I think we should understand those photos not from a racial perspective, but from a large-scale contextual perspective.(for examples, national identity, nationalism, gender perspective, history, ideology, convention, representation of masculinity and patriarchy,fetishism of phallic power, etc.)
俗话说:"知己知彼,百战不殆." gotta understand/learn their stuff before beating them up. That was exactly what Japs did to us in the first half of the 20th century, and they are still doing the same thing even now.