Does anyone think it is curious that the designations for different model robots are the same as Japanese WWII fighter aircraft?
- Brad Edwards
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Perhaps the author loved building model airplanes as a child as many boys do. Perhaps he is a Mitsubishi fan.
Or perhaps it is a suggestion that the robots were originally part of a military development project. After all, Alpha lives on the site of an abandoned US army base. Remember the bi-lingual sign she shot at?
I wonder about the guns the robots carry and the "training center." I wonder about the emotional underdevelopment of the robots. I suspect the numerous "brothers and sisters" of Alpha were rushed into production in a crisis, trained to kill or herd people, and given no time to develop as individuals.
Perhaps Alpha and the others are recovering from severe trauma or abuse. Alpha's condition could be the result of a "reboot" brought on by the events of the past.
After all, at the start of the story, she tells us that she has been looking after the cafe by herself for a long time. However, as she drives to Yokohama for coffee beans, her first stop is the local gas station. There she acts as though she has never met the owner before. He, however, acts as though he knows who she is.
Then, as she drives to Yokohama, she is surprised to discover that the rising sea has covered the road.
Then, when she returns, the owner leaves a note saying, "I'm glad to see you are doing well."
So...
1. She has been looking after the cafe by herself "for a long time."
2. In that long time, she has never gone to buy coffee.
3. In that long time, she has never bought gas at the nearest station or had contact with her immediate neighbors.
4. As soon as she has contact with the old man, the "owner" leaves a message of encouragement.
I think some portion of her memories are damaged. I suspect that she has not really been living at the cafe for years. I suspect she wandered "home" after the disaster in an addled state of mind. Her memories of her life with the "owner" at the "cafe" are a jumble of fantasies and memories of her early life.
That would explain Ayase's puzzlement.
When she sets up shop at the cafe and meets the old man, word of her location was transmitted back to the "owner."
And she felt the occasional desire to shoot her gun but she feels bad about it. Why?
Perhaps she is suffering from repressed memories or amnesia brought on by trauma.
Then there are the mushroom people. I suspect that the mushroom creatures Ayase observed are the raw material used to build the robot brains. The things he saw (the Water God, etc.) escaped from the lab where they were grown during the catastrophe. Now they grow wild but have no arms or legs. They grow, they have brain waves, but they can not move or develop further.
- Loran Gayton
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Howdy,
It's certainly possible.
http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijna/a7m.htm
The Japanese WWII airplane A7M2 does look a lot like the Texas that nai uses, so I wouldn't be surprised if the author was influenced by airplanes in general. The Texan that Nai flies is lovingly drawn in detail. There is even a page explaining about the plane.
It may also be of interest to note that recovering and rebuilding a WWII Japanese airplane is a story line in the Ah! Megami-sama manga as well.
It's possible that we could also just chalk it up to building models airplanes as a kid. I can still tell you the number of machine guns on almost all allied WWII plans still today.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Thursday, January 22, 2004
The points Loran brings up have been bothering me as well. The very first story, taken at face value, just doesn't make sense. When I first read it, it didn't bother me so much. I just thought it was a bit sloppy. Nowadays I don't believe Ashinano does sloppy. My thought was maybe Alpha had been in some kind of dormant state until a few months before the beginning of the story. But maybe it's more complicated than that?
- Chris Davey
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Worth considering?
I can't find Nai's designation. The manga says there are three A7M2's. We have Alpha, Director Alpha, and who? Both Alpha and Director Alpha have cameras, as well as Nai. None of them have real names. Nai mentions that the rest of the men weren't very strong, and he flies an old fighter plane. Perhaps, if there was some conflict, he was the only male to survive the fighting.
- Bin Bin & the Stache
Saturday, January 24, 2004
Howdy,
Director Alpha is an M1. We still have two M2 prototypes to identify.
As for the first story, I suspect that Ashinano has been tightening up the plot as time goes on. He's been drawing the story for around eleven years now. I wouldn't be surprised if things were just a little more off the cuff in the early stories. But over the last several years, the meticulous story telling is breathtaking.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Saturday, January 24, 2004
I believe the prologue chapter shows the first time Alpha has ever gone anywhere on her own. We know robots don't need much to eat; she presumably has been living off of stores of nonperishable goods. She's never met Ojisan before, so she must not have been using the scooter. If she had, she'd have needed gas by now.
She's probably had only a couple customers in all that time.
And then, one day the coffee ran out, and everything changed.
She makes her trip to Yokohama, relying on memories and maps that no longer apply. On her way, she meets Ojisan, which leads to meeting Takahiro. The degree to which she connects with Takahiro isn't surprising--in terms of experience with the world, they're almost the same age. In a sense, the two of them grow up together.
While Alpha is in Yokohama, Owner finally returns. He misses her, but his later message sends Kokone to meet her. In turn, Kokone's life is overturned by Alpha's cheerful lack of distinction between human and robot; her long search for the true identity of robots starts there.
Everything which happens in this series flows from that trip to Yokohama. "A Record of a Yokohama Shopping Trip" indeed.
- dn
Sunday, January 25, 2004
I think the contradictions in the first story were definately deliberate. The way the author used familiar landscapes and real locations in the story makes me think it was conceived as one big mystery and treasure hunt for the readers.
That memorial Kokone walks past is also interesting. Why is there a memorial to the "Alpha Series." If the robots died in the same catastrophe that wiped out the rest of the people, then why would anyone erect a memorial especially for them? They would just be more victims in a general disaster that engulfed the whole region. Clearly, the Alpha series robots died in some enterprise that was for the common good. A war? A revolution? A "social upheaval?"
But if there was such a catastrophe, why are Kokone, Maruko, Alpha, and Nai ignorant of it? They don't know where they came from or what happened in the past. Furthermore, no human is in any rush to explain their past to them. There are elements of affection, guilt, and sadness in human's interaction with the robots.
Perhaps the memories of the robots are defective. In Barrie's Peter Pan, the fairies and Peter lived entirely in the moment (just like the Misago). Peter had difficulty remembering events in even the recent past. Perhaps the robots are the same way. They can remember for a time, but slowly forget.
But no, that does not work either. Kokone and Maruko remember some sort of "training center" where they got their names and learned to handle firearms.
Perhaps Kokone and the others were too new when the disaster happened. Perhaps the troubles were all over by the time they were "old enough" to understand what was happening.
Ahhh... I love this mystery.
- Loran Gayton
Monday, January 26, 2004
I looked up the history of the A7M1-3. I think now that the designation is more symbolic than I originally thought.
The A7M1 was supposed to be a successor to the very successful A6M series (the Zero). The Zero was designed in 1938 and beat anything the Americans had at the beginning of the war. As the war progressed, however, the Japanese failed to continue innovating. Several bad decisions by Japanese naval authorities delayed the development of the A7M. By the time the first A7M1 prototype was ready, the Americans had surpassed the performance of the aging A6M series.
Development was further delayed first by a terrible earthquake and then by the B-29 raids.
At first there were two A7M1 prototypes. Then seven A7M2 prototypes were built. Three of those survived the war. Three were destroyed on the ground. One crashed. The A7M3 never went into production. None of the A7M's saw combat.
The A7M series is one of those interesting design efforts that excite the imagination of young boys reading about WWII. In "what if" scenarios, people ask themselves how the war would have been different if certain weapons had been deployed sooner. The A7M series is in the category of unfulfilled Japanese nationalist dreams.
So, in YKK, there is one A7M1 prototype we know of. Perhaps there were two as in 1944. Perhaps there was another male model. Perhaps the Misago is the other A7M1.
Then there were the A7M2 prototypes. Were there seven or three? Were there three total or three surviving?
Finally, the A7M3 was put into production and deployed. Unlike the events of 1945, this A7M3 arrived in time to see combat (thus the memorial).
Just as in the real A7M3 saga, the people developing the robots faced difficult conditions. There was the rising sea. Then there was Mt. Fuji. Then there was something that leveled Yokohama and depopulated the country. Certainly the jet-powered skimmer that the doctor pilots in her youth resembles a weapon of war rather than a pleasure craft. My guess is that the A1 through A6 series were simpler AI’s built to pilot aircraft, submarines, and other weapons. That would fit well with the robot’s interest in flying and swimming. Perhaps the Kamas is an early M5 or M6 model built as an experiment.
In any case, I think the author is trying to associate the robot development project in the imagination of the reader with the last, desperate attempts of the Japanese to defend the homeland in 1944-45.
- Loran Gayton
Monday, February 2, 2004
Wow.. nice work. I wish I had done more than a cursory web search on the a/c now.
It does seem very significant. Thanks!
On a side note I have just received the Illustration book, and I was very amused to see the foam cutout diorama of the scene with Alpha watching Nai fly in to the airport :)
- Brad Edwards
Monday, February 2, 2004
Howdy,
Thanks for the additional info on the WWII A7 series. It is certainly food for thought, and the "what if" part of your thesis certain rings true enough for me. Nice work.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Monday, February 2, 2004
Hi,
No, dDave, to answer your post your earlier post, the T-6 and the A7M Reppu (Hurricane) are different planes. The T-6 Texan actually exists and is still being used today either as fighter trainer by many countries or as recreation. It's still in production and you can purchase a civilian model if you have the means. =)
Here's a few links:
http://www.boeing.com/history/bna/t6.htm
Boeing's comment. Some of the data there is wrong.
http://www.warprops.com/pag18.htm
Link from the Dutch? German? Anyways, note the different variant compared to what is drawn in the book--that black round thing right behind the cockpit structure.
Compare those pictures to A7M2: (borrow your link)
http://www.combinedfleet.com/ijna/a7m2.gif
Even if you're not an airplane person, you can tell they are different planes.
Note: the cockpit structure(obvious), the placement of the wheels, the wings, propeller, etc,.
You can definitely say the author have experience with planes--most certainly about the 'Texan'--his drawns are good enough to be exact. And can probably conclude that he has spent some time near military bases in Japan as well.
This is interesting about using the A7M as naming scheme for the robots. Why not stick with the A6M (Zero) or A5M (Claude)? From my memory's account from Japanese pilots, they were both very good planes during their prime.
Here's a link from one of my favorite Japanese Pilot of WW2. On a side note, I didn't know Saburo Sakai have past. I read the book, "Sameria!" when I was younger.
http://www.danford.net/sakai.htm
I kinda agree with Loran Gayton's assertions. It really does symbolize the futility, the struggle, the desperation of events in the story. On the other hand, I disagree with some of his premises.
- royalfool
Tuesday, February 3, 2004
This just gave me an thought.
One of the ongoing mysteries of the series is what happened to the A6 and earlier Alpha-type robots. We know they existed. In "Record", we see a memorial to them. [v6, p45] In "Blue Sound", Sensei says she doesn't know what happened to them, but that she feels it isn't a happy story. [v9, p86]
One of my theories was that they were flawed--they died young, or were stillborn. Another is that the world was a more violent place when they were born, and they were killed.
The history of their namesake airplanes makes me wonder, however...
What if they were built for a purpose, and gave their lives in carrying it out? Created to do a job too hazardous for humans, maybe? Exactly what, we have no way of knowing--spaceship pilots, perhaps, on a no-return flight? In this case, the A7s presumably spring from that earlier work, originally intended as new and improved model...but completed after the need for them had passed.
It doesn't entirely ring true for me (I still like the theory that Alpha and her siblings were created as true children of humanity, intended to carry memories of us after we are all gone), but it does make me wonder.
- dn
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
Howdy,
>>No, dDave, to answer your post your earlier post, the T-6 and the A7M Reppu (Hurricane) are different planes.
Yes, I know. What I said was the hurricane "does look a lot like the Texan". What I meant by that was that planes have similar profiles - low wing, bubble cockpit, open cowl monoplanes. I was trying to point out that the author has a definite interest in planes of that era, and that the speculation that the robot model names matching the Japanese plane names was a likely a good one.
Funnily enough, my mom dates someone who owns a Texan, though I have yet to get up in it.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
The author probably choose the Texan as Nai's plane because it is the sort of plane that might survive into the future. It is a simple plane, made in large numbers, and has an indefinate service life. As with the DC-3, the airframe was overdesigned by people who knew their business and wanted a rugged airplane.
If any airplanes survived the great catastrophe, the only ones that would be operational after 50 years would be the ones that were easy to service and not suffering from fatal structural fatigue. The only problem with this rational is that the AT-6 is a gas hog. A slower, lighter plane would probably be more practical in the world Alpha lives in.
But that would be much less interesting than a roaring, soaring, old AT-6.
- Loran Gayton
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
Howdy,
I think the author also wanted Nai's airplane to represent a nostalgic past. Surely modern, well designed composite material aircraft could have survived as well as the Texan, and gotten much better gas milage to boot. However, the Texan has a certain romanticism about it, a certain flair.
Other than the robots, Taapon, and sensei's watership, we haven't really seen anything that could be considered "modern tech" by YKK's standards. Everything seems to be more or less frozen into 1970's era tech. The phones are land line - not cellular. The engines are mainly internal combustion. We really don't see anything that would be out of place in our lives right now.
I think this ties into a nostalgic longing for a simpler past, and also serves to indicate an arrested state of development in the YKK world.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
Firstly, thanks to Loran for looking up that history. It's certainly very resonant. As for Dave's point about the technology we see; something I've noticed about YKK is the lack of digital technology. We have seen no computers nor digital audio or video media like CDs. (Unless anyone knows better). How Alpha's camera actually stores images we don't know. When two robots exchange data the quality of the transmission seems to depend on the personalities of the participants, which does not seem the sort of thing you'd expect of a digital transfer.
I am starting to wonder if digital technology was either abandoned at an early stage or never developed at all in the world of YKK. Kokone has the old vinyl record transferred to a analogue tape cassette, not a CD or MP3 or anything more advanced. She gives Shiba a copy, is that still the common way to share music? Is YKK set in our future or in a world that diverged from ours some time in our past? Or is there some other reason for the lack of digital technology? Maybe it was developed & then suppressed. Any ideas?
- Chris Davey
Saturday, February 7, 2004
One reason for the old technology is to give the impression that the economy suffered severe damage. While there are still miscellaneous bits and pieces of modern technology scattered about, the general impression is that people are getting by on low tech solutions and salvaged equipment. I doubt that we would actually fall back on analog tape recordings in the event of such a catastrophe now. It would be as difficult to revived the old tape factory now as it would be to recreate a CD factory. The intent of the writer here is to create the impression of people struggling to recover.
There is also the possibility that, in the story, most of the digital technology was destroyed by electromagnetic pulses during a war. The partially organic robots survived, but everybody's personal computer just died.
- Loran Gayton
Monday, February 9, 2004
Another thing to keep in mind is when the story was written. (I don't know for sure, so I'm mostly guessing here.) The popularity of mp3s is only a couple of years old, and the use of CD-R is only a few years older than that. It is very possible that when he wrote the story with the tapes, that even here in the real world, tapes were still the most common method of sharing music.
- tadpol
Monday, February 9, 2004
Howdy,
I also believe that the author is trying to show us that the people themselves have made a conscious choice to remain with "tried and true" tech. If it is indeed the twilight of the human era, everyone seems pretty calm about it, and this resignation may lead them to just enjoy the life they have now rather than building/rebuilding high tech.
It's interesting to note that on Taapon, there is a huge library of actual books, rather than digital files that would have taken *MUCH* less space (and weight).
http://ykk.misago.org/Volume4/48
So there seems to be either some worldwide attraction to "old school" tech, or some worldwide inability to use digital tech, or a combination of the two. The problem with digital tech may very well be true - it's Director Alpha who seems to be steering the ship rather than any computers.
- As a side note, the little old lady who is often with director Alpha notes that Directer Alpha was "born on that island down there [Japan]". This would seem to indicate that the old lady is not from Japan, and thus Taapon has an international crew. It's the first reference I can remember to anything/one outside of Japan.
http://ykk.misago.org/Volume4/46
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Monday, February 9, 2004
>Yes, I know. What I said was the hurricane "does look a lot like the Texan". What I
>>SNIP<<
dDave,
Ah, I stand corrected. Or clarified, if that's the better word.
- royalfool
Monday, February 9, 2004
Interesting ideas about the technology stew.
I doubt robots like the A7 or AI could be achieved without digital information and microprocessors. If Alpha-san ran on tubes, she'd be bigger than Godzilla. I am not thinking we're in a parallel or divergent timeline.
The record Kokone found is rather interesting. I understand that she may have duplicated it on tape because that just might been the only technology available to her. But the vinyl record itself...
Does it tell a story? Is it a teaching tool? Does Kokone "understand" it? Or was it a programming tool?
Whichever it may be, why on earth is it on vinyl?
Vinyl only playsback on a turntable with a stylus. Terribly low-tech. And fragile.
That suggests to me that the vinyl record may be a post-event artifact. If you're building advanced AI and humanoid robots, what are you doing with phonograph records?
So, who made this recording? When, and why?
And what does it communicate?
I have to read through the story again.
- StevenAustin
Friday, February 13, 2004
Howdy,
>I doubt robots like the A7 or AI could be achieved without digital information and microprocessor
Unless they are a different technology such as bio-nano-ferro-whatsis. Given that the camera uses what essentially is a robot eye for a lens, we may be looking at a entirely different technology for the robots. Look at the way Director Alpha steers Taapon, or the way the camera seems to capture impressions rather than images.
If so, then is seems like something occurred to wipe out/reduce/make irrelevant digital tech. We then are left with analog tech for everyday life, and then this new fangled stuff used to make robots. And we don't have any evidence whatsoever that the technology used to make the robots ended up in any products used by humans.
Why would they abandon that sort of tech? The A7 series was finished after the world changing event/disaster, so the factory and processes should be still around. Clearly some of the scientists still are.
In any case, given the way Ashinano focuses almost exclusively on the characters, I suspect sometimes we may be digging a little too deep. But it's fun to speculate in any case.
Best,
Dave
- dDave
Friday, February 13, 2004
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