Zipang

[rpapo]

@immortalartisan - This is no more propaganda than, say, "Guns of the South", by Harry Turtledove. There is a light-novel/OVA series called "Konpeki no Kantai" which is considerably more detached from reality. I ought to know: I've been translating it, albeit at a snail's pace.

 

[chikatetsu]

i'm putting zipang on hold because the source material for the upcoming volume is less processed and more raw than this one and I still don't have the experience to process it yet.
i'm not dropping out from scanlation, I just prefer doing it on my own pace including uploading in bulk.

 

[rpapo]

A bit of history: it turns out that "Zipang" is a version of the name given by Marco Polo for a legendary country 1500 miles east of China known as the "Land of Gold". Japan, of course, but distorted through the lens of legend. The legends in China, as Marco Polo himself never went so far as Japan.

https://web-japan.org/nipponia/nipponia45/en/feature/feature01.html

 

[Snake7662]

need update zzzz

 

[Gdsryrox]

What, this manga isn’t a huge nationalist propaganda manga like that one OVA?

 

[Refugee2731]

when does the manga start at the end of the anime?

 

[rpapo]

@Refugee2731 - According to MangaUpdates, the anime starts at volume 1, chapter 1 and ends at volume 7, chapter 69. In other words, the manga is far beyond the anime now. But the manga has 42 volumes in all, and we are only at the start of volume 14 so far. It will be a miracle if the entire series ever gets completely scanlated.

FWIW, the word on the street is that even at 42 volumes (or perhaps because of it), the ending was rushed.

The anime and the manga start at the same point: Mirai departing from Yokusoka and sailing for Hawaii.

 

[RiasatSenpai]

I hope I can finish this before i die..

 

[justinbalisang2005]

The comments be like: Japan Propaganda Bad!
Also their country before, during, and after WW2: Segregation here, genocide there, ethnic cleansing here, dictatorship there, racism here, EJKs there, political espionage here, colonialism there, censorship here, propaganda there.

Almost as if every country has always been guilty of crimes against humanity throughout history. It's really only a matter of who won the supposed world war that can enforce their own ideals and demonize anyone that stands against them. Yeah, historical revisionism is bad, but I wonder who was behind the cover up all this time? Something tells me it's the people who pretty polices the whole world, even it's own people.

 

[Buba707]

I find it pretty funny people really wanna claim this is simple Japanese propaganda when this is probably the most in depth and rich alternate history story to come from the Japan. Seriously we haven’t even gotten to the best arcs yet, The hitler assasination arc is when the story actually starts picking up! Look I love konpeki no kantai but it’s ridiculous the alternate history is fun but not really plausible, and seeing super weapons and automatic missiles, and modern and dumb sci fi weaponry in World War II is really fun. But yes it has some pro Japan bias. Zipang is much much more subtle especially in the arcs which have not even been translated yet TLDR Zipang has one of my all time favorite ending to a manga it is literally perfect. It’s a top 10 for a reason, besides I love naval manga and space battleships. Please continue this. If I ever reread it I don’t wanna use google translate for the rest!

 

[watanuki-kimihiro]

Like one other commenter mentioned years ago, this manga's concept sounds very similar to the 1980 film The Final Countdown:

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0080736/

However, that's not to say it was copied, it only has a similar premise. Check it out if you are interested. The manga seems to be way more interesting anyway.

 

[watanuki-kimihiro]

Okay, I'm about 70 chapters in. Translation for the last 10-15 chapters has been a little strange and hard to follow. I wonder if the translator was a native French speaker? Seeing stuff like informations instead of information, aircrafts instead of aircraft, hesite instead of hesitates, developpe instead of develope, and hein instead of huh makes me think so.

Also these comments accusing this manga of being propaganda seem like typical 2020s brain rot in action, as do the people expecting this story to be 100% historically accurate. My dudes, a warship mysteriously travels through time and you wanted realism? It's fiction, not reality.

People complaining about MC though, they are spot on. Dude is one dense, stubborn motherfucker but I guess he is sort of important to be the voice always questioning and getting mad at all the other characters.

 

[RiasatSenpai]

I hope I can finish this before i die..

@Janokins
thanks for translating.
won't be reading it until it is finished translating
but thanks anyways

 

[DanYHKim]

@ DanYHKim

Many japanese that I know don't know too much about the crimes Japan has committed and even events where Japan is depicted as the loser and that is not their fault but japanese government and their denial of the war crimes committed by the military.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_history_textbook_controversies

Story of a japanese woman who went to school in Australia and when she went back to Japan, she noticed the lack of info schools gave about Japan's history.

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21226068

Imagine the Nazis saying nothing happened here, we didn't do nothing bad, we weren't the bads, China, Korea and many other countries hate us because they are jealous, but japanese government version.

Ministry of Education.: 20th Century? What is that? We don't know anything.

Historical negationism is strong if Japan.

Manga like this and GATE JSDF are basically propaganda or at least Japanese nationalist's wet dream.

Many friends told me that at weekends you can see people (ultranationalist) in their trucks insulting people (chinese and korean), protesting in front of many embassies (often chinsese and korean) and broadcasting propaganda, military music and the national anthem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyoku_dantai

So just to be clear, I'm critizing Japanese Government, not te japanese people.

EDIT: I watch this and remember this topic, so you may want to watch this xD
How Do The Japanese Feel About China? | ASIAN BOSS

Thank you for all this information and links! I was mostly guessing as I wrote, but I hope that I was not wrong about military personnel at least being given more detailed historical information. Still, I can see how that might not be the case for rank-and-file, but even the officers? Well, I can easily imagine that the revisionism/negationism could extend even that far. That would be tragic.

 

[DanYHKim]

Date: 16 August 1945

Place: White House Oval Office

Gen. George Marshall, Chief of Staff: “Mr. President, we’ve gotten word that Japan has refused to surrender”

President Harry Truman: “Even after the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki?”

. . . .

Truma: “<sigh> Okay, General. We’ll go with Option K, set at D-135. I wonder if Japan would be able to survive as a nation after this. If their leadership only surrendered....”

Goddam, this sent chills up my spine. I don't know that we had the resources to make that many A-bombs on such short notice, but I never looked into what we had in the pipe by the time Nagasaki was bombed. Once the infrastructure and know-how was in place, it might not have been that difficult. Maybe uranium-type bombs might have been easier to manage. It's not as though we needed to obliterate a bunch of cities. Simply showing that we could field a throw-weight of a dozen kilotons repeatedly would be a convincing demonstration. I would hope that fewer than three would be enough for anyone.

My parents lived under Japanese occupation in Korea, and I am forever grateful to the United States for liberating them, and later rescuing them from North Korea and China. In context of the War, I cannot object to Truman's decisions, or even the hellish option you presented here, God help me.