Wu Tongtong had an urgent need to learn Japanese. Growing up in the grimy northeastern Chinese city of Shenyang, his biggest passion was video games. But amping up the onscreen action required Wu to master Japanese commands. Japan’s brutal wartime occupation of Shenyang and other parts of China, which continues to stoke Chinese anger today, mattered little in the face of achieving total domination
![Chasing the Japanese Dream](https://cdn-ak-scissors.b.st-hatena.com/image/square/3fac30d1c6a4f065bbd98560960b6bb9f57b629a/height=288;version=1;width=512/https%3A%2F%2Fapi.time.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2024%2F02%2F360_jap_chinese_1217.jpg%3Fquality%3D85%26w%3D1200%26h%3D628%26crop%3D1)