Posted by OP Sequence
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OP: 「GATE～それは暁のように～」 (GATE ~ Sore wa Akatsuki no Yō ni) by 岸田教団 & THE 明星ロケッツ (Kishida Kyoudan & The Akeboshi Rockets)
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「自衛隊、異世界へ行く」 (Jieitai, Isekai e Iku)
“The Self-Defense Force Goes to Another World”
I wrote in my preview for GATE: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakeri that I was wary of it turning out to be a very jingoistic sort of anime, and there was some discussion in the topic in the comments to the same effect. I based my impressions on the manga, which I read a good amount of in order to write the preview, and while the anime is supposed to be based on the light novel, said to be tamer compared to other versions of Gate, but I suspect that if there are undercurrents they’ll persist no matter the variation. I suppose I should give my opinion on that before anything else. If you don’t want to read about it, feel free to skip the upcoming heading and scroll down to the next one.
Hopefully this is as political as Passerby is ever going to get on RandomC
Full disclosure: as much as I may profess to liking tanks. I’m a pacifist. That means I’m wading into this controversy with a godless left-wing hippie point of view. Also, your personal opinion on this issue is likely to be coloured by cultural differences. I understand that the United States treat their military with a lot more fervent patriotism than we do here in Australia (not that we can’t match it on occasion, especially when a politician needs the hawk vote), whereas in, say, Germany, nationalism has become somewhat taboo.
Now, I’m not going to get hung up on how Gate portrays foreign powers, especially since 1) the anime has so far only shown a fictional American president and 2) all states are amoral manipulators anyway. I’m concerned about some more subtle, and thus more sinister. It ties back to Japan’s current political atmosphere, and the imperialistic ideals that have never really gone away. As Japan feels further threatened by a recalcitrant Russia, a belligerent North Korea and other neighbours over South China Sea, I think fiction like Gate, that celebrate their military and try to justify their use, will become increasingly popular. Fans who are used to similar Hollywood fare where marines are sent to kill all manner of strawmen will probably have less problems with this, but from where I stand Gate is but part of a disturbing trend in Japan. Reasonable minds will differ, of course. To work out where you stand on this, ask yourself: when the fictional Prime Minister of Japan declared the land beyond the Gate as being part of Japan so they could send in the JSDF, did you think it was a dangerous constitutional subversion, or did you think, ‘Hell yeah, go in and kick their arses!’.
The problem with imperialistic urges, and imperialistic propaganda (if Gate indeed has the misfortune of developing along those lines), it’s too easy for higher ideals to be corrupted. If you look back to the traditional colonial powers, they all called themselves good guys at some point. They reach out to these foreign lands in the hunt for spice, and on the way decide to ‘civilise’ the local savages. They deploy extensive hearts and minds campaigns. They think they are doing natives a favour. And what happens? Untold deaths by disease in the Americas, genocide in Australia, the Indian caste system made even worse. It’s a similar story for Japan. Even today, after the invasion of Manchuria, the occupation of Korea, the Nanking Massacre, there are still Japanese nationalists who tout the line that they were ‘liberating’ Asia from Western powers.
Is Gate not a perfected version of this fiction? Look upon our enemy. They attacked us first. They are brutish, savage, even subhuman. They murder our kin and make children cry. We are driving them back, destroying the aggressors. Can any cause be more just? Are our soldiers not heroes? And now should we not sally forth to meet them on their own grounds, to put the fear of our might into their wretched hearts? Note that when they saw the opposing host on the other side of the Gate, they immediately identified it as the ‘enemy’ army. Of course it was.
Even the most positive spin on these kinds of stories end badly. Think of all the sci-fi where an advanced race (humans or otherwise) attempt to uplift some primitive aliens. How often does that backfire? In Gate, they’re waltzing into a foreign land with no understanding of their culture, their politics, or their ecosystem, ready to shoot whatever has been naively labelled ‘The Bad Guys’. How does that end well? Perhaps we should ask Iraq? No, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The Prime Directive is in place for a reason.
Now, I’m not saying that Gate is necessarily going to turn into jingoistic propaganda—they do try to humanise the enemy oh so slightly. And it’s only episode 01! It’s too hasty to judge. But I’ve got uncomfortable vibes from the manga, and fear for the anime. Who knows? Maybe my fears are completely unfounded. But I feel that I had to lay out my point of view for all potential viewers, just in case. And, of course, your own views and tolerance may very naturally and reasonably differ from mine. I’ve but established one case. Hopefully it helps you to make an informed decision on your viewing.
Talk about the damn show, Passerby
This pilot for GATE: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakeri proceeds rather slowly, spending much of its time establishing the premise. Few major characters are introduced save, of course, our reluctant hero Itami Youji (Suwabe Junichi). He’s a shameless otaku who wastes his paycheque on money-sink mobile games. Perhaps you’re sick of otaku male leads in anime by now, and I can’t really blame you, but this one is rather outgoing (especially when trying to bond with his kind) and has occasion for physical prowess. So Youji just happens to be an otaku as opposed to completely an otaku, probably for the sake of connecting him with the sword and sorcery stuff he’ll have to deal with on the other side of the Gate (and, of course, for demographic appeal). I hope you like him, since he has to carry the episode a bit; at this point his future fantasy harem, the more colourful members of the cast in more ways than one, are only hallucinations produced by head trauma. With two cours dedicated already I suppose Gate can afford to take it slow, leaving only these slight glimpses of Narnia to tantalise. If you’re not amused by Youji’s silly otaku ways, though, you can always look to the OP, which like many OPs can be, by design, more interesting than the show itself. I don’t know what’s going on in the ED, though. Trucks do disco? Jumping onto the gay pride celebrations? There’s probably a metaphor in there somewhere.
The real entertainment is, of course, violence, which seems to have been toned down for the anime, but implied gore often works just as well as onscreen carnage. Here, the purpose is still served, to frame the first half of the episode like a gritty disaster movie. Props to the weather for being able to switch from cloudy to overcast with perfect dramatic timing. Overall, the extraterrestrial invasion made for some effective scenes (looking pretty good overall doesn’t hurt, moments of awkward CGI aside), if but a bit anticlimatic as the JSDF swoops in and mops things up. Perhaps I’ve gotten too used to Godzilla being immune to bullets. I agree that too often guns don’t get the respect they deserve as terrifying killing machines in anime, but at the same time when it’s guns vs fleshy mortals without guns… well, that’s hardly a fair matchup. Heroes are supposed to be underdogs; there’s no conflict when they’re overpowered. Even in my most derailed D&D campaigns we needed adamantium bullets.
So I’m presuming the point of the show isn’t the orc vs modern armour cagefight, because that’s a sucker’s bet. Instead, in the vein of the RPGs Youji seems to enjoy, there’s a whole new world now, open to exploration and adventure (except, in this analogy, our heroes have already amassed all the end-game equipment so they don’t need to grind the poor mobs). At least, it’s what I’m hoping for, based on the OP/ED. More emphasis on alien wonders and cross-cultural communication, rather than diplomacy from the barrel of a gun. And, of course, the worldwide consequences of a new land suddenly appending itself to our universe (time to throw out Newtonian physics again). As I said in the preview, there are many interesting angles Gate can take. It need only choose to take them.
No plans to follow this show weekly—it’s probably not going to work with my schedule—but Random Curiosity still has Monthly Impressions. They’re open arenas to talk about any shows that we do not on a regular basis.
ED Sequence
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ED: 「ぷりずむコミュニケート」 (Prism Communicate) by 金元寿子, 東山奈央, 種田梨沙 (Kanemoto Hisako, Touyama Nao, Taneda Risa)
Preview
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@Gate
First Impression:
The Anime hit he right Buttons. a bit Military Otaku, a bit Fantasy Otaku and the seriousness in Life threatening Moments, to lead or protect Life. He even encouraging an simply Policemen back to his Senses. Yes, do the right think at the right time
First Impression: Good
but.. My Spider sense tingling like a Bomb on this scene…
https://randomc.net/image/GATE/Gate%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2008.jpg
Show Spoiler ▼
Recalled how Kurata said “now the girls will be all over you Itami.”
Show Spoiler ▼
Story about an otaku who goes to war for his hentai doujins.
https://randomc.net/image/GATE/Gate%20-%20OP%20-%20Large%2001.jpg
well, i also go to work for my hobby. But with age this has calmed down
I had import many PS1 and PS2 US RPGs that never had an Europe Release. Today.. Well, i am gotten older… Rent, Fees, Food and so on…
You might be exceptionally impressed next episode. However, the manga had showed a more satisfying slaughter in the Ginza incident; I sure hope, more episodes later, the anime would show more satisfiying scenes where the JSDF avenges the little girl’s mother. EMIYA, the stage is now set, it is time to come in as the Hero of Justice you are now meant to be.
https://randomc.net/image/GATE/Gate%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2032.jpg
On the side note, though he wasn’t shown in the screenshots, a certain glasses person, with the looks of a schemer, was shown. I do hope he was given a lot of muscle like other certain people with glasses.
https://randomc.net/image/Fate%20stay%20night/Fate%20stay%20night%20ubw%20-%2009%20-%20Large%2018.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Angel%20Beats!/Angel%20Beats!%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2016.jpg
On a personal note Show Spoiler ▼
Who is the guy from the first screenshot? =з
Wouldn’t say I hated it, but it feels like Gate’s trying too hard to pander to its target audiences here. Unless it manages to genuinely surprise me in the next few episodes, which I doubt, safe to say this one isn’t for me.
My favourite thing about this first episode was the use of the little girl at key points. The militaristic overtones may be at the forefront of discussion, but my focus was on the implications of having a ‘child’s world’ – the whole swords and sorcery schtick – invade society’s ‘adult world’ – the whole military thing. How is a kid supposed to process people being killed by the same monsters they see on TV?
I got hooked on this show when Itami looks over to the girl staring blankly at the flower-strewen funeral, off to the side of the militaristic advance, while the girl’s mother weeps. Damn, that’s a good start to what I hope will be a prevalent theme throughout the show, questioning how we treat our fantasies and how our fantasies treat us.
Seems like Outbreak Company grew a pair.
check the episode again
she isnt her mother ( maybe her grandmother or aunt )
Ah, oh well. Still a ‘motherly figure’, same comparison applies.
Honestly from what I’ve seen in the manga the imperialistic tendencies are quite harmless so far. Yeah there are obviously undertones of a nationalistic superiority complex at times, but then those are typical in fiction. Whenever a fictional story is somehow based in the real world there tends to be some sort of nationalist bias. And Gate is quite tame in comparison to what I’m used to in american, chinese, korean and russian fiction. I don’t quite know whether it’s the same in german fiction, that’s where I’m from, but then I avoid german fiction like the plague because every time I try it I notice how while us germans can do a lot of things writing fiction apparently isn’t part of that.
To me the manga is no more Nippon Banzai! than a Micheal Bay movie is Murica Fuck Yeah!
How many episodes will Gate be?
24 episodes.
Was onboard til’ the show tried to hammer down the fact that Itami is both soldier and otaku, with the latter being emphasized more than i was comfortable of. It makes the seriousness of the situation feel so awkward, and end up being a serious hiccup in a otherwise decent millitary-themed anime.
It is a tad bit awkward that they emphasize the Otaku part so much, but this character is right up the my alley and those of my colleges.
Can’t wait to see what happens after I get back from my deployment to Atropia.
I’m actually more concerned about how the cute fantasy girl harem is going to (not) fit into this story than I am about jingoism. At least from this first glance, right now this show has a pretty long way to go to reach Mahouka levels of questionable ideology.
Word is the author drew on his service time in the JSDF to write the army scenes, and other JSDF characters were based on his fellow soldiers.
Besides, it’s nice to see a 30-ish otaku character who isn’t a stereotypical fattie or skinnybone.
I just marathoned the ongoing manga in one night directly after watching this episode,
and I’m all hyped for how the story might go..
(partly because I was also a sucker for the Stargate TV series)
Anybody have any idea just how far the anime will go?
From the OP I instantly recognized the Show Spoiler ▼
scene, though that’s the furthest part recognizable.
Spoiler for more future events…
Show Spoiler ▼
Definitely picked up! I hope somebody from the RC authors will decide to blog it.
Speaking of the girl. When I saw an adult otaku guy approaching a little girl saying he will help her and she’s got nothing to worry, all I thought was RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, LITTLE GIRL.
Once upon a time- in a land far, far away- men could interact with children without being labeled a pedophile.
Can’t remember when that time was, but I’m sure it must have existed at some point.
You’re probably reading too much into it Passerby, I don’t want to dwelve into spoiler but I think your fear is a little bit off the way it’ll be going. It’s more of 2 worlds trying to establish mutual connections, though different culture do leads to conflicts. They don’t wage war towards the residence of the other world.
Entirely possible. But it felt to me that a lot of Gate was deliberately designed to glorify military power, which I feel is always something to be wary of. Still, as I emphasised in the post, that’s only my personal impression.
They don’t. In fact, the few times they’ve been deployed outside their country, their government requested that they be made window-dressing – essentially building urinals and bridges in locales hundreds of miles from the actual war-zones in what amounted to other countries, where the chances of combat were ‘negligible’ and ‘nil’.
But that hardly means they mind using force to get what they want – only that they do as little as possible when they can get away with it. You’re talking about a country that shrinks at shooting at other people who have guns and set bombs, but doesn’t have much of a problem shooting at fisherman.
The key is that Japan, China, both Koreas, etc trade to survive. Countries like the US, Australia, and Canada receive finished goods from the Asian Pacific. In return, the Asian Pacific receives food. Even much of the Japanese fishing industry takes a significant haul from what are actually US controlled waters.
Food for finished products – it’s been the basis of trade between the East Pacific and the Caucasian empires for centuries.
This is… sort of racist and not really an accurate picture of Japan’s economic role in Asia for the last 60 or so years.
Maybe nobody gave you the memo but: Calling someone a “racist” is a sure sign you know you can’t win the argument, resorting to a last ditch ad hominem.
And no, the basis of trade even today is food-for-goods. Some business people regard it as exchanges in energy – packaging to transport the food, refrigeration units to preserve the food, oil to carry and power the logistics. But in the end, it all comes down to the cost of food in Asia and the problem of getting a surplus from other countries to the highly-populated centers, whether in America and East Asia.
The difference is: America grows a surplus of food, while East Asia consumes its food at a deficit. No amount of cooking the books is going to hide that historic fact.
Partial history lesson for those interested (which clearly doesn’t include Kalerylan):
It’s one of the reasons why so many Chinese died in WW2. It’s not like the Japanese plowed through Chinese with bullets and artillery (they didn’t waste their munitions that way) or executed millions with machetes and swords en masse (I doubt those numbers exceeded a few thousand).
No, most people in China died of the famine that resulted. The reason the famine happened is simple in concept. China’s population, like Japan’s, had burgeoned from the two pillars of Chinese food supply. One was the improved agriculture of Manchuria and the other was the Western trade. By cutting off food from Manchuria to the rest of China and eliminating the Western trade, famine on a biblical scale was inevitable. China’s population would have to “die off” to a pre-trade populace.
Of course, long before the supply shortages hit, the news that those shortages were coming brought on economic chaos and social dislocation.
And while nobody knows how many people died in the Sino-Japanese war, imagine cutting off every city in China today from Manchuria and foreign trade.
It’s not pretty. It wasn’t pretty then either.
I really want to know why you’re here. I’m well aware that this page has gotten REALLY political (which is pretty much why the website is not going to cover this show) but most of the topics here at least try and link it back to the actual anime in question. As far as I can tell you just showed up to argue history and politics in and of themselves and I haven’t seen you mention the anime once in any of your comments.
And I didn’t say it was racist because it was 100% wrong, though it certainly wasn’t 100% right either, but I have no interest in getting into some long drawn out historical argument, I said it was racist because talking about ‘caucasian empires’ is just a really politically incorrect way to describe that, especially on a freaking anime blog (which again, this actually is). People that pride themselves on ‘saying it like it is’ tend to think they don’t need tact, but on an anime blog where we are not in fact trying to have a deep discussion on the dark facts of history, it’d be nice if you could try to be a little diplomatic or, you know, discuss anime.
It’s no more or less racist than calling China an “Asian country”, or pointing out the fact that Asian countries apply racial standards to their citizenship requirements.
It’s a statement of fact.
“Western” has always been purposefully too-general, because everyone understood nobody was talking about the Latin countries that were located in the same hemisphere as the United States, or the African countries which were located along the same longtitudes with Italy.
We’re talking about the empires which were dominated by Caucasians – white, as opposed to Asian Empires which were dominated by Mongoloids – yellow.
Calling a spade something other than a spade is simply a sign of intellectual or mental inferiority.
And nobody is forcing you to discuss politics, certainly not me.
As the times stamps corroborate, I’m actually very late to the political discussion on this blog.
For heaven’s sakes, the political theater of this anime isn’t subtle. The Japanese emperor is ordering the Gate open to Japan’s new frontier. Presumably, this glorification is what makes it attractive to Japanese otakus.
But politics is absolutely a part of this anime – which is probably why you felt compelled to comment on its polticis (well before me, I might add). And if you want to delve into a political anime, not to mention participate in a political discussion, you similarly don’t have much of a case to try to shut the discussion down by saying “You’re talking about politics!”
It’s lame.
Russia owns those islands.
Assertions to the contrary don’t make it so.
They can fight the Russians. Or – more likely – they will make loud noises and continue spending billions in the US and elsewhere (including Russia) to try and bribe countries to give them ownership.
Unlikely as it stands today.
The US Military treats them as Russian territories – 12 nautical miles of territorial waters which is the distance the average person can see from see-level unobstructed to the edge of the horizon. Japanese “permission” is irrelevant when entering those waters. Chinese PLAN regards them the same way. India too, since “International standing” seems to mean something to you. That’s about – ohhh…three countries representing app. 3 billion people, and I’m sure the Russians have other backers in Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc.
Again, that kind of reasoning is irrelevant and meaningless to me, but it seems to hold weight to you.
How they are regarded, whether they are Russian or Japanese by fate or fiat, to me it’s largely just a sop to domestic audiences in each country. I just note that the Russians have positive control and possession of the islands, the military resources and the nuclear deterrent to hold them.
I go from there.
From my point of view, your reasoning just seems “backwards” to me.
Well I think I’m in love, Type 74 MBTs, AH-1S attack choppers with I-TOW missiles and Hydra rockets, and the appearance of a Type 89 recon/command vehicle? You need to wine and dine me first before screwing me over Gate.
Funnies aside this looks a lot like if Outbreak Company decided to break out into warfare, complete with the otaku MC and harem shenanigans. Personally I could do without yet another otaku lead, but for Gate’s benefit the guy is in his thirties, a fact already setting the show apart from its competitors at the moment.
As for the geopolitics you’re slightly wrong there Passerby, Japan doesn’t fear Russia (in fact both states have been in on and off discussions over a rail link connecting the islands with the Siberian railway system) and of late has been focused exclusively on China, largely due to the Senkakus and China’s quiet construction of a string of artificial islands across the South China sea. Not to mention Russia doesn’t invoke the fear and unity that China and North Korea do, same reason that our government over here in Canada likes playing Russia up as the bully over concerns about arctic sovereignty.
If anything Gate looks like an author using his experiences to appeal to a broad reader base, skimming over what could be considered “dry” politics and diplomacy for many, instead going for the bread and butter “meet the enemy and become his friend” sort of schtick. Personally I’m expecting the heavy tone to break down into a military themed Outbreak Company within an episode or two after the initial contact occurs and one side approaches the other; the characterization and setting all but precludes a serious political story (as the narrator at the end also indicates).
Without a doubt though Gate has hooked me in for the ride.
Did you know that during the War the Soviet Union grabbed some Japanese islands, and that Russia still holds onto them despite protests? Japan may have bigger fish to fry right now, but those islands are going to be a sticking point forever.
Putting aside the reality that possession is 9/10ths of any law, most of those islands were taken from the Russians by the Japanese after the Japanese ran their first sneak attack at Port Arthur.
To say that the Japanese have no claims to those islands would be an understatement. Or to put it another way: if they have a claim to the Kuril islands, then they also have claims to Wake, Guam, Saipan, and a thousand other US territorial islands in the Pacific. At one point in the 1980s, in fact, the Japanese actually tried to move military forces onto US soil and make claims on them.
But rationalizations aside, no.
The Japanese have always been trying to get the US to back its claims on other territories without having to expose itself, while at the same time offering carrots like Military technology, even at the height of the Cold War; they know they’re no match for the Russians/Soviets in matters of scale. The US military treats the islands as Russian territory, whatever Japanese delusions to the contrary.
I should clarify – in case it wasn’t clear – they’d offer military technology to the Soviets/Russians during the Cold War, all of it knock-offs of US military technology, of course, like AESA radar, SLQ tech, multi-axial milling machines, etc. Things came to a head with the AEGIS and Viper tech transfers, and really, the leaking sieve from the US to Japan has been significantly slowed for the past couple of decades (thank goodness) – although most of the fix was done at the private organizational, not by the US government.
At least do the slightest amount of research.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Shimoda
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Saint_Petersburg_%281875%29
I’m sorry, but what you’re referencing doesn’t support your argument, it supports mine.
Linking a wiki, moreover, isn’t exactly worth arguing with or against, but whatever.
Case in point: Your treaties linked make several references to islands that should belong to Russia, but which Japan has conquered from Russia regardless and others which it disputes to this day. In fact, they say so in the very first paragraphs of the wiki.
Quite frankly, justifications and treaties are only as powerful as the militaries that enforce them, but you’re the one who seems awe-struck by paper, not me.
Second case in point: that wiki is wholly inadequate as it doesn’t even mention the place that the Americans had in negotiating those treaties. I hate to strip the Japanese of their delusions, but the reason why the Japanese were “independent” of the European powers was for two reasons:
1) The Europeans and especially the British at first didn’t regard it as especially important, preferring to concentrate the bulk of their resources on “Cathay” (China and the Asian Mainland).
2) By the time they decided it was important, Japan was already a protectorate of the US, its Navy, and its “Open Door Policy”. Nobody was under any illusions that the Japanese islands had come under the sphere of the US.
I’m going to skip on discussing the nuances of international law, because it only seems interesting to a nonexistent subset of people. Instead, let me derail the topic by taking issue with this one cliche that people like throwing around: ‘possession is nine tenths of the law’.
You know what’s the remaining 1/10, that trumps all else? Actual ownership. I wish people would note this more often.
Russia owns those islands.
Assertions to the contrary don’t make it so.
They can fight the Russians. Or – more likely – they will make loud noises and continue spending billions in the US and elsewhere (including Russia) to try and bribe countries to give them ownership.
Unlikely as it stands today.
The US Military treats them as Russian territories – 12 nautical miles of territorial waters which is the distance the average person can see from see-level unobstructed to the edge of the horizon. Japanese “permission” is irrelevant when entering those waters. Chinese PLAN regards them the same way. India too, since “International standing” seems to mean something to you. That’s about – ohhh…three countries representing app. 3 billion people, and I’m sure the Russians have other backers in Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Serbia, etc.
Again, that kind of reasoning is irrelevant and meaningless to me, but it seems to hold weight to you.
How they are regarded, whether they are Russian or Japanese by fate or fiat, to me it’s largely just a sop to domestic audiences in each country. I just note that the Russians have positive control and possession of the islands, the military resources and the nuclear deterrent to hold them.
I go from there.
From my point of view, your reasoning just seems “backwards” to me.
Basically you’re both right. Japan is definitely more focused on China right now, with pretty much everyone else in a very distant second, including even North Korea nowadays. They certainly don’t like North Korea, but it’s seen as a pretty empty threat for the most part.
At the same time, Japan is engaged in territorial disputes with basically every neighbor, including Russia and China and even South Korea and arguably Taiwan (though they’re basically just an ignored third party to the China dispute). These can be kind of interesting because in the South Korea case, Koreans are VERY ANGRY about the islands and consider it a kind of slow-moving act of war that is pretty much everywhere. Seriously, nearly every school in the country has a scale model of the disputed islands and there are stickers about it on the urinals. Japan on the other hand doesn’t really care while still refusing to back down politically basically because of national pride.
Neither the South Koreans nor the Japanese will do anything about Chinese encroachment beyond making public protests. The histrionics don’t matter. Only the fact that they’ve charted their militaries and navies to sail around the areas that China takes hold of, including those new islands they’re building.
If you want to make a point, Japan can sail her Navy and an aircraft carrier (rotor-wing carrier, really) through the disputed zone to oversee her fishing vessels and transit.
Possession is 9/10ths of of the law and 10/10ths of reality.
umm… yes? I didn’t really comment on the likelihood of war so I’m not sure what this is.
You were commenting about how the principles in question are “disputing” the territories.
I am commenting that their actions are are more in “acquiescence”.
They’re not challenging them so much as they are making loud noises.
And you’re wrong: Every dispute is backed by a threat of violence. Just as every law is backed by a threat of violence. It’s just that in this case, Korea, Japan and Taiwan are bluffing – though they are putting on the show for their domestic audience.
@Jerry
Oh hey, international jurisprudence. Riveting stuff.
Not every law, international or otherwise, are backed by the threat of violence, or else international relations would be a lot bloodier than it is now. They are backed by threats of consequence, which could be violence but doesn’t necessarily have to be. Sure, violence is the ultimate expression of power, but rarely (especially in our current international landscape) the most utilitarian. Even something as simple as the risk of losing international standing may be enough, because standing is still a currency states care about, in the same way individuals may also avoid certain legal but antisocial behaviours simply because their neighbours would frown at them very hard.
At first, I thought you were talking about something sensible like business transactions and agreements of commerce that you’d mistaken for Laws (and are different from Business Law which is likewise backed by violence behind those “peaceful” fees and bank regulations), until you started heralding “International standing” and countries being ?forced? to avoid “antisocial behaviours simply because their neighbours would frown at them very hard”
Seriously?
What you’re describing is not “Law”, but “peer-pressure” and social custom or stigma which does not apply to macro-organizations like countries. At worst, what you’re describing is akin to the child-like mentality of school bullying and cliques, thinking it will make the Chinese Communist Party or the Swiss government act in a way that ingratiates itself to you. That does not mean the Swiss or Chinese are not individually kind or unworried about social pressures, only that those habits do not translate seamlessly on a national-level. And to presume that Laws are to be written based on that presumption is clearly flawed and demonstrably false, let alone ruinous in its execution if you want to try and “form” a “One-World Government” (a euphemism for World domination) to implement it realistically.
The Japanese even during World War 2 could be very outwardly courteous and sticklers for saving face, but that “social behaviour” differed from their country’s behavior on a geopolitical scale. To this day, Japan is not so much a “pacifist nation”, as much as it is a “pacified nation” – sorry to break it to you, but Japan did not “choose” its current “peaceful” state, subjugated under the US military shield and subject under the US economy after having lost its assured breadbasket in Manchuria and resource base in the same and the rest of Pacific Rim and SE Asia.
To actually begin challenging any other country militarily, Japan has to be able to (A) become relatively self-sufficient in feeding itself and (B) relatively self-sufficient in energy to continue supplying itself with drinking water and services (C) relatively self-sufficient in technological research to ensure its superiority on the economic and military scene (D) Challenge the regional powers in terms of man-power including China and the US (E) Overcome its historic humiliation which is a huge part of its cultural scene …I’m just going to stop there because there are too many to count, and all with inter-related dynamics. To the degree that Japan “chose” this future, it did so with a gun (and nuclear weapons) aimed at its forehead, not because the Japanese have a polite “face culture”.
Japanese: “Japan chose to be a peaceful nation.”
Me: “How much of a choice do you really have?”
70 years later, the memories have faded a bit, but the realities of being resource-dependent and militarily subjugated are still realities. More than that, it’s not as if it’s been a bad chapter in Japanese history, so while there’s resentment among the Japanese to the status quo, there’s a strong inertia to carry on that status quo.
Equating laws between individuals – within a nation-state – to customs and laws between nation-states themselves is rubbish. I can’t even begin to describe the differences, except to that a person with individual interests is not a nation-state where the interests are formulated in a multitude of dynamics even more twisted and indecipherable than the most demented human being.
And no, we do not live in a One-World Government.
I knew the state of “Western” civics education was bad, but it still unnerves me when someone proudly proclaims himself an example.
A Law has three facets in a society.
It must be written.
It must be interpreted.
It must be enforced.
In the United States, this is done by a representative government and the powers to do all three are separated into the Legislature, the Judiciary, and the Executive (based on your spelling of “Behaviour”, I presume you are not American, forgive me).
In others, those functions are done by one person or a body with little or no representative feedback loop.
There are no structures in place to actually implement and enforce what you describe as “International Law”. There can only be agreements between countries (which change depending on the negotiating leverage and dynamics of force). The governing body from politicians to police enforcing Laws on individual citizens is one thing. But a Nation-state or group of states “enforcing” or “administering” so-called “Laws” on another country – this is so much “Law”, as it is “War”.
So maybe it’s no wonder that “Citizens of the World” don’t like to admit that their advocacy is often meant to make them feel better about themselves, rather than actually being about actually doing anything.
Or maybe it’ worse: maybe some of them know that already – and are advocating anyway, hoping someone else will get stuck with the dirty work to accomplish what they advocate – while they get to keep your hands clean.
@Jerry
Wow, that’s a lot of text, and most of it doesn’t even sound like it’s addressed to me. Perhaps it’s best we close this discussion off here. I should note, though, that international law really is a thing. Seriously. I’m not making it up.
It’s true, there are even people who make a living by helping to decide cases in international courts. Pretty good money if you’ve got the skill-set. Weird for something that doesn’t exist to have such a large bank account.
@Jerry & Kaleryan
There are no “Laws” without the threat of violence eventually backing it up. Your utopia about countries “antisocial behaviours simply because their neighbours would frown at them very hard” is just that – a utopia which has more to do with your ego than with any experience in the world.
Take a look at the shell-game Jack Ma played with Yahoo, similar to the games teh Europeans play with MS or IBM. You honestly believe that “Law” had something to do with the outcomes of separating companies from billions worth of revenue and equity? Or was it negotiating leverage….”Business” under the guise of a legal framework.
“Law” and “Business” are two distinct spheres with different modes of mutual benefit. One provides social continuity where dogs live together, the other is commerce where dog eats dog.
So it was completely “Business” when Jack Ma looked at Alibaba, went to the Chinese government and declared the payment infrastructure of Alibaba a separate company to which Yahoo – according to the Chinese government – would have no investiture ex post facto.
Why couldn’t Yahoo challenge Jack Ma? Because the PRC owns all the guns in China and therefore owns all the facilities, switchbards, transformers, data-centers, and dated technology, etc. The US isn’t going to war with China over those small potatoes, and so Yahoo has no leverage.
Yes, it was all very “formalized”. Yes, it even had a laughable courtroom where at one point, Yahoo wouoldn’t have had to bother sending its legal teams because these “International Laws” governing international investment securities are a farce. The real power lies in the horse-trading, and the military force behind it. Maybe if the US offered to restrict Taiwanese chip foundry access to lucrative US processes and semi-conductor design, opening the door for China to walk in (or forcing the Taiwanese to relocate their plants possibly to the Mainland), or restricted the Japanese from using dedicated GPS system channels (military or civilian), or given China any competitive advantage in any sphere over its regional rivals, Yahoo might have gotten a better deal. Robbing Peter to pay Paul is a way of life in “International Law”.
Of course, that’s not “Law” as you know in it Civics class.
That’s “International Law”; a business between countries where leverage, power, and ultimately force of arms, talk.
And yes, it’s very profitable.
It’s “Business”, not “Law”.
And whether you admit it or not, your ignorance is not something to be laughed at, but has done real harm by empowering the worst elements of the international scene.
Passerby, I’m not sure if you just skimmed the first few chapters in the manga, but it does change considerably.
I read a good 20 chapters. I hoped that would be at least indicative.
Guess either I am dulled to stuff like this or have a high tolerance. Weird, because I was going to say about that far in should show it not really mattering.
I’m gong to be frank, this was one of the shows I was most intrigued by this season. Then I learned that the manga/novels/whatever are kind of jingoistic and insane. So I went into this first episode kind of curious whether I would love it or hate it.
Instead I found it rather boring. Which is sad given the exciting things going on, but I feel like the direction was incredibly weak. The civilians don’t really even react for a while, and then almost as soon as they do they’ve evacuated to the palace. There’s very few scenes of their harrowing escape from a terrifying impossible army. And there are pretty much no lines whatsoever by people commenting on what is going on. It robs the scenes of most of their tension.
On top of that, our ‘hero’ basically does nothing. He wordlessly ganks one bad guy, then is also randomly next to the palace, where he says let them in (which a lot of people were probably saying). They get let in, he gets an award. We’re not shown anything particularly deserving of ‘national hero.’
I’m gonna keep watching because I hope this will be good, but if this is any indication I’m not offended, just disappointed.
They don’t react, because they thought it’s some kind of cosplay event connected to that doujinshi festival. Later, because they’re shocked.
Dragons are not cosplay for one, and secondly I’m aware of the thought process, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have shown some fear and panic before suddenly being at the palace (which is a very large distance from Ginza, a significant amount of time passed there).
It’s not that things that happened didn’t make sense, it’s that the sequence of events was very choppy and cut out huge parts of what would have happened and those parts are probably more exciting than what we saw.
My hunch will be for the BD
They might show all those stuff as extra on the BDs, as tv shows tend to be on a constraint period (Yes, I’m looking at you Knights of Sidonia 1st season, some of the stuff was extended on the BDs to make it more understandable)
I can also understand your opinions as I also read the manga and knows what to expect next, but the show only started, hence they want to let the anime viewers to understand the intro story and situation of Gate
Very good first episode. Reminded me a bit of a web novel I read at one point called The Salvation War. Similar gung-ho Army vs Medieval Monsters story, except it deals with God sending the hordes of hell against the world’s combined (and particularly that of the United States) armies.
Show could go either way, really. There’s potential for a lot of commentary on modern politics and imperialism. But that’s only if the show begins to take itself too seriously and if it does go the way of political satire, though, it will probably go over the heads of most western viewers, who aren’t familiar enough with Japanese politics to understand. I found it interesting how the Japanese PM was able to subvert the JSDF’s stance as defensive force by calling the land beyond the gate part of Japan. That makes me think it may go the political commentary route. The far right wing stance of the author is clearly visible as well, something that personally intrigues me, an American moderate who hates warfare, but clearly understands that there are many, many times when the use of force is not only necessary, but preferable to peaceful negotiation. I always enjoy seeing the extremes of different points of view realized on screen.
After reading this I had to check out this series, and holy crap this seems interesting as hell, and quite… different, now i have something new to read, thank you
Oh, and I’m gonna wade into the political thing (probably shouldn’t, I know) because I am a student of International Politics/Relations and I study in Tokyo of all places:
I think what people who defend Japanese hawkishness/jingoism as ‘the same as everywhere else’ need to understand is that in many cases Japanese hawks are not simply saying ‘our nation is great/our army is strong.’ Because they’ve been basically stuck doing nothing militarily since WWII, they are in some ways still stuck in WWII mentally, so supporting a stronger Japanese military tends to dovetail very quickly into weird WWII apologist mentality i.e., ‘there were no comfort women, the nanking massacre never happened, everyone else were the real villains, etc.’
This is not simply a mental exercise, this mentality has very real, very damaging consequences on Japan’s modern relations with its neighbors, neighbors who still believe that Japan doesn’t realize what they did was wrong, because on some level Japan DOESN’T.
Don’t misunderstand me, I love this country and I love these people which is why I live here quite happily and have a lot of friends, but there is a very unsettling streak of militaristic/imperialistic nationalism that still runs under the surface here, much like the rather ugly racism that rears its head from time to time in US culture.
So Japan doing a really gung-ho military story is a bit different than most other countries.
Thank you. This kind of stuff is difficult to discuss on an anime blog, but we can still love anime and its parent while still recognising some unfortunately complex issues.
What I’m concerned is that the JSDF as depicted in the series will be more or less a military, and not a self-defense force. It might be different from WWII, but nature of war has changed since then.
On a more technical note, this episode was a nice introduction compared the manga adaptation on what happened in the beginning. What I don’t appreciate are the pig-orcs. Why can’t we have more horrendously looking ones like in LOTR?
I did think the pig orcs were horribly designed. And frankly, that’s actually something I’ve noticed about this anime’s designs as soon as I knew it was actually kind of dark. Going off the original pictures/preview from months ago I really did think it was just a fun action story.
Because the characters and designs all look like that. From the main girls with their very light/airy colors and designs to the pig-orcs, the visuals just didn’t make me feel that things were dark at all. It really robbed a lot of tension from some of the invasion scenes for me because the monsters looked like dragon quest enemies.
Dafuq,
Putting aside the lame propogandizing of the Japanese military as a “Self-Defense Force”, most people in the US Military simply refer to the Japanese Navy as …. “the Japanese Navy”. Or the Japanese Army as “the Japanese Army”.
The canned “Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force” or “Japanese Self Defense Force” tags that the politicians try to force on allied militaries has gotten old long ago. Nobody believes in the kabuki theater.
@Jerry:
I’m not sure where you came from, but i feel like you got lost on the way to an actual political blog, which would be in a different direction.
That said, the ‘SDF’ moniker is actually important in Japan. I can’t speak for what the US military calls them, and if you’re talking about normal members of the military, I would remind you they’re not actually that knowledgeable about treaties or constitutional law or even large scale military tactics. Normal military members, whether soldiers, sailors, marines or whatever else, aren’t expected to know or deal with these things. That’s why officers have to go to military academies and war colleges to learn this stuff.
My best friend is a marine and if he starts telling me about life on a carrier, how to care for a weapon, or any of those sorts of things, you better believe I listen. But when it comes to politics, history, military grand strategy, and constitutional law, it doesn’t give him much more knowledge than a layman.
In Japan the difference between the SDF and a ‘real’ military is a vital and debated topic, whether among ordinary citizens, politicians, scholars, or members of the JSDF (all of whom I’ve dealt with as part of the IR education process here).
These have very real effect on the mission, structure, and capabilities of the Japanese military, so frankly I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
And this IS getting off topic. I’ve defended political discussions on this page because the show sets itself up for it by its very nature and how it tells the story, but try and relate it to the show at least a little.
“My best friend is a Marine.”
Sorry to inform you, but this line doesn’t impress me in the least even if true.
I have a former-Marine for a brother working in Coronado and I can say that his familiarity in these affairs far outstrip the majority of Japanese (and Americans for that matter).
As do mine.
Professionals don’t need to call a stand-in to make their arguments, they let their arguments stand on their own.
As one of the editors of the Naval War College review told a bunch of military personnel recently, all they do is write dissertations on what they’ve already learned from experience in their military careers. They go to the War colleges for paper qualifications and customs, NOT to learn about War or Global Affairs. It’s the same way with a lot of programmers or any engineers of any talent; they don’t “learn” about their vocations in college, they “demonstrate” what they already know.
The Academies for the butter bars typically tell their cadets that they leave campus as green as the Enlisted out of boot camp. Under no circumstances is a green graduate of an academy fit to issue orders to even the lowest grunt in the field, no matter what their rank – on pain of answering to the Commanding Officer who will have been advised that the ensign be harshly disciplined.
Typically over-estimating and hyping the worth of the “academies” and “war colleges” marks you as extremely ignorant of how one’s record and experience is judged in the world and especially in the defense community – even by the graduates of such institutes themselves. The fact that you apparently don’t know this marks you as something less than genuine.
As for the Japanese…their opinions are self-referential and not very genuine at all.
It doesn’t matter what the Japanese call their military. The most relevant topic is: capability, flexibility, adaptability, deployability, etc. These are just conceptual words, and most people in the defense community from the military to contractors to NASA pilots to “War College” graduates would understand and visualize it in the context:
What the Japanese choose to call their military or proclaim their intentions is up to them. But you are in no position to forbid others from ascertaining a different intention and appraisal which describes the Japanese differently – even going so far as to forbid calling the Japanese military “the Japanese Military”. The asinine corruption of words and their meaning is as tiresome in Tokyo and Nagasaki as it is in San Diego or New York.
Generally, whenever anyone talks about ‘the real world,’ they basically mean ‘in my head,’ so have fun in there. Must get lonely sometimes though.
@ KaleRylan
That’s it! I knew the whole situation reminded me of something, and that it felt more wrong than the typical Call of Duty-type game that’s all, “Rah rah, ‘murica,” but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Not that those can’t be troubling too—and, in the case of most modern war FPS games, boring. Come at me, bros! I’ll tear you apart in, uh, Dungeon Defenders. Waitthatdoesntwork—but not to the same degree.
It would be like a TV show starring a bunch of confederate generals, and I can’t expound any more because that’s bad enough.
That’s probably also why Kancolle always bothered me. Imperial Japanese and Nazi ships should not be cute! Though thinking the ships are cool is understandable. They totally are. Which is why I had no problem with Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova or Girls und Panzer (& loved them on their own strengths). And I guess Upotte, technically, but that one bored me.
For this one, though, it remains to be seen. I’ma give it more episodes before I pass judgement.
At this point in the story you really cannot make any connotations to imperialism/colonialism, especially when the army marching through the gate literally was chopping up civilians in an outright invasion.
I disagree. JSDF are not allowed to ‘attack’ or ‘invade’ for whatever reason which, also includes self-defense. They’re only allowed to operate within their country.
That being said, when the government declared that the gate was part of Japan it automatically gave them rights to use JSDF to enter the gate.
I consider that forceful because:
1) The territory inside the gate is not part of Japan
2) The “invasion” of the other party does not grant JSDF to mobilize to foreign territories (article 9)
As a result, when the JSDF advanced inside the gate it supports the whole notion of Japan still itching for colonialism and military power.
They’re not allowed to attack because of the Security treaty drafted by the US.
That being said, their city was just attacked. It’s natural to want revenge for it. Heard of the American Patriot Act? It’s the same thing. The Ginza invasion was their 9/11.
Technically, it’s not forceful because:
1. The “terrorists” come from the Gate, which is smack dab in downtown Tokyo. You could put a boundary around it and call it another country, but it still wouldn’t be internationally recognized by the UN of Earth, since the invaders aren’t part of any country. It’s essentially an alien attack. It’s why the PM mobilized the soldiers to find the invaders and exact reparations, because without a defined territorial boundary whatever came from Japanese soil is Japanese, even if it’s through a dimension.
2. Article 9 doesn’t apply because as said in the previous point, it’s Japanese territory. That’s why the US couldn’t come in, it’s not national defense. National defense is an attack outside the borders; this one came from in it, so it’s technically a local issue.
As a result, I think they’re legally in their rights to do what they did.
This is debatable, particularly considering the existence of the Gate is outside of the scope of the laws restricting Japans military activities.
@Jergens
Except they don’t have such Act like America does. They don’t have a freedom of dispatching their military whatsoever. Whatever the reasons might be, they cannot take offensive initiatives via military means. Again article 9 outlines these restrictions.
1) I’m repeating this over and over again but: JSDF are not allowed to be dispatched to any “foreign” lands. The gate might be claimed as part of Japan but inside of the gate is not. Like you’ve said it’s a “territorial boundary” with no borders though they’re still bounded by the clause. Recognized by 3rd parties or not, they just can’t mobilize JSDF into the gate like that.
2) Read my post above. Also I suggest you to actually read what the article 9 is about/means as you seem to have no idea about the Japan and its current use of military forces
If they really want to venture into the gate, they can do so by demanding approval from the UN and neighboring countries, and advocate revision of article 9. The current article doesn’t give any rights to Japan to do so.
Though the recent “reinterpretation” of article by Abe might give JSDF the rights to exercise military action against foreign countries. If this was approved by both their people and other countries then yes, they’re allowed to use JSDF to advance inside the gate.
Please… no legal arguments unless you can back it up. If not it’ll merely cause misunderstandings with people knowing nothing of it giving erroneous points.
On the other hand as for the second point, on a purely logical level it is merely concluding what it has adopted as its premise, namely: X is not invading as it is within X’s borders. Why is it in X’s borders? Because X said so. Therefore, X is not invading because X said it is within its borders which of course is faulty. i.e. X said A is B; therefore A is B is self-fulfilling.
@jayce
Right now they don’t, in the story they do. It’s similar to the Patriot Act. It’s their 9/11. Stop using Article 9, it’s not valid in alien worlds. Read the definition again: international disputes. Unless you’re telling me aliens from another world are international.
They don’t need approval from the UN or the US, everything happened inside their borders. What happens inside a country is none of the UN or the US’s business.
Prove using the law that the land inside the Gate is foreign land, that Japan has established boundaries with the entities inside the Gate. You do know territorial laws right? That everything within the land, within the immediate waters, within the airspace is that country’s ownership. That includes the Gate and is a legal loophole since no one has ever made laws for dimensional gates before.
Abe doesn’t matter, this was written in 2006.
I want to repeat myself again from the summer page. Real life is real life, fiction is fiction. Disregard any parallels with real life because in fiction, whatever happens is up to the author. If you’ve noticed everything I’ve said is in line with the story; it’s because I know it’s fiction.
It’s like me getting mad at Superman for breaking several countries’ sovereign airspaces for flying around the world. It’s ridiculous.
@Actus
As you can see I can back it up…as for being self-fulfilling, you are totally right. However it’s just a story so technically everything is self-fulfilling. What happens is always up to the author.
@Jergens:
The difference with superman is he’s simply a criminal. We like to ignore that, but superheroes are all vigilantes and vigilantes are criminals so…
This story set itself up for this sort of discussion because it purports itself to be about the legal, diplomatic, and military response of Japan. The story itself discusses how the country would do this legally so people have every right to discuss whether that legal justification makes sense.
And your loophole is a bit weird. Don’t misunderstand me, I agree with you that in the event of an actual invasion this article would pretty quickly go out the window (I have literally argued this exact line of reasoning in a grad school class here in Waseda University in Tokyo) but at the same time that doesn’t necessarily judge the show.
Because if this DID happen, Tokyo or not, it would instantly be an international incident; the implications are profound. The idea that the US would not offer help (partially just to be on the front-lines of such a major event) and that the Japanese would not accept such help is ludicrous (not even counting all the arguments that would arise regarding attempts to establish communication and so on). This speaks to the author’s clear goal of using this story as a vehicle for making the JSDF look AMAZING. Now, whether making the JSDF look amazing is going to go a step too far into making militarism/imperialism/nationalism look amazing is hard to say at this point. Apparently in his original version it does, but I didn’t see anything too crazy in this one episode.
@KaleRylan
No, the difference with Superman is that while he breaks a lot of rules to his whim and is legally considered a criminal, conventional arms can’t harm him so we’re stuck hoping he doesn’t turn evil. Because the JSDF found out they could do harm to the aliens plus the grave crime of killing a lot of people, this happens. But while different, they’re also both similar in terms of border entry.
Wrong, the story itself is what one man thinks what happens if the Gate situation happens, peppered with his opinions about geopolitics around the world. If a book is written about Japanese geopolitics, then that’s historical fact written by proven historians and not an ex-soldier. People here are essentially taking a civilian’s opinion and getting offended by it.
Loopholes are all weird. It’s why government kickbacks exist. No government project would happen without one.
The US did offer help in fact, along with Russia and South Korea. Japan refused because they wanted to be the ones to get all the resources in Gateworld, which is what everyone’s true objective was. Legal loopholes were observed (this shouldn’t be a problem anymore since we’ve discussed this) as well as permission from the people of Japan to mobilize the JSDF. Would it be an international incident? Of course, but because it’s something that’s happened on national territory, the US can’t send troops through the Gate without Japanese permission. Heck, besides the military bases on Japan the US can’t set foot in Japan if the Japanese didn’t want to. You saw that they could deal with it, which is why they refused help. It’s concrete solid logic, only reason people are mad is because they want to see the USA take a share of the Gate pie too.
If the author did use this story to make the JSDF look AMAZING as you say, then the Americans, Russians, and Chinese attacking the hot spring should have had cooperated together, moving in unison to make them more competent but the JSDF mows them down together. Instead, a variety of extenuating circumstances like the Americans not being given the correct information about their targets as well as the JSDF anticipating the ambush (not US though, only Russia and China) and the three groups not anticipating each other because of lack of planning (Itami’s group had been announced there only yesterday) gave the JSDF the win. It’s not hardly believable at all plus it’s the JSDF’s home ground.
As for the Gateworld? The JSDF don’t look AMAZING if it weren’t for their AMERICAN-SUPPLIED weaponry coupled with their AMERICAN-TRAINED soldiers. It’s less nationalistic than people think or fear, yet listening to hearsay somehow invalidates all these facts out. You really want to see nationalistic and jingoistic? Look no further from our own shores and read some Tom Clancy novels. Several of them are made into games and yet there’s no backlash from the international community given that the web novel of Gate and Tom Clancy’s editor-approved published books are almost the same.
The episode itself was fine, 7/10 good ep. Better than Denpa Kyoushi at least.
You have so many random, contradictory arguments going on here at the same time that there’s no way to even begin to have a coherent response to this so… sure.
Villains being villainous doesn’t really have anything to do with the larger question of the author’s message and how it relates to ongoing debates regarding Japan’s military and outlook on its own history.
I’m not saying the first episode WAS jingoistic; I don’t think it was (though the prime minister’s speech was a bit weird) but the fact that there are bad guys is beside the point.
You are choosing to disregard Japans right to defend itself from attack because you feel they are not properly guilt ridden about their past crimes.
Not in the slightest. I’m saying that whether the bad guys are bad simply has nothing to do with whether this show will turn out to be jingoistic or not. Bad guys are ALWAYS bad in nationalist propaganda, it’s a standard tactic. You build a straw-man to justify your stance.
That said, as I said above, I’m really NOT judging it on this episode. The episode was fairly straightforward and had few political connotations either way. We’ll see where it goes from here.
The prime minister’s speech was a bit strange for a couple reasons but not that big of a deal within the bounds of a fictional show.
Oh my, you do realize that you are mixing Real Life Politics with an Anime version of JSDF? Well, i admit i also brought JSAF into play. But i realized that this is Anime Fiction
Or have we here Peoples that do not see the difference of Fiction and Real Life?
Calm down, go play your Politics plays, but not here on an Anime Blog, where Anime Fans around the Globe just want to enjoy their Hobby. Thank you for your understanding.
It’s more of author’s pushing his right-wing points in the series. I’m not sure if any of you have read the novel before but as a ex-JSDF, his views were pretty far-right in regarding to Japanese military.
He tries to promote the ideas that they should have a proper military force and shouldn’t be binded by constitutions. He also expresses that Japan needs its old imperialism ideology embedded in the current generations.
More so, he outright glorifies the current Japanese military power and paints other countries military power (primarily USA/Russia/China/Korea)as bad guys who tries to invade Japan at any given moment.
Mind you these were the themes which he tried to push towards the readers. Real life or fiction, it’s obvious that he wants to promote his nationalistic ideas while eulogizing the present Japanese military force.
I think the poster below (carnation) explained this well.
That’s kind of my point. Not saying Gate necessarily is, but this kind of scenario that nationalistic propaganda would use. Seen any WWII propaganda posters lately? Of course the enemy are savage monsters. And many Japanese would love an excuse to deploy their armed forces more aggressively (yay, let’s occupy Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Nobody will disagree with that). The celebration of Japanese military power is what makes Gate potentially troubling.
That is basically the issue there, are modern Japanese allowed to be proud of their country because of sins committed by long dead people.
The thing is, for Asia, WWII isn’t some sort of distant past. It’s very real and very modern to this day. The Korean comfort women are still around, still asking Japan to admit what they did to them. And Japan is still denying it. Japan can’t come full circle to being proud of their military because they’ve never fully gone the other direction and really come to terms with what they’ve did.
There are still people here who regularly and publicly deny or downplay atrocities committed by Japan. For Americans, and many others, WWII is the distant past and lots of things have happened since then. For much of Asia, it is still the defining historical event of their cultures and something of an open wound.
Every major actor in WW2 committed horrific atrocities, but only a few admit to them or are expected to admit to them.
1. That’s beyond idiotic, the vast majority of WWII powers have fully admitted what was done at the time.
2. Also beyond idiotic; not that many people get mad at Germany because they went out of their way to make amends and don’t, to this very day, spend enormous amounts of political capital trying to downplay or cover up the actions of freaking Hitler. Japan does. That’s weird. And what’s more, it’s stupid. Because the thing is, we HAVE forgiven Japan for the most part, we just wish they would stop saying stupid crap so we could move on. Defenders of this crap act like the world hasn’t moved on when half the real problem is that JAPAN hasn’t moved on.
You mean Japan has not moved on in a manner satisfactory to you, which is frankly BS as a modern Japanese person has no obligation to grovel for your forgiveness.
Ugh, is it possible for an admin to delete my above post? Got heated and said more than I like. Really wish there were an edit button here.
Editor’s note: Try not to get too worked up over internet debates. Cooler heads usually prevail, if only because they don’t waste as much energy.
Interestingly Longhaul, this was generally how Imperial Japan justified against the Russians, in ‘protection’ of the Chinese, and against the US. Basically, the Big Lie that the greatest danger to Asian civilians were the blonde barbarians come to chop up the Asians and enslave its women.
Comparing the claims and deeds of Japanese administration in China and America’s administration in Japan is an interestingly under-studied topic in World History, particularly among “progressive” historians.
But the inclusion of barbaric foreign/blonde savages chopping up civilians without conscience?
Yeah, I call this projection.
You are making the same mistake of confusing propaganda and an army literally marching in Tokyo killing civilians.
Your statement doesn’t make any sense to me so maybe you’ll elaborate.
Anyway, World War 2 history and documentation is replete with examples of the Japanese disposing of their slaves, their captives, even their fellow citizens, their children and themselves.
In some ways, it’s easy to see why they believed this given their own treatment of their presumed inferiors. Again, many World War 2 veterans have noted that the Japanese stories about them were fantastic in part because the Japanese did many of those atrocities themselves. In the same way that the Japanese soldiers believed they would be victims of humiliation and slaughter if they were captured alive, it was only natural for Japanese civilians to believe they would share the same fate. Similarly, most Americans didn’t quite believe the stories about their comrades at the hands of the Japanese, to say nothing about what happened to the Chinese (though again, most Chinese died of famine and social dislocation, not directly under the mercy of the Japanese).
Again, projection went both ways. The Japanese generally thought “worse”, and the Americans generally thought “better”.
The accounts of how the Japanese dealt with being faced with the reality of being subjugated by the United States, from Japanese mothers who had just thrown their babies over a cliff, to Japanese soldiers in captivity, to American military lawyers and commanders bypassing imperial “prerogatives” to establish a new form a government – it’s all very interesting – plenty of material, but the episode doesn’t get the publicity and interest from academics it deserves.
Those who started reading the manga or watching the anime wouldn’t be exposed to author’s nationalistic views as “much”. It’s his original novel (first work) that is full of far-right views. Some of them includes:
– Downplaying other countries military power such as USA, Russia and China etc
– Repeating theme of “Our military strong! No one can beat us!” and “We can steamroll anyone!”
– Criticizing UN and everything related to it
– Supporting imperialistic views as well as “Japan did nothing wrong in WWII”
– Supporting of Japan having military complex and criticizing article 9
– And so on…
Worse of all, he didn’t even try to be subtle with his views. He just outright wrote paragraphs of paragraphs portraying them.
The original novel is your typical right-wing nutjobs writing a fantasy novel. The latter adaptations are toned down a bit though there are bits and pieces of his views still being displayed because reasons. Those with “certain” cultural backgrounds might or find this offensive though I can’t blame them for feeling like that.
All in all, it’s really up to your perspective on how you’d take this as. As someone who’ve partially read the author’s first work I’m a bit uncomfortable to watch the anime adaptation. Coupled with my certain cultural background it’s even more awkward as most of my fellow countrymen downright denies/hates this series. Nevertheless I’m going to continue watching this as the whole premise of “modern military vs fantasy” intrigues me a lot.
I’m just hoping the author’s themes are toned down a little in the anime adaptations.
Modern military vs fantasy could be a ton of fun, which is why I’m going to keep watching, but it’s only fun if it’s a fight. If we just completely destroy them the way it was done here that’s no fun.
Fictional works from Japan are FULL of the theme that their military is in some way superior to the rest of the world. That is as common as it gets. How is that unusual?
A lot of liberal leaning folks hate on military fiction, which this most certainly is. I love it when nutjob is used to describe someone you don’t agree with.
People offended by anime? GASP. We can’t let that happen!
Really, how many examples can you think of off the top of your head that show that the modern day JSDF (not ‘magic future Japan where they invented a new technology that made them a superpower,’ because yeah they do that all the time) is better than every other military power? Because I can’t think of many.
And no ones discussing liberals/conservatives here, so please don’t try and turn this into the silly US-political debates that come from those labels. Military political questions in Japan are very different than US ones and are tied into very dark history and some fairly shady modern history. They have some very real issues with censoring textbooks, denying war crimes, shifting blame, and a lot of other things along that route. Because of this Japanese military fiction raises more eyebrows than other military fiction. It’s not the same.
It’s like if every other time the US discussed its military, it came with a statement that the Native Americans sort of deserved it. You’d probably want the US to stop talking about that.
That said, as I’ve mentioned a few other places this first episode (while actually kind of boring) was pretty straight forward and I don’t think there’s much to get offended by. But people need to realize that there is a reason that Japanese militarism causes concern, it’s not just overreacting or confusing reality and fiction. This is a very REAL debate that is ongoing in Japan and in Asia and is still in the day to day news right now.
Maybe because Japanese military/government are regarded as vicious aggressor who doesn’t acknowledge its war crimes and tries to be aggressive with their current military forces?
Maybe because unlike Germany, they tried to glorify their military presence?
Maybe because such acts gives neighboring countries a bad vibe of hostility, instead of trying to reconciling with them?
I could give a list of reasons of why certain people gets “butthurt” when Japan and its military/politics are involved in any forms of media. So when a author releases a series where the underlining meanings of nationalism takes place, it’s no wonder they paint the author as “nutjobs”.
Like the OP have said, it depends on your perspective and background. Some people will be butthurt while others won’t be. Considering the series target audience is Japanese themselves, dwelling on these facts are kind of stupid to be honest.
But then we have people like you who just goes over it like it’s not part of a big deal and criticizes those who are butthurt with a simple: “It’s just an anime. Who cares?”
After all, it’s all about the past so we should forget about it right?
There is a common debate about quality of troops. How good are the troops you have? While numbers and logistics will eventually overcome, everyone recognizes this, if you were to put the same number of one force against the same of another, who will win? I am going to dig up the source material and find out if he means this. I suspect he does. As for this concept, I am not going to constrain to the modern JDSF.
Sounds like Japan has issues with the language police as much as other western nations. Similar stuff is happening elsewhere.
Japan has some unhappy neighbors and does need a strong independent military. Considering they have leaned towards anti-militarism for so long and so hard, I don’t think promoting some on the other way is bad. I seriously doubt they’ll go full retard again. I am increasingly liking Hitchen’s ideals.
Felix: There is always a pile of people offended by anime. They just have to get in line behind the people offended by the violence, incest, sexualization of youth, sexism, demons, etc etc etc in anime. It isn’t so much “It’s just an anime. Who cares?” it is more like “They’re just offended. Who cares?”
Umm… denying wartime atrocities on a scale that boggles the mind and that offending people is not ‘the language police.’ Are you crazy? You realize that millions of people died in Asia during WWII right? So yeah, China, Korea, and the nations of Southeast Asia tend to get a bit huffy when Japan tries to wallpaper over that little fact. A BIT like the Jews get kind of annoyed with people that deny the Holocaust.
As for troop quality, I can tell you the answer to ‘who would win?’ is not the JSDF for the most part. But that’s neither here nor there. Because that IS simply a question of fiction. Our heroes are always better than your heroes.
And I never understand the problem with the JSDF set-up. Japan has a military. They’re just not allowed to invade anyone. Why should ANYONE be allowed to invade anyone? If Japan’s ‘unhappy neighbors’ choose to attack Japan, it can fight back with all the considerable power at its command. If they don’t, it stays home. Frankly, not only is that a good system, the world would be a better place if we ALL had that. No invasions. Just defense.
From what I understand, Gate’s author was in the JSDF himself. You know what happens when military men write fiction: either it ends up showing humanity at its shittiest or you get something that trumpets the author’s homeland (and especially military) with all it has.
I’m sad that RC decided not to cover this weekly.
Hearsay is really a powerful tool.
2 points:
1. hearsay is generally based on something. Especially if there’s no other apparent reason behind said hearsay. If people keep saying it’s concerning, it’s probably concerning.
2. Going off the first episode, I probably wouldn’t cover it either. It simply wasn’t that good. The first episode of this was like the weird high school arc in Owari no Seraph; the show had a ton of potential and you want it to be good but it was actually just kind of mediocre.
1. It’s because people keep repeating the same things about it like the person up top. He/she mentioned “partially read the author’s first work,” so in essence he/she only read up to that part, not to mention s/he might have done it with a bunch of online translation devices. That’s disingenuous, it paints a picture that this story is chock full of other country hate and Japanese wank. I could dissect his points but it’s pointless.
2. No 3 episode rule? That’s what I’m sad about. Hearing the synopsis and spoilers (yes I’m shameless like that) of the whole first saga of Gate makes for a good story. It didn’t make an oomph impression on people but it managed to deliver its message well. First half was the invasion and setting Itami’s character, second half was Japan preparing to go inside the gate while taking care of legalities. But maybe to an anime-only viewer it wasn’t that exciting. It’s alright anyway, just bummed RC won’t cover it.
It’s kind of vague but you should probably have put that second point in spoiler tags.
And yes, hearsay is hearsay, I in no way deny that, but a weird side-effect of the rampant pre-judging that happens on the internet is this idea that people can’t judge anything without knowing everything about it, and that’s just unrealistic.
We are always going to decide what media we consume (among other things) based on a lack of information, because if we had all the information it would mean we’d consumed it already which would defeat the whole purpose of deciding whether or not to deal with something.
oh, you were just summarizing the first episode. I got confused because you said that right after saying you’d read the whole first saga.
Was reluctant to get into it since I figured it would just be another Outbreak Company. I was pleasantly surprised that it had a much more serious tone with a more likable main character and a world that I could get much more absorbed in. It did move a little slow in parts and I may be guilty of fast-forwarding a little but overall I think I will definitely enjoy this show more than Outbreak Company.
disgusting adaption
a disgrace to a great manga
I’m not going that far in it.
I was slightly disappointed in the first episode because they toned it down from the manga. I mean come on, Anime like High School of the Dead, Tokyo Terror and others have already set the bar pretty high in regards to what you can get away with portraying so I was annoyed by the lack of horrific violence here that was in the manga.
For anyone disturbed by that allow me to explain, in the manga the violence in the opening chapters emphasized the nature of the invading force as medieval colonial occupier burning, pillaging and raping the land they are taking over which made the JSDF appear to be the white in the black and white morality. But the later chapters then start to cast grey upon this view by showing the effects that a decimating defeat in a medieval civilisation can have on its people.
In this adaption we haven’t been shown enough evil from the invaders to justify flat out hating them which worries me somewhat as the hatred the JSDF has towards the invaders is now only implied, not to mention that what we have been shown in this episode makes the invasion seem almost comedic really to the point you wonder whether many people actually died. (The manga makes the devastation the invaders cause perfectly clear and shows how deadly they can be before the JSDF turns up)
So while I don’t hate the adaption I have my concerns. Much of the greatness of the manga comes from its portrayal of the world beyond the Gate as being a dark world the likes of which you would only see if you read past politically correct history books. This adaption may potentially be glossing over that to, while not make it kid friendly, at least make it less “controversial” on the broadcaster.
Well, it’s not a completely general thing with not showing the violence (will probably be on DVD/BD anyway). It usually depends on who is airing the series and, IIRC, there was a bit of some kind of crackdown on showing too much skin/violence/etc. a few years back which is why there’s been a lot more magical rays of light/shadows and such for things as previously harmless as pantyshots in a bunch of anime.
Not going off this story at all, since I haven’t read it and I don’t know, but generally stories are better when the issue is more grey. The idea that this story’s villains were painted as incredibly evil (“black”) in order to justify the JSDF just completely hating them and visiting righteous vengeance upon them isn’t that appealing from a story perspective.
Well, from a fictional narrative standpoint, its characterization is weak and even comical so far. It’s a problem with a lot of such anime, focusing on guns and action instead of characters – which as you alluded to, is uninteresting. Is it just me, or was the funeral scene somewhat artificial.
Granted, I’m biased against this kind of anime since I’m hardly the target audience, but I think the pace and characterization really leaves a lot to be desired. The physics and the build-up could be so much better, and I feel I wouldn’t be rolling my eyes as much if this idea were executed with a bit more attention to the character instead of rushing through to create a premise that feels…forced.
First of all it’s based on a novel series (which was based off a web novel). The manga was an adaption of that and played up some of the violence. If you’re expecting hyper violence (orcs ripping people apart standing on piles of bodies) you are going to be disappointed.
@Scruffy: My understanding is that the anime is supposed to be based on the Gate light novel which is also an adaptation of the novel. Web novel no longer exists (there are copies floating around, but it it was taken down once the novel was published) so novel is considered “source”/”canon”. Comments I’ve read said that the LN toned down the political stuff compared to the novel (which toned that down compared to the web novel) among other things (perhaps the violence as well – just a guess on my part, but my impression is that the LN is more “PG” than the novel (or web novel for that matter)).
As for the manga, only comments I’ve read by novel readers (which are few) say that the manga is pretty close to the novel, so your comment about the manga playing up the violence is new to me. Not saying you’re wrong – just first I’ve read that kind of statement.
I’ll ask the same question I’ve asked other novel readers (I’m assuming you have read the novel) – apart from the violence (which you commented on already), how does the manga compare to the novel in other aspects/overall.
Thanks.
GATE might be interesting but rather amusingly, since it is not like Outlook Company where it is content to dwell on the antics of using a niche aspect of Japanese culture for first contact purposes, GATE also reaches the stage where it exposes the reader to the rather uncanny experience of reading about avaricious caricatured foreign politicos/militaries trying to get access to the portal…
As I tried to explain to other posters in another forum, this is the typical layman perception of the great powers which only surfaces when you touch on the topic. Some of them found it pretty funky and then I ask them if they wanted something more funky, they should read Zipang as well…
Never before has a Frankie Boyle joke had relevence to an Anime.
“You may be wondering why we have so many foreign treasures here at the British Museum. And the answer is simple. Gun beats spear!”
The placeholder battle of Real Life Politics with Japan and the rest of the World here. You take the Anime hostage. Please stop that
jap nationalistic propaganda + deluded otaku who is a somehow also a badass soldier (wtf?) = no thanks.
well..
think of Stargate, and you will find many similarity here…
Let us hope that the Anime turn down these Nationalistic to reasonable point
What’s wrong with soldiers being otakus? I just had an hour long discussion about macross with my company CO 2 weeks ago during lunch time. Service members are normal people and a significant number of us enjoy watching anime.
To clear misunderstanding of the person who loves otaku able to handle the crisis and speed level reaction than the inexperience police in order to save lives. Do know why he promoted become a 2nd Lieutenant of his skills? Meaning he’s a off-duty ranking lieutenant officer.
And the final episode reveals the entire series was a coma dream due to sudden blunt trauma to the head.
I find it rather sad that the author can’t write his stargate meets otaku meets military story without viewers/readers fighting over politics instead of simply having fun.
I bet that if Independence Day movie was an anime, people would call it nationalist too.
Independence Day? Absolutely. Good thing it’s also kinda dumb.
Speaking for myself, I consider ‘fun’ pretty much the lowest threshold of media. And not everybody watches stuff for fun (horror movies aren’t actually ‘fun’, are they? Though I’m sure they are for some). I think it’s good that anime can prompt a debate on a difficult subject, even if it’s not going to be a very comprehensive one considering it’s just the comments section of an anime blog. It affirms the legitimacy of anime as a medium. We should respect that it can do more things than just fun.
I agree with you. As long as people don’t start saying “this anime is shit because it falls into nationalist way of thinking”, like people were saying “Philadelphia is shit because it’s about gays” back in time. So far the anime seems like a good fun.
Watched this before checking the manga. I do hope the studio fixes the pacing and navigates around the censorship. Ignoring the “Japanese nationalistic propaganda”, Gate is still an enjoyable series to follow.
I Think gate try to go in a realistic way than the same genre anime like Outbreak Company. Like there is no way that a new land or new people didn’t give any threat. And i happy that they made the show that way. Even though the story itself kinda fast paced in my opinion.
OUTBREAK COMPANY WITH MORE FIRE FIGHT… as a military geek, this is a show for me.
IMHO, its really too early to say if this show is a fail or what but i can see it will be making its OWN WAVES soon.
This will get a 3-episode rule from me. I’m really neutral on this first episode. It could be because of the political implication that Passerby pointed out.
Really a stark contrast from Outbreak Company which I do like. But I guess when your citizens are slaughtered without any warning, it becomes an eye for an eye thing already.
My tipp for the Progression of the Anime (i read into the first two Arcs)
Show Spoiler ▼
Well, i hope to archive some peace here
logical Hole:
Show Spoiler ▼
Glad to be of help
Passersby, I think your point of view is extremely wrong and your fears completely unfounded.
In present Germany, nationalism is taboo because of international pressure. All because of sins they didn’t do. Is the fear unfounded, no, but it’s not unjustifiable either. But it would be like me blaming my German neighbor of Hitler, even though he’s nothing to do with it. It’s similar to today’s Japan and I’m incensed by the international pressure. They shouldn’t be guilty by association. And yes, they’ve apologized numerous times per year, look it up.
First off, an attack on the citizenry of the country won’t usually go unpunished by that country no matter how weak they are. I suggest you read the manga, it’s quite gruesome what they did. The death toll was tens of thousands. No one has time to think about legal ramifications. Remember someone here posting about Article 9? They made it, they can break it, it’s theirs. Together with the permission of the people is what forms the premise of Gate. So where do I stand? Hell yeah kick some ass of course. They just murdered a lot of people, they’re not getting away with it.
As for your worries like “it ties back to Japan’s current political atmosphere” or “Gate is part of a disturbing trend in Japan,” you can drop them. This was written back in 2006 when the political atmosphere was way different than it’s now and Gate is the first militaristic anime in forever, it’s not part of any trend. Don’t tell me you’ll consider Girls Und Panzer as one, or Those Who Hunt Elves. The Japanese are also against Abe mobilizing the JSDF as a military outfit to be able to help the US in offensives in the Middle East.
Secondly, are protagonists not qualified to be heroes now because of their affiliation? If demons and monsters (see Overlord) can be considered as heroes then the Japanese can be heroes in their own fiction as well. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m telling you, there’s no imperialistic propaganda going on in this story. They don’t even colonize the Gateworld like Outbreak Company was out to do. In that sense OC is more evil, yet there’s no backlash I wonder why…
They immediately identified them as the enemy because they had binoculars and had the same insignia on the flags as those that killed people in Ginza.
Thirdly, I think you missed the line where they said they sent scouts inside the Gate to learn about the world. Your fears are completely unfounded.
What do I take out of all this? I think that maybe, instead of thinking the worst about other people when they make material taking pride in their own soldiers, I might want to do some research into the subject, know why people are reacting so harshly. Hopefully that stance will make people have an informed opinion instead of relying on hearsay because the author has his own opinion on geopolitics in a version of the story we will never see.
I think i can help:
1. Accounting for the past. Mostly they want to Sit that out
2. The Sins the parents, their Children inherited them.
Eye for an eye, Life for an Life, blood for blood
Is that not an common thing there? Where are this “Children are free of Sin” Idea, only Lipsync?
3. taught Hatred from Schoolbooks (yes, i am looking to you Japan, too)
Well, i do not wanted to go Politics and such. But i hope to ease the Flames here a bit
This is an Anime, this is Fiction.
typos correction: (Blame my Auto correction Add-on)
1. Accounting for the past. Mostly they want to Sit that out.
Also there is this “Losing Face” thing
2. The Sins of the Parents, their Children inherited them.
1. Past is past, or else the Native Americans of the USA should still be hating on the government for what they did.
2. From Christianity, since their belief is “all children inherit the sin of Adam and Eve which was to eat the apple from the Tree of Life.” The cycle of hatred is stupid, it’s why Naruto was so bad.
3. Japan is taught to ignore their sins not teach hatred of other countries.
But yes, this is anime, this is fiction, people shouldn’t be bringing their inner politics here. Swap any nationality with the JSDF and it would still be modern weaponry vs fantasy world to me.
People should learn to drop that JSDF nippon stronk mentality. They are strong by virtue of their weapons, the weapons of which are provided by an outside source.
1. Umm, Native Americans totally still DO hate on the government for what they did. It’s a major issue for the people that actually pay any attention to the struggles of indigenous peoples. Genocide is one of those things that people don’t easily forgive and forget. Weird, right?
2. No one hates Japan, they just wish they would stop saying dumb things about stuff like this. Which they do on a regular basis if you live in Asia/see Asian news.
3. Umm… wow. This is just kind of terrible both ways. Ignoring the things you are responsible for is not a good thing. And nations are responsible entities, whether the people have changed or not, that’s part of the price for nations existing as enduring entities. Beyond that, Japan is not some country of saints that loves everyone, they have prejudices and hatreds just like everyone else. Many of these are ongoing, such as the plight of pretty much every minority in Japan.
And people need to stop defending things by saying ‘this is fiction.’ That’s completely ridiculous and shows an utter lack of understanding for what fiction is, what it’s for, and where it came from.
Fiction has ALWAYS had something to say about politics, culture, and society, for better or for worse. You don’t get to go around making incredibly offensive material and just say ‘it’s fictional.’ You have to own it, one way or another.
You also seem to think GATE exists in a vacuum. It does not. There are many nationalist, jingoistic animes, mangas, tv shows, etc in Japan. A lot of this never leaves Japan because who else would want anything to do with it? Gate might not be one of them, this is only the first episode, but for a lot of people the chance that it MIGHT be one of them is concerning.
Oh dear, where to start.
Firstly, rest assured that my opinions are not a product of hearsay. In fact, I had no idea that Gate actually had a reputation for right-wing ideology until people started talking about it in the comments for the preview. I had read the manga and detected some undercurrents, and it turned out after the fact that I was not the only one who did. That’s not saying that primary sources are strictly superior to secondary sources, but that’s a different discussion for a different time.
Secondly, nobody is trying to blame the current Japanese people for what went on during the War. I don’t know why you bring that up. But for the sake of that argument, isn’t implying that Germany would be otherwise okay with fascism if not for international pressure, a bit of a disservice to the Germans? Would it not be more flattering to say that they recognise that the Third Reich was a mistake? Well, I’m sure the Germans can speak for themselves on that point. The important difference between Germany and Japan is that Germany has faced their history, while Japan has kinda avoided doing so. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East is nowhere near as well known as the Nuremberg trials for a reason (not just because of the less catchy name). Victor’s justice both may have been, but they still set a precedence for accountability for war crimes. But in the Tokyo War Crimes trials, the entire imperial family was protected from prosecution from the get go. This has shaped the entire Japanese narrative about the War since then. Do you truly think that all this fuss is just a recent thing, and that it was peachy fine in 2006? History, my friend.
Thirdly, there’s no point debating the righteousness of the JSDF within Gate, because of course they are framed as being righteous. That’s what propaganda is about, to portray the ‘us’ team as the morally superior, and they shall beat up any number of strawmen to do so. My fear is that Gate was designed to celebrate militarism. It may not be—I’ve only read the manga and this is only the first episode of the anime—but there is still a possibility.
By all means, enjoy Gate as much as you want. Once again, I have merely flagged some issues that some people may be concerned about, and some may not be. I won’t call for a boycott of an anime or anything like that. But to deny that there are any issues at all is, I feel, markedly unwise.
i also do not had any mean ideas behind my comment. i just wrote down what (i think) mostly is the base of the “Hate” today and here.
So, i spoke with my voice for others
(My try to guide the Flames a bit)
“while Japan has kinda avoided doing so”
— i believe, they are facing their “history” in a different way. being much more active in international service, so that they will AT LEAST SOMEHOW clean the dark history/image their ancestors left. take for example, PHILIPPINES. in WW2, PHILIPPINES is one of the countries experienced the brutality of IMPERIAL JAPAN. but look at it NOW. recently JAPAN-PH strategic alliance was signed, a proof that both countries ready to drop the past for a better future. (of course leftist and pacifist in the PH whine). the point is just because they “continually” avoided their history doesn’t mean they will also avoid mending their relationship with those who are affected by their “dark” past. THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO ACCEPT and FACING YOUR PAST IN SHORT.
“Thirdly, there’s no point debating the righteousness of the JSDF within Gate, because of course they are framed as being righteous. That’s what propaganda is about, to portray the ‘us’ team as the morally superior, and they shall beat up any number of strawmen to do so”
— when a military (it doesnt matter who) promotes themselves as righteous, pacifist/leftist or whatever calls it propaganda. HONESTLY, can we look at the show not as a propaganda BUT AS AN ANIME SHOW? critique it as a show and nothing else. comment on how BGM, the animation, how V.A. breath life on their characters and related. after all this is randomc, an ANIME BLOG and not some rant because of history BLOG. BLOG ABOUT THE ANIME and that’s it.
“when the fictional Prime Minister of Japan declared the land beyond the Gate as being part of Japan so they could send in the JSDF”
— there’s nothing wrong in this one. since the fictional PM hasnt said anything about offensive INVASION. and the movement is clearly more like a DEFENSIVE WALL, by placing an army to prevent further attacks (as the “negotiating team” does its job if the plot is to be based) and also, it is clear that the declaration is just done so, other countries wouldn’t dare to intervene or place a finger on the GATE because doing so would also mean touching one’s sovereignity. – in short for added realism.
“My fear is that Gate was designed to celebrate militarism”
i believe it is only in 2014 when PM abe decided to ease up the restrictions stated in article 9 of their constitution to counter the growing threat of china and started to build up its forces.
but heck, GATE is first published in 2010 (probably the idea way before that year) way far beyond the so called “start of re-militarism” of japan so i dont know how did you say that “it was designed to celebrate militarism” if the original LN was already out way before the growing chinese threat and the start of build up of JSDF to become a full pledged military force to address international issues?
““Thirdly, there’s no point debating the righteousness of the JSDF within Gate, because of course they are framed as being righteous. That’s what propaganda is about, to portray the ‘us’ team as the morally superior, and they shall beat up any number of strawmen to do so”
— when a military (it doesnt matter who) promotes themselves as righteous, pacifist/leftist or whatever calls it propaganda. HONESTLY, can we look at the show not as a propaganda BUT AS AN ANIME SHOW? critique it as a show and nothing else. comment on how BGM, the animation, how V.A. breath life on their characters and related. after all this is randomc, an ANIME BLOG and not some rant because of history BLOG. BLOG ABOUT THE ANIME and that’s it.”
—People never seem to get this. Saying that ‘heroes being heroes’ doesn’t mean anything in a propaganda doesn’t mean we’re saying GATE is propaganda. It just means that that example doesn’t mean anything either way. Could mean it’s just fiction, could mean it’s propaganda.
And Abe is not the only source of militarism in Japanese culture, hawks have been around since the beginning of the post-war period. The idea that it just ‘appeared’ with Abe is completely uninformed.
Also, I think people have been focusing too much on ‘is this propaganda, does it mean Japan’s not sorry, etc,etc’ as though the only question presented is propaganda or masterpiece.
There’s a third very viable option where this isn’t propaganda and doesn’t mean something about larger Japanese culture but is still just poorly written fan-wank. Which frankly is closer to where I am (though I’m gonna give it a few episodes because I really want to like it).
@Jeffers
Well, Gate is not necessarily propaganda, but it does have eerily similar elements. You do not seem to think anime can be propaganda, but hey, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck. For the sake of amiability, let’s be softer, let’s just call it unfortunate implications. I wouldn’t suggest there was actual malice intended in Gate.
To say that I shouldn’t talk about it either way, though, is awfully limiting. Pretending that no issues exist would be just as bad as pretending history didn’t happen (which is not what I’d call ‘facing’ anything, by the way). Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that we should be watching anime without considering any context for them at all. That would be an incredible position, and I dare not believe that you subscribe to it, good sir.
“My fear is that Gate was designed to celebrate militarism”
So?
What’s so bad about that? It makes this anime cool when compared to others.
Military can be great thing, the sooner people see that the safer an better world will be.
And all of these comments… really guys?
Can you leave WW2 behind and accept that modern Japan ( liberal one ) was attacked by foreign alien force?
And “they have no right to attack them back with army?”?
I would love to see your reaction when I come to your house and kill member of your family.
You can’t compare Germany to Japan like that.
The former acknowledged and “sincerely” apologized/paid sufficient reparations to the victims. The latter however still denies any war crimes to this date and there are various examples to illustrate how Japan just doesn’t give a damn about their victims whatsoever (e.g their history textbooks doesn’t mention about what they did in WWII and denial of comfort women etc).
As for the apologizing, if you consider “Sorry mate, we were being cocky so we invaded you and oppressed you because reasons. Blame yourself for being weak. Oh, and we did nothing wrong so don’t hate us kay?.” as an official apologies then I don’t know what to tell you. Not to mention those officials who made such statement visited Yasukuni to worship their class A war criminals.
A quote by Churchill pretty much illustrates the current Japanese attitude:
You see what I mean? It’s their present attitude and mentality that gets on people’s nerve. And the author is one of these people who glorifies their past and preset military power. I suggest you to read the original novel because it’s full of nationalistic , over-glorifying garbage to the point where I just shake my head at author’s themes.
@fozzeneric: If you’ve read the web-novel and/or novel (not sure which one), I would very much appreciate your take on how either one or both compare to the manga.
Thanks and please remember to use a spoiler tag.
You shouldn’t trust all propaganda you read just beacuse it supports your preconception. Japan has done plenty of applogising and paid war reparations, claiming something else is trying to rewrite history.
The main propaganda culprit here is Korea. Blaming another nation like Japan is a convinient way to change the focus away from domestic issues.
Another quote by Winston Churchill would be “starvation of anyhow underfed Bengalis is less serious than that of sturdy Greeks” as 1.5-4 Million Bengalis starved to death partly due to him. Winston Churchill was an imperialist for sure as well. Of course it was an other empire then that of Japan.
All nations that have been at war have their fair share of war criminals. Do you object if any other nation then Japan visits the graves of their fallen soldiers?
Znail:
This is very true, Japan has apologized and paid reparations, and in fact wanted to pay them in a more equitable way than the Korean government did (the Korean government just took the money as a lump sum and used it to pay for infrastructure improvements).
That said, that does not excuse Japan’s rather ‘flexible’ relationship with its past in regards to its neighbors (it’s important to remember that WWII is far from the only time Japan attacked mainland Asia as well). Basically, the situation just sucks on all sides; China and Korea should give Japan more credit for what it’s done, Japan should not be so weird about owning up to its mistakes, so on and so on.
That only has so much to do with people’s possible concerns about this show though. Militarism is an odd quality in fiction and can be very off-putting. The army scenes in the Transformers are a good example of scenes that are a bit strange. And if a British director suddenly decided to produce some media (movie/tv/whatever) about a British army happening upon a strange land and having to conquer it from its primitive, uncivilized natives, that would (and should) raise some eyebrows.
GATE has some very weird ideas going on under the hood. Nationalist or not, it seems to directly espouse some ideas that we as ‘modern, enlightened’ individuals tend to frown upon. Such as the idea that less developed peoples are violent savages who have to be shown the light. It’s a bit weird. We’ll see where it goes though I guess.
@Znail
Maybe I took the victim’s sides a bit much for you trigger a reply.
Yes, you’re right about Koreans victimizing themselves to the max where they just paint anything that’s related to Japanese politics and military as some kind of evil curse. They also exaggerate and forget about the whole “apologizing” and reparations made by the Japanese officials during the last couple of decades.
On the other hand, it’s also true that the facts like not mentioning their war crimes in their textbooks, denying various massacres/comfort women and such. There’s no denying about how Japanese government and most of the people are still to this date are not able to face their past and try to push it aside hoping it’ll go away.
As for visiting the fallen soldiers, I’m pretty sure majority of the world would agree that visiting and worshiping fallen “criminals” who were responsible for various massacres and such is just wrong in many levels. You don’t see Germans worshiping fallen Nazis who were responsible for the Holocaust right?
The younger generations have no obligations to apologize to the victim’s countries. However I believe it’s their responsibility to learn what their older generation have done in the past so that the same mistake won’t happen in the future.
On top of that, we also have far-rights from both sides trying to spread propaganda and other bullshits for obvious reasons.
So all in all there’s no right and wrong. Both sides think they’re right and both sides have far-rights spreading their bullshit propagandas. As a third person, it’s up to your judgement and knowledge of the issue on how you’d perceive. It’s certianly hard to see perspectives from both sides but it’s not hard for you to be knowledgeable about the issue and draw conclusions based on your findings.
P.S I’m glad no one’s covering this series here on randomc. The amount of people raising political/historical issues overshadows the actual discussions on the series itself.
@Jergens: A couple of things.
— “The death toll was tens of thousands” TENS of thousands of Japanese killed in Ginza? Where does the manga say that? I’ve read the manga multiple times, but don’t recall that. To be clear, I do not have an issue with the JSDF being sent over through the Gate in response, but you’re statement is misleading, and IMO an unnecessary overstatement.
— “This was written back in 2006 when the political atmosphere was way different than it’s now and Gate is the first militaristic anime in forever, it’s not part of any trend.”
I do agree that considering such anime such as Girls und Panzer and KanColle as military propaganda/revisionist history is a definite stretch (IMO). Something like Zipang (manga started in 2000 and anime in 2004 or 2005) is MUCH more WWII revisionist history and jingoistic. That being said, sure seems to me that Gate is markedly more political/militaristic than either Girls und Panzer or KanColle (which I play BTW) or Strike Witches for that matter.
However, in terms of Gate (especially the original web novel from my understanding and probably the novel given fozzeneric’s comment), there are some not so subtle nationalistic and arguably jingoistic themes. Not terribly so in the manga (thus far), but as I’ve noted before, some developments sure strike me as similar to the The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere WWII propaganda. I stand by that. “But it’s fiction” only goes so far. Generally, I’m not one to “mine for philosophy” when it comes to fiction. For example, I didn’t read LOTR (or watch the movies) and think “here’s a story about environmentalism” (which some aspects can be interpreted as).
But “it’s only fiction” and thus should be placed in a vacuum rationale can only be taken so far. There is a LOT of political commentary in Gate – and I don’t mean solely in terms of other nations by any means. There’s a LOT of pro-military stuff and commentary about political restrictions. Now whether good points are made or not is up for debate/personal view, but that stuff IS there – expressly stated. No denying it, and honestly, a lot of it isn’t critical to advancing the story. So why is there? This isn’t something as indirect (if political at all) as moe battleships. It’s straight up “politicians are restricting the military from doing it’s job” type stuff.
I also stand by what I said in terms of the Japanese forces are presented in such a fashion as to make other “RL” forces look relatively inept, and that has nothing to do with the weaponry. Nothing. Frankly, if I really wanted to, I could interpret a lot of statements as pro-military/nationalism propaganda. An “other-side” general comparing the JSDF to “gods” (literally). Another “other side character” describes JSDF soldiers as “strong and polite like a fairytale knight”. That stuff kind of stands out, but personally, I just go “eh, whatever”, because yeah, it’s no surprise that a story from xyz country puts people (military or otherwise) from xyz country in a favorable light. Still, some of it does come across like a JSDF recruitment ad at times to me (and for the record it would if another country was substituted). Fortunately, not that often (IMO) – at least so far. I have no doubt, later in the story some political, nationalistic, etc. themes will come into greater focus given how things are playing out. Won’t lie, I think Gate manga is better when it shies away from the political stuff.
The question to me is to what degree and how such things are presented, and I do think Gate pushes boundaries at times unnecessarily. So far, it’s not to where I stop reading (I do like the manga), but everyone has their own limit to that stuff, and it is there.
This is the last time I’ll be replying before I go back to just lurking.
@daikama
The manga doesn’t say it, but it does imply it. As for the novels, it’s an estimated count of 100,000. Besides, remember the pile of bodies the orcs stood upon in the manga? That’s not just 30 people. Itami actually only saved about 1000 people, and if you have time to peruse Google maps, look at the distance of Ginza to the Imperial Palace. That’s how large of an area the Imperial Army attacked before the JSDF got there.
It IS more militaristic, it’s written by a former soldier. But if you want something more nationalistic, look at Kancolle.
Please stop using the word “jingoistic” to describe this series. There has been NONE at all so far about the Japanese forcing their policies on the natives of the Gate world. The Greater East Asia Sphere did not consist of the Allied nations attacking Japan first with Japan retaliating back. It was all a Japanese offensive with the Allied nations resorting to guerrilla tactics to strike back while waiting for US help. Point me ANY event in the series where JSDF strong-arms their way in the Gateworld WITHOUT provocation, because that’s what jingoism is.
It’s supposed to be only fiction. You’re supposed to take it that way. Should I be busy thinking about US nuking Japan, spreading Agent Orange in Vietnam, sending troops into Iran, while watching American military movies? Because that’s what you’re saying. People should learn to put aside their sensibilities. This anime airing does not in any way undermine your military or my military or Passersby’s military, yet people act like it does.
No, please don’t stand by that idea. The only reason JSDF are even winning their battles is because of superior technology, not Yamato damashii or the Japanese heart/determination. The reason why Itami wins his battles is because of quick thinking and a lot of luck as well as superpowered women who aren’t Japanese by his side. By the way, their weapons come from the US as well.
My question to you is how much does Japan have to grovel on their feet so they can release material like this? The war has been what, 50, 60 years old by now, most of who can remember it are already dead. The country, like Germany, has been paying for sins they didn’t do, every year. Germany can’t even be proud of their flag unless it’s a football/soccer game, now you all are worried because Japan held their defense force up high in a cartoon? What’s there to be worried about, they can’t even mobilize outside of their borders in real life.
Everyone should be reining in their political opinions when it comes to military shows even if it does come from Japan, or else the rest of the world would be shunning the Avengers because Cap wears the flag and is so proud of it.
Anyway, thanks for listening to me. I’ll go back to lurking and I still think it’s a pity Passersby won’t be reviewing this. He’s missing out on a good story, second only to Gangsta and Gakkou Gurashi in my humble opinion.
@Jergens: The conversation probably has run its course so don’t feel obligated to reply if you don’t want to do so. Still, I’d like to address your comments/clarify some things (hopefully). One quick item. I have a strong interest in WWII (i.e. so I’m not clueless on the subject) and I’m playing KanColle (in large part due to said interest in WWII). Honestly, I do not see how KanColle is any more nationalistic/WWII revisionist/whatever than Girls und Panzer, Strike Witches or frankly even Arpeggio which also has cute/sexy/moe ship-girls with IJN warship names (I’m a big fan of Arpeggio manga (anime, not so much)). IMO Gate’s more nationalistic, etc. than KanColle. I’ll leave it at that since is the rest is going to be long.
Using spoiler tags since not everyone here is a manga reader (and it’s long LOL). WARNING – MANGA SPOILERS Show Spoiler ▼
Holy crap.
Do the novels actually say 100,000 people died? That’s just bad writing trying to scare people. Almost NOTHING kills that many people in a fell swoop. That’s like dropping a freaking nuke.
As horrifying as war and so on are, people need to understand that they don’t tend to lead to 90% casualties. 15%-20% casualties for one side is a massacre.
To kill 100,000 people with swords would take FOREVER. That’s not the work of a few hours.
@KaleRylan: You are correct. The manga (novel isn’t translated) does NOT say 100,000 Japanese died or even casualties (deaths & injuries) at Ginza.
Jergens is misreading some dialog which I explained in my spoiler to him along with addressing other topics in his reply. I used tags because there are spoilers since I referenced future events including some quoted lines (and it is long) so read at your own risk if you want the details.
All other legality issues aside, the question that begs to be answered is “What is the very definition of self defines and to what extent a military action is self defence?”
No doubt that in Article 9, the State of Japan forever renounces their right to declare war and also they’re expressively prohibited to project their force overseas. But as of July 2014, the term “self defence” is being debated.
I’m not exactly sure what’s the time line for GATE but from what it seems, Article 9 seems to have been revised and their citizens as well as the international community has come to terms with it.
Looking this episode thus far, it seems that in self-defence, the JSDF is permitted to take on as well as conduct policing action on Japanese mainland or overseas Japanese territory. With the area behind the Gate being terra nulls, based on their limited understanding of the area behind the Gate, I believe it was legal for the politicians to claim that as theirs and send the JSDF over.
On a side note… And to make things less political and gloomy here…
https://randomc.net/image/GATE/Gate%20-%2001%20-%20Large%2009.jpg
The elf girl is cute
and also, they did not march in the right next Day. They debate it with their Alleys and such, they took 3 Months? time to put foot into this Gate!.
That forget the most peoples here, they just take this Anime as en excuse to pull it with their Two arms out of the Fiction world and trow Pushes on it.
One of the things that was actually very realistic. Months of discussion and sending scouts to explore before anything else.
1. It was not terra nullius. The fact that it may be regarded as such is not conclusive of its nature. Cook regarded Australia when he first landed as terra nullius. Was it?
2. The fact that it is terra nullius (even if it is not) based on their limited understanding does not legitimise “claiming it as theirs”. This has profound implications otherwise for it would mean:
i) the declaration of something is in itself conclusive (e.g. country X declares area Y is terra nullius)
ii) the very declaration of itself legitimises the claiming of it based on (i) (e.g. country X claims area Y is its own)
As a result this faulty logic would yield: since our country declared that the area (e.g. another country) is terra nullius, it is ours and therefore we can take it (the other country), whilst disregarding the fact that the very conclusion of terra nullius is its own premise. (i.e. a tautology of A is B; therefore A is B)
The portal was acessible from Japan itself so by all legal means, referring back to the show, the show’s government believed it has the right to claim it as terra nullis and therefore subsequently theirs since they’re the first from our world to set foot.
With all of this Rightist debate and legitimacy of the show’s SDF actions and all, you’re forgetting or totally missed what compelled the events leading to the expeditionary force. Remember, the citizens were suddenly and deliberately attacked by the armies coming from the other side of the gate. Now if that doesn’t give enough legitimate policing action by the SDF, how should the government account to the public and ensure their safety?
So does that also mean that Roosevelt’s declaration was highly influenced by the Right wing faction? Of course one can also see that the expedition to the other side will go south like what’s happening to Iraq right now.
It’s not like they lay claim to the entire world on the other side of the gate. They just occupy the immdiate area around the gate. Essentially making sure they controll who can go through the gate and thus prevent any repeat invasions.
You put it nicely my friend. That or setting up satellite buffer states through negotiations or through armed negotiations.
@Znail: “It’s not like they lay claim to the entire world on the other side of the gate. They just occupy the immdiate area around the gate. Essentially making sure they controll who can go through the gate and thus prevent any repeat invasions.”
This ^. What’s going on right now is simply controlling the gate on both sides which is really the only way to prevent invasions. This isn’t a situation with a normal land or sea border – it’s a warp gate to another world. Don’t control the other side and some army/dragon – whatever could pop out instantly.
This isn’t 1752.
Terra Nullius means there’s no one there. Countries used it as an excuse back in the day because they did not see indigenous peoples as people. We no longer believe that. Nowadays, bad or not, if there are people there you have to deal with them as equals. If that means killing them as equals then so be it, but to claim that their land is just yours is to deny them their existence, which is some weird colonial crap and, literally, where a lot of the concerns people have with this story come from.
It’s Outbreak Company all over again… With a few differences.
Meanwhile, elevens are pissed because the JSDF flag has been removed in the CR simulcast:
http://yaraon-blog.com/archives/65586
Oh man this is hilarious.
Is that the JSDF flag? Wow, I had no idea. I’m rather shocked they’re allowed to use that given that it was very purposefully changed for the national flag.
Even for the IJN line in World of Warships, WG replaced the Hinamaru flag with the normal flag
oh, you was faster
But i think they removed it, because it reassemble to much of the old “Nippon” Imperial WW2 Flag
like the Nazi Symbol of WW2
Well, yeah. That’s why I was surprised to learn that that is the actual current flag of the JSDF. For a lot of the Eastern world, that’d be like Germany still using the swastika for their military insignia.
KaleRyan: I don’t think it would be because swastika has become a symbol of an ideology while the JSDF might have some unfortunate historical connotations but still is just a flag.
I don’t understand why they need to go out of their way to hide it – there are plenty of swastikas in WW2 movies.
Using KaleRylan’s above comparison of Japanese militarism = American racism (which makes so much sense it makes me sad for both countries), this reminds me of the amazingly current argument over the Confederate flag in the states. While to some people it’s just a flag, to enough people it’s a horrific reminder of past injustices, so it ought to be relegated to a museum.
Of course, the JSDF flag is likely not a problem to the Japanese people (which is perhaps worrisome in and of itself…), so maybe they don’t need to change it, unless they want to stop worrying their neighbors. Removing it from foreign broadcasts is smart, though, to avoid foreigners from getting confused.
“Why’s the Imperial Japanese flag there? Is this a period piece? I’m so confused…”
It’s not a real problem and the immage on that flag is also a popular asian symbol. The real issue is that there are some Korean anti-Japanese movement and they try to use propangada tricks like equaling the IJN flag with the swastica. This is pretty silly as it’s not like the Japanse navy drove their ships across Korea and flattened civilians with them. The only reason they picked that flag is because it’s a well known symbol for Japan, not because of any actual war events. It’s a fairly successfull campaign as plenty of people actually belive in it.
Umm… not to burst anyone’s bubble but yes that flag is a problem for most people in Asia other than Japan, not just the ‘Korean anti-Japanese movement.’ Seriously, what kind of a weird culture-war explanation even is that? We’re trying to AVOID crap like that. The flag of Imperial Japan was not changed by accident, it was meant to signify a break with its imperialistic, militarist past.
Heck, the flag Japan has now wasn’t even OFFICIALLY recognized as the national flag until 1999 due to controversies, controversies which are still ongoing.
And to the person comparing it to how ‘there are plenty of swastikas in WWII movies’ I don’t even know what you’re thinking. Yes, we show swastikas. On Nazis. Who are universally bad guys who generally need to be killed and whom we feel no sympathy towards. This is very strange and I’m not surprised at all they felt the need to hide it. Why don’t they just use the same flag as the national flag? Frankly, it seems like a case of fighting to fight.
I myself am not too broken up about it, but it’s weird and very insensitive.
As i said, a small group of Peoples comment here, pull out this Anime with all their Might out of the Fiction world, and use it as Placeholder Political debates. Sadly some of them outed themselves of being “Patriots” of their own Home country. So no one will back off
all others:
There is nothing to see here, please move along. Only Patriots debating their hearts out, stay away
I looked for the same Thread in reddit, and there the mostly talking really about the Anime, only 1-2% put the themes on the focus like here.
i wonder why
Wow… 138 comments already!?. Also kudos to Jayce for predicting a lot of political debate.
The good:
— They did a good job with the modern weapons pr0n which does matter for the “military otaku” crowd. Also adds some realism IMO – even if one isn’t familiar with WWII tanks, I think viewers can appreciate the level of detail in Girls und Panzer.
— The very kawaii (cute) little girl. Not in the manga (which may have compressed/cut material), but regardless of the reason it was there, it did give some feels/cause and effect to the attack in Ginza vs. just some off screen cannon fodder being killed, 99% off screen, which isn’t the most engaging of depictions.
— They toned down the political stuff, and given one small, yet meaningful detail, looks like that will be the case going forward since that bit = cutting out some later plot line. To be fair, “good” here is POV. No question IMO that foreign nations don’t exactly get best light in the manga (and presumably novel), but then again, in RL, nations are not all warm and fuzzy BFF with each other, and do tend to act in self-interest.
The Bad:
— Holy crap did they ram the whole “He’s an otaku” thing down viewers’ throats! How many times was that brought up in various ways? Itami is an otaku and he does view work as a way to support his hobbies, but he’s not so constantly over-the-top histrionic about it in the manga. In the anime he’s not an otaku, he’s an OTAKU!!! *sigh* The problem I have is character balance – the anime IMO screwed that up. The manga IMO has much better balance between “Itami the soldier” and “Itami the otaku”. He does get appropriately serious at times (at least in the manga). Itami in the anime getting upset at the cancelled doujinshi exhibition during his commendation award was both unnecessary overkill and out of character to the Itami I know and like.
I think manga readers will understand when I say it’s kind of screwed up when Kurata is presented as the more mature, less otaku of the two. I suppose some of that is supposed to be “humor” by exacerbating/”amping up” a character trait, but I didn’t find it particularly funny. It’s not just Itami as a character, but ill-placed attempts at humor would be bad for the story as a whole. The manga does have it’s moments of comedy and levity, but it does a much better job thus far in terms of both presentation and timing.
— Sonic the Hedge-Orc: *sigh* WTF was that!? Watching, I was conflicted between whether to LMAO or cringe/wince (for the record, I chose the former). Uh, I’m laughing at you, show, not with you. So I absolutely agree with above comments about the unnecessary and detrimental (IMO) comic book styling of the anime for the fantasy creatures. THIS looks frighting and appropriately sets the tone/atmosphere where people are getting (or about to be) slaughtered. From the PV, I did expect the anime would (unfortunately) have some comic book styling, but Sonic the Hedge-Orc was both ridiculous and completely unnecessary IMO. Made taking that scene seriously (i.e. “immersion”) a LOT harder, and no, a bit of blood spatter doesn’t whitewash the issue away.
I understand that they have to tone down some of the more graphic scenes (can’t broadcast an enemy commander planting a flag on top of a pile of corpses), but there’s still some appreciable grey area here. AFAIK, Gate is being delayed broadcast on AT-X, so you could have one censored version and then an uncensored version which happens occassionaly with ecchi shows and/or more graphic adaptations like Akame ga Kill (not to mention BD/DVD versions). Even if there were some censored scenes (i.e. NOT half the picture blacked out 50% of the time) I’d be OK with that vs. a overly sanitized, comic book style version. Gate’s seinen material, keep it that way IMO.
— Second Lieutenant? Not sure if this is a TL issue or not (watched two different versions so I’m guessing not), but manga (which I assume to be correct in terms of source material (the novel)) consistently has Itami as a 2nd Lieutenant who is promoted to 1st Lieutenant after the Ginza incident and that does matter. NCO =/= Officer (junior officer notwithstanding) and 2nd Lieutenant rank fits with Itami’s background. It also matters because 1st Lieutenant puts him at the same rank as another character later in the story. If people think I’m being pedantic here, then the question I have is why change it at all? Makes no sense to me and nothing but change for the sake of change = bad.
“TL:DR” = For me, Gate Episode 01, was not a strong start. Even with broadcast airing limitations, it could (and should IMO) have done a better job. I think it was “OK”, but that’s about it. Perhaps I might be more charitable if I was an anime-only viewer. Technically still on the 3 episode rule list for me, but unless it gets worse (hopefully it will improve), I’ll probably stick with it.
Itami’s rank looks like a TL error, he is shown with 2nd Lt insignia (one star and bar) at the start of the award ceremony but afterwards he has the two stars of a 1st Lt on both his dress uniform and the camouflage ones. Another possibility is that it is a script error?
Even if they had got the ranks right I wonder how many viewers get how poor Itami’s career has been up to that point. 2nd Lt’s are usually often in their early 20’s, a 33 year old ought to be a captain or even a major if fast tracked. (But given that JSDF members are legaly civilians/civil servants the usualy “rules” may not apply)
Thanks for clarifying. 😀 Watched this late last night and didn’t think to compare military rank insignia. Glad to know the anime got it right – in some respect. Could be a script error or TL error as you say.
As for Itami remaining a 2nd Lt, up until the Ginza incident, it’s pretty subtle, but totally fits his character of “just getting by” in terms of work to support is hobby. Honestly, my impression is that he would have remained a 2nd Lt. throughout his military career had the situation stayed normal. As for whether Itami “should” be a Capt. or Major by now, can’t say. Pretty sure there are some retired military who got stuck at Capt. and that was it despite 20 years.
Translation error probably cause his rank (Nii/Nito Rikui) uses the number 2. Funny thing is, his previous rank (Santo Rikui) was translated correctly instead of being called a 3rd Lieutenant.
The JSDF uses Ichii (1尉), Nii (2尉) and Sani (3尉) for Captain, First Lieutenant and Second Lieutenant respectively. It’s easy to see how the can make a mistake in translating it.
TBH it would be alot more entertaining and fascinating if Gate went in blazing, full-on, right-wing propaganda, pro-military war story than this lame otaku-wish-fulfilment crap. I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong with an anime having an overt political agenda even if its one I obviously disagree with.
Also people who enjoy modern american blockbusters shouldn’t really be bitching about Japan’s works being militaristic or anti-west.
First things first. I read the manga, so that says what my bias are.
Well, I guess this met my expectations, but I didn’t really have high expectations to begin with. The vehicles look nice and the plot flowed as expected. Got an over all neutral feeling about this. My major gripe is why Itami got an award. I know why he got it, but I really didn’t see him do anything special that warrants it. Saving a guy by killing his attacker? hmm…
Another point is character design. While I don’t mind the design of Itami and the three girls, the princess and the women of Itami’s squad just look “wrong”. Kinda like a generation gap between the men and the women (okay, maybe there is one between some of them, but Kurata?). Wouldn’t mind if they all looked younger, but the difference between the sexes here seem too large.
Politics.
I don’t really mind it, even though I’m from one of the occupied territories. But the freind who recommended this manga to me did say it reeks of Japanese propaganda (don’t think reeks is the right word, but can’t think of a better one right now). I’d say it’s somewhere inbetween Rambo and Tom Clancy novels, but Japanese instead of American. Tolerance levels vary I suppose.
Second episode will probably show how the anime does it. Might get a revenge is sweet feel, or something else.
Calling Rambo propaganda seems weird given it’s about a sad, mentally scarred man broken by the evil he did in the name of his country. People always seem to forget that about Rambo. If anything, Rocky’s the pro-USA one.
That was actually referring to the contrast between the “good country” and the “bad country”, thus the first movie doesn’t count since it is 100% in the US. That one was more like the military vs the national guard. Can’t think of any other series for an example.
The James Bond films had varying levels of propaganda. Though the newer ones seem to lean more towards product placement.
None of these compare to the real propaganda films of World War II. As most of these are commercial instead of political.
I just want to read discussion about anime
seems like I came to wrong place
Unfortunately I think you’re right.
Its astonishing that, after only a single episode, people can pontificate about this entire series being nothing but nationalistic propaganda. That’s quite an insight, especially because everyone knows that ALL anime never ever differ at ALL from the source material. I guess they might as well not bother to air the next 23 episodes because they have all been deduced for us now. RC usually has some pretty insightful and fair commentary, which is why I come here; unfortunately that may now have become a thing of the past.
In the episode there was no ecchi, limited gore, a lack of profanity, there were quite a few plot hooks, decent to good animation, humor, and at least two things about the MC that nearly every one of us can identify with: being otaku, and viewing their job as a means to provide for their hobby(ies). Yet this series has been deep-sixed already, the Word has been spoken, and it has been shunned, and the only overt reason I can see, from the episode, is that the “good guys” happen to be soldiers.
Others have posted that we shouldn’t watch because Japan hasn’t paid enough for WWII (if so, how many more cities should we nuke?). And others said that this mcould support the idea that Japan might invade other countries, despite the fact that they’re an island nation and can’t get their army anywhere because they don’t have the strategic military transport to do so. After all, they can’t exactly walk.
I for one will continue to watch the series and also will draw entertainment from comments everywhere else.
Here’s to hoping that the political/idealism discussion stays in this episode discussion. Cause that was a lot for me to skim through as well.
@info600: There are no plans to cover the show weekly so it won’t be a problem unless that changes. I’d be surprised if people commented like this in the RC monthly reviews, but I suppose you never know. If there’s a series review when the anime ends, however, all bets off for that – even if the anime does tone down the political elements, etc. as I suspect it will.
@ daikama
I think Passerby dodged the bullet when he decided not to blog this show… Look at the number of comments… 172.. this is the 173rd.
In any case, I’m more interested on seeing the 3 female leads and their interaction with our MC. Hope to see them next episode.
@Raiu: Have to agree with you – both about Passerby dodging a bullet and the girls, especially the girls. XD
me, too. i want to enjoy the Anime. Yeah, i had read now the 2 first Arcs, i just hope the Animation team, will modify some points to the present day.
We just see, we have only 1 Episode so far, and some points already was “modify”
as for my Appetizers for this, i wait until some Episode has passes, and see what i post
Yeah I raised an eyebrow at the start of this review.
I won’t deny the elephant in the room here. The author of Gate is classified by Japanese society as a “nationalist” but when you think about it given Japanese values, the authors views and compared to my home country of the UK I think his degree of “Nationalism” really is just his love of his countries armed forces in a country with a very negative attitude towards war and militarism.
The author wanted to portray a series where the JSDF are doing what the JSDF was formed to do, defending Japan from aggression with whatever weapon they have and until they win. This obviously rubs a few people in Japan and Japanophiles in the West wrongly as they’re so used to stories where the JSDF fight their enemy in a way that doesn’t reflect true warfare. When you think about portrayals of the JSDF in fiction they’re almost always fighting some monster or an enemy they feel absolutely no hate for. (Even the conflict in Library Wars was pretty chivalric when you think about it)Yet here we have a series where the JSDF are shown to hate their enemy, they do view the enemy with such hate they want them destroyed for what they’ve done and this in turn, wrongly, brings back some peoples views of Imperial Japan.
If this series was the British Army or American armed forces fighting back against the Empire and invading their world I doubt there would be as much deep thinking about the series or controversy over themes. What we have here with Gate is the image of a peaceful Anti-War Japan being shattered and people not being too happy about that.
I’m reminded that people tried to block the releases of many series featuring bullying in Japan because it reflected negatively on Japanese society or peoples views of what Japan is like.
As for the authors views of the United States (Views which had to be toned down in the source material) I won’t condemn him for those because I walk down the street in my small rural town in England and hear worse about European nationals from people passing by. I think in that case he’s condemned for having views that most people in Japan actually do have but are too fearful to present in public unlike him. (Just go to Okinawa and the authors views of the US won’t seem so strange)
But ultimately I agree, I don’t want this much political discussion around this series. Gate is a unique concept and one I personally wanted to see for a very long time and I don’t want it marred by politics.
if this would be the US Army?
Stargate
Independence day (With Pilot Will Smith)
Starship Troopers
Commando Delta (Some Chuck Norris as Special Army Guy)
Rambo (1 men US Army)
and so on…
Some i can remember
@Hellstorm901: I agree with you that the commentary focus has strayed too far into politics rather than the anime itself (and the review kind of set the tone for that). Honestly, I wouldn’t bother replying if you hadn’t painted Gate as simply a story about “self defense” and implied that commentary suggesting otherwise is solely due to national bias.
I’ve read the manga as well (assuming you have) and what goes on later in the story, particularly, vol. 06, chapter 39, pp. 74-79 goes well beyond any notion of “self defense”. Please explain to me how THAT = “self defense”. More like extortion. Sorry, but I can’t see how one can describe it any other way, and IMO to paint Gate (series – I suspect the anime will be markedly toned down from manga) as simply nothing but a story about “self defense” is inaccurate. Gate (as a series) does have certain “themes” which go well beyond solely “self-defense” and are too conspicuous to simply pretend they don’t exist. I’ll leave it at that.
For the record, I am NOT trying to dissuade anyone from watching Gate anime and/or reading the manga. Far from it. I’ve recommended both the anime and manga to others. To be honest, I’m not particularly enthusiastic about how the anime has turned out thus far, but on the “plus side” (depending upon POV), seems the anime will tone down/skirt the political stuff so I suspect politics won’t be much, if at all, of an issue for anime viewers. Just a guess on my part – no guarantees.
—————
@WorldwideDepp: Have you read the manga/LN/novel? Just wondering because, honestly, given what goes on in the story (see above), I don’t see how Independence Day is a relevant comparison apart from the general theme of “fight back the invaders” which could be said for a lot of stories.
The elf girl is cute
Pffft Elf’s.
The gothic lolita is the winner here.
Rory Mercury? One look at her and I can’t help but be reminded of Date A Live‘s Kurumi Tokisaki. (Red and black dress, pale skin, black hair…) XD
Seriously though, I hope Rory proves to be an interesting character in her own right.
Just lol. Suddenly everyone becomes lawyers, historians and political analysts.
There has been a long debate on if the jsdf action on sending a force on the gate is justifiable. Actually it is. It is Self defense. They were attacked first. They need to do it to prevent further attacks. And seriously only idiots would do nothing and wait for the next one. It was also clear that the government would send its negotiating party to negotiate peace with the other side while JSDF would defend the entrance (NOT invade hence consistent with the self defense act) so no more Aggressors would go in and do more killing of Japanese civs. of course, they will fight if the defensive line is threaten.
The most recent similar happening was for GuP. All the military analysts and historians come out.
Same went for SAO though that was mostly tearing the show up which was highly justifiable since it was really horrible
Umm, it’s best not to talk about Japanese military doctrine if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Japan is a somewhat unique country (along with perhaps Germany, though I’m not as clear on their situation) on Earth as far as use-of-force goes.
For most countries, the use of force is essentially decided by national morality. “if it’s justified or not” as you put it. Japan is not. They don’t get to decide what to do based solely on what they think is right or wrong. They have very specific constitutional and legal provisions that determine when and where they may use force. These were forced on them as punishment for crimes committed. And the current debate over just how long that punishment should stay in effect or what it would mean to remove those rules is very loud, very heated, and very bitter. Especially for people that actually live in or have some relation to Asia and Asian politics.
People CARE about this in their day to day lives, it’s not just some CSPAN debate. So if a show is going to delve into this topic, then you better believe that people are going to respond emotionally. It’s an emotional topic.
…I was going to just avoid this whole minefield, but I suppose I’ve just never been that good at not pointing out oil-soaked ironies, so eh.
Because, from a sociological point of view, it’s precisely this kind of attitude towards Japan that feeds so-called militaristic nationalism in the country. The very idea that Japan’s case is somehow ‘different’ – the lack of trust implied in them by treating nationalistic murmurings in Japan as somehow ‘more worrying’ than the same in other countries, as though the whole country was just waiting to return to Great Imperial Japan at a moment’s notice – it is this, all of this, that leads to the Japanese Internet generation buying into so-called militaristic nationalism, because they feel surrounded by enemies. Nothing feeds nationalism like the sense of being threatened or hard done by foreign powers; and if any Japanese were to read half the comments in this section, I’d lay pretty good odds on them coming away with exactly that kind of impression.
It actually amazes me how few people understand this. Kicking up a huge ruckus when Japan makes a movie about Zero fighter pilots doesn’t depower militaristic nationalism, it empowers it. By the same coin, treating Gate as some kind of insidious nationalistic propaganda when it’s got literally nothing on Black Hawk Down, Zero Dark Thirty, or the incredibly jingoistic and artistically-devoid The Interview, merely makes the Japanese more convinced they need a stronger and freer military, because they’re apparently surrounded by enemies who range from not trusting them to outright wanting to take advantage of them.
To use – possibly misuse – a metaphor: saying that Gate is wrong for portraying the JSDF in a positive light (which it doesn’t even really do without qualifications) is a stronger version of saying that the entire American military, to the current day, should still be tarred with actions taken during the Vietnam War – more ‘recent’ than WW2 – or even more recently Abu Ghraib. Anyone should realize just how wrongheaded the latter is.
(I will, however, refrain from adding to the legal debate, except to add that the reaction of people to law has always, historically, been based on perceived legitimacy of said law. That’s why lack of enforcement and perception of unequal treatment erodes said legitimacy, until the point that people no longer regard said law as legitimate. That’s something that should be considered before attaching moral flavours to law of any kind.)
@KALE you are evidently biased, it seems you are only reading and prefer biased history book and not others.
article 9 is “SELF IMPOSED” NOT FORCED. historically, the article was proposed by THEN PM shidehara and endorsed by the japan’s national diet. it is not a “punishment” by someone say, USA (as US is the sole occupying power) for their (japan) crimes but was clearly imposed by japan themselves. because if it is imposed by someone else, then the “To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained” (of article 9) is enforced since its a punishment and therefore japan cannot even form the current JIETAI AKA JSDF and prolly get stucked with police force to counter internal crime.
another is that if it is a punishment for their crimes as you said then US (the sole occupying power) would do some political arguments against japan after japan’s re-buildup to counter china which they did not and as a matter of fact the US supported it. AND COMMON SENSE, how can PM abe ask his government to do a review of article 9 if its a punishment imposed by someone else?
“They don’t get to decide what to do based solely on what they think is right or wrong”
then what’s the use of their government then if they dont get the right to decide based on morals and there are supposedly “punishments” involved?
JUST LOL.. apparetly, IT IS YOU who should not “talk about Japanese
military doctrineconstitution if you don’t know what you’re talking about”They have every right to change their constitution… right up until they actually consider doing it (as they are right now) and all hell breaks loose in Asia (as it basically is). The US is not really the issue here, as the US leadership has no real issues with Japan and would welcome them taking a more active role in international peacekeeping efforts.
The issue is primarily a combination of the Japanese public themselves (many of whom LIKE being a country that can’t/doesn’t go to war) and other countries in Asia (who have dealt with a long history of Japanese aggression; it’s important to remember that WWII is far from the first time Japan attacked mainland Asia).
@Corin:
People always like to say ignoring an issue is the better way of making it go away, which works as long as the issue itself is not part of the problem. This is the same reason why, yes, feminism still does need to be brought up. The issue is not gone. Japan is still held to account for WWII because they still deny their actions during WWII. If they’d stop that, more countries would start to let them go. But when the leaders of the freaking country still issue periodic denials, eyebrows are raised.
Also, people like to act like small atrocities somehow even out to large ones, but the simple fact of the matter is, tragic as it is, that’s not true. Killing 1000 people is not the same as killing 1000000 people. America has done some horrible, horrible things, many of which they SHOULD still be held accountable for (although it’s very important to note that America has for the most part admitted its wrongdoings and paid reparations for things like Agent Orange), but it’s difficult to compare American wartime atrocities to the absolutely mind-boggling list of war crimes committed by Japan in Asia both before and during WWII, which is why it’s generally best not to attempt to explain or justify or really anything about war crimes via comparison to other war crimes, it just makes everyone look like bad people.
KaleRylan:
Now, I believe, I can in fact make the accusation that you’re building strawmen. There’s a world of difference between ‘ignoring an issue and hoping it goes away’ and ‘not taking every opportunity to actively demonize a convenient target with every real and imagined past and present grievance’. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with expressing distaste for military glorification or nationalistic jingoism – lords know I have more than enough disgust in me for both – but it’s when you start asserting that the abovementioned are somehow ‘additionally worrying/distasteful’ because of which country it’s portraying, especially if the work in question doesn’t actually have revisionist or negationist tones, is when that justifiable attack on the idea becomes a rather less justifiable attack on the people… and those people are going to respond in kind eventually.
As for the rest of your last post… you yourself have previously admitted (after having it pointed out to you) that Japan has, in fact, previously apologized and paid reparations to countries it occupied during the war. So that assertion of ‘denial’ seems slightly off, especially when you start claiming that Japan’s ‘leaders’ issue ‘periodic denials’. I haven’t been paying too much attention to Japan recently, I’ll admit, but from what I recall no Prime Minister or even particularly major Minister has ever issued such a ‘periodic denial’. What I do remember seems to come mostly from individual Diet members… which is the equivalent of individual representatives and parliament members. Am I supposed to believe that statements from the One Nation party back in the day represented the entirety of Australia? Yes, there are sites engaged in active deluded denial of Japan’s WW2 war crimes. I’ve also personally seen a blog that actively espoused that the commensurate and correct response to 9/11 should have been to bomb Mecca and subjugate Muslims across the Middle East, and which was publicizing a published book written by the blog author that promoted the same views. Am I supposed to mistrust all Americans because of the existence of that, and similar, blogs?
And finally, let’s not kid ourselves. Even before the supposed 1000-1000000 comparison (numbers which seem pretty inaccurate on both sides), justification based on numbers is a poor excuse when you consider the vast difference in scale of the battlegrounds in question. Here are the facts: both militaries engaged in horrible war crimes (and while in certain cases Japan had the edge in brutality, the actual crimes are very similar). Both militaries attempted to justify said crimes with propaganda and outright cover-ups. And both militaries eventually tried and punished most of the culprits, but not without attempts to shift blame or shield individuals. Everyone is – or rather can be – bad people. Trying to pretend otherwise is just an even more insidious way of ‘ignoring the issue and hoping it goes away’.
Wow. I wanted this show covered but now I’m not sure. Can’t we just watch the anime and enjoy the pretty colors, the sound, the artwork and pretty girls… the goth loli?
Whether it’s covered or not, I’m hooked on it. And like someone mentioned, it’s like Outbreak Company with balls.
199!
200!
Waltzing into wilderness with guns blazing and conquering the lands of the savage tribes?
Worked quite fine for biggest countries on Earth…
USA and Russia.
(thats why theya re so big)
The sad truth is that violence works, provided you have enough tech advantage and not enough moral scruples.
This was disappointing.
I say this having read the manga version.
The chapter could have been done so much better…
i think i get it, this Homepage here, is not blocked behind the Great Wall, that can explain this stuff here
I was also running away from the crazy, but ‘The Last Idiot’ was denigrating another poster with his knowledge and I felt that I should correct him on this.
Section 9 was written by Japan, yes. But, it is fiction. It let’s Japan pretend that they make their own laws. Both Germany and Japan have no protection through the UN. Both countries can be invaded by anyone else at any time without cause. This has been one of the reasons Germany & Japan have tried getting permanent status on the security council.
Do not denigrate others with your knowledge when you have none, and perhaps, don’t denigrate others.
Denigrate? I believe kale is the one who started denigrating my own opinion on the matter. So before commenting about what I have said you might want to check the post I have responded to?
And oh fiction and what? Pretend?. That’s like saying their sovereignity is just an illusion… Got unbiased articles to support your libelous statement? It seems you are extremely against Japan. and if so, why are you watching their anime if you are looking for something to comment against Japan? Talk about racial discrimination eh?
And just to add, any country can be invaded anytime with or without the supposedly “protection of UN” its the reality of war, no matter how you claim you are neutral. And if you are to talk of UN security council, why are you only isolating Japan and Germany if the fact is that there are many other countries in the world that shares the fate of those two countries you are isolating? Thats discrimination right there. Philippines an important important ally of US an example. They are asking UN for an intervention and protection of Chinese expansion but has UN heeded their call? No. Reason is UN security council has China on it. Probably also the reason why Japan Or Germany cant get into the council because there are 2 countries against it. Russia and China.
i thought this site talks about anime.
You’d be surprised.
That said, this is basically why they’re not covering this. Fantasy world or not, this is actually at least part of what the writer was going for. Maybe we’ll find out that the anime has edged around all this as it goes on, apparently each new adaptation of this story is less political than the one before, but for now this is what we’ve got.
wow, came for a review on how the anime did compared to the manga,
or the comments like can a helicopter really take down a Wyvern that easily.
instead got RL political crap just shoved onto everything.
🙁
Unfortunately the Japanese military is a very RL political issue. Which is why they themselves don’t tend to make a big deal about it because it leads to pissy political discussions even between Japanese people. Generally just not worth the hassle if you’re just trying to have a good time.
And I’d say it depends on the kind of wyvern.
This massive wall of text of people arguing saddens me as well. Dont really care for people cursing at each other over “correct” history or whether it pushes an agenda.
Thought there would be more people complaining about the difference in appearance of the characters . I liked both styles, the mangaka even drew a picture of Show Spoiler ▼
wearing Show Spoiler ▼
outfit in his pixiv account. It looked nice.
Still love the manga and liked the first ep, will continue to watch. Hopefully they dont deviate from the manga too much.
Also aren’t wyverns like slightly weaker dragons? from older games isnt dragonscale armors generally top class armor? Would’ve thought that they would deflect at least of bullets. Like Show Spoiler ▼
did.
@shadovv: If your looking for comparisons to the manga and anime, I wrote about that in my post. An attack helicopter firing 20mm or 30mm (especially) AP rounds on top of any AT type missiles, would be able to take down a wyvern easily. Manga talks how 0.50cal BMG (12.7mm) AP rounds are effective against wyverns/lesser dragon types.
thank you very much daikama! 🙂
I didn’t see that post, i got weary after three comments it turned into a political debate.
yeah i liked the episode but, did not like the spin attack pig or the downtown in violence, hopefully they don’t try to make it a habit.
Can someone explain to me how a 33 year old man can get promoted to a legitimate O-1 position in the course of a few days? I’m not sure how Japan works, but aren’t officers suppose to be commissioned after graduating from some sort of officer school and not out of achievement? Was the Mc a NCO or something else?
@FlayvorOfEvil: TL or script (seems like TL) was screwed up. Itami was a 2nd Lt. after college (which is routine AFAIK, but could be wrong). However, being Itami, he never rose in rank after that. He got promoted to 1st Lt. due to his actions during the Ginza incident. Anime went with a more shounen hero approach (e.g. one on one fight, killing the empire soldier). It’s not in great detail, but the manga has at least one more scene vs. anime where Itami is taking charge of the situation (i.e. example of leadership ability) until the JSDF arrives. His quick thinking saved a lot of lives. So getting a promotion from 2nd Lt. to 1st Lt. along with a commendation from the Ministry of Defense didn’t strike me as anything unusual.
@Gate 02
Show Spoiler ▼
Are this really an Anime or an hidden Recruiting JDSF Army thing?
p.s. i will no reply here, only when they plane to release Episode 02 here. Until then i will posting my piece of mind with my Appetizers
and yes, looks like the USA in this Anime, is stuck on the Bush area politics
@gate 03
Yes, the ramen soup is okay now. It tasted good. This “Hurrah!! Hurrah!!” is gone, and we focus on the things with warmth feelings. I must admit, this “arc” is a treasure of him, but the other “arc” that follow is only the ugly side. I just hope this Anime someone stay sanity. I know it is a difficult task on the edge of a Sword. But that its was it takes. The Soldiers are not doing anything different. Is their actions for the good or for the bad? it all depends on the direction they take
Yes, please. This Anime is now on my Watchlist. If you found the 1st and the 2nd Episode to much “Hurray!! Hurray!! We are the JSDF Army”, then try Episode 3. There you see them as normal “Human” beings that protect
p.s. Please keep the Old-men and his Squad Woman’s around him. They are the common sense for us watchers now, and show us our MC in a good Light
I’m disappointed no one in randomc picked this show, despite the fact that they covered outbreak company.
Gate episode 06: Ride of the Valkyries
Looks like the Apocalypse Now fans have their Play toy 🙂
Gate is on the right Path, please continue. i wonder if they show us someone in a seen through cloth.. you know what i mean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8lp_GO-XWM&t=6m18s
You missed out randomc. You really missed out
I really like manga and anime, but honestly the anime jsut started at the perfect time when japanese politicians were discussing changing the constitution for a more militariezed japan ;))
and the manga/manga clearly is a SDF add and a bit nationalistic , SDF soldiers being superion to US special forces and so on:D sometimes it leavesa abad taste, knowing the people behind the manga/anime are advertising the military