The JSSDF

[Kikuchiyo]

I think this group is a part of the series terribly underdeveloped. I think the JSSDF raid on NERV in EoE is the coolest part of the series, especially the English dub (The "Hit 'em again." line gets me every time.) I would have loved to have seen more of them, in fact throughout the series and I would have loved to have seen more episodes about the military or focusing on the politics and state of the world post second impact. Episode 21 does this to an extent and it is by far my favourite episode.

And another point I would like to touch on, were the JSSDF really that that harsh in their conduct in EoE? They killed unarmed and injured people with an array of weapons (including and not limited to flamethrowers) But I think that they were doing all this with good intentions, NERV possessed 3 of the most powerful things mankind had ever conjured, and the only thing (from their perspective) stopping NERV from initiating the extinction of humanity was their success in completing their mission. So they struck quickly and with incredible precision and force. Making sure that there would be no chance of anyone hindering their attempts at capturing the EVAs and stopping NERV. Imagine the pressure on the troops and their commanding officers. Really interesting stuff.

Although being the puppets of SEELE to an extent, were they not heroes to an extent?

God, I am thinking too far into this.

[Mr. Tines]

The effects of the Aum cult terrorist attacks on the Japanese zeitgeist were profound-- it even came up as a significant element in Ikuhara's recent Penguindrum. EoE was much closer to the time; the idea of NERV being presented as the new Aum with the tools to really make the apocalypse happen makes the rest understandable.

[gatotsu911]

I disapprove of AWL's voice direction decision to make the JSSDF sound like baby-eating monsters rather than cold, affectless professionals, which is more what Anno was going for and makes the sequence a lot more disturbing. One of the bigger weaknesses of the EoE dub if you ask me.

[Kikuchiyo]

I disapprove of AWL's voice direction decision to make the JSSDF sound like baby-eating monsters rather than cold, affectless professionals, which is more what Anno was going for and makes the sequence a lot more disturbing. One of the bigger weaknesses of the EoE dub if you ask me.

Oh, I agree completely. Especially after reading the manga. Which I have just done after making this thread. The JSSDF soldiers in the manga have a sadness about them to an extent in the manga, they don't go around and cut down people with a grin on their face. And even the guy who is about to shoot Shinji, he says "Sorry about this, boy." and he has a look of hesitance on his face.

The English Dub, I enjoy, but it really is a guilty pleasure, from how OTT they are presented.

[ath]

I would have loved to have seen more of them, in fact throughout the series and I would have loved to have seen more episodes about the military or focusing on the politics and state of the world post second impact.

The obligatory picture from the Die Sterne artbook:

The effects of the Aum cult terrorist attacks on the Japanese zeitgeist were profound-- it even came up as a significant element in Ikuhara's recent Penguindrum. EoE was much closer to the time; the idea of NERV being presented as the new Aum with the tools to really make the apocalypse happen makes the rest understandable.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but I've read more than once that Shoko Asahara himself predicted the end of the world (or better, the end end of the world cycle) would occur in 1997...

[monitoradiation]

And another point I would like to touch on, were the JSSDF really that that harsh in their conduct in EoE? They killed unarmed and injured people with an array of weapons (including and not limited to flamethrowers) But I think that they were doing all this with good intentions, NERV possessed 3 of the most powerful things mankind had ever conjured, and the only thing (from their perspective) stopping NERV from initiating the extinction of humanity was their success in completing their mission.

What you're doing here is to argue that the JSSDF isn't that bad is from a motive consequentialist standpoint where the motives matter in conjunction with the consequences. There are two problems here.

1. There is no way of knowing whether or not killing all of the unarmed civilians will ACTUALLY bring about the end of NERV's ambitions. I mean, they basically killed everyone except for two teenagers, and they still failed. If they had left NERV and SEELE to their own devices, the outcome would have likely been the same (Not sure if Rei would've still went to Shinji if he didn't see Eva-02 gutted, but that's the point - there's no way to know)
2. They do NOT know anything about the HIP and hence cannot make a judgement on the outcome of it and whether or not it is an improvement over the current state of human evolution.

This is the issue of the real observer where the acting agents do not necessarily know everything about their situation and hence cannot argue that they made the moral choice, that they "decisively" killed everyone in NERV means that they are no longer able to claim that they were trying to resolve the issue of the real observer by learning more about what it would take to obtain their ideal goal of saving humanity.

In addition, there likely was a way to achieve the same thing they ended up achieving without KILLING unarmed NERV workers. Stun grenades, tasers, tranqs. Anything with very good stopping power/incapacitative power could've brought about the same results as they actually achieved. So in my opinion, no, what they did was still not justified.

[ElMariachi]

The obligatory picture from the Die Sterne artbook:

I'm the only one who noticed the armband in the guy on the right? Also his beret and the insignia on it looks a lot like Sakura's in 3.0.
Maybe the JSSDF design was the inspiration for part of the WILLE uniform?(after all, the four dudes pointing rifles at Shinji at the beginning of the movie are in JSSDF uniforms)

In addition, there likely was a way to achieve the same thing they ended up achieving without KILLING unarmed NERV workers. Stun grenades, tasers, tranqs. Anything with very good stopping power/incapacitative power could've brought about the same results as they actually achieved. So in my opinion, no, what they did was still not justified.

The problem is that non-lethal means take time to deploy : after incapacitating the NERV staff, they would had to restrain them, put them in a room and leave soldiers to keep an eye on them... all of this take time, and the Japanese government was told by SEELE that Gendo was trying to trigger Third Impact RIGHT NOW (which is the truth!), and they also told them that most of the NERV staff was in it too.
So the government, as well as the JSSDF, took the option of "kill them all, God will know His own". That's the tragedy of the situation : Gendo and SEELE, in their machinations, put two groups that genuinely wanted to prevent the end of the world against each other so they could effectively launch the end of the world.

[monitoradiation]

The problem is that non-lethal means take time to deploy : after incapacitating the NERV staff, they would had to restrain them, put them in a room and leave soldiers to keep an eye on them... all of this take time, and the Japanese government was told by SEELE that Gendo was trying to trigger Third Impact RIGHT NOW (which is the truth!), and they also told them that most of the NERV staff was in it too.

I'm ONLY arguing against the stance that the OP took, ie against the motive consequentialist viewpoint, which seems to be what he was arguing for (ex. good intentions to reach an idealized consequence). I also outlined what I think are problems. The timing, albeit important, doesn't diminish the fact that the JSSDF did not need to kill everyone to stop HIP. Their orders were to kill the pilots and/or destroy the Evas or otherwise stop the Evas from activating. To do that, you do NOT need to kill everyone, or even ANYONE. Especially not the girl in the hallway trying desperately to drag a wounded comrade to safety. That was NOT warranted.

If you have time to bring FLAMETHROWERS, you have time to bring tranqs. Who uses flamethrowers? Is that even effective?

Let's make this slightly easier and remove the innocent people from the equation, and there's only Gendo in Nerv. I present to you a few scenarios in which we assume that the soldier has the good intention of saving humanity. I will only involve two factors at play - Time, and Chance of Gendo's action to harm humanity. I won't add in things like whether or not Gendo's action might actually be of benefit rather than harm.

Scenario 1: Soldier sees Gendo ready to press a button that he 100% knows will kill all of humanity. Soldier shoots Gendo with the intent to kill.
Justified - He's got all of the information he needs to make this call.

Scenario 2: Soldier sees Gendo ready to press a button that has XX% chance to kill all of humanity. Soldier shoots Gendo with the intent to kill.
Maybe Justified - The risk may be big enough. We can argue over at which probability he can substantiate making the judgement call.

Scenario 3: Soldier sees Gendo walking down a hallway towards a button that he 100% knows will kill all of humanity. Soldier shoots Gendo with the intention to kill.
Maybe Justified - He had the option of incapacitating him, but in case Gendo gets up and runs to press the button, we can argue about whether or not it was a good call to shoot to kill.

Scenario 4: Soldier sees Gendo walking down a hallway towards a button that has an XX% chance to kill all of humanity. Soldier shoots Gendo with the intention to kill.
Not Justified - He had the option of incapacitating him, since he's got time to react and he's not sure of the exact consequences of pressing the button.

Now, obviously in EoE, JSSDF thinks they're in scenario 1. I would argue that the JSSDF's situation is Scenario 3 or 4 (depending on how imminent you think the danger was), where they don't know the outcome of the HIP or even if they can stop it, and hence are not justified in shooting to kill from a motive consequentialist standpoint since they have the option of incapacitate rather than kill.

[Dream]

Personally, i always interpreted the indiscrimante murder of Nerv personnel as a "revenge" or "punishment" towards Nervs (not necessarily from the JSSDF's part), since they're then seen as an Aum-like cult trying to bring forth the apocalypse.

It's not like major parties or goverments ever really trusted or liked Nerv, after all.

[Shinoyami65]

^True. If the soldiers were told that all the members of Nerv were freaky cultists and had to be killed or they would destroy the world, that might explain their brutality. The guy who tries to kill Shinji actually takes a moment to apologise to him (which is when Misato makes her grand entrance).

Plus the JSSDF may be sore all of their comrades and expensive gear that got trashed during the Angel battles, which were under Nerv's jurisdiction.

[monitoradiation]

Personally, i always interpreted the indiscrimante murder of Nerv personnel as a "revenge" or "punishment" towards Nervs (not necessarily from the JSSDF's part), since they're then seen as an Aum-like cult trying to bring forth the apocalypse.

It's not like major parties or goverments ever really trusted or liked Nerv, after all.

True that. And of course that doesn't make it alright to indiscriminately kill people just because you can't trust them and would provide peace of mind knowing that they're dead.

[Lavinius]

I don't think of them as anything but mercenaries. Historically even 'our' soldiers have committed countless atrocities. It's not the sort of thing that makes sense to me, but it's the truth.

[UrsusArctos]

The guy who tries to kill Shinji actually takes a moment to apologise to him

That was no apology. That was pure sadism.

[Gorbatschow]

Although I'm probably gonna piss some people off by not praising soldiers for being "heroes":

They're soldiers, soldiers or mercenaries aren't payed to think about what they do. They get their orders (in this case most likely "These are the bad guys, kill'em all") and they carry them out. I don't think many Japanese or German soldiers in WW2 knew what they actually were fighting for. (In many cases not even the "neighbors" of concentration camps knew what was going on. (My grandmother for example)

So I don't believe that they were actually "bad". According to the information they possessed they were doing the right thing. (Killing the people who worked on producing another impact and killing ten-thousand of peoples like back in 2000.) Still killing children is kind of an - thing to do even under these circumstances. Although I don't think he wasn't honest with his apology.

[UrsusArctos]

That's true enough. Soldiers are meant to do their job, follow orders and ask no questions. However, precedents exist for war crimes. As one Israeli judge put it, a soldier has a duty to avoid an openly, blatantly illegal order. Although there's no mention of what rationale was given for the JSSDF to kill the teenage pilots, or if it was in some way justified by saying "If these kids are alive, Nerv will let loose the apocalypse." Still, the individual acts of sadism (The flamethrower, the fake apology) seem a bit tacky, as though they were trying hard to make the JSSDF evil and Nerv good for the audience's sake.

[Kikuchiyo]

That was no apology. That was pure sadism.

I honestly think there was an apology here. At least in the manga, I think they are presented in a far less evil manner.



Even this scene, the soldier has not a look of sadist joy in distributing death but that of something else, an expression similar to the soldier in the panels I posted above. A look as if self-aware in his actions, but believe them to be a necessary evil.

[Gorbatschow]

I honestly think there was an apology here. At least in the manga, I think they are presented in a far less evil manner.



Even this scene, the soldier has not a look of sadist joy in distributing death but that of something else, an expression similar to the soldier in the panels I posted above. A look as if self-aware in his actions, but believe them to be a necessary evil.

Well it's the manga. If we throw manga and anime together we have e.g. a bipolar Shinji, caused by the major differences in story and characters.

Anyways, If we judge based the dubs I'd say:

English: sadist, he fucking laughed. Also: "Nothing personal" sounds more like him trying to be an action hero.
German: clinical, he speaks almost like a robot. "Nimms mir nicht übel, Kleiner" can be translated into a slightly more "caring" version of "Sorry kid, Nothing personal"
Japanese: I don't know Japanese well enough to actually judge but I'd say: unwilling

[monitoradiation]

Although I'm probably gonna piss some people off by not praising soldiers for being "heroes"

Being that NGE is centered around Nerv being kind of the protagonist organization, I would think that the majority consensus of people who watched EoE fall under three main camps of thinking...

1. JSSDF were puppets being manipulated by Seele into committing atrocities,
2. JSSDF committed atrocities but from their point of view, they were performing necessary evils
3. JSSDF are war criminals

I doubt there're many that'll find it disagreeable if you don't hold them in high moral standing.

They're soldiers, soldiers or mercenaries aren't payed to think about what they do. They get their orders (in this case most likely "These are the bad guys, kill'em all") and they carry them out.

There's a distinction between soldiers and mercs, though.

Soldiers either sign up or are mandatorily drafted to perform functions that, in the end, must abide by their nation's version of the constitution and/or international treaties. Because they are enlisted on a broad-strokes basis, there is recourse for conscientious objectors.

Mercs, on the otherhand, are paid soldiers that perform functions specific to the contract agreements. They're hired guns for jobs and are less constrained by morality than are soldiers, especially a DEFENSE force like the JSSDF.

So I don't believe that they were actually "bad". According to the information they possessed they were doing the right thing. (Killing the people who worked on producing another impact and killing ten-thousand of peoples like back in 2000.) Still killing children is kind of an - thing to do even under these circumstances. Although I don't think he wasn't honest with his apology.

The commanding officer knew that the mission is to stop Eva-01 from starting an Impact and can likely use that to make a case for the necessary evil. We know this because once he saw the Seph tree he said "so we failed" (or something like that) so he obviously knew what "mission failure", from his perspective, would look like.

Most of the JSSDF on the other hand likely would just invoke the Nuremberg defense if they would've been put on trial. They wouldn't have been given information beyond "stop the Eva Units" and "stop everyone in Nerv".

I still stand by my comment that shooting unarmed civilians who're trying to help wounded comrades in hallways is unconscionable. There's just no excuse for it.

Even this scene, the soldier has not a look of sadist joy in distributing death but that of something else, an expression similar to the soldier in the panels I posted above. A look as if self-aware in his actions, but believe them to be a necessary evil.

On the LAST page of chapter 11 (if you have the manga - I'm looking at the 4th omnibus it's Volume 4 part 2) there's a panel where the soldier has been given instruction that "termination of noncombatant personnel has been authorized." so these soldiers will be able to use the Nuremberg Defense, but to what extent can they claim that knowing that most of Nervs personnel are noncombatants and don't actually pose a threat, is anyone's guess.

A few pages before the quoted panel (its page 368) it was shown that JSSDF gunned down OBVIOUSLY wounded and unarmed noncombatants. Simply abhorrent behaviour even if it's authorized.

[Gorbatschow]

Being that NGE is centered around Nerv being kind of the protagonist organization, I would think that the majority consensus of people who watched EoE fall under three main camps of thinking...

I was talking about soldiers in general (In my implementation and my statement) and many people seem to be really sensitive if someone doesn't [s]kiss the asses[/s] appreciate [s]of[/s] the American [s]hit mans[/s] soldiers.

I still stand by my comment that shooting unarmed civilians who're trying to help wounded comrades in hallways is unconscionable. There's just no excuse for it.

I agree, but with the submission, that we don't know what they were told. There are scenarios in which killing unarmed individuals would be "necessary" or "understandable". (I hate to use stereotypes but: I'd kill a nazi scientist who's working in an euthanasia camp, even if he's unarmed)

[monitoradiation]

I agree with the submission, that we don't know what they were told. There are cenarios in which killing unarmed individuals would be "neccesairy". (I hate to use stereotypes but: I'd kill a nazi scientist who's working in an euthanasia camp, even if he's unarmed)

That's where we likely part ways.

My definition of "unarmed" is that they pose no immediate danger to the life and wellbeing to conscious creatures. This includes things like having their hand on the big red button. If someone has their finger on the proverbial button, then they are NOT unarmed.

And I don't see any justification for killing anyone that is unarmed. I might capture them for trials for things that they did, but I will not kill them.