American's military supremacy ignored in War animes

[Radd]

Originally Posted by asaqe

Well Japan isnt allowed to take up arms against alien and even if they do their defences will be puny if they make mention that weapons given are US technology that will make more sense

Japan does have it's own defense force, and it probably could work out agreements with the rest of the world allowing it to have a full standing military. One of the main reasons Japan doesn't have it's own complete military is that it does not want one. Why bother? Let the Americans foot the bill for keeping Japan safe? Pretty damned smart if you ask me. As a result, Japan can put a lot of money to other things. Look at the United States' national spending, look how much goes to the military. Japan has it good the way things are.

However, we're talking reality. Reality in the present. There's a lot of anime that does not take place in the present or in anything even remotely resembling our reality.

In Gundam it's not even the Japanese army fighting the war, it's the Earth Federation, in Macross it's the United Nations, in which the United States is a major player in the unified world government. In Evangelion, it's either Nerv or the United Nations. A lot of anime has the theme of some sort of world crisis that brings the nations of the world under a single banner, saying that the United States should be independant and kicking ass all over the place makes no sense.

There are still some shows in which the United States is shown as you'd like it to be seen. Check out Tetsujin 28, recently licensed by Geneon so look for the DVDs. The opening episode shows us Japan, immeadiately following World War II, beaten by America.

Also it's folly to think that the best technology in the world is always to be created in America. Do you think we beat Germany with superior technology in World War II? Many would have us believe it was simple numbers, and a fresh fighting force. Germans had the technological advantage then.

America's educated population is quickly decreasing, and we tend to import more and more technology, exporting less due to this. Many believe that in the next century or so America will become a country devoted to service industry jobs and little else (your grandkids might be getting college diplomas specializing in Pizza Delivery. No joke, that kind of America is coming into being as we speak, and lots of current college graduates are finding no jobs except for service jobs.)

America is relatively new to being on top of the world, so to speak, and there's no gaurantees it will stay there, especially with our society's current outlook on life. So there's nothing completely unrealistic about an anime set in a time period where America is not the dominating military power in the world.

[DarkCntry]

It is obvious that most animes gear towards a unified world more-so than that of the way things are today. For the most part everyone is either in one very large UN-esque group or they are so closely working together that no one notices any seperation between nations...

Take FMP, for example...Mithril is the main attraction to the series, toss in the reminents of KGB officials with a smidge of US involvement and you've got a fairly good idea of how things are. In FMP, they display the US as a specialized military, the AS's used by the US are used by Special Forces groups...the naval vessels are normally considered high-tech specialized weapons systems, hell, they even said in Ep23 of FMP that the US had developed new torpedos to catch anything on the water, as well as their safety features of friend-and-foe recognition.

Moving on, Blue Seed shows the US as a 'final action' service, as during the last few episodes the US was meant to be the ones to launch a nuclear missle at Japan to prevent the 'end of Japan'. There's also several times that the US military is deplicted in the first half of Blue Seed Beyond, and they aren't exactly slouches, just inexperienced when dealing with the monsters :P

The fact of the matter is, when another country is deplicted in an anime they attempt to downplay it as much as they can, and if all possible they try to abolish the whole idea of seperated nations. This is to keep even Western audiences interested in the series as a whole without going into the "why did they say we were weak" kinda thought-processes.

As for the rest of the politcal nature of this thread, I'm refraining from commenting on it. And Avatar's comment about Sam Houstan's statue...if that does come alive, I'm finding the nearest fallout shelter :P

[_DT_]

The simple answer is than anime is FICTION and it has to SELL. No mater what reality is like each country is somewhat ethnocentric when it come to movie and such.

Nobody care a rat ass about what the American does because they are Japanese and would rather see a Japanese protagonist. If in your own movie you have to watch the foreigner American dominate and save the world. Come on Let the Japanese at least have Japanese hero in Japanese production. There enough American centrist in American movie. They don't want to see it in their own movie.

Also anime does not represent reality. In science fiction they create a new and completely IMAGINARY future. The anime that represent reality deal with local Japanese life(school or whatnot) or pseudo-history where the American has nothing to do.

So if it represent reality American has nothing to do with it and if it doesn't WHY would a Japanese would want to include America in his IMAGINARY world Here a quote from kj1980 "As for most Japanese like me, we really could care less about American nor any military power"

[zalas]

Originally Posted by AvatarADV

Well, not in theory; the problem comes into the current ethos of military combat, which places the lives of the civilian populace as a much higher priority than in past wars. The Islamist tactic of hiding behind women and children, or in holy places, would utterly fail against the US army of WW2; they would simply have returned fire and killed the women and children along with the enemy, or bombed/shelled the holy site into rubble. (The former was not practiced by any enemy of the US during WW2; a lot of churches got hit with artillery, especially as their steeples made them choice sites for posting artillery observers.)

That is true. However, if an army just went around and destroyed any houses they deemed suspicious, they'd never get the goodwill of the people and would have a reaaaaally hard time holding territory. Of course, they *could* just kill everyone, but that would be silly, unless you had no interest in the people on the land and only had interests in the natural resources hehe.

[Entropy]

Originally Posted by Ciroth

then someones gonna develop a rocket that can be launched from anywhere in the world and hit anywhere in the world or in the atmosphere... then comes the development of Mechs..

A.We already have those already,they're called ICBMs

The Atmosphere part will have to be covered by SDI.

B.And than the mecha loses after being tossed in a third world country bristling with RPGs and SA-7s ,or gets shot up by well equipped fighter forces

[Quarkboy]

Back to the original point of this thread, I'd like to say that one of the most bitterly realistic potrayals of the military relationship between the US and Japan was in Narutaru (the manga moreso than the Anime).

At one point in the manga, a nuclear explosion happens in a popularted area, and it's the US military that seals off the area and takes control militarily. Coming from a Japanese perspective, it's quite refreshing to see Japan admit that it still is under the thumb of the american military bases. There's a lot more on the relationship between the two militaries too in there, it's a very interesting perspective.

[maxthelostboy]

Guys and Gals! it is just cartoon s get over it! Who wants to hear about real life problems and how each country is in a cartoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think cartoons are just for entertainment and don't need to be disected a every angle. Sure some are reall really good but I don't se any reason to ask why this isnt shown nor that.Just cause we all hate he leaders or what the leaders of a country in the past did doesnt mean every1 in the country thinks the same as the leader

[chucky]

Originally Posted by Ciroth

If America invaded China, for who knows what reason... they will never suceeced. America will like eithe send small amount of troops and slowly take over, or acctually do something serious and strike hard with a large amount of troops. But then, who really wants to fight against the largest army in the world... The Chinese. Sure America has the best technology, but i dont think the American army training can really compare to the hell training the chinese army goes through... My uncle, when he was a lot younger, had to take part of the chinese military training. ^^;;

Nah, the US wont lay a finger on China -- cuz China DOES have WMD + billions of foreign (mainly US) investment (yeah right, China is US' enemy, as if)
Moral of the War on Iraq : if you dont want US kicks your ass, stockpile WMD. Look at North Korea and they are now off the hook......

[babbito2k]

Originally Posted by maxthelostboy

Guys and Gals! it is just cartoon s get over it! Who wants to hear about real life problems and how each country is in a cartoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think cartoons are just for entertainment and don't need to be disected a every angle. Sure some are reall really good but I don't se any reason to ask why this isnt shown nor that.Just cause we all hate he leaders or what the leaders of a country in the past did doesnt mean every1 in the country thinks the same as the leader

Does history or current events give you a headache or something? As long as people are not flaming each other, I don't see the problem.

[maxthelostboy]

Originally Posted by babbito2k

Does history or current events give you a headache or something? As long as people are not flaming each other, I don't see the problem.

actually it does

[Kyuven]

Originally Posted by maxthelostboy

actually it does

History is incredibly important, if your hometown got obliterated by a country you've never even heard of one day, wouldn't you like to know why?
if you look at history...Americans really do appear to be political morons...

[Jump]

And everyone else are political geniuses.

[Entropy]

Originally Posted by ciroth

If America invaded China, for who knows what reason... they will never suceeced. America will like eithe send small amount of troops and slowly take over, or acctually do something serious and strike hard with a large amount of troops. But then, who really wants to fight against the largest army in the world... The Chinese. Sure America has the best technology, but i dont think the American army training can really compare to the hell training the chinese army goes through... My uncle, when he was a lot younger, had to take part of the chinese military training. ^^;;

No,the US wouldn't beat China because China has tougher training than the US .Instead the US wouldn't beat China because frankly China's army is too fucking big to be defeated,even by the US.A lot can be said about the US's technological superiority,but a hell of a lot more can be said of overwhelming numbers.

Besides,China is quickly retooling it's military from it's obselecent mid-soviet era stuff.As we speak China is replacing it's old Type 59s(T-55 copies) with newer Type 96s,as well as equipping it's more elite units with it's type 98s.These tanks are theorized to be able to be comparable to most Western tank designs such as the Leopard series and the M1 series,and that's just armored forces alone.China,to my knowledge has recently also acquired shkval(Squall) supercavitating torpedos,capable of going 230mph,extremely fast for a torpdeo.

In short,right now the US wouldn't be able to defeat China through sheer attrition,and in the future China will gradually become a smaller,professional army that might be able to go toe-to-toe with the US.

On the other hand,if China tried to invade the US...

Oh,and the first question that would pop up is WHY China would want to go to war with the US...

[Kyuven]

Originally Posted by Jump

And everyone else are political geniuses.

not at all
Neville Chamberlain made one of the poorest political moves in 20th century history...and he was british

[hitmont]

I hate topics like these because it gets people to express anti U.S. sentiment. Alot of player hating people in Europe like to use anime forums to further anti american propogahnda.

In the future, Japan will have the strongest military and will rule the world. Maybe the U.S. will be spared because the U.S. has been japans ally for the last 30 years.

[hunterx]

Dunno maybe you don't watch good anime. If you stick to maburaho and stuff like that you won't see anything about americas army. Let me give you examples, Patlabor mentions the american army's influence in japanese politics and so on. ROD OVAs do show americas military might, although a bit tongue in cheek with the idiot US president and so on. In the AKIRA manga, there is a clear reference to americas military might (aircraft carriers and all).

As for America invading china of course it is possible, could even be easy. If japan did it why not the US? Armys like the structured ones in china are pretty easy to beat. Strike a few command posts here and there and they'll surrender. But why are we even discussing this.. could it happen, will it happen? never. because china has nukes and the US won't fight a nuclear capable country unless things got really really really bad. But then it would just be a war of nukes with missile defense and all. If the US ever had the slightest hint the NK had nukes kim yong il or whatever his name is would already be dead. When clinton found out that NK was processing nuclear rods, the US had contingency plans to level them with b1-bs and other stealth bombers. A bit of diplomacy averted this and NK stopped doing that shit.

[eXistenZ]

american military supremacy is huge.

as for anime, its made for japanese and so focuses on japans abilty to build better weapons then Americans. its true.

out of the few countrys in thw world with the ability to compete with the US on miltary technological supremacy is Canada, Japan, Great Britan.

Canada can become a nuclear power in the world. i also believe that we are technoloically superior. We were the first country to have a supersonic fighter jet. we helped design the US space program. Canada is a leader in telecommunications.

If we Canadians chose to we could become a superpower. its not in our interests to do so right now. and Americas biggest trading partner is Canada and vice versa.

if either of our countrys fails economically we both lose out.

plus there is Our(Canada's) secret plan to take over the entire world, heck all the Canadians in Florida voted Bush in, we control your goverment.

the world is ours...muhahaha. coz ya know we are everywhere.

f34r Canada

[hitmont]

Canadas the strongest?hahaha. Now I bet everyone from all the other countries in the world are going to say their country is the strongest.

Fear Japan, the imperialism of Japan will never die.

[babbito2k]

Originally Posted by eXistenZ

...f34r Canada

Which leads us back to Captain Canuck!

[zalas]

Originally Posted by hunterx

As for America invading china of course it is possible, could even be easy. If japan did it why not the US? Armys like the structured ones in china are pretty easy to beat. Strike a few command posts here and there and they'll surrender.

Not quite, Japan invaded China when it was in the middle of a civil war and when Western powers had pretty much bled the country dry in the previous 100 years.