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| Zipang | |
 Cover of volume 43 of the mangaZipang byKaiji Kawaguchi, as published byKodansha | |
| ジパング (Jipangu) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Kaiji Kawaguchi |
| Published by | Kodansha |
| Magazine | Morning |
| Original run | July 2000 –November 2009 |
| Volumes | 43 |
| Anime television series | |
| Directed by | Kazuhiro Furuhashi |
| Written by |
|
| Music by | Toshihiko Sahashi |
| Studio | Studio Deen |
| Licensed by | |
| Original network | TBS |
| Original run | October 7, 2004 – March 31, 2005 |
| Episodes | 26(List of episodes) |
 Anime and manga portal | |
Zipang (Japanese:ジパング,Hepburn:Jipangu) is a Japanesemanga series written and illustrated byKaiji Kawaguchi. It was serialized inKodansha'sseinen manga magazineMorning from 2000 to 2009, with its chapters collected in forty-threetankōbon volumes. It follows aJapan Maritime Self-Defense Forcedestroyer and its crew being transportedback in time more than 60 years to thePacific theatre ofWorld War II. The struggle of the crew from a peaceful future Japan to resist the nationalistic appeal of altering history and defending their country, knowing that in this time it is ruled bytotalitarianmilitarists, is the central theme ofZipang.
A twenty-six episodeanime television series byStudio Deen and directed byKazuhiro Furuhashi was broadcast onTBS from 2004 to 2005. It was licensed for English release in North America byGeneon Entertainment.
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In the 2000s, the newest, most advancedhelicopter destroyer in theJapan Maritime Self-Defense Force, theJDS Mirai, sets sail from Japan on anaval exercise with theUnited States Navy offEcuador. En route, they encounter a strange meteorological anomaly, causing theMirai to lose contact with her sister ships. Soon, the crew detects a fleet approaching, and are shocked to see it includes theYamato, abattleship that was sunk in 1945. When more naval vessels, including aNagato-class battleship, are sighted, the crew realizes these areImperial Japanese Navy vessels and that they have somehow gone through atime slip to June 4, 1942, the first day of theBattle of Midway. Knowing that an American attack will soon devastate the four aircraft carriers of the1st Air Fleet, someMirai crew members believe that they should intervene to save the carriers and the 3,000 Japanese lives that will be lost. With theMirai's advanced technology and weaponry, which is far superior to anything possessed by the United States (or any other nation) in this era, the crew realizes that they could potentially alter the course of thePacific War. However, they agree that their top priority is to return home, and to ensure that they have a home to which to return, they opt to do nothing that willchange history.
However, despite their initial intentions not to alter history, theMirai's crew soon finds themselves gradually drawn into the war, though they continue to refuse to choose one side over another. These actions, alongside theMirai's rescue of IJN Lt. Commander Kusaka, a staunch militarist seeking to create a stronger Japan named "Zipang", who would have perished in the normal timeline, causes major changes in history. Among the changes in history, Executive Officer Yōsuke Kadomatsu's father is killed in a car accident as a child, turning Kadomatsu into a man who does not exist in the future. After obtaining information that Kusaka is traveling toManchuria to secure oil supplies, Kadomatsu leaves theMirai to try and stop Kusaka. Kadomatsu arrives inManchukuo and links up with a lieutenant ofMitsumasa Yonai at a military parade inChangchun, where EmperorPuyi is making an appearance; Kusaka and his subordinates, who are taking part in the parade, plan to assassinate Puyi to spark chaos and claim Manchuria as part of Zipang. Kadomatsu saves Puyi from an assassin fighter pilot, but Kusaka shoots Kadomatsu and Yonai's lieutenant and kills Puyi; Kusaka, not intending for the former two to die, orders one of his doctors to treat Kadomatsu and the lieutenant's injuries. From then on, Kadomatsu enacts a plan to use theMirai and whatever information he possesses to save as many lives as possible that would otherwise have been lost during the war.
WhileMirai is atYokosuka Naval Arsenal for repairs, Gunnery Officer Masayuki Kikuchi begins to wonder if changing the past is inevitable and whether Zipang is the superior future. Kadomatsu returns to Japan and returns toMirai, which sets off from Yokosuka during a nighttime blackout drill. While trying to escort a transport ship evacuating 4,000Imperial Japanese Army soldiers fromKiska during theAleutian Islands campaign, theMirai is met by and forced to engage and sink the battleship USSNorth Carolina, and fights offAtlanta-class light cruisers, but successfully saves the transport ship, which the IJN formally celebrates when they return to Japan. Meanwhile, Kusaka sends Tsuda on a secret mission to meet and assassinateAdolf Hitler; in reality, the assassination plot (which fails at the last second, resulting in Tsuda's death) is used by Kusaka as a distraction for him to steal uranium from theNazi nuclear program. As theMirai fares with a hunt by American submarines and helps evacuateNew Guinea, during whichVTOL pilot Mamoru Satake is killed defending the withdrawal, Kikuchi launches amutiny and seizes control ofMirai to take part in theSouth-East Asian theatre and attackIndia. Kadomatsu boards the ship to retake it from Kikuchi and is aided by Kōhei Oguri, Sachiko Momoi, and Kisaragi. Kikuchi is injured during the Japanese withdrawal at theBattle of Tarawa and takes refuge inPalau with Momoi and Kisaragi. Captain Saburō Umezu, hospitalized in Yokosuka, learns that Kusaka plans to build theatomic bomb and travels toNanjing to stop him, but fails and is killed.
In 1944, theYamato, fighting for Kusaka with him on board, is sunk by theMirai, killing Kusaka in a vortex, but a nuclear explosion from theYamato reveals it had an atomic bomb on board; while the explosion causes no significant damage, the Americans are alerted to the apparent success of theJapanese nuclear weapons program. TheMirai is ultimately sunk with all hands after a single stray hit by a shell fired from the American ships, with the entire crew lost at sea and deliberately not rescued by either the Japanese or Americans, except a crippled Kadomatsu, who is picked up by the Americans. Aware he is unable to return to his own time due to the altered history killing his father, and having been convinced by Kusaka to create "Zipang" on his behalf before he died, Kadomatsu offers his knowledge of theEuropean theatre to theAllies and is flown toWashington, D.C..
From there, the lasting alterations to history due to the actions of theMirai begin to occur. In 1944, the U.S. and Japan sign apeace treaty, and in 1945, the militarist factions in the Japanese government and military are ousted in acoup d'état, allowing the country to democratize. In 1947, the Pan-Pacific Treaty Organization is formed, and Japan sheds its imperial-era colonial holdings. By 1957, postwar Japan is economically prosperous, having been spared fromsevere attacks on the mainland. Kadomatsu, now a wealthy man inNantucket after having advised the U.S. government during and after the war, moves back to Japan in 1970. When the 2000s arrive again, Kadomatsu attends the christening of a more advanced brand-new JDSMirai and has his staff gather information about the crew members of the newMirai, who all happen to be almost the same people from the oldMirai, except for himself. Kadomatsu finally realizes why only he survived from the originalMirai: it is impossible to have two of the same person existing at the same time; his father died as a child and his "original" self was not born in this alternate timeline, meaning he was allowed to live on, while the rest of the "original"Mirai crew died during the war so they could be born again later as history intended. Though the newMirai crew members have never known Kadomatsu, they all feel the odd sensation they are missing someone among them. TheMirai departs for its scheduled naval exercise with the U.S. Navy, but this time it does not suffer any mishaps and reaches Ecuador—only Kadomatsu knows how things could have turned out.
JDSMirai (DDH-182)[3] is the fictional helicopter defensedestroyer of theJapan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), created for the manga.Mirai is transported back sixty years through time to 1942 on the eve of theBattle of Midway. The ship's weapons alone are enough to change the course ofWorld War II, but equally potent are the advanced technology and knowledge of future events on board. The name of the ship is ahomophone for the Japanese word meaning "future" and is often the basis ofdouble entendres in the anime. The phrase"Mirai no nipponjin" (みらいの日本人), often repeated in the anime, for example, can mean "Japanese people of the shipMirai" or "Japanese people of the future."
TheMirai is a ship of a fictionalYukinami-class of helicopter defense destroyer, which was created specifically for the story. The fictional ships are essentially an improved version of the actualJapan Maritime Self-Defense ForceKongo-classdestroyer. All these ships are equipped with theAegis Combat System that provides the vessels possessing it the capability to locate, track and target a large number of enemy vessels, aircraft and even missiles at ranges and with accuracy that was unimaginable inWorld War II.
The JDSMirai is sometimes described as acruiser rather than a destroyer. This is because a modernguided missile destroyer is about the size of a World War IIlight cruiser (theMirai is actually longer than theKuma-classcruiser and broader than theTakao-classheavy cruisers) and, in the context of the story, the WW II era characters misidentify theMirai as a cruiser. Some sources have picked up this misidentification and reported it as factual.[4][5][6]
The MV/SA-32J Umidori (English: Seagull) is a fictional aircraft created for the series. In it, it is a twinturboshaft engine, multi-missionJapan Maritime Self-Defense ForceVTOL tilt-wing armedreconnaissance aircraft deployed aboard thedestroyerMirai.
The MV/SA-32J has two large, five-bladed propellers mounted on nacelles in its wings. The wings both tilt, for vertical take-off and landing (VTOL), and fold, for storage within theMirai’s hangar. It appears that its engines are not in the wing nacelles, which are too small and do not have any air intakes. Air intakes and engine exhausts in the lower part of the fuselage indicate that the engines are located there, presumably connected to the propellers by some complicated mechanical linkage.
The design of the Umidori appears to be influenced by theCanadair CL-84 Dynavert Tiltwing, which was intended for projected Sea Control Ships of the 1970s[7] The modern design of the Umidori incorporates features of theBell XV-15 in terms of aerodynamic form and size, and in turn of the later, largerV-22 Osprey.
Other historical characters depicted includeGunichi Mikawa,Kiyonao Ichiki,Kanji Ishiwara,Matome Ugaki,Leigh Noyes, andMitsumasa Yonai.
Written and illustrated byKaiji Kawaguchi,Zipang was serialized inKodansha'sseinen manga magazineWeekly Morning from July 2000 to November 2009.[8][1] Kodansha collected its chapters in forty-threetankōbon volumes, released from January 23, 2001,[9] to December 22, 2009.[10]
Ananime adaptation ofZipang was produced byStudio Deen and directed byKazuhiro Furuhashi.Tokyo Broadcasting System Television broadcast the anime series in Japan from October 7, 2004, to March 31, 2005. Since aJapan Maritime Self-Defense Force official on active service was involved in the production, some unrealistic scenes were cut from the anime version. In 2017, scholar Takayoshi Yamamura noted that anime was produced in the collaboration with theJMSDF.[11]
At the 2006Anime Expo, the companyGeneon announced that it has licensedZipang for distribution in North America. The first DVD was released in September of that year.
A video game version ofZipang forPlayStation 2 was released byBandai in Japan on May 26, 2005.[12]
Zipang won the 26thKodansha Manga Award for general manga category in 2002.[13][14]
Some foreign readers and viewers were uncomfortable with the storyline. There were many arguments among the South Korean critics that the series were promoting Imperial Japan.[15]
