(L) Zipang and politics

[Izer]

Well, mostly modern naval power is for kicking the crap out of third world nations that annoy the first world enough, and carriers are very useful for that purpose since they can be used to destroy the air-defences of whoever is getting targeted this year.
Discussing which form of naval power is more important these days is kind of pointless because NATO has a numerical and qualitative superiority in all of them that is so large that it isn't even funny. Heck, this also holds true for sea and land power. The US alone spends a huge fraction of total world wide military spending and the countries that come next on the list of "money spent" are pretty comprised of "the european union, Japan and other assorted US allies."
Sometimes this disparity in military might gets put to good and etical uses, such as in Sierra Leone or Afganistan and sometimes it gets misused.

Returning to Zipang I'll say that it strikes me as a monumental waste of a perfectly good idea, mostly because, well, siding with the WWII-era japanes militarists is a massive moral failure on the part of the defence force ship. Their proper loyalty is to the people of Japan and the duely elected government thereof, not to a military junta steering the country straight into evil and destruction. It would have been a much more interesting plot for them to try and use their superior technology, historical knowlege, and tactical doctrine to put a stop to the war without the home isles being subjected to either fire- or atom bombings.
Further, if what the creators wanted to do was a to do an anime about traditonal military and patriotic virtues in war with special reference to Japan they bloody well picked the wrong war. Going by what I can recall of the historical subject matter the Japanese army was for example noted for its discipline and adherence to the laws of war in the japanese-russian war of 1905. WWII? Ugh.

Send a french or german (or heck: French-german, they've got joint battalions these days) tank formation back to middle of WWII and they'd promtly make a bee-line for their own capitals to have *Words* (Well. More like battles) with the governments there. Vichy and Nazi are insults.

[Lord Raiden]

Well, although I don't have descriptions of each episode, given what I'm seeing in the 7 listed so far on anidb, they're not going to get involved right away. Apparently they're going to hide out for a while and think about this, then get drawn in by accident and have to decide if they just want to hide and cover their own tail, or periodically help out. That's my assessment from what I'm seeing of the titles so far. That may turn out to be entirely wrong, but that's what I'm guessing based on what I see. They're definately going to get involved in WW2, but to what level remains to be seen.

[USB500]

Just watched Zipang episode 1, and here's what I have to say about the promising series.

I don't care of the political influence or whatsoever, since I just finished watching the first episode and am anticipating for the next episode. Well, I'm sorry if my statement might be provocative, but personally I found this series interesting, especially since I haven' t watched any WWII- or war-themed story, be it anime or movie or TV series for a while (the last one was Pearl Harbour, but that was from Hollywood's POV, and I don't really like how they view the war). I'll wait and see for how well Zipang goes.

[ZeusIrae]

Apparently they are too late to stop the battle of midway.The first ep was intresting so I hope it will not turn into nationalist propaganda wich, if I understood what dreamless said, was the case for the manga.But it would be fun to see an aegis destroy a WWII battleship with harpoons.

[Kempis Curious]

Originally Posted by Izer

Returning to Zipang I'll say that it strikes me as a monumental waste of a perfectly good idea, mostly because, well, siding with the WWII-era japanes militarists is a massive moral failure on the part of the defence force ship. Their proper loyalty is to the people of Japan and the duely elected government thereof, not to a military junta steering the country straight into evil and destruction. It would have been a much more interesting plot for them to try and use their superior technology, historical knowlege, and tactical doctrine to put a stop to the war without the home isles being subjected to either fire- or atom bombings.

Yeah! Well said.

I'd be really rooting for the Mirai if the storyline were like that. But would the Japanese audience consider such a storyline too far-fetched to be believable, considering the woeful education of WWII history in their schools?

Or am I being non-constructively cynical?

-k

curious

[Lord Raiden]

Well, this story becomes entirely believable given the relatively small size of their ship in a gigantic war. We're talking about 1 missile cruiser on a HUGE ocean in the middle of a HUGE war that has so many big and little stories that it's beyond possible to know everything. So something like this could have happened and it could have escaped the watchful eye of history by simply blending into the fog of war and becoming invisible in this whole ugly mess. Besides, isn't the range of some of the missles on that ship something like 200 miles? I'm sure that ship also has cruise missiles which, if they're tomahawks, and depending on what type of tomahawks they are those things should range out about 800 to 1500 statute miles (700-1350 nautical miles) and should be easily targetable using an awacs system or longbow style radar system and their chopper they have onboard. Even if they can only range out a couple hundred miles with radar, the Tomahawk's are smart enough that if you tell them, "go in this direction and if you see anything matching this criteria, hit it" they'll go find the target for you and sink it. They're some very amazing weapons.

Aside from that though the Aegis missile system alone should allow them to sit off several hundred miles and punk ships all day long with long range missles and torpedos. So, yes, to answer your question, this could easily be believable with much of a problem. Now if a US or Japanese carrier group dropped in out of nowhere and started going to school on the opposing side, yeah, you could officially throw all believability out the window. But I think right now they're safely within that window.

[otaku]

I like the concept of alternate history. What would have happened to world history, if the Japanese Navy had defeated the U.S. Navy in Midway? Seems like there is a debate among historians. Quote from wikipedia:

"In addition, considerable academic debate has centered on whether Japan could or would have threatened attack against the US West Coast. Had the Japanese achieved their objective at Midway of a quick knock-out of the US Pacific Fleet, the US West Coast would have been substantially defenseless against the Japanese Navy. The remaining US naval ships were fully deployed halfway around the world in the North Atlantic. One academic camp stresses that regional conquest, and not conquest of North America, was the Japanese objective; another argues that is irrelevant, and that threatened or actual attacks on the US West Coast would have caused the US to divert military assets away from Europe, thereby at best lengthening the war in the European theater, and at worst allowing Germany to prevail."
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Midway)

Anyway I only saw one episode and am looking forward to seeing more.

[Za Paper]

Originally Posted by Lord Raiden

Well, this story becomes entirely believable given the relatively small size of their ship in a gigantic war. We're talking about 1 missile cruiser on a HUGE ocean in the middle of a HUGE war that has so many big and little stories that it's beyond possible to know everything. So something like this could have happened and it could have escaped the watchful eye of history by simply blending into the fog of war and becoming invisible in this whole ugly mess. Besides, isn't the range of some of the missles on that ship something like 200 miles? I'm sure that ship also has cruise missiles which, if they're tomahawks, and depending on what type of tomahawks they are those things should range out about 800 to 1500 statute miles (700-1350 nautical miles) and should be easily targetable using an awacs system or longbow style radar system and their chopper they have onboard. Even if they can only range out a couple hundred miles with radar, the Tomahawk's are smart enough that if you tell them, "go in this direction and if you see anything matching this criteria, hit it" they'll go find the target for you and sink it. They're some very amazing weapons.

Can Tomahawks use "fly by wire" targetting? I thought their flight paths had to be preprogrammed with satellite data.

[Lord Raiden]

The newer Tomahawk missiles can be either programmed with satelite tachtical data or long range radar. They can also employ the "smart" targeting system (forgot the name) which allows them to see and identify targets using radar and distinguish between them and pick out a target based on its shape and charecteristics. While not directly deployed yet, I've seen this system used and on one test firing they told it where to look and what to look for, but gave it no exact coordinates. It went out, found its target and issolated it out of a group of like 9 other vehicles. The seek and destroy targeting system the newer tomahawk uses is actually a spin off from I believe either the advanced copperhead or hellfire missile targeting systems that can be fired sight unseen in the general direction of a target, find the target, issolate it, then kill it. It's all done with radar and its really quite a neat thing to watch.

[durrem]

Has ep. 10 aired? I'm not seeing it anywhere.

[kinniku_man]

ep11 has already aired

[Lord Raiden]

lol. I'd like EP 2 in the subbed version myself. Any word on when those will show up?

[durrem]

Originally Posted by kinniku_man

ep11 has already aired

Hmm, that's strange. When I search in emule(ar3 and kad), I get like 30-50 sources for the first 9, but 10 or 11 don't show up.

Originally Posted by Lord Raiden

lol. I'd like EP 2 in the subbed version myself. Any word on when those will show up?

Heh, you and me both. I just got so used to d/ling the raw I can't stop, even though I don't understand 95% of what they say. This is a first for me.

[kinniku_man]

Surely ep10.11 were not found on eMule.
I suggest you use Winny.

[Lord Raiden]

I don't mind watching it in raw, but I'd much rather watch it subbed personally since there's a lot of technical stuff happening.

[SKEEZI]

ep 10 & 11 raws have been on emule for a few days.

[Saturnalia]

Originally Posted by Lord Raiden

What makes the Yamato even more special is that she had nine 460mm (18.1-inch) main battery guns, which fired 1460kg (3200 pound) armor piercing shells at ranges of over 25 miles. Kinda gave a whole new meaning to "Reach out and touch someone. In an open sea battle the Yamato and the Musashi would have been able to engage the US fleet long before the US could return fire because the 16" guns of the Iowa and Montana classes only could reach out about 20 miles.

The Iowa class did possess superior fire control, allowing them to hit their targets with better accuracy.

[Lord Raiden]

Well, true. But at the same time the bragging rights for having the bigger guns is still cooler. hehe.

Spoiler:

I finally got to watch episode 2 and it's an eye opener. Looks like they're going to try to follow Monrow's law of temporal non-interference that states (and I'm recalling this from memory, so if I get it wrong, I apologize in advance) "When entering a string of time prior to one's own, all effort should be made to stay out of history and not interfere in ANY events of the past lest you destroy the future or change it so irrevocably as to not be recognizable in any way to how it had been. You also risk causing a temporal paradox which will cause all or part of time itself to completely destroy itself and start again, only this time without you."

In short, if you find yourself in the past somehow and right in the middle of history, put your hands in your pockets and don't interfere, or better yet, hide and do everything within your power NOT to change ANYTHING. This is assuming of course that time exists in linear form and that ANY event of the past, no matter how small, WILL affect the future, be it positively or negatively, and it WILL change things. If you instead believe in the parallel time theory (time existing in multiple simoultanious strings, each string formed from a single decision a person makes, so if one person has 5 choices, 5 strings are formed by just that one person alone) then any changes you make into the past will only change what future you encounter. Since all potential futures already exist, by going back in time and changing one small thing you've moved yourself up an entirely different time stream and thus no temporal paradox is possible and you can shape the future any way that you see fit. The only thing is, going forward in time again presents a bit of an issue as there are billions of potential futures you can go forward to.

But aside from all the geeky cool stuff I just mentioned, episode 2 is great also for the moral choices they're making. Like I said, they're choosing to stay out of history, which is smart. The captain though seems like he's used to taking orders from the top and not having to take full command all his own yet, so he thinks a lot before making any choices, which in itself is good, but I fear that in the future when things get tense this might come back to haunt him. But that may not be the case as he already proved that he's good at spot command decisions and planning things out quickly given how he quickly evaded that blockade.

[durrem]

Thanks SKEEZI, I've been on vacation... Delayed reaction I've got the files.

Originally Posted by kinniku_man

Surely ep10.11 were not found on eMule.
I suggest you use Winny.

Hmm, you'd be surprised. At least for a person who only speaks English, it's a great alternative to "I'll never allow an English version" Winny if you don't mind the slow downloads.

Spoiler:

I figured out the trick to Kad downloading. Start uploading, say, episode 11, which will connect you to people downloading said episode. Usually, there are a few already downloading 12 as well, which hooks you up in a Kad search.

Just saw Ep. 2. The editing was better (not perfect, but better), with only a few iffy lines. Thanks for subbing Ep. 2, Deph.

Spoiler:

I thought it was interesting the way they described the American tactics in the battle of Midway. The US torpedo planes attacked the Japanese fleet, and while the Zero fighters kicked their ass, the US dive bombers attacked and destroyed the first three Japanese carriers. The way that the show stated that this was deliberate was a little surprising, as I thought it was just luck on the US side that the timing worked out that way. Heh, maybe a little to much Hollywood in my history

I liked that line about the Mirai was equal to the US fleet.

Edit: Lol at my and LR's kinda simultaneous post after 14 hours on inaction in this thread. (It took my like 10 min to get that picture right

[FlyByNite]

Originally Posted by Lord Raiden

Well, true. But at the same time the bragging rights for having the bigger guns is still cooler. hehe.

Spoiler:

I finally got to watch episode 2 and it's an eye opener. Looks like they're going to try to follow Monrow's law of temporal non-interference that states (and I'm recalling this from memory, so if I get it wrong, I apologize in advance) "When entering a string of time prior to one's own, all effort should be made to stay out of history and not interfere in ANY events of the past lest you destroy the future or change it so irrevocably as to not be recognizable in any way to how it had been. You also risk causing a temporal paradox which will cause all or part of time itself to completely destroy itself and start again, only this time without you."

In short, if you find yourself in the past somehow and right in the middle of history, put your hands in your pockets and don't interfere, or better yet, hide and do everything within your power NOT to change ANYTHING. This is assuming of course that time exists in linear form and that ANY event of the past, no matter how small, WILL affect the future, be it positively or negatively, and it WILL change things. If you instead believe in the parallel time theory (time existing in multiple simoultanious strings, each string formed from a single decision a person makes, so if one person has 5 choices, 5 strings are formed by just that one person alone) then any changes you make into the past will only change what future you encounter. Since all potential futures already exist, by going back in time and changing one small thing you've moved yourself up an entirely different time stream and thus no temporal paradox is possible and you can shape the future any way that you see fit. The only thing is, going forward in time again presents a bit of an issue as there are billions of potential futures you can go forward to.

But aside from all the geeky cool stuff I just mentioned, episode 2 is great also for the moral choices they're making. Like I said, they're choosing to stay out of history, which is smart. The captain though seems like he's used to taking orders from the top and not having to take full command all his own yet, so he thinks a lot before making any choices, which in itself is good, but I fear that in the future when things get tense this might come back to haunt him. But that may not be the case as he already proved that he's good at spot command decisions and planning things out quickly given how he quickly evaded that blockade.

ep 2

Spoiler:

In all honesty though if you did travel back in time just your presence would affect events. Your breathing, etc... An insect decides to fly over towards you instead of what it had done when you weren't there in the time-line and the next thing you everything is fuxxored...


So really there's no way not to do anything. Even if you killed yourself your body's presence could affect the timeline I suppose.

Although I think the gunnery officer is the one talking rationally. It seems like from the opening the pilot they save has some kind of relationship to the XO is it? I don't know that the ages would match up for him being his father, but grandfather perhaps? I'm going to guess he would have died at sea if they didn't save him so I'm not sure that affects the timeline if he had been meant to die (If they bring him with them anyway), but if he had lived then they've already polluted it.