[New Life+] Young Again in Another World Light Novel Shipments Halted
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I agree that the authors tweets were completely out of order and should be roasted accordingly for it (he is probably feeling that at the moment) - no argument from me there.
But story wise, given the fact that it's fiction is irrelevant then? You are judging it from what you want to believe, which is to come from a negative view point. And you might be correct. But you might be wrong.
Just reading over the explanation for the body counts again:
15 years old: left Japan and went to China to improve his sword skills. Joined the Chinese Mafia for 5 years. 912 killed.
20 years old: joined the military (no side is given, either is possible, given his mafia ties) for 4 years (1937-1941? What about the rest of the war?). 3712 killed.
24 - 94 years old : mysterious kill count of 1106 while maintaining an innocent public image.Okay, story time!
Negative view:
He joins the Chinese mafia as he wants bodies to cut down. Best sort of body is one you don't have any relationship to.
He goes back to Japan, joins the military and kills to his hearts content. He is discharged from the military for being too blood thirsty and attacking without regard for the side of the opponent.
While maintaining the front of an excellent teacher, he mercilessly cuts down anyone who opposes or gets potentially strong enough to best him in secret.Positive view:
After hearing about crime in China, he leaves for China and joins the Chinese Mafia, spending 5 years destroying the organisation from within while mastering his swordplay.
Leaving back for Japan, he joins the military. Knowing of his skill, he is assigned as a single unit to route out and set into disarray areas of heavy military forces which would often change the flow of battle from potential losses, this includes destroying troop formations at Nanjing. After becoming aware of the atrocities committed, he was silenced repeatedly and pulled from contact with other units so his ideology doesn't affect the other troops. He left in disgust after Japan publicly refused to leave China in 1941, seeing that his appeals to his higher ups were just falling on deaf ears.
The following 4 years of the war, he was forced to protect himself while he campaigned for changes in the government and military, who sent in soldiers to silence him permanently. To gain more influence as well as protection, he succeeded as a headmaster of the kenjutsu school. Following the dropping of the nuclear bombs, he was well positioned for people to listen to him as he worked with the Americans to revitalise the country as well as try to bring honour back to the Japanese.Okay, both those stories stick to the facts listed in the book. One looks at him as a blood thirsty killer who doesn't care about who he kills, as long as the execution is perfect. The other sees him as a skilled warrior who has a heart for innocent people, but is merciless towards those who are not.
Again, it depends on how you look at the story and what you expect from the protagonist, as absolutely nothing else is given. What you expect and want to believe is entirely up to you. The entry is so vague that I could write many many stories from following that, both positive and negative.
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@fozzedout I don't disagree with this description IF it had not been for the tweets. When I read the LN I did those same calculations in my heart and decided to keep reading. It was ambiguous then. Now with the tweets it's no longer ambiguous. Calling out Nanjing in the WN and his tweets leaves it pretty clear what his intent was when writing it. I can't in good conscience support someone who is an unrepentant denier of clearly documented history. IF he were to come clean and agree to face this issue head on in the story, perhaps having God force the 'new' protagonist to face the crimes of the 'old' protagonist and grow through it, I'd love to support that. So much will depend on how the author faces this - is he sorry for his prior beliefs or is he sorry for getting caught?
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@dryurimom the social media of the author should not be mixed with the story unless he states it does. Not sure why you want to try so hard to mix them together. Its like listening to a song and checking their social media only to know they are druggies and crappy real life people and now the love song is all about hate when it wasn't.
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I like the idea of him going back to the initial setup, like I said, as a way for him to salvage the series for those on the fence. But I don't know about using something that hasn't happened as an excuse to wash the hands of any claims against the use of Nanking's inclusion.
Like was said earlier, he or maybe his publisher didn't even own the Nanking setup fully in the published release, editing out some references; so I don't know that his grand plan or vision for this setup is that well defined + important if aspects are being cut already. My opinion is, once it's in there and in the public eye, you can't remove it and you can't just let it sit there, so I'd rather see him now do something with it, at least in the web novel.
I think making the Japanese man a savior at Nanking could still read badly though. It kind of reminds me of the cultural thing, in America at least, where the minority / oppressed have a white man, who didn't necessarily exist in history if historical fiction or whose significance is being exaggerated, be their savior. It's seen as a self-serving plot device. It's described as "grandiose, exhibitionistic, and narcissistic".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior
Even wholely fictional works with white saviors face criticism, like Game Of Thrones. Just because your story is wholely fictional doesn't save it from being seen as a representation of the spirit of your beliefs and of your message to the public.
I don't know that the Chinese readers would want to read about a Japanese savior figure at Nanking. And it could be seen as a denial of the psychological machine that was Japan at the time to say that a soldier could have agency like that to deny his country and break away; that could have the potential to anger families of Japanese veterans to say that a dude had the ability to do the right thing at Nanking.
I don't think there's a perfect solution to this thing. I still really really want the series to conclude, but I don't know the way forward from here.
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@bryan What should or should not be done is up to each reader and their individual conscious and world view.
I don’t believe government should ban the work, but I have no sorrow if HJ decides to and I don’t need a conspiracy about why it happened to feel that way. The text combined with the text to me is damning enough that if it were my business I’d cut all ties from it quickly.
Again, there’s no one way anyone should view this. I can understand other viewpoints (though realistically a story written in Japan about a Japanese Hero who killed Japanese people to save Chinese sounds culturally implossible and like a rewrite that would only come from the West).
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@bryan said in [New Life+] Young Again in Another World Light Novel Shipments Halted:
@dryurimom the social media of the author should not be mixed with the story unless he states it does. Not sure why you want to try so hard to mix them together. Its like listening to a song and checking their social media only to know they are druggies and crappy real life people and now the love song is all about hate when it wasn't.
I think the numbers and the specifics provided in the WN are too on the nose to claim they aren't referencing the specified events. That being said, either the author or the editor must have realized something was out of line because those references aren't nearly so specific in the LN, unless something was lost in translation?
Personally, I don't care about the author's beliefs - everyone is entitled to their own views, no matter how abhorrent I might find them. Words are cheap and it's not like this guy is out there committing massacres himself. I definitely don't think the book should be re-purposed into some redemption vehicle for the author. That's just as bad as the original complaint. It seems to be a mere footnote in the novel, so I have no issue with the story itself. I mean, if was that big of a deal in the books, they never would have made it to 18 novels! A simple apology should be sufficient, barring further evidence to the contrary.
I am enjoying the series and am a bit disappointed it probably will not be continued. I feel the whole situation was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction and representative of the problems of the trial by media environment we live in today. But I also can't claim to understand the situation in it's entirety since I am unfamiliar with these events or the history involved, nor am I familiar with the cultures involved.
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@fozzedout I think if he was supposed to be some sort of noble rebel hero that would have been mentioned. Plus, he has no criminal record and I think that going against authority during war is one thing that authomatically makes you into a criminal, maybe even with a death sentence.
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@lex in my second story on the good PoV, he was never a hero. Just a capable soldier who disagreed with the morality of his fellow soldiers and disgusted with the leadership for their handling of China.
As for criminal records.. that depends how it is handled. As far as I am aware, Gandhi never had a criminal record, as yet was the central figure in a resistance to the British government and army.
Soldiers can express their doubts and concerns to their superiors, but as long as they follow orders, there is no problem.
With the exiting of the army, he would have been open to attacks to laud his peaceful views as evil, but by becoming a significant and prominent person, that would mean that public attacks against him would be detrimental and executing him publicly might make him a martyr, causing more damage. This would restrict attacks on his life to secret attacks.
It's just a thought anyway.
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@fozzedout You are absolutely correct that you can work around the LN and even the WN content and come out with an ambiguous if perhaps not totally positive explanation. I did and until a few days ago I kept reading. It's the webnovel combined with those damned tweets, though, which clearly outline the author's intent.
If Mine was a Japanese neocon and history revisionist who as an artist created something that didn't touch on those flaws then I'd actually be fine. Like a said, I enjoy the music of Wagner and Vivaldi despite their being an anti-Semite and pedophile respectively. The problem is that Japanese historical revisionism is a very real thing these days and I hate to feed the trolls. Taken in context with Mine's statements and earlier versions of the story, his story provides cover to the idea that Japan was a victim of rather than the perpetrator of the violence in East Asia in the 1930's and 1940's. That's where things cross over from art which just happened to be made by a flawed human being to art intended to perpetuate and inspire others to the flaws of a flawed human being.
Oh, and YES, Mahandas Gandhi did have a criminal record. On March 10, 1922 the Mahatma was tried and sentenced to 6 years of prison for sedition.
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@dryurimom I see your view point and I accept it - and what you point out is something I mentioned right at the beginning - the biggest problem is that Japanese history education is doing it's best to ignore it or rewrite it. They really do need to accept it lest they repeat the atrocities again.
That said, I really enjoy the story for what it is, and I am willing to overlook something that was touched on in the first book only, and the author can keep his views to himself - as readers, I think we have seen that it's never touched on again - his past is gone and the loli-god just wanted to use his soul for her own purposes.
I think here, we can agree that we differ in our stance on the story and disagree, but can accept where each other is coming from.
Also, thank you for updating me about Gandhi - I didn't know that, and I was replying in a hurry (the reply ended up being a lot bigger than I expected and I ran out of time). I'll be sure to remember that going forward.
p.s. completely off topic, but I am really amazed to have intelligent and civilised discussions over some very thorny topics. without it breaking down into hate and disparaging. I'm not sure, but I think Light Novels but imbue some special civilising powers.
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@fozzedout I have also been rather surprised by the level of civility this conversation has managed to maintain.
The author's intentions aside, I'd like to list a few things I've noticed about the LN character.
- He has no real memory of his prior life
- He retained a stupidly high sword skill
- Loli-God seems caught off guard by his past
- He racked up a huge body count last life
- He doesn't seem to be restrained about killing
My initial thought was "serial killer". When all of the Nanking stuff came up, I was not upset, but could easily see why some people were. I won't reduce it to a tempest in a teacup, but my attitude is something along the lines of "What? Seriously!? Whatever. Just write a good story and leave the politics out of it."
And now we wait a few more days to hear HJ's decision.
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@paul-nebeling personally havent seen any politics other than flat chest vs big chest so far lol
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@bryan oh god please don’t bring up such a controversial topic in a civil thread like this it will only lead to ad hominem attacks and flame wars!
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@bryan don't forget the moderate boobs subfaction
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@bryan I am offended! How could you forget the thighs?!
Look at your Profile pic, for Huruhi's sake
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@sam-pinansky oh no! I must think of the children!
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@drone205 your right! Got to go back to the basics!
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@paulnamida I'm part of it lol
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At least we can all agree that breasts > butts.
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@aruseus493 thems fightin words sir!
