A perspective from Soviet Union

Nov 21, 2023 12:08 PM

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Dec 2016

As I grew up in the USSR and have an interest in history and such, it was intriguing to see an anime about the soviet space program. While the author did some research and attention to detail is appreciated, the story was also somewhat bizarre. The following has spoilers.

The story is about the peak achievement of two superpowers and it goes through lifestyles and ideas of what humanity should be. Going through the episodes, something starts feeling off.

The vampires were shoehorned into the story for fetish fun. I'll talk only about the message.

The progressive head of the state is supposed to be Khrushchev, but he has to be the worst choice, as he is infamous for cultural repressions and other not wise decisions (to put it mildly). Stalin did repress quite a bit, of course, but it was majorly against the enemies of the socialist state. Brezhnev would be more fitting for this role.

The Japanese like to convey deeper sentiments through small romantic, especially culinary details. I remember water from those wending machines on a summer day, it was very nice. But when the glass was dropped on the pavement, author's sense of physics followed author's political reason.

That episode with a teacher talking about "planes to be used for peace" being arrested made no sense. She said something a typical communist agitator would say. In reality, everybody would just think "boring". However, in imperial Japan, it could have actually happened with such consequences.

The episode with a psychopathic doctor abusing the vampire was more accurate. Just in reality such things always had a supervising KGB officer and the hero would go to him immediately. Because this is a normal practice in every country.

It was bizarre to see people of my country, the most internationalist in the world, look like a KKK gathering in the final episode. One of the good aspects of the Soviet Union was that there was no such obsession with nationalism. In the West, it practically defines who a person is. Nationality, or, race were quite secondary here, people were people, they lived their lives in the great country and they saw any foreigners just as people. Internationalism was one of the cornerstones of Soviet ideology.

In the scene where the ship is rotating, there could be no weightlessness, as there would be considerable centrifugal gravity. It didn't rotate so fast during the real flight. It is supposed to be a sci-fi anime. On the other hand, that scene with eating roe was done exquisitely well.

The main thing that is off is complete absence of ideology which was a huge thing in the real USSR. There are only rivalry and some occult symbols. Building scientific workers' paradise was taken very seriously, at least in words. Generally, the soviet society lived within its set of principles. It was about workers, it wasn't just senseless violence. How to evaluate Marxism-Leninism and what were the results are another two questions.

The conclusion of the anime is that we all should not be racists and everybody lived happily ever after, which is good of course. The problem is, the USSR was not the kind of a totalitarian state that did ethnocide treating people like objects. Another historical example fitting this description comes to mind if you know about things like "Unit 731", extreme violence, xenophobia and totalitarianism of the Empire of Japan. Obviously, the Japanese here are still trying to face their past issues. The topic is barely present in textbooks and avoided by the society in Japan. But shifting blame on another does not make genuine reforming. It just as always blames Russia. You should look at yourself first and be honest.

As a bonus, the story with the first living being in space - Laika, was done very accurately. The flight was a complete abomination and the soviets were not happy with it either. But it has a happy sequel. The next dogs - Belka and Strelka, had a successful flight and lived a long happy life. One of Strelka's puppies was gifted to Kennedy.

Nov 21, 2023 2:53 PM

Karol_At

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Oct 2019

228

I guess the point about Russians not committing ethnocide really depends on the timeframe you're talking about. Looking at all the crimes they did against Poland in both WW2 times and for a short time after that (Katyń, deportations to siberia camps etc.), you can't say that they were innocent.

I agree that the setting of soviet Russia and the space race is heavily underused though, It feels like basically a skin on a completely basic story about racism bad instead of something actually utilising the setting, wasted potential.

Nov 21, 2023 3:48 PM

Alex_the_reaper

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Apr 2021

513

Karol_At said:
I guess the point about Russians not committing ethnocide really depends on the timeframe you're talking about. Looking at all the crimes they did against Poland in both WW2 times and for a short time after that (Katyń, deportations to siberia camps etc.), you can't say that they were innocent.

I agree that the setting of soviet Russia and the space race is heavily underused though, It feels like basically a skin on a completely basic story about racism bad instead of something actually utilising the setting, wasted potential.

no one in a war is inocent, even the side that "is just defending itself" takes advantage of the state of war the moment ut gets the upperhand, also as someone from eastern europe i think the soviets are heavily badmouthed by the west world simply because of the intolerance over the comunism system. allies reclaimed half of the nazi empire but the soviets reclaimed the other half, yes its true they first agreed on hitler terms and acted after the germans broke the deal but without them we wouldve never won. as for crimes against humanity and genocide, they are clearly not saints, but they are DEFINITLY not the worst

Nov 21, 2023 5:14 PM

IhnalakoKaina

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Jul 2021

645

Lack of ideology? It had enough and then some. At least for the sake of complementing what the story is actually about. A romantic drama about 2 people wanting to go to space. The vampires were not shoehorned in. The setting was built around them. The fact that it is inspired by real world events does not mean it has to be faithful to them to the letter. The first person to go to space was not a vampire named Irina, after all.

Arresting a profesor for saying "a plane for peace" or whatever sounds exactly like what the soviets would do. Undermining the soviet mission to beat the west, or some bullshit. A clear enemy of the people or of the state, a dissident. Those were not allowed to walk free in the soviet union.

For someone who "grew up" there, you seem to have a very possitive impression of the soviets. I use air quotes because the soviet union didn't start in the mid 80's, and it ended in '91, so you didn't have a single ball hair before it ended.

Khrushchev was not progressive? He was known for cultural repressions? Brezhnev was a better choice? It's all backwards. Brezhnev was the one to reverse from Khrushchev's anti stalinist policies. He was an authoritarian facist, not that the other soviet leaders weren't, but Brezhnev was second only to stalin.

Also, of the bunch, Khrushchev would've been the least racist. But even he prohibited religion. The others took it further and exiled or deported ethnic minorites and foreigners. Were you expecting the last episode to look like a scene out of modern day new york?

If a plastic glass hits the floor, it doesn't break, it bounces.

Nov 21, 2023 9:47 PM

Pyxyty

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Apr 2021

I neither have a fresh memory of the anime nor do I have extensive knowledge of the real history behind the events that inspired the background of the show, but I feel as if you're looking too deep into it more as a documentary series with a vampire fetish subplot and less as what it was actually intended to be, a cute romance set in a fictional world that took some inspirations from history but never claimed to be accurate (unless you're saying vampires really were the first beings sent to space).

TL;DR - it's a cute romance. Go watch a documentary and criticize that, why go after a cute romcom with a tsundere vampire lol

Nov 22, 2023 6:11 AM

Flank27

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Dec 2016

Karol_At said:
the point about Russians not committing ethnocide

I specifically meant killing by culture and destroying culture. I don't think that was the case. After all, there was a 200,000-strong Polish army raised by the Soviets during WWII.

Alex_the_reaper said:
they first agreed on hitler terms

Good points except this. At first, Stalin offered the Western countries to ally against Hitler, there was even made a feeble Franco-Soviet Treaty against Hitler, in the League of Nations the USSR demanded to stop aggression of the Imperial Japan, but the West told him to piss off and started feeding smaller countries to Hitler.

IhnalakoKaina said:
exactly like what the soviets would do

IhnalakoKaina said:
Brezhnev was second only to stalin

IhnalakoKaina said:
modern day new york?

Mine is rather a realistic impression. You are splitting my ball hairs here. Where are you even getting these ideas? I was on some of those public events, haven't seen any zombies chanting "death". Quite on the contrary, the Soviets tried to avoid hate and keep it positive as much as possible. It wasn't, of course, the epitome of friendliness and universal prosperity like New York is.
As for me, the collapse of the Soviet Union was not like being isekaied, on that day there was just an announcement of dissolution on TV, then everything had been changing bit by bit for years.

The glass was made out of glass.

Pyxyty said:
it's a cute romance

For a cute romance it awfully a lot based on rusophobia. I'd like a more adequate background for that.

Nov 22, 2023 6:54 AM

Dienen

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Jan 2021

106

Reply to Alex_the_reaper

@Alex_the_reaper

Please look at a map before and after 1945 to see how much of Europe the Soviets occupied. You didn't "win" and in fact Europe as a whole lost in place of the USA and the USSR. "Reclaimed" is ironic here since thats what the Germans used to justify taking back their lands.

@IhnalakoKaina

It's almost as if Soviets understood that their needed to be a dominant ethnic group calling all the shots for communism to actually "work" in practice.

This post has been fact checked
by peer reviewed sources!

Nov 22, 2023 7:30 AM

IhnalakoKaina

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Jul 2021

645

Flank27 said:

IhnalakoKaina said:
exactly like what the soviets would do

IhnalakoKaina said:
Brezhnev was second only to stalin

IhnalakoKaina said:
modern day new york?

I, in fact, do not believe that NYC is the epitome of friendliness and prosperity. Quite the opposite. I used it as an example for it's population diversity, since you compared the last scene as a kkk gathering, I assumed you meant to say that in reality, it wasn't all predominantly white europeans in Moscow. LA, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, they all apply, but I mentioned nyc because there is where Khrushchev met Castro in a black neighborhood hotel (he's the less progressive one?). But yeah, if you think nyc is a good place it makes sense you'd believe the soviets weren't that bad. You have your first hand experience, and I have mine. There is more than one socialist craphole full of corruption, political persecution, economic ruin and overall stagnation that ended up collapsing after all.

Nevertheless, this show implemented real world elements in a limited capacity, which makes it better, imo. Had they been faithful to how things actually were, irina would've probably been suicided. It's hard to deny that when the whole tension built up towards the end was because of that possibility. I don't think it's sovietphobia, though I might suffer from that, but I know it as 'having lived socialism'.

Nov 23, 2023 12:19 AM

Flank27

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Dec 2016

TAD7MTHED said:
in fact Europe as a whole lost

I know how the Europeans feel.

TAD7MTHED said:
needed to be a dominant ethnic group calling all the shots for communism to actually "work"

And no, and yes. While there definitely was no racism and communism has nothing to do with ethnicity, real society is complex and uneven. Stalin called the Russians the leading nation in building socialism. It meant that the Russians had more responsibilities, while the minor nations were getting more support. In practice who could build modern infrastructure in an undeveloped asiatic republic? Only the Russians, but in the long run everybody benefited from the whole country being modernized.

IhnalakoKaina said:
it wasn't all predominantly white europeans in Moscow

IhnalakoKaina said:
I know it as 'having lived socialism'

I meantioned New York sarcastically.
I don't understand your logic here. Predominantly white place is racist? Russia always have been predominantly white, but it wasn't an important issue. The only thing here that would get you in a real trouble in the USSR was being racist.

In my experience, the show is absurdly dark. I also talked with older people around and they remember their soviet times as very happy. It sounds like you still are having hard times, for whatever reason.

Nov 23, 2023 1:20 AM

#10

IhnalakoKaina

Offline

Jul 2021

645

Flank27 said:

TAD7MTHED said:
in fact Europe as a whole lost

I know how the Europeans feel.

TAD7MTHED said:
needed to be a dominant ethnic group calling all the shots for communism to actually "work"

IhnalakoKaina said:
it wasn't all predominantly white europeans in Moscow

IhnalakoKaina said:
I know it as 'having lived socialism'

I mean, for an aspiring astronaut in a time when optics and the country's standing in the world is more important than a replaceable individual's life, of course there'd be darkness, fear and tension. Or is it not true that the soviets dissapeared people who inconvienced them or intimidated them into silence?

Even then, there is solace in the relationship between lev and irina, which is as moving and romantic as it is because of the darkness. So, what would you rather have? A SoL where they don't face any danger or adversity, and the soviet leadership is portrayed as compassionate, forgiving, innocent and friendly people? There'd be no point. Nobody would buy that.

Also, I don't think we are supposed to draw parallels between the vampires and anybody else irl. As in it is not meant to reflect on human racism, but is just a fantasy element.

Flank27 said:
It was bizarre to see people of my country, the most internationalist in the world, look like a KKK gathering in the final episode.

You're the one to insinuate that predominantly white people in a gathering makes it kkk. To which I responded:

IhnalakoKaina said:
Were you expecting the last episode to look like a scene out of modern day new york?

meaning, you think there should have been all kinds of different races and ethnicities in that crowd?

I don't have hard times anymore because I moved out, and true, my life was not all pain and struggle. Then again, I am just a normal person. (would've been different if I was political opposition, or even an ally who had to live up to the scrutiny of the whims of the ruling party). But that doesn't change the fact that the place I grew up in went to shit, and that my, and many people's lives would've been better if not for socialism and the ideals that made up the ussr.

IhnalakoKainaNov 23, 2023 1:36 AM

Nov 23, 2023 2:37 AM

#11

Flank27

Offline

Dec 2016

IhnalakoKaina said:
is it not true

IhnalakoKaina said:
So, what would you rather have?

Life of the real society is more of a spectrum of grey. I think, the soviets were more adequate concerning crimes and punishments in this regard. More realistically there would be stuff like reproving from a party worker, collective scorn, and colleagues taking responsibility to improve a person in question. Disappearing a person was for extreme cases like that episode with the doctor. So, that episode was correct and the episode with the teacher completely incorrect. Purely black and white caricature does not make a good story, human society is more complex than that, people can work on themselves. Anyway, everybody was trashing the soviet government in their kitchens with friends.

I appreciate that the soviet fundamental value was human life. The other decent point of the Soviet Union was to build socialism in one country respecting the ways of the other people.

Nov 24, 2023 12:16 AM

#12

Flank27

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Dec 2016

IhnalakoKaina said:
there should have been all kinds of different races and ethnicities in that crowd?

Not the majority, but there always has been diversity in Russia, especially in Soviet Russia. I remember having to draw people of 15 Soviet republics in school, at least it wasn't more than 100 of nations and ethnicities of the USSR.
But you are missing my point, the anime is actually about Japan.

Nov 28, 2023 2:34 AM

#13

Pyxyty

Offline

Apr 2021

Flank27 said:

For a cute romance it awfully a lot based on rusophobia. I'd like a more adequate background for that.

"Rusophobia"

Last I checked, the countries mentioned in the series was Arnack and Zirnitra. Sounds like a "you" problem if you're gonna interpret it as an attack on Russia. All I see is a cute romcom set in a fictional world with vampires. Should we also defend vampires too for how poorly they were depicted and treated in the series? Oh poor Zirnitrans! Oh poor vampires!

My god, how little of a life do you lead to be this obsessed over a series in this manner. Nothing you do will ever change or affect it, nor will anything you do have any impact on its creator. You're just wasting your time, and so am I for even responding to this idiocy.

Dec 23, 2023 4:37 AM

#14

Yugesai

Offline

Sep 2016

194

Everyone forgot about the slaughter of the chechen population and the mistreatment of other cultures who joined USSR.
Everyone remembers a white state, Russian this, Russian that.
Nothing but expert scammers that got others to join them to create USSR. Russia on their own could have never achieved anything.
Even today, they are still riding the coattails of the remnants of USSR.

To be honest, if not their luck, Russia would be indistinguishable from Vietnam or Cambodia.

so fragile they take everything as an attack on Russia.

If everything around you stinks, maybe it is you who shit his pants?

To understand the Slavic people you first got to investigate the origin of the word "Slav", then you'll know who exactly they are and will always be.

Dec 24, 2023 1:00 AM

#15

Flank27

Offline

Dec 2016

Reply to Yugesai

@Yugesai

This Chechen population was slaughtered and their culture not remembered?

Well, if you go beyond the official Western media, the atmosphere becomes quite refreshing.

Slav = slave. Indeed, Russian people have been enslaved a lot throughout history, by Mongols, Turks, Hitler, etc.. The word slav is Western, it is not what the historical Russian people called themselves. But the Russians succeeded in building a great country, they even made friends along the way, to such your chagrin, as you consider the Russians inherently nothing but slaves. Doesn't sound very nice. Perhaps, you should have begun with "I'm not a racist, but...".

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