"It's Not Like I Reich You Or Anything"

[Imp_Emissary]

[snip ;p

What were germany going to "do" with Japan? They clearly didn't fit into their ideas on race

They probably would have done the same thing they did to the Russians. Turn on them when they think they can kill them.

Didn't work too well. Bad timing and what not. Don't know who would win if Germany went against Japan in WW2.

 

[2cool4u]

I remember saying the exact same thing to my Japanese friend during a Comiket when looking at all the Shinsegumi related doujinshi, some of them from Gintama, others from Hakuoki, on sale. What I said was something like:"Why is the Shinsegumi so celebrated? Why are they making so many manga and tv series about them? They were basically Samurai Gestapo." My friend laughed and said I was being too harsh, even though he thought I was right.

Still, I think it's a bit unfair to say that Romans were "evil". Unlike the South, their country wasn't defined solely by the right to own black pepole, they had a strong civic sense and an appreciation for other cultures and religions (except the Jews, they thought praying to a god that you couldn't see was creepy as hell) that made them into a multicultural open society. They were imperialistic obviously, and being a slave in a salt mine was worse than picking cotton, but even the poors living under Rome had more rights than an Aryan German under Hitler, or a poor white under the Confederates. Also, the Romans weren't pederasts, those are the Greeks, and even with all the admiration they had for them, the Romans thought it was decadent and obscene, thus only slaves and freedmen boys took part as "bottoms".

Also, pirates were the epitome of adventure and exotic places waaaay before the modern era, Defoe wrote a book about famous pirates of his time, and Francis Drake was (and still is) a British national hero.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

[snip ;p

What were germany going to "do" with Japan? They clearly didn't fit into their ideas on race

They probably would have done the same thing they did to the Russians. Turn on them when they think they can kill them.

Didn't work too well. Bad timing and what not. Don't know who would win if Germany went against Japan in WW2.

Remember Nazi Germany had a lot of contradictory things with their "standards", even having an Indian contingent that was tired of British Colonial occupation. I'd guess they were more interested in any allies they could use as cannon fodder first, and they'd later deal with the "imperfections" once they solidified their holdings.

EDIT: They had a strangely multi-cultural army, with blacks and Arabs as well as Asian, Indian, etc.

 

[Therumancer]

It really does disturb me that "Hitler chic" is a thing. Historically, the holocaust was a rather recent event and some countries still have jackbooted assholes still stomping around proclaiming the superiority of the white "race." It's one thing to fetishise behaviour centuries after it's ended (as with the example of Roman culture) and another entirely to fetishise behaviour while there are still people alive who lived through the horror involved.

But then again, Americans have been re-enacting the Civil War since about two weeks after the last shots were fired, so who am I to judge?

That should never be a thing, but sadly one day it probably will be...

Also, future Suchong is still a meatbag, how cute.

And Erin still doesn't think it's weird that Suchong is alive, because she's clueless. Or believes in the power of skittles.

Time to add a few points to my popularity score.

This has actually been going on for a while, I believe there was a comic called "Luftwaffe" about a sexy female pilot done in the anime style a while back. Never read it, but I think it was from Antarctic Press (the same group that did "Gold Digger"). Ever since the days of the pulps there have been sexy Nazis both in art and in general fetish performance. Do a search for "sexy Nazi girls" and you'll probably find tons of them that will have your little guy doing a "Sieg Heil" in no time.

That said it's important to understand the difference between left wing American ideals, and the rest of the world. It's important to note that the Japanese have never really been culturally reformed, which is part of why we keep them under what amounts to occupation (little military of heir own, huge amounts of US military stationed there). If you've watched much Anime you'll notice a lot of it involves a heavy longing for a return to imperialism and putting the enemies of Japan in it's place. "Ghost In The Shell" featured a war which the West lost and made Japan the new dominant world power, "Gasaraki" was pretty much all about a return of imperialism and striking against the west, it even featured one "sympathetic" character who sliced his own eyes out with a sword rather than see what Japan had become once it was defeated, "Blue Seed" basically had a bad guy turn out to not be so bad because their motive was basically to commit genocide because of what Japan had lost... and really it can get pretty bloody creepy, especially when hear about how they teach kids about WW II in school, and one of their leaders just visited a war memorial which got cheers from Japans and a resounding "WTF" from a lot of it's victims. Given that the Nazis were a huge ally of Japan and were helping them meet their imperialistic dreams, it shouldn't be any surprise that you see a lot of things very Nazi-like being given a positive portrayal in Anime. I'd actually be surprised if the Nazi dating simulator doesn't already exist out there, I mean Japan has all kinds of creepy stuff we never see.... and as the strip points out they also use other groups of frightening racist imperialists without even batting an eye. It's not PC to point this out, and a lot of self-declared Otaku won't like the point it's something to consider. Beyond that you have to consider that for all of the lip service given to The Holocaust you have the entire denier movement picking up steam, especially through Europe, especially seeing as it makes it easier to side against Israel for the favor of oil producing Muslim countries if you can convince yourself the Jews were never victimized. To be blunt the USA seems to be the most consistent ally Israel and the Jewish people have (we helped form the country) where it seems a good portion of the world has again become heavily anti-Semitic. When your hating on the Jews and would actually be willing to see Israel wiped out, it's not surprising you start to see a lot of Nazi stuff creeping up a lot more, even if it's still not publically accepted and something everyone will make a public show out of despising. Within the US also there are a lot of racial tensions as well, and despite what a lot of people want to think, a huge amount of it is anti-white. When your dealing with "Black power" and "Latin power", and seeing battles over flying US flags in US schools during foreign holidays to avoid offending unassimilated immigrants, not to mention the whole illegal immigration issue, it's not suprising your seeing some back lash with the whole "white power" thing, and again, what's one of the flashiest representations of that?

The point here is that this has been creeping up for a while, and it's understandable when you look at the full political and social spectrum. It's not a good thing, but chances are it won't change until a lot of the existing social problems are dealt with one way or another. One of the contributors, and the one most likely to see this more heavily explode into popular culture, is of course the holocaust deniers movement, which not much effort is actually made to deal with, especially internationally. When the last victims who actually lived through it die, I anticipate it won't be long before you see a lot more pro-Nazi stuff and attempts at historical recreationism, especially if anti-Isreaeli sentiment continues. It's still all pretty much on the fringe though, and probably not worrying about too much. I think it's gone further already than Cory's strip implies.

As far as the Romans go, they represent an interesting exception largely because their way of government was the inspiration for the way a lot of later nations, including the USA, were set up. Basically without the Romans there would never have been a USA as we know it, this is why imitations of their style of building and pieces of Romanesque iconography are all over the place when you look at government buildings and the like.

Also given the robot body transhumanism is probably the way of the CM future, so the big question is how many bodies Suchong has transferred to, or if that is another member of the cast within a Suchong-like body. Or perhaps we might even ask if Erin is actually mentally controlling a Suchong-looking peripheral...

 

[Therumancer]

[snip ;p

What were germany going to "do" with Japan? They clearly didn't fit into their ideas on race

They probably would have done the same thing they did to the Russians. Turn on them when they think they can kill them.

Didn't work too well. Bad timing and what not. Don't know who would win if Germany went against Japan in WW2.

Remember Nazi Germany had a lot of contradictory things with their "standards", even having an Indian contingent that was tired of British Colonial occupation. I'd guess they were more interested in any allies they could use as cannon fodder first, and they'd later deal with the "imperfections" once they solidified their holdings.

EDIT: They had a strangely multi-cultural army, with blacks and Arabs as well as Asian, Indian, etc.

This tends to be a "surprise" to a lot of people who never learned history properly. The thing is that when we went to war with Germany and won, we decided to demonize them, to the point of outright lying about what the Nazis were, a lot of what they did, and what they represented. As the winners we got to write the history books. The "Hollywood" Nazis make for fun enemies, but if you bother to think about it there is no way that a mono-ethnic military force made up of a tiny percentage of one nation's population could both have an Omni-present force there, and conquer and somehow oppress a good portion of the rest of the world as well.

The Nazis were not QUITE as racist as presented, after all one of their big allies was Japan, another was the dusky/olive skinned people of Italy. Indeed people tend to seriously misunderstand Hitler's entire "Aryan Ideal" schtick which was insane, but not in quite the way a lot of people present. To put it bluntly, if you ever wondered why Hitler argued about the supremacy of Blonde Haired, Blue Eyed, people while being neither, and not handing over command to someone who fit that idea, it's because his basic attitude was that the so called "Master Race" did not exist yet, rather he was going to create it. He believed that the proper rulers of the world were a group of Blonde Haired, Blue-Eyed "giants" (a bit taller than normal) with mental powers who had mastered both science and the occult and ruled a benevolent empire from Atlantis. A catastrophe destroyed Atlantis and the survivors of that race wound up fleeing to the rest of their empire, where their limited numbers eventually destroyed themselves through inbreeding with the rest of humanity. A high percentage of them however bred the people that grew to become the Germanics and the blonde hair, blue eyes, and pronounced foreheads were signs of Aryan blood in the background. Hitler wanted to use eugenics to breed people with Aryan traits together in order to hopefully restore some semblance of that race over hundreds of years, and put it in charge of humanity. The basic reason for this is that the time of Atlantis was a time of peace and this master race was part of what allowed everyone to co-exist as they all pretty much agreed the master race of Aryans was where the buck stopped. As a general rule he didn't give a crap who was part of his empire, he only hated a comparatively few races he felt were "tainted, degenerated, sub-humans" which was pretty scary if you happened to be one of those groups, but if you weren't his beliefs didn't matter much because hey... if someone breeds a psychic giant in a couple centuries you'll be long dead, right?

A lot of conspiracy theories about ancient aliens, the occult, etc... all come from the whole "Hitler was right" movement, which is less about his idea of racial purity, but about what he told people at the high end to get so many people who started out opposing him to join his side. The "Indiana Jones" movies were inspired by the fact that he had a lot of the best archaologists in the world working for him, and collecting artifacts. It's believed by some conspiracy nuts that over time Hitler basically built a truth so powerful, that it convinced people to immediately get on board with him. Among other things this "truth" might have included everything from recovered alien/ancient technology (giving The Nazis a tech edge) to him knowing the location of Atlantis and perhaps having even visited it. Indeed one of the wonkier theories involves Hitler taking political rivals, and even a few prisoners, with him down on rides in a Submarine to an undersea base where they saw something so incredible they wound up immediately joining him. Leading to some speculation that there might actually be a hidden Nazi ocean city (no I don't buy it either). I personally suspect that particular bit of crackpotism is in part what inspired "Rapture" from Bioshock. The bottom line though is that the government actually does hide a lot of weird stuff recovered from the Nazis, and allegedly destroyed or hid a lot of Hitler's personal collection and records, in what many allege was a cover-up of what might have been a truth too scary for the social order of the people who defeated him to face.

Then of course you have the strange but true aspects of this entire thing which are almost as messed up as the bunk, like the Nazis being demonized through claims that they were making human flesh lampshades in concentration camps (the ones on display in the Holocaust museum were tested and found to be goat skin), the war department also revealed things like "mobile bone grinders" and all kinds of other insane stuff for propaganda purposes which never actually existed.


The basic point I'm getting at is that due to the fact that the US did propaganda the right way and demonized the enemy (something we've forgotten how to do) is that a lot of hard information about the Nazis is missing. From what I've read they were actually pretty consistent in their beliefs, and a lot of the apparent contradictions stem from where propaganda runs into the reality. Not to mention the needs of peace and later alliances afterwards, one really sore spot for example is getting into what role France actually played during the war, while you hear a lot of stuff about the famous "French Resistance" and history portrays France as being defeated and then joining with the Allies after liberation, every once in a while you run into some stuff about the Russians claiming that The French Resistance was largely a myth and while it existed a lot of what was credited to it actually came from Russian commandoes and a communist underground. Years ago I was reading this whole thing about how France had a lot of strong pro-Nazi sentiment and while French Nationalists fought to begin with, once the army surrendered the French were largely complicit with the Nazis and were actually supporting a lot of their operations, which lead to a Russian resistance heavily affiliated with French radicals who had problems with the government to begin with, getting involved in operations there. When the allies arrived the French decided to switch sides not wanting to get decimated by another invasion, meaning that they arguably surrendered twice (once to each side) during the war. The point of this entire thing was less French bashing (though it amounts to that) so much as argueing that Russian contributions to the war effort were forgotten or overwritten due to the way things played out between the Russians and Allies when it was over (which lead into The Cold War) and of course it was more politic to say France was always part of the good guys, especially when a coalition was being built against the Russians. Not that France was really accused of doing anything really terrible in the scope of things, mostly just being a doormat and playing along with whatever army was dominant in their area at the time. The bottom line is that allegedly we should be thanking the Russians for most "French Resistance" victories. Is this true? I have no bloody idea. Sure there are documents saying it's not, but then again there were documents saying the Nazis made lampshades out of people. Half the problem with WW II (and also what makes it so ideal for adventure fiction) is that on a certain level nobody really has any bloody idea about anything anymore, which is kind of disturbing when you consider how short a time ago it was. Propaganda people pretty much went berserk (which is actually a good thing in the people) and pretty much took a flamethrower to anything they didn't like, or locked it in a vault somewhere. As conspiracy theorists will point out, you can't prove that Hitler *didn't* have an undersea base for example and the records are
so spotty you can actually sort of base a theory about him having one, though I'd imagine you could also make it impossible to disprove that he had a harem of sex midgets as well which is why I put little faith in conspiracy theories when it comes to most things.

At any rate I'm rambling. The point is pretty much the information is a mess.

I closing from what I've read so far:

From what I've been able to peace together the alliance with Japan is one of those things Hitler brokered that borders on the whole "magical" category on some levels, and there are all kinds of theories about what actually happened to make that one work, and what he might have shown specific people. According to "legend" his insane Aryan theories happened to jibe with certain aspects of the mythology of the royal family. The basic agreement between Japan and Germany was that they were both going to develop and share sciences, particularly working on things involving genetics and medical technology. They would back each other up and Hitler would take the western world, and Japan would take the eastern world, and presumably when the project was complete the Aryan race would unite and rule everything. Hitler had guys like Mengele slicing twins up to study their psychic link, and was running breeding factories and such. Japan had things like "Unit 731" where they were infecting people with diseases to test resistances and see if they could strengthen resistances to them through exposure to build stronger genetic templates. According to theories it was all connected, different aspects of the same basic project, to "rebuild" a super race from components interbred into humanity.

Nowadays people like to characterize Hitler as being a realist as opposed to a sort of idealist, and to have very basic, materialistic goals, combined with petty racism and a technology fetish. This is sort of what most "serious" portrayals do, and you don't run into the nutty stuff unless someone is working with fantasy where they can sell their version as being "loosely based on the truth". That's where a lot of the problems come from in trying to make sense of his alliances, army make up, etc... and when you get down to it again a lot of those conspiracies all come down to the "magical Hitler box" which is to say that there is no common sense way he should have been able to unify some of the people he did in Germany, never mind globally, and thus the big question is what he showed them in "his mystery box" (not to say he actually had one) so to speak that caused people to pretty much throw away all their ambitions and such and decide "Your my Fuhrer, I'll use all my influence on your behalf". This isn't to say he didn't kill some people and do the usual range of empire/power base building, but part of the whole mystique is how he got to be so big over such a large scale, and have such a diverse set of tools and allies. It's part of why people can be so disturbingly fascinated with such an evil man, there are more questions than answers.

I'll also say that at the end of the day I think the alliance with Russia fell apart largely because Russia had it's own ambitions (which people recognized which is why The Cold War pretty much started right after World War II) and those ambitions weren't in keeping with the idea of a world split between Japan and German, especially seeing as Russia probably figured it was a contender to potentially take over everything given time, and didn't forsee the war-ending development of the A-bomb that kept it's ambitions pinned down under the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction. I'd imagine Hitler pretty much looked at the eastern world and decided he could have Japan or Russia, and for whatever reason decided Japan would be a better ally, and truthfully while he lost, he was probably right since Japan did work well with him, where if he had Russia I think Russian ambitions would have caused them to turn on Germany pretty quickly as soon as Hitler seemed even remotely vulnerable.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

**SNIP**

Good information, thanks. I've read a lot of that, combined with a lot of documentary stuff from sitting with my maternal grandfather who was very history oriented, mostly on WWII and Nazi Germany. To clarify he was of German ancestry (his grandparents and parents being immigrants from post-WWI Germany) and had a lot of interest in his genealogy and history specifically. He was a very smart man, and because of him I have a great interest in history, and frustration because it is difficult to sift through biased accounts vs. objective ones.
So this bit of info is helpful, as I like having the bigger picture. I always suspected that Hitler was more an idealist and somewhat esoteric as evidenced by the Nazi obsession with "magical" artifacts and religious icons. Its why I like the Sniper: Nazi Zombie Army series, the odder aspects of the Wolfenstein series (Spear of Destiny anyone?). While obvious fiction, they still fit within the theme and of course the Indiana Jones movies that dealt with Nazis... what do you mean there was a 4th movie? LIES!
Anyway thanks again for that info, it fills in a lot of things I either knew and have been buried for years under other junk or suspected.

 

[blackrave]

Idiocracy anyone?

 

[drakonz]

It's not enough to kill a lot of people and look cool. You also need to be cooler than your opponents. This is why Egypt stopped being cool as soon as the Romans arrived, and anyone from the Middle East or Central Asia is never cool. Mongols, Ottomans, Persians - all had the bad fortune to be matched up against "good guy" Europeans.

Pffft. The Mongols were WAY cooler than the Europeans. It has nothing to do with how cool they were in comparison to Europe, they just had their empire fall apart and eaten by other nations.

That happened to *all* of them... unless you think the Roman empire is still running the Mediterranean?

Well, obviously! They're backed by the Illuminati! I HAVE PROOF

The Roman Empire isn't actually romanticized as much as more recent empires. I mean, have you seen some of the stuff based on the history of North America? Pocahontas and things like that?

Thank goodness the America colonization and the near mass genocide of the Native Americans isn't romanticized yet. But as other posters pointed out, Japan will likely get to it first without knowing/acknowledging how terrible such events were.

thats because it was aready romanticed in the past during 50-70 movies after that it turned into bad thing. (seriously just try to find any movie that was about america colonization from that time and the message is quite clear)

 

[elvor0]

[
Even Germany had a great start to the war, but made too many mistakes by having way too many fronts to attack and defend. Pissing off Russia wasn't smart either.
I have an appreciation for bold tactics, even if I am disgusted with the social practices of the Germans.

But back OT, I'll never understand people who identify with the Nazi ideals. Its so ludicrous.

Pissing of Russia was such a bad move, I don't know why they didn't wait till the war was over before they attacked. I mean they were clearly always going to double cross them but Hitlers reasoning was they were clearly weak after being fended off by The Finnish and would fall easily, (whom they outnumbered to a rediculous degree, as well as the Finns having no armor or planes ><), but then why not just use them as cannon fodder till you win. As valiant as the Finns were, they would've fallen eventually, just because the red army was so big. But we could say without the Finns, the Allies may well have lost WW2, because as mighty as The British were, we could've never held off the full force of the German, Italian and Russian armies, even with Americas help.

 

[Trilandian]

Well you have to admit the Nazi's had some pretty stylish uniforms.

IKR? I often find it dissonant that the Nazis had the best-looking uniforms in WW2.

I suppose I shouldn't, though. The good guys looking cooler than the bad guys is a mainstream media trope, rather than an actual phenomenon that exists in reality.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

[
Even Germany had a great start to the war, but made too many mistakes by having way too many fronts to attack and defend. Pissing off Russia wasn't smart either.
I have an appreciation for bold tactics, even if I am disgusted with the social practices of the Germans.

But back OT, I'll never understand people who identify with the Nazi ideals. Its so ludicrous.

Pissing of Russia was such a bad move, I don't know why they didn't wait till the war was over before they attacked. I mean they were clearly always going to double cross them but Hitlers reasoning was they were clearly weak after being fended off by The Finnish and would fall easily, (whom they outnumbered to a rediculous degree, as well as the Finns having no armor or planes ><), but then why not just use them as cannon fodder till you win. As valiant as the Finns were, they would've fallen eventually, just because the red army was so big. But we could say without the Finns, the Allies may well have lost WW2, because as mighty as The British were, we could've never held off the full force of the German, Italian and Russian armies, even with Americas help.

Ego and a clash of personality. If I remember some of my history reading, Stalin and Hitler weren't exactly friendly to begin with. My view is that Germany thought they'd catch Russia off guard by pushing into the country, and it worked up until Stalingrad, plus the harsh winter which Russians endured as part of every day life and their scorched earth policy denying the Germans use of any farmland by way of torching it as they fell back left a hungry, overstretched, cold and miserable German army. Can't fight a war on an empty stomach. Stretched supply lines, worn thinner by the fact that Germany had too many damn theaters already just collapsed the coherence of the military machine giving Stalin an easy road (comparatively speaking) to Berlin. Also the Germans really underestimated what fighting a large population of people on their homeland. Something about fighting for your home does a lot morale wise.
Also there were some interesting tidbits I've learned recently about Russia's air support. Some of the planes they used were so old and slow that the German air support couldn't effectively fight them at first and it caused a lot of waste of German supplies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches - Good read, and I learned that from playing War Thunder, which is a decent WWII flight and tank simulator. Recommend it highly as its free to play and not the pay to win type. Its pretty balanced and neat, both on PC (Steam) and PS4 respectively.

 

[elvor0]

[
Even Germany had a great start to the war, but made too many mistakes by having way too many fronts to attack and defend. Pissing off Russia wasn't smart either.
I have an appreciation for bold tactics, even if I am disgusted with the social practices of the Germans.

But back OT, I'll never understand people who identify with the Nazi ideals. Its so ludicrous.

Pissing of Russia was such a bad move, I don't know why they didn't wait till the war was over before they attacked. I mean they were clearly always going to double cross them but Hitlers reasoning was they were clearly weak after being fended off by The Finnish and would fall easily, (whom they outnumbered to a rediculous degree, as well as the Finns having no armor or planes ><), but then why not just use them as cannon fodder till you win. As valiant as the Finns were, they would've fallen eventually, just because the red army was so big. But we could say without the Finns, the Allies may well have lost WW2, because as mighty as The British were, we could've never held off the full force of the German, Italian and Russian armies, even with Americas help.

Ego and a clash of personality. If I remember some of my history reading, Stalin and Hitler weren't exactly friendly to begin with. My view is that Germany thought they'd catch Russia off guard by pushing into the country, and it worked up until Stalingrad, plus the harsh winter which Russians endured as part of every day life and their scorched earth policy denying the Germans use of any farmland by way of torching it as they fell back left a hungry, overstretched, cold and miserable German army. Can't fight a war on an empty stomach. Stretched supply lines, worn thinner by the fact that Germany had too many damn theaters already just collapsed the coherence of the military machine giving Stalin an easy road (comparatively speaking) to Berlin. Also the Germans really underestimated what fighting a large population of people on their homeland. Something about fighting for your home does a lot morale wise.
Also there were some interesting tidbits I've learned recently about Russia's air support. Some of the planes they used were so old and slow that the German air support couldn't effectively fight them at first and it caused a lot of waste of German supplies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches - Good read, and I learned that from playing War Thunder, which is a decent WWII flight and tank simulator. Recommend it highly as its free to play and not the pay to win type. Its pretty balanced and neat, both on PC (Steam) and PS4 respectively.

Aye, it was an extremely tenuous relationship, but one that would've helped Hitler to maintain, at least until he'd dealt with the British. I'm assuming it was just severe overconfidence on their part, but still incredibly stupid tactically, Britain was doing well, but we couldn't have held the Germans off for ever, and any attacks on Russia have a history of failing to the exact same issues Hitler experienced. Just pull back, burn everythig of use and watch the enemy freeze and or starve to death.

If he'd waited till he wasn't fighting us and the other theatres, (like you said he was already stretched way too thin), he could've perhaps directed a larger force and more tactically sound plan against the Russians, rather than having to split his force even further then lose a majority of the force he did send into Russia.

But yeah, like you say, morale'll help tons too, there's been many a case of moral being the deciding factors in warfare, it's almost a rookie mistake to underestimate it. Even in WW2 it was apparant with the Greeks, Britain and Finland, who the Germans/Russians were more prepared than, and vastly outnumbered holding their enemies back in their respective theatres. The Polish soldiers who defended Poland are spectacular testemant to this, 720 men, with 42 MGs, 2 anti tank rifles and nothing else, held back a fresh and extremely well prepared German Force of 42k men, 350 tanks and bombers. Yeah they lost, but he should've learned by the time he attacked Russia, that no matter how small the force, if people are fighting for their homes, they'll do amazing things; Ruissia had a huge force, their homes to defend and tons of snowy death to retreat over the outcome should've been obvious, regardless of catching them off guard.

Aye, the Night Witches were an incredibly decorated unit by the end WW2, especially for an all woman unit at the time, I learned of them myself through the band Sabaton (they're a pretty awesome band if you're into Heavy Metal, they mainly sing about wars, their album Calorous Rex, telling the story of the Great Northen War is particuarly cool), not too long ago.

I'll have to check out War Thunder, I tried World of Warplanes and I couldn't really get into it, it was a bit too...gamey. I mean it was fun, but I wanted something a bit more substantial.

 

[Monsterfurby]

I think this is pretty much a Japanese thing, less a general-history thing. Japan still has never really gone through a phase of reflection on the WW2 era the same way Germany has, so they are, generally speaking, pretty okay with their history, while Germany is the exact opposite.

The Roman Empire - comparison is a bit thin, considering they actually achieved quite a number of positive things and never tried to commit genocide for genocide's sake.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I'll have to check out War Thunder, I tried World of Warplanes and I couldn't really get into it, it was a bit too...gamey. I mean it was fun, but I wanted something a bit more substantial.

Its got an Arcade mode that scales back some mechanics and eliminates stalls and heavy maneuvers snapping wings but it also has historic and simulator modes that add in more accurate physics and whatnot. Its fun in any mode regardless and can be played with a controller, stick and throttle or mouse/keyboard (and the mouse/keyboard controls are surprisingly decent).

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

We should just fetishise the Hiroshima bombing. Then they'll see how disgusting and insensitive this really is.

I wouldn't be suprised if this does not already exist in some way or another. Idolizing and romanticizing horrific past events is just what we do once we've enough distance to it and everyone to blame is long past.

We should never forget what happened in history but on the otherside takin' the piss out of it (this may be a weird way to do so) is also important.

 

[RoonMian]

We should just fetishise the Hiroshima bombing. Then they'll see how disgusting and insensitive this really is.

Spoiler: You mean like this?

[link]http://images.ichc.s3.amazonaws.com/originals/completestore/2011/7/20/8dc232bf-7930-4c52-a617-b2e57f1f1441.jpg[/link]

Happened after the US women's football team lost the 2011 world cup final to Japan.

I wouldn't be suprised if this does not already exist in some way or another. Idolizing and romanticizing horrific past events is just what we do once we've enough distance to it and everyone to blame is long past.

We should never forget what happened in history but on the otherside takin' the piss out of it (this may be a weird way to do so) is also important.

See above, it does already exist.

 

[Orekoya]

Actually this trend would be great, absorbing the culture til it dissipates like roman culture. They hold too much notoriety over the things of their culture. The &#21328; is an ancient hindu symbol of well-being that was absorbed into many cultures to symbolize things that were good for the people, and it would be better for humanity if it could be again rather than only being known as a symbol for nazis.

 

[jhoroz]

We should just fetishise the Hiroshima bombing. Then they'll see how disgusting and insensitive this really is.

Spoiler: You mean like this?

[link]http://images.ichc.s3.amazonaws.com/originals/completestore/2011/7/20/8dc232bf-7930-4c52-a617-b2e57f1f1441.jpg[/link]

Happened after the US women's football team lost the 2011 world cup final to Japan.

I wouldn't be suprised if this does not already exist in some way or another. Idolizing and romanticizing horrific past events is just what we do once we've enough distance to it and everyone to blame is long past.

We should never forget what happened in history but on the otherside takin' the piss out of it (this may be a weird way to do so) is also important.

See above, it does already exist.

That's not really glamourizing anything-it's just being a bigoted flaming asshole.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

It's not enough to kill a lot of people and look cool. You also need to be cooler than your opponents. This is why Egypt stopped being cool as soon as the Romans arrived, and anyone from the Middle East or Central Asia is never cool. Mongols, Ottomans, Persians - all had the bad fortune to be matched up against "good guy" Europeans.

I wonder though if the Mongols hadn't just left Europe to its own devices and continued on after decimating Bulgaria, conquering Russia (whoever said a land war in Asia was a bad idea didn't meet the Mongols) and coming back to Bulgaria to put down rebellion, what things would look like then?
I'm pretty sure the Mongols looked cool considering the amount of damage and destruction they carved across the whole of Asia and eastern Europe. I've always been curious exactly what made them say "Oh lets just chill out for a while" and were never really heard from again in the historical theater.

Interestingly enough, there is archeological evidence of Europeans -Roman Citizens- attempting to join the mongols, even going as far as forcing their children to wear helmets designed to alter the curvature of the skull, much like the mongols. This is likely a response to increasing Roman Imperial and legal hubris, and the oppression that accompanies it. The Mongols offered freedom of religion, among other freedoms that the Roman empire simply deemed "barbaric." So, it was almost inevitable that traitors against Rome would appear, and this conversion to Mongol "barbarian" greatly helped them move into the Roman Empire.

OT: The Shinsengumi as "Murder Police?" . . . yes, in a sense, but reality is always more complex than that. The idea that one side was "good" and the other "bad" in the Meiji Revolution is something long discarded in Japanese though. Basically, much of the conflict boiled down to this: The Shogunate wished to keep Japan's military balanced between landed lords while enacting reforms designed to ease the suffering of farmers and fishers. The Revolutionary forces stressed military spending to create a navy capable of defending Japan against colonization by western powers. Ryumura -one of the leaders of the rebellion- had traveled abroad, and wished to have Japan stand as free and equal to the major western powers decimating other Asian nations. Yoshinobu Tokugawa, the last shogun, had enacted many reforms as soon as he inherited the title from his father, but it was too late as rebellion had already begun in many parts of the country. He resisted the notion of a navy, because he -rightly- guessed that having one would lead to an invasion of China and Korea, making Japan itself a true imperial power in the region. So, we see that in a sense, both sides were correct: opening trade and legalizing Christianity were very important to the prevention of western colonization, but Yoshinobu was proven correct in his fear of Japan becoming its own imperial power when after the restoration of the Emperor, Japan launched an invasion of China and the Ryukyu islands.

The Meiji revolution was by all means a mixed bag for Japan. The old and highly corrupt lords were replaced by young and highly corrupt bureaucrats, army officials and merchants. This eventually lead to imperial militarization of the nation, and led into WWII and the Sino-Japanese war. Though Christianity was legalized, Buddhism was in many places oppressed or shunned. Though diplomatic relations with western nations normalized, Japan became increasingly belligerent to its Asian neighbors.

The Shinsengumi themselves fought on the side of the Shogun in Kyoto, largely supporting Yoshinobu Tokugawa's reformist policy itself, rather than the old shogunate structures. They did murder many innocent people, but particularly at the Ikedaya incident, they prevented the coordination of terrorist attacks that would have burned the entire city to the ground. So, again, we see a mix of complex motivations and actions, not really allowing us to paint them in black or white alone. The reason they are often so revered in Japan today is simply that they were not corruptible, something that was a rare trait both before, during and after the revolution. They killed and died for what they believed in, rather than allowing things to take their own course, and in that, modern Japan finds its romance with the Shinsengumi.

In fact, while the whitewashing of imperial powers throughout history exists -and is quite disturbing- the Shinsengumi are a particularly bad example for this. Rome tends to be a much better choice for illustrating the barbarism of the "civilized" peoples. Moreover, I doubt that Nazi romanticization will happen any time soon, at least to this extent, as the difference between the SS and the Shinsengumi is rather significant.

 

[RoonMian]

That's not really glamourizing anything-it's just being a bigoted flaming asshole.

It's both. It's saying "Hey, us dropping weapons of mass destruction on civilians was so awesome, it beats you winning the football world cup."