Jack Aubrey, Ishin!; sources of perspectives on the Navy

 [7.18]

I was playing Ishin! before I started this Yakuza 6 thing. Specifically, I was re-playing it on “Ishin!” a preposterously difficult setting and trying to grind for exp like a maniac to compensate-- it wasn’t especially working out, but I’m not sure I won’t go back to it. Um, I really like Ishin!, like, a lot.

Two larger points: 1: The Ryu-Ga Gotku guys are the sources for most of my information about, certainly Japan, but, probably also the human condition generally at this point and 2: for being the same general type of game, and made by the same people, Ishin! and “Song of Life” are really impressively different.

What’s wonderful, just absolutely lovely, is the way they use fighting mechanics as a dimension in story telling. In “Song of life,” where your character is an aging ex-Yakuza, you are a kind of violent rag doll, blown about by the winds of the brawl, opportunistically corralling your opponents and picking them off one by one. It’s a recognizable form of action sequence-- more recognizable since people started including homages to the games in movies-- where the protagonist is a cop or gangster, who is just tougher than other cops or gangsters. 

In Ishin!, of course, you are an ass-kicking samurai who can kick ass in one of several recognizable samurai styles. You seize control of a battlefield and then demolish people in the style that fits your mood. 

Probably the real point is that I like action movies too much, but, again, the ability to put you firmly in the drivers seat of such different kinds of action is a very nice technical achievement. 

It’s good the Ryu Ga-Gotaku guys are, at least, stupidly good at video games, because, they are my sources not just of information, but of context for that information. So, the dumb bonus Yamato in “Song of Life” exists in contrast to the discussion of the European ‘Black Ships’ in Ishin!, and, probably, the REAL point is that both games were made by the same people, and the perspective from which I am operating is extremely narrow. 

The deal with the ‘Black Ships’ in Ishin! is that the Japanese were extremely impressed with the black European ships that began showing up in Japan in the 19^th century. They are an easy symbol for the mystery and power of foreign technology; the image of the Japanese confusion and fear at the sight of European ship a useful encapsulation of the historical moment. 

And, with the idea of the first exposure to a forgine threat being their sinister battleships, then the historical Yamato makes more sense as a desire for the Japanese to posses, not just big, terrifying battleships of their own, but the biggest and most terrifying battleships ever made. 

Unfortunately, nearly everything I didn’t learn from Yakuza movies I learned form the Aubrey-Mautrian novels by Patric O’Brian. And that makes it very hard for me to take the desire for giant battleships seriously. 

Jack Aubrey, the best Captain ever, is always in charge of a frigate, not a Man-o-War, because all the Man-o-war is good for is battering other battleships-- which is something that you only have to do rarely. On the other hand, the frigate can be used to 1) harass enemy shipping and 2) land special forces, which are military activities that have yet to go out of style. 

If the point of your Navy-- and this had been the point of most Navies for centuries before the Yamato was built--- is to harass enemy shipping and land special forces you don’t need single, large ships. You need lots of small battleships. 

Also, Jack Aubrey, who, again, is like the Kiryu of British Navel Officers, gets scared shitless whenever he runs into a cannon on a hill next to a furnace, because one red-hot cannon ball to the gunpowder filled boat is all that it will take-- thus illustrating the fatal danger of all high explosive filled boats. Now, there had been significant technological advances between Jack Aubrey’s wooden frigate and the Yamato, but there had been significant advances in gunnery as well.