#80 = Volume 27, Part 1 = March 2000
Michael Fisch
Nation, War, and Japan’s Future in the Science Fiction Anime Film Patlabor II
In the opening scene of Oshii Mamoru’s science fiction anime film Patlabor II
(1993), a Japanese United Nations unit stationed in Southeast Asia in the year
1999 comes under heavy fire from hostile forces during maneuvers in the jungle.
The Japanese forces, led by Tsuge Yukihito, are outfitted with state-of-the-art
battle Labors (giant manned robots) and are thus more than a match for the
hostile tanks. Tsuge’s request to central command for permission to engage the
enemy is denied, however, and he is ordered to take evasive action and wait for
the arrival of another unit. The delay turns out to be deadly and the Japanese
Labors are decimated by enemy fire. Tsuge at last returns fire and succeeds in
destroying an enemy tank before his Labor is hit by a rocket. The battle is over
quickly and the image shifts to somber rain falling on a burned-out Labor lying
in a pool of water. Accompanied by a mournful soundtrack, Tsuge crawls from the
hatch of his ruined machine to survey the damage. He is apparently the only
survivor. The camera pans across the surrounding jungle before resting on the
image of a giant stone Buddha, cracked and overgrown with vines—a reminder of
great civilizations that have fallen into history’s oblivion.
Patlabor II was produced in the wake of a debate that surfaced both in
Japan and internationally over Japan’s responsibility in the world as a wealthy
and technologically advanced nation. By the mid-1980s, Japan had become one of
the world’s most economically successful countries through its dogged and narrow
pursuit of national goals under the luxury of a peace ensured by the United
States’ Cold War imperatives. The end of the Cold War, however, spurred a
reevaluation in Japan and the United States of the nature of Japan’s
relationship with the US and Japan’s own responsibilities in the post-Cold War
world.1 At the heart of this reevaluation was an assortment of
issues, such as Japan’s trade deficit with the US and American dependence on
Japanese technology. Some of the most inflammatory debate for both the Japanese
public and politicians, however, concerned Japan’s Self Defense Forces. A number
of Japanese leaders were eager for Japan to advance its international status by
participating in the United Nations’ peacekeeping operations. There was also
talk of an expansion and revitalization of the Japanese Self Defense Forces so
that Japan might eventually take more responsibility for its own defense. Both
of these matters naturally involved a discussion of Article 9 in the postwar
constitution, whereby Japan renounced its rights to maintain an army and use
military force overseas.2
Invariably, the debate generated by these questions led to discussion of
Japan’s World War II history, as this was Japan’s last significant military
engagement. No matter how “rehabilitated” Japan felt, it seemed incapable of
escaping the trauma of that war in either domestic or international contexts.
Within Japan, years of negative depictions of the war along with seemingly
ceaseless discourse devoted to exposing the political and ideological failure
that had led the nation to defeat, were accompanied by the spread of a staunch
pacifist ideology among the population.3 In the international arena,
Japan appeared hesitant to publicly acknowledge its actions as an Imperial power
in Asia during the war, as was demanded by many Asian nations as a price for
economic cooperation (Finn 125, Pyle 133-134). Furthermore, the United States
and the European powers found it convenient to maintain a selective memory
regarding Japan’s war history, recalling the war whenever Japan’s economic
prowess appeared as a threat and forgetting it when the discussion turned to the
need for Japan’s participation in the United Nations (Tamamoto 6-8). Because of
the vacillation and confusion among political positions inside and outside
Japan, the country was more or less paralyzed.
The Gulf War and international resentment over Japan’s passive participation in
a cause so vital to its interests (Japanese industry is massively dependent on
oil from the Middle East) brought matters to a head (Tanaka 92-93, Renwick
58-59). After a brief period of political chaos and upheaval, the Japanese Diet,
led mostly by the conservative right, passed the UN Peacekeeping Operations Bill
(PKO) in 1992, allowing Japan’s Self Defense Forces (SDF) to participate in UN
peace missions. The legislation, however, included a list of five guiding
principles that strictly precluded Japanese forces from engaging in any manner
of armed conflict (Tanaka 96, Katzenstein 125-126). Even though support for the
PKO bill among the Japanese population was still not strong, Japan sent a
600-man SDF engineering unit, seventy-five civilian police officers, and eight
military observers to Cambodia in September 1992 to participate in the UN effort
there. News of the first Japanese casualties (an election observer and a
civilian police officer) in April of 1993 provoked further debate in Japan and
calls for withdrawal (Pyle 127-131, Shiro 100).
In Patlabor II Oshii engages questions of Japan’s future and its
involvement in the United Nations peacekeeping forces within a science fiction
narrative that allegorically reflects—and critiques—the politics and society of
postwar Japan. In addition, the film muses upon the nation’s experience in World
War II and the nature of the ensuing peace under the American treaty. In my
reading, what is at stake in Patlabor II is nothing less than Japan’s
future and international position: while the film represents the dominant
pacifist mood in Japan as well as arguments for participation in regular
international peacekeeping operations, what finally emerges is a voice of
nationalism, supporting the idea that Japan take responsibility for its own
self-defense and expand its role in international affairs. As I will show, this
voice often employs a strong, if implicit, anti-American rhetoric.
My discussion of the film is divided into two parts. The first, and more
substantial, focuses on the narrative and imagery. In particular I examine the
first scene, described above, as well as a central monologue that raises
provocative questions concerning Japan’s World War II experience, its
relationship with America, the postwar peace, and its obligations towards the
world. In the second section I analyze the appearance in the film of specific
elements from the science fiction genre in order to identify the manner in which
they either contribute to or oppose the reading derived from the first part.
A guiding assumption behind my approach is that the film participates in the
discursive space wherein the “imagined community” “Japan” is constituted.4
At the same time, I must emphasize that my objective here is not to expose the
presence of a secret nationalist agenda within Japanese popular culture, nor to
perpetuate the notion that Japan and Japanese politics are somehow problematic
for the world. Rather I seek only to demonstrate the appearance of a fraught
political debate within a popular Japanese text, while at the same time
critiquing its method of representation.
Patlabor II as Anime, Science Fiction, and War Film. The term anime is the Japanese word for animation. Internationally it has come
to denote the specific style of popular animation exported by Japan. Within
Japan the term, on a general level, simply distinguishes between the comic book
form (manga) and the animated cartoons that appear as weekly television
episodes. There is of course an overlap between the manga and anime
realm as many popular manga were made into animated television series and
vice versa. The original Patlabor—in which the idea of the Patrol Labor
Force and its central characters was developed by a team, including Oshii as
director—first appeared as a television series and later in manga form.
As in the case of Patlabor, a number of the weekly television anime have
also appeared as special full-length films. At the same time, there are several
anime feature films—such as Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995), Otomo
Katsuhiro’s Akira (1989), or Hayao Miyazaki’s Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa
(1984)—that were released as manga and feature films without first
appearing as television series.
Within the sea of anime produced in Japan, Oshii’s work—especially his most
recent film, Ghost in the Shell—stands out for its striking form and
provocative content. It is comparable only to a few other classics (e.g.,
Akira) in terms of the quality of its drawing and the complex nature of its
ideas. As Ueno Toshiya suggests, Oshii’s anime is unique in that it conveys a
realism—in the high level of its animation and its sophisticated camera
techiques—that blurs the boundary between anime and live-action films (Oshii
being one of the few Japanese directors to work in both formats).5
Ueno further notes, on a more thematic level, that Oshii tends to deal with one
central idea throughout his works, “like any great philosopher” (186).
The exact nature of Oshii’s major theme is open to question, however, since
his works are complex and operate on several levels. Moreover, both
intertextually and within any given film, Oshii often displays a tremendous
ambiguity that makes it difficult to determine a specific direction of thought.
One example of this is the question of technology (and civilization) versus
nature as this theme appears in Oshii’s treatment of Tokyo in the Patlabor
films.6 On the one hand, Oshii’s representation of life in Tokyo
depicts human alienation from nature in a way that invokes a sense of profound
sadness bordering on despair. For example, his ubiquitous white birds soaring
majestically above and around the confines of the city’s walls of buildings can
be seen as stark symbols of the loss of freedom human beings must pay for the
trappings of urban life. On the other hand, Oshii’s representations of Tokyo
also convey a fascination with the city, its immensity and promise. One senses
an identification between the director and the characters he often depicts
sitting across from the city, gazing at its skyline and waiting. As will be
seen, Patlabor II also demonstrates its own considerable ambiguity in
dealing with questions of war and peace.
In terms of genre, Patlabor II is a science fiction film both because
it deals with contemporary questions through a narrative set in the future and
because it contains some of the quintessential science fiction elements, such as
the representation of future technology and its implications for human
existence. Yet it also departs from science fiction in several ways. First,
aside from the presence of the high-tech Labors, everyday existence as
represented in Patlabor II is fairly close to life in contemporary Japan.
Oshii emphasizes this mundane, non-futuristic reality through the characters’
use of nearly obsolete objects such as an old-fashioned stove to heat a large
metal water kettle.7 Furthermore, by comparison with more universal
issues, such as the questioning of gender identity within the context of
human-machine relations in Ghost in the Shell,8 the conflict
in Patlabor II is decisively local, concerned mainly with the nation of
Japan. One could even say that Oshii downplays the potential human-vs.-machine
theme that might surface in Patlabor by minimizing the scenes involving
the Labors and giving humans unequivocal control over them (as opposed to the
tense cyborg conflicts depicted in Ghost in the Shell).
In its handling of the question of Japan’s future with respect to peace and
war, Patlabor II contains a number of elements that have come to be
associated with the war film genre. For example, it features a rigorous
thematization of the question “why do we fight?”—a depiction of battle that is
neither glorifying nor condemnatory, and an ambiguous representation of the
enemy. In this regard, it is actually ideologically richer than many of the
American sf war films that have preceded and followed it, such as James
Cameron’s Aliens (1986) and Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers
(1998).
The plot of the film is complicated and involves several intentional false
leads and (perhaps unintentional) inconsistencies that make it somewhat
difficult to follow. Immediately after the opening scene in which Tsuge’s Labors
are overwhelmed by enemy fire during a 1999 UN operation, the film abruptly
jumps to the year 2002, when the Yokohama Bay Bridge is suddenly destroyed by a
missile fired from an F-16 fighter.9 The possibility is raised that a
certain rogue unit within the SDF is responsible for the attack on the bridge
and may be attempting a coup d’état. Contradicting this interpretation, Captains
Goto and Shinobu of the Second Special Vehicles Division (SVD2)—a quasi-military
police unit that uses battle Labors to control crime and sabotage—learn from
Arakawa, an inside government source, that the F-16 was a supposedly special
American model. New events, however, eclipse this development before its full
ramifications can be explored.
The idea that the attack on the bridge was launched from an American plane
seems to dissolve when three Japanese fighter jets appear on radar headed for
Tokyo from an SDF airbase. The attack, however, turns out to be the result of
someone hacking into Japan’s defense computer to create a phantom attack
sequence. Interestingly enough, blame for the incident ultimately falls on
America: Arakawa explains that since Japan’s budget for the defense computer was
cut, it was necessary to borrow technology from the United States, which has
jeopardized the safety of the system by leaving it open to hackers throughout
the world.
Suspicion and tension between the Japanese police and SDF continues to
increase and the two sides position themselves in preparation for an armed
confrontation. Martial law is declared and tanks and infantry are sent to occupy
Tokyo in what are some of the most poignant and emotionally charged images in
the film. In the meantime, the majority of government officials are depicted as
utterly incompetent and incapable of dealing with the situation without causing
civil war. The US is also threatening to intervene at this point and occupy
Japan if the situation is not brought under control.
Responding to information from Arakawa, Shinobu and Goto finally learn that
Tsuge Yukihito, who disappeared after returning from his UN mission and is
suspected to be operating a pro-nationalist terrorist group, is most likely
orchestrating the whole crisis. Tsuge’s specific objective is never made clear,
however. At different points it is suggested that he is either attempting a coup
d’état, starting a civil war, or merely seeking to recreate the situation he was
put into during his mission in Southeast Asia in order to give government
officials a taste of real war. The final scenes involve the capture of Tsuge’s
headquarters, but not before Tsuge has managed to destroy a good number of
Labors—and indeed large sections of Tokyo—with attack helicopters. He also
commands huge computer-controlled airships that threaten to release toxic gas
over the city. When Tsuge is finally captured and asked why he has not committed
suicide in view of the failure of his plot, he responds with cryptic
hopefulness: “Because I wanted to be able to watch just a little more ... this
city, its future.”
World War II, National Identity, and the “Foul Peace.” The film’s opening scene of combat in Southeast Asia is the only one that takes
place outside Japan and involves contact with non-Japanese. Appearing before
even the opening credits, this scene clearly establishes the fact that the
national crisis, which is the subject of the remainder of the film, concerns
Japan’s position in the international arena. As such, the scene succinctly
expresses the content of the national crisis.
The representation of combat in this initial scene is indicative of the
ambiguous position toward war that is expressed throughout Patlabor II:
the scene conveys no specific pro- or anti-war sentiment, there are no images of
the carnage of battle (which anime has been proven quite capable of portraying
in the past), nor are we shown images of dying soldiers. Yet the act of battle
is hardly glorified, either as it lacks any heroic figures or elements. Apart
from brief clips of the Labor pilots operating their machines, the only human
reference point in the scene—and thus potential point of audience
identification—is the character Tsuge. The dominant emotion imparted through
this identification is frustration resulting from an inability to act. The fact
that the Labor force clearly has superior firepower—which would be obvious to
viewers who had seen the first Patlabor film or the original television
series—and would have been able to avoid destruction if only they had been
allowed to defend themselves, augments this sense of frustration.
Tsuge’s Labor force in Southeast Asia represents advanced Japanese technology
and Japan’s potential to contribute in a significant manner in the international
arena. Yet the force is not permitted to engage the enemy and is ordered to wait
for another unit. While the film does not explain the situation fully, the
reasons behind this order would be understood by an audience aware of the
political drama surrounding Japan’s involvement in the United Nations
peacekeeping force. Essentially, Tsuge and his crew are rendered impotent by the
fraught historical debate over the issue of military mobilization, and are thus
depicted as victims of the paralysis and confusion caused by the government’s
inability to formulate a decisive position. The plot that Tsuge later carries
out in Japan essentially collapses the debate from an international to a
national space, with the two sides representing the differing political views
brought to an armed standoff, and consequently paralyzed. In other words,
Japan’s inability to act internationally is a result of a divided national
consciousness—divided between guilt and fear on the one hand, and the desire to
leave history, especially World War II, behind for a new Japan on the other.
World War II was Japan’s last significant military engagement and thus the
most accessible model—maintained through historical narratives taught in schools
or by media representations—for military experience on a national level. Hence
it was natural, both inside and outside Japan, for discussions of Japan’s
possible military participation in the United Nations to turn to this model as a
point of reference. Since World War II, Japan has become a country that prides
itself on its peacefulness and its ability to stay out of military conflicts.
The generation of Japanese that grew up in this environment thus tends to harbor
an adamant pacifist stance, based on a universal humanitarian ideology
condemning war.10 This ideology, combined with the legacy of World
War II as a painfully abiding memory, provided the main counter-position against
calls from conservative nationalists, who tended to locate themselves on Japan’s
political right, for SDF participation in the United Nations.
Patlabor II engages these issues directly in a monologue delivered by
Arakawa. This technique of lengthy speeches, in which the film’s central theme
or idea is clearly laid out for the viewer, is typical of Oshii’s sometimes
didactic style. In this case, the monologue serves what Oshii has stated in
hindsight was the central objective of Patlabor II—a summing-up of the
postwar period in Japan.11 Typical of the Oshii monologue style, we
do not see the character delivering the speech but instead hear a voiceover
accompanying a series of arresting, symbolically dense images.12 The
monologue occurs in the context of a discussion between Arakawa and Goto
regarding the SDF-police standoff. Goto suggests that Tsuge’s group seems to be
trying to start a war. Arakawa replies that the war has already begun and that
the question now is how it will end. Goto boards a boat and Arakawa sees him off
from the shore; then, the image shifts to Goto’s point-of-view of the severed
Yokohama Bay Bridge and the monologue begins.13
You as a policeman, Goto, me as an SDF officer, what is it that we are trying
to protect?
[Image of Goto standing solemnly against the background of the bombed bridge and
gray skies]
It’s been half-a-century since the last war and you and I have never had the
experience of real war since we were born. Peace? Is it peace we should protect?
[Image of gray skies with industry in the background]
If so, what in the world is peace for this country, for this city?
[Various images of dilapidated industry]
Once we put all our strength into war only to be defeated. Then the Americans
came with their occupation policy. And then there was the Cold War and wars by
proxy under the nuclear deterrent. Even now in most of the world there are civil
wars again and again. There are also ethnic clashes and armed disputes. We live
in a bloodstained economic prosperity that is comprised of and supported by
numerous wars of this kind. This is the contents of our peace!
[Images of grain elevators and silos]
It’s a peace that we maintain at any price, no matter what it’s really like,
just because we fear war. Our peace is an unjust peace. We simply supply the
money while other countries pay the real price for war. And we continue to
divert our eyes from the truth of this foul [kinakusai] peace.
The monologue begins by asking, in a rhetorical manner, what is it that we
are protecting? (In other words, the question being posited is, why do we
fight?—as pointed out earlier, a fundamental question of the war film genre.)
The accompanying image of the bombed bridge suggests that the need to fight is
defensive—to protect Japan and maintain peace in the nation. In response, the
monologue moves to undermine this answer by questioning the nature of peace in
Japan. It presents a deeply negative view of this peace, beginning with a
criticism of American influence and questioning the genuineness of America’s
allegedly peaceful intentions. The images here of gray, solemn, and dismal
industry suggest perhaps that the price of wealth and American-style
modernization has been a loss of natural beauty. Yet the images also emphasize
the idea of an industrious and wealthy country, which coincides with subsequent
expressions of guilt over the price other countries have had to pay for Japanese
peace. Finally, the Japanese people are accused of being indifferent to other
people’s suffering, which in view of the expression of guilt can be read as a
call to action.
This call to action is met in the film by the voice of Goto, who articulates
the pacifist position: “Unjust peace? It may be a foul peace, but it is our job
to protect it. Even though it’s an unjust peace, it’s still better than a just
war.” There is no move here to contradict any of Arakawa’s criticism of the
Japanese people or the nature of peace in Japan, as evidenced by the
consistently gray images. Yet the stated opinion is that war must be avoided at
all costs. Arakawa’s monologue then continues:
I understand your dislike of “just” war. Only a fool would support a just
war. Our history libraries are full of examples of people who have been deceived
by their leaders into fighting so-called just wars.
[Image of the sea against gray skies with a solemn buoy and industry in the
background. Immediately followed by an image of an airplane against gray skies]
But as you probably already know, the line between just war and unjust peace is
not very clear. And since the word peace has become a lie, we cannot believe in
our own peace. War is born of peace and still peace is born of war. This is
simply a passive and empty peace just because there is no war at the moment.
[Image of seagulls flying over the sea on a gray background with a ship on the
horizon]
But before long the world will be filled with real war. Haven’t you ever thought
about that?
[Again, images of steel industry against gray skies]
We’ve shrewdly enjoyed the benefits of war, contained within our television
screens in which the front line is simply a game of offense and defense, while
pretending to forget that it is real war. If we continue with this
self-deception, sooner or later we will be greatly punished.
Arakawa seems initially to concur with the pacifist stance. At the same time,
he suggests that there has in fact been such a thing as a just war, World War
II. The image of the solemn buoy conveys a sense of isolation and loneliness,
suggesting that Japan is perhaps without allies in the world and must protect
itself. From here, the monologue moves to a more abstract approach to the
question of war. War is seen not as an anomaly within the order of human
existence but as an ineluctable condition: “War is born of peace and still peace
is born of war.” Thus, while the overall argument of the monologue seems to
begin with a criticism of the situation in postwar Japan as a kind of false
peace that will eventually give way to war, it appears that it is not just the
peace in Japan that is being placed in question but rather the entire concept of
peace as an attainable, permanent state of existence. This position opposes the
notion of peace as a state achieved either through deterrence or as the result
of trust and understanding between potentially hostile forces.
If war is inevitable, then Japan’s struggle to protect its peace is in vain.
Moreover, not only has this peace already been marked as lacking in many
respects, but the Japanese are again accused of having ignored other people’s
suffering in their selfish pursuit of prosperity and their effort to protect
their essentially imperfect and ephemeral peace—ephemeral since “before long the
world will be filled with real war.” Japan will naturally pay for its crime of
apathy: “Sooner or later we will be greatly punished.” To this, Goto responds,
“Who will punish us? God?” and Arakawa answers,
In this city everybody can be like a god. From our armchairs we can know all
kinds of reality through the media even while we can’t really touch it. We are
in fact very ignorant gods. If God can’t do something, humans will try. If we
can catch up to him [Tsuge], we will understand this before long.
[Image of heron flying over ocean]
These last remarks continue the criticism of Japanese apathy towards global
conflicts, connecting it with the potential to see wars on television yet remain
so physically and mentally distant as not to be affected. Arakawa suggests that,
through a technologically enhanced vision, the Japanese have become like gods.
At the same time, the virtue of this power is called into question, thus also
indirectly questioning the value of Japan’s technological achievements. The full
import of the final lines remains obscure, however, since it is never made clear
how catching Tsuge will lead to a better understanding of the human hubris
implied in the connection between apathy and the media. The lack of clarity here
has in part to do with the fact that, as mentioned earlier, we do not know what
Tsuge’s real objective is. It would seem that the repetition of the imperative
to catch Tsuge simply marks a return to the role Arakawa plays within the
narrative and thus brings closure to his more philosophical meditations.
In terms of the monologue’s allegorical significance, there is a fascinating
similarity between Arakawa’s position and the stance taken by the conservative
politician Ozawa Ichiro during the debate over Japan’s involvement in the United
Nations forces. Ozawa took up the cause for a number of changes concerning
Japan’s international role that had been suggested during the Nakasone
government. He was opposed to the pacifist ideology that had taken root in Japan
and felt that Japan had become “selfish and money-grubbing, ignoring the cost of
maintaining the international freedom and peace on which the Japanese economy
depended” (qtd. in Pyle 152). Ozawa believed that in order for Japan to become a
“normal country” it had to take more responsibility in the international
community, which meant revising or simply eliminating Article 9 in the
constitution, yet also cooperating more fully with America.14 His efforts
towards this end were influential in formulating and passing legislation in 1992
that allowed for sending SDF troops abroad (Pyle 153-54, Finn 122-26). In view
of these similarities, it seems reasonable at first to suggest that Arakawa is
supposed to represent Ozawa. Yet Arakawa’s final statement renders his political
beliefs unclear, which complicates any association with a real political figure
or position. Arakawa’s sense of mistrust toward the United States—which is
revealed more strongly at a later point—is also certainly far from Ozawa’s call
for more cooperation between the two nations.
Determining how seriously we are to take the ideas presented in the monologue
is complicated by the fact that Arakawa is deliberately depicted as the film’s
most unlikable character. Even before we discover that he was a former member of
Tsuge’s group, he provokes suspicion due to his evil grin and perpetually shifty
eyes, which suggest that he is concealing ulterior plans. One wonders why Oshii
chose to present the central thematic content of his film from the viewpoint of
this unreliable character. Possibly, Oshii is attempting to voice criticism of
Japanese society in the postwar era while at the same time softening the thrust
of this critique by associating it with the devious Arakawa.15
There are a number of possible motives for such a seemingly curious move.
First, direct criticism of governmental policy is not a popular method in Japan.
Second, while the views presented in the monologue may not seem all that extreme
outside Japan, it should be remembered that the majority of the Japanese
population was opposed to the idea of expanding the SDF or sending troops
overseas to participate in combat-related UN activities—the need for which is a
logical conclusion of Arakawa’s argument. Finally, since Oshii himself was a
member of the anti-military student movement of the 1970s, he might feel a
certain uneasiness with the political direction in which this criticism of
Japan’s international position seems to lead. Above all, what this issue
demonstrates is the aesthetic and ideological complexity of Oshii’s anime films,
which have the capacity to appear at once didactically pointed and slyly
ambiguous.
Nevertheless, two factors weaken the distancing effect generated by Arakawa’s
unreliability, thus seeming more firmly to endorse the position expounded in the
monologue. First, as mentioned above, we are not shown Arakawa speaking. Hence,
the negative associations and suspicion aroused by his appearance are not as
pronounced in this scene. Second, while Arakawa may be depicted negatively, his
relationship to Tsuge has a redeeming if not legitimizing effect on the
political views he voices. When it is eventually revealed that Arakawa was a
former member of Tsuge’s group, we are told that while he still shares its
political views, he split from the group in opposition to Tsuge’s violent
methods. Ironically even though it is Arakawa who helps Goto and Shinobu while
Tsuge is destroying Tokyo, it is Tsuge, not Arakawa, with whom the viewer is led
to sympathize and identify. One can even say that from the opening scene, in
which Tsuge is depicted as a victim of the political incompetence of Japan’s
leaders, and throughout the film as a former love affair between Tsuge and
Shinobu is revealed, a definite warmth and sympathy is evoked for this character
who is responsible for the destruction and chaos in Japan. This sense of
sympathy is clinched in the final scene when Tsuge is at last subdued by Shinobu
and the two grasp hands longingly.
Yet Tsuge is, for most of the narrative, a silent and mysterious background
figure. We are never clearly told exactly why he attempts to induce a civil war
in Japan. Even his one explanation—by way of a cryptic citation from the New
Testament, discussed below—is actually voiced by Shinobu. Thus, Arakawa’s
monologue is the only immediate and semi-clear explanation offered. While it is
severed from Tsuge himself, leaving him untarnished, its tentative connection to
Tsuge and the sympathy we feel for him has a redeeming effect on the political
views it expresses.
Tsuge’s Message: Not Peace, But a Sword. The passage from the New Testament cited by Shinobu is critical since, as
observed above, it seems to offer an explanation for Tsuge’s violent actions.
The obscurity of the New Testament language and its removal from its contextual
meaning, however, serves to disguise this explanation almost entirely. We know
only from the film’s opening scene that Tsuge’s plan is somehow connected to his
experience in Southeast Asia. When Arakawa informs Goto that the American
ambassador has said that if Japan cannot solve its domestic affairs the country
will face American military intervention, it is suggested that Tsuge’s plan is
really designed to provoke America into attempting to re-occupy Japan, an action
that could lead directly to another global war. The film, however, gives us no
immediate reason to believe that this is in fact Tsuge’s plan, since we are
offered no obvious motive for such an apocalyptic wish—save, perhaps, for the
New Testament passage itself.
The New Testament quotation occurs in the final scene, when Shinobu at last
apprehends and arrests Tsuge. Reciting a passage from the gospel of Luke
(12:51-53), she claims that he wrote these words to her upon his return from
Southeast Asia. A moment earlier the same passage had also appeared, in
fragmented English, scrolling across computer monitors; it is the code program
that controls the airships Tsuge has released over Tokyo. The quotation runs as
follows:
Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth?
I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided,
three against two, and two against three.
The father shall be divided against the son,
and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter,
and the daughter against the mother;
the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law,
and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.
Taken at face value, the passage simply suggests that Tsuge is a rebel
attempting to cause unrest and dissent within the nation. Since this
interpretation still fails to offer a real understanding of his motives, it is
logical to assume that one is intended to look beneath this surface implication
for a more significant meaning.
Viewed within its Biblical context, the quote does indeed suggest something
much different. The passage is part of Jesus’s prophetic warning to the
Pharisees, articulated in the style of the Old Testament prophets. Speaking at a
time of political chaos and discontent, Jesus is actually warning the people
against narrow sectarianism and telling them to open their eyes and see the
reality of the world in which they live: “[Ye] hypocrites, ye can discern the
face of the sky and of the earth; but how is it that ye do not discern this
time?” (Luke 12:56). Criticizing the Pharisees for collaborating with the Romans
and creating division among the people, Jesus is basically telling his listeners
that they will be weakened and ultimately destroyed if they are not united.
The invocation of this Biblical prophecy in Patlabor II serves to
convey a specific political message in a manner that accommodates the film’s own
form of prophetic science fiction expression. Indeed, there is an overwhelming
similarity between the political viewpoint articulated in the film and the
message Jesus is attempting to relay to the people. Just as Jesus is speaking
against the Pharisees’ collaboration with the Romans, Tsuge is criticizing
Japan’s collaboration with America. Furthermore, while Jesus depicts through
words the weakness of a nation divided, Tsuge demonstrates through his actions
the frailty and weakness of a divided Japan. As discussed earlier, it was the
division in opinion over the nature of Japan’s role in the future international
community and Japan’s participation in the United Nations that paralyzed Tsuge’s
force in Southeast Asia and led to its destruction. In addition, this division
in Japan, the result of incompetent political leadership, nearly leads to civil
war and American military intervention, just as the sectarianism and strife
among the people in Jesus’s time led to Roman military intervention. In support
of this reading, I would point out that Oshii’s use of Biblical references
throughout his anime films demonstrates an intimate knowledge of the text.16
It is thus highly unlikely that he would have employed this quotation without
being aware of its wider implications—though how many Japanese viewers would be
able to interpret the passage in terms of its contextual meaning is questionable
since Christianity is still a minority religion in Japan.
Tsuge’s final statement regarding suicide and his curiosity about the
future—which is also the last line spoken in the film—further support my
interpretation of the significance of the New Testament passage. Had the film
ended with Tsuge’s suicide, it would have expressed a message of despair at
Japan’s inability to heed the warnings articulated by Tsuge and Arakawa. A
prophet who kills himself after delivering a dark warning to his people does not
express a great deal of confidence in his followers’ ability to mend their ways
and avoid disaster. As it is, Tsuge’s open interest in the future conveys an
expression of hope that his message will be understood and heeded. In this
manner, Tsuge’s apparent defeat can be interpreted as a victory since it was
never his intention to have Japan destroyed in a war but rather only to warn the
nation and engender a unified political resolve.
As noted above, the thrust of Arakawa’s monologue is a condemnation of Japan
for not taking more responsibility for the maintenance of peace in the world (or
even in Japan), and for clinging to the illusion that the present peace is a
permanent state of existence. While this criticism contains an implicit attack
on the United States for initially enforcing and now perpetuating this condition
in Japanese society, the force of the critique seems to be aimed at the Japanese
people and government.17 Added to Arakawa’s speech, the effect of the
New Testament citation is to imply that Japan is at fault for collaborating with
the US, whose policies have sown division within Japanese society.
Of course, one does not need to look far to find justification for the film’s
criticism of the United States. From its role in Japan’s relinquishment of the
right to use its forces overseas, to its constant pressure on Japan to rebuild
its armed forces during the Korean War, to its mixed signals of cooperation and
competition as Japan became an economic world power, America’s lack of clarity
in its posture toward Japan during the postwar period has been the source of
ambiguity and confusion within Japan over its own position in the world. Yet
despite the understandable sentiments of anger and mistrust this waffling policy
has engendered, the film’s manner of presenting its critique slides all too
easily into a rhetorical framework of fervent nationalism.
The domestic problem in Japan, according to the argument the film seems to
mount, is essentially the result of a conflict with the United States. Japan and
the US are thus established in a contextual relationship that Naoki Sakai calls
“a schema of co-figuration” (51-52): Japan’s sense of national unity and
identity is constructed in relation to an imagined national other. On the one
hand, this manner of producing national identity is a common discursive
phenomenon that does not denote anything necessarily pernicious; yet on the
other hand, the US in this case is not simply an imaginary other but also the
cause of Japan’s crisis, the precipitating threat that drives the imperative for
national unity. American influence emerges in the film as an insidiously
“foreign” element that has opened Japan to forces of chaos (as in the case of
the American technology that makes Japan’s defense system vulnerable to
hackers), creating division within the nation and leading the people toward
false belief. In a manner common to nationalist rhetorics, US influence in Japan
is represented as an impurity within the organic national body that must be
expunged in order to recover the imperiled homeland. As we shall see, this
rhetoric of invasion and infection converges with powerful tropes within the
science fiction film genre—tropes that work both with and against the message of
Patlabor II.
“Secure Horror” vs. “Paranoid Horror.” Aside from the initial scene that takes place in Southeast Asia, the remainder
of the military-political conflict in the film occurs in or around Tokyo. Severe
damage is visited upon the city in the course of this conflict: bridges are
blown up, and combat helicopters roam the city wreaking destruction while
government forces seem all but helpless. The destruction of Tokyo in these
scenes is inevitably reminiscent of the Godzilla films produced in Japan
during the 1950s. Drawing on Andrew Tudor’s definitions, in his 1989 study
Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie, Susan
Napier discusses Godzilla as an optimistic form of “secure horror” in which “the
collectivity is threatened, but only from the outside, and is reestablished,
usually through the combined efforts of scientists and the government” (332).
The enjoyment factor in the “secure horror” genre is derived precisely from the
fact that the spectacle of chaos and destruction, which audiences tend to find
so attractive, is rendered less likely to induce anxiety and thus more enjoyable
by the knowledge that order will be restored with the resolution of the
conflict. It is important to note that while these films were a continuation of
an anti-technology motif that was prominent in prewar Japanese science fiction
and fantasy, they also conveyed a strong nationalistic message in their
representation of American technology as the evil force that awakens the
monster, in contrast to the good Japanese technology that finally kills it.
Napier points to the negative representation of American nuclear technology as
an obvious reference to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; in the same
context, she suggests that the happy conclusion to the film served as an
important ideological device that “offered its immediate postwar Japanese
audience an experience that was both cathartic and compensatory, allowing them
to rewrite or at least to re-imagine their tragic wartime experiences” (332).
While the images of the destruction of Tokyo in Patlabor II conform to
Tudor’s definition of “secure horror,” there is room to doubt whether they carry
the same “cathartic” function Napier describes for the present generation in
Japan. The nationalist aspect, however, is still very much operative. This is
especially evident in the scene where the Yokohama Bay Bridge is destroyed by a
sinister and sleek missile that homes in on its target in a manner reminiscent
of televised images of American “smart bombs” during the Gulf War.18 Perhaps the
desire to cement such a connection in the minds of its viewers is the reason
behind the film’s unexplained and undeveloped plot shift in which the attacking
jet is identified as American.
Another aspect of “secure horror” with nationalist significance can be
located in the residual historical meanings connected to the images of tanks and
infantry moving to occupy Tokyo in the dead of night, a likely allusion to the
US occupation. The scene is intercut with clips from a news broadcast narrating
the event, explaining the government’s purpose and asking the people to remain
calm. The police and special units are shown preparing for a long war of
attrition while the population appears stunned, staring at the events unfolding
on their televisions in disbelief. The succeeding montage of social chaos begins
with a close-up on a placard reading “out of order” (ko-shoo-chuu) above
a train platform. For a city as large as Tokyo, in which the population
absolutely depends on the intricate and incredibly efficient train system to
commute to work, there is perhaps nothing more exemplary of chaos and disorder
as the failure of this system. This shot is followed by a more than two-minute
sequence—almost lyrical in form—that contains some of the best and most
emotionally charged animation in the film. Accompanied by a mournful soundtrack,
we are shown melancholy images from a single day in a city under siege—a city
that is trying to behave as if it were business as usual. The scene finally
fades out with a soft and quiet snow falling on solitary soldiers standing guard
during the night.
The message—and sense of horror—encoded in these images is two-fold. First,
on a historical level they are, as mentioned above, a stark reminder of Japan’s
utter defeat in World War II and the ensuing loss of national pride that came
with the American occupation. Second, in a contemporary context the mobilization
of the military signals the collapse of the peace that has come to define
postwar Japan. Japan’s obstinate decision to pursue peace and abstain from any
armed conflict has been a central differentiating characteristic separating
modern Japan from its prewar social attitudes, when the nation’s military
prowess was a source of tremendous national pride. A shift in this direction
thus marks not only a temporal but also an ideological regression, a movement
towards a once-discredited but now perhaps rehabilitated militant nationalism.
Yet the seemingly jingoistic nationalist message that emerges from the
“secure horror” element in Patlabor II is complicated by two potential
contradictions. First, the threat to the nation emanates from within the
collective itself—from Arakawa and Tsuge—and not from outside. This raises the
specter of what Tudor identifies as “paranoid horror”—a competing subgenre of
the sf/horror film in which “danger comes not from outside in the form of alien
invaders as in Godzilla, but from one’s friends, family, or even oneself”
(qtd. in Napier 340). This “paranoid horror” element is a common device in
dystopian science fiction films—a recent example would be Terry Gilliam’s 12
Monkeys (1995)—which are often quite critical of nationalistic
constructions. Yet, as mentioned above, while Arakawa is indeed demonized in the
film, the viewer is led to sympathize with Tsuge. This sympathetic depiction
leaves the viewer with the sense that the real threat to the nation does indeed
come from the outside—from the Americans who are poised to attack at the
slightest provocation—and not from such citizens as share the ideology expressed
by Tsuge.
Second, the national government in the “secure horror” film is generally a
positive force that works to reestablish order in the nation. By contrast, the
government in Patlabor II is harshly criticized and its leaders depicted
as blundering and incompetent. This criticism, however, does not go so far as to
condemn the entire institution but only its leaders; Goto and Shinobu disobey
this council of aged, conservative, and ultimately impotent figureheads in order
to take the initiative and save Japan—for all intents and purposes, a very
patriotic action. Overall, it is the young and the innovative who redeem Japan
from the rigid and corrupt leadership that would have impelled the country
blindly toward civil war and destruction. This can be interpreted as a direct
rebuttal to the claim arising among Japan’s elders that the younger generation
is apathetic and spoiled—a cohort of shin-jin-rui (a new kind of person).
In addition, this action is a decisive contribution to the debate concerning
Japan’s participation in the UN and its new position in the world, as it was the
older politicians who remained intransigent against the change. Therefore, while
the film clearly criticizes contemporary Japan, it does so in a way that remains
faithful to its national structure, asking for reform rather than revolution.
The younger generation prove themselves worthy by picking up the nationalist
torch from an older generation that had fumbled it. The genuine concern
expressed in the film for the faltering state of the nation renders it perhaps
even more nationalistic.
This of course begs the question of where one is to draw the line between
honest expressions of patriotism and jingoistic nationalism. Simply put, if the
film serves as a vehicle for nationalist ideology, which of the various forms of
nationalism are we talking about? There can be no doubt of the distance in both
form and content between the militaristic nationalism that seized the Japanese
people prior to World War II and anything surfacing in contemporary Japan. Yet
there is an acute sense of pride in the wonder of Japan’s technological
achievements transmitted in the spectacle of the giant Labor machines that seems
to slide rather easily from simple patriotism to fervent nationalism. If the
dividing line between patriotism and nationalism is the moment when pride in
one’s country becomes fear for the integrity of the nation in the face of an
imagined military threat or a cultural contamination emanating from outside,
then Patlabor II is clearly located on the nationalist side of the line.
The image of the Labor and the halo of pride surrounding its employment (in
both Patlabor films) can be seen to assist the nationalist element in a
manner similar to the representation of American and Japanese technology in the
Godzilla films. This is most evident in the final fight scenes in
Patlabor II, in which Goto and Shinobu, together with a squad of Labor pilots
who have survived Tsuge’s attacks, have devised a plan to sneak into Tsuge’s
headquarters via a secret tunnel. The group assembles at the mouth of this
tunnel, which also happens to be a forgotten and defunct subway station. Goto
explains that the station is a relic from a bayfront development project that
collapsed during the war years. In other words, the group has metaphorically
traveled backwards through time to prewar Japan. From here the group advances
down the tunnel toward Tsuge’s headquarters while confronting x-Tors, which we
are told are American-designed battle robots. These robots are squat, dull, and
generally unaesthetic by comparison with the impressive Japanese Labors, but
they live up to their fearsome reputation and Shinobu alone succeeds in
advancing with her Labor to capture Tsuge. Along with the obvious confrontation
between American and Japanese technology enacted here, the metaphoric
time-travel element that precedes the scene renders the battle a kind of
re-imagining of history in which Japanese forces again encounter the Americans.
This time, the Labor, representing the pinnacle of achievement of Japanese
science and technology, vanquishes its American counterparts.
It is difficult to be critical of a director and writer as talented as Oshii.
His work is indeed in a class of its own and he has been responsible for pushing
the boundaries of anime toward previously unimagined levels. Yet as
Patlabor II attempts to deal with the very complex and emotionally charged
issues concerning Japan’s SDF, the incredible social and environmental
transformations witnessed during the postwar era, and the nation’s
responsibility toward maintaining the global peace from which it has benefited,
it is susceptible to the sometimes problematic near-sightedness that arises in
relation to these topics. Furthermore, it is important to emphasize that the
character of the nationalism that emerges in the film is a far cry from the sort
of ultra-right militarism advocated by such figures as Yukio Mishima. In fact,
it is difficult to imagine that such a nationalism could even exist, let alone
flourish, in the decidedly pacifist and anti-confrontational environment that
characterizes contemporary Japan.
Moreover, in assessing the implications of the film’s nationalist stance, it
should be remembered that Japan was under tremendous international pressure,
especially during the Gulf War, to take an active part in the mobilization, but
was paralyzed by the ardent anti-military ideology that has taken root since
World War II. Hence, it is entirely possible that a nationalist message can
coincide with one stressing international cooperation. Rather, it is those
moments in the film when this message turns toward an imperative for unity in
the face of an imagined American hostility that I find problematic. Instead of
viewing this as an ideological failure on Oshii’s part, I would suggest that
Patlabor II’s ultimate message may be seen as cautionary, demonstrating how the
argument for expanding the role of the SDF (both in Japan and internationally)
slides much too readily towards a nationalistic anti-Americanism—a view that has
thus far failed to gain serious support among the Japanese population.
NOTES
1. A valuable study of the implications of the end of the Cold War for Japan is
Pyle, upon whom I have relied for background.
2. See Pyle 152-155; Renwick 58; and Finn 122-123. Article 9 reads as
follows: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and
order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the
nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international
disputes.
“In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air
forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of
belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” For futher discussion, see
Shiro 96-98.
3. The pacifist position is in fact so strong that even mildly pro-military
statements made by political leaders have cost them their careers. Renwick
explains, for example, that former Director-General Nakanishi Keisuke’s
statement to the Shineseito Upper House in December 1993, that Japan should
reconsider the war-renouncing article in the Constitution led to his forced
resignation (135).
4. The term “imagined community” is of course borrowed from Benedict
Anderson.
5. Interestingly, Ueno points out that there has sometimes been criticism of
anime that effects a blurring of boundaries with regular cinema. The
criticism is based on the view that in order for anime to be an independent
genre it should remain unreal-looking. Ueno, however, views this criticism as
deriving from the institutionalized discrimination against anime that demands a
clear demarcation between real and unreal representations (188).
6. In a discussion with the director published in Animage magazine, Hayao
remarks on Oshii’s apparently ambiguous feelings toward Tokyo.
7. For a further discussion of such objects in Patlabor II, see Ueno
28.
8. For an excellent discussion of this topic, see Silvio.
9. The scene draws upon a real incident in which a defecting Mig-25 pilot
managed to enter Japanese airspace undetected in 1976 (see Asahi Shinbun).
10. An example of this pacifist position is the recent refusal by 278 (out of
404) graduates of the Tokorozawa High School to participate in a graduation
ceremony when the principal ordered the raising of the rising-sun flag and the
singing of an anthem praising the Emperor (see Tokyo AFP).
11. In a discussion of the film with Hayao Miyazaki, Oshii states that he
felt it was important to make a film that would clearly express what the postwar
period had been like for Japan (“nihon no sengo wa doiu jidai datta noka…”)
as a way of summing up before moving into the next millennium. He also states
that this notion became clear to him only after finishing the film (30).
12. Oshii employs this method throughout his anime and even in such
live-action films as Kereberos (1991).
13. The translations throughout this essay are my own.
14. See Finn, 107-108. Although the two ideas—revising Article 9 and more
cooperation with the United States—may appear contradictory, the United States
government has seemed to regret imposing Article 9 on Japan ever since the
Korean War, when it began to put pressure on Japan to rearm and help in the
effort to contain communism. Ozawa’s position on Article 9 and the future of the
SDF in fact earned him close friends in Washington at the time (Shiro 98,
106-108, 111 n., Renwick 135).
15. That the opinions expressed in the monologue are apparently Oshii’s own
is made clear in his interview with Hayao (28-29).
16. See, for example, Patlabor I (1989), in which the central conflict
in the film involves a deadly “Babel” virus that threatens to destroy Tokyo’s
new Babylon Project. Ghost in the Shell also uses several New Testament
passages.
17. It is interesting to note that in the dubbed version of Patlabor II
released in the US, the criticism of America is made much more explicit.
18. For more on this connection, see Ueno 41-42.
WORKS CITED
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and
Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983.
Asahi Shinbun. September 7, 1976: 1.
Finn, Richard B. “Japan’s Search for a Global Role: Politics and Security.” In Japan’s Quest: The Search for International Role, Recognition, and Respect,
ed. Warren S. Hunsberger. Armonk, NY: East Gate, 1997. 113-130.
Hiyao, Miyakazi. “jidai ni keri o tsukeru tame ni” [“In order to sum up the
period”]. Animage 184 (October 1993): 27-31.
Katzenstein, Peter J. Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and
Military in Postwar Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1996.
Napier, Susan J. “Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from
Godzilla to Akira.” Journal of Japanese Studies 19.2 (1993): 327-351.
Pyle, Kenneth B. The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era.
Washington, D.C.: AEI, 1996.
Renwick, Neil. Japan’s Alliance Politics and Defence Production. London:
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Shiro, Okubo. “Japan’s Constitutional Pacifism and United Nations Peacekeeping.”
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Respect, ed. Warren S. Hunsberger. Armonk, NY: East Gate, 1997. 96-112.
Silvio, Carl. “Refiguring the Radical Cyborg in Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the
Shell.” SFS 26.1 (March 1999): 54-72. Tanaka, Akihiko. “The Domestic
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Tamamoto, Masaru. “Japan’s Search for Recognition and Status.” In Japan’s
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Warren S. Hunsberger. Armonk, NY: East Gate, 1997. 3-14.
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Tudor, Andrew. Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror
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Ueno, Toshiya. Kurenai no metasutsu: anime toiu senjo [Metalsuits, The Red:
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