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「蟻とキリギリスの戦争 オセアニア軍事国攻略戦 II」 (Aritokirigirisu no Sensou Oseania Gunji-koku Kouryaku-sen II)
“The War of the Any and the Grasshopper The Invasion of the Oceanian Military State II”
The enemy’s plan is stupid. Needs more flirting and Ohoho-chan.
The Oceanian Military State’s Plan Is Shit, As Usual
Once again, the central conceit of this arc is a little bit shit. It was frustrating, actually. I felt like I must have misunderstood something until the end of the episode, because it didn’t make sense. Frolaytia said their goal was to manipulate international opinion by killing their own people. Well sure, if you want to turn international opinion against you, that’s a great way to do it. But if they’re trying to flip international popular opinion in your favor (presumably to get the multinational force to go the hell away), I can only see killing your own people going one or two ways:
- Kill your own people and blame it on the multinational forces. If they could somehow flip the narrative to their benefit, that would be a boon, though they would really need to trick the multinational force into actually committing a atrocity, otherwise the multinational force would (rightly) point out that it’s all a lie, and the muddied waters will prevent the Oceanians from taking the moral high ground. But even doing it themselves and blaming it on the invaders wouldn’t work, because the soldiers killing the villagers were wearing Oceanian uniforms, and the 0.5th Gen Object that’s gunning for a village is an Oceanian machine. They can lie all they want, but the cameras won’t help them if they don’t at least disguise their people like the enemy.
- Become such a villain that global public opinion switches to wanting to leave Oceania alone so innocents stop dying. The only problem with that is that it’s in no way how humans think. If a bully is hitting a smaller kid, we don’t leave them alone in the hopes that they’ll stop hitting. We stop the bully from hitting. That’d just hasten their ignomy and demise.
Turns out it was neither of those. Oceania’s plan is to outwit the multinational task force and cause them to lose face, which would … do what, exactly? Even if the 0.5th Gen Object takes out a village, or even the multinational base, there are a ton of Objects operating in this theater. They’ll swarm the 0.5th Gen, destroy it, and the fraggin’ dictator is even driving the thing, so he’s going down. Oceania loses regardless. Invaders can be beat, but it’s usually through guerrilla actions later on, while the dictators in charge when the country is invaded have a bad track record of staying in charge, or even alive. Ask Saddam Hussein. (The American invasion of Iraq is a good example of both, though I could give others.) I’m sure Bashar al-Assad goes to sleep worrying about that today.
Which leaves me wondering what, exactly, the point of this arc is. I hope the meta story is better, because the foregone conclusion that is the defeat of Oceania is a waste of time.
“In what world would a country plan to massacre its own people?”
Allow me a digression. I laughed aloud when the idiot reporter—er, Seawax (Koyama Rikiya) said the above line. In what world would a country plan to massacre its own people? Earth. Plenty of times. A whole bunch of times, actually. WWII Germany, Soviet Russia, communist China, the Ottomans in Armenia, and those are just the ones off the top of my head. Civil wars could qualify as well. Or how about the Rwandan genocide? Or Syria right now.
And those are just relatively recent ones. We humans have been perpetuating genocide on each other for ages. I’ll forgive a lot in a goofy story, but ignoring human nature to the point of erasing the worst parts of our history ain’t one of ’em. That sets us down the road of repeating those mistakes.
Looking Ahead – Get Back To The Goofy Fun
I feel like the massacre of civilians isn’t a good thing for Heavy Object to go into. The more serious it gets, the more I realize how dumb it is, and the harder it is to enjoy it. That’s not to say that it isn’t a topic stories should tackle, it’s just not one this story should tackle. I ragged on this episode a good bit, but that’s because the things I enjoy are in short supply—a little worried Milinda, a little of Havia and Qwenthur sekubantering with Frolaytia over the radio, and that’s about it. Also, armpits? Nostrils? Earholes? Just stop, Qwenthur. You’re going to scare Hime-sama off. Also, just … just stop.
tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – The Oceanian plan is dumb, and of course, Qwethur & Havia have to foil it because plot. More flirting and Ohoho-chan, please #heavyobject 07
Random thoughts:
- “You’re wrong! That’s not the kind of story I want to report!” It occurs to me, idiot reporter, that you don’t exactly have a choice. You work with what you’ve got.
- I just finished Hardcore History’s “Blueprint for Armageddon” series, which is over WWI. It desensitized me to casualty figures something fierce. I heard 13,000 planned dead, and all I can think is, “So, like a week on the Western Front. Or, in some cases, a single morning.” That war was fucked up, even by the standards of wars.
- They build an entire prototype reactor before building the real one each time they build an Object? In what world does that happen? Though maybe that’s only for the first time a country or group builds a new type of Object. If so, they needed to say that.
- If a story starts talking about ventilation ducts in this day and age, that storyteller is being shite. That stopped being okay in the 90’s. (So it should come as no surprise that the other anime to do it this season is Comet Lucifer.) And even if Havia calls it out and they justify it, that doesn’t make it all right!
- Forgot to mention two things I liked. First, that they left the reporter behind. Good, springing a civilian to help would have been stupid. Second, that the politician is talking about three wars planned for next year, and appears displeased at Qwenthur and Havia’s initiative. Some kind of military-industrial complex evil brewing/ Hopefully there’s something, at least, because this Object-based-crisis-of-the-week formula can’t last much longer.
My first novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, is available now. (More info—now in paperback!) Sign up for my email list for a FREE sequel novella. Over at stephenwgee.com, the last four posts: Stephen, what is best in life?, It depends, Momentum & mental space, and The best content is in email
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On the airducts thing. It largely comes from write what you know and that the people that produce pop culture are usually in their late 20s to early 30s at youngest. That’s why for example characters will have interest in pop culture from an earlier decade because that is what the writer is into. I saw this on tvtropes. I’m still enjoying this show, but it is becoming one of those where you just enjoy what happens without really thinking about it too much.
It’s true that storytellers write what they know, but that’s not what’s happening here. You’re conflating two different things. I’ll give you an example: One of the main characters of my first novel starts the story working a sales job. I gave him that job because I used to have a sales job. It’s something I know, so I wrote about it.
It’s also true that storytellers write what they’re familiar with. That’s probably what you were thinking about. That’s why I write action-packed fantasy adventures with multiple main characters and not a lot of angst—because that’s what I’ve read, watched, and enjoyed the most. It’s what I’m familiar with.
But storytellers have a responsibility to keep up with the times. This isn’t Kamachi-sensei’s first rodeo, so I expect better of him than to use a trope that was already outdated over a decade ago. He may be familiar with it, but that doesn’t make it good, in the same way that we don’t let people get away with the blatant deus ex machinas that Greek playwrights used frequently. Modern storytellers have to do better.
Yeah, your right I was conflating this two ideas.
I’m not saying it isn’t lazy of a writer, but that is probably one reason. Another is that he wanted the journalist character involved and saw no other way to do it. A lot of writers have done stupid things to advance plot and especially to advance it in a fashion they wanted.
THAT’S actually why it happened. He wanted the conversation to happen and couldn’t think of a better way. (I could, however … prisoner transfer they run into along the way, perhaps? Still convenient, but not as bad as this.)
Which is understandable, though that’s not the same as forgivable. I know I’ve tortured some plot logic before, but it (mostly) got fixed in the editing. That’s where people are supposed to go “Hey, asshole. This part here is fucking stupid. Fix it.” That’s what editors are for.
Yeah, but all LN editors are good for is saying a work needs more fan-service.
And the Greeks were inserting the beliefs of the common man, that is in gods that are involved in everything. So the Greek playwright was not trying to insert surprise but instead was inserting a expected result. So the A kind of when are the gods going to get involved thought. So the deus ex machines plays were not deus ex machina in the ending as it was expected. Sort of like the later miracle plays where the audience came expecting divine intervention so the intervention of God was expected and welcome end. So yes they really don’t have the excuse here for poor story telling.
I knew it was Rikiya Koyama–he sounded just like Kiritsugu when he’s angsting. 😛
The sekuhara escalated to facepalm-worthy levels, on the tacnet–heard by the entire military contingent–no less!!
“If you haven’t butted in, civilians wouldn’t have died!”
At least 10% of the population would have bought that narrative, we see it all the time. They would go on to influencing more people until they form a strong enough anti-war sentiment towards Oceania. Of course this is just Oceania being desperate because like you’ve said, their defeat is a foregone conclusion, but you know what they say about a cornered animal.
In what world would a country plan to massacre its own people? Earth. Plenty of times. A whole bunch of times, actually. WWII Germany, Soviet Russia, communist China, the Ottomans in Armenia, and those are just the ones off the top of my head. Civil wars could qualify as well. Or how about the Rwandan genocide? Or Syria right now.
Can’t forget Nanking, especially with the denials done regarding that issue. (Which is probably the only time I would agree with those Chi-Com j**kasses, who otherwise are on the road to repeating those same mistakes.)
“They build an entire prototype reactor before building the real one each time they build an Object? In what world does that happen? Though maybe that’s only for the first time a country or group builds a new type of Object. If so, they needed to say that.”
I can’t help but think it’s also an allegory for nuclear weapons development, since Japan has that “Nuclear Weapons Taboo.” I guess before building a nuclear bomb, you have to build a nuclear reactor first and then develop a way to make weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. Though AFAIK, doing both would be much harder if the country pursuing nuclear tech is doing it for the first time and/or don’t have the support of countries (or at least, scientists) that do have the know-how in nuclear technology.
In-universe, how are Objects powered? Unless they’ve developed the equivalent of “Minovsky Reactors” or “GN Drives” (which would be way outlandish for this series), the only sureball way to efficiently power something as big as an Object is a nuclear reactor. But then again, if a nuclear-powered Object gets destroyed in combat, it would be a nightmare of a mess to clean up…
Which leads me to another theory: Maybe they use nuclear reactors to generate electrical power before transferring that power to an Object’s batteries? (Which are likely to have a lower power output than a nuclear reactor, but is relatively safer.) I guess that’s how the Oceanian military does it with their Object. It might also explain why the other likely hiding spot had a low energy signature/output compared to the one Milinda and Ohoho-chan are going to right now.
Finally, this guy actually planning wars (probably for fun and profit–trope!), though in all honesty it was foreshadowed back in episode 4.
I didn’t mention the Nanking Massacre (which is apparently the title of its Wikipedia page, though I’ll always think of it as the Rape of Nanking, ’cause sometimes the clinical name just doesn’t do it justice) because that wasn’t technically a country killing its own people. That was a country killing another country’s people, albeit citizens instead of just soldiers, and doing a whole lot above and beyond just killing. Horrific, and should never be forgotten (or overwritten by revisionist historians), but didn’t technically qualify.
I’m not sure if the Japanese have ever had a good ‘ol massacre spree of people living somewhere they’ve owned for at least longer than a few days. I’m sure they got up to some shit in occupied Korea and China, even after the initial capture. (I know about the “comfort women,” but I’m not terribly knowledgeable about Japanese war crimes, for wanting-to-be-able-to-sleep-at-night reasons.) They’re a largely homogeneous people on the Japanese islands at least, which doesn’t lend itself to a Trail of Tears or anything like that.
I think Objects are powered by something else. Not sure exactly what, though. Kinda stopped paying attention to the technobabble nonsense a while ago.
The Objects reactor should at last be that powerful to give their Weapons and Mobile Engines enough power to move his own Mass and left enough power to operate his Main weapons.
best example are the water gilder 4 legs one. let alone to keep his insane speed on these 4 legs needs gigantic Power, and also his Heavy Plasma Main weapon. i think i saw him stand still, when he firing them up. So, both using at the same time was to much for the reactor
But, this is anime. let is slide with as “Anime Magic” and it is not real important so far
My bad. But since you mentioned the Armenian Genocide–and remembered that the Turkish government continues to deny or downplay it to this day, I can’t help but be reminded of WWII Imperial Japan’s own atrocities and how some revisionist Japanese historians are trying to rewrite that part of their history instead of owning up to it, expressing apologies/remorse and making sure that doesn’t happen again.
But yeah, communist China… The Great Leap Forward, Tiananmen Massacre…the fact that their government has gone to great lengths to censor those events makes them even worse than what the revisionist Japanese historians are trying to do.
I included the Armenia Genocide because Armenia was under Ottoman (Turkish) rule at the time. Thus, “their people” (even if not their ethnic group).
I don’t bother trying to rank atrocities like that. I could, I just don’t see the profit in it. They’re all in the deepest pits of moral hell.
Her the argument about the massive weakening and expansion of the meaning of the word Genocide comes in by the UN definition. The original meaning of Genocide and the one I and many still insist should be the meaning is the attempt to kill all of a ethnic group, not part, not just the men, not just the adults, only the attempt to kill all of a group in all of the areas you control should be called Genocide. I also object that when you already have the good words massacre and atrocity to describe mass murder less than total you don’t have to grab a new term to describe.
And the problem is more of the public is familiar with the original meaning of Genocide so advocates try to elevate there atrocity to a higher level of anger even though any murder let alone massacre should be bad enough in moral view.
I think the Turks might be willing to admit an Armenian Atrocity as the Turks rightly claim that most Armenians were allowed to leave the country often passing though military lines to do so and thus not Genocide. The massacres in Turkey were a terror tactic as part of ethnic cleansing not the attempt at total obliteration in Rwanda or the Holocaust.
Yes we are arguing semantics but here I think it a important point. There really is a difference between the evil of a massacre of a part of population and the total evil of trying to kill all of population. Of course in punishment we don’t normally go higher in punishment than first degree murder so this is not a critical issue anyway. But as long as the UN is using Genocide to describe anything from a small massacre of only men to the Holocaust others can use the Un definition.
@RedRocket
I have a rule of thumb. Once people start arguing about the semantics of a word, I immediately lean toward tuning the conversation out. It’s not a hard and fast rule, because sometimes it’s necessary, but it’s a pretty good guideline; if someone starts quoting the dictionary, the conversation is likely beyond hope.
You may be right. You may not be. I honestly don’t intend to spend any more thought on the issue than is required to type this reply. The Ottoman Empire killed a fuckin’ ton of Armenians in a systematic, targeted way. Genocide gets the point across, i.e. “A slaughter of a specific group, particularly ethnic, national, or religious, on a massive scale.” It exchanges meaning. That’s what words are for. I’ll leave the semantics to tenured literature professors who can at least draw a paycheck while they’re arguing.
@RedRocket
I should note—and I understand that for the purposes of Heavy Object this discussion is neither here nor there, but it’s an argument worth humouring—that the ‘UN definition’, as by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, is by now both international law and custom. We should at least respect that. For my part, I do prefer it over the very strict definition you propose. The point is not the body count, but rather the intent of a pogrom or whatever. The targetted destruction of an ethnic (or racial, religious, etc) group should be abhorred on principle and, technically speaking, should require retribution. This is why so many holding the reigns of power are loathe to use the word ‘genocide’, because to do so would mean that they would actually need to do something about it. In the Armenian genocide example, one should also note that Turkey is a key (albeit difficult) US ally, so while the US is usually quite loud about humanitarian issues, even their president has become quite shy about the ‘g word’ out of understandable pragmatism.
The definition of genocide you propose, requiring the complete destruction of an ethnic group, is simply unworkable. It would be even easier to dodge and almost impossible to prove on an evidentiary level. Though stricter definitions may seem neater, there are very good reasons for the one we have now.
just recently watched the first ep of heavy object in english dub (alexis tipton doing fine work as usual) and it just made me realize how terrible the exposition in this series really is. Not just that, but the overall narrative structure is ballsacks. Hearing something in a language you’re more familiar with truly puts things into perspective, enlightening me on just how atrocious the info dumping was. Like you said stilts, there are times where you can watch this series and forget how dumb it is because something else is distracting you from that (and even then sometimes i cant)….but then the series tries to sound intelligent and that’s when your like (Screaming like Steve Carell) “NOOOO!!!…NO NO NO NO!”…i stopped watching after ep 3…then decided to see what was going on with the series with this ep and apparently not much has changed. Stick to Index Kamachi
Funny enough, I still sometimes see info dumping in the author’s other works. Its not really a spoiler but in To Aru Majutsu no Index, in one of the volumes one pilot was cockily bragging about their technology to the enemy, which felt kind of cheesy and dumb. Kamachi-san is definitely a very creative guy, but it feels like he needs to work on his “show not tell” technique, and work in more realistic elements (as a whole), otherwise you get something like Heavy Object which is still a fun show but can be vexing when trying to accept the plot.
whoops, the comment below was meant for this thread:
absolutely. Dont misunderstand, Index is littered with his writing flaws; however, he does a better job distracting his readers from it with his ever-expanding world than he does in heavy object. Relatively speaking, index is much more cohesive
to be blunt:
Just with Episode 6, this Anime please my “Standard” story telling. until that it was just a bit fan service and little chaos..
i just hope the quality from episode 6 will stay so or get more Upgrades. the spice up with our G-Cup and Princess “love triangle” is a good direction
https://randomc.net/image/Heavy%20Object/Heavy%20Object%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2002.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Heavy%20Object/Heavy%20Object%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2017.jpg
https://randomc.net/image/Heavy%20Object/Heavy%20Object%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2029.jpg
What happened to the G cups?
Forgot to mention how little reaction Qwenthur became once he found out the little girl he tried to save died!
They’ve mentioned that the owner of the book wasn’t the same little girl.
I find it strange that the diplomat mentioned about engineering 3 more wars for the next year. Seems to play into conspiracy theories that wars have been preplanned and orchestrated by powers to be for their own personal gains.
… Money from foreign Countrys to help fighting the “Terror”…
An outside country, hunting for a terror leader, where they hide him to keep the Money flow alive for their own greed, to fight their own archenemy
i do not write the names here, because i do not want to point fingers here. here is my Anime world.
@c2710
It’s another example of trying to impose a pre-Napoleonic sociopolitical situation on a post-WWIII(?) world. Before The Little Corporal, countries themselves often started wars for fun and profit (to obtain land, mostly). That’s one of the things that makes WWI so terrible; the major countries thought that war would be the same thing, it’d be over in a year and they’d get some new territory and it’d be done. Then the meat grinder commenced.
The military-industrial complex is a problem, but it usually doesn’t push forward wars as blatantly like this. It’s almost a child’s conception of what the military-industrial complex leads to.
– Mass Production of Weapons
– the Invention of Gas Deadly Weapons
– false Honor in fight, as if you just clash bullies, villains in some backyard
– patriotism at its peek, we are superior beings, our enemy’s are lowlifes
– propaganda at its peek, we must protect our woman and children
but the same happen with WW2, and if we do not take care an possible WW3 is right around the corner
There is this conspiracy theory that wars were and had always been orchestrated by defense industries
Which is laughable. The military-industrial complex is real, but it’s not so blatant, and it’s a modern phenomenon to boot. It merely incentives conflict in certain insidious ways. There is no conspiracy. See: Occam’s Razor, Hanlon’s Razor.
absolutely. Dont misunderstand, Index is littered with his writing flaws; however, he does a better job distracting his readers from it with his ever-expanding world than he does in heavy object. Relatively speaking, index is much more cohesive
In terms of WWI, quite true. It was the first real “modern” war where, compared to previous wars and conflicts, even more recent ones from the turn of the century, the killing was on a scale never seen or imagined before with full automatic machine guns everywhere (large ones like the Vickers/Spandeaux/Browning M1917 and, by the end, more portable machine guns like the B.A.R./Browning Automatic Rifle and early submachine guns like the German MP18), the airplane going from simple recon to fighter and bomber in little less than fifteen years after the Wright Brothers, more sophisticated chemical weapons, portable flamethrowers, ever-growing artillery.
There’s a reason it was called the “war to end all wars”…and scary to think that WWII would claim over three times as many casualties than WWI did and even further leaps in destructive power…
And it is really sad that the end year of the American Civil war showed a good preview of WWI and that the infantry charge was dead against fixed positions. No machine guns but the cannons were firing the first generation of modern artillery shells not just cannon balls and any mass attack just got chewed up. Indirect fire was also shown in the ending battles as a major killer. But because America was considered a backwater the militaries of Europe ignored what their observers were telling them.
At lest the American solder was not going into the grinder more than once. After the huge numbers killed at Cold Harbor no one tried a mass assault on prepared positions again, excepting of course water invasions.
Although the American troops in the last year of the war did not have the modern infantry tactics of the German Stormtroopers the Americans naturally used a scattered small group approach to move forward more under cover than the over and over again fail of the mass charges of WWI.
I face palm every time a modern or sci fi movie tries to show a horde of something charging in often successfully. In most cases I’m going I want to replace the defenders with WWI German troops and we will crush any number of chargers in a wall of steel and conclusive blasts. I got to find the Korean War Photo where they showed the artillery shell pallets on a huge field as far as the eye could see that stopped the huge numbers of the Chinese at the cease fire line.
The American Civil War wasn’t the only preview to WWI. The Russo-Japanese War was an even better one. And that was between a first(ish) rate European power (firstish because the Russians were considered dangerous for their size and population, but not considered as solid as Germany, France, or the UK … and rightfully so, as history demonstrated).
The reason the didn’t learn the lessons of these wars is because they though they were better than those fighting in the previews, sure, but also because they didn’t want to learn those lessons. They challenged their entire worldview of war as a noble thing. They did the national equivalent of closing their eyes, covering their ears, and saying, “lalala!” until the war started.
It was only when enemy artillery and machine guns were shredding their troops alive that they got with the program. Eventually.
@Stilts
I think i swap my “Comet Lucifer” with “One-punch men”. The Story in Lucifer is also with our flesh and water
and yeah, i just hope with the next episode these two boys end this awful charade of this corrupt country. I already have Gundam – Orphans for that. i do not need more Bloody gore in this direction
“The more serious it gets, the more I realize how dumb it is, and the harder it is to enjoy it”.
Stilts, I must applaud you for pointing out the most glaring flaw of this series and for dissecting this episode in a funny yet informative way.
When Frolaytia started explaining the dictator’s plan, I thought at first it would be scenario 1 (in which case, the journalist being there would have actually been a boon for the invasion force, providing evidence that it was the fault of Oceanian soldiers), but then it stopped making sense. “It will be a massacre so big that it can’t be covered up”. So invasion forces were actually going to cover up a small massacre? Why? To make the dictator look like a better guy? Seriously?
And the problem with scenario 2 is not just that it rarely works that way. Frolaytia says that the estimated casualties are 13,000. Which looks big… until you realize that today, in Syria, many, many, many more people have died and that hasn’t stopped anyone.
I wonder if it’s a Japanese thing. Stilts, you mention the bullying example and wonder why losing face would be such a big deal. But haven’t we watched and read stories set in Japan in which people do nothing in cases of blatant bullying and in which losing face is the worst thing that can happen to anyone? I tend to dismiss them as typical cases of fictional exaggeration, but even HO follows this trend, so maybe it’s a case of values dissonance.
Domo, domo *bows* I try my best. I wasn’t sure how this post came out compared to some others, so glad there was a little humor.
I used the bullying comparison because the mass shooting comparison didn’t seem an appropriate one to use at current. I wouldn’t say that normally, even though there’s a mass shooting all the godsdamned time in America (yay.), but, er, Paris and all that. Didn’t want it to get derailed.
So yeah, while people might not stop bullying because of bullshit reasons having to do with face (yeah yeah, it’s another culture, but if someone is being left to suffer alone and without help, I’m allowed to think that cultural artifact is stupid), when it comes to the Japanese and war, they don’t stop just because they lose one battle. They lost a few of ’em in ‘ol dubya dubya two, and they kept right on trucking until they got A-bomb’d into surrender. (And I’m not going to get into the morality of that, either.)
Then there’s the fact that these characters are not Japanese. I know Frolaytia at least is French, and since they were originally based in Alaska and attacking Japan in the first episode (if memory serves, and it may not), they ain’t Japanese, or even Asian. Culture changes, but I can’t fathom a world (okay, I can imagine it, but I don’t deem it likely) where people of Western descent give two shits about face.
If Kamachi-sensei is impressing Japanese face-saving morality on people of non-asian descent without good reason (Ex: if Japan had conquered America in WWII, then I could see some of that filtering into the societal consciousness), then that’s just bad writing.
well in Europe middle ages time, we had this same “lost face” cultur. But it was bouded to the higher ups, the peasants are just “slaves” to his land lords. So at that time, Europe was not that different in culture with Asia
It is just that Europa, through their 30 Years Wars and so on, found out that there is more to just “losing face”, if just an important Higher Up felled like got his pride scratch, there is no need anymore to die for such “trivial” matter anymore.
Europe and the Western countries (Eu emigrants) took this message over the World. But there was a time, that even in ancient China some generals do not want to War other countries for that.
30 Years War
maria the Witch play with this timeline
Another problem was that they brought back up the tiny patches of nations spread all over the place. This makes no sense because even if all the nations in the world imploded you would end back up with new nations with discrete geographical borders instead of little patches completely surrounded by other nations. I mean you would not even need wars you could just starve out who you wanted by closing the borders around them.
@Magewolf
Aye. That’s another example of Kamachi-sensei imposing an ancient reality over a post-modern society, without understand why the old world was like that in the first place, and how such a thing would not work like that now.
The entire reason WWI and WWII went the way they did is because nations learned how to take a punch. They won’t be breaking up from external war anymore. That’s internal strife’s job now.
Well, that Japan was pre-WWII Japan. A war like that can change mentalities in a big way. And even if the characters aren’t Japanese, that doesn’t mean anything. What did you say in an earlier post? “Write what you know”. Creator Pronvincialism is strong in any media, and manga and anime are no exception.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen foreigners that always have some Japanese blood, universal Japanese legal age (20) and their funny and bizarre depictions of Christianity, just to name a few cases. Oh, and Imperial Nostalgia.
Of course, the opposite happens too. Japanese viewers in general can spot easily the mistakes in any Japanesque or Orientalist work that wasn’t made in their country, including the values and attitudes showcased in them.
@Mistic
Oh yes, you’re of course right. It’s still a mistake to screw up someone else’s culture, but it’s an understandable one. It’s just that, when you screw it up with one character, it’s moderately irksome but not a big deal. When you screw up the geopolitical motives of an entire faction, you done goofed big time. That’s no longer a minor mistake that can be so easily brushed away.
Agreed. Even strategies based on oversimplistic ideas ripped from the headlines would be better.
Still, as you said, trouble happens when this series tries takes itself seriously and, even worse, tries to send a message about war and morality. Would have been much better if they just went with it, like the insane logic behind the Gibraltar operation.
“Boys, intelligence says the Oceanian dictator is about to kill a bunch of civilians to show how evil he is and make us look bad in front of the media”.
“Wait, what? But why? Is he mad?”
“He’s a tyrant in an Object that has spent days if not weeks hidden in the middle of the jungle. I don’t think sanity is among his priorities”.
Milinda cools off in private.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQQywcXVAAAywmN.jpg
Wet Qwenthur and Havia.
https://41.media.tumblr.com/79b9c0f894b3756baa22f57a2b291278/tumblr_nw9odvghS31qmlmyuo1_500.jpg
Humans are so addicted to destruction, no matter the age, no matter the reason, there is always one single constant in human history: WAR, “War never changes”. Mybe I´m playing too much Fallout 4, maybe.
I remember that princess’ object is called outdated and inadequate a lot of times. If Oceania’s trap worked with all the alliance’s objects around it, who loses the lest and who wll stand to gain in the next 3 wars?
Qwenthur and Havia are starting to positively tease Froylatia… nice change of places…
https://randomc.net/image/Heavy%20Object/Heavy%20Object%20-%2007%20-%2035.jpg
The Les Enfant Terribles
yeah, they “export” some Elite Pilots. If this target is really a Trap, then they want to blow up the entire Area, so that the UN loose their Objects with their Pilots. And then they can “sell” new full trained Pilots to them. But they still need their own Objects, or even this Country can mass produce somehow a special Object Type with them
But…
Where they have the funds? is that the “Anti-terror” funds of the UN countries?
i really dont understand this episode , the funny part is still funny but other than that i really want index III , let s see how it sell
So the world is divided in really really really tiny small countries… How the heck these tiny country can get the money to make these giant hightech balls of destruction? Usually small countries like these can’t barely have a military force since their population is so small and that military is require a lot of money… Let alone the fact they are always fighting with each other, which means they are spending quadrizillions of moneis. Nowadays only the US can afford this (actually, the US can’t, but they still od it anyways).
I thought we all agreed this is the Qwenthur and Havia show? Everything else goes out the window. They really needed to add more explosions and leave the politicking out. Made me think a little before remembering the mantra, thus enjoying the rest of the episode.
I think the prototype nature of the Oceanian Object is implied by the fact that it’s a 0.5th generation Object. I gave too much thought on that last week, so the fact about the prototype reactor didn’t bother me too much this time.
Ep 08:
Must See!!!. trust me