Gate: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri
Gate: Where the JSDF Fought

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Gate - Jietai Kare no Chi nite, is a manga that most people would take one look at it and consider garbage, Midevil fantasy theme with modern military intervention. It seems like a recipe for disaster but on contrary its actually very refreshing.

(Minor Spoilers Alert)

The story takes place in japan where a giant portal to another world appears in Tokyo, where a army from the new world appears and attacks Tokyo killing over 100 people. Japan outraged by this disaster calls for the JSDF to intercept and destroy the enemies. In no time the enemies are distroyed and in the mercy of JSDF.

The main ... character of the story is a commander of a small unit in the JSDF named Youji Itama he is a second commander and a self proclaimed Otaku. In the process he meets many friends in the way of different races and tries to make peace in the natives.

In my personal opinion I found this manga to be very interesting specially the fighting with most people will know right away that its complete rape. Modern weapons vs bows and arrows. However right away you can see that people in this new world understand very quickly that they are powerless to stop the JSDF. But the real interesting part of the manga is how other countries will decide to act like the United States and China, both who have interests in this new world which appeared in Japan.

Overall I give this Manga a 9 for creativity and story. Its a manga that people should check out.

Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There, also known to the original author as Gate: Thus the JSDF Fought There and Won Because They Are the Best and Japan is the Best Country in the World and America is a Big Poopy-head, is a hilariously ultra-nationalistic pile of garbage sprinkled with a lot of cool things.

But first, let's actually review the manga. The story is awful. It's atrocious because of the reasons listed above and more.

The art is great! I love it. It's a nice artstyle and is easily the best thing about the series, with the modern equipment vs barbaric savages and fantasy creatures ... battles and engagements being a close second.

The characters are almost all ridiculously cliched, the main character is just an otaku's fantasy self, Rory is a generic 1000-year old loli whose name could easily be mistakenly translated to Loli, and nobody else is particularly unique or not generic. Maybe the characters are some sort of parody on Japanese fantasy, but with how ridiculously nationalistic the story is, I'm inclined to not believe that. The girls are cute, though. That's always a plus.

The enjoyment is a 10 when I'm seeing Phantom IIs and Cobras engage dragons, 4 whenever that's not happening, and a solid 0 when it's spouting the whole anti-America pro-Japan spiel.

Overall, if you can ignore how cringey the nationalistic shit is, the manga's fun sometimes.

Now that that's out of the way, let's explain a little bit of the story.

First of all, let me say that Gate has a fantastic premise. Fantasy not-Romans invade modern day Japan with their dragons, trolls, goblins, and other fantasy monsters, then proceed to get absolutely steamrolled by a bunch of cops and JSDF with guns, so they retreat with a bunch of prisoners and leave the gate open. That's where half of the name comes from! So then Japan deploys their self-defense force with mothballed equipment into the gate and they proceed to steamroll anything that attacks them with guns, albeit older and obsolete. That's where the second half of the name comes from!

So, after Japan sends their troops into land of monsters and not-Romans with, for whatever reason, old, outdated equipment they don't use anymore, they get attacked by more not-Romans and completely wipe them out with their modern equipment. Also they spout a bunch of crap about how Japan should keep this for their own because Japan never, ever, ever had a bout of murdering people and stealing their land. Early to mid-20th century HAHAH WHAT IS THAT?

And here's some spoilers, and my absolute biggest gripe with the series.

Now Russia, China, and what is basically Japan's greatest ally, America, want to get into the new world and also steal all of its resources from the rightful owners, the Japanese people. Finder's keepers, I guess. Thank God the Prime Minister of Japan is so strong that he'll never let those evil communists and also America get what is rightfully theirs! So then Russia, China, and America all send a group of special forces to retrieve some people who came from the other side because that's totally what they'd do, and then the American Delta Force guys get shot up by the JSDF who are totally better than Delta Force, a special force renown for their ability to be really fucking good at being basically the best, and most of them die. They know they're American because, I kid you not, there's a black guy.

So then the Delta Force guys and the Chinese and Russian spec ops guys all meet up at a bath house where Rory, a 1000-year old loli demi-god, their target, is residing. Then they shoot at each other a bunch. Then Rory jumps out and massacres all three special force squads. What happens next? The PM resigns and somehow Japan isn't basically a nuclear hellscape, and the American president is 100% angry, obnoxious, and incompetent while the Russian PM admires the Japanese because, for whatever reason, the Japanese and Russians respect each other. China remains irrelevant.

In reality, America would tell Japan that, if they don't allow them to explore the new world, they will shove their nuclear boot so far up their ass a third time that they'll be coughing uranium, the UN would basically con their way into a spot into the new world, NATO would basically tell Japan that they can have their fun if they want but they're coming in regardless of how much they disagree, South Korea would get a free ride because of America, Japan will tell China to fuck off, and Russia will be able to lead extremely limited missions in the area. Japan would literally never show any backbone to any of these people but China, maybe South Korea, and then the manga itself would be a lot cooler because you'd see Frogfoots and A-10s and Pattons and T-80s and old Leopards and Challengers and other cold war-era machinery and firearms all over the place and that's a lot cooler than whatever the Japanese have.


But let's actually review the manga. The story is awful. It's atrocious because of the reasons listed above and more.

The art is great! I love it. It's a nice artstyle and is easily the best thing about the series, with the modern equipment vs barbaric savages and fantasy creatures battles and engagements being a close second.

The characters are almost all ridiculously cliched, the main character is just an otaku's fantasy self, Rory is a generic 1000-year old loli whose name could easily be mistakenly translated to Loli, and nobody else is particularly unique or not generic. Maybe the characters are some sort of parody on Japanese fantasy, but with how ridiculously nationalistic the story is, I'm inclined to not believe that. The girls are cute, though. That's always a plus.

The enjoyment is a 10 when I'm seeing Phantom IIs and Cobras engage dragons, 4 whenever that's not happening, and a solid 0 when it's spouting the whole anti-America pro-Japan spiel.

Overall, if you can ignore how cringey the nationalistic shit is, the manga's fun sometimes.

Okay, normally I don't write reviews but seeing the other reviews here praising this thing to the high heavens and what I feel about this in it being a lost opportunity for something that could have been great, I felt motivated enough to write a review.

Okay so why could this have been great? Well the underlying premise is simply an idea that offers a lot of potential. Fantasy magical Romanesque world meets modern earth with all it's high tech gadgetry and scientific insight, Hernán Cortés meets the Aztecs turned up to 11. In its larger overarching themes it has that "epic" dynamic of ... scale and potentially gravitas to the events that transpire.

Why then does it not work and why did I give it a 3 overall? Well the failure lies in the execution and in particular I think to challenge one word that's used to describe this would cover a lot of the problems that exist in the execution of this intriguing story premise. That word is "seinen", this is not seinen, this is shounen. The characters are no LotGH "realistic" multifaceted characters or anything like it, they are hammy, melodramatic and a constant buffoonish comedy is weaved throughout in combination with a really puerile sexual fetishism. It's a kind of Love Hina or some such thing meets LoTR meets Jackass and this is a really terrible juxtaposition.

This story would be so great in my view if it had taken more or less the same overarching story dynamic and adopted a more Rudyard Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King" approach focusing on some lone individual or small group of individuals who came across a portal to another world. Then follow them as they discover this world and change it with their scientific knowledge and technological gadgetry. As well as cutting out the more "shounen" elements and as for having it on the scale it is in order to include an "earth" side international political "intrigue". This side of the story is really terrible and downright quaint in its approach in the worst possible sense of that term. Had this been an actual seinen publication though rather than another slapstick adventure story it really could have been something. Instead it's more like a parody of a serious work which really seems to slow down, distract and detract from the story.