1

Yeah, the depiction of Real World politics in general, and the US in particularly, is not something that is giving me comfortable feelings about.  The telegraphing of those plot points so early in the series is not encouraging.

So far, the series is two episodes in and it continues to surprise at what is, and is not, included.  The scene where the leaders of the subject armies are meeting reminds me of a similar scene from Kenneth Branagh's Henry V, where the French king is meeting with his marshals on the eve of getting slaughtered at Agincourt.  I do not think that any of the daylight attacks even got within direct fire range of the SDF's positions around the gate - proximity fused artillery rounds tend to do that.  The wisest leader concluding the night attack with a single arrow, before he was cut to pieces, was a notable touch.

And this episode even introduced two of the girls from the opening...Though I do where the bucket that Itami tossed ended up landing on.  Shall we also speculate on what the 'order' that Imperial Princess commands, consist of?

2 If you're following the manga (and I recommend it), there's one major "Gasaraki" coming up--it's meaningless to the plot, though, and hopefully will get cut.  It was the one moment that I completely lost suspension of disbelief.  Fortunately, the story immediately got back to the good parts.

cxt, your answer is Yes.

3 "Why do we have second-line equipment?"

Because you don't send your first-line stuff through into a magic world where people might have a "brainwash army" spell, obviously. (Short of that, if there's some kind of semi-advanced or advanced civilization on the other side, you don't want them capturing and studying your best weapons...)

The question nobody's asked is this. If they can open a portal, can they open portal_s_? Talk about your frontier...

4

If they can open a portal, can they open portal_s_?

It has already been addressed, at least implicitly.  The reason why they did not destroy the gate was because they were afraid it might open somewhere else.  Having the possibility of multiple gates existing at the same time is the next logical step.

Regarding the equipment, I made the observation at Fandom Post that, if the natives thought the SDF was amazing now, wait until the engineers started building airfields and LORAN towers.

5

Maybe not. They describe that hill as a holy place, so there may be some supernatural element in the process of creating the gate, in addition to relatively ordinary magic.

Even if they can, it must not be an easy thing, or the place would be dotted with gates. And even if they could, who says they'd open to our earth?

6 My point exactly. Forget the Empire for a second. You've also got to worry about any -other- place they might end up opening a gate to. Which means even if you get a handle on what's possible and not possible with respect to the other world, you still don't have a full spectrum of the risks involved...

7

Actually, they don't need to worry. Let's doing some supposing:

Suppose there's another gate, and it opens onto a world whose warmaking technology is equal to or worse than the Empire. In that case it isn't a threat to the JSDF; they'll die like flies in combat just like the Empire did.

Suppose there's another gate and it opens to a world whose warmaking technology is 30 Years War (i.e. 1615-1645 in Europe) or better, including tech in advance of the JSDF. In that case they would already have conquered the whole planet and it would have been them who came through the gate to Tokyo. They didn't, so they aren't.

Suppose there's another gate and it opens to a world which isn't aggressive, no matter what its technology level. In that case, they aren't a threat to Japan.

The only way there's a problem is if both gates were opened at almost exactly the same time and the other gate opens to a world that's aggressive and has technology in advance of the JSDF. In that case the only reason the JSDF hasn't seen them yet is that the opfor hasn't had time to reach the Japanese gate. And that seems rather improbable.

8

Because you don't send your first-line stuff through into a magic world where people might have a "brainwash army" spell, obviously. (Short of that, if there's some kind of semi-advanced or advanced civilization on the other side, you don't want them capturing and studying your best weapons...)

I tossed this idea into the mix over at the Gate thread on Fandom Post, and one of the members there pointed out that it would be pretty much useless for the 'fantasies' because they will not be able to reproduce it.  I guess if they are going to try using the equipment, there might be some advantage, but while I believe medieval ironsmiths and craftsmen would be able to produce some impressive pieces of work (Similar to what the Khyber Pass copies.), there is a limit to what they can copy in terms of both weapons and technology (The cases for ammunition, let alone the powder element, would be impossible to reproduce.).  Essentially, our fantasy world counterpart would have learn to make gunpowder and then muzzle-loading cannons first, before spending the time to develop personal firearms. 

9

Gunpowder doesn't do them any good. Modern firearms are designed for cordite and won't work with anything less powerful.

Also, medieval smiths couldn't create the kinds of alloys that modern weapons require to work.

10 And even if they could figure out cordite, they're not going to figure out fulminate.

11

The one wild card is if technological uplift is provided to the fantasies (With obvious restrictions - my example is that you might be able to teach the blacksmiths and craftsmen how to fabricate breechloading rifles, but the 'moderns' are the ones providing the ammunition.) at some point.  This is like a Traveller RPG campaign, or what happens if your DM decides to change the adventure du jour and have you the players, rather than your PCs, in the adventurers...

And for BigD: Thanks to TV Tropes, I know that the Imperials who survived and retreated from the invasion of Ginza came back with some 'guests.'

12 cxt: My response is that the manga is worth reading, unless you really want to see the eps cold, first.

The manga gave a brief mention to the fact that they were given all the old, storehoused gear that had been replaced in the line units (the wikipedia entry on JSDF gear confirms this). ISTR that the reason was somewhat glossed over, and I was hoping the anime would add some detail on that front.  I recall having somewhat of an impression that there were maybe multiple reasons for doing so, including using only expendable gear in case the good stuff was needed to stop an invasion aimed at taking the gate, plus using old stuff helped with the international image of conducting an "investigation" rather than a de facto counter-invasion.  That may be largely speculation on my part, though.

I wonder if the real reason has to do with the author's service dates and the gear that he got to see when he was in, or something.

13 Big D, I think your last point is the crux of the matter but the other issues raised are all good ones too. 

Things get really "interesting" if the empire can shut the gate. 

14 The idea of multiple gates or other places, and suddenly the back of my head starts yelling "Dreen!"

15 In a superhero game I GM'ed many years ago, the players were disdainful of the invaders from a fantasy-world.  That disdain ended when a sorcerer-alchemist figured out how to cause all primers and detonators in a 1 mile radius to go off....

16 In my opinion, for these fantasy world vs modern world gate scenarios, the key issue is not so much the technological advancement of the fantasy world as the societal advancement.  If they still run societies on the level of a medieval society, than short of really extreme magical OCPs, nothing else will matter, because logistics and communication will win out.  OTOH, if your dealing with a society that's used to operating on the scale of a good chunk of a continent, in terms of governance and transit and administration?  They probably can manage a sophistication of combat that would let them actually leverage those unknown magical OCP capacities.

Admittedly, the worst case scenario would probably be "High Fantasy Magic, Disunified Nations, Constant Warfare, High Ambient Monster Count".  In that case, you might as well just bury the gate in concrete. . .

17 Presumably if they could shut the gate, they'd have done so as soon as they lost the territory it was on. (or possibly they CAN shut the gate, if they can get hold of it, but fat chance of that now.)

As for the rest, you're thinking of these things in terms of our own solution sets. Could a medieval society get a working gun and build an industry for producing such guns from scratch? No way. But in a world with giant flying lizards and literal magic, there are other ways around problems. Could you cast "Duplicate Item" without knowing what the item was? Or stamp out a quick magic talisman that made someone immune to fast-moving bits of metal? Or throw a spell that prevents sparks from forming over a few kilometers? (man, that'd be nasty... no primers, no internal combustion engines, god only knows what it'd do to the electronics...) Or one that makes people hallucinate that the guy standing next to them is a demon?

There's also something to be said for not assuming the entire world is like the bit right around the gate. If you opened a gate to our world and popped out in Somalia, you might make assumptions about the politics and economics that would give you a bad picture of what was going on elsewhere. Is this empire the full flower of civilization, or a jumped-up border tribe with delusions of grandeur? Are there old elven civilizations chock full of crystal cities on some other continent?

No way to know, without sending out some recon to snoop around. Which is what the story is doing, and in that sense, it's very reasonable.

18 If I were outfitting them that for the unknown, I'd avoid weapons ... exquisitely tuned for current threats. The 5.56x45mm NATO (.223) used by the Howa Type 89is marginal at best on humans, so it's good that they're using the older Howa Type 64, which uses 7.62x51mm NATO with a -20% reduced powder charge. The wooden furniture might not be as strong as the plastic in the Type 89, but its use of steel will come in handy in future days.

19

Well, we know that the fantasy world is apparently close enough to Earth that moderns have no problems living in it so far.  So it has to be close enough to earth in its physical laws as well - meaning there is a limit to what magic can do as an overall effect.

One of the posters at the Traveller Mailing List actually did play a session where the DM declared "You, the player, are now in your character's world.'  When the DM tried to change the rules to prevent certain things from happening (Like if your players knew how to experiment for the manufacture of phosgene - or at least their precursor agents - or basics of building breeder reactors.), one of the points the poster got the DM on was that if you changed the laws of chemistry to the point where you changed the laws of physics, you would not have a world where humans can live in.

1 I've tried to watch the Idoling and AKB shows, and never lasted more than a few minutes. Nice eye candy, but poor live singing and terrible skits. The old Hello!Project show had a few segments that were entertaining, but it was an acquired taste, and they eventually ran it into the ground. 

-j

2

I will admit to enjoy watching both the various The Idolmaster animes and Love Live!.

3 AKB0048 was great too, mostly, although the ending didn't agree with me well. But I just cannot deal with idols themselves.

1 Well, rats. The schedule said that the AT-X version of the show ran an hour after the MX version. The MX version came out about noon but there's no sign of the AT-X version yet.

2 Credit where it's due: the swimsuit joke was funny.  It's probably the only joke the entire setup really lends itself too, but I laughed.

1 Ah, the classic "Shounen Fight Inflation" issue.  Truthfully, the only way to handle it is to have the entire story plotted out, so that the progression isn't as noticeable.   There's also a corollary in Light Novel Adaptations.  It's when you know they've moved to the next novel because the story skips into the arc so violently.  (It's normally far more noticeable when watching the series in one straight go.  It's actually really jarring, but hard to notice when watching week over week.)
The only series to ever really pull off the Fight Inflation well is One Piece, but there's a few tricks the mangaka used there to great effect.  The fight system is actually built off comparatives and counters (so you can be really, really powerful against specific enemies), and then taking forever to move through the arcs.  (The "5 year" series hit the half-way mark at 12 years, I think it was.)
In Fairy Tail's case, I think it's more just running to the end of the planning, but the series is doing so well, you just have to keep it going.  I can't blame the mangaka for that (as he's probably now got a full cash-cow series), but it's hard to plot out where to go from defeating World Ending power.  That's the "end" of the Hero's Journey, after all. 

2

I really do think he originally intended the Tartaros arc to be the final one. There were so many Chekhov's rifles he'd been placing which matured in that arc, for instance.

But it appears that at the last minute he chickened out (or was bullied out) and didn't do it.

Fairy Tail is one of those series which, like One Piece and DragonBall and Negima, carry a magazine. The magazine will suffer badly when they end and they know it.

Dragonball was originally supposed to end when Goku killed Frieza, for instance. The mangaka behind Negima actually ended his story about where he wanted to end it, I'm sure over the screaming of the magazine editor. One Piece probably won't ever end -- when the mangaka dies someone else will take over.

And yeah, the current story arc in Fairy Tail feels like the Majin Buu arc in DB did: completely contrived, a total sellout.

1

Part of my problem is that deep down the show is a dystopia. There's one scene near the beginning that really rings a bit too true:

A woman on a train starts screaming and claims that a guy standing next to her was groping her butt. Well, he didn't actually do that. But her accusation would be taken as gospel and he would be dragged away and she would get a monetary reward.

Sounds like what's happening on college campuses these days, doesn't it?

2 No different from Railgun, then.

3 Your writeup ends in the precise place I shut ZPlayer down and deleted the episode off my hard-drive.  Glad to see I'm not the only one who had troubles with it.

4 Wonderduck, it gets worse from there. You made a good choice.

5 A "modern" dystopia, pretty much.  Though the part mentioned by Steve is being pushed for as actual Law in the USA.  And I REALLY wish that wasn't true.

6 Guess what? It takes all kinds:

Gate (1) > Shimoneta (1) > Symphogear GX (1) > Classroom (1) > Aoharu (1) > Wakako-zake (1) > Insight (0-1) > Yuki-chan (14) > Okusama (1).

7

I haven't seen any of those except for Gate and Shimoneta, and I agree that Gate is better.

Vastly better. Overwhelmingly better. So much better that they don't belong in the same county.

1

I was taken back by how old the main character is.  Usually, series like these have the 'barely an adult' hero as the lead.

Then again, it is Junichi Suwabe voicing the main character, which is awesomeness incarnate.

2 I ran across a couple chapters of the manga way way back. Could be quite good, even if it got somewhat scooped in the meantime with Outbreak Company doing... not the same thing exactly, but up the same alley.

Of course this isn't how you'd want to defend a portal at all. You put observation posts on the other side, along with enough real defense that any potentially hostile force knows that the portal's held in strength; hopefully this prevents surprises. You want to know if something's coming, and you don't want anyone coming at you unknowing (no sense in provoking an "unfortunate border incident" unless that's exactly what you have in mind...)

3

no sense in provoking an "unfortunate border incident" unless that's exactly what you have in mind

Well, the unfortunate border incident has already happened, and after the initial incursion, I would want a wide cordon sanitaire between the bad guys and the gate.

Given how lacking the JSDF are for manpower (Consistent short of their recruitment and personnel levels, even in the height of the economic doldrums.), I could imagine someone like Itami in the ranks.

4 Being an otaku isn't really necessarily a reason to kick him out, and given his clear willingness and ability to fight, I'd say he's qualified to be in the army.

5

That was thoroughly enjoyable.  Even fantasy has to be believable, and not once did I raise an eyebrow nor roll my eyes.  I almost couldn't see the subs for all the Chekhov's Guns and lampshades, but that first ep was very, very well written.

I wanted to hear a little more from the commander of the otherworld invasion force (no recon? dissipate not concentrate?), but hope to learn more as this unfolds.

The action and even the title itself made me think of the original "StarGate" movie.  Had that ring been bigger, and not opened into the inside of a pyramid, I'm sure we would've sent an armored column through, too.

I like what you said about magic-users, Steven.  Turning Clarke's Third Law on its head, any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.  That will give the natives a fighting chance.  I've high hopes for this show, harem, loli-goths, and all.

6

Based on the manga based on the original light novel, I found giving the story exposition and various details the benefit of the doubt was well rewarded.  Best example of the latter is the loli-goth: even counting the beasties she's the most eldritch entity introduced in the first volume of the manga, and after her introduction as a character separate from the story, she's mostly obnoxious ... until she isn't.  And then I read something about her later taking on a very important long term role (probably not particularly harem related) that sounded like it would be right up her alley.

There's quite a few stories in all this that converge or are aligned around the protagonist's small unit, some that add the members of harem to the game, except the female NCO? who's starts out as part of it.

Perhaps the best aspect is the not so simple in reality or modern Hollywood quiet competence of so many characters, all perforce dealing with Outside Context Problems ... except of course for the otaku who is used to thinking about concepts like combat dragons.  He gets a variety of good natured ribbing about that, but is generally respected up and down the chain of command.  And then there's nice details like in the preparations for the second patrol, a panel making a point that they're (now?) taking linked .50 BMG  with a 3-4 to 1 mix of Armor-Piercing to Armor-Piercing-Incendiary-Tracer.  Which is by no means overkill....

All in all, I found it done very well, how I'd hope this sort of situation would be handled, and am looking forward to this anime version.

7 One thing I thought was handled beautifully was the little girl with pigtails. I won't say more, but if you've watched the episode you know what I mean.

8

I do hope that it spares obnoxious attempts at tossing politics into it.  One of the (smaller) things that turned me off Sword Arts Online was Reki Kawahara's attempt to include politics - including exposition about US politics that five minutes on Wikipedia would have proven him false - in the later volumes.  The same goes with the studios producing the anime - even if we acknowledge that they are producing the anime for a Japanese audience, it can get very annoying and very retarded very fast.

9

Well, there's already been a bit of that. The Japanese parliament declared the place on the far side of the gate to be Japanese territory, because that made it legal for the JSDF to operate there.

But it also meant they can legally try to conquer it and bring it under Japanese rule, a rather nasty revival of Japanese Imperialism.

10 The episode was rather subtle in portraying the Emperor (Or given the current line of succession, should we say Empress?) ordering the doors to the Imperial Palace be opened.  It was actually subtler than the cameo for Overlord which appeared later on. 

11 Per the manga, and the common sense which I might say is a bit of an underlying theme, there are necessarily international political issues.  Japan has sole access to all this potential Lebensraum, and other nations are of course ... interested.  The US understands the idea of a frontier; fortunately we're allies.  They and at least some Japanese are worried about the potential for a repeat of 20th Century Imperial Japan, but there's only one major power, inconveniently close, that has a lot of people and not hardly enough good land for them.  As far as I read all this was a background issue, but a worrying one.

12

OK.  Have read up through chapter 19 in the manga.  I don't think my comments are spoiler-worthy, but below the fold, just in case.

By chapter five, I was thinking, "Too bad, just another D&D meets rifles manga."  By chapter 11 I was reading as fast as I could.  When the mangaka went so far as to include details about the army's logistical tail I'd been wondering about (in Chapter 16), I knew there's something very good here.  Let's hope the anime doesn't screw it up.

13 I am not sure about the mangaka, but the author of the original light novels which both the manga and the series are based on, appears to have served in the JSDF.  So I expect the original light novels would avoid the standard pitfalls when getting to the nitty-gritty details.

14 I'm not quite sure the invaders knew how or why they were there. One of the (Centurions?) made a comment about that. It was also an odd mix of invaders.

This story reminded me of a web novel I read about six years ago, where Hell invaded the human world, not realizing we had advanced weaponry as compared with the time of the Angelic wars as described in the old testament. Armor piercing rounds outclassed the demons and we handily repelled the force. Then we counterattacked.

The invasion  of Heaven came after that.

15 It's reminding me of that Reddit thread about a Marine combat brigade (if memory serves) mysteriously warping to Roman times that was supposedly optioned for a movie.

16 "Modern Weapon goes back in time" is a pretty common trope. There was a TV movie about USS Nimitz going back to just before Pearl Harbor, and an anime about a modern Japanese guided missile destroyer going back to WWII.

17

There was a TV movie about USS Nimitz going back to just before Pearl Harbor

The Final Countdown was a 1980 feature film, starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, and the late Charles Durning.  The anime was Zipang, which was part of Geneon's last gasp of release in the US before they went under.

I rather enjoyed The Final Countdown, for what it was worth.  The anime did not produce the same reaction.

18 It should probably come as no surprise that I've watched (and blogged about!) Zipang!, and while it had some moments, all in all, it's not that good.

1 AHEM. 

Just scroll down to the "external links" portion of that page...

1 I actually kind of liked the episode.  It's right before the final arc of the series, if I remember right, and it was a nice little side story.
If you watch the follow on series, the Screen cap possibilities sky rocket.  

2 Well, Magical Girl Kyouko was good for 15 frame grabs.