Photo/Illutration A patron buys a movie ticket underneath a marquee featuring the films “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” at the Los Feliz Theatre in Los Angeles on July 28. (AP Photo)

The Atomic Fireball is a red candy sold in the United States. It has an intense, pungent cinnamon flavor that people say is addictive.

Arthur Binard, a U.S.-born poet who lives in Japan, says he grew up sucking the candies without giving much thought to their name.

A name that blatantly evokes the atomic bomb.

It was an eye-opening moment for Binard when he learned, in Japan, about the word “pika-don” (flash and bang), a colloquial term that refers to the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It was the first time he had ever thought of Hiroshima from the viewpoint of its residents, people who looked up at the bomber that fateful day, instead of from the angle of the U.S. air crew members who were looking down upon the city.

That reversal blew away his rosy-sweet misunderstanding about the candies, he says in “Shiranakatta Bokura no Senso” (Our war that we didn’t know about), a Japanese-language book he wrote and edited.

Like the young Binard, a fan of the Hollywood movie “Barbie” likely could not imagine that some people might feel hurt and offended by a social media post.

An image that a fan posted in fun showed the movie’s heroine with her hair replaced by a mushroom cloud.

The motion-picture company behind “Barbie” made a positive reply to the post.

People in Japan quite rightly protested that this and other memes, and the reactions to them, made light of the victims and survivors of the atomic bombings.

The company apologized for its “insensitive social media engagement.”

Immediately after the bombings, a survey found that 80 percent of Americans believed the attacks were justified.

That belief has been declining in recent years, but more than half of Americans still hold it.

Therefore, a big gap remains in perceptions of the atomic bombings between Japanese people and American people.

It is not easy in any age for offenders to appreciate the feelings of their victims.

For its part, Japan has its own history of aggression against other Asian nations.

But the country still has a mission to keep telling the world about the cruelty and inhumanity of the atomic bombings.

That should be the last thing to be treated lightly.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 4 

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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