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What is up with Japanese media's fascination with child soldiers (hexbear.net)
submitted 6 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by doublepepperoni@hexbear.net to c/games@hexbear.net
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Why is this toddler in the army???

Such a tonal whiplash to get a scene like this after a cutscene where a rebel faction is doing a pogrom on an ethnic minority, with fleeing civilians being shot on-screen

I know the reason is that most Japanese media is aimed at the youth and all these school-age protagonists are meant to be relatable to the target audience. (They also romanticise the fuck out of high school over there for various reasons)

The older I get the weirder it feels watching cutesy anime kids going to literal war. Idk, maybe I'm overly sensitive or something. It also always has vaguely fascist undertones to me

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[-] TheDeed@hexbear.net 12 points 5 days ago

[-] gwilikers@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 days ago

Also, Mobile Suit Gundam, the foundational mech anime, is about child soldiers. I assume it was a big influence on NGE.

[-] sooper_dooper_roofer@hexbear.net 6 points 5 days ago

what is up with child soldiers in anime
child

answered your own quesiton UOOHHHHH

[-] thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net 7 points 5 days ago

Its a leftover from Imperial Japan, pre ww2 the most schools in Japan were military schools so when they lost the war and people started making media (books, shows, etc.) they were influence by their time in the military schools and it became a common trope, you can see that nowdays with manga or game stories about teen protagonist fighting in a war or battle

[-] WhyEssEff@hexbear.net 3 points 5 days ago

honestly I thought it was just a 50/50 mix of imperial glorification and fixation on high school. huh. TIL about the military schools

[-] thelastaxolotl@hexbear.net 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

You see in the west schools were mostly civilian in nature because they wanted to educate and rise workers for their industries, Japan however saw under meiji that they were very late to the imperialism game so they decided to focus on building a modern military in order to expand their power via conquests

[-] Lemister@hexbear.net 4 points 5 days ago

Also Prussia was a huge influence

[-] newmou@hexbear.net 5 points 5 days ago

Yeah Fire Emblem is something else lol

[-] slakemoth@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 days ago

Lol i know. I played the fuck out of the gba ones and recently decided to check out the recent installments. I got three houses and i was like wtf is this high school dating sim shit. Why are all the characters school kids.

The older ones had young characters sure but there wasn't this military academy subgame.

A shame because i really like the fire emblem ttrpg style, dunno what else to get for switch really

[-] WaterBowlSlime@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 3 days ago

Advance wars rebooted is on switch, which has similar gameplay and none of the romance. There's also FE engage but that has dating kids too.

[-] ChaosMaterialist@hexbear.net 4 points 5 days ago

:raiden-source:

:made-it-the-fuck-up:

[-] BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net 3 points 5 days ago

The Trails series has four or five cases of child soldier/assassin. They really love that trope over at Falcom.

this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
16 points (94.4% liked)

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