Interview with the Translator: Twelve Kingdoms, Isolationism & The Mechanics of War

Kate: In Shore, Youko makes an impassioned speech against isolationism backed by the libertarian and maverick Enki. 

Japan has a longer history of isolationism than American and a better excuse (being a self-sustaining island—though Great Britain certainly went in the opposite direction!). 

What is the current attitude in Japan? Has the Internet/modern economics made self-isolation a completely bogus choice? Or is Youko’s self-interested, limited involvement the answer? Isolationism—to a point; involvement—to a point.

Eugene: "Isolationism—to a point; involvement--to a point" is a good description of the Japanese attitude toward foreign affairs. Article 9 actually puts Japan in the same situation as the Twelve Kingdoms, although the prohibition against military adventures abroad is constitutional, not divine. Former PM Abe made noises about amending Article 9 but that effort went nowhere and likely never will.

This is why futuristic military dramas involving Japan and Japanese forces so often take place under the auspices of the United Nations or some convenient equivalent. But that's also what makes a war series like Gate so unique, as it comes up with a creative and entertaining excuse for the JSDF to take the gloves off without risking any real-world fallout. 

 

It's interesting to analyze the Edo-period jidaigeki alongside the classic Hollywood western. Japan's attempt at a Manifest Destiny after 1868 turned out so disastrously that the isolationism of the Edo period is now seen in an idealized and romanticized light. George Washington's Farewell Address could also summarize the political attitudes of the average Japanese citizen and politicia

The notes discuss supplies.

Kate: Ono is one of the few fantasy writers I’ve encountered (C.J. Cherryh is the other) who connects finances/economy and transportation to larger issues. Money matters! (Tolkien was aware; perhaps because of WWI and WWII, he took readership understanding for granted.)

In comparison, a lot of fantasy literature seems to revolve around power-grabs and rallies of the populace that appear to happen in a kind of vacuum. But someone has to feed the populace and someone has to transport soldiers somehow to someplace. Logistics matter.

Does Ono reflect a trend in Japanese fantasy—or is she unique?

Eugene: Ono evinces a thorough knowledge of Chinese history and uses that information in the Twelve Kingdoms with great precision. For example, I've been impressed at how well medieval Chinese military units compare to the organization of modern armies. When you're moving that many people around, you've got to have a lot of organization and a lot of people good at organizing.

Compare the modern US military with the Zhou Period Military structure.

There's obviously some sort of convergent social evolution going on. One interesting quirk is that Chinese military commanders liked making unit sizes divisible by five.

Fantasy in general, and Japanese fantasy is no different, doesn't pay much attention to these details. Even NHK Taiga dramas that take place during the Warring States period mostly focus on the charismatic leaders and rarely on the quartermasters.

Hideyoshi

One exception is Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Following Akechi Mitsuhide's assassination of Oda Nobunaga, Hideyoshi's remarkable ability to move his army from western Japan back to Kyoto caught Mitsuhide completely off guard and marked a turning point in Japanese history. It made clear why Hideyoshi, despite his commoner roots, had been Nobunaga's favorite general, not the high-born Mitsuhide.

Gate is a recent exception, because the idea of transporting the real JSDF to a Tolkienesque universe forces you to pay attention to the logistical issues and boring stuff like budgets. What makes Patlabor such a good mecha series is the huge crew it takes simply to keep two robots operational. On the other hand, Girls und Panzer, another one of my favorite franchises, never explains how any of this is in any way affordable.

Granted, Girls und Panzer is not meant to be taken seriously. Who is paying to build all the spaceships and mecha in Gundam is a mystery (the same goes for Star Trek and Star Wars). It's like the economy of the entire universe revolves around building (and destroying) spaceships and mecha. I'm reminded of this trenchant observation by the physicist Freeman Dyson.

Those of us who were seriously engaged in the war were very grateful to Wernher von Braun. We knew that each V-2 cost as much to produce as a high-performance fighter airplane. We knew that German forces on the fighting fronts were in desperate need of airplanes, and that the V-2 rockets were doing us no military damage. From our point of view, the V-2 program was almost as good as if Hitler had adopted a policy of unilateral disarmament.

The same thing can be said of the Yamato-class battleships, which inflicted even less damage on the Allies than the V-2.