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glaurungA full decade before Verhoeven got his mitts on Robert Heinlein's classic milSF novel, it was adapted into a six episode anime miniseries back in 1988. Which I had never heard of until a few weeks ago. “Uchu no senshi” (Soldiers of the universe) was released on home video in Japan back in the era of VHS and laserdisk, has never been reissued on DVD, and AFAIK, has never been published with English subtitles. However, thanks to the wonderful ability of the internet to act as the world's biggest bootleg video store, I have now seen the miniseries with fan-made subtitles. And, while it's not great, it's… interesting.
A thumbnail version of the novel: After World War III, the government of Earth reforms as a partial democracy in which only veterans are permitted to vote or hold public office. Heinlein upholds this society and its governmental system as better than the world of 1950’s America. Fast forward hundreds of years and the same governmental system controls Earth and dozens of colony planets. Recent high school graduate Johnny Rico decides to join the military just in time to participate in a major interstellar war between the humans and an alien species called “bugs.” While the “veterans only” government forms the foundation of the novel, most of the narrative focuses on depicting the future military, specifically the “mobile infantry,” basically space marines. Again, Heinlein depicts the organization, traditions, and ethos of his fictional military as substantially better than that of America in the 50’s.
There is merit to the idea that citizens should be required to do something for their country in exchange for the benefits of citizenship. Australia requires everyone to vote, and Switzerland requires everyone to serve in the army. But Heinlein was allergic to forcing people to do anything, so he made his future world based on handing out citizenship only to those who have voluntarily served in the army. Which, like every other method of limiting citizenship rights, is guaranteed to result in distinctly unsavoury outcomes. And then, for the next 29 years, when readers pointed out to him that this would inevitably make his world something between a stratocracy and a military junta with only the trappings of democracy, he doubled down and refused to admit that he made a mistake.
The anime series avoids all the politics in the original novel and just sticks to the story of Juan Rico, his romance with Carmencita (which is front and center in the anime, unlike the novel where it is barely there), and the war against the Bugs. It also only covers the first third to half of the novel (Johnny graduates from boot camp at the start of episode 4).
Two contrasts stand out when comparing the anime to the movie – first, the anime does not shy away from depicting Heinlein’s powered armour, which the movie omitted entirely. Juan’s learning how to use his powered armour occupies almost a full episode by itself. Considering anime’s long history of fascination with mecha, this is hardly surprising. Second, where the movie departs materially from the novel, it tends to borrow heavily from the anime.
The movie’s centering of the Johnny-Carmen relationship – taken from the anime. It’s turning Johnny into an American-style football player instead of the novel’s depicting him as active in track, swimming, and debate – from the anime. It’s upgrading the socioeconomic status of all Johnny’s classmates, and making everyone white (so instead of him being a rich Filipino kid who has poor friends, everyone is rich and blonde, like an episode of “Beverly Hills 90210”) – from the anime.
In other places, the movie takes something from the anime and runs with it. The novel sprinkles clues throughout the first couple chapters that Johnny lives in a former colony of Spain, but not in the Western hemisphere, and it reveals that he speaks Tagalong at home on the last page of the last chapter, so he and all his high school classmates are Filipino. The anime does not specify where pale haired, blue-eyed Juan Rico lives, but it’s a place where lots of people have Hispanic names, where people play American football (which is popular in Japan), where all signage is in English, and where the sun rises above the ocean - so maybe Texas or Florida. The scriptwriters for the movie appear to have missed the bit in the novel where Johnny’s mother was *travelling* to Buenos Aires when the Bugs bombed it, so they nonsensically make all these lily white, English speaking actors (who all look and sound very American) be Latinos living in Buenos Aires (with all signage in English, again).
Two more bits where the movie followed the anime’s lead and then went quite a bit further:
First, in the first day at boot camp, Staff Sergeant Zim asks the new recruits if any of them can take him in a fight. In the novel, he breaks the wrist of one of the recruits who fights him, and apologizes for it – “I’m sorry, you hurried me a little.” In the anime, Zim hurts a recruit’s forearm, possibly on purpose, and says “go to the dispensary, it’s just a simple dislocation, you’ll be better in three hours.” In the movie, this becomes the deliberate and sadistic breaking of the arm of an already defeated man (the movie goes out of its way to make Zim as sociopathic as possible).
Second, later on in boot camp, Zim trains the recruits in knife throwing. In the novel, one recruit asks him why they are doing something so primitive when the enemy has nuclear bombs. Zim replies with a two short lectures, one on how there is no such thing as a dangerous weapon, only a dangerous man, and second on how the military’s job is not to obliterate the enemy but to exert as much or as little violence against the enemy as the government desires – which can mean nuclear bombs or it can mean stabbing with knives. In the anime, we get a severely condensed version of the first lecture about dangerous men. In the movie, Zim doesn’t answer the question at all, he just stabs the recruit in the hand because sociopath.
Heinlein’s depiction of Zim’s love of his recruits is conveyed through a lot of words on the page. The anime makes Zim a lot harder and more cruel, but over the three episodes set in boot camp, we come to see that he cares a great deal about the welfare of his trainees. The anime also, interestingly, makes Zim of African descent (in the novel, his cheeks are “shaved blue,” so he’s pale skinned; the movie casts a big tall Aryan looking man). In all other respects the anime whitewashes all of Heinlein’s nonwhite Filipino characters, so Zim is actually one of the very few people of colour in the anime. (The movie, of course, casts Zim as a pale Aryan looking white guy).
As an adaptation, the anime departs rather radically from the source material. As a story, it's not bad but not particularly good either. The most interesting thing about it, for me, was seeing all the ways that the departures the movie took from the source material tended to come from slavish copying of the anime's departures.
A thumbnail version of the novel: After World War III, the government of Earth reforms as a partial democracy in which only veterans are permitted to vote or hold public office. Heinlein upholds this society and its governmental system as better than the world of 1950’s America. Fast forward hundreds of years and the same governmental system controls Earth and dozens of colony planets. Recent high school graduate Johnny Rico decides to join the military just in time to participate in a major interstellar war between the humans and an alien species called “bugs.” While the “veterans only” government forms the foundation of the novel, most of the narrative focuses on depicting the future military, specifically the “mobile infantry,” basically space marines. Again, Heinlein depicts the organization, traditions, and ethos of his fictional military as substantially better than that of America in the 50’s.
There is merit to the idea that citizens should be required to do something for their country in exchange for the benefits of citizenship. Australia requires everyone to vote, and Switzerland requires everyone to serve in the army. But Heinlein was allergic to forcing people to do anything, so he made his future world based on handing out citizenship only to those who have voluntarily served in the army. Which, like every other method of limiting citizenship rights, is guaranteed to result in distinctly unsavoury outcomes. And then, for the next 29 years, when readers pointed out to him that this would inevitably make his world something between a stratocracy and a military junta with only the trappings of democracy, he doubled down and refused to admit that he made a mistake.
The anime series avoids all the politics in the original novel and just sticks to the story of Juan Rico, his romance with Carmencita (which is front and center in the anime, unlike the novel where it is barely there), and the war against the Bugs. It also only covers the first third to half of the novel (Johnny graduates from boot camp at the start of episode 4).
Two contrasts stand out when comparing the anime to the movie – first, the anime does not shy away from depicting Heinlein’s powered armour, which the movie omitted entirely. Juan’s learning how to use his powered armour occupies almost a full episode by itself. Considering anime’s long history of fascination with mecha, this is hardly surprising. Second, where the movie departs materially from the novel, it tends to borrow heavily from the anime.
The movie’s centering of the Johnny-Carmen relationship – taken from the anime. It’s turning Johnny into an American-style football player instead of the novel’s depicting him as active in track, swimming, and debate – from the anime. It’s upgrading the socioeconomic status of all Johnny’s classmates, and making everyone white (so instead of him being a rich Filipino kid who has poor friends, everyone is rich and blonde, like an episode of “Beverly Hills 90210”) – from the anime.
In other places, the movie takes something from the anime and runs with it. The novel sprinkles clues throughout the first couple chapters that Johnny lives in a former colony of Spain, but not in the Western hemisphere, and it reveals that he speaks Tagalong at home on the last page of the last chapter, so he and all his high school classmates are Filipino. The anime does not specify where pale haired, blue-eyed Juan Rico lives, but it’s a place where lots of people have Hispanic names, where people play American football (which is popular in Japan), where all signage is in English, and where the sun rises above the ocean - so maybe Texas or Florida. The scriptwriters for the movie appear to have missed the bit in the novel where Johnny’s mother was *travelling* to Buenos Aires when the Bugs bombed it, so they nonsensically make all these lily white, English speaking actors (who all look and sound very American) be Latinos living in Buenos Aires (with all signage in English, again).
Two more bits where the movie followed the anime’s lead and then went quite a bit further:
First, in the first day at boot camp, Staff Sergeant Zim asks the new recruits if any of them can take him in a fight. In the novel, he breaks the wrist of one of the recruits who fights him, and apologizes for it – “I’m sorry, you hurried me a little.” In the anime, Zim hurts a recruit’s forearm, possibly on purpose, and says “go to the dispensary, it’s just a simple dislocation, you’ll be better in three hours.” In the movie, this becomes the deliberate and sadistic breaking of the arm of an already defeated man (the movie goes out of its way to make Zim as sociopathic as possible).
Second, later on in boot camp, Zim trains the recruits in knife throwing. In the novel, one recruit asks him why they are doing something so primitive when the enemy has nuclear bombs. Zim replies with a two short lectures, one on how there is no such thing as a dangerous weapon, only a dangerous man, and second on how the military’s job is not to obliterate the enemy but to exert as much or as little violence against the enemy as the government desires – which can mean nuclear bombs or it can mean stabbing with knives. In the anime, we get a severely condensed version of the first lecture about dangerous men. In the movie, Zim doesn’t answer the question at all, he just stabs the recruit in the hand because sociopath.
Heinlein’s depiction of Zim’s love of his recruits is conveyed through a lot of words on the page. The anime makes Zim a lot harder and more cruel, but over the three episodes set in boot camp, we come to see that he cares a great deal about the welfare of his trainees. The anime also, interestingly, makes Zim of African descent (in the novel, his cheeks are “shaved blue,” so he’s pale skinned; the movie casts a big tall Aryan looking man). In all other respects the anime whitewashes all of Heinlein’s nonwhite Filipino characters, so Zim is actually one of the very few people of colour in the anime. (The movie, of course, casts Zim as a pale Aryan looking white guy).
As an adaptation, the anime departs rather radically from the source material. As a story, it's not bad but not particularly good either. The most interesting thing about it, for me, was seeing all the ways that the departures the movie took from the source material tended to come from slavish copying of the anime's departures.