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Lord Oink wrote:

Mad_Scientist wrote:

Ans so for the record, if there was a game based heavily inspired by Confederate forces, and kind of implied "it would have been good if the confederate forces won", yeah, I'd be criticizing the hell out of it. Or heck, simply any game that glorified the US genocide of Native Americans (which, sadly, would not require any alternate history setting or inspiration

Those are an odd combination given most Native Americans sided with the South during the Civil War. The Confederacy was the most sympathetic and beneficitial to their plights and interests, not unlike the French-Indian war.

Slavery and the genocide of Native Americans are two of the greatest historical atrocities done by the US, both of which are often downplayed today, so it's not really on odd combo, coincidences aside.

Quote:

Anyway, the notion of one side 'rightfully' lost a war is a pretty sketchy in general. Wars were never and will never be black and white Disneyfied battles of 'Good VS Evil' like media loves to portray. Considering we were the winners though, a cartoon about 'What If' hardly seems dangerous, let alone a new concept

There's a reason why I said "as much as any side in a war can be right." And I do think that "literal Nazis, or on the same side as literal Nazis while also committing a massive and horrific campaign of destruction and atrocities across Asia" is pretty much as close as you can be to being on the unequivocally "wrong" side. Doesn't make what was done to them by the US automatically "good" of course, but it also doesn't change the fact that it makes "what if they won and that was good?" stories very creepy and unsettling.

Megiddo wrote:

My point was regarding the atrocities of war committed by Japan being absent from Kancolle just as the atrocities of war committed by the US are absent from American media.

I'm not saying this show should have been a fair depiction of Japan's position in the war, or even close. I'm saying the opposite: They shouldn't evoke the historical context of the war (the actual battles that affected the course of the war) beyond what they needed (loose cute girl design concepts). By actually talking about Midway, it attaches the show to the moral context of the war (for some people), which includes all the ugliness of the war and the moral position of the instigator in regards to it. By creating and celebrating a fiction where Japan won, they're going further than just pulling context and are now making a normative judgment within that context, one which many people (in Japan as well as America) would find abhorrent.

It doesn't have to bother you (it's just a cute girls show, after all), but at least try to understand why it bothers some people if you're going to diminish their concerns.

I mean, again, Japan attacked a military institution (Pearl Harbor) whereas Americans attacked brought napalm down on civilians. There's no doubt as to what was the 'ugliness' of the war I'd say. Japan's atrocities were committed in other parts of Asia, not against the United States.

Bringing up Midway as a historical battle doesn't bring up morality one way or another. It's just a reference point for all these WW2 vessels.

Anyway, if you were watching an anime dealing with war where one side is purposefully slaughtering innocent civilians and the other side is not slaughtering innocent civilians, which would you believe to be on the "right side" of the war?

Japan is not immune to criticism for its atrocities just because it committed them against Asians.

Megiddo wrote:

I mean, again, Japan attacked a military institution (Pearl Harbor) whereas Americans attacked brought napalm down on civilians. There's no doubt as to what was the 'ugliness' of the war I'd say. Japan's atrocities were committed in other parts of Asia, not against the United States.

American POWs on the Bataan Death March would probably beg to differ with you on that. (And yes, I know the scale is much smaller but it was much more personal, specific cruelty because that wasn't a case of bombs being dropped from tens of thousands of feet in the air.)

You're also conveniently forgetting that the Japanese never had the opportunity to attack American civilian targets outside of the Pearl Harbor attack (where clearly there was a higher priority). Given their behavior on the Asian mainland and in the Philippines, there's no reason to believe that they wouldn't have done so if they could have.

Key wrote:

Megiddo wrote:

I mean, again, Japan attacked a military institution (Pearl Harbor) whereas Americans attacked brought napalm down on civilians. There's no doubt as to what was the 'ugliness' of the war I'd say. Japan's atrocities were committed in other parts of Asia, not against the United States.

American POWs on the Bataan Death March would probably beg to differ with you on that. (And yes, I know the scale is much smaller but it was much more personal, specific cruelty because that wasn't a case of bombs being dropped from tens of thousands of feet in the air.)

You're also conveniently forgetting that the Japanese never had the opportunity to attack American civilian targets outside of the Pearl Harbor attack (where clearly there was a higher priority). Given their behavior on the Asian mainland and in the Philippines, there's no reason to believe that they wouldn't have done so if they could have.

Yeah. Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor was a strategic decision to try and destroy our ability to wage war, not a moral decision made to avoid civilian casualties.

World War II was an especially brutal war, and all sides killed plenty of civilians. That's an important fact to remember. But it doesn't change the fact that some sides in WWII were worse than others, and some sides did instigate the war and left people with no choice but to go to war and try to stop them, or to just... die. Or be enslaved.

And so alluding to the idea of "what if Japan won" without addressing this is uncomfortable. And the fact that most of Japan's atrocities were committed in Asia doesn't change this. After all, it's not like Germany particularly focused on killing US civilians, it was Europe that suffered the most, but we still wouldn't use that as an excuse to gloss over a "what if Germany won and it was good" allusion.

I'm just saying that of all the shows that didn't need to bring the baggage of the actual WW2 with it, Kancolle is pretty high up there. Also, fwiw, we'll probably never see a new anime (TV anime, anyway) that deals with the Japanese army in WW2 because it would immediately kill any chance of it being licensed in China. Check out The Cockpit for one of the only anime I can think of that comes close. Instead we get shows like GATE (Japanese colonialism in a fantasy world), Joker Game (Japanese spies who don't pick sides, only do the right thing) & Tanya the Evil/Izetta the Last Witch (an alternate WW1/2 where nobody mentions Japan - Izetta going so far as to end the war the day before Pearl Harbour).

Although if you want a laugh at the expense of Japanese jingoistic nationalism, I recommend Silent Service. A Japanese captain steals a nuclear submarine, rechristens it the Yamato, sinks the Pacific fleet & brings world peace by threatening to nuke the USA if they don't leave Japan. Fun film. Directed by Ryosuke Takahashi, because of course it would be.

Key wrote:

You're also conveniently forgetting that the Japanese never had the opportunity to attack American civilian targets outside of the Pearl Harbor attack (where clearly there was a higher priority). Given their behavior on the Asian mainland and in the Philippines, there's no reason to believe that they wouldn't have done so if they could have.

As part of their Midway campaign, the Japanese launched a diversionary invasion and occupation of the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. 90 American civilians were captured and interned in Japan, and one was executed for unknown reasons by the occupying Japanese forces. Not to mention the loss of American soldiers. There was the intent by the Japanese to occupy Dutch Harbor also, but bad weather and the loss at Midway scratched those plans, but Dutch Harbor was bombed resulting in a lot of deaths and destruction.

Yep, from what I can tell there was one civilian death resulting from Japanese occupation of the Aleutian islands. The priority seemed to be to kill soliders, not women, children, and the elderly.

Megiddo wrote:

Yep, from what I can tell there was one civilian death resulting from Japanese occupation of the Aleutian islands. The priority seemed to be to kill soliders, not women, children, and the elderly.

The article was not very informative on whether or not all those interned in Japan were repatriated back to the United States, nor what happened to them while under the custody of the Japanese. But considering past history, it probably wasn't good.

I've found this is a good resource regarding POW: https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/prisoners-of-war-of-the-japanese-1939-1945

There was about a 10% mortality rate for POW camps in mainland Japan. 27% overall for all camps (including the deadly Burma railroad)

The main reason this series is even relevant outside of Japan should be clear, most anime fans are sheep who just copy what's popular in Japan, and this series is the lowest common denominator.

All they had to do was make another "things as girls" series, sprinkle some talented artists and Japanese nationalism to make it popular. The fact that it's surpassed Touhou is so stupid.

Lemonchest wrote:

I'm just saying that of all the shows that didn't need to bring the baggage of the actual WW2 with it, Kancolle is pretty high up there.

Bringing along the baggage of WWII would kill the enjoyment of Girls Und Panzer for me, that's for sure... even if the series managed to instill WWII era national stereotypes into entire schools somehow. But even then, their Japanese equivalent's motto is always "attack, attack, attack". Wait, why does that sound familiar?

Tragedy + time = humor, sometimes. Not in every case, of course but... sometimes...

Anyways, reimagining the battle of Midway as a potential Japanese victory is fine for something like the alternate history anime Zipang because you expect it from the start. You wouldn't expect it from a cute girls show.

Kind of like the iyashikei series Kamichu honoring the battleship Yamamoto. That was uncomfortable.

cannonfodder4000 wrote:

The main reason this series is even relevant outside of Japan should be clear, most anime fans are sheep who just copy what's popular in Japan, and this series is the lowest common denominator.

All they had to do was make another "things as girls" series, sprinkle some talented artists and Japanese nationalism to make it popular. The fact that it's surpassed Touhou is so stupid.

KanColle is most definitely a "can't beat 'em.." powerhouse, so you might as well pick yourself a shipfu and start collecting them doujins.

Oh God, I really expected the extreme biased vision on franchise as a whole because anime bring allusion to the Midway battle. Color me surprised.

But know what? Here's the thing that you can never beat - it's not the WW2 in the anime even with that allusions, and never was. There will be no spoilers for the movie, which pretty much retconed things written by this one hack of a writer - but for the real truth you should check again not the final battle, but the episode 11 (yes, right before it) scene, when Akagi remember her past as the ship (and afraid of the fate coincidence, even with the exclusion of some shipgirls from the other fleet), when she's (as a ship) scuttled by destroyer torpedoes (you can even see the one who scuttled her by the real historic facts, Maikaze). What does it means? That's right - if it's basically our world, the real Battle of Midway already happened, and Akagi remember how it was been!

And right, for the ones who really like to accuse something with propaganda, but don't had the real evidence - here's the facts, that the game bring not after the anime, but before it, right from the start.

First fact: Even with WW2 themes, the world where shipgirls lives is not the same as was in the times of it, but it's close to current era - it mentioned in voice lines of some of them (like Yuubari and late-night anime - which of course wasn't even existed in the times of WW2), and even in CG (I-168 weird smartphone).
Second fact: Like in the anime, all of shipgirls know their past to the times they're sunk. And with this we get to the same concept - shipgirls live in the world where all of WW2 Pacific battles already happened, and all of it happened according to history! Because if it comes another way, it creates a paradox - you can't know about the events which isn't happened before, right?
Third fact: It will be about Abyssal Fleet, the enemies. Yes, initially it was depicted as some kind of counterpart to the Allied Fleet (except there never was the mention, of course) with naming of guns and aircraft - but here it should be noted that the creators of the game didn't initially planned to support it for too long, waiting for shut down somewhere in half of the year. After the extreme popularity of KanColle things changed - and also that changes the way that the conflict between the players and enemies depicted. But when it was happened? No, it wasn't after the anime, when the game introduced first Allied shipgirls - it was before it even aired, in Fall of 2014, when they introduced the first Abyssal counterpart of the shipgirl, based on the only IJN casualty of the same battle. Yes, that's right - the Abyssal Fleet isn't the Allied Fleet even in concept from this long time.

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