Home / Explore places / Japan / Post-war
Post-War Japan: 1945–1960
Japan · 1945–1960 · exact time + place
The rapid reconstruction and modernization after WWII — depicted in films and stories about resilience and change across the entire country, from burnt cities to economic miracle. The button below opens StoryTerra with both Japan and 1945–1960 already set.
Open Post-War Japan on the map10 famous Post-War Japan stories
Live snapshot of the top 10 most popular catalogue items (2026-09-04). Click any card to open this entry on the live map.
Browse 41 books, 100 movies and 2 games set in Japan.

My Neighbor Totoro
Two sisters move to the country with their father in order to be closer to their hospitalized mother and discover the surrounding trees are inhabited by Totoros magical spirits of the forest. When the youngest runs away…

Godzilla Minus One
In postwar Japan a new terror rises. Will the devastated people be able to survive... let alone fight back?

Truman
The Pulitzer Prize–winning biography of Harry S. Truman, whose presidency included momentous events from the atomic bombing of Japan to the outbreak of the Cold War and the Korean War, told by America’s beloved and…

Ikiru
Kanji Watanabe is a middle-aged man who has worked in the same monotonous bureaucratic position for decades. Learning he has cancer he starts to look for the meaning of his life.

Tokyo Story
The elderly Shukishi and his wife Tomi take the long journey from their small seaside village to visit their adult children in Tokyo. Their elder son Koichi a doctor and their daughter Shige a hairdresser don't have…

Godzilla
Japan is thrown into a panic after several ships are sunk near Odo Island. An expedition to the island led by Dr. Yemani soon discover something far more devastating than imagined in the form of a 50 meter tall monster…

Hiroshima Mon Amour
The deep conversation between a Japanese architect and a French actress forms the basis of this celebrated French film considered one of the vanguard productions of the French New Wave. Set in Hiroshima after the end of…

Late Spring
Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father Shukichi and has no plans to marry -- that is until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon she will…

Good Morning
A lighthearted take on director Yasujiro Ozu’s perennial theme of the challenges of intergenerational relationships Good Morning tells the story of two young boys who stop speaking in protest after their parents refuse…

Stray Dog
A bad day gets worse for young detective Murakami when a pickpocket steals his gun on a hot crowded bus. Desperate to right the wrong he goes undercover scavenging Tokyo’s sweltering streets for the stray dog whose…
The 10 stories above are just a sample of the 143 in the catalogue for this entry. For the live 1945–1960 catalogue, use the button above — or browse Edo Japan and all Japan stories. On the live map you can also filter by the exact time the stories take place — any year, decade or century, from BCE to the future.