Forum - View topicREVIEW: GATE BD+DVD
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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My main difference from Key's grades -- Story: D+
While Gate might have the low/mid-level military stuff right, it's take on international politics was horrendous and absurd. And, generally speaking, I found it's jingoistic attitude very grating. At the start, I really wanted to like this series, but as it went on, I became increasingly disenchanted with it. Rory was the only person in it that I never got tired of seeing, but she wasn't able to carry the whole show for me. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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I found gate mildly amusing by imagining the author as a a sad little nationalist who gets angry when you mention comfort women & believes the geacps really was meant to liberate Asia from western imperialism. The show itself was a tonal mess, not least that apocalypse now "homage" which takes a scene depicting the gratuitous use of overwhelming force by the USA & recontextualised it as a heroic & masturbatory victory of the jsdf, who are awesome & totally should be allowed to run japans fantasy empire with no civilian oversight. The direction was irritating - with a fondness for using split screens to compensate for the directors inability to frame a shot. In all it was the kind of Jsdf f'k yeah! crap that's annoying enough when it comes from America (jarhead 2) but at least here was mildly amusing because of how apparently unaware the production team were about how stupid gunning down roman legion cosplayers & relying on the support of a sadist, scythe wielding loli makes the jsdf look.
Though if they're making the effort with an over the top collectors edition like this, I guess there must be a deep pocketed audience for this junk. |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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I don't think it's a case of the nationalistic right-wing elements being "read into" it, there's no avoiding it, nor is it a case of it being "not a specialty of" the source novelist either, as it's clearly the ideas that he wants to convey and while somewhat heavy handed at times, no worse than on the nose portrayals of other ideas in other works (often praised along with their authors for addressing issues.)
I characterize it merely as an opinion that I, as well as most non-Japanese viewers, disagree with. (I'd also say that it goes too far for most Japanese viewers, but only a subset of them have the same visceral negative reaction seen by more outsiders.) Some viewers may indeed find themselves incapable of appreciating a work expressing a contrary idea. I didn't have a problem with it even as I often disagreed strongly with the author's viewpoint. (I'm also not as left-wing as Concrete Revolutio, but I enjoyed that a lot as well partly for its firm statements.) However, I can certainly see that people who see particular danger in the viewpoints espoused might rate the show poorly for that reason and recommend against watching it. I was less of a fan of the second season, which bogged down into too much harem like elements for me. |
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Animegomaniac
Posts: 4082 |
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I found it to be rollicking fun from start to finish- either I'm reading too much into it or I watched a completely different show. Take that Apocalypse Now scene- nobody else noticed that it's actually absurd and not to be taking seriously? They are playing out a fantasy scene from a movie, right down to sitting on a helmet to project their junk from errant gunfire.
What errant gunfire? From the movie? Certainly not from the archers. I found its take on politics, especially American politics, to be more spot on than anything. Especially these days.... My politics are left leaning and I had no problem with the nationality in this... it's an imperialistic fight over new resources and a land completely owned by a presupposed "depowered" nation, it's what would happen. You want some classic Jingoism? I just finished watching Shin Godzilla. An actual worldwide threat and the two countries are actually playing a game of "my bomb is bigger than your bomb" and that's on top of the scapegoating... "I'm going to save... Japan." You mean the world? "Japan" Jerk... and he's the hero. Sort of. In reality, does the JSDF actuality do anything? I hear more about them in monster movies than on the news so I would expect there's a lot of training, a lot of standing around. Give them some cheerleading, why not? It's funny. Like rooting for the Washington Generals over the Harlem Globetrotters. Putting them in the same league as whatever war the US is fighting at the time? Kind of an insult to all involved. And that scene against the Diet member. She was trying to score points for her side, it's what politicians do. She was so wrong because the author stacked the world against her but she really was doing her job. The later reporter is a little different... but no less relevant these days with "politics first, facts later... or not at all" view in everything from [topic] to [different topic].... |
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5317 |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1006 |
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Yes, Shin Godzilla is also right-wing in a Japanese context. However, Gate's take on politics is *definitely* right-wing, just Japanese; that you are left leaning makes you more likely to find its politics spot on than a (traditional, non Trumpy) right leaning American. Plenty of left leaning Americans who focus (often for understandable reasons) on the sins of their own country end up tolerating all sort of nationalism so long as it's from other countries and gets a few anti-American jibes in. (Even appreciating people like ex-Governor Ishihara, the Pat Buchanan / Donald Trump of Japan.) Just remember that Gate wasn't written or aired with Trump in mind; it was written by the sort of person who thinks the same of, e.g., Obama and Clinton.
Both the politician and the reporter were classic left-leaning individuals who were wrong because the right-wing author stacked it against them and presented them as the negative (but still somewhat plausible) examples of their kinds, just like all too familiar evil corporate executives or military men in more left-leaning works. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2863 |
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as a non american I love how discussions of nationalism in Gate turn out, as that's how most hollywood movies feel for non americans.
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TasteyCookie
 Posts: 421 |
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It is pretty hilarious. Everyone ignores the nationalistic undertones of movies such as Avengers and the other Marvel movies, but as soon as it shows up in Anime it's the worst thing in the world. I am not a Nationalist at all, but I found Gate (and also said Marvel movies) to be a very entertaining watch regardless, as it's just an entertainment medium. Just like all other fictional war anime, one side will be shown as the "good guys" and just because it happens to be a fictional Japan doesn't make it some right wing, propaganda spewing, war-machine. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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No they don't. But okay, if we leave aside the shows politics, what's left to discuss? How the main character is another boring light novel protagonist - a super soldier & super otaku who can't help but to the right thing & even his ex wife can't get enough of him? How the first episode starts with mass slaughter (100,000 dead in a day, I think they kindly inform us) & the emperor threatening a scorched earth retreat to the capitol, only for much of the rest of the series being otaku & the gang playing peace keeper & saving villagers from an angry dragon? How the director seemed unable to frame conversations without using split screens? Politics is the only thing gate has that's worth talking about. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18190 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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I ignore them in The Avengers because I don't think that there are any. (Unless you want to count Captain America as inherently being nationalistic, which I could see.) Also, to be clear, I gave the Story grade for the series based entirely on its potential entertainment value, which I felt the series did very well at if you can ignore the slanted aspects of its politics. |
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GhostStalkerSA
 Posts: 425 Location: NYC |
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I think the whole Apocalypse Now reference was meant to show how most grunts the world over who quote the movie focus just on the whole imiability of the scene and how badass it makes them look in their mind (which admittedly, is very badass), but don't want to acknowledge or are just plain unaware of the anti-war message that was being portrayed by the director in the movie there, with the Americans coming in literally blasting a Vietnamese village with overwhelming force from both the heliborne assault and the Wagner. To them, it's a thing to be imitated, but not further thought upon, and the author just picked up on the former part of it without acknowledging the latter. As a guy who also leans left, I originally had fun with the manga adaptation that came before this, seeing a medieval force wrecked by a modern military, before a Nanking denial came out of nowhere a couple chapters in. Then I saw the right wing politics popping up everywhere, especially on stuff that references the real world, and was majorly soured on the series. The author clearly knew what he was going for here, and as a former (reservist?) member of the JSDF who originally web published this before having to tone down the nationalism when it was picked up and given an actual publication to be more mainstream, if the right wing stuff still pokes out this clearly, the original material must have been really badly done politics wise. As for the politician, the reference was more clear in the manga (compete with the white jacket with high lapels she's known for wearing), but she's clearly modeled after a real life Japanese politiician, Murata Renho, who is a Japanese senator and current leader of the Democratic Party, which is the current main opposition party in the Japanese Diet. Her stances have been wildly twisted by her right wing detractors (aiming to shut down the JSDF entirely because she sees them as an Article 9 violation of having an offensive military force), and the fact that she's apparently half-Taiwanese (and didn't claim her Japanese citizenship until adulthood after having lived there for practically all her life) gives her critics more ammunition to use to smear her. She's a stock character inserted in most manga with a right wing bent solely existing to show how bad wrong the opposition politicians are. Her continued portrayals in series like is irk me considerably, to put it mildly. The journalist character is the same way. His character appears later in the novels the series is based off of, soon after the point where the anime left off, spoiler[accompanying 3rd Recon on a mission where they check out a village Zorzal has sacked with a false flag attack, in an attempt to get the citizens of the Empire turned against the "Men in Green". In said village, they find the raped body of the harpy girl who warned the JSDF about the impending earthquake alongside the dead body of her boyfriend, and the journalist's first thought is to spin said discovery as against the JSDF responding force, either questioning why they arrived so late as to not be able to prevent what happened to her or making it seem like they were the ones who assaulted her. 3rd Recon comes across an ogre amongst the bodies who Zorzal's troops left behind, and when it attacks, the journalist demands that he be evacuated first on the arriving medevac helicopter, and is later killed by the ogre trying to get to the chopper.] I mean, if that's not one of the more egregious portrayals of the right wing concept of the "lying media" to borrow a term from our current president, then what is? [EDIT: Details from source material which go beyond the content of the anime always have to be spoiler-tagger. - Key] And yes, Gate has been a long time in the making, I think it was originally written in the Bush/Obama era. While the American President in the series seems reminiscent of Trump, his character was likely sketched out by the author way before the orange one was thinking about running. Dirrel seems more meant to be a Bush Jr type, seeing as how the US is too preoccupied with forces in the Middle East to help the JSDF with anything more than logistical support and old material. EDIT: My bad with the spoiler. It might be moot anyway because the way the anime ended seemed to wrap up everything and diverged a little bit from the novels, but we never know if another season gets made. Sorry, I'm really bad on remembering what things to spoil. Last edited by GhostStalkerSA on Wed Aug 02, 2017 5:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Thespacemaster
Posts: 1108 |
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Yeah i find it funny how many other nations also potray their nation is such a highlight but cause one person wrote a story of japan natiolinsm they hate it. like they ignore the fact that most media nearly always portray the nation they are set in as the hero in the story, American media does this more than anyone else. so i find it both funny and hypocritical of others who complain about the japan natioilism in this story. let him it just entertainment everyone wants to show their country in a proud manner and him being an ex-jsdf officer of course your going to find it here. |
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Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
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Firstly once again I think we have to say that this is an anime site so naturally it follows that it's almost always going to be Japanese politics, society etc that comes up for discussion. If ANN were to suddenly start covering HBOs Confederate, for example, I'm sure we'd have people expressing their unease about it too (& it's not even been made yet).
Secondly GATE goes well beyond just depicting the JSDF in a positive light. It actively endorses militarism, allowing the military to operate without civilian oversight, colonialism (under the guise of liberation), a borderline xenophobic view international diplomacy & is generally so overtly right-wing that Yukio Mishima would think it a bit on the nose. Heck, I'd say it's one visit to Yasukuni Shrine or arguing Japan needs nukes to maintain its neutrality away from ticking every box. That it's written by a former JSDF officer is all the worse. & no, this isn't like Starship Troopers (the film, not the book) where everything is heavily layered in irony. If anything, this is like someone watched starship troopers & thought "I like the sound of service means citizenship, but the way they held those weapons was just too unrealistic" I'd say it's unfair to suggest the views in the anime are shared by the production staff, not least because it's an A1 show & so I imagine none of them had much connection to it before having their names drawn out of a hat. Though in promo interviews they did seem keen to stress how much effort they went through to make it seem as authentic as possible (they visited an actual JSDF mess hall!), which sounded like not seeing the wood for the trees to me. |
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MattB1
Posts: 23 |
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The thorny issue here is that Japan did quite abominable things to its neighbors during WWII. Yet, there's a fringe in Japanese society which still insists on portraying Japan as the victim in the war (or worse, the hero). The fact that prominent Japanese officials keep denying that their country did anything wrong makes any pro-Japanese-military media a bone of contention with China and South Korea. And, as GhostStalkerSA pointed out, the author himself is a Japanese war crimes denialist. |
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MajorZero
Posts: 359 |
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Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but there seems to be a lot of parallels with Second Sino-Japanese War and Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, especially how it was viewed from the Japanese side. JSDF portrayed as a benevolent force who brings enlightenment, prosperity and peace to savages (say hello to Korea under Japanese rule). They don't commit any atrocities, never touch a woman if she doesn't want it (say hello to comfort women issues) and only acts against corrupt nobility of the world, and even that is retaliation for an attack at the beginning of the series (say hello to Mukden incident).
I can understand why some people so angry at American exceptionalism sometimes seen in Hollywood films, but to say that Hollywood only produces right-wing propaganda pieces is to admit that you haven't seen a lot of films. Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Born 4th July, Paths of Glory (admittedly, it's about France), Three Kings, Fury, even SPR have moments there military commits war crimes. Gate is just ugly, revanchist garbage from the man who dreams of past glory. It's pretty apparent in the episode where JSDF obliterates spec ops of three strongest militaries in the world (sure, the main job was done by Rory, but only because Japanese guys had an order to retreat). And even if there weren't any political undertones, I simply don't find anything enjoyable in a battle between helicopter and dude with a spear. |
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