Forum - View topicJason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Eagle
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Mad_Scientist
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Moderator Posts: 3011 |
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Zac, you quote Echo_City, but the latter half of your post is clearly in response to statements made by Melanchthon. It made it a bit difficult to tell what you were talking about at first.
Also, was that dig at people who work in the military really necessary? |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Whatevs man. Needed a little liberal perspective in here. You go ahead and look at the percentage of tax revenue spent on military subcontracts and tell me my "dig" was somehow inaccurate. I wasn't pissing on the troops, give me a break. |
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Mad_Scientist
Subscriber
Moderator Posts: 3011 |
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I am well aware that the military is funded by taxpayers, so yes, your comment was accurate. I never said it was inaccurate. It being accurate doesn't mean that it also couldn't come off as at least a little insulting, especially considering the caustic tone of the post it was in.
But hey, I'll drop the subject now. Don't really feel like getting in a political debate right now so I probably shouldn't have posted anyways. |
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Penguin_Factory
Posts: 732 Location: Ireland |
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Way back when I was getting into anime I heard about a manga called First President of Japan. Does that have any connection to this? I always assumed the two were actually the same story until I read this article.
This kind of highlights my problem with authors inserting their own political opinions into their work. Ignoring for a moment how wildly unrealistic it is, I agree with the sentiment expressed by this:
I would vote for any candidate who expressed this ideal in a heartbeat, and yet its inclusion in the manga still makes me gag due to how ham fisted and preachy it is. I think when a lot of people complain about overt political sermons in fiction (and dear god, do American writers like to include those) what they're really complaining about is political views they disagree with. But for me it's always gone both ways, which is why I can be equally turned off by Y The Last Man and parts of Fables. |
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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No, they're different. First President of Japan is awful -- it's about as unrealistic and jingoistic as Legend of Koizumi, but without the humor.
I agree with you here. Although I try to be aware of this and to look past the opinions of manga or comics or books whose authors I disagree with. But it depends how good the story is, and also, IMHO, how realistic they are and how realistically they present the opposition. For instance, I don't dislike the "Left Behind" books because they're pro-Fundamentalist-Christian, I dislike them because all the non-Christians are total straw men who have no good arguments in their favor and act like total idiots. Whereas on the other hand, I've read other Fundamentalist books, like the Christ Clone Trilogy and some of C.S. Lewis' books, that at least expend the effort to seriously argue in favor of their opinions. I think it's great that Kawaguchi/Yamaoka stands for something in Eagle, but it fails at realism; nevermind getting the Democratic nomination, Obama did it, but Yamaoka's "end US foreign intervention and military funding" goal is so epically difficult (IMHO) that he'd have basically zero chance of winning IRL (not to mention the strong possibility that he'd campaign in favor of doing something, and then not actually do it... not like *that* ever happens with Presidents of course). I'd *love* it if Eagle was a manga that really convinced me that this was possible, but it simply doesn't expend enough effort to make me, the reader, believe that it could happen. This is partially my cynicism speaking, of course. But I don't have any problem with Kawaguchi's political views; I just don't think he's believable in how Americans would actually react to a candidate with Yamaoka's platform. |
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ptolemy18
Manga Reviewer/Creator/Taster
Posts: 357 Location: San Francisco |
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simside
Posts: 29 |
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I'm a terrible person for laughing so hard at this. It's hard to believe that a relatively serious and straightforward story like Eagle can still have such unsubtle material. I remember all the Eagle hype at the time, and I also remember seeing all the monthly graphic novels stacking up at my comic store. I took a pass because I was a teenage girl with zero interest in the story at the time. As intriguing as the plot seems, I think I would still have to take a pass to this day, since I am also in the "fiction as escapism" camp. Also, it sounds like it would probably make me angry. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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Geez, that makes it sound as if Kennedy was killed because he wasn't a WASP. That's not true and is a pretty nasty implication. |
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Moomintroll
Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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It is awful - the dreadful, lifeless, static artwork, the ludicrous' overblown, nonsensical plot, the right-wing politics, the ugly nationalism and xenophobia - but it's also absolutely fascinating. I actually found it (and the equally turgid Mouflon) kind of compulsive reading. I think it's interestingly revealing in so far as it inadvertently conveys a host of the sort of self-contradictory, love-hate, passive-aggressive thinking (particularly with regard to Japan's relationship with the USA and to Japanese militarism) that often seems to colour or underlie the way the Japanese (or at least Japanese conservatives) view the world about them and their place in it. Oh, and Buronson's Japan too - now that's an entertainingly screwed up political manga. I guess these sorts of books are to national politics what something like Hot Gimmick is to gender politics: engrossingly hateful. |
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GWOtaku
Posts: 678 |
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A fascinating write-up, though that weak ending hurts and mitigates a lot of my interest in actively seeking this one out. Talk about projection; "wish fulfillment" is a good way to describe it. I wonder, incidentally, does the story even briefly touch on the fact that Yamaoka's position seems to preclude even stepping in to defend a close ally under attack? If you're going to get into an issue or issues of such importance, it has to be thoughtfully dealt with or it's not going to come off as very credible or, well, thoughtful. The matter is exacerbated by the apparent fact that Yamaoka didn't really have a serious challenge in the general election, but rather an opponent that essentially beat himself. My view is that since Kawaguchi did think to attempt a story centering around an outside culture & political system, to me thoughtfulness is a rather obligatory thing. So while I can get where Kawaguchi is coming from, I'm not inclined to overlook his self-indulgence either.
The mixture of politics & the father/son drama does sound very interesting, though. I have this Silent Service DVD from a whim purchase at Otakon. That might be interesting viewing after this. Great column as always. |
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Anime World Order
Posts: 389 Location: Florida |
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Oh sure, some crazy stuff goes down in Eagle. But I don't think it's quite apt to liken it to a Tom Clancy novel. A more accurate fit--and one that would adorn the cover blurbs--would be to say that Eagle is similar to The West Wing, both in terms of its politics, idealization of the political process, and level of dramatic license.
Oh no you didn't. The First President of Japan is AWESOME AS HELL...but if Eagle is like the West Wing, First President of Japan is more like the TV series 24. Every single chapter introduces a brand new political catastrophe that is rather quickly solved by a cast of the hyper-capable, which is good because ANOTHER catastrophic world-shattering event is just around the corner to be dealt with. Both it and Eagle are rollercoasters in a sense, but FPoJ delivers it in a more concentrated dosage. Another thing I like about Eagle and First President of Japan is that even the "bad guys" aren't really bad so much as of an opposing viewpoint, and much like Eagle can--in true shonen fighting style--be won over through the power of persuasion. Only instead of a fight, there's a bunch of suave dudes in suits making impassioned speeches. The fantasy of Eagle is "how should the 2000 American Presidential Election REALLY gone down?" The fantasy of First President of Japan is "what if our political system was NOT hopelessly broken and our politicians were NOT incorrigibly ineffectual and/or corrupt?" It's certainly complete lunacy to assume authenticity (or worse yet, applicability) in either such tale, but by no means are either of them bad. I want more manga about politics. I tried reading the US comic Ex Machina in the hopes that it'd be similar to either Eagle or First President of Japan, but I found every single cast member completely unlikable and after sticking it out for a few years waiting for it to click with me, I realized that "I hate every single character in this" is a recurring reaction I have to everything Vaughan writes. |
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Asterisk-CGY
Posts: 398 |
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Needs more Metal Wolf Chaos.
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ZakuAce
Posts: 525 Location: SE Wisconsin |
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I'm pretty sure this is the best depiction of America AND of the Presidency. The accuracy of it is really startling. |
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Orange Hollow
Posts: 66 Location: Krasnoyarsk, Russia |
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This manga in order for it to be more realistic should add a chapter where Yamaoka after winning the election sends more troops to the existing war and then starts a new one.
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doc-watson42
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 1708 |
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And the even more obscure part of chapter 5 of Silent Service, in Mangajin No. 13, with an introductory article by the redoubtable Frederik L. Schodt. |
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