An analysis of two recent neo-nationalist war films: Sakamoto Junji's Aegis and Higuchi Shinji's Lorelei. Both are fantasy war films that are not simple celebrations of the nation at war. While they could potentially serve as the mouthpiece for right-wing dialogue, each of these films has a complex and sometimes contradictory story to tell. In considering these films, we should not be looking just for signs of a independent Japanese nationalism, but also for the reasons why the nationalism in these works is so warped and tortured, confronted with a myriad of obstacles it takes convoluted paths to avoid, and for the figures who hover at the edge of these tales of ruined nations and national heroes, reminding us of what nationalism has to erase in order to appear compelling and unproblematic.