Gate | Episode 1 & 2
GingaDaiuchuu: The Outbreak Company connection was an obvious one from the plot synopsis, but it’s about as far as you can get considering. I liked Outbreak Company as something of a guilty pleasure, but I’m certainly intrigued by the more serious, brutal take on the possibilities of such a phenomenon, especially with a 33-year-old who may be an otaku but is also someone who can dedicate himself to saving people when there are people to save.
I would’ve expected him to geek out over otaku elements coming to life, but so far he hasn’t, so I’m not sure what to expect.
bctaris: This seems like the biggest plus at the moment. “Real life”, whether getting a commendation, or going to this world, is a nuisance to him, but we didn’t spend more than a couple lame half-jokes in the opening minutes of him in some monologue over his anguish at missing the con, or tripping himself up noticing crazy fantasy stuff. Maybe he was a bit too cool in that respect, but the balance seems pretty well as can be expected at this point. I’d strike up his age to that, and a proper expression in the show of the maturity of someone that age, in the JSDF.
The character could have been a non-otaku, of course. But I’ll take the conceit because it obviously plays in more entertainingly with the more truly fantasy elements to come (a.k.a. the elf).
cxt217: Pretty good Episode 2. The depiction of a force using bamboo spear tactics (For those who understand the quote – it is intentional.) to attack a modern military unit in a defensive position, as well as the fact that the fantasy army is an intelligent one (Using night attacks to counter the observed advantages of the other guy. Using scorched earth tactics to slow the enemy advance.) is actually very good. The oddity that both me and GH noticed regarding the older nature of some of the SDF’s equipment is explained, and both reasons presented make good sense – though wait until some engineers begin building airfields and LORAN towers. A few things seem odd – why was there no mines around the hill? And how did the empire mobilize over 120,000 troops on short notice (Maintaining armies of 100K or more, let alone sending them into battle, was difficult before the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. That is why the few times that it happens, it is always mentioned. And outside of the Roman dominion and Imperial China, almost nobody could so before Industrial Revolution Europe.)? Losing that amount of manpower is really going to suck…
The meeting of the generals before the attack on the hill feels very similar to a scene from Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V, where the French king and his marshals are meeting on the eve of Agincourt, ready to do battle with the English – and then getting slaughtered the next day. The last stand of the wisest of the leaders of the army during the night attack was quite notable, too.
Hitsugi Amachi: This is a strength of the story so far: both sides are acting fairly rationally and reasonably in their own self interest, not engaged in behavior that’s just convenient for the author, though the usual trope of “evil scheming Americans” does make its ugly appearance.
[Regarding land mines] Japan has acceded to the Ottawa Treaty, which prohibits the use of anti-personnel mines, so this is rooted in reality (the US, of course, refused along with Russia and China and some of the usual suspects).
The Evil Empire here is modeled on the Romans (Emperor and Senate, though the titles of nobility are, as translated, medieval European). While it would have taken some time, the Romans in a pinch could mobilize around 80-100,000 troops in a fairly swift amount of time by the 2nd century BC and following, so this is not entirely impossible. We can assume that the mobilization of this second army was already in progress when their first expeditionary force went through the gate to “conquer” Tokyo, intended as a follow up/occupation/stabilization force—or to be kept on hand if their tributary states and allies planned to make any kind of movement while their first expeditionary force was through the gate. They may not have intended it to be their front-line defense force when the JSDF starting pouring through the gate, but it quickly had to switch to that role when the scattered survivors of their attack force came limping through the gate one month earlier and told what happened. A month to recruit and mobilize 120,000 men? Entirely possible with a fully mature and highly organized state like the Romans of the late Republic and early Empire.
But who cares about any of this? Elf girl acquired! Woo hoo! 
EmperorBrandon: Interesting to get the politics here. The Emperor exploits what should be a bad situation for his country rather ruthlessly, sending the armies of his tributary states against the invaders (without backup from the imperial army), knowing they will suffer huge losses. And we have crafty politics on the modern side as well, with the US laying low for now and having Japan suffer the initial consequences of the excursion. The anti-invasion sentiment is probably going to swell when we start seeing casualties. Interested to see how all this goes forward.
All of this, and I’m surprised they still hadn’t gotten to the otaku-pandering candy for much of the episode. Even feels like there was a bit of meta commentary on that with the two otaku bros disappointed they hadn’t come across cat girls or sorceresses yet. But I suppose that phase finally ends with them discovering an elf at the end of the episode. I’m curious to see what her role will be.
Sly05: An interesting strategy by the Emperor to get ride of potential threats among his subjects, but I think its likely a move he will come to regret. A weakness of historical empires is that their conquered subjects and tributary states are quick to switch sides when the empire encounters a new enemy (see the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs). While Emperor’s strategy likely resulted in the deaths of many of the subjected military leaders who could lead a rebellion against him, it also showed the apparent invincibility of the JSDF. The emperor’s subject kingdoms are going to start wondering if it might be better off throwing their lot in with the foreign army to try and improve their political position.
Another problem that comes up in historical examples of first contact between peoples is epidemics. If the fantasy world or Earth have diseases that are not found in the other, there are major potential for epidemics due to one or both of the populations not having built up resistance. For example, smallpox outbreaks devastated indigenous populations in the Americas after the disease was introduced here by Europeans. I’d honestly be surprised if Gate considers its subject matter in enough depth to cover that issue, but it was something that came to mind as the JSDF don’t seem to be taking precautions against it.
The international politics plotline on Earth could be interesting if the writer isn’t too nationalistic about it. I hope it will be more nuanced than JSDF being badass heroes while America is the big bad working against them behind the scenes. I liked the small glimpse of the anti-invasion protests. Not everyone is going to be cool with the military massacring tens of thousands of people, even if the fantasy world armies instigated the fight.
bctaris: … Youji, as our window on this story, was portrayed as unemotional about his military summarily killing 100,000 people in an aggregation of two or three days–something his country hadn’t had any experience with in 70 years. He, nor anyone we saw, wasn’t gloating either, of course. But there’s so far a detachment that I can’t tell is intentional or not. Youji’s pausing look at the girl leaving flowers for her dead mother before he entered the gate speaks one way, the post-battle scenes another. And this expeditionary force might be where this side of things is expended, so I’ll have to wait and see.
cxt217: Itami’s immediate reaction in the aftermath of the Second Battle of Ansur Hill seems more numb than anything else, which strikes me as a distinctly reasonable and probable response.
As I said earlier, so far the show has surprised me by what they choose to include and what they choose NOT to include. Time will obviously tell, but it has been entertaining so far.
_PS_: That’s certainly true, but he’s seemed to have a numb reaction to anything not otaku-related, which doesn’t really endear me to him. It was unsettling watching the fantasy army keep coming and keep getting mowed down, and they read as implausibly stupid. I was also surprised that the villagers were so welcoming of the strangers. Even if they demonstrated friendliness, they should still have seemed utterly terrifying.
I’m still keeping up with it, though I’m finding the posts in this thread about medieval armies a lot more entertaining and informative than the show. They seem to be sliding past a lot of what I would have found more interesting, like how they learned the language and what might happen if one of the JSDF characters ran afoul of one of the pitfalls of this very dangerous world. Yes, you may have tanks and guns and presumably all the vaccines they could have gotten, though I wonder if, given two months they’d have been able to acquire enough of such uncommon ones as anthrax or smallpox, which would certainly be endemic in this place, bubonic plague, too. (They may not even have these things in this world, but something totally different which means our heroes could be felled by something that is a normal childhood disease on this side of the gate.)
But I guess that’s not as interesting to most people as elf girls and anti-aircraft guns chewing up dragons. But Blondie is sure to be crawling with disease!
