Faithful Elephants Book Review

Greed. Fear. Anger. These traits define the human being. No matter how rational, how sensible or reasonable a person can be, these attributes linger about them, silent, like a shadow. In times of peril, when pressure is great, often people are unable to control their savage inner instincts, and these characteristics explode out of them, gripping them tightly, seizing them from the inside, consuming them. When that happens, the human being can become unpredictable and volatile.
And with them, follows great sadness.
Many of these traits, and more, are present in the book ‘Faithful Elephants’, causing the lives of three innocent animals to be taken. The protagonists of the story – John, Tonky, and Wanly – are forced to endure such pain, paying for others sins. Despite this, they are still faithful and loyal to their once-loving masters, even though they have been betrayed over and over again by them.
Spun from the hands of Yukio Tsuchia, Faithful Elephants begins with a startling bout of activity – it is staged during WWII, at the climax of the war. The leaders of Japan, afraid of Allied bombings, declared that all vicious or harmful animals were to be killed. Should a bomb detonated near the zoo, the animals might have escaped, and harm the general public. This was enforced in all zoos, and the Tokyo zoo was no exception. Gone were the tigers, lions, bears, and snakes, all poisoned to death. It gave the zookeepers great pain, but they were kept a stern eye on by the government, and were forced to kill the animals.
Finally it came to the day in which the three Elephants were to die. Due to the fact that the elephant’s were smart enough not to eat poisoned food, and also strong enough to not be effected by poison syringes, the zookeepers decided to starve the animals to death. They could often be seen performing their ‘Bonzai’ trick, which normally would have earned them food and water. Alas, even though the keepers did all they could to try and keep the animals