1 Welcome to the club. Jitsu wa Watashi wa featured a similar adaptation, as did Non-non Biyori.

2

It isn't always like that. Fairy Tail didn't do that; the art in the manga and the anime are virtually identical.

Also, the first series (first 175 episodes) pretty much used the manga as a storyboard.

3

Fairy Tail didn't do that; the art in the manga and the anime are virtually identical.

Given my distaste for the art style of Hiro Mashima, that is not exactly a compliment.  Though at least Fairy Tale's artwork is better than Rave Master's.

4 It is also worth noting that Gate originated as a online story series that eventually was rewritten and published as a series of light novels.  The character artwork used for those are different from the manga.  You can see some of them here.

5

Money being what it is, I can understand simplifying the uniforms for the anime.  Bunny-warrior isn't all that different, but making Purrsia purple was uncalled for; it cute-tifies her for no reason.

Princess Pena and Bozes are now stewardesses on American Airlines circa 1974?  Please someone explain this to me.

It's a transitional episode, so - barring the outfits - I saw what I expected.  From the drive back to Aldus, more and more of Princess Pena dies inside; how much of that was day-to-day training and the rest for her 'benefit?'

Love this show.

6 I don't mind the art changes, or the younger version of Lelei.  It's a consistently intelligent show - not perfect, but intelligent - and I'm enjoying it greatly.

There are three shows I'm watching live this season, which hasn't happened for a long time.  (Gate, Himouto, and Ushio&Tora.)

7 I'm a sucker for any show where other-worlders or other-timers marvel at our current technology, and Gate doesn't disappoint. I thought the scene where Yanagida (Itami's superior) kept teasing Bozes for information why she'd slapped Itami was somewhat out of character for the Japanese military. Maybe that's supposed to show that the SDF doesn't really perceive Pina and her knights as any sort of military threat.

It seemed like more of an "American" attitude, if that makes any sense.

8 Or maybe it is just Yanagida.  The man has all the makings of a slippery operator.  Also notice how the lieutenant general commanding the garrison, told him to stop it.

9

@wahsatchmo

It seemed like more of an "American" attitude, if that makes any sense.

No, that was pretty far out there for the US military as well.  If there was ever a time for an O-2 to be seen and not heard, a meeting between an O-9 and a diplomat from another nation-state was it.

That general probably wouldn't have yelled at the lieutenant, he'd have blamed the colonel the lieutenant was subordinate to for taking his d**k out of the LT's mouth.  The meeting might actually use that phrasing.

You have to make some allowances in fiction, because a real command structure would have too many characters to be easy to produce or easy for the audience to follow.

10

Yanagida is the same rank as Itami (1st Lieutenant). But Yanagida is Intelligence; Itami is Infantry. That's why Yanagida was there for the interview with the Princess.

Yanagida has some issues. In the manga just before Itami's group went back through the Gate to Japan, Yanagida cussed out Itami pretty seriously with the two of them alone. (Later he apologized.) They left all that out in the anime.

Hazama is a Lieutenant General (O-8). In Japanese his rank is 陸将 rikushou which makes him a General of a Division. (They apparently do not have a rank equivalent to "Brigadier", so he's a second-level general.) According to Wikipedia, umm...

11

As to Yanagida: What is mainly motivating him is resentment and jealousy. He resents the fact that Itami isn't spit-and-polish, and yet he's been doing a lot of awesome things while being accompanied by beautiful women.

Even though he's only a 1st Lieutenant, Itami has indirectly been steering JSDF policy, so far and that continues on. Itami being on location where exciting things are happening has been making decisions which eventually commit the entire JSDF. So far that includes accepting the refugees, and engaging in battle at Italica (and calling in an Air-Cav strike). Yanagida, being intelligence, is stuck in the base and doing boring analysis. Intelligence should be driving the campaign, but Yanagida sees Itami usurping that. When Yanagida blows up, that's essentially what he says to Itami.

Itami is a loose cannon. General Hazama knows that, but the things Itami has been doing have all turned out the way Hazama wants them to, and they give Hazama an excuse "Well, we're already committed..." It's not that Itami is deliberately trying to usurp command of the mission, it's just the way things have turned out. But he keeps doing that, and that's another part of Yanagida's issue.

For anyone who's read ahead in the manga, let's not talk about Yanagida's future, alright?

12

The table from Wikipedia uses the NATO rank codes (OF-x), which aren't quite equivalent to the US pay grades (O-x).  Both 1st and 2nd Lieutenants in the US (O-2 and O-1, respectively) are OF-1 in the NATO system, and a US Lieutenant General is an O-9 in the US system or OF-8 in NATO terms.

The NATO system includes combines both kinds of lieutenant into one grade, and has General of the Army or Field Marshal as OF-10.  In the US pay grades, we have lieutenants as their own pay grades (O-1 and O-2), though they don't traditionally exchange salutes and are equivalent socially, and General of the Army is rolled up under O-10 as a special rank.

For US Army officer ranks:

O-1=OF-1=2nd Lieutenant (2LT)

O-2=OF-1=1st Lieutenant (1LT)

O-3=OF-2=Captain (CPT)

O-4=OF-3=Major (MAJ)

O-5=OF-4=Lieutenant Colonel (LTC)

O-6=OF-5=Colonel (COL)

O-7=OF-6=Brigadier General (BG)

O-8=OF-7=Major General (MG)

O-9=OF-8=Lieutenant General (LTG)

O-10=OF-9=General (GEN)

O-10=OF-10=General of the Army (GA) (not currently used)

Pedantry about classification systems aside,

Yanagida would be self-sabotaging by running his mouth in a meeting the way he did.  From General Hazama's perspective, you could just barely see a lieutenant's career with the naked eye.  In a meeting of that caliber as an OF-1 (or O-2), you either say something brilliant or keep your mouth shut.  Yanagida's comments definitely weren't brilliant.  In real life, they'd have intel officers of much higher rank present, and have a 1LT in a seat along the wall.  However, that would expand the number of characters and not give Itami's nemesis a speaking part.  Reality occasionally needs to bow out for the needs of narrative, and this is one of those times.

13 Thanks for the clarifications on Yanagida's rank. His attitude gave me the impression that he was Itami's superior, so I can see the jealousy factor at play now that I understand they're the same rank.

14 Just to muddy the waters a little bit more, the JSDF does not have a Brigadier (British)/Brigadier General (US) rank.

15 Speaking of that, do you know how that particular rank got skipped?  Did they get rid of the "brigade" level in a reorganization and drop the rank?  (The US dropped the "regiment", led by a colonel, but in the new structure a colonel became a brigade commander and left the brigadier general as a staff position.)  Or is it a concern about not having enough OF-8s in their ranks to be taken seriously internationally when intermingled with other nations' forces?

16 They probably never had a brigadier/brigadier general rank to begin with.  The Imperial Army did not, and while the JGSDF does not claim any lineage to the IJA, they would be following standard European practice not having a brigadier/brigadier general.

17

The JASDF doesn't actually use the rank structure that armies from Europe use. The English names we refer to are by analogy.

Officer ranks are three tiers of three titles each. So there are a total of nine, and by convention the top tier is translated to "general". Hazama's rank is the middle one of three in the top tier.

The rank insignia for the bottom tier is one bar with one, two, or three stars. The second tier is two bars with one, two, or three stars.

And the top tier is two, three, or four stars with no bar and don't ask me why. Hazama has three stars.

18

I realize that the ranks are translations of concept, rather than the literal words, but as you noted they broke pattern and skipped the obvious "1-star" rank option, both in insignia and in OF-grade.  That seems to indicate a deliberate effort to maintain some sort of equivalence with other nations.

If they retained names of ranks from previous rank structures, but reworked the insignia and grade that would seem that they wanted their system to top out at OF-9, and jiggered the insignia and rank equivalence to do that.

19

Aaagh, hit "Post" rather than "Preview".

I was wondering if somebody knew for a fact that this is what the JSDF was doing, rather than my just surmising their intent.

20 My interpretation of that scene was completely different. Yanagida wasn't being insubordinate; the exchange was scripted beforehand for the benefit of Pina.

She's someone who's high in the command of an unfriendly force. She's initiating diplomatic contact, directly after having made a colossal diplomatic blunder. The Japanese don't intend to declare war over it, but at the same time, it's a heaven-sent opportunity for them to open negotiations in a favorable position.

The Japanese are trying to understand the local power structure before they go making any decisions. But the locals are hotheads and already there's been significant casualties from their leaders deciding to attack first. If they want the Empire to agree to peace, the Empire is going to have to understand just what they're up against. But to do that, they need to deal with the Empires' representatives, and those representatives are completely unused to the idea of taking a passive role. A Pina who shows up and starts dictating terms, then stomping off when they're not immediately accepted, represents a failure in negotiation.

But an apologetic Pina is one that's not likely to push her luck, at least long enough that she can get the idea of what Japan actually represents; she's worried now, but not nearly worried enough, right? She represents an opportunity that the Japanese can't turn down, one that lets them get information about themselves back to the Empire's leadership.

That said, it would be pretty crass to actually say "so, you guys really blew it here, huh?" So they're doing something more subtle. "Hey, we understand you did this, but surely there was some kind of mitigating circumstance, right?" That kind of question isn't actually fishing for information, it's just pointing out that no, it was a total failure of Pina to enforce the agreement she'd just worked out. A way of grinding their nose in it, but in a deniable fashion; "why no, we weren't being rude, we were just assuming they were fellow reasonable people who don't go beating up our people for no good reason, right?"

Once that's done, Hazama puts a stop to it. Classic good-cop, bad-cop routine, an indication that the Japanese are perfectly aware that they've got every reason to give Pina the boot, but are prepared to let things go at that (with an implied "this time"). Pina gets it too - she's being let off the hook, but not because the Japanese didn't know she was on it in the first place.

That explains just about everything about the encounter - why the JSDF was showing off helis and tanks, why a junior intelligence officer was piping up in a fashion that might be unproductive, why Pina didn't actually resort to trying to make an excuse for what happened. She's not unsophisticated and it's likely that everyone in the room understood exactly what was going on.

21

That sounds reasonable to me. Ironically it's yet another case of continuing a line originally started by Itami. Remember he told Rory that part of his motivation was to convince the princess that it was better for her if she was friends with the JSDF than if she chooses to fight them. Hazama is continuing in that same direction.

Probably the decision to send Pina through the gate was another step on that same road. And it worked. When she came back (in the manga), she was utterly convinced that if the Empire tried to fight the JSDF the Empire would be completely obliterated, and thus it was her highest duty to try to prevent that.