed for efficiency with modern warfare. While Japanese clothing could have been adapted, it was easier to just copy what existed. Also, one of the big pushes after the Meiji Restoration was to show the West that the Japanese were not an inferior race of barbarians at an earlier stage of evolution, as European racists implied. Thus, since there was assumed to be little chance of convincing the West to respect Japanese culture, there was an effort to prove that the Japanese people were capable of proper Western behavior. A lot of the new architecture was western, people started wearing western clothes on the streets, eating western food, having European tea parties, etc. Similarly, there was an effort to have the military look like a respected power in Western eyes, and traditional Asian outfits wound not have been useful there.