GATE: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri

[shinta|hikari]

No she didn't. She shot down everyone who was standing. Watch it again. Only a few people were left uninjured. Like you said, she shot down the first and second lines, but there were only 2 lines! She even reloaded in between lines...

Calling for surrender after massacring the first line wouldn't suddenly kill her. She wasn't fighting alone for crying out loud. If any of the soldiers decided to throw anything, her 2 other companions would've easily covered for her. And if you pay more attention, she was shooting soldiers who were sitting like ducks.

Face it. She killed everyone not out of necessity, but as Ryll and Kraco mentioned, a demonstration to show their power and brutality when offended.

Everything else, the bayonet fight, the fist combat, the torture, all of it points towards that conclusion. Insisting that she shot with restraint actually goes against everything else in that scene.

To summarize my opinion:
Would the enemies have surrendered if she asked them to after making an example out of the first few by shooting them down? Maybe they would have. Maybe they wouldn't have. We'll never find out now because she never tried. And trying was well within her abilities. She obviously had enough leeway to call for surrender in that scene and to react if the enemies do not accept.

[MasterOfMoogles]

She manages not to shoot at least 6 or 7 people.

While she's shooting them all, they're still charging her. When it goes to first person mode, there's at least one guy charging her with sword raised. And that's like 5 seconds before she stops shooting. The whole thing lasts maybe 15 seconds.

I don't think there's any question this was a demonstration of Japan's power, but at the same time, you're blowing it way out of proportion to say she should stop shooting while people are armed, in range, and willing to attack her.
You could even argue she went with the bayonet first to try to get them to back off. Once you start firing, who knows what they'll do. They could all do a suicide charge.
Of course, we know she's really just crazy, but still.

[MFauli]

you're blowing it way out of proportion to say she should stop shooting while people are armed, in range, and willing to attack her.

Because she moved into their range.

[KrayZ33]

Because she moved into their range.

If we want to be extremely accurate, you should've noticed that they were actually surrounded from the very first second and the first 3 guys she slashed through were no more than 5 feet away.
But I'm not going to nitpick on that because the scene got reset so often, she actually reloaded 4 times too in case you missed it.

[MasterOfMoogles]

Yea, because waiting for them to get even closer and giving up what little ground you have in the throne room would be a fantastic idea.

[shinta|hikari]

When you guys manage to explain how taking the time to put a dagger on her rifle then going into melee combat before choosing to shoot (only after the enemies line up and raise their shields, thus rendering her bayonet ineffective) is a decision that prioritizes safety, then we'll talk. Otherwise, arguing that she was prioritizing safety (she obviously wasn't, c'mon) when she shot those guards is ridiculous.

Right now, you are ignoring every other part of that scene. The killing was unnecessary. It might be arguably safer for them, but that doesn't make it justified. Wiping out all standing hostiles will definitely ensure you will not get attacked. What I'm saying is that she could afford to let much more of the enemies live if she had actually tried.

Oh, and the throne room is actually huge. If you look at the aftermath of the scene, the guards she shot down were no way in range to attack her, especially the 2nd line she gunned down. Those spears are for stabbing, not throwing, but even if they were, none of the guards ever tried to.

Lastly, even if they did get close by charging forward, she would just Jedi them to death. That's the thing really. These guys posed NO threat to Jedi psycho girl. We all know that. She proved as much by stabbing a bunch of them to death at first. It was as obvious as the sun rising in the east. But she killed them anyway.

What I'm having trouble understanding is why you guys are trying to justify her actions. It seems you guys are fine with saying "it's war, so killing each other is okay." If you say that, then you've already made your point. There is no need to strain yourselves into proving that this was self-defense. It doesn't need to be. Like Ryll stated, it can be just like how the US handles things. Wipe everything that moves out and make a statement.

I'm actually taking the harder to defend side in this, which is that of peaceful resolution and pacifism. Strangely enough, we aren't arguing about that (an argument I'd likely lose because it IS war). Instead, we are talking about how the Jedi and her gun-toting friends were "in danger."

They weren't.

[MasterOfMoogles]

Some inconsistencies in the animation make it difficult to judge exactly how large the throne room is.
When the first 4 guys charge them, she seems to only make it a few steps before engaging combat.
Then in first person mode, the enemies seem very close as she guns them down. When it cuts back, they appear much farther away.

Nobody was charging them when she put the dagger on her rifle. Better to have a bayonet then not? As for actually just not shooting them there, well, she's crazy and likes melee combat.

In the end though, you really have no idea what the enemy would do as soon as you start shooting. From their perspective, it would probably seem like an enemy mage was casting magic at them. What do you do in that scenario? You probably all-out charge with all of your soldiers in an attempt to kill them between spells.
Once the shooting starts, you pretty much have to kill all of them that are moving towards you, which is exactly what she did.

Maybe if Kuribayashi wasn't as bloodthirsty, the scene would have played out like this:
4 guys charge.
JSDF shoots them.
Prince yells to charge them.
All of the soldiers charge, just as they did against Kuribayashi.
JSDF guns them down until they stop.

The outcome is almost exactly the same, just Kuribayashi melee'd the first 4 guys and then did all of the shooting herself.

[KrayZ33]

Right now, you are ignoring every other part of that scene.

Just depends on what scenes we decide to look at


doesn't look too good here, 1 civilian + 1 important ambassador to protect, 2 combat ready soldiers with ARs and 1 officer with a sidearm.
surrounded by armed (melee, swords + spears), trained soldiers some even less than 6 feet away.

That's the situation they are in, doesn't really matter how they portrayed the fight imho. The bayonett stuff was nothing but eye-candy. As mentioned, she reloaded 4 times, they didn't show it even though we saw the whole fight. That's just anime being anime.

[shinta|hikari]

Except a whole bunch of them weren't actually moving towards her when she shot them. The guys who just formed their ranks weren't. The 2nd line of soldiers weren't. And like I said, even if they did, she could have handled them anyway. She is a saiyan, after all.

How difficult would it have been to shout out while reloading (she doesn't even lose time this way), "Surrender and I'll stop massacring you!"

EDIT:
Okay, due to animation issues, let's just skip that.

I'll make the question simple. Do you guys really think Jedi girl and friends were in real danger? Itami and the other JSDF soldier didn't even shoot a single bullet...

If you actually answer yes, then I give up. You guys are just being stubborn for the heck of it. Every single part of that scene is directed and written to show the vast superiority of the JSDF, yet you somehow see it as them being in enough danger to not allow a single call for surrender in the middle of that massacre. Heck, even Pina's facial reaction speaks volumes about how one-sided this was...

And to top it all off, psycho girl actually put down her rifle, wore gloves, and got into a fist fight. All that time, any of the "surrendered" guards could have thrown their spears at her, like you suggested. Jeez...

@Krayz - And if you think the closest enemy is less than 6 feet away in that picture, you need to get your eyes checked. Unless you count the prince, and even then he looks a little bit beyond 6 feet. This doesn't really matter. I just wanted to correct your statement.

[KrayZ33]

You can actually see people charging at her when it switched to first person, one was actually so close that he was about to thrust his spear into her... in the next scene however he is 20 feet away.
The line they made disappeared at the end too as there weren't any bodies close to each other and all of them were lying 3 feet away from each other as if they stood in a loose formation.
As I said, this is anime being anime.

The situation that matters is how it all started.

The *prince* (obey or die) ordered to kill/seize them, what do you think a soldier would do if he gets that command?
They were surrounded, had to protect a political figure, a civilian and were up against a much larger force that outnumbers them ~5:1 in a CQC enviorment.
She ended up reducing the numbers and probably spared more than 1/4 of them.

[shinta|hikari]

Sure, ignore everything else and focus on the numbers when this is ANIME where a single Jedi girl can bayonet a bunch of trained swordsmen to death.

[KrayZ33]

It's you who can't differentiate between anime action scenes and a morally reprehensible slaughter, not me.

It's you who started this "theses poor families, they might've had kids" bullshit when all these soldiers just spawned inside the room as if it was a computer game. The throne room was freaking empty, there were 0 guards around.
This fight was all over the place, at first, they were really close... nearly at arms length, then they were 30 feet away, then they were really close again, then they had formed a line, yet their bodies were all lying on the floor as if they never stood next to each other, then they showed so many bodies that you'd assume there were at least 30 people, in the next scene it looked like there were 15 people at most of which 6+ survived.
She reloaded her weapon once, yet there were 4 empty magazines on the ground. etc. etc.

And they aren't friggin surrounded. The enemies are all on one side of the rectangular room. Unless you count Pina and the King, which you shouldn't.

Take a look at the picture again.

@Krayz - And if you think the closest enemy is less than 6 feet away in that picture, you need to get your eyes checked. Unless you count the prince, and even then he looks a little bit beyond 6 feet. This doesn't really matter. I just wanted to correct your statement.

If we want to keep talking about realism
looks pretty much as if they could close the gap at any time, hell 21 foot is too close when they are outnumbered like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGzeyO3pGzw

And it's not like 1 bullet will stop a soldier either. So even if they have fully automatic rifles or the weapon ready, it doesn't matter, they'd be freaking dead. But this scene was clearly not supposed to show correct - tacticool double tapping and was purely entertainment and supposed to show the superiority of modern weapons and soldiers over medieval grunts with swords n' shields.

Remember Italica? That Cobra gunned every single soldier down with his M134, no mercy either. And Itami was actually dropping his aim (as if the situation was actually under control already) before he got the message to evacuate. War crime? Nah...that's probably what military personal does in a warzone where you face armed troops and an engagement happened. People forget that throwing a stone can actually kill someone.

[Kraco]

[/I]What I'm having trouble understanding is why you guys are trying to justify her actions. It seems you guys are fine with saying "it's war, so killing each other is okay." If you say that, then you've already made your point. There is no need to strain yourselves into proving that this was self-defense. It doesn't need to be. Like Ryll stated, it can be just like how the US handles things. Wipe everything that moves out and make a statement.

What exactly is self-defence in war? Technically you could say that every single thing Japan has done after the gate opened and the murderous horde poured through has been self-defence. Once they manage to get a sufficiently executed peace treaty out of the empire, the self-defense of a war ends. After that slaughtering soldiers would become a deeper issue as it would be done outside of war.

One thing making the incident in this episode funnier is the fact Itami & Co were invited to the palace by Pina. So, they were Pina's guests, thus her responsibility. Fortunately for our delicious drink princess nobody bothered to accuse her for it, at least not directly.

[MasterOfMoogles]

5 people (1 just rescued slave girl who can probably barely walk, only 3 with guns) in the middle of an enemy castle, surrounded by who knows how many soldiers throughout the castle at the command of crazy arrogant nobles.
Yes, they are in danger. At any moment, another 20 soldiers might have streamed into the room and attacked them from all sides. Assuming they're not in danger at all is ridiculous.

As you point out, even having them all surrender would be extremely dangerous, since they could just attack you later.
At the point she goes to beat the crap out of the prince, there were way less enemies and they were all basically in shock.

[shinta|hikari]

Sigh, whatever guys. You guys keep trying to twist the scene and situation to justify your arguments instead of basing your arguments on the scenes.

The bayonet scene and the fist fight scene still greatly contradict your arguments, while all you can offer to contradict what I said is "they are in enemy territory and outnumbered," which didn't really do a damn thing in the end, did it?

@Krayz - That was my argument to make. What you are doing is ignoring facts presented in the show. And calling the idea that "people have families and kids and should not be killed if possible" bullshit clearly explains your reasoning.

And yeah, I did take a look at the image and took that line out before your edit.

[MasterOfMoogles]

I'm just trying to point out that there is no reason for Itami and crew to think they're invincible, they are in a super dangerous situation, and they pretty much had to kill a bunch of people once Itami made his initial move to save the tortured slave girl.

Sure, they could have gone about it a little differently, but as I pointed out above, as long as the enemy keeps coming at them, they pretty much have to kill them until they stop. They're the ones being attacked, not the other way around. The prince or the king could have just as easily called for everyone to put down their weapons.

Just because Kuribayashi is a bloodthirsty crazy person that seems to enjoy killing people, it doesn't change any of that.

[shinta|hikari]

That's not the argument I was making. Her being a psycho has nothing to do with the danger they faced, which was pretty low. Your conception of danger doesn't apply (numbers, being in enemy territory) because they are far more superior in terms of firepower. This was, again, proven by the episode itself, and implied by the bayonet and fist-fight scenes.

You can't say that they did all that to be safe and sure when they also took a bunch of actions that threw safety out the window. That doesn't compute.

She didn't have to keep killing people because she could've tried to reason with them in the middle of it. Like I said earlier, she could've done it during a reload, which means she isn't risking anything at all. But did she try? No.

What I'm saying is that they never had the intent to go about it differently from the start. They wanted to pawn everything that moved to prove a point. It wasn't self-defense, and there was no restraint whatsoever. You can't say that sparing that final bunch counts as restraint because they were all on the ground. Killing them is plain old execution, and then we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

The action in contention is killing the rest of the guards. I posit that psycho girl could very well have spared some of them if she tried. But she did not, and never intended to. I bet she even wanted to kill the ones on the ground but couldn't due to military regulations, but that's beside the point.

[MasterOfMoogles]

Yes, Kuribayashi probably fired for a few extra seconds than she needed to out of the 15 second encounter.

[shinta|hikari]

A few seconds that took lives.

If you don't care about the fictional lives of these unnamed guards, then that's fine.

But I'll go ahead and mourn these victims' untimely demise.

[MasterOfMoogles]

I think it is unreasonable to expect anyone in that situation to have the presence of mind and self control to stop firing at the exact moment that it is possible to stop firing without getting killed.