Through the Portal: Stargate, GATE, and Outbreak Company

Hey, peeps! I’m back! The Catnap is over, so now it’s time for some Catnip! Ha ha, just kidding: I don’t live where weed is legalized, so alcohol will have to do. Anyway… I took a 40-day break from social media and it was refreshing. Had a lot of extra time on my hands, and didn’t really have enough anime to fill it. So I turned to a series that I’d heard a lot about but never watched: Stargate SG-1.

Aside: Has it ever occured to anyone else how weird Easter is? I mean, we celebrate someone’s alledged return to life… by looking for colored eggs… that come from a rabbit. Since rabbits don’t really lay eggs, who’s in favor replacing the Easter Bunny with the Easter Platypus? Show of hands, please.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the original Stargate movie back in the day, for one reason above all others: The hero is an academic. And not in an “Indiana Jones” sort of way. No, Daniel is a bona fide nerd, and I can entirely sympathize with his love of ancient languages. And he saves the world and gets the girl, exactly what I was dreaming of back during Latin class.

So it was time to check out the series. And I find it pretty good. Did I mention I’m already on season 7? But this may be no surprise, inasmuch as I also really love the anime GATE, which has a similar premise.

I was already planning to write something upon the two series, when I found that Karandi had already done her take on the same thing back in January. Worth reading, check it out. There’s a lot I could say on both series (and on her post), but I want to take a different approach just here. You see, there’s a third guest we should invite to our little party: the anime Outbreak Company.

Both Stargate SG-1 and GATE concern a soldier and his military group (in the USAF and JSDF respectively) passing through an ancient portal set up by beings who are no longer around. (I have read the GATE manga, which goes into this in a bit more detail.) They are generally viewed as the good guys, bringing welcome assistance to the peoples they encounter in each episode while combatting some more powerful foe. (In GATE the bad guys are the underdog, while SG-1 has the good guys in that role.) While I enjoy both, there’s a legitimate argument to be made that both are promoting colonial/imperial narratives, justifying Western empire-building (and yes, “Western” here includes Japan). SG-1 is more nuanced, while GATE unfortunately is not.

Outbreak Company, on the other hand, places a highschool otaku (not a soldier) at the head of an offworld sort of consulate, accessed through a portal like in the other series. The conflict is not a military one, but in some ways is all the more menacing for that. For what seems like comic wish fulfillment at first is revealed to be (spoiler!) a long-term program of subtly forcing the other world’s empire into a position of cultural and economic dependence upon Japan. In short, Outbreak Company critiques the very pro-imperial narratives that the other two series promote: The foreign empire is absolutely no threat to Japan, and is ruled by a young girl; the otaku kid realizes he’s the unwitting stooge of the nefarious Japanese plot, and his life is threatened to keep him in line; in short, the other world’s people are wholly innocent victims, with no justification of Japan’s “attack”.

In a way, it’s too bad that Outbreak Company is an isekai harem fantasy comedy, because it could be so much more. I’d love to set the post-colonial critique in Outbreak Company alongside the thematic nuance of SG-1 within the political world-building of GATE. Oh well, a guy can dream, right?

Outtakes: Autocorrect wanted to put “40-day” as “40-dong” and “dream, right?” as “creamy singles?” Oy vey…