Illusion of P Part 2 of 3 When in a police state, better join its police

Book Report: Mecha Samurai Empire by Peter Tieryas

(Full spoiler warning for the book for there are some interest plot turns in this one.)

Hayakawa’s Japanese marketing material for Mecha Samurai Empire featuring mecha Leviathan as it is on the cover of English edition and a compliment from Hideo Kojima, the official English translation of which plus my thoughts on it would appear in the article below.

After 2016’s United State of Japan (“USJ” for short) pinned him on the map as a science fiction novelist and won Seiun Best Translated Novel in 2017, Peter Tieryas geared up for a sequel set to come out in the year 2018. He admitted that many of the Japanese names in Mecha Samurai Empire (“MSE” for short) were from people he met during a 2017 book tour for USJ in actual Japan. From one Hugo awarding novel to another, this time MSE would be like Starship Troopers with the male lead enlists as something else than infantry. Though the plot stands on its own, MSE undoubtedly reads like a sequel, with the point-of-view secret police lady Akiko Tsukino pops up twice and Kujira Junior, the wuvd kin mecha pilot who gave her a ride in USJ, would share a bunker with MSE’s Mac. And the war in San Diego left its deep mark here.

12 years in an Orwellian nightmare

For war orphan Makoto “Mac” Fujimoto, the year 1984 was only the beginning of his Orwellian nightmare. After losing both of his parents to the war in San Diego, Mac bounced between uncaring frost parents and abusive home room teachers for a full decade. Mac’s only dream is to join USJ’s mecha corps as a pilot following the footstep of his mother. As the year 1994 gave away to 1995, the mecha pilot part finally came true and Mac would experience enough hardship to truly reconsider his life choice.

Starship Troopers by Robert A Heinleinian has been a hot potato since its publication, mostly due to Its “pro fascism” stand. Mr. Tieryas never stated Starship Troopers as an inspiration, which is fair enough. What would not be fair enough is the fact that Heinleinian never getting a mention. Old Bob wrote quite a few novels, Starship Troopers included, as coming-of-age tale with first-person narrators, a mold MSE fits into.

Calling this “Starship Troopers with mechas” would be unfair to the old novel. In the old book, future infantry troopers are kitted with power armors, something did impact mech anime. Yoshiyoki Tomino first envisioned Mobile Suits in Mobile Suits Gundam as power armors worn by infantry troopers, but corporate er, “overlords” he had to deal with could not let the “giant robot” thing go. So, the compromise of 18 meters tall instead of the usual 50 to 100 meters tall metal giant was reached. Mechas in Tieryas’ world being World War Two warships on land just could not be sized down to that by the 1990s.

What MSE can be called is “Starship Troopers with eyes on something other than the privileged military class”. And even in terms of USJ’s so-called military democracy, people can screw each other for wrong reasons within the nation’s boarder. Tieryas loved to point out that Mac does not fit into the “Chosen One” mold. Even after getting into the Leviathan program, he struggled with melee at first. He got to the vantage points for readers to see simply because he worked his ass off and impressed the right people. In many ways he had to take a detour through the police force like Rapid Mobile Defense Team, simply because he impressed the wrong people during his entrance test for military.

Being “merely police” cannot prevent Mac from being abused by “proper military”. For his being friendly to a female exchange student from German Americas in high school, Mac was branded by one USJ officer named Orwell (I do wish Tieryas can step back on being on one.). It certain puts the negative aspects of human nature in question: we would just look for excuses to fuck each other over, no matter it’s for class, ethnics, religious belief, or something as petty as which console one prefers.

Popular culture in 1990s’ USJ also feels different. Mac and friends love a portical game titled Cat Odyssey. The title is self-explaining: player takes up the role of cat in some photo real environment, the goals would be helping the USJ citizens in times of crisis. The Japanese figure of speech “neko no te mo karitai”, meaning “I am so busy that I would take the help from the seemingly useless paws of cats” is of course of it. Other part being the control for a cat is a simplified mecha piloting skillset. Most important, if you ask me, it’s the “doing you part” fascist command: a cat is doing its part with those seemingly useless paws, what’s your excuse, homo sapiens?

Kissing each other’s rings

In the acknowledge of USJ, Tieryas listed many Japanese creators, ranging from literature author to video game developers. 2 names stand out. One is Katsuhiro Otomo, “graphic novelist” and animation director most famous for the influential Akira. Mac and his high school friend Hideki being hit by their home room teacher thus eager to graduate in MSE feels like something lifted straight out of Akira. The other is of course Hideo Kojima. For one thing, Director Kojima or Kojima Kantoku was kind enough to describe MSE as such:

Intermixing the experience of cinema, literature, anime (When one native Japanese speaker uses katakanas a, ni and me, it’s better to translate it into “cartoon”), comics (A rare case of English speakers being spot on when they translate kanji reads as “man-ga”), gaming (Japanese word “Ge-i-mu” in katakana does cover everything under the English word “game”, high up to game theories, low down to the interactive media we enjoy.), this (Meaning the book Mecha Samurai Empire of course) is the new generation of science fiction we’ve (“Bo-ku-ra” spelled in katakana would be a fairly gendered “we boys”.) been waiting for.

At first, I just thought it’s just good manner on Kojima’s part to provide glowing compliment such as this. After all, none of other still alive Japanese people Tieryas thanked in the last book (“Ghibli’s” Hayao Miyazaki, Yukito Kishiro behind Alita Battle Angel, Mamoru “book chewer” Oshii, Hideaki “Known for EVA” Anno, Hironobu “father of Final Fantasy” Sakaguchi and aforementioned Otomo.) didn’t seem to even acknowledge that Tieryas exists. “Oh, what a sweet summer child I was to think that.” as I saw Kojima’s cameo in the third act.

Of course, the full name “Hideo Kojima” does not appear, just a Professor Kojima who might visit the military academy at Berkeley ((Tieryas’ wiki page says that he was born there, no wonder his description of this town can be boiled down to “It’s awesome!” even under some relatively gentler fascists.) and give a talk. The fictional Kojima’s literature works are compelling for “mixing war drama and interesting characters with existential questions about reality”, very popular throughout the Empire. One big smooch on the ring compared to Anno and Miyazaki just getting name dropped.

War, war never changes

The glory you know is what you’ve read in the history book, but our trauma was cemented by the blood of our fathers and grandfathers. We know more than you do what war means.

------the Dark Forest, written by Cixin Liu, translated by Joel Martinsen

It would be fair to call Starship Troopers a “chicken hawk” novel. Unlike his big screen counterpart played by Casper Van Dien, Johnny Rico in the book admittedly does not see much action. The result might be caused by what was considered printable back in the days. Published in 2018, “printable” had little limits. MSE glorifies combat a little more than USJ. At the very least, Mac is allowed to feel a sense of victory 3 times throughout the novel. Though those are not “flag saluting”, just that he and some of his friends are still breathing while none of the enemies are. Point-of-view characters in USJ the book can never have wins like that.

Unlike USJ with 2 mech fights. MSE is hellbent to present more throughout its more than 440 pages. Mac saw the inside of mech shortly before he joined the cops and impressed a gifted classmate with his talent regarding electronic warfare. After he finally got into the military academy in Berkeley, the curricular includes one-on-one mecha melee tournament. Then there are Nazi biomechs since Tieryas didn’t want to miss out on the monster part in mech vs. monster, especially when the mechs are 50 meters tall meeting rivals almost twice their heights.

With MSE’s first act of three being about high school graduation, the lore can be delivered through Mac trying to memorize textbook stuff before history exam. Mecha corps became a pillar of armed service the way air force was in real life after World War Two. Those hulking war machines were still 50 meters tall, piloted from a “bridge” and crewed usually with seven people.

USJ in this book is described as a multi ethnic English speaking nation with religious tolerance they are very proud of (With Jesus Christ’s altar in Shinto Shires). Its enemy is the German Americas, Nazis who still continue their inhumane experiments. One of Nazis’ achievements is the biomech with regenerating armor made of dead people. Tieryas’ novel can be described as “fight between good and evil”, if good is just “not as bad” while evil is “so much worse”.

When it comes to action, Tieryas’ writing is Homeric with both glory and gore coming at readers in waves. Battles can long for dozens of pages and keep the readers at the edge of their seats. While I would prefer to separate media forms, Hideo Kojima calling this book cinematic is on the money.

Stop being a cop is a form of victory on its own.

Speak of Hideo Kojima, his compliment for MSE was at ready in September, 2018, when the book came out in English. Strangely enough, the following eight numbers stare back at me when I look up the Japanese translation publication date: 20180425, meaning April, the twenty fifth, year twenty-eighteen. This cannot be the sole case, but it’s regardless rare for translation to be published before the original text.

And even so, it was after 2017’s Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus, in which a genuine defector from the Nazi side said to the leader of resistence “You do not have the right to label me something I am not. Someone less than yourself. Someone less than human.”

MSE also has a genuine defector from German Americas to USJ, a girl named Griselda Beringer, Mac’s high school classmate in 1994, someone happened to be where he was stationed in 1995 and an active participant of USJ’s Leviathan Program in 1996. In the rather witch-hunting paranoia regarding Nazi spies home stretch of this book, some lesser minds (Including the one belongs to Hideo Kojima, I dare to add) just might throw her under bus as a Nazi spy master. But thankfully Tieryas treasured this character more and gave her a tragedy 3-fold.

And after Mac’s 2 less-than-pleasant reunions with her, and a push from roommate Kujira, Mac finally asked Griselda out on July, the fourth 1996. At that point he joined the police of the police state he was born into. It’s only natural to stop thinking about helping cops. Like Tobey M’s Peter Parker dancing with Christine Dunst’s Mary Jane Watson being a fitting ending to Sam Rami’s Spider-man trilogy, Mac at least pauses to think about being a cop marks he came of age.

(To be conclude in Days of Present Past)