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INTEREST: Gundam's Tomino, Yasuhiko Comments on War Themes in Girls & Panzer, KanColle


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cookiemanstah



Joined: 09 Dec 2013
Posts: 546
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:02 pm Reply with quote
im watching panzer recently on a slow grind at episode 5. I didn't know it was going to be glorifying war or anything...
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penguintruth



Joined: 08 Dec 2004
Posts: 8458
Location: Penguinopolis
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:08 pm Reply with quote
For somebody who doesn't think the military is very cool, he sure went out of his way to make really cool-looking armies and weapons in Gundam. But I guess it's like that image where the Gundam is shooting over a person's head and the thing the person is commenting on is, "Wow, cool robot!" while "War is Bad" flies over their head.
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CorneredAngel



Joined: 17 Jun 2002
Posts: 854
Location: New York, NY
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:14 pm Reply with quote
Yasuhiko then discussed how he is drawing Inui to Tatsumi -Siberia Shuppei Hishi- (Inui and Tatsumi: Secret History of the Siberian Intervention), a manga about the Siberian Intervention. "That dispatch was despised by the world and regarded as a foolish thing. But the more I researched it, the more I understand that there was no other choice. I realized that I wanted to depict the plights of the little people and how they were being controlled."

No other choice but for Japan to send soldiers into the territory of the former Russian Empire?

"Little People"?

What is he talking about?

There is a reason even Yasakuni Shrine has almost nothing on the 1918-1922 intervention. Or on Lake Khasan. Or on Khalkin-Gol. Or on the Soviet-Japanese War.
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:21 pm Reply with quote
Little people means civilians or common soldiers, i.e. the average person as opposed to recognizable names from history.
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sirdano1



Joined: 06 Jul 2011
Posts: 291
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:32 pm Reply with quote
There's nothing cool about [Tomino's opinions on things].
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#913479



Joined: 19 Aug 2020
Posts: 2
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:36 pm Reply with quote
Tomino's animes portrayed the brutality of war to send a message on how terrible they are. He's not wrong but the bigger point here is that more modern tend to be more unrealistic compared to what was generally coming out pre-2000's (there are exceptions).
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Arale Kurashiki



Joined: 24 Aug 2015
Posts: 744
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:46 pm Reply with quote
sirdano1 wrote:
There's nothing cool about [Tomino's opinions on things].

The JSDF isn't going to marry you
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SciasSlash



Joined: 09 Jun 2015
Posts: 117
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:52 pm Reply with quote
cookiemanstah wrote:
im watching panzer recently on a slow grind at episode 5. I didn't know it was going to be glorifying war or anything...

It doesn't, really. The entire point of the series is divorcing the impressive engineering of the tanks from the real-world tragedy that they caused by making them basically fun toys for a harmless sport. Whether or not that's a good goal to have is up to you but the characters literally talk about how the sport is just to have fun with and how nobody should hold grudges, how the tanks are probably sad if people use them for selfish reasons, etc.
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Zeino



Joined: 19 May 2017
Posts: 1098
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:53 pm Reply with quote
Tomino grew up in the aftermath of the history's still most devastating war in a nation that was that was half in ruins brought on by the arrogance and megalomania of its political and military leaders. Of course, he cannot help but always have near totally negative view of the military even if it's a self-defense force and of war in general. That kind of life experience sticks with you and nobody is at their most nuanced when talking about the matters most personally to them.

Yasuhiko on the other hand is just being a reactionary old boomer who knows nothing about real socialism here.

Quote:
"That dispatch was despised by the world and regarded as a foolish thing. But the more I researched it, the more I understand that there was no other choice. I realized that I wanted to depict the plights of the little people and how they were being controlled."

It WAS a foolish thing and there WERE other choices like leaving the Soviet Union alone. But no, the international workers revolution that the Bolsheviks advocated was too much of a threat to the Capitalist-Imperialist ruling classes of the West and Japan, so they tried to smother the first Marxist state in it's cradle. The damage done by said military interventions force Lenin and his party to embrace permanent one-party dictatorship and a state capital economy to preserve their revolution and lead the USSR and every Communist nations that come afterwords to fail to be true classless societies. It has a right to be despised.
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Yttrbio
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Joined: 09 Jun 2011
Posts: 3649
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:55 pm Reply with quote
Ah, yes, the classic "they made me murder tens of millions of my own people" defense. And to think, I was told in another thread that no one defends communism any more.
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Replica_Rabbit



Joined: 23 Aug 2015
Posts: 354
Location: Portland
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:56 pm Reply with quote
penguintruth wrote:
For somebody who doesn't think the military is very cool, he sure went out of his way to make really cool-looking armies and weapons in Gundam. But I guess it's like that image where the Gundam is shooting over a person's head and the thing the person is commenting on is, "Wow, cool robot!" while "War is Bad" flies over their head.

That was more on Bandai wanting to sell Gunpla then Tomino, but I agree Gundam have that problem. I think the only Gundam show that address this was Gundam 0080: War In The Pocket
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sirdano1



Joined: 06 Jul 2011
Posts: 291
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 4:59 pm Reply with quote
Arale Kurashiki wrote:
sirdano1 wrote:
There's nothing cool about [Tomino's opinions on things].

The JSDF isn't going to marry you

And Tomino isn't going to marry you, what's your point?
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Zen119



Joined: 20 Nov 2018
Posts: 84
Location: Illinois,USA
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:12 pm Reply with quote
Not every story needs to have the message about the horrors of war and the impact it had on society. If you want a serious discussions of war and stuff, there’s war documentaries and the like to watch or other anime that tackle that subject seriously or even make a new anime about it.
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Blackiris_



Joined: 06 Sep 2013
Posts: 535
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:42 pm Reply with quote
Zen119 wrote:
Not every story needs to have the message about the horrors of war and the impact it had on society. If you want a serious discussions of war and stuff, there’s war documentaries and the like to watch or other anime that tackle that subject seriously or even make a new anime about it.


The question is more like: "Should tools of war be portrayed as fun toys?" I know there are a lot of military otaku, in Japan or otherwise. I’m personally not even comfortable with the concept of (realistic) toy guns for children.

I think escapism is fine, but even these moe military shows tend to romanticize these machines. Of course they don’t romanticize killing – instead they totally ignore the uncomfortable aspects. Obviously that’s because tanks and military stuff is considered "cool" by many people. I can’t imagine the same happening to, let’s say, guillotines or electric chairs. But then again we had idols dressing in Nazi uniforms before, so a certain amount of ignorance of history and/or disrespect seems to be common amoung younger generations.

But I agree that Gundam also has a problem with romanticizing military machinery.
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AkumaChef



Joined: 10 Jan 2019
Posts: 821
PostPosted: Wed Aug 19, 2020 5:51 pm Reply with quote
Replica_Rabbit wrote:
penguintruth wrote:
For somebody who doesn't think the military is very cool, he sure went out of his way to make really cool-looking armies and weapons in Gundam. But I guess it's like that image where the Gundam is shooting over a person's head and the thing the person is commenting on is, "Wow, cool robot!" while "War is Bad" flies over their head.

That was more on Bandai wanting to sell Gunpla then Tomino, but I agree Gundam have that problem. I think the only Gundam show that address this was Gundam 0080: War In The Pocket


War in the Pocket is an absolute masterpiece. It does focus on the "other side" of war more than most of the Gundam series do, but I think it's worth mentioning that most of the Gundam titles shine at least a bit of light on the horrors of war. It's certainly true of every Gundam title I have watched. In the early years of my anime fandom, before I had seen any Gundam, I had developed a totally unsubstantiated prejudicial view of it, thinking it was just a shallow mecha action show to sell toys to kids. I'm not really sure how I got that idea but somehow I did. Once I started checking it out I hooked as there is a surprising amount of depth in Gundam, and "war is bad" certainly is part of that.
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