MovieChat Forums > The Man in the High Castle (2015) Discussion > The real difference between the Japanese...

The real difference between the Japanese Empire and the Reich.

posted 7 years ago by stalin-hadzman
15 replies | jump to latest

In this show: Pros and Cons

The Empire:
Pros:
1. They tolerated other races and even people considered as "defective".
2. They allowed people to have a little "more freedom".
3. They allowed people to still retain some of their own "individualism".

Cons:
1. They are lagging technologically.
2. They allow criminal organisations to still have a great say in their society.
3. They are weak in handling piracy lolz.

The Reich:
Pros:
1. They are very advance in terms of technology.
2. They have a much more organised society.
3. They "look out" for one another.

Cons:
1. They are too racist, when compared to the Empire.
2. Individualism is considered borderline "heresy".
3. They are weak in monitoring their insurgents (the resistance).

[–] suvrmart 7 years ago

There are no pros in fascism at all. Let's remember the Japanese followed the laws of killing Jews as one of the elements of their treaties.

Not to mention, both of these "societies" make the people living in them (the powerful and those without powerful) constantly anxious and paranoid. All their conversations are stilted. Order, schmorder. The nazis kill you if you are a true believer like Dr. Adler , use you if you're in the Resistance, kill you if you don't believe and both the nazis and the Japanese colonists use people's goodness against them.

It's every man, woman and child for her/himself in this alternate world. There is no good.

[–] Captain_Wesker 7 years ago

Not to mention "people ratting on their neighbors".

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It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing .

[–] Chironomo 7 years ago

I like this show so can get over a few issues it has. But don't understand how the Japs do not have jets? In reality the Germans gave the Japs jet technology in WW11 which they used to build a prototype called Nakajima Kikka (Orange Blossom). You would think that trade after the War plus the Japs propensity for copying technology would mean that by the 1960s they would also have commercial jet aircraft.

[–] NotASpeckOfCereal 7 years ago

I like this show so can get over a few issues it has. But don't understand how the Japs do not have jets? In reality the Germans gave the Japs jet tech ...

You do realize that this is a science fiction show about a history was different than ours, even before the Axis powers won WWII, right?

RIP IMDb message boards!

[–] Chironomo 7 years ago

Sure. Still just seems strange that twenty years after the war the Japs haven't got jets. A Japanese lord bought two Portuguese guns which the Japanese then reverse engineered and copied precisely.The Zero came from a plane built by Howard Hughes and sold to the Japanese. The Japs though seem to have abandoned their long held tradition of maintaining advanced technology following their victory in WWII in this reality. No real explanation of why that has occurred.

[–] NotASpeckOfCereal 7 years ago

No real explanation of why that has occurred.

Focus. Scope.

There are a heck of a lot of questions you could ask about how this particular vision turned out and why certain things have or haven't happened.

But they have a story to tell. Burdening us down with a lot of dialog about minutia that does nothing to advance the story is fat to be cut.

"It wouldn't hurt if they showed ... " sure, they probably even have someone on staff that is charged with continuity; but you're asking them to think of literally anything you can imagine should be there.

For all you know, it might have occurred to them and they discarded it. Some stuff may even have been filmed, but then edited out. Lastly, there's the cost of producing imagery of all the things you would like to see there.

They don't owe any of us explanations about such things and it really doesn't matter.

RIP IMDb message boards!

[–] Chironomo 7 years ago

Maybe so - maybe they just don't know much about Japan. I notice that they seem to fail to understand that 1 yen is 1 cent and not 1 dollar or 1 mark (without allowing for exchange rates). They talk about 200,000 yen is a lot of money - but that is only 2000 Marks in this fictional alternative universe. Even in the 1960s that is not such a huge amount of money.

[–] InfiniteMonkeysTyping 7 years ago

They talk about 200,000 yen is a lot of money - but that is only 2000 Marks in this fictional alternative universe. Even in the 1960s that is not such a huge amount of money.

How do you know what the rate of currency inflation/deflation is in this alternate reality?

You are comparing the value of 2000 marks in the 1960s in this alternate universe to the value of 2000 marks in our universe in the 1960s, but there is no reason to believe that the currency would have the same value.

[–] Chironomo 7 years ago

Because Japanese currency does not have an equivalent of dollars and cents - it just has cents. So saying 200,000 yen is like saying 200,000 cents.

[–] johnsonium 7 years ago

Boy are you thick.

[–] Chironomo 7 years ago

Haha. I guess comments like that are reason these message boards will soon be shut down. My strong suspicion is that the writers considered the audience 'too thick' to understand that yen is equivalent to cents and not dollars so they just ignored this fact. Either that or they didn't understand it themselves.

[–] liscarkat (16476) 3 years ago

200,000 cents, which is 2,000 dollars. Any currency of any country has an equivalent in dollars.

[–] [email protected] (1615) 4 years ago

The Japanese were and are very intolerant of outsiders, the reason you think they weren't is because the Japanese believed and still believe they came from the south. They saw SE Asia as the land of their ancestors that has been polluted by foreign powers, and the only way to cleanse them is to expel any foreign influence and be as Japanese as possible under Japanese rule.

[–] Ace_Spade (9334) 3 years ago

They definitely do not look out for one another.

[–] [email protected] (1615) 2 years ago

Japanese Empire more open to individualism? Hmmm....