A Geek History of Time - Episode 14- Battletech and Yellow Peril (Part 2)

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

Ed moves from the fictitious history of the Inner Sphere to the real-world history of the Japanese Miracle and MITI, with a brief digression about Lee Iaccoca. Damian brings up the topic of the “last good year for the American worker,” and both of them marvel at the nature of Japanese union-management relations.

And we begin with good day, sir. Geeks come in all shapes and sizes and that they come into all kinds of things. I was thinking more about the satanic panic. Buy the scholar Gary Guy-Gak's. Well, wait, hold on. I said good day, sir. Not defending Roman slavery by any stretch. No, but that's bad.

Let him vote. Fuck off. When historians, and especially British historians, want to get cute, it's in there. OK. It is not worth the journey. No. This is a geek history in time. Where we connect an artery to the real world. I'm Ed

Blalock. I'm 43 years old. I am the father of a 10-month-old son. I am a world history teacher at the seventh grade level here in California. And I cannot even think of an example this time to tell you how long I've been a geek because it's just been all my life. It's like the water in which I swim.

Were you really happy to have gotten to the age of 42? You know, a part of me was. Okay, that's, that's the geek that you are. A little bit, yeah. There was, there was a part of me that was like I can make that pun now, but yeah, I, you know, that works. Yeah. Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am also a geek. I am 40 darn near 41 years old

I have a nine-year-old well in three days. He will be nine. I have a nine-year-old son who really likes playing my phone mobile game of Marvel contest of champions and he's got so much integrity that when I say Okay, you've got six battles because you found six words on a word search or something, he'll come back to me at the end of it going. Well, I had my six. Yeah, doesn't try to push it at all. My daughter is a six year old. She loves playing Dungeons and Dragons

and she embodies what it is to be an arcane trickster as a person. 100% and she loves dragons. You know, actually, here's the geek that I am. I had my kids. They teleported out of a dungeon recently in our D&D game. Yeah. And it freaked her out because she was in full control

of what was going on. It was kind of interesting to see that play out. Yeah. And then I had them meet a golden dragon behind a waterfall so that they've played dungeons and dragons. And then I plucked the NPC out of their thing and she was legitimately sad and upset. And part of it was because she realized there was their healer. But I've set up a monk who's actually an acupuncturist so I'm gonna mess with some healing that way for them. So that's

the kind of geek I am. Yeah well the only one I will. So I'm also a Latin teacher that is also the geek that I am. And once upon a time, oh very. And once upon a time I was a social science teacher, I taught all the histories. I also worked at a place that we sold reservations to virtual reality entertainment facility and adventures. And we had one game called Red Planet, where you're running around on Mars in mining tunnels.

That's right, and you're racing. Hover vehicles. After hours. Yeah. And then there was a very Antonat called Martian football, where a little guy tries not to get smashed by the big guys. Yep. And it has his own big guys to act as a blocker. Yeah,. And as his own big guys, it actually is a blocker.

Yeah, and that's what I love doing, was just being a blocker. So that was a lot of fun. But it was actually a lot better at Battle Tech. Yes. The big giant robot tanks, the walking tanks. So Battle Max. Yes. Yes.

And that brings us, of course, to what he is that we're actually talking about today. Because this is a continuation of our last episode, where I was getting all 3D headed about analyzing the effect of yellow peril and the American zit guist on who the actual bad guy was in the very first edition of Battle Tech. And as we mentioned, of course, we have our five great houses

on the five successor states. And- Can I name them again? Yeah, go ahead. Karita. Yep. Lau. Okay.

Steiner. Yeah. Davion. Yep. And Merrick. Good job. Thank you. And oddly enough, the one name Merrick was not the XP for America.

Oh, geez, I didn't even thought of that. Even though their symbol was an eagle. Yeah, I heard actually originally Merrick was suggested, but the publishers didn't even listen to the decision to suggest Merrick as a house. I like it. I like that. Yeah, well done.

But it was because they had bunting all around to the max, or these Mer merit garlands that I like it or not allowed You didn't pay any attention. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Okay, sorry, broke me for a second. So, um, So you're benefiting from from my scratchy throat. I'm on like eighth-lossing for this particular episode and we're five minutes in

But you're benefiting because there's so many puns that I was like oh I could do that But then I will start coughing uncontrollably That one managed to degrade myself there completely derail gun you yeah, yeah, de gauze me completely speaking of battle tech. And so anyway, you would think based on the game being published originally in 1984, and you know, hide at the Cold War, that, you know, the primary bad guy in the lore would be House Low, which as we mentioned previously was the the exp for the Sinosoviet Union Sinosoviet alliance had a very had a stylist-mallist centralized government had the mask

Arovka secret police constantly you know watching everybody and you keep saying exp. Yeah, what is that? Oh, sorry. It's a term. I'm stealing wholesale from TV tropes and XB is Somebody's character that they've created to stand in for something else. Okay, or in another way it can be used This to talk about a copy. Yeah, so Deadpool is a deathstroke XB No, I've never heard of this deathstroke Yeah, good job. Yes, and that's true. That's a case where the XB is actually more entertaining

than original. Right. But yeah, so when you have- Like Captain America is the XB of the Sentinel. Yes. Yeah. Or Captain Marvel, the original Shazam, I should say. Yeah.

Shazam. Billy Batson. Billy Batson is an XB of Superman. Oh, OK, yeah. Let me sense. Billy Batson is an ex-speed Superman. Oh, okay, yeah, that makes sense. You know, same kind of thing. And we could go on forever, but that's what that term is used for. And so the stand-in, in this case for the United States, is House Daven. The stand-in for the Soviet Union and Communist China, which has never really

actually been very communist, but that's a whole other conversation, is House Lao, the Kepelan Confederation, and they consistently got portrayed as being the also ran bad guy behind Curita who are the XB for pre-World War II Imperial Japan. And so to kind of look at why it is that the writers of the game kind of built things that way, made Curita this really threatening force while Lao was almost but not quite a comedy relief. It's important to kind of go back to what happened at the end of World War II. Okay. So after World War II the short form is the Japanese busted their asses to rebuild their industrial base. Yeah. Okay, their industrial base had been completely shattered. Yeah. Them and Germany. But Japan in particular, because of the fire bombing,

and the widespread amount of destruction that was inflicted on the Japanese homeland, in preparation for an anticipated invasion that never happened, because of that man and little boy, the destruction was amazing. And their economy was a complete shambles. And they really raised their profile. Yeah, nice.

Nice. Thank you. Yes, by lowering their profile to the ground. So and a lot of their efforts for a long time You know made in Japan was a punchline right when we were when we were garbage. Yeah, yeah It was made in Japan. It was cheap trash Right, you know, and it stayed a punchline up until easily up until the 1970s One of my one of the things that you know jumped out of my subconscious when I was you know doing my research for this thinking about these things Was a skid on the Carol Burnett show

that ended literally on the punchline, made in Japan. Okay. Being read by Tim Conway and Governor Headley Lamar. That's heady. That's heady. I'm not even talking about that. Yeah, but, um, oh God,

and I feel bad I can't remember his name, but the two of them, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I there we go. Comedic genius. Mm-hmm. And, you know, the thing is, of course, in remembering the skit, I realized that it would never get aired on TV today because racist caricatures, oh my god.

Yeah, they're not good. They planned it. They're not. These, I mean, this was, this was yellow face. Yeah. Both of them with, you know, doing the whole thing. Oh, really? Look, teeth and, you know, squinting. I mean, just like. Right. Yeah. Both of them with, you know, doing the whole thing. Oh, really? Look, teeth and, you know, squinting.

I mean, just like, right. Wow. You know, if we could, if we could find a way to go back and find that specific skit, it would really, I'm sure, most of us would be like, oh my God, this was on broadcast TV. Because, you know, we don't, we don't look at the world that way anymore.

But so. We'll come back around We're working on it. We're gonna have our own new station So we'll have our own entertainment station. I'll try that again. Yeah, I bet you there's characters like that on the NRA TV You know, I wish I could argue so but Even even while we in the West were looking at stuff that was made in Japan, I mean, particularly stuff that was made in the late 40s into the 1950s and the early 60s, you know, you see a lot of really cheap manufactured goods coming out of Japan, and this is because, and

the reason for this is because it was part of a calculated program by the Japanese government Now our government had funneled all kinds of money. Oh, yeah I'm rebuild because we were terrified that oh my god. We lost China. We can't lose anybody else, right? We need a ball art in quotes to the communist. We need an economic bull work again. Yeah, and and so you know, we gave them or forced upon them in the Constitution in the post-war that was, in many cases, more progressive than our own. Oh, very much so. And we looked the other way, while their government went and did a lot of stuff that probably might have looked a little bit oddly socialistic or oddly, today it would

be considered unfair in terms of free trade kind of stuff. Right. And we let them do it because if it's going to help them rebuild their industry base, keep their people employed and prevent them from going full blown conny then we're okay with it. And so this became over time the Japanese miracle that they went from a completely shattered industrial base to where they got to which we're going to talk about. In short order too. We're talking within 10 years they're exporting stuff. Oh yeah, yeah. Now a fun little thing, a lot of the metal that they got was from GI mess kits that were

litter. Yeah, that were, that were, yeah. And I mean that, you know, they turned them into toys, but also that's why they had cheap items was because, yeah. She was literally using pot metal. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's why they had cheap items was because yeah, yeah, oh, yeah And so the the Japanese government established meeting MIT I Mm-hmm the Ministry of International Trade and Industry okay, and this became the powerhouse

Power behind the throne if you want to call it this was the industry that that held all the strings for the rest of the government because they gave it all of this power because they needed to get their Industrial base back. Okay, and so meaty Coordinated and exerted all kinds of control over development of manufacturing and tech industries in post-war Japan They provided government financing. They directed policy of the overall government to support research and development. They enacted protections for Japanese manufacturing. They created tariffs.

They did subsidies. They did all this kind of stuff. Did they model themselves after anything? Because it sounds a lot like the European colon steel community. Yes, I'm sure that was part of what they looked at. It's like Marshall Plan Far East. Yes, very much. By 1980, so war ends in 45.

Right. 35 years later, in 1980, Japan had become the world's largest exporter of automobiles. They surpassed the Germans and then the US. I just, I'm 35 years. Okay. But I'm getting ahead of myself by saying that because we got more steps to talk about, but you need to understand that's where they ended up with this program. With in less than two generations. Yes, but just barely one. Right. I'm just I'm thinking 1980 is almost 19 years ago or 39 years ago from us.

So we are further from 1980 than World War II was. Yes. That just blows my mind. A little bit, yeah. I read a thing about, you know, how Cleopatra is closer to the moon landing than she is to the- This is the pyramids.

To the beginning of pyramids. Yeah. Or that Martin Luther King and Anne Frank were born on the same day. Or no, we're born the same year. Same year. Yeah, stuff like that, just little things. Yeah, just little like way way way way way way way.

That's a thing. Wait, where you get reminded that, you know, the little girls who were involved in the little rock school. I think you're going to make a shining reference. Yeah. No, that movie messed me up. I wouldn't do that. But, you know, the girls that were involved in opening up the schools in Little Rock. Yeah, the Little Rock.

Yeah, the Little Rock. Still alive. Yeah. And they're not that old. Right. Well, it's that one's that one. Look how quickly we solve racism. I mean, really, that's that's the lesson there. That's the lesson. Yes. So they went from like people went from having to like refuse to get off of us. Yeah. To force busing. I mean, yeah, it's perfect. Problem solved. There you go. Yeah. Hold on.

So again, the industrial base has been to, I mean, I can't restate enough how badly Japan's industrial base was. Oh, it was completely wrecked. Yeah. Because it was all geared toward the war machine. And that's one of the things that we bombed the shit out of was the war machine industry, yeah, everything everything that was supporting the logistics of the Imperial Japanese name the Imperial Japanese Army

like if we saw that. Viable targets. Yeah, yeah, and so the the first thing one of the first things they did, they recruited women to join the labor force to make up for the losses of men in the war. Makes a lot of sense. I remember that happening after the black plague. Yeah, oh really, yeah. And meaty, initially the first phase, they came up with, they had a plan.

And the first phase of their plan was they focused on raw materials production for the first phase of the, they came up with, they had a plan. And the first phase of their plan was they focused on raw materials production for the first few years. And it was set stage for further advancement. Then they worked with the Karetzu to coordinate development across the country. Now, I can see the look on your face. You're about to ask me, Ed, what are the Karetzu? That was another question I had, yes. Yeah, okay, what was the other one you had? Before I get into the vocabulary, probably. Sounds an awful lot like socialism.

Very much. You know, state run control of the industries. Yeah. And makes perfect sense when you're trying to recover from an economic downturn. Yeah. Just going to put that out there. Let's see, and if anybody might be listening anywhere out in the

Also just wondering did they have socialized medicine? Did they figure that out? You know what? I didn't touch on that in my research that would be I don't know. Yeah, it's an addendum to this um But the Karetzu Here's the thing was and and the thing that prevents this from being The kind of thing that you know right wing pundits would go, oh my god socialism is the Karetsu are Business groups with interlocking ownership. Oh, so it's a trust. So this is a trust. Uh-huh. And Karetsu is the Karetsu were the evolution of the pre-war Zai Batzu.

Now, as Zai Batzu, which you may have in the course of gaming, you may have been exposed somewhere to, you know, the corporate overlord. If you've done any kind of cyberpunk, anything you've heard of, you know, the Japanese Zai Batzu and, you know, the corporate overlords and all that stuff. Right. Right. Well, what is Zybatsu was, historically, it was an actual term, but he was not familiar with that fact. But the Zybatsu were vertically integrated industrial giants. They were vertically integrated groups of companies that were controlled at the top by a single family. Okay, so these Ibotzu would ultimately be owned by a family.

Now what happened was, in the post-war period, we came in, United States, and said, you know, the Zibatsu and the corporate power of the Zibatsu was part of what was the driving force behind the Black Dragon society, the militarism that led up to, you know, them making the tripartite pact, you know, the Axis Alliance, which Germany, all that stuff. And so the Zibatsu got broken up. Okay. And then the Japanese government said, okay, but we need to find a way to coordinate efforts across industries. Right. We don't have the Zibatsu anymore. So we're going to

have these corporations interlock in their ownership. So they have board memberships that overlap. And and this is a horizontal integration. Okay. Where there's no single family controlling everything, it's not a single family. Not a stove pipe, right. It's a horizontal integration. Okay. So in a K-Retzu, you'd have manufacturing companies, services companies, materials companies, and finance companies all working together all building building synergy

right use a you know business business administration major right working together in a coordinated manner okay so that way whoever the contact was with the government could the government could say okay look this is our government goal this is what we need to do. That would become part of their corporate goal and the deal is It's not socialism because everybody's making back. Right. Okay. So So it's not it's not control But it is very significant coordination between the government and industry. Okay And so this is also the point at which Japanese

companies undertook the practice of guaranteed lifetime employment. Okay. In Japanese Shushinkoyo, and I know I'm probably butchering the pronunciation what I'm trying, and it's also worth noting that we have, you know, these K-Retzi that are all the companies, their own ownership is interlocked, they're all kind of tied together, they're all working together as one unit, they're have, you know, these K-rexu that are all the companies or ownership is interlocked, they're all kind of tied together. They're all working together as one unit. They're all, you know, following, you know, the policy guidelines that they're getting notified of by the government.

And the workforce is highly and rigidly unionized. Okay. Okay. Now. I can see why America's looking the other way. God forbid we actually go if I work yeah Now when is that when is that because this this is 40 46 47 is when this gets started okay?

Now this this continues this is what this is what this is what Wallace wanted by the way The guy who ran for president and lost a few times Not the racist wall is the other good wall is yeah, what he wanted was this I Yeah, you're wrong. Yeah, you're entirely not wrong and so Now in my notes what I have in parentheses reflection on Confucian values and their reflection in these kinds of policies Well, Confucian is Chinese so okay in these kinds of policies. Confucian is Chinese, so why are we? How familiar are you with Confucianism? It's been a long time since I've taught.

Tenth graders, much less seventh graders. I spend a lot of time telling my seventh graders about Confucianism. Let me see if I can capitalize it just a bit. You essentially have a civic duty toward excellence and it's tied directly to your family. You have a part to play. You're a cog and your job is to do the best you can to play that cog to keep everything working well. Okay. And there's a lot of tradition and a lot of things that are used to reinforce that.

Okay. That's a really good executive summary. The only couple of things that I would add are number one, Confucianism did, as you point out, start in China, but it wound up getting carried all over East Asia. There is not an East Asian culture today that is not on some level to greater or lesser degree influenced by Confucianism.

Okay. And you know, you look at the stereotype that we have of Asians as a model minority in our country. Sure. And I can point out to you exactly where it is that that is a direct result of them coming from Confucian culture. The things about Confucianism I want to point, are you did a very good job talking about, you know, as the person on the low end of the totem pole, what your role is. Right, well, because I'm me, the person on the low end of the totem pole.

That's your take, but what's important to note is, the teachings of Confucius were, that there is a responsibility from below to above to show deference and respect to obedience. And there is a necessity from above to below to show paternalistic care. No bless oblige. No bless. Like in the West we have no bless oblige. But the thing is no bless oblige is like you know You you ought to treat these people well. You have responsibility to protect these people Right. No, no

Confucianism takes no bless oblige and like pumps it full of whatever the drugs are that bane takes It is no no you are Responsible for them. These are your people. These are your people. And if you are the ruler, you are responsible for everybody and your good behavior, your bad behavior, your virtue or lack thereof. You're generally. Yes, yes, genuinely. And I have a lot of fun teaching about Genon lead to my to my students because I use the example of a friend of mine who you haven't met who has All the genon world and no Lee who look like no Lee at all Um, but anyway, it's time um

But you know your your your embodiment of those two virtues. Is what literally keeps the universe running or not. Oh, okay. And if you screw it up the heavens will crack open. A little punish everybody and there'll be floods and all this and the other thing. The yellow river will change course. Yeah. And everything, everything will fall apart. And and so this idea of lifetime employment is about as confusion as you can get. Oh yeah. It is, no, here's the deal.

You know, I don't think they had socialized medicine because here's what I'm going to say. Part of the deal was, as your employer, we're going to provide you with health insurance because we are responsible for you. You give us your loyalty and your drive and your work and you Kill yourself for the company would happen You know death by overwork is a peculiar Japanese Cultural thing that has a word for it that I don't have

But you know you you give us that and we will, we will take care of you. So, you know, from the time you graduate from you have a preparatory high school and you went to start, you know, working in a factory from that day until the day you are cremated in a Buddhist funeral. Right. We're... We are. That was actually going to be my next question, is then

where's the incentive or need for any higher education? Because I remember reading that like higher education still happened but it was a cultural norm and after you got your degree then you went to work in whatever the factory was that you were going to work in for the rest of your life. The Japanese and anybody who's watched a lot of anime can tell you kind of at a bizarre twisted remove because anime is itself a bizarre art form. A bizarre form? Yeah. One of the, I mean, I love it.

Don't get me wrong, but yeah. From a Western perspective, it's fucking weird. But you know, what you see is this view within within the culture that creates these these shows as anime is this view of high school as being you know the pressure cooker right here in the United States Everybody looks back on high school is like, well, you know, when I was a kid,

and yet I either really did, and it was my glory days, whatever. And then the time when you really get stressed out about finals, you really get stressed out about it because it's when you go to college, because you're spending a lot of money to go to college. You got all this pressure in you. And if you screw it up, it's gonna ruin your life.

That's junior high into high school. For the Japanese. Gotcha. And so higher education in that system, which again is very heavily confusion and very heavily regimented and there's still to this day a lot more emphasis on, you know, road memorization and facts, figures, all that kind of stuff. Because of those cultural norms. Right. The nail that stands out gets hammered down. It gets hammered down.

And so, so if you're going to go on to get an advanced degree, your teachers have noticed that you have the potential to go on to get that advanced degree. And you have been pointed in the direction of taking the tests to get into the pre-college high school. And then you're going to take the tests to get into university. Sure. And so that's kind of how that works. Okay. And so if you wind up getting that kind of degree, you're going to go into that kind,

you're then going to get interviewed for and get into that kind of position within... Right, right. Okay. ...of doing whatever. So that position within. Right, right. Okay. Doing whatever. So that's kind of how that works. Okay. And so. So the guarantee lifetime employment. Yeah.

And, and, and, and the unions, we, we in the West, you and I, yes, specifically, as union reps at our respective sites sites are used to the idea that our relationship with management is of necessity going to be confrontational. Yeah, there will be a level of adversarial. Not necessarily, well, not necessarily adversarial, but always look, we have a problem. I need to talk to you about it. We need to find a solution to the problem right now.

Right. Whereas in this confusion model, or confusion inflected model, the relationship is much more one of everybody coming to the table with this go along to get along figure out how we're going to make this work kind of attitude. And I don't want to say that unions necessarily collaborated with management, but management and unions worked together more symbiotically to make sure that from the CEO at the top of the company

to the worker down at the very bottom, everybody understood this is the goal the company is working toward. This is what we're all gonna do to reach that goal, and this is what management is gonna do to take care of the workers, this is what the workers are gonna do to give their most for the company. And because everybody had been raised

in that kind of mindset. Right. It's just a very different kind of attitude and different kind of relationship between the unions and management that I think you and I would look at be kind of like the dog in the RCA. Oh, what? That's way weird.

Well, okay, so that sounds by the way, like the best post-apocalyptic world. Yeah. Because Japan was post-apocalyptic. They literally had the only nuclear holocaust there was. And all the firebombing. And then their solution was come together. And what I get a kick out of there.

And again, this is me, the union guy. I know about the hay market affair, I know all that kind of stuff. And it's just like, it's only ever-bidden, confrontational and adversarial in America, because... Well, because we inherited... Yeah, exactly. From Europe and Great Britain,

where we had, you know, the earliest, the earliest capital investments were being made by people who had made all of their money by owning all of the land and controlling it because they were ones who could afford armor and horses and swords, through violence. Yeah, yeah. And so that was the core of all of it.

We literally have a bloody history with unions trying to stand up for the workers and being shot by the army or the police, which were their own union, or both or higher Pinkerton's or the Haymarket affair, a semi-private pseudo-Malisha of cavalry who had wanted to serve on the continent, fighting Napoleon, but before aged because oh my god your psycho right like basically shitty Hessians yeah so yeah we inherited that um Japan because you had an apocalypse they had a hard reset they got to

rebuild in the way that made sense to them. Which is the same thing that happened in Europe and a lot of countries was our entire city has been bombed all the shit. Maybe the church doesn't have to be the center of this city anymore. Maybe we could put things on a grid. Maybe we can... I left a record to do this. But so like Japan also gets, so really everyone else is welcome.

America we're still behind because no one really bombed us. I guess it's really. Yeah. It's that whole coming out of the war we became the dominant power but there were a lot of things that we didn't get to do because we didn't have to do. We didn't have to do them. Yeah. And so it was easier not to do them. Yeah.

And just keep building on top of shitty cardboard, you know, for your foundation. But okay. So Japan has its ultimate post-apocalypse. Yeah. And it actually is, yeah, well, not ideal. Well, I do it, but. It might be overstating things. Yeah.

But because there was, you know, a certain, a certain constructive amount of, not ideal, but- I do, it might be overstating things, but- Yeah. Because there was, you know, a certain- A certain constrictive amount of, you know, government control of- Of- It freer expression and all that stuff. Which was not new. Which was not- Oh, not at all. So, it's not-

Yeah, it's not as short as this stuff. And both of the post-war period, it was a lot less restrictive than it had been in the pre-war period. So it felt like a relaxic. It felt like- Yeah, it felt like, oh, like- We have so much freedom. Yeah. And, you know, it's you in America at the same time yeah, it felt like, oh my God, we have so much freedom. Yeah.

And, you know, to an American at the same time, it'd been like, oh my God, you live in a rat-warring and you're monster. Wow. You know, and to most Americans, Confucian ideals just seem like, that's like collectivist. What that's more like.

Who are you people right? Right. And what I want to reiterate kind of before I go on is talking about feudal boards controlling on land and all that stuff. The people who had found the Cybotsi were the descendants of the Japanese version of that same thing. Yeah. And so what you say about the war, giving an opportunity for a hard reset, is definitely

very meaningful. But, you know, this whole confusion idea of looking after your workers and all that stuff had been there before. But this is where the government really bought into it as, okay, no, look, we need everybody on board. Everybody working toward this common goal. And so we've really got to make sure that workers are taken care of. And it brings to mind cartoons, I remember, we're made in the 1950s and 1960s here in the United States talking about capitalism. The way capitalism

is this great system because labor and management recognize, they don't say need to recognize the particular things they recognize because it's propaganda, that we make the profit, we reinvest part of the profit in building up the business, we make sure that our workers are about to have to employ it. Keeps people employed, and that keeps wages going going up as time we can afford to pay people more Right, we continue making money and all this and and there was this wonderful period Immediately post-war right and for I don't know 20 years or so afterward I

Think up until the 80s. I'm gonna say it's up until the 80s where you know corporate America Recognized that it needed labor to get anywhere and it was before You know a stock market people Focused on quarterly profits above everything else. You mentioned that. There's, and so there was this,

I mean, there was this period where, you know, what's good for, what's good for Detroit, it's good for America. Right. And for 20 years, you know, the standard of living continued going up, you know, union participation was at an all time high. I mean, all this stuff was awesome.

And we were, you know, on top of the world because of it. And and then somehow somewhere along the way that changed. And so my my grandfather, both of two of my grandfather's. I had nine grandparents when I started in this world. I'm down to three. Yeah. Um, but my one of my grandpa's who lived in Michigan, and I had two of them lived in Michigan. My biological grandfather, one of them told me, he said, the last good year for the American worker was 1966. I said, why is that? He said, because in 1966 was the last year that I was able to get into a country club without getting priced out.

And he said that the people who ran the country club said, what's the point of having all this money if I have to golf and be stuck behind a quartet of guys that include my mechanic? And the next year he was priced out. Interestingly also GM starts every meeting prior to that year, I wanna say it's prior to that year. Every meeting, how are we gonna make a better car? How are we gonna make a better car? And they never ever talked about quarterly profits or how much money the company was making.

It was about focusing on the car. And then that year, and I might be wrong, I might be conflating the two. But that year, right. In that same period, they started talking about their profits, not building the car. And so, you say into the 80s, I say, okay, but that's as it was declining.

Because it starts in 60s, so it's a slow and steady decline. Like the Ottoman Empire didn't end in 1918. It was ending for 300 years. But Ted was finally cut off. The Roman Empire didn't actually, the Western Roman Empire didn't actually fall in 476. Right. That was just when Romulus Augustalus murdered.

It was. And nobody bothered to take the job. 300 years. Yeah. So as I was saying, we have this very different system that the Japanese wind up putting together from the way our whole concept of things works in the United States at the time.

And so, meaty with this whole Kretzu system as background, aggressively encouraged export from the 50s onward. They relaxed monopoly regulations and they freed up government money to make capitalization easy for industrial companies. So, if you ran the manufacturing business that was gonna be exporting anything anywhere, you could go to the government and go, hey, I wanna make tractors and sell them to the Australians.

And the government would be like, let's make it rain for you. Okay. Okay, so the whole effort from the top down was intensely managed. And it resulted in a massive economic growth and prosperity in Japan by the late 60s. And an upward curve that carried forward through the 1970s.

And now we get to talking about GM and how we build a better car and that. Versus the out-of- and versus the others make profit. During the oil crisis of 73 and 79, the Japanese had an automatic lag up, not because they had said, we're gonna do this in order to get one over on the west. But because they built automatic transitions.

But because, well automatic transmissions was part of it. Part of it was also, they just built smaller cars anyway. Okay. Begin with. Okay. Because Japan's an island country. You need smaller cars. And you need smaller cars.

Yeah. And the people they were selling cars too, were buying smaller cars. Uh huh. And so when the gas crisis hit, all of a sudden, well, okay, I could buy a Detroit battleship, you know, right, a land yacht, you know, a land yacht for battleship. But yes, land yacht works too. I could buy a Cadillac fayton, you know, and, you know, float everywhere I want to go. Or I can buy this little Japanese box

that, yeah, okay, my neighbors are gonna laugh at me, but they'll not be laughing when I'm able to keep driving and they can't because they still have gas in the tank. Right. And so suddenly, this meant that they had a huge advantage over Detroit steel in the marketplace. And like I said, by 1979, they had passed the Germans, and then they had passed us. And in 1979, they exported more vehicles to the rest of the world than anybody else.

Now, again, this is 1979. 1979. 34 years after the war. After they were nothing. Like they were just rubble. So like we're looking at them exporting all these cars and we're like, that's soon. Yeah, nice. Nice.

Nice. Nice and? Nice done. Nice on. Yeah. So suddenly, we see yellow peril here in the US. Decent yeah, so suddenly um, we see yellow peril Here in the US we we we start we start seeing this suspicion and this like a wait a minute

These what are these what are these you know funny looking for orders, you know up to their would their threat now Okay, okay, now Japan has no military at this point. Japan, Japan, they have like a self defense force. Right, yeah, and that's self defense force, but it's basically we've got it. Yeah, yeah. We're the ones defending them from, you know, everybody effectively.

And so, American CEOs start screaming about unfair Japanese business practices because remember, they've relaxed all these monopoly things and they're just they're just like Throwing money almost doesn't sound like the right verb to use I want to give something that like launching money of like opening up a fire hose Right spray money, but spray doesn't give an idea of the volume. Like, like, think of just, yeah, like, so they're pumping so much money into their industry. And of course, that's, that's,

the subsidies that we give our industries at this time don't work anywhere near that way. Right. And it's not anywhere near on that scale as a part of GDP because of course our GDP is still massively huge or the pants. But you know, so American CEOs start screaming about unfair Japanese business practices. And I want to get into talking specifically about Leia Coker for me because, because, oh my god, that's what is my, that's what is my ayakoko to quote, Berkeley breathed.

My favorite quote of his still is, we need to think about how much fresh air we really need. Yeah, like he said that. Out loud. He's, oh now I can't remember the other person I'm thinking of. But yeah, he really is the sage of dumb CEO remarks. But he got up in front of Congress.

And in 79, of course, is when GM had to be bailed out. And he got up in front of Congress. The first time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So he got up in front of Congress and he basically blamed all of GM's problems on competition from the Japanese and how the Japanese are in the capitalism. Isn't that capitalism?

Yes. Okay. But again, you know, they're operating in this environment where their governments Coge their books. Yeah, okay books doing all this and and one of the things he said in a book and in one of his one of his you know blowhard You know autobiography trump my time at the top essentially yeah, I don't remember the title of Lee. I a coke is one but yeah He accused the Japanese of

Exporting unemployment I want everybody to think about that for a second because Because I'm a fan of or I for a long time. I've been I no longer agree with him the way I used to but I'm a big fan of P.G.O. work Okay humorist and author who wrote about Iick, he wrote a review of Iick Focus book and his question was how do they package it? Does it spoil? How exactly do you export unemployment? And you know... PGR Rorg is really good for that kind of stuff.

We really do. Like wait, hold on. You know, and so I echo just late, let just just late all the blame, at the feet of Japan. Okay. And you know completely completely like not even mentioning over expansion the fact that they'd stopped caring about making a good car.

Rising fuel costs in the fact that the American industry has just said no no we're Americans want to buy big cars. We're going to keep making big cars, and continuing to make gigantic land cruisers. Right. I mean, not literally land cruisers, because that's a Toyota. Right. But answering the American need for large cars.

Yeah. And not looking at the fact that in the late 70s, the into the early 80s, everybody was buying smaller cars, because people were starting to feel the pinch of higher gas prices for the first time. And so at the same time that's going on in 1979, Buck Rogers in the 25th century aired on NBC with the villains being the Draco Empire, a heavily Asian-themed antagonist with really strong Japanese elements in their aesthetics. Wait, was this the one that I grew up watching? I was watching like, like, Rear In Gray and Guilger Art?

Guilger Art? Yeah, that's the same one, yeah. Did they, like, cancel it and then come back with it later? They ran for several years, and, it was in syndication. Okay. Yeah, and so it was the same one we both grew up on Okay, yeah, it was probably responsible for my insexual awakening. Okay, cuz Aaron Gray in in those mylar not my was She was wearing yeah, God knows and some episodes it was definitely dog I made like you know whatever exotic animal hide It was supposed to be and back then the naga ran free. Yes, they really weren't endangered So yes, they were just on the plane. They would sunburn them. So you get red naga high

The natural the natural predator of the snipe actually strangely enough like perfect So now that's a continuation or a revivification of the yellow peril that was part of the original comics of the 1930s, Buck Rogers, in which the air lords of the Han were the antagonists. Chinese. Now, yeah, now this time of course is coded to be Japanese rather than Chinese because, and this is something that a history professor of mine pointed out in college that I had never thought about, but if you look at our relationship in the West, and in the United States in particular, to Eastern Asia, when we like Japan, we don't like China.

We just trust China, when we distrust China, we really like the Japanese. There was a book that we gave to GI's in World War II. And forgive the language. It was how to tell a chink from a jab. It was called that. The Department of Defense put it out. And what was interesting, because I've looked at this. I've lectured on this. Oh wow. What was interesting to me was if you'd rewound it by about 30 years, you would have had how they thought about the Chinese instead of the Japanese. And so yeah, it's just very easy to flipy floppy. Yeah. And I'm sure somewhere there's a parallel in the same time period in wrestling, there has to be. Oh yeah, oh you give me? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, let me think. In the 1980s you had Tiger Chung Lee who was a Korean, but in wrestling it didn't really know but in the 70s you did have Mr. Fuji Mr. Sayido You had a lot of Japanese wrestlers actually Devious always very devious always sneaky. Yeah, yeah, so and and you know the Japanese economic growth that was going on continued through the whole decade and and we had this weird obsession terror relationship and it was they were they were threatening and they were scary but they were also really cool right and like we didn't really know what to do about that and and so this filtered through like all of the science

fiction of like the whole decade of the 1980s. Buckaroo Bons I had like a rising sun. Yes, yeah. Buckaroo, but yeah like wait he's as white as you can get. Right. I don't remember off top of my head I don't remember the actors weller. Peter Weller. Peter Weller. Wait. No. I'm gonna laugh if that was him because Peter Weller Peter Weller wait no I'm gonna laugh of that was him because Peter Weller also played Robo Yeah, he did so my head I think it was But I mean, you know one of the most it was Peter Weller one of the most dramatic looking white guys You can imagine yes, yes, like Buccaroo bonds that like right you know and that that's a great that's what I hadn't even thought of that but yeah and so we we have these

whole all of these depictions of of a megacities covered in Japanese script right you know neon signs and congee and and you know blade runner blade yeah yes actually one of the most iconic examples right and then that got copy-pasted To every cyberpunk anything anywhere right 2020 years or more You know you see Zybatsu showing up as the bad guy Mm-hmm shadow run is like the Zybatsu are the bad guy right in all of the original stuff that was published You know that's for the bad guys. Songs, there's Domoari Atao, Mr. Roboto.

I think I'm turning Japanese. Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Uh, that has that has a lot to do more with masturbation references than anything else. Well, it still mentions and they use. It still makes use of even the song Dare to Be Stupid by Word Al. Has a very Japanese sounding beginning part Yeah, that that that that chord progression with associate with with somehow Chinese Asian Chinese Japanese stuff

Yeah, um and so I remember oh and we had the gong show Yes, yes, yeah Yes, yes, yeah, I stretched it with that one very much so yeah, and and so I remember in college uh-huh being handed a you know ripping yarn style mm-hmm science fiction far future and it would involve giant robots but it was not battle-tech-related at all but it But it was a future in which the Japanese Empire had been reborn through corporate power. And the Zybatsu had eventually just morphed into, no, seriously, we have an emperor and everything.

They're the ones that run everything. Our protagonist was clearly descended from Americans, but he served a Japanese style military, you know with all of the officers having Japanese titles and all this stuff. And so that was the dread and that was the vision of the future was that this wave of this other culture, they're winning. A tsunami. And they're, yes, they're coming like a tsunami and we're all gonna be washed under by them, and you know, picked up and carried along.

And so, you know, like I said, this is this combination of fear and curiosity and even desire and admiration. Uh-huh. And in 1980, the Shogun Mini Series. Mmm, that's right. Came out on TV James Clevel's novel, The Orr Stopper of an All, was shown on broadcast TV in 1988.

And it was the first American-made film involving Japanese characters in which they were all played by Japanese actors. Oh, wow. Okay. Which was a huge deal. Yeah, because prior to that if you were a Japanese actor, you were on mash. Yeah. Playing a Korean or a Chinese officer. white people in yellow face, it was actual Japanese actors, many of whom of course were, you know, Toshirumi Fune, of course, is the, you know, archetypal legendary one that everybody will recognize his name and played the principal, not really antagonist, it's a complicated book, but he played the XB for Tokugawa Iyasu in that series and was, I mean, his Toshirami Funey. Akira Kurasawa said the reason he loved working with Toshirami Funey was because with another actor, he would need to take 90 seconds of film with Toshirami Funey.

He only needed to take 30. Because Toshirami foodie was just that emotive and intense. Oh, it was just able to express so much so so fast. Okay, yeah. And there was a couple of years I'm a massive Japanese film not so a few years ago in the process of trying to find a new apartment with a couple of friends we reached a setback we hit a setback and I replaced my my Facebook photo with a photo of Toshirami Fune from the 7 Samurai and I said no no we're gonna get Toshirami Fune on this kind of you know and I and I took the Chuck Norris meme of Chuck Norris once broke the world land speed record

by small mess against rear wheel, you know and I turned it into Tushir Mefuni, you know And I can't quote any of but anyway, so I mean Funi is a fucking legend He's amazing, you know and so that was that for a lot of people outside of watching Samurai movies for who wasn't a samurai movie nerd Right, that was the first time they'd seen him and so this this was a huge cinematic kind of deals It was a mini series and those were really big back there many shoes were huge like once roots hit roots Yeah, all of them. Yeah, we're big we're big event and so This is also the point you mentioned in the last episode.

And I said, dude, damn it, you're taking over stuff. This is also when we have the flood of Ninja movies. Yes. So many garbage Ninja movies. Yes. Like, like, oh my God, so crappy Ninja movies. And the central conceit of so many of them was a white guy yeah coming a master ninja and and Michael Dutercoff is possessed Michael Dutercoff

has a possessed sword as a possessed or a girl friend it's always Michael Dutercoff yeah it's it's and you know nothing against Michael Dutercoff but could could you give that to somebody who maybe felt like choreographer a little bit better? Maybe was a bit less wooden as an actor. And speaking of better actors, of course, the peak to me, the peak of Ninja movie, bad American Ninja, everything would have to be a TV series, the master.

You remember that one? Not off the top, but I bet I would. I would be, I would not be surprised either way. Okay. Levan Cleef played the wise old white guy who had somehow become a master ninja and and so bad so bad on so many levels because they had to introduce you know the younger character who's his sidekick who becomes his student and it's like every time they they have you know the final thing they've got to do and use ninja skills to do leave and cleef is in the black pajamas,

and his sidekick for some reason never is. You know, and he's got this amulet that he's always wearing. It's like, you know, the symbol of the ninja clan, and it's also got some other meaning to him. And somehow that's always, that's like a visible, oh wow. You know, all the time, and the thing is, Leav and Cleef is a really good actor right?

Was is now passed on. I'm sure but he would leave and cleaf was a really good actor The Japanese actor that they had acting as the main villain of the whole thing who kept showing up It was his you know arch rival who had killed his wife years ago and all of the usual kind of tropes. He was an amazing martial artist. And if you actually watch Ninja movies, he has a genre from Japan, he's a legend in that genre, because he's just that awesome. And so they had all the stuff that could have made it

really great, but then they buried it in 80s' schlock. and had to have the sidekick be this conical relief kind of thing. And just like, you don't understand the genre you're trying to adapt and you're fucking it up. Why are you doing this? And it's because it's ninjas, it'll make money. Right. Well, and I would like to point out that with ninjas, I mean you also have Eastman and Lared writing Teenage Men Ninja Turtles in the 80s. You also have

Jim Cotta. I had forgotten about Jim Cotta. I wish I could forget that again. But you also have, you have like everything. Everything's ninja fight We goes around and around on that one pole. Yeah, yeah What was it is like the lethality of Ninja 2 but like the beauty of gymnastics? Yeah, I know some way you have such a good tag line. Yeah, it was awful. But, okay, so you have all of these Ninja movies. See all this horrible, horrible Ninja.

And the thing is that this is a lot of people's first and only exposure to Japanese culture or etc. etc. The Ninja very specifically is a sneaky lethal bastard. Yes, it's not virtuous. It's not a knight. It's not a samurai. No. The way to show that the ninja is like all powerful is he'll kill the samurai in the beginning and then like a telephone worker will be the one that brings down the ninja. But like it's just like it's...

It's a war for the purposes of the city. Yeah.'s, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, a horror movie. Yeah, it is, it's there. Yeah, it sucks that it's there. But it's there. Yeah, not part of the definition of the trove. Right, yeah, but also they're, you know, space-fiking samurai. Yeah, so yeah, but anyway, so these ninjas are, I just also want to point out here that I've used the word once and every time it comes out of Damian's mouth It makes me twitch you can't see it But I'm I'm the kind of pedantic nerd Who needs to point out at this point and of course the Vicky yes, yes

No, god damn it No, god damn it Cuz we've had the sardine before I Just need to get it out of my system that the plural of ninja is ninja because Japanese doesn't have fucking plurals Ninjas should not be a word even though What is possessive as a descriptivist? Oh, yeah, if you use an apostate the ninja's greatest numbers But you know, I just need to point that out, and then we can move on. OK.

And I'll just have an aneurysm quietly be so here. So. But you were saying, sorry. So all these ninja-eye. You know what? I'm OK with that. That one doesn't bother me. Good to know.

But yeah, so just they are, you know, the first exposure that we have, essentially, or the only exposure that we have in pop culture, the Japanese culture at that time, is sneaky. You should watch out for, and you'll never, you'll never see him coming. Yeah, shadowy occult. Yeah, yeah, never seen coming

Don't don't play by the same rules. Right. They have they have a code. It's always a big deal And every news is they have a code Yeah, but it's this to us. It's this blue and orange morality right different code that it's like they're there utterly ruthless But there are these weird limitations in their behavior and you know what's what's thinking about it and this is what's great about us talking about this is what I was when I was doing these notes that didn't what didn't occur to me is what we're talking about now about the religious code is in some ways the way Confucianism might look to a mainline American Christian. It's like, well, you know, there are elements of this that make sense to me, but there's an awful lot of this

that's like, again, it's really Confucian. Again, the RCA dot, yeah, really, really Confucian. It's like RCA dot, wait. Right. Honour the mother and father. I'm on. I'm good. But wait wait. Yeah, you know and so at the same time

Uh-huh we have garbage ninja movies everywhere. Sure. You know Shogun chilling up on TV It's interesting to note this is also the point at which sushi. Oh Started to really expand on onto the American food landscape. I actually wound up getting sucked down a research or having to hold and spend like three hours looking at the history of sushi in the United States, but it was originally introduced by Japanese expats. A lot of Ron Halses.

Yeah, but I was originally introduced by Japanese expats in LA's little Tokyo in the 1960s and at first they were mostly serving other Japanese. And you'll Brenner and other Hollywood people found it out. And so it became kind of this little Hollywood insider kind of thing that they did. But it never really expanded very far beyond that.

There was also some sushi culture going on in New York. Right. But it didn't explode until the very early 80s when the FDA, I'm gonna say it was the FDA, gave new dietary advice that we needed to eat more fish. Oh. And here sushi is waiting for this moment in the dietary sun being fish being fish and

So all of a sudden people were like well, how can I get more fish? Well, okay, everybody says this is supposed to be pretty cool. I mean it's raw fish. That's kind of gross But you have a try and like you know a certain a significant percentage of population you try a sushi You're like oh wait, this is awesome. Yeah, you know, and then there, you know, certainly plenty of folks who are like, yeah, no, I could text you as a thing. I can do whatever. But so, so that all of a sudden brought sushi, which is this Japanese thing, out into into the mainstream, really kind of kind of for the first time. But it was also probably helped by this weird aspect of where

our heads were as a society about Japan at the same time because we had this schizophrenic like I'm obsessed with them but I fear them but you know but I want to be them kind of thing. Did you ever see the movie Parenthood? Yes. Long time ago. Okay so Martin is Martin is in it. Um, not Martin short. Um, the other guy Hmm the other guy the other guy. No, I had to say name. Um, Martin Or so yeah, well anyway, uh, that character the the the guy who played um Lewis Tully in Ghostbusters. Yeah. Oh, Dana, it's you. Yeah, you know that guy. He was a a father who had like so fetishized like raising his daughter to be the corporate killer in Belmont. He was teaching her karate and Japanese as a plot

point in the movie. Yep. So there's because Ninja corporate killer, yeah and they, that was the point, Gung Ho, the movie. Right. Based, even though Gung Ho is a Chinese phrase. Yeah. Yeah. It was applied to American workers

having to adapt to Japanese corporate culture. Is this when a lecture became a character in Daredevil? Holy shit, I don't know. I don't either. That would be worth looking into. You know, we'll probably find out for that third episode. Yeah. Yeah, I'd be willing to bet probably.

Like when he starts fighting the hand, or when Wolverine goes to Japan, or. Oh, well, I can tell you when Wolverine goes to this is, when this is the time period, that Wolverine's connection to Kimiko and all that stuff. Okay. That yes. Oh yes. Okay. And because Sunfire comes into the X-Men in 75 when the X-Men reboot essentially as the international team. Yeah. Because prior to that they were just going running on reprints like it gets canceled about 70.

But when they come back Sunfire is on the team. A Japanese character. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where some of this stuff begins before the year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get really easy. It's when it really does.

And so now this is also the same time at which anime first started finding American audiences through redups. It can be a cover attack. Right. Voltron. That's the one I watched. I can take a role in tech. Right. Voltron. That's the one I watched. Voltron, defender of the universe,

and transor Z. Didn't ever watch that one. Okay, I only watched it briefly. It's a go-na-guy style. Okay. Kind of thing, which means nothing to you, but it's a more, it's a much more cartoony animation style than the others. Brian Hama, the guy that wrote the G.I. Joe, obviously of Japanese extraction. Yeah, and he had huge influence into the Well his name was at least attached to the cartoon for that and goes and that goes

Transformers. Yes, don't know why I blend those two, but yeah But like and both of those are very clearly the same style. I mean they borrowed the same voice actors But as far as cartoons go so important to point out that this is the time period when in G. I. Joe you have Snick eyes and storm shadow storm shadow yes having there actually really remarkably awesome whole conflict backstory which in many ways is very true to ninja movies as a genre right right Japan, which is part of the whole martial arts movie, whole set of tropes. Which while true in the comics, those two never fought in the cartoon. In the cartoon, Storm Shadow, the very white looking, but Japanese ninja who dressed all in white,

most ineffective ninja there is He did oh absolutely. Oh, yeah He always fought against spirit the Native American character There there's a lot of trope stuff I can get into there out out But there's yes the Native American thing spirit of course had the eagle right freedom familiar And what's important to also note there is we have the magical eastern or Because you know there was Ninja Huda involved. Yep going up against the spiritual Native American We've got got an arse I yeah, well, well, you know, I'm saying magic. Yeah

They both got loaded with with you know magical foreigner tropes at the same time. That's also part of that kind of thing. But so, and I just need to get nerdy about this for a moment. Do it. That, you know, when I talk about Robotaic Voltron and Trans-or-Z, what I'm talking about are super-dimensional fortress macros, Beast King Go Lion and Mazinger Z, which are the original Japanese series that were taken and kind of changed.

Things were changed around a little bit. Any overt sex was taken out of them because that's a thing in Automation. And animation here in the West resides in a childhood ghetto Uh-huh, we're showing this to kids And it's worth mentioning speed racer here also because speed racer dates back to the 1960s. I was gonna say yeah speed racer was really the first time that anybody in the West took a Japanese animation of any kind and turned it into anything

in the Western media. And there's a whole, there are books that you could write about what the cultural significance was of speed racer and how speed racer got changed. It's a remarkable story, but suffice to say, it's the early 80s when a real mass audience starts showing up for this stuff. All right, so, and at this point, I think we're at a place where we can kind of bring it down, we'll pick it up again in another episode

because I've gone on about this stuff for a while. But what, right now, what are you thinking? So, we haven't talked about battle tech for the entirety of this episode. If this episode is on it off. No. And that's what I, this is a good sound to know. That's what I like about it.

But it's largely because we've really laid the ground work for the zeitgeist that will inform the thing that you were talking about. And I think in the next episode, it'll all really tie together. I do find it interesting that we just mentioned Voltron and Robotech those are transformers and the transformers those are all giant robots That look vaguely humanoid. Yes, or incredibly humanoid Yeah, but they're all giant robot types and so you've got that feeding into

the popular culture and a very specific style. So it'll be interesting to see, to me at least, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out as far as the depiction of the Karita clan in general. So yeah. All right. All right. Well, for a key history of time, I'm Damien Harmonic. And I'm Ed Blalock.

And when you roll those dice, get 20s.