At 05:50 PM 12/4/98 -0700, Chris Davies wrote:

On Fri, 4 Dec 1998, Richard Lawson wrote:

***snip***

Thanks again.  Yes, royalty is a strange thing.  And, in a lot of anime,
future societies are controlled by monarchies.  Don't know it that's a
comment about the nature of the human race or if it's the fact that most sf
is thinly-disguised fantasy.  :)

	It's because Nihon still has a titular Emperor, even if he doesn't
*do* anything in the way of governing.  I think the author who calls herself
Ucchan captured the attitude that this creates in Japan in her story "Naga-
NO!", in which even a certain Saotome Ranma has a bit of difficulty saying
no to the Emperor.  (A bit.  Not a lot, but a bit.)

	Also remember that a fair number of the first anime creators -- the
ones who set the trends, like Tezuka and Matsumoto -- were old enough to
remember when Japan (theoretically) had an an activist monarchy.  (Yes, we
know now that the Emperor was basically the puppet of the military
government, but most people in Japan and elsewhere *didn't* at the time.)

Chris Davies.

	It's a very strong hind-brain reflex, Chris.. something I'm intimately 
familiar with. I see an officer walk by, and my hand snaps up in a salute 
without any conscious thought on my part.

	To quote David Weber's great fictional hero, Honor Harrington,

	"The politician's constant need to rethink positions and seek compromise 
was foreign to her, and she suspected it would be to most military officers. 
Politicos were trained to think in these terms, to cultivate 
less-than-perfect consensuses and accept partial victories, and it was more 
than mere pragmatism. It also precluded despotism, but people who fought 
wars preferred direct, decisive solutions to problems, and a Queen's officer 
dared settle only for victory. Gray issues made warriors uncomfortable, and 
half-victories usually meant they'd let people die for too little, which 
undoubtedly explained their taste for autocratic systems under which people 
did what they were told to do without argument.

	And, she thought wryly, it ALSO explained why military people however noble 
their intentions, made such a botch of things when they seized political 
power in a society with NON-autocratic traditions. They didn't know how to 
make the machine work properly, which meant, all too often, that they wound 
up smashing it in pure frustration."

	This applies to Japan, when you consider it. As I write this, it's been 
just a little less than 150 years since the Mejii (spelling?) Restoration 
where the Emperors took control back and rebuilt a shocked Japan that had 
just been forcibly introduced to the Industrial revolution by Admiral Perry 
and his Black Ships. It's been only 50 years or so that 'Democracy' has been 
in Japan. It takes a long time to root the habit of unthinking obedience to 
authority out of a society. Fifty years is nowhere near to being long 
enough. England has had a few centuries to learn their way out of it, and 
America got a large dose of rebellious scum, thieves, swindlers, murderers, 
and con men dumped on its shores by English prisons. This helped give us our 
almost innate distrust of authority, near instantly. ^_^

	This is something Japan never had a chance to develop. Altho Jurai Knight 
with his fic, Quantum Destinies, seems to be exploring the concept. And it 
IS one that should be explored. How _would_ a stable, security loving 
society like Japan deal with unrestrained anarchy? We see that in a small 
way with Ms. Takahashi's manga. It's often said that we tend to laugh most 
at those things which we find most uncomfortable, and the most laughable 
elements of her works almost always seem to be the humor of chaos.

	Just a little philosophy from someone who -does- understand that sort of 
thing.

	Ed Becerra


	"Dreamers may die, but the Dream is eternal.."