The Plague by Reg Manning. "They're identical" is one of the messages of this wartime cartoon. Today, of course, such crude facial stereotyping of a group of people would be taboo, and Japan is no longer seen as a menace, not even an economic one. But how little our thinking has changed! The notion that "the" Japanese are all basically the same remains deeply entrenched on both sides of the Pacific. Social myths are powerful forces, and we examine some of them in HIST 481.