#japan does not use the imperial system.

[pontiffv]

im actually so glad u gave kak more weight like come on teenagers are not 69 lb 💀💀

lkjflkajsdflkj anon i hope you know when it says his weight is 69 it's in kg. which translates to 143 pounds.

[weirdestcountryhumans]

Colonizer x Colony Ships: Why It's a Bad Portrayal and Something People Should Move Away From

Because these kinds of ships are far too common in this fandom, and people need to learn to recognize that they are incredibly offensive at times.

The Defense of These Ships

Many people defend these ships by claiming that the colonizer country feels guilt over what they did or that they were not involved in the brutality of colonization and were unwilling bystanders. Some claim that the colonization occurred because they "loved" the person they were colonizing and colonizing them so they could be together.

These ideas are, at their core, racist. That is not to say the people who ship them are racist, but these ideas originate in real-life racism, racist propaganda, and racist ideology. White Man's Burden (link) is exceptionally present in this.

These defenses also excuse the colonizer from the consequences of their own actions, excusing them from the ideals of their country to portray them as more innocent. I am not saying they cannot grow; I am just saying that in the 1800s, Britain wasn't going to be anti-imperialist. They don't see their actions through a modern lens and will be assholes (by modern standards) and bigots. They will not be the modern image of progression in those periods. And even if you have them get together after the postcolonial period, that does not erase the pain they caused that country.

It is insensitive at best and racist at worst. Please think things through before you create ships like these. To support my point, I have created a small list of popular colonizer x colony ships. I will go over a bit of the history between the two and why that illustrates why they shouldn't be shipped, as well as any problematic tropes I notice.

Ship Examples and why they don't work

Netherlands x Indonesia

This ship has always confused me. I really don't see much of a basis for it. One, if you have colonies be the children of empires; Indonesia is in a relationship with his parent. Two, even if you don't have that, the Dutch still committed many war crimes in Indonesia, like the Banda Islands Massacre, as well as inflaming ethnic tensions so they could get cheap war slaves, and ergo enslaving many people from the ethnic population. There is also evidence of torture of these slaves and some female slaves being used as sex slaves.

The Dutch's greed for money often led to famines as the local farmers were put under heavy stress, and the coolie indentured labor system was rife with abuses. Many war crimes were also committed during the Indonesian War of Independence. While modern relations are better, it does not erase these crimes, and I think this ship is very insensitive.

Japan x South Korea

Yeah, guys, Japan colonized Korea. Now, while what I am going to explain applies to both Koreas, I am specifying South Korea simply because I see that more.

Let's start with comfort women. Now, if you haven't heard of them, they were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by Japan during World War two. Since Korea was one of Imperial Japan's earliest colonies, many of the comfort women were Korean. They also began a period of Japanization, banning Korean names and the Korean language.

In the modern day, about 79% of South Koreans view Japan negatively, only being beaten out of the most negative perception of Japan by China.

Both modern relations and history show that Japan and South Korea would not be in a relationship, and I don't even think they would be friends. Japan's history with South Korea (and North Korea) has never been positive, and I do not think that this is a good ship, especially considering that their relations are still not great. It is very insensitive to the horrific war crimes that Japan has committed against the Korean people.

Sunshine Harem

This is singlehandedly the reason I made my Philippines AroAce—out of spite and hatred of this pinnacle of insensitivity. This is not only shipping the Philippines with one colonizer but every single person who had ever colonized him (aside from that one period of time during the Seven Years War when Britain was governing the island).

I am going to go through each person and explain why shipping the Philippines with them is bad, even though I really shouldn't need to point out that shipping the Philippines with three of his colonizers is bad.

Let's start with Spain. Now, out of all the people who colonized the Philippines, I know the least about Spain's actions. But, in typical Spanish fashion, war crimes were committed, with massacres being committed, as well as Hispanicization, as well as hundreds of years of revolts against the Spanish. There is no basis for a good relationship with so many years of bad blood. While modern relationships are okay, considering that some people have colonies as the children of empires, it feels a little like incest, or at the very least, having a massive power imbalance.

Next up is the good ol' US of A. Surprise surprise. The United States promised to give the Filipinos independence after the Spanish-American war, and they turned their back on them and made the Philippines a colony. What followed next was the Philippine-American War, a war in which the United States committed several war crimes, such as killing civilians (some of which were children), creating concentration camps for Filipino civilians, and torturing Filipino prisoners through waterboarding (link). This is a small sampling, but it proves how horrible things were.

Not only were there these horrific crimes but there was also a period of Americanization in the Philippines. While the United States did eventually give the Philippines their independence and liberate the country from Japan, that does not erase their record, nor does it abolish the legacy of these crimes. I cannot see the Philippines ever wanting to date the United States because of this.

And lastly, we have Japan. Like in Korea, many Filipino women and girls were forced into sexual slavery. The Japanese also forced Filipino soldiers into concentration camps where tens of thousands of them died from disease and poor conditions and turned the Filipino government into a puppet state. Citizens were also murdered and tortured by the Kempeitai, Japan's secret police.

That is just a summary of the war crimes committed by Japan while occupying the Philippines during WW2. It baffles me that anyone would ship them together. The Philippines would have lived through this. Do you think he would want to date Japan, even if it wasn't the empire of Japan? While Filipino-Japanese relations are much better than they were then, this is still a horrific subject.

Please, just look into their histories.

England x Ireland

Yes, Ireland was a colony of England (and later the UK) for around 800 years, from 1169 to 1918. During that time period, Ireland was subjected to anti-Catholic laws, laws banning certain aspects of Irish culture, Anglicisation, and ethnic cleansing (link), as well as the Irish Famine, which some argue is a genocide. I am not here to get into that debate, but I know pointing out that word will make you pay attention.

Ireland has lost a lot of its culture due to English colonization and laws, and there is a reason why the Irish do not like the English. This ship makes no sense and is insensitive to 800 years of colonization and struggles that the Irish went through in an attempt to keep their culture, language, and identity. There is far too much history for me to list here, but this ship is based on nothing. It is based on a terrible history that far too many people brush aside. Like with so many others on this list, it is insensitive.

Even with modern relations being better, the people of Ireland do not like the English, and this ship, to me, as an Irish citizen, feels like a slap in the face. There is no basis for this ship that makes an ounce of sense.

Israel x Palestine

I have seen this one before. It sickens me, especially with what is currently happening in Gaza. What I hate even more is when people portray it as if Palestine is the instigator of the relationship or that Palestine is forcing Israel into it. I shouldn't need to explain why this ship is horrific and completely senseless.

[velvetvexations]

two things:

1. objectively the most hilarious/cringe inducing side effecf of telling people about an interest in imperial japan is when you realize The Implications and have to clarify that your interest has made you realize that the entire imperial dynasty should be fired out of a comically large cannon

2. the cgirlforeskin post ("if they saw us as men they would respect us and listen to us"), and similar ones about how nothing about transmisogyny could possibly be about hatred of men, because men aren't hated in a systemic way, ignores

a) that terfs hate men (because that's core radfeminism) and

b) that society will class anyone who Should be a man (has been amab) but does Not do it exactly to patriarchal standards (by being non-white, gay, too soft, whatever dumbshit thing you can think of) as man-but-lesser. which, imo, also (especially in the case of gay men and trans women) relates to misogyny and how patriarchal society just fucking. tier lists women under men (how could gay men want to Have Sex With With The Man Class when that's what the Lesser Women Class Does? how could you want to Become Woman and therefore Downgrade Your Social Standing?) and while misogyny is an important aspect of it with how gay men get feminized by homophobes and trans women get the fucked up standards pushed on cis women but about tenfold as bad, the impulse to punish the Class Of Worse Men is aimed at men. that makes it misandrist or androphobic or whichever word has not had a tantrum thrown over it recently.

it's just not the misandry that the Andrew Tate types and anyone theoryposting about why the term transandrophobia is bad want to acknowledge.

Surprisingly, I've not had anyone call me out over IJ-posting, although I am fairly clear every time that I think it was one of the sickest societies ever cobbled together out of an inferiority complex and desperate need to assert themselves as the greatest nation in the world. Imperial Japan was just...SO evil and SO incompetent, and in the US they don't teach you anything about them outside of Pearl Harbor and maybe if you're lucky Midway and Iwo Jima.

Depressing fact! During the Battle of Okinawa, the single bloodiest battle of the Pacific War, nearly as many Okinawan civilians died as US and Japanese soldiers put together, many through coerced suicide. Teach that shit, dagnabbit.

As to everything else, yes, I absolutely agree. We can either call it misogyny based on who it "targets" (that's another discussion) or we can call it androphobia based on who the feelings that go into it (hatred of men/failed men), but engage with the material reality of it either way.

[iron-embers]

Hatomi Karahana

Gender: Female

Age: 35-36

Height: 5’9

Ethnicity: Half Russian/half Japanese

Original last name: Karahana

Widowed last name: Kobayashi

Current last name: Rengoku

Personality

. Patient

. Motherly

. Respectful

. Dutiful

. Sharp wit

. Protective

. Loyal

. Thoughtful

. Unwavering will/Stubborn

. Warm

. Resilient

. Busy body

. Honest

. Sweet natured

Family lineage: Of the imperial Karahana archers renowned for their deadly accuracy and adept strategies during times of war. Rivals of the Harada family, famed hunters well known for their accuracy and success of the hunt.

Skills

. Archery

. Practitioner of Kyudo (way of the bow)

. Places emphasis on spiritual and moral development as it does accuracy and skill. A serious discipline as it draws from the ancient samurai traditions.

. Can use The Yumi longbow and Hankyu, short bow

. Hunting

. Cooking

. Basic Medical knowledge

. Sketching

. Tai chi

. Throwing knives

. Seamstress/Leatherworking

. Repair/Cleaning

. Storytelling

Relationships

Dimitri and Fumiye Karahana(Deceased)- Parents

Seiua Karahana(Deceased)-Grandfather/Mentor

Kaito Kobayashi(Deceased)- Husband

Genji Kobayashi(Deceased)- Son

Aokiji- Old family friend/Her husbands Mentor

Rengoku family- She was the Caretaker/Governess after Ruka passed and most of the servants had left. Mainly cared for Senjuro who was only 4 at the time, and took over the household duties. Later ends up marrying Shinjuro after Muzan’s defeat.

Fun facts

. Her Father Dmitri was a Russian fur trader that married her mother, who was the eldest child of the famed archers, to which Hatomi’s grandfather was a legend among japan for his skill and the trait of gold hawk like eyes. Her Uncle in-law who married the younger daughter was a greedy man who married for the status and reputation.

. Due to her mixed heritage, she has a surprisingly strong immune system and rarely gets sick. She even ate poisonous berries once in an early attempt at suicide but it didn’t work due to her metabolism and strong health.

. She was 19 when she met Kaito Kobayashi, a humble carpenter apprentice that helped her when she was abandoned by her Uncle and other relatives, and later married and gave birth to a son named Genji at 21. She loved him because he was honest and made her laugh. He appreciated her as a person despite her heritage and circumstance, and believed in her

. Despite her calm demeanor, she is the type of person that if you get her to a point of anger which takes a lot to do, she is not merciful once you push her to that.

. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

. Surprisingly strong despite her look of complete composure, and taught by her grandfather the ways of Kyudo, mastering longbows and short bows since their lineage is of Military archers revered by the line of Emperors. A Great knife thrower as well with some deadly accuracy. Though after her first husband died, she has not shot from a bow since, but the accuracy comes in handy.

. Likes rabbit and Tuna, and loves anything Seaweed

. Kyojuro was 11 when he met her, and Senjuro about 4, too young to remember Ruka. She was 26 going on 27, which she came to their household a couple months after the death of her family.

. She took up a job as housekeeper/governess, helping a young Kyojuro take care of Senjuro since their father refused to be present for most of the time. All the other maids were fired/left due to Shinjuro’s behavior, but she had stayed. Always tried to help Senjuro be close to his mother and father by telling the good things and experiences. Unwittingly Senjuro bonds with her, and while he does miss Ruka, learned a great deal from Hatomi’s patience and sweet nature towards him. He learned to cook from her and the recipes Ruka left behind.

. She does not like the rain. It reminds her of that night she lost her family because it was a storm that day. That and she feels awful during the rain. Her joints tend to ache more and her usually kept hair becomes a frizzled tangled mess.

. Despite giving up her bow the night her family died, every anniversary when she goes to their graves at her old home near the river, she has made it tradition to clean her bows and arrows left in the house. A testament that while will not be used, is to carry on the traditions and teachings left by her grandfather. He always said “This bow is your life, it is to be shown respect and care, a reflection of your inner peace and temperance.”

Story Summary

Orphaned and outcast from her family due to unfortunate circumstance, Hatomi sought out her own happiness and peace in the form of a carpenter named Kaito. In her exile, she found both those things, to trust and to experience love was all she could want . To later be blessed with a son brought her joy at finally having a family to call her own��until one night her happiness was taken by a demon, killing her husband and child and left her alone once more. Overcome with grief and finding herself the survivor that regretted being so, she almost resigns herself to the curse of loneliness that never seems to leave her were it not for her coming across yet a new family. One that was broken, a father too lost in his own grief to find himself, and leaving two children to try and pick up the pieces. With a new purpose and resolve, Hatomi dedicates herself to helping two sons that continued to live in honor of their mother. Being no stranger to loss, she refused to let her despair dictate her life despite the struggles. Never would she let anyone be alone in bitterness, never to shy away from the pain as it made her stronger for those that could not, and never would she let what happened to her make her fear loving again.

Here is the reference sheet for my second Demon slayer Oc, Hatomi Karahana. She has been in development for months and I’m glad to have fleshed out the important stuff. I have a lot more info that will be posted later, but if you guys have any questions about her story or interactions you wanna see feel free to ask! Hope ya like and stay tuned!

[ladyloveandjustice]

Fall 2023 Anime Overview: Pluto and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Pluto

Premise: Somebody- or something- is killing the most advanced robots in the world, along with humans involved with robots (either robot rights activists or scientists). Gesicht, a robot police detective, is trying to track this killer down. But has the detective himself been compromised? What is going on with these strange memories that keep appearing in his head?

Based on an arc in Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy, this anime is a tense, tightly plotted robot murder mystery that kept me engrossed and invested. Stuff that deals with "android" rights can often feel cringey at best and insulting at worst, but Pluto avoids this by having a future where robots have already gotten their civil rights. It instead largely uses robots as a metaphor for being seen as a disposable tool in a corrupt system, for how if you resist being a weapon for violence and imperialism, those in power will either discard you or fear you. And it asks the question--can robots feel human emotions like hatred? What happens when they do?

Speaking of imperialism, there are some very obvious allusions to the Iraq War in this and I mean obvious like the "United States of Thracia" stars a war with the "Kingdom of Persia" under the pretense of finding "robots of mass destruction". The anime is deeply sympathetic to the, uh, Kingdom of Persia (and very accurate about how much the United States of "Thracia's" government sucks and is imperialistic), but it does feature content that can be tough to deal with (especially right now), and does have some Middle Eastern antagonists, though they're not one-dimensional . I don't feel qualified to dig into it too deeply, but I just have to note it. 

Pluto is impressive with it's sizable cast that all have their own distinct stories. It makes you feel for almost every character. A lot of the plot twists punch you in the gut, and the animation is generally stunning. I

I did find parts of the final episode fell flat. It was a solid finale, but the world-ending stakes and the focus on pretty predictable action beats were so different than the gripping, investigative stuff that came before it that it was a bit of a let down. And it really beat you over the head by constantly verbally repeating the central message.

 (I also hate the trope of a male character lying to a female character about information she's begging for and affects her deeply, and it being treated as a great kindness. I wish female characters got more to do overall in this, because the two we had were potentially very interesting. It did give a nod to the female robots being just as advanced at the male ones but that being ignored because they weren't advanced in a traditionally masculine way. But you could feel it's Astro Boy roots in how male dominated the cast was.)

Overall, this is one of the most well-crafted anime of the last few years-- a psychological thriller and meditation on humanity and conflict, rich with story and themes, with not a second wasted. I definitely recommend giving it a shot, you'll probably be hooked in no time. And expect it to break your heart. A lot.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Yes, this counts as an anime. It was animated by a Japanese studio, the director is based in Japan and has worked in anime for years. But there are some spoilers in the premise itself here, so I'm going to put it under the cut.

You have been warned!

Premise: Scott Pilgrim meets a cool girl named Ramona Flowers and falls for her, only to find out she has seven evil exes he must defeat. Unfortunately, he seemingly dies at the hands of the first one. This leads Ramona on a journey where she must confront her evil exes and see if Scott is really dead after all.

So, I was a fan of Scott Pilgrim as a teen. Moreso of the comic than the movie, since the movie didn't have the interesting arcs for the female characters the comic did thanks to it's short runtime and what it prioritized. (Ramona, especially, was done dirty). I liked Ramona a lot in the comic, especially how she went from a mysterious figure to someone just as messy and screwed up as Scott is, and the "final boss" was actually the abusive relationship she was stuck in, and she was the one who really had to defeat it. I liked how Knives outgrew Scott, and I liked how Kim exposed Scott's fantasies as not real, and let her crush on him go. I liked how Scott's arc was realizing he'd treated the women in his life badly and that he needed to grow up and stop being so selfish. 

So I was a little excited to see a more comic-accurate version... but what we got was even better. A story that was more from Ramona's perspective, that centered her from the very beginning, and which focused on her understanding, and often reconciling with her exes, rather than them being enemies to defeat. I especially loved seeing Roxie finally get her due. (The comic handled Roxie better than the movie's bullshit, but it still left a lot to be desired). Ramona's ex-girlfriend finally gets treated as an ex-girlfriend, with no "just a phase" bs from Ramona and no Scott doing the straight guy "ooh lesbians so sexy" bs. Instead, it's a sincere, emotional look at their relationship and the ways Ramona hurt Roxie, along with a killer fight scene. 

It was also great to see Knives thriving without Scott around, and Matthew Patel getting more of a spotlight. The series has grown up over the years ,but the themes are as sharp as ever. It examines the bad decisions Ramona and Scott have made, and not only the fear of growing up as a young adult, but the fear of what you'll grow into. It explores the fear that relationships will become regrets, the messiness of people trying to connect, and how you need to keep trying to communicate and move forward and take risks anyway.

There were a few things I wish we could have seen more of- like Kim and Envy. (And small yet bothersome nitpick, I also disliked how when Ramona talked about her pattern of "running away" from relationships, Gideon was included, despite the fact he was abusive to her in this version too). The English voice cast was also weak with the voice acting sometimes (likely because most of them were more used to being on-screen actors)- though there were some stand out performances like Satya Bahba (Matthew Patel), Michael Cera (Scott) and of course Mae Whitman (Roxy) (I also think Winstead settled into her role well too)-- though I got used to it after a while, and the Japanese cast is aces.

The animation was also phenomenal, and it had a killer soundtrack.

I'm not sure how this anime would hit if you haven't seen either the comic or the movie, (I've heard some newbies say they liked it) but as a fan of the source material, I was very pleased and found it a treat. Definitely worth checking out.

[vo-kopen]

So in case any of y’all were interested in Zippo’s origin from my other post (seen here) here it is. I appreciate that his first appearance has a diagram of his tech, and while his spandex is a bit generic, his harness and wheels make him stand out. It is a bit weird that this PI just randomly has invented a harness, but a future story could explore why a PI is a skilled mechanic and inventor. Maybe he wanted to be an inventor but his tech was too niche or impossible to mass produce, so he was forced to use his eye for detail as a PI. There is potential for future stories here. And as a reminder, Zippo is in the public domain, so he is free to use for anyone for anything.

It’s also interesting that while Zippo is faster than any human, he’s not anywhere near the speed of a proper speedster. The Flash and Quicksilver both are so far out of his weight class it’s hilarious. But that’s not a bad thing, its an unique idea to have a speedster using 1940’s machinery to move fast, I can’t recall any other speedsters like that. The tech also stands out against his uniform; it is far from streamline. There is a sense that it is not the optimal way to move fast, but it still enough to let him foil a villain or two. Almost like a street level speedster. If a writer using him has a more typical speedster in their cast, Zippo could be used to show the limits of technology.

I also appreciate that while Zippo is violent, he did not kill his enemies. This is the Golden Age and before the comic code authority, and as you can see the Pirate is not only willing to kill but I believe he is cleaning blood off his cutlass. Zippo sparing him therefore seems like a point of contrast, the Pirate is willing to even kill his own henchmen, but Zippo does not. You could explore a code of ethics here. And from a practical point of view, this theoretically means the Pirate could show up in future stories.

The story is jingoist, what with the focus on war plants and the USO thing at the end, but this story did come out in 1943. War industry is bad, but at least they are fighting the Nazis. (Though I cannot bring myself to read issue two yet because it’s the forties and while I do not know the plot, if Imperial Japan comes up in a story I expect to be horrified. Captain America comics in the forties were very racist. Zippo seems more based in the states than Cap so it might never come up, but spies and saboteurs are still a possibility, so my anxiety fears)

Other notes, his secretary barely appears but her last name is Smith, so if a writer uses him they could incorporate that name as a play on words. Like, maybe she helps him maintain or build his gear. (again, I have not read issue two yet, she might not stick around or their dynamic might differ. Though there is no reason a retelling would have to treat the original comics as a strict bible) Either way, she is in a position that could easily be a recurring role if not a major supporting character. Shame she is such a blank slate in issue one.

As for Joe’s profession, my gut shouts ACAB, especially his use of threatening violence to get enemies to confess. That said, he is approached by Anderson because he is not a part of the system and they don’t want to cause a panic, so there is potential there for him to be written as outside and contrasted against law enforcement. Is he subtler than the law? Is he less important in the eyes of the public so they would not care as much? Would any of that plus Zippo’s smashing success cause resentment among the cops? These ideas are clearly not in the text, but it could be explored by a modern writer. And I will admit, being a PI gives him a reason to be approached by civilians to help them with their troubles, as well as an excuse to investigate in his civies. Reporter is the classic occupation to justify superhero snooping, but this is not the worst job for a superhero to have. That’s billionaire.

Anyway, tagging @thefingerfuckingfemalefury @akirakan @espanolbot2 @filipfatalattractionrblog @nitpickrider @bear-of-mirrors @geekgirl101 @renaroo @docgold13 @paulsebert @majingojira @strixobscuro and any other comic fan who might be interested in reading a quick little comic about a public domain “speedster.”

[hero-israel]

Hi there! Could you please expand on the Qatari funds at US banks? I saw someone claim US had indirectly funded the terrorist regime that sponsored the 10/7 program — supposedly, the 6B that the US authorized into Iran because of the ransom transfer deal had not been reimbursed by that time and were strictly for humanitarian purposes, coincidentally said to “frozen at Qatar’s central bank” (I don’t know if this claim is legitimate, but that was reported by US officials), yet there’s also the claim that the fungibility of the money (knowing they had money coming) could have emboldened Iran into funding Hamas? How does this relate to the Qatari funds at US banks, and is there other ways the US (even if not Biden specifically*) has indirectly funded Hamas/Iran (aside from UNRWA, for instance, or US aid to Palestine —which I’m not sure if it belongs to a separate category)?

They don't relate, they are entirely separate issues. My suggestion was to freeze all Qatari assets currently involved with the U.S. banking system - no liquidity, no withdrawals - as we did with Japan in 1941. It would have gashed their economy, shocked and humiliated them, and almost certainly would have helped us get Ismail Haniyeh on a rope by Thanksgiving. (And no, Qatar is not 1940s Imperial Japan, it does not project military power - but if they felt like fucking around, sure, we'd let them find out.)

The Iranian funds released to Qatar were supposedly "frozen," I'd like to believe that is the case, but a lot of - I'm sorry to say this - Democrat State Department types are just hell-bent on rehabilitating and normalizing Iran. We saw this with Obama's deal mechanism, with Ben Rhodes hologramming newly-invented foreign policy groups into public discussions to sway opinion, with the overbearing notion that as long as you give Iran lots of money and good seats at the Davos Forum they won't be imperialist fundie assholes anymore. The same people who were sure they'd be able to control Iran were totally blindsided by Brexit and by Trump winning. Their words on paper were totally going to constrain the IRGC, but then Pennsylvania Republicans did something shocking and unfair that they couldn't deal with.

Highly educated Western atheists just do not comprehend violent religious fundamentalism and how it can give its practitioners wholly different priorities. To borrow a phrase, Iran really DOESN'T want to cure cancer, they want to turn people into dinosaurs.

[fullmetalnihongostudy]

why do shiba inus exist in amestris?

so, it's established in Canon that black hayate, riza hawkeye's dog, is a shiba inu, as proven by this screenshot on the fullmetal alchemist wiki

specifically, hayate looks like a black and tan shiba. however, this does raise an important question. the shiba is a specifically japanese dog, so what is one doing in Amestris, which canoninically seems to be modelled after Central Europe? This can only imply that Japan and Amestris have enough of a cultural connection that it's natural for the Amestris state military to casually have a Shiba on the premises.

Why is this? It's known that Xing (modelled on China) has somewhat of a connection, but it's not huge. We don't see a huge amount of Xingese characters walking around Amestris and it's specified that culture and knowledge systems are separate enough that Ed and Al don't know much about alkahestry so obviously there hasn't been much cultural exchange between East and West.

There are a few options:

• Amestris has been trading with Japan for a while. However if so, why do we not see more of this and how would Fuery, who originally owned Hayate, have had time to hunt down a presumably rare and expensive dog when his life is preoccupied by the military

• the Amestris military has actually had contact with Japan for a while, either as allies or enemies

• there are a few links with japan but not very many

What else does Black Hayate's presence imply?

If the events of Conqueror of Shamballa accurately indicate that Amestris exists in a parallel universe where alchemy developed instead of technology, it figures there are equivalents to many things in our world.

In fact, the time period is quite ambiguous. Canoninically it's 1800s BUT some of the tech we see in Father's lair is a lot more advanced. So is it possible there might also be more modern things from Japan?

If this technological blip is the case, and if a Shiba Inu is present in pretty much a similar form to those in our universe, does Amestris also have equivalents for the following?

• much doge, such wow

• dogecoin

• Mari the asshole shiba who keeps squirting random liquids on his owner?

• lovely muco? we see ed and al waving, of all things, the imperial japanese flag at the homunculi to bring them out of hiding. So does the empire of japan exist in canon? what's it's attitude to alchemy? were the homunculi responsible for it, as they were responsible for military activity in Ishval, and is this why the flag worked on them? why does Japan seem unchanged when every other location from our world has a vaguely different flag and culture?

• if Japan exists unchanged, do the Amestrians get any of their media the same way we do? Anime and manga didn't come to the west until the second half of the 20th century, but tbh, as time periods seem a little bit skewed in Amestris. Are there alchemists who sit listening to radio broadcast versions of say, something like death note, where alchemist!Light Yagami is bumping off anyone he sees guilty of misusing alchemy or something? Who knows!

And, if something like dogecoin does exist in the alchemical equivalent to cryptocurrency - say, a group of clandestine alchemists, whether decent (ish) like Doctor Marcoh or scum like Shou Tucker would be the ones who use it - are there rules on transmuting it? If Ed crossed to our world like he did in the WW2 era in Shamballa but ended up in the present day, could alchemy have contributed to the boom in dogecoin that happened?

Hiromu Arakawa, I want answers

[clonerightsagenda]

While talking with people about the ways FMA approaches the topic of Ishval, I've realized it falls into a SFF trend I jokingly call "are we the baddies?" stories. These are stories that focus on characters from a colonialist and/or imperialist society who are active parts of the imperial project, and they often spend most of their time investigating harms coming to people within the empire. Examples include Imperial Radch and the Locked Tomb. (Nona has started to move beyond that, although the core characters in Nona remain former high status imperial citizens.)

What I've noticed is that these stories are often written by comparatively privileged residents of imperial/settler colonialist nations (America, Aotearoa, Japan, specifically Hokkaido). Something that has also interested me is that there's often a level of distancing imposed through the characters' races. Many of the 'are we the baddies' stories by white authors that I've read have mostly brown characters (whether this is because ambiguously brown spacefutures are trendy, it's a quick way to check the diversity box without having to research culture, or they don't want to ask us to sympathize with white imperial villains, idk) whereas FMA makes its fascist military state European and Germanic-influenced, gesturing toward Japan's imperial history via a former ally without confronting it directly.

I've seen enough of these that I wonder if it's people trying to grapple with what it means when instead of being one of the scrappy rebels fighting the faceless evil empire, you are a citizen of the evil empire. What does it mean to be part of that system when you consider yourself, your family, your friends to be good people? How do you become more and more complicit? What can you do about it?

That's a storyline that will probably hit people differently depending on whether it's a question they're wrestling with or if they've been victimized by these systems and never had to stop to go "huh are those the baddies"? And there's certainly room to criticize stories like these for glossing over the damage done to external victims of empire, but I think they're deliberately focusing on people within the system for a reason.

[jiskblr]

Hot Take: Eugenics Isn’t About Eugenics

So everybody knows that eugenics is bad. It is bad because (a) Nazis and Imperial Japan sorted people into Best Worthy Citizens and Terrible Degenerate Parasites and then did horrible things to the people they called Terrible and claimed it was justified, and (b) other people classified people into Good and Bad and kept the Bad from reproducing (and then took away other rights or at least lobbied for rights to be taken away) and claimed that was justified. And these were both bad, but... not actually related to eugenics proper.

Eugenics proper is “You know how you can breed animals for qualities? You can do that to humans, too.” It’s easy to see how, having acknowledged this is possible, someone can say “These people have been bred for good qualities, but those ones have been bred for bad qualities”. But does anyone actually think that those groups of people were, in any way, actually being assigned to Good or Bad according to actual genetic qualities? I don’t think anyone does.

And both (a) and (b) have happened elsewhere! No one has industrialized Doing Horrible Things To The Outgroup nearly as hard as Nazi Germany managed, but they sure did classify people from Best to Worst and then do nasty things to the Worst. Normal examples of this, which are pretty bad with no mention of genetics involved, are known as “caste systems”.

Extremely cold take: Caste Systems Considered Harmful

The Nazis had a caste system. The Imperial Japanese also had a caste system. Actually they had two caste systems - the one they had already had for many centuries, about people within Japan, and the new one about different racial groups outside Japan. (Though of course, as in the German case, they then put a lot of effort into making Japan bigger so that it now contained those outsiders, and then did horrible things to them.) Both of these caste systems justified themselves using the language of eugenics, but these were simplistic systems that labeled “People We Like” as Best and “People We Dislike” as Worst, with only token attempts to provide any detail to the excuses. And no one was particularly fooled - except people who liked and disliked the same groups, many of whom said “yeah that sounds fair” and added ‘false sense of moral superiority’ to their list of unpleasant qualities. Somewhere well below the things they actually did to the people they disliked, most of which they were doing well before they acquired a token excuse and labeled that excuse “eugenics”.

Thing (b), which was not as bad but still pretty bad, we still do all the fucking time. “These people have poor breeding”/”These people are inherently stupid” have stopped being acceptable excuses, but there are many others. Immigrants, pedophiles, sex workers, MRAs, TERFs... take your pick, we have dozens of them. Label them with a Bad Thing and declare them Bad, and then take their rights away - though now we’re extra sensitive about the right to reproduce, so mostly that one doesn’t get the force of law.

The lesson of eugenics is not, actually, ‘Beware Eugenics’. The lesson is Beware Convenient Excuses To Label The Outgroup Objectively Bad. Eugenics happened to be the convenient excuse most popular in the window where industrialized awfulness became feasible, and therefore was the excuse used to commit atrocities. But nothing that happened actually had the first damn thing to do with breeding humans for good or bad qualities.

[hello-nichya-here]

it's funny how you're an anti-communist pig when atla itself literally has communist undertones. lmfao.

Everyone, this right here is why you don't "learn" about political movements and government systems from Tumblr and TikTok.

In what world does Avatar have "communist undertones"? Because people were starving?

Because it has kind main characters that go around helping people? Said main characters are a messiah, two children of tribal chieftan that are only not living a good and comfortable life because their home was cosnstantly attacked and raided during the war, an obscenely rich girl that clearly has no problem using her family's money to get what she wants, the prince that would one day become an absolute monarchist, and a bonus a warrior that lives in an island that only exist because another messiah's solution to a conflict that threatened their way of living was CREATING A BORDER BETWEEN THEIR NATION AND THE REST OF THE CONTINENT BY PHYSICALLY SEPARATING FROM THE MAIN LAND and they avoided being dragged into the war for years because they stayed took a "each nation should deal with their own damn problems" approach until their messiah returned.

HOW does that scream "communism"? How does a show that repeatedly said "Drifting away from spirituality had horrible consequences for the world as a whole" fit with communism? Just because they also said "everything is connected to everything else" while STILL showing some level of hierarchy as positive, hence one of the good guys being a monarch and the others having zero issue with it? Saying "the lower classes shouldn't starve" is not the same as "We don't believe society should be split into any class system" and it sure as hell is no "LET'S KILL THE CZAR AND HIS FAMILY SO WE CAN FINALLY HAVE SOME GODDAMN SAY IN WHAT HAPPENS TO US!"

Even the divide between nations was kept in the end - they were co-existing peacefully again, sure, but that shows the lines like "We are really one people, but we live as if divided" is not saying "They should be one huge nation made up of four smaller ones that are ruled by the same system/people" but rather "humans, even with all their differences, are still one large group with no one being better or worse than the rest."

Not to mention, THE main promise of socialism and communism, the main things Marx and Lenin would go on about, THE thing that is actually interesting/has potential about it and that people always use to try and get people to think that "living under communism would be great actually" is COMPLETELY ABSENT in the world of Avatar: the promise of workers not only being treated fairly, but having the control of...

THE CAPITAL

You know, the thing Marx was so invested in he wrote a whole damn book about it and that's why anyone alive today even knows he existed?

Avatar NEVER gets into that. Ever. "Worker's rights" wasn't a matter of discussion EVEN WHEN THE TWO MOST POPULAR CHARACTERS IN THE SHOW WERE WORKING TO SURVIVE!

THE closest Avatar ever got to maybe, possibly, mayhaps referencing stuff that happened in communist nations, was with things like those ships that were essentially goulags - and not only is that a bit of stretch since MANY nations through human history, with radically different systems, had some element of forced labor for the "inferior" people and/or criminals, that would also be the show casting a NEGATIVE light on communism.

"Oh, but the Fire Nation is the evil nation and Bryke has said they used to criticize american imperialism!"

1 - "I don't like the way the US does things" is not the same as "I think the communists were 100% right." That false dichotomy of "If you dislike one, you support the other" is literally just propaganda both sides spread to frighten people into silence so they wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of "supporting" the enemy.

2 - The Fire Nation is also heavily based on Imperial Japan which is WAY older than communism. Once again, this is not a Captalism VS Communism deal

3 - Again, the happy ending of the show has the Fire Nation remain an absolute monarchy, they just changed the monarch.

4 - Bryke also created The Legend Of Korra, and "republic city", the symbol of all the progress the world has supposedly made, is literally just a New York city knock off. These guys literally picked the face of capitalism as a symbol of the main message of the show - they're not your comrades.

You can support whatever the fuck you think is right, but Avatar is not a show that said "communism is good actually", stop projecting just because you like the show or because you're pissed off that a random person online disagrees with you and you want some kind of "gotcha" to say "AH HA, YOU LIKE THIS THING AND THIS THING IS A METAPHORE FOR COMMUNISM! YOU HAVE TO BE A COMMUNIST NOW!"

[centrally-unplanned]

Assassination tier list request I forgot about until this second - killing of Ii Naosuke by imperial loyalist samurai in 1860

Oh man, they are a complicated one I think, its all tied up in the Sonno Joi/"Revere the Emperor, Expel the Barbarians" Movement and evaluating its goals and legacy.

So the context is that Li Naosuke was the Chief Minister of the Shogunate and the real leader - the shogun at the time was the 14-year old Tokugawa Iemochi that Naosuke had appointed in a power struggle that resulted in what is called the Ansei Purge, when over a 100 high daimyo (the fuedal clans of Japan under the shogunate) officials were arrested or killed for their opposition to Japan's opening up to the west and treaties with the foreign powers. Naosuke led this effort, which he had to - not like Japan had much of a choice in signing the treaties. He was trying to walk a line; appease the west while opening up Japan to strengthen the nation, and purging the government of anti-shogunate forces to keep the government strong enough to do that.

His assasination (the Sakurada-mon Incident) in 1860 was led by a band of samurai from the Mito daimiyo, one of the victims of the purge, and it was both part of and ushered in a wave of terrorism and civil violence in Japan that fatally undermined the shogunate and its relationships with the Imperial Court and the daimiyo lords. I think this is one of those *extremely* impactful acts of terrorism. Naosuke was striking a bargain with Japan's elite; you work with me, and we will weather this storm the west is inflicting on us, and if you don't I will destroy you. This was absolutely working at the elite levels, there were not large overt actions being conducted to undermine the Shogunate at the time and real reforms were being made. In return, the lower-ranking samurai, educated, priviledged, but relatively powerless, were furious at the level of appeasement, engaging in terrorism and violence. The violence wasn't getting elite buy-in though; the shogunate was the default for the ruling Daimiyo and they had been threatened into toeing the line.

There is a japanese term Gekokujō, "the low rules the high", which is very fitting here. Killing Naosuke opened the floodgates; not only did his death cause the shogunate to flail around rudderless for a long stretch, but it empowered the Sonno Joi samurai to run riot, not only attacking the government but also pressuring the daimiyo elite themselves into treason. Naive portrayals of Japan at the time pit "shogunate vs daimiyo" as the primary conflict, and its a conflict for sure, but just as important is the conflict between the elite vs the radicals. After Naosuke's death Gekokujo ruled, the elite feared the radicals *more* than they feared the shogunate. They began to work against the shogunate in order to appease the factions in their own court that now, embolded, might assasinate them if they didn't. And man were there assasinations in the Bakumatsu period - so many that attacks on westerners eventually inspired a military invasion of the Shimonoseki treaty port in 1864, which hugely weakened the shogunate. You can trace a direct line between those actions and the Sakurada-mon incident; it was the "propaganda of the deed" that showed every angry disempowered saumrai that they too could make a difference via extreme violence, while pushing daimyo over the edge into the anti-shogunate faction by breaking the spell the Ansei Purges cast.

(This does bring up the topic that due to technology of weapons & information + outdated legacy governing systems, the Long 19th Century was the ideal time for assasinations to make a difference. Thread for another time though)

So A+ or S easy, right? It set the stage for the collapse of the shogunate as much as one assasination could, right? Well, not so fast. We are lucky for this one - the assasins left a manifesto! We know excatly why they did it:

"While fully aware of the necessity for some change in policy since the coming of the Americans at Uraga, it is entirely against the interest of the country and a stain on the national honour to open up commercial relations with foreigners, to admit foreigners into the Castle, to conclude treaties with them, to abolish the established practice of trampling on the picture of Christ, to allow foreigners to build places of worship for the evil religion, and to allow the three Foreign Ministers to reside in the land ... Therefore, we have consecrated ourselves to be the instruments of Heaven to punish this wicked man, and we have taken on ourselves the duty of ending a serious evil, by killing this atrocious autocrat"

Peak Sonno Joi vibes, its all here - expel the foreigners, cut trade, purge the body-politic, RETVRN. To achieve this goal, they allied with the emperor, formed an anti-shogunate faction, overthrew the government, and ushered in the Meiji Restoration to return Japan to the old ways.

How did, uh, that work out?

...yeah. The Meiji Restoration is one of those things where the dissident samurai intellectuals blamed the shogunate for the entirety of Japan's problems, when virtually none of them were the shogunate’s inherent fault - the new government inherited all of those problems and no new solutions. But, with more centralized control and cooled tempers (and dead bodies) once the Boshin War let everyone scapegoat the shogunate, the new Meiji government proceeded to go ULTIMATE WESTERNIZATION and crash course into modernizing the country in a way the shogunate could only dream of.

Samurai? Gone. Feudalism? Gone. Western Clothes? Check. Parliament? Check. Christianity? Legally permitted in 1871, ushering in a boom of churches and schools. Hell they even switched over to the western time system in 1872, you wouldn't even know *when* to ~retvrn~ to at that point. These changes isolated so many of these former samurai they launched the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, led by ur-samurai Saigo Takamori and possibly Tom Cruise (and who, by the way, absolutely used guns & artillery). They were crushed, and westernization continued. The new Japanese government did fight back to restore its soveriegnty in regards to the West at least, but not in the way the Sonno Joi samurai wanted.

On the near-term goal of destabilizing the shogunate and inspiring their dissident reactionary comrades, the Sakurada-mon Incident was a rousing success. On the far-term goal of its actual political agenda, it empowered a faction that betrayed its agenda on every level. They achieved nothing they truly wanted but the deaths.

Still, as harsh as that all sounds, you can't go *that* far into history, this is a long stretch of time. From the vantage point of 1860 few in Japan knew how irreversible modernity was going to be. The Meiji government certainly didn't - they did not at all set out to End Feudalism, instead finding they simply had no choice if they wanted to compete. The assasins were definitely in the foolish side of the conflict, real leaders knew something had to change, but its too much to put the Meiji Restoration on the shoulders of this one act. They did change Japan in a way that pursued their goals, even if they turned out to be impossible, and things like the immortalization of the emperor in the new Meiji system have to count for some reactionary points.

So for their impact, the inspiration they provided to countless violent samurai reactionaries, and the inherent uncontrollability of Japan's modernization, I will give them an A-/B+, right on the threshold. Definitely a complicated case.

Also this whole exercise as really highlighted Japan's long, deep history of effective terrorism, if we did a country/terrorism ranking they might be near the top.

[st-just]

Further random tides of history thoughts

-Obviously not even slightly unique in this, but there's a really interesting break between the modern reactionary imagining of knights (selfless footsoldiers in the Army of Christ, etc), how they seem to have imagined themselves (piety still important, ofc, but also the paramount importance of personal honor as something maintained through private violence, etc) and what they actually basically were (landowners with manors and warhorses, primary occupations oppressing the peasentry and starting penny-ante civil wars. Though given how thin on the ground states were until the end of the period 'vendettas' is probably the better term tbh)

-This is kind of pleasingly isomorphic to how Imperial Japan utilized the image of the samurai in its propaganda vs. what samurai-as-actual-millitary-aristocrats were.

-Very unfortunate that Ferdinand and Isabela were, like, some of the worst people ever. The story of their engagement/marriage really does read like great raw material for a romance.

-handshake meme between the Knights Templar and the Swiss with 'going from a reputation of being terrifying bloodthirsty warriors to a stereotype of mostly just being rich bankers' (worked out better for one than the other ofc)

-[unrelated] the factoid that until the 16th century the Ottomans ruled over massively more Christians than Muslims and largely staffed the state bureaucracy with slaves from Christian communities and the (useful, important) fact that rather than some great foreign Other they were a pretty integral part of the European state system from the end of the Medieval period has the potential to be the raw material for some horrific cultural Christianity take, I just know it.

[shrinkrants]

Jason Hickel Describes Capitalism

The word capitalism tends to cause immediate confusion. For most people it calls to mind things like businesses, markets and trade: the ability of people to produce and sell things to one another. Who could possibly be against this? But in fact businesses, markets and trade existed for thousands of years before capitalism. Capitalism is a relatively recent system, having emerged in Western Europe only about 500 years ago.  If one was to point to the single most important defining feature of this particular economic system, it would be that it is fundamentally anti-democratic. 

Let me clarify what I mean. Yes, many of us live in electoral systems where we select political leaders from time to time.  We have something approximating political democracy, as corrupt and imperfect as it may be.  But when it comes to the economy, thesystem of production, not even the shallowest illusion of democracy enters. Production is controlled overwhelmingly by capital, meaning large corporations, the major financial firms, and the 1% who own the lion’s share of investable assets.  Capital determines what gets produced, how our labour and resources shall be used, and for whose benefit. And for capital, the purpose of production is not to meet people’s needs, or to achieve social progress.  The purpose is to maximize and accumulate profit – that is the overriding objective.

Capital seeks constantly increasing accumulation. To achieve this, it needs to cheapen the prices of inputs as much as possible (labour, land, energy, and materials), and maintain those prices at a low level. It also needs a constantly increasing supply of these inputs.  This process cannot go on for very long within a bounded national economy.  If you over-exploit your domestic working class, sooner or later you are going to face a revolution, or a crisis of overproduction. And if you over-exploit your domestic environment, eventually you will degrade the ecological base upon which all production relies.

To overcome these contradictions, capitalism always requires an “outside,” external to itself, where it can cheapen labor and nature with impunity and appropriate them on a vast scale; an outside where it can “externalize” social and ecological damages, where rebellions can be contained, and where it does not have to negotiate with local grievances or demands. This is where the colonies come in. From the origins of capitalism in the late 15th century, growth in the “core” of the world economy (Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan) has always depended on the mass appropriation of labor and resources from the “periphery” (Latin America, Asia and Africa). There was no lag between the rise of capitalism and the imperial project. Capitalism has always required an imperial arrangement.

This was obvious during the first several hundred years of capitalist history, which I detail in this book. European colonizers went about destroying self-sufficient industries in the periphery and forcibly re-organizing production to serve consumption and accumulation in the core. Historians have documented that extraordinary quantities of value were siphoned out of the periphery and into the core, subjecting the former to deprivation, misery, and mass mortality while furnishing the latter with unprecedented wealth.

-- Jason Hickel, in the new preface to The Divide.

[fantasyinvader]

Again with the Hegemon Husk form. I think if we go back to the parley on this, the parley is meant to be best insight into Edelgard’s character. What her true motivations are. Scarlet Blaze, of all things, confirms Dimitri’s accusations.

Is Edelgard averting her eyes from what she doesn’t want to see? Yeah, she herself confirms this with regards to the Slither’s influence on the Empire. Likewise, she herself says she’s hopelessly devoted to her ideals in her support with Balthus. That same support also agrees with Dimitri’s statement that she’s forcing her beliefs on others, as she says that those that don’t support her or her ideals will be destroyed. Shez and Hubert’s support talks about how the commoners are oppressed while the nobility thrive under Edelgard’s reforms, showing that Edelgard could have reformed the Empire without invasion AND that her system doesn’t profit the weak. But as the parley states, Edelgard simply blames the weak if they don’t succeed, saying they’re too coddled while she herself is coddling the nobility.

I point this out because, well, Dimitri in Flower does call Edelgard’s route the path of the beast in the Japanese text. “Teacher. Why did Edelgard... choose the path of a beast, trampling on people's lives?” and as the final boss of Azure Moon she’s a beast unit, with Dimitri saying that such a form is the end of her ideals.  “To be changed beyond all recognition... That is what lies at the end of the ideals you served so diligently.” Even Cipher got into this with it’s card for the Hegemon Husk titled “Hegemon Edelgard: At the End of the Ideals She Served.”

The final boss of Azure Moon isn’t Edelgard, it’s her ideals. Ideals she’s constantly framed as serving, not the people. That free and independent society, the one where people are supposed to be self-sufficient? Let’s see, we have it upheld by pilfered Agarthan tech according to Byleth/Constance, Hubert’s endings make it clear the public are under surveillance with any threats to Edelgard’s rule being put down (Shamir’s mentions rebellions in the English text), the Imperial army is indirectly stated to be invading other countries in Japan (Caspar/Dorothea) where the text make them out to be a bunch of out of control juggalos rather than “sometimes reckless”, Edelgard is shown banning plays she hasn’t even watched according to her Dorothea ending, Brigid’s independence is given conditions dictated by Edelgard, Lorenz/Byleth shows that nobles can simply decide to appoint their children heirs, there’s a refurbished state-ran religion to spread Edelgard’s ideals while followers of the old faith are seen as weak, Edelgard is willing to just create positions to suit those she favors and there’s probably more that I’m forgetting. Hopes was also clear that the nobles who serve Edelgard do so because they want to ensure their own power, and any commoners who are considered for positions come under much heavier scrutiny so they don’t make Edelgard look bad. But we don’t even have to go that far, do we? The fact Edelgard is willing to sacrifice the people, even having them experimented on and turned into monsters, that’s enough to show us where her priorities lie even without adding she’s conscripting civilians who don’t agree with the war.

All this, according to the original text, to put the world the back the way it once was. A world for “humanity,” but the game tells us that era was one where humanity was ruled by a tyrant who persecuted his people, and those people began murdering and stealing in order to gain power for themselves. This is the ideal Edelgard strives for, what she believes will make everything better once she gets rid of everyone who stands in her way. What she is willing to become a monster over.

Tell me, does this sound like the game is saying it is something worth fighting for? Because it sounds more like Edelgard’s rule is the law of the jungle, where the weak are ruled over by the strong or be killed. It’s not humane, it turns people into animals scrambling over each other in pursuit of their own status. Which is fitting, considering what the beast path is in Buddhism and where it leads. You didn’t create a world for humanity. You created a world where people are animals.

[literaryreference]

okay so. aa6 is undeniably a mess. it is my least favorite aa game. i'm not trying to defend it. but i do think that when criticizing it, it is important to understand that khura'in is almost literally japan in a funny hat. like, even aesthetically, they are barely trying to make it look like it's not japan. and you might say, okay, well, they clearly did zero research for their "our great country bringing enlightenment to the benighted natives of a backwards land" narrative and that just makes it worse, but the "this is obviously just japan" aspect is so blatant that personally i feel it is probably on purpose. i think the racism of aa6 is instead, primarily, the racism of using another culture as window dressing for a commentary on your own. and that's still bad! it's just a different kind of bad.

japanese media does of course sometimes contain colonialist apologism on purpose. but these narratives tend to be based on long-term occupation and/or administrative control. "we built them roads! we educated them! sure we also tried to destroy their culture and language but look how much better off they are! why aren't they grateful?" aa6 doesn't really hit any of the talking points i would expect to see out of imperial japan apologia. instead it's acting out something that looks a lot like the usa's late-20th-to-early-21st-century imperialist narrative of "we'll just drop in quickly, fix things, and then leave." and that's not really the shape that japan's imperialism has taken, which i think makes it less likely to be intentional.

i think that in aa5 the writers got a little overly self-indulgent and decided they didn't want the protagonists to keep struggling to wring individual victories out of a defective system like in real life, they wanted them to be able to fix it, to win in a definitive way. but then they've got another game to write. and they've painted themselves into a corner because the end of aa5 takes most of the themes and concerns of the series to date off the table. and since the permanent fix in aa5 isn't reflective of anything in real life, it's not like those themes and concerns aren't still relevant, and there's not an obvious new angle to explore. so what do they do? they make a country that looks uncannily like japan, that is named after maya's japanese hometown, and they put funny hats on everybody. now it's a different country that happens to still have the same problems! easy fix.

of course, the better move would have been to just, you know, not do that in aa5. (i don't know if they knew there was going to be an aa6 at the time, but idk, i didn't love the permanently-fixing-the-system angle even in gaa/dgs where it happened at the end of the duology. it just feels a little too pat.) so again, i'm not really defending the writers here. and the fact that we are pretending that khura'in is not japan means you do end up with a narrative where the pcs go into a different country to fix the other country's problems and that has unfortunate implications regardless of what the intent was. but i do honestly believe that the "our great country bringing enlightenment to the benighted natives of a backwards land" narrative is an unintentional byproduct of bad writing choices and that the writers are not trying to claim any actual moral high ground for their own culture.