Okay, so previously
when we largely talked to get terms out of the way
we talked about shoukan and tensei and narou-kei.
But one of the things we ended up missing was tenii,
or transfer focused Isekai,
where characters move from one place to another instead
of being summoned or reincarnated.
This is actually kind of important because in this
context there are actually some
pretty interesting implications.
And one of the big works that
came out in recent years
was Gate.
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Gate may be one of the most famous tenii right now.
We have two seasons in anime.
We have a manga.
It's pretty well selling and it's completely Japan propaganda
for jieitai.
So do you think it's doing something unique
or is this just innate to Isekai?
It's absolutely about politics, in a way.
Gate is one of the most famous, but before Gate
We already have Isekai which promote Japan in the other world
like Outbreak Company.
We've a main character who's an otaku like the main
character in Gate.
And is transported by the government to another world
to promote otaku culture in this world to sell them shit.
In Gate their pretext, to Japan, to invade the
other world is just they attack first.
(laughter)
They don't just decide it's an error or not.
In Gate we have a main character who is an otaku,
but it's also in the military.
And it decides to militarize against an empire
of middle age fantasy with dragons and stuff.
And Japan jieitai come with Apache helicopter and stuff
and they shoot in the bullet in the eye.
You're an almighty god, and you just crush ants
with your fingers.
It's like a slaughter.
One of the notable things about Gate is that
it adopts a really defensive position.
When we think of Isekai they feel very proactive
in that people seek out new worlds or they explore.
But for Gate the impetus is fundamentally,
determined by something that happens to them.
And it's a sort of constitutional anxiety given that
Japan's constitution was largely written by the Americans.
So among them being the inability to field their own
interest through military projection,
and that ends up fundamentally informing
the logic of these sorts of stories.
Even outside the Isekai world,
some stories in manga and anime will try to talk
about the influence of Japan to the other world.
Even if something that remind me Gate
is like Zipang where cruiser boat from our
era was transported to World War II.
And whether they decide or not, to involve in the conflicts
will maybe change the story of Japan,
and potentially stop this war before,
or prevent Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It's not isolé,
you know it's not isolated.
It's in the mind of lot of stories in Japan,
because Japan is, even if we don't see it like this,
it's pretty far-right.
- [newscaster] The kindergarten's principal believes
in rewriting significant events in Japan's history.
When you see the politics of Shinzo Abe,
it has a repercussion in this culture.
And we see it even in Isekai, that's what's Gate,
and where they decide to install guns in another world
like in Gun-ota or Manuke, and even for knowledge,
well, they'll decide to, we have an Isekai about
a guy we have not a military power,
but as a knowledge, particularly in his mind
like with a veterinarian in Jui-san no Oshigoto
Isekai Yakkyoku, whose main character is a pharmacist.
So he brings his knowledge of medicine in this other world
of Middle Age and that improves and
changes drastically this world.
These kinds of stories are not uncommon in Isekai.
I think there's actually something you touched
upon which is really worth noting,
and that is that when the Japanese get involved
it's not always a physical thing.
We have to acknowledge the soft power dimension.
For example in Gate, the Japanese state needs
and wields a neo-liberal apparatus.
They can fight things better than the people in the Gate.
They bargain much better.
They're so much more powerful and capable than these people
in this other world.
But as you mention,
there's a particular fetishization of modernity.
For example, in Juisan no Oshigoto, it's modern veterinary
information and practices that give him the leg up.
Or when we look at Isekai Yakkyoku,
it's modern medicine that gives him the leg up,
that he literally has to propose germ theory
in this other world.
And it can get really insidious in the context of simulacra.
Consider Isekai Houtei, right,
where the God want Japanese law in this other world,
and yet God is so comfortable bringing over
a failed law student instead of an actual lawyer.
God has somehow decided that
it doesn't matter that he failed.
What matters is that this man knows Japanese law.
This man who happens to have killed himself.
And that is meant to be so
fundamentally superior to native law,
and you can see how it starts to brush between
chthonic laws, and the laws imported from Japan.
Yeah (laughter) and they decide to install
this Japan law system, even if Japan law
is not so absolute and perfect, right?
Even if we talk about Gate, we have a supremacy
of army, but of knowledge too, and they decide
a lot of things like you need to distribute
condom to prostitutes.
You need to bring food to this civilization,
educate the people.
They act like USA in Iraq.
There's something really interesting about Gate.
When you look at the rhetoric that it uses.
Because there's a particular political bent
that seems to be quite ominous.
This is quite an important question,
because it recalls discussions of the GEACPS.
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Through a cooperative with Japan as the
guiding vector of a new order,
we can establish a system completely aside
the Western built liberal one.
And that's quite a damning sentiment that
runs through a lot of Isekai.
We control or manage these peoples,
but they're barbaric peoples, the things we give
are cultural, technological, what have you.
And you're going to like it.
Only when you've become enlightened by our reasoning
that real cooperation comes forth.
But it's almost always by the reasoning of the
Japanese subject.
(techno music)
And that's remind me of Outbreak Company,
where the main character is chosen by the government
because he is like the ultimate otaku, and are
transported to another world, discovered in the Fuji's tree sea.
Right?
His purpose is to sell otaku culture to another world
to bring culture to this world who has absolutely
no culture.
Like they describe it like "Stone Age of Culture".
And for spreading this culture, his first move is to
build a school, because the population can't read
or write, and they need to learn Japanese.
And in his school, they don't learn their own languages,
but the languages of their invaders.
Even the main character asked his employer,
he said, "Am I an invader?"
And he questioned that. He can feel it in his guts,
it's not really okay to make this.
And he tried to find a way to make his job,
but evade this kind of invasion to bring
kind of salvation to this new world,
where they need to destroy the wall of
inequality, and bring them liberty,
because they don't have it.
It's a world with a lot of different races,
so we have elves, dwarves, and stuff.
Like the usual mmo package!
(laughter)
He decide it's not okay to have this kind of difference,
and according to his values,
he decide to destroy this world,
and it brings chaos and problems to this world,
because they are not accustomed to this.
And no one questioned that.
Even if at the beginning of the stories,
we have a terrorist attack in the school,
and we have extremist royalists
who are anti-imperialist people who want to kill him,
because he brings other culture to their world.
And they see it like an invasion, because it's not
their culture, and it destroyed the actual society
with his move.
So it's a lot like in Gate, where not like it's
genuine, it's pretty much, even if it's clear for us
For the main character, it looks like - it doesn't look like an invasion.
He really think he's here to serve and protect.
He's a soldier and he acts like this.
He doesn't question the orders.
But the main character of Outbreak Company
is not a soldier, so he's questioned this.
And he interrogates his own feelings
to find the right things to do.
And so this kind of reminds me
of this one Isekai, nihonkoku shoukan, where
the entire nation of Japan is transported.
And I think it imbibes a lot of these sorts
of tenii conventions, the defensive postures,
the politics, the connection between
material and immaterial objects.
For instance, the country immediately
procures food to ensure that it doesn't starve to death,
which is actually quite important,
because Japan is actually at its
lowest self-sustainability.
But an incident leads to war, and eventually
Japan does get involved as an
overwhelming military presence.
And it's important that the war's over food, right?
Because there's a lot of Isekai about
soft culture power and food.
And it sort of betrays a really
particular imperial reasoning.
Food is power and Japan has a lot of
history about food and cooking culture.
We have a lot in common between France and Japan
is our love for food and how we treat 'arts de la table'.
We have a kind of ritual way.
It's a cultural element which is really intricate
to politics of Cool Japan.
Like if you talk with someone in the streets,
and you want to talk about Japan,
you say, "What is the first thing that comes to
your mind when you say 'Japan'?"
80%, sushi.
There's something about Isekai Shokudou that's
really interesting, and that is how the
Japanese person always seem to be
the decider of an assemblage.
For example, early on there's this character
who's considered to be this incredibly savvy
and inventive merchant.
But it turns out that his empire was built
off the work of the Japanese chef.
It's resources from one world,
but it's manifest differently through
efforts of another.
And that's the same in Isekai Nobu, right?
This world has eels, you know, the resources.
But it's up to the Japanese to figure out
how to actually make it palatable.
And so there's a sort of resource anxiety
in that Isekai maps out this sentiment
where the imperial power must acknowledge that
their resources depend from this other place.
But it's through the imperial power and their ability to
"wield it so much better than the natives"
that it legitimizes their use of those resources.
In Isekai ryouridou, the main character doesn't
bring the food with him.
He uses the food already there to
elevate it beyond the native cuisine.
Or according to the story, the lack thereof.
It's only through us Japanese
that the food elevates itself.
And yet, at the same time, it also has to
have to deal with this very post-war
liberal order that it's been inculcated in.
It uses the language of imperialism
to draw attention to the fact that it rejects
its own imperialism.
Even if he cooked occidental food,
like beef stew is not really a Japanese meal,
because it is a Japanese chef,
it's better than any other cook.
We are the superior culture.
We are here to educate you and we are far better than you.
And in even some of the stronger Isekai,
right, in Tondemo Skill, one of his powers
is that he can purchase things off Amazon Japan.
That their power is one of nearly
unshakeable logistics.
He became rich through selling salt.
There's a part of it based off
of historical accuracy, right,
that people went to war for.
But it's used to legitimize a kind of
power relationship that loves to favor the Japanese.
And in the previous video we talked about how
Isekai have really interfacial preferences.
And so we can see this really show up in food,
because Isekai and narou-kei in particular,
draw upon games as storytelling cruxes.
And we can see how games actually play
a really critical role in power relationships
in food and resources.
Because not only are the women treated like resources
to mimic party creation, but the foods are treated
as items, giving buffs and bonuses like they would in games.
And again, the asymmetricality of this relationship
rears its ugly head.
The women seem totally okay with it,
reasoning that their slave owner isn't
as bad as the other native slave owners.
And the food is so much better when cooked
by the Japanese because notably the Japanese cook
is the one who makes the buffs.
So in these sorts of resources,
when a Japanese man cooks it,
when a Japanese man enslaves,
and when a Japanese man goes to war,
everything is so much more seemingly moral and refined.
And so we have this melding of game logics with
this resource anxiety.
But the reason, right, is because they're the ones
who create the rules.
It's an imperial logic.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like in Takarakuji de 40-oku, when he gives them
canned peach, it give them super strength
or really good endurance, and when he ate it,
himself, it don't make a difference.
So it's like, it's much better food like for them,
it's like a drug.
In isekai, food is not only a fuel.
It's more like a knowledge, leverage in this new world,
a way to gain power, literally and economically, you know?
As an example, you can talk about the reverse
isekai Boku no Heya ga dungeon, where the main character
had his door connected to another world,
leading in the dungeon, and when he used the food
of his world in it, he gained a kind of buff.
So when he drink cola or eats chips, he gained some
power, endurance, strength and such.
For economical power we can use an example,
which I really like.
Tondemo Skill.
In Tondemo Skill, the main character became rich
by selling salt, table salt, from our world
in the medieval fantasy world where salt and pepper
are pretty difficult to find and refine,
and salt is an essential tool for food preservation, right?
All of this tend to lead to a pretty good ascendant
in the fantasy world, see?
Where you need to hunt to feed you, but that's not all.
Because it become more interesting where we
don't talk about only food, but also about cuisine,
which is the same, but with cooking food,
(laughter)
cuisine is a whole new world of possible,
Where food is mostly the same state, but also
a vector of nationalism.
When you have Isekai with a guy who can stop war
by creating noodles or soy sauce, you can
legitimately ask where did it go wrong?
Food in isekai is mostly a source of power.
It's a characteristic of Cool Japan, so it's
entwined with the politics of Japan.
You can see it well in the adaptation
of Isekai Izakaya Nobu, well it is an anime
about cooking, so it's fulsome.
But even in its structure is a choice to make
a live part,
with a cuisine tutorial, the way the character eats,
and be so happy to eat Japanese food, which never
can be compared to their peasant feeding without delicacy.
Food in Isekai is nationalism incarnated in a
rice ball.
Obviously this conversation presupposes
consumption is a relationship in which the
Japanese person always has a leg up or they always
produce things that are always better.
But they don't always do that, and they
can't always do that.
So let's get into the heart of darkness,
and talk about Isekai where the main theme isn't
creation or control.
It's about devoration.
Next time, we're going to talk about isekai that have
a very particular sort of relationship with the world
in which they've been sent to.
Where the idea to grow is to consume.
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