Gundam, Macross, Evangelion, Ideon, Yamato…from the wars depicted in SF anime to the real wars of international politics, and the future to come!
OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION:
In modern Japan, where most generations have never experienced war, it is something people learn about through school education and various media. It is perceived as something that is not close to them and has little to do with reality. However, with wars such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the military conflict between Israel and Hamas, as well as missile launches by North Korea and the current crisis in Taiwan, the public’s awareness is probably changing significantly.
In a public opinion survey released by the Cabinet Office in 2022, 86.2% of people said that “Japan is at risk of being drawn into a war.”
For those who have never experienced war, it is likely that they have perceived the reality of war in the past and in other countries by superimposing the world view of science fiction anime works such as Space Battleship Yamato, Mobile Suit Gundam and Neon Genesis Evangelion. In this book, we will take past and ongoing wars into account and explain the perspective on war and the state of war in many science-fiction anime works based on what kind of future we can expect.
We will also look at the settings and worldviews of the works, the characteristics of the weapons that appear, as well as the world situation at the time the works were broadcast, while also touching on the message and depth of the works themselves. We hope that this book will serve as an opportunity to think about “war” once again.
Chapter 1: The mainstreaming of SF anime and war
Chapter 2: War in SF anime from the perspective of international politics
Chapter 3: War depicted in SF anime
Chapter 4: War and weapons in SF anime
Chapter 5: Artificial intelligence in SF anime
Chapter 6: Individual topics on popular SF anime works
Special conversation: Yoshiyuki Tomino x Sugio Takahashi (author)
Author Sugio Takahashi is head of the Defense Policy Research Laboratory at the National Institute for Defense Studies, a think tank for the Ministry of Defense. He graduated from the Master’s course at the Graduate School of Political Science, Waseda University. He pecializes in international security, modern military strategy, nuclear deterrence, and Japan-US relations, and is Japan’s leading authority on research and dissemination of information on Japan’s defense policy. He is also well versed in anime works, mainly SF genres.
240 pages, Tatsumi Publishing, September 10, 2024
Order the book from Amazon.co.jp here
Why I chose these scenes in SF anime and war: The Battle of the Rainbow Star Cluster and the Battle of Saturn
by Sugio Takahashi
Blog entry posted on NOTE, September 28. See the original post here.
In September, I published a book called SF anime and war. It is a book about anime, and in addition to text, it also contains illustrations of scenes from several works. I was very particular about these scenes, so I will explain them in several parts. First, page 20 of Chapter 1, the Space Battleship Yamato series.
In Chapter 1, I consider the reasons for the increased popularity of Japanese sci-fi anime, and point out that one of the reasons is that the “realism” of battle depictions has increased since Yamato. Specifically, I give as examples the Battle of the Rainbow Cluster, which is the decisive battle in Space Battleship Yamato Series 1, and the Battle of Saturn, which is the decisive battle between the Earth Defense Fleet and the Baruze Fleet in Yamato 2.
I was able to devote one page to scenes for this section. I could only post eight images, so I decided to choose four from the Battle of the Rainbow Cluster and four from the Battle of Saturn.
First, the Battle of the Rainbow Cluster. There are several highlights from this battle, including the scene where the instantaneous matter transporter warps the aircraft, and the scene where the drill missile penetrates the muzzle of Yamato‘s Wave-Motion Gun.
However, since the main text emphasized the “reality” of Yamato, which features a large number of mass-produced weapons, I decided to focus on weapons. I chose the scenes in which all four Gamilas aircraft carriers are holding back while the first wave of Gamilas fighters engages Yamato‘s Black Tigers.
A dive bomber takes off and ascends, and a torpedo bomber sent in by a material transporter warps out. In the dive bomber scene, the dive bomber accelerates with a catapult, takes off, and ascends immediately, but the aircraft carrier is slightly blurred in the background. Similar scenes can actually be found in Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick. This is an essential element in portraying the power of the takeoff of aircraft from the carrier. (Needless to say, Yamato was released much earlier than Top Gun.)
In the remake Yamato 2199, a dive bomber with Berger aboard takes off in the Battle of the Rainbow Star Cluster, but you can see that a lot of effort was put into the depiction, including the aircraft carrier in the background. So I chose this scene because it’s one of my favorites.
I had a hard time deciding on the torpedo bomber scene. There was one other scene I wanted to include, where the torpedo bombers surround Yamato and fire torpedoes at it from all sides. I really like the power of the scene where many torpedoes approach Yamato, each leaving its own wake, so I was undecided until the very end.
However, in this scene Yamato is in the center of the screen, so the torpedo bombers are very small. In particular, it would be difficult to see the large torpedoes, which are as big as the entire nose of the aircraft (a characteristic of Gamilas torpedo bombers), so I chose the warp-out scene instead.
However, in Yamato 2199, there is no scene where torpedoes attack Yamato from all sides. Yamato 2199 is a very well-made remake overall, but I personally found this deletion a bit disappointing.
The bottom half of the page is related to the Battle of Saturn in Yamato 2.
The Battle of Saturn is one of my favorite battles out of all the sci-fi anime I’ve seen so far. Not only is the depiction of the battle itself great, but the strategic maneuvering of the preliminary battle, in which Yamato‘s aircraft carrier force launches a surprise attack on Gatlantis’s aircraft carrier force, forcing Gatlantis into a fleet battle, is so precise that I still rewatch it over and over again.
However, because I like it so much, I had a hard time choosing which scene from the Battle of Saturn to include. I was particularly worried about whether to choose a scene showing the development of the battle or the weapons. If I had to choose scenes that showed the development of the battle, I would pick the Hyperion fleet’s battleships being pulverized by a single hit from the impact cannon of the Gatlantis battleship, the Medaluza firing its flame cannon, the scene where an attempt to fire the flame cannon inside Saturn’s rings melts the ice (creating a current), and Andromeda firing a concentrated bombardment at Medaluza, sinking it.
However, since the text also mentions the types of ships in the Earth Defense Force, I ultimately decided to post Yamato, Andromeda, a cruiser, and battleships. Of these, Yamato, Andromeda, and the cruiser are not scenes from the animation. But for the battleships, I used the firing scene from the Earth fleet’s counterattack after Medaluza loses its balance due to the current, unable use its flame cannon.
I specified the shots to be used (the Rainbow Star Cluster scene was also specified down to the shot). I had a hard time deciding on them, but I was happy with what I chose.