5.2: The GMs of Navarone

Show Notes

We finally get started on Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket, and it makes quite the impression! Was it the good or bad kind of impression? There's only one way to find out!

This week, we review and analyze episode 1, "How many miles to the battlefield?" (戦場までは何マイル?), and research and discuss the history of Playboy Magazine in Japan, how the creative team's nostalgia and childhood memories connect to 0080's story and themes, and how the unexpected appearance of mobile suits in a neutral colony connects to the history of US military bases and the presence of nuclear weapons in Japan.

Playboy Magazine in Japan

Wikipedia pages for Playboy, Monthly Playboy (月刊プレイボーイ / Gekkan Pureibōi), the Playboy Clubs, and Playboy Bunnies.

_Britannica page for Playboy. _

_History of Playboy, from the company's website. _

Twitter thread (with photos) about Playboy clubs (and similar) in Japan, by @mulboyne.

Photo of Taga Rie, a Bunny at one of Japan's Playboy clubs, from Getty Images (they had to lean like that to place drinks/light cigarettes because if they bent over they'd fall out of the one-piece).

_Vintage store based in Las Vegas, with photographs of Monthly Playboy covers from the 70s and 80s. _

Wikipedia pages for China Lee and Jennifer Jackson.

Papers and articles:

Batura, Amber B. “From the Bachelor Pad to the Jungle: Bunnies, Playboy Magazine, and Vietnam Soldiers.” Texas Tech University, 2018. Accessed at https://ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/2346/73903/Batura_Amber_Thesis.pdf

Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly. “The Surprising Tale of the Playboy Bunny Suit.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 4 Oct. 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/10/history-of-the-playboy-bunny-suit/541929/

“Tokyo's Foreign Flavors.” Edagawa, Koichi, Japan Quarterly; Oct 1, 1985; 32, 4; ProQuest pg. 356

Nostalgia and the Creative Team

Team credits and biographical information was sourced variously from animenewsnetwork.com's encyclopedia and ja.wikipedia.org pages for the specific people.

_Timelines of the major events of the Vietnam war are available in various places including History.com, Britannica, and Wikipedia. _

Japan & Nuclear Weapons

Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution is described on Wikipedia here, and the full text of the constitution is available in English at the website of the National Diet of Japan.

_The 1951 Security Treaty Between the United States and Japan is described here. _

The 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security Between the United States and Japan is described here.

_More information about the U.S. military use of Japanese ports, specifically during the Korean War. _

Two articles by U.S. researchers around the year 2000, going into what was then publicly known and acknowledged about nuclear weapons deployed in and near Japan.

Several articles from 2010 when the new Japanese government confirmed the existence of the secret agreements permitting U.S. nuclear weapons to pass through Japanese ports without prior consultation.

_A 1981 article from the Christian Science Monitor about the Japanese reaction to former Ambassador Reischauer's admission about the secret agreements: "Japan reels under Reischauer's nuclear 'bombshell'." _

Steve Rabson, Six Decades of US-Japanese Government Collusion in Bringing Nuclear Weapons to Japan. Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 19, Issue 14, No. 3. Available at https://apjjf.org/2021/14/Rabson.html

Mobile Suit Breakdown is written, recorded, and produced within Lenapehoking, the ancestral and unceded homeland of the Lenape, or Delaware, people. Before European settlers forced them to move west, the Lenape lived in New York City, New Jersey, and portions of New York State, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Connecticut. Lenapehoking is still the homeland of the Lenape diaspora, which includes communities living in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario.

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