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Anime Discussion

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 5:53 am
by Razor One
Since it was starting to tangent from the Loroi Q&A thread, feel free to discuss anime and all things anime related here. :)
dragoongfa wrote:It's a little off-topic so I don't mind if you want to split it into an other thread:

The two plot holes:
SpoilerShow
First the ending one, it's how they killed the Queerat Messiah, in essence the child thought that it was a queerat and when it realized that it killed a queerat it triggered the genetic kill switch that all humans have in them.

The plot hole is that the child already knowingly attacked and helped destroy a Queerat army made of tenths of thousands of Queerats, how come the kill switch wasn't triggered then? It could be that the child only destroyed the weapons of the army (something that is not made clear while the description of the dead queerats and their mutilations is parallel to PK attacks), however even a hostile action against a queerat should trigger an adverse reaction from the kill switch, how much an action that lead to the brutal murder and mutilation of tens of thousands of unarmed queerats. Hell the protagonist's own kill switch nearly got her after the child's death because she knew that the action she took would lead to said child's death.

Second plot hole and the one that nearly broke my suspension of disbelief:

There aren't enough children in the village for a sustainable population even before counting the culling. To have a sustainable population each woman needs to give birth 2.1 times before hitting menopause. The problem is that almost every family depicted is a lone child family, hell the protagonist is a lone child because her older sister was culled.

Then there is the culling itself which worsens everything in regards to a rapidly declining population. I think that the director didn't think about that as he tried to make the families look like the ones from contemporary Japan. Considering the setting and story they should be more like medieval Japan's where each woman had on average more than 5 births but due to child mortality the number fell to 2 or 3 surviving children per family which offered a stable population with a predictably stable growth.

This could be seen as nitpicking but I think that the story itself would be better served if there were far more children and their number visibly decreased as time went by (a plot hint for the viewer to notice), with the main cast not noticing it until they were hit by their own loses and confusion due to their tampered memories.

As the story stands now the humans are committing their own societal suicide and their society should have collapsed long before the time the story took place.
Since this falls under spoilers...
SpoilerShow
The first one isn't too much of a plot hole. The Fiend held the weapons and stopped the arrows in the air, allowing its queerat allies to do the murdering. Because it didn't directly kill them, it didn't trigger the death feedback. It's explained in the show here.

Saki is a bit of a different case. Because she has a developed sense of morality, she feels directly responsible for the child's death, which does trigger her death feedback until she can snap herself out of it. Extreme conditioning is a big part of the series, so I think it's plausible that the Fiend wasn't conditioned to accept responsibility for being an accessory.

The second plot hole is more implied than explained by the show. In Asahina's backstory where a Fiend crops up in her generation about 100 years prior to the series, you can see that they actually do have a modern standard of living, large classes and the like, at least as implied by the very modern looking school which contrasts the one the main cast went to. It's only after the fiend hits them that they pull the standards of culling way up and their population starts dropping precipitously.

The vibe I got from the series as a whole was that the only real danger posed to those with Cantus were their own children. The Fiend incident in Asahina's time cranked up the paranoia to 11 and their whole society is going through a massive eugenic effort to eliminate the prospect of Fiends from their population. The best way to do this is to have fewer children, reduce the population, and then only allow the members least likely to produce Fiends to breed. Smaller populations are easier to manage when it comes to weeding out undesirable traits, so I feel that it makes sense. The societal suicide and one-child families is a parallel to modern Japan though, where the population is currently declining.
Of course, some of that is conjecture on my part based on what I recall of the last time I watched it. I am due for a rewatch though, so my opinions there might change.

Speaking more generally, I recently finished watching Legend of the Galactic Heroes for the first time. Best. Series. Ever.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 6:32 am
by dragoongfa
I think that they just wrote themselves into a corner with the first one because:
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The Queerats may have known about that humans didn't kill other humans but they couldn't have known the limitations of the kill switch. Still I think that they were caught in their own web
As for the second:
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The fiend known as K happened around 230 years before the story, when the Ethics committee president was a young woman while now she is 267 years old. While the fiend only killed a couple of hundreds iirc
Legend of the Galactic heroes needs a modern remake imho, mainly because some of the social aspects of tech and media are horribly outdated.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 6:51 am
by Razor One
dragoongfa wrote:I think that they just wrote themselves into a corner with the first one because:
SpoilerShow
The Queerats may have known about that humans didn't kill other humans but they couldn't have known the limitations of the kill switch. Still I think that they were caught in their own web
SpoilerShow
Squeeler was shown to be a fairly sly character. While he may not have known the full extent of the kill switch, hey may have inferred a lot from observation and testing. I figure he's bloody minded enough to run practical tests on his new Fiend before even considering deploying it in the field, even if it does cost him a potential advantage.

I think I'm in the realm of opinion here though, since it's difficult if not impossible to prove what I think is true without reading the novels.
As for the second:
SpoilerShow
The fiend known as K happened around 230 years before the story, when the Ethics committee president was a young woman while now she is 267 years old. While the fiend only killed a couple of hundreds iirc
My shitty memory strikes again! D:

It's probably another thing that is more clear in the novels that is a bit more difficult to exposit in a visual medium.

Legend of the Galactic heroes needs a modern remake imho, mainly because some of the social aspects of tech and media are horribly outdated.
Rejoice.

Now all we need to do is play the waiting game.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 7:37 pm
by Roeben
dragoongfa wrote:I think that it is a Japanese thing not to have overly realistic combat because the modern Japanese have an aversion with military history due to their past.
Not really. There are quite a few shows with interesting doctrines and surprising realism, you just have to know where to look. LGH and Gunbuster are one, but there's others. In particular MuvLuv springs to mind (Go back the kickstarter if you haven't already) with a very interesting hi-lo mix of mechanized combat, though regrettably none to very little of this takes place in space.

That said, I'm looking hopeful at the new LoGH adaptation.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 8:18 pm
by dragoongfa
I believe that the few realistic manga and anime are the exceptions that prove the rule. My personal favorite is Gunka no Balzar (only in Manga currently) which is essentially a 19th century war manual that steers clear of shonenification.

I had hopes for Gate: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri, but those were squandered when they decided to put too many shonen elements in it. The basic premise is that the modern Japanese military ends up 'invading' a fantasy medieval world, the main problem is that it is a Japanese vision of a European Fantasy Medieval and it includes all of the stupid shonen elements that detract a lot of attention from the premise of 'modern military vs knights, magic, monsters and dragons'. If I am lucky someone will follow the Sword Art Online approach and write a far more mature story with a similar premise before I go around to do it myself.

I will look into MuvLuv and its kickstarter but even if I had the spare cash I cannot back the kickstarter because my government thought it a good idea to install capital controls and thus I cannot do any international payment.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Mon Sep 28, 2015 10:49 pm
by Arioch
dragoongfa wrote:I believe that the few realistic manga and anime are the exceptions that prove the rule.
But Western examples (Star Trek, Star Wars) are no more realistic in terms of military tactics than the Japanese examples, so I don't think that you've made your point about it being because of an aversion to Japanese history. I think it's more about most creative types (of any nationality) knowing very little about the military, despite their fascination with action.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 6:06 am
by dragoongfa
Arioch wrote:
dragoongfa wrote:I believe that the few realistic manga and anime are the exceptions that prove the rule.
But Western examples (Star Trek, Star Wars) are no more realistic in terms of military tactics than the Japanese examples, so I don't think that you've made your point about it being because of an aversion to Japanese history. I think it's more about most creative types (of any nationality) knowing very little about the military, despite their fascination with action.
I wasn't speaking just for sci-fi or fantasy, generally speaking there are far more realistic works in western creative mediums than the Japanese market, if I am to mention a few TV shows and movies then the following fit the bill quite well:

TV series:

Sharpe and Hornblower that are set in the Napoleonic era.
Vikings which is set in the Dark ages and deals with its name sake.
Any of the HBO mini series about WW2.
Hell even Game of Thrones (both books and series) follows a realistic approach to certain matters despite it being a full blown fantasy story.

The comic market is kinda weird in the west, the US market is a stranglehold of the cape brigade while the European market has more in common with Japan than the US. Its the web where most western comics reside but even there realism tends to take a back seat. Still despite all that there are some works which rely in hardcore realism for their drama:

The Walking dead, Crossed (Crossed has plenty of hardcore gore btw), The Boys (realistic deconstruction of superheroes) and to mention a minor but realistic sci-fi comic Shrapnel: Aristeia Rising which was rather unique in its realistic approach to futuristic ground combat.

I believe that anyone can mention dozens of realistic movies and books of western origin. I concede that even in the west the realistic works are outnumbered but they are there and they do hold a significant portion of the market. In Japan this isn't the case, I believe that this is due to two reasons: first and foremost the aversion of their society to war and derived from this aversion what I mentioned earlier, Japanese writers don't seem to know a lot about military history or proper military tactics, knowledge that is essential if one wants to write a realistic battle even in a non realistic setting.

Its true about what you said about the creative types not knowing much about military matters but in Japan this has reached ridiculous levels while in the west it is more or less a fulfilled market share.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 7:03 am
by Arioch
dragoongfa wrote: In Japan this isn't the case, I believe that this is due to two reasons: first and foremost the aversion of their society to war and derived from this aversion what I mentioned earlier, Japanese writers don't seem to know a lot about military history or proper military tactics, knowledge that is essential if one wants to write a realistic battle even in a non realistic setting.
I just don't see this "aversion" to war; on the contrary, it seems to me that Japanese media culture is obsessed with war and violence, and with the samurai ethos in particular. Japan still churns out samurai movies and series and anime by the ton, and many of them include violence that would make a mainstream Western audience blanch. The combat in many of them (especially lately) is stylized like a Kung Fu fantasy, but some are in more of a Cowboy Western style, and some are more epic in scale and quite realistic. Check out any of Kurosawa's samurai epics (Ran, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo/Sanjuro), the Musashi Miyamoto trilogy, or 13 Assassins. Japanese TV has produced tons of lengthy samurai series that included detailed political and military maneuvering... so many that I can't even remember them all (I used to watch the NHK Taiga dramas weekly on the local Asian public television station when I still had cable). Some really good ones were Yoshitsune, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Shinsengumi!, and Atsuhime.

In anime/manga, in addition to Yamato, Gundam, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, you have Crest of the Stars, Starship Operators, Area 88, Future War 198X, Zipang, Rescue Wings, and pretty much everything ever made by Miyazaki. Have you ever seen Maria the Virgin Witch? It's set in France during the Hundred Years War, and aside from the over-the-top fantastical witch characters, features some very authentic medieval battles, gear and fighting techniques.

It's true that you won't find very much about WWII (a notable exception being Ketsudan), because apparently they just don't teach kids about it in school. But aside from that, I don't see any shortage of quality stuff about warfare from Japan.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 7:57 am
by dragoongfa
Every creative medium is filled with war and violence no matter the culture it came, the problem I see with Japanese creations is down to realistic violence vs fantasy violence. I may be a little biased on the matter because of my military history obsession but most of what I have seen from Japan is far more often than not of the second category than the first. I don't get plenty of Japanese TV drama where I am so I will look into them when I get the time.

I got a long backlog of Kurosawa films but of the few I have seen so far only the Seven Samurai passed the bill. Of the various anime/manga I have seen I only gave a full pass to Zipang for obvious reasons; Yamato, Area 88 and Legend of Galactic Heroes had plenty of good moments but also had plenty of cringe moments. Gundam and the mecha genre in general, suffice to say that I cannot watch them without shutting off certain parts of my brain; to put it bluntly, I enjoy them for their pretty colors, not for their smarts.

I guess I am bitching a bit too much because of my military nut perk :P

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 12:49 pm
by Roeben
By the way, this is getting an anime adaptation in january which may or may not be terrible (judging by the track record of the company producing it).

That's 1980's, west and east germans fighting together against an alien menace using "real robot" Mecha, Tanks, Direct-Fire AA vehicles, and craptons of cannon fodder.

Looks like it's going to scratch that warfare itch at first glance. Trailer is for the VN though, not the anime adaptation. Anime trailers come later.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 1:04 pm
by Nemo
If its a realistic depiction of war in jap media you're looking for might I plug Gate: thus the JSDF fought there. Avoid the anime, go to the light novel or manga but be warned -the manga can be graphic. It certainly pulls no punches about the damage an injury will do to a body. Also includes bad people doing bad things, like not just cackling maniacally while chewing the scenery but actual evil. (Adult rated/themed evil)

With those caveats in mind its rather refreshing. More or less sound tactics and strategy covering modern and ancient warfare with a touch of fantasy. The politics on our side of the gate can be a little goofy but it keeps the story/characters moving. Also includes the little touches civilians might not always catch or appreciate. Like how the squad comes back from a 3 day 2 night long mission and has to clean and turn in their gear and vehicles before hitting the chow line and only then catching some sleep.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 1:44 pm
by dragoongfa
Nemo wrote:If its a realistic depiction of war in jap media you're looking for might I plug Gate: thus the JSDF fought there. Avoid the anime, go to the light novel or manga but be warned -the manga can be graphic. It certainly pulls no punches about the damage an injury will do to a body. Also includes bad people doing bad things, like not just cackling maniacally while chewing the scenery but actual evil. (Adult rated/themed evil)

With those caveats in mind its rather refreshing. More or less sound tactics and strategy covering modern and ancient warfare with a touch of fantasy. The politics on our side of the gate can be a little goofy but it keeps the story/characters moving. Also includes the little touches civilians might not always catch or appreciate. Like how the squad comes back from a 3 day 2 night long mission and has to clean and turn in their gear and vehicles before hitting the chow line and only then catching some sleep.
I mentioned that earlier (had to copy paste the name :oops: ). The manga is far superior than the anime which had to tone things down considerably, my issues with it is that someone put too many shonen stuff in it (you know what I am talking about), I am ambivalent about picking up the light novels since many of the translators abandon their project midway to completion.

As for the nasty graphic stuff, let's say that even Berserk failed to turn me off. Then again I am reading stuff like these as a hobby, so real life must have made me immune to fiction cruelty:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3772 ... tern_Front#
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2222301.Tank_Rider
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1435 ... n_the_Wind

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 4:34 pm
by Razor One
Gate is kind of a mixed bag for me.

While the military tactics are alright, it's the politics that poisons the well for me. The entire thing is the product of an extreme right-wing nut and it shows, from how foreigners are portrayed as evil and stupid, the infamous "ONLY AMERICA HAS BLACK SOLDIERS!" panel from the manga, the fact that Japan is seriously considering using the resources from the Gate as an excuse to go full isolationist again, the very obvious strawmanning of liberal politicians during the Earthside chapters, the lack of perspective and outright obliviousness in that this was more or less exactly what Japan was doing in WW2 but with a friendlier spin on the entire thing.

I don't mind that the plot can be shonenesque, or that the MC finds himself surrounded by gorgeous women who are all interested in him in some way, nor do I mind that it goes into dark territory and shows a lot of blood and gore, at least in the manga anyhow, but the politics... yeesh. It's the pickle that spoils an otherwise alright cheeseburger. You can pull it out, but you know that your otherwise nice and pristine cheeseburger is forever tainted by that pickle. Forever.

I can enjoy it if I switch off my brain though. But when I notice the extreme right-wing bullshit, it raises my hackles ever so slightly.

And speaking of Shonen and being on more or less the opposite side of the spectrum, I enjoyed Kill la Kill immensely. And speaking of opposite spectrums, I found Death Parade to be extraordinarily good and to be one of the most heart touching series I've watched for quite a while.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 4:42 pm
by dragoongfa
I consider myself as right wing conservative and my reaction to those chapters was to skip ahead laughing to how stupid the whole arc was. The only redeeming factor of that arc was that the Russian president took a vodka shot while praising the Japs. If you want to see something really nasty, look at the pro Asia propaganda that the Japs were spinning before and during WW2 then compare and contrast.

Also Kill La Kill is pure shonen, one shouldn't go in there without expecting to have a shonen overload.

PS: Zipang was far worse in that regard.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 5:18 pm
by Razor One
It's not that it's right-wing and therefore bad, it's that the extreme right-wing bent ravages the story so the author can stand on a podium and shout. Every stage of transition, from the webnovel, to the novel, to the light novel, to the manga, and finally to the anime itself, waters down that right-wing bent until only a bit of it is left if you're watching the anime, and it still manages to ruin the story.

It irks me, as both a viewer and a writer. Politics can be part of a story, even an enjoyable part, even politics I vehemently disagree with, but since he's using his own politics to push his agenda at the expense of a potentially good story... :x

But yeah, the Russian president bit was great. It's the diamonds in the rough that make me keep an eye on it. Even if there is a lot of rough...

Kill la Kill is definitely Shonen, there's no denying that, but the over the top looney tunes extremity of it makes it enjoyable in a way that other Shonen kind of falls flat on.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 5:23 pm
by Nemo
I'll agree, as I pointed out, the political aspects are its weak points at times. But I have to take a moment of schadenfreude since its the odd case of the shoe being on the other foot. Quite often its an extreme left-wing nut on a soap box involved in the creation of various media. :lol:
the fact that Japan is seriously considering using the resources from the Gate as an excuse to go full isolationist again
This one though, I will defend. If the alternative is a multinational, callous, and potentially hostile army or armies occupying your country as a stepping stone to exploit the gate and the special area for their own benefit it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Its a matter of balancing your power to deter theirs without upsetting things to the degree that you disrupt their hold and provoke them (which would require using the area to increase your power without increasing your footprint. Isolationism). That versus inviting everyone and their brother who has any manner of military into your house and hoping they all play nice. Its an option thats floated, and the military is all about options.


But ya, that particular line in the hot springs was cringe worthy. The whole idea there was in fact. What would kid napping the VIPs get you if you can't communicate with or travel to their lands? Intel is only as valuable as it is actionable. Only other thing would be leverage over Japan, but what kind of leverage would that get you? Nothing useful I've ever been able to come up with. The only reason I can figure its in there is to get the cast outside their government watcher's thumbs to introduce Risa/explore Itami, and to keep the characters moving. That makes for a thin plot.


I mentioned that earlier (had to copy paste the name :oops: )
So you did. Sorry, I skimmed.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 5:25 pm
by dragoongfa
Yeah, I agree on that, letting ones politics intrude in their works is a story killer more often than not. The only one who got a passing grade on that was Heinlein with Starship troopers and that's because of how well executed the premise was (and the fact that it blasted every contemporary system of the time while doing so).

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 6:36 pm
by Razor One
Nemo wrote:I'll agree, as I pointed out, the political aspects are its weak points at times. But I have to take a moment of schadenfreude since its the odd case of the shoe being on the other foot. Quite often its an extreme left-wing nut on a soap box involved in the creation of various media. :lol:
There is plenty of left-wing fiction out there, I'll grant that, but I haven't really seen something that counts as extreme left-wing showing in reasonably popular media. The most likely place you'll find that is in performance art or in fringe festivals. If there's any anime that counts as extreme left-wing, I'd like to see it, if only to confirm that it's the extremism and not merely the politics that's ruining Gate for me.
the fact that Japan is seriously considering using the resources from the Gate as an excuse to go full isolationist again
This one though, I will defend. If the alternative is a multinational, callous, and potentially hostile army or armies occupying your country as a stepping stone to exploit the gate and the special area for their own benefit it doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Its a matter of balancing your power to deter theirs without upsetting things to the degree that you disrupt their hold and provoke them (which would require using the area to increase your power without increasing your footprint. Isolationism). That versus inviting everyone and their brother who has any manner of military into your house and hoping they all play nice. Its an option thats floated, and the military is all about options.


But ya, that particular line in the hot springs was cringe worthy. The whole idea there was in fact. What would kid napping the VIPs get you if you can't communicate with or travel to their lands? Intel is only as valuable as it is actionable. Only other thing would be leverage over Japan, but what kind of leverage would that get you? Nothing useful I've ever been able to come up with. The only reason I can figure its in there is to get the cast outside their government watcher's thumbs to introduce Risa/explore Itami, and to keep the characters moving. That makes for a thin plot.
No, the isolationism they're advocating for isn't the kind where a country minds its own business and keeps out of international affairs as America used to be at certain times and on certain issues, they're advocating completely cutting themselves off from the rest off the world, North Korea style, expelling all foreigners, etc. etc.

It's the kind of isolationism that you simply can't get away with, not in the 19th century, and certainly not in the modern world. Japan, like most countries, is simply far to intertwined into global trade to really pull that kind of thing off. Resources and land don't make you able to flip the bird to the world and go full Hikkikimori on a national scale. You need international connections for monetary stability, scholarly and technical expertise, the fact that Japan does have international obligations due to treaties they've signed, multinational corporations having massive funds invested overseas, etc. etc.

The only way it can really be done is if Japan is willing to accept a significant decline in their standard of living. And that's allowing that they can get significant amounts of resources from Gateland into Japan. The Gate is small and the world on the other side vast and dangerous. Pipelines and trains are only going to be able to bring in minuscule amounts of resources in comparison to modern shipping, and you need to expend significant amounts of infrastructural investment and development on the other side in order to even get those resources in the first place.

The alternative you describe is a mistaken position allows for the warped political sensibilities of the author. If we take a degree of realpolitik into this and remove the DAI TEITOKU NIPPON BANZAI goggles for a moment, the realistic solution would be that Japan would be able to claim an area around the Gate in Gateland. How much is irrelevant. Japan is nominally allied with the west and has treaties with the US that allow for military bases, so an American presence is a certainty, though the JSDF would be doing the heavy lifting. Political backdealing would ensure that Japan gets a lions share of the benefits in exchange for certain concessions, and a UN presence may be called for to keep Russia and China's concerns in check.

No nation would tolerate foreign armies marching through their capital even if they were ostensibly passing through a magical gate to unclaimed lands. Japan is in an odd position because of their treaties with the USA, but that would be accepted, politically and popularly, since American power offsets Russia and China and is a deterrent to North Korea for as long as they're not drooling idiots. Also because where the Gate appeared has a US military base about 20 minutes out and even if it took them time to get permission to muster a response to the initial invasion, the US would be involved from day one.

As to the kidnapping plot... it was stupid and pointless. Stupid because why send special forces when you can just have your ambassador ask to speak with the Gatelanders and waggle your eyebrows enough the indicate that you're not taking no for an answer. Pointless because even if it did succeed... what then? How do you get out of the country? How do you prevent the Gatelander's from protesting? To what end are they even being kidnapped when an ambassador doing his job would work just as well if not even better? Its false dramatic bullshit so we can have special forces shooting at each other for no good reason.

The only reason to keep the Gatelander's from speaking to anyone not from Japan is to prevent them appealing to international players to put political pressure on Japan to end the war on terms more favourable to the Empire. While that's fine as a motivation to manipulate Pina into giving Japan more favourable terms, the fact that it's presented as being for Pina's benefit is simply gobsmacking.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Tue Sep 29, 2015 7:30 pm
by dragoongfa
And knowing that is why I stopped thinking about that stuff in that arc and instead wanted to see tanks shooting down some more dragons.

Re: Anime Discussion

Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:03 am
by Nemo
No, the isolationism they're advocating for isn't the kind where a country minds its own business and keeps out of international affairs as America used to be at certain times and on certain issues, they're advocating completely cutting themselves off from the rest off the world, North Korea style, expelling all foreigners, etc. etc.
If you can show me in the material where this is put forward as an objective I'lll concede the issue. The closest is when Yanagida raises isolationism as a "most extreme case" in response to the world turning on Japan because of the power disruption the Gate will bring through "vast resources that could overhaul the global economy". Which falls neatly into the packet I described. Maybe you've read the novels in the native language and the scenario plays out entirely differently? Or maybe there are other goggles involved here besides BANZAI!?