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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So, after Japan sends their troops into land of monsters and not-Romans with, for whatever reason, old, outdated equipment they don't use anymore, they get attacked by more not-Romans and completely wipe them out with their modern equipment.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.

So you come in, you sit down, and you see an anime about cute girls doing cute things on some sort of warship. Girls und Panzer but with boats instead of tanks, right? Well, not quite. In this series, the warships are actually used for patrol and defense of the now-flooded world and their now-flooded and now-ship-based islands. Neat concept right? Where's the story going to go?

The story starts off as the previously mentioned cute girls doing cute things on the Harekaze, a Kagerou-class Japanese destroyer, a ship that was never made. By the end of the first episode, the tone shifts to a more ... serious tone, throwing out really strong Hunt for the Red October vibes, but then by the next episode everything is cheery once more. Near the end of almost every episode, the tone gets darker, the episode ends with a cliffhanger, and the next episode starts off cheery. It's a common theme.

Unfortunately, the vibes go from Hunt for the Red October: cute girls edition to a much less serious, much less intriguing, and infinitely more infuriating plotline that completely killed the series for me. Surely there was some sort of saving grace, right?

There was. In the form of naval battles. The naval battles in the show were actually pretty enjoyable, even if they were completely CG and almost completely without any danger to the main characters. They were still cool, though!

The 2D portions of the series, which consisted of everything that wasn't the outside of a ship, really, were actually pretty well animated. The ship designs and some of the other designs were interesting as well, but the goofy speedboat looked dumb.

The music, however, was awful. It was almost entirely unenjoyable and completely forgettable.

The characters were relatively well designed and some of them were pretty interesting, but there are 2 main problems in this series. First, a destroyer crew would require a LOT more people than there are on the Harekaze. Second, almost everyone wears the same outfit and the only way to tell characters apart is by their hair and voice, and even then, sometimes you have to try and remember who exactly they were.

I actually almost dropped the show because of how boring and bland it seemed, and the CG was incredibly jarring for me. Then the plot started, and I figured, what the hell, one more episode. Eventually the cool plot dropped in favor of the much less cooler plot and I figured I'll stick around until the end. In the end, I did sort of enjoy it but honestly felt a little disappointed that, at no point, American ships showed up. Just German and Japanese with a couple of generic modern destroyers and trimarans.


Overall, I'd say that the series was a bit of wasted potential. If you're looking for The Hunt for the Red October: Cute Girls Edition with any solution to the plot that stays with the theme, this isn't your anime. If you just want to see cute girls doing cute things on naval warships, then this is probably your anime.