What if: Gate: Thus the JSDF fought got a US adaptation

[Excalibur]

I'm writing this because I'm bored at the office.

I know a lot of us aren't that active on here, but I hope some of us jump on into this idea that's been interesting me since I had discovered this series.

For those that don't know, we have this page http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Gate:_Thus...F_Fought_There

The summary explains most of it, though the trope website actually points out a lot of plot holes from why no US involvement due to the writer of the book being a bit of a far right-wing activist that wished for the US to leave Japan, but I'm not here to discuss that.


I want to discuss on what would a "perfect" adaptation of this concept into America would be like. We can throw down which director, actors, etc as we talk about it, but I think this concept is ok enough to be changed over to a completely different country without much changes. Hell, I think we can actually keep the main character a Japanese guy (be in Japanese-American this time) and add more to the cast.

The main part I liked to talk about is what weapons and equipment should be used for our side, and which branch of the US military will take a primary role on the other side of the gate?


Unlike the original book, they decided to use older style weapons and equipment for the first push into the other side of the Gate due to budget reasons. For America, I think with the world's largest military budget, we can afford sending the latest tech.

I'm gonna put it out there that no one jerks off to the US military more than Micheal Bay and after rewatching 13 Hours again, I think he'd be the perfect director with the right connections to this, though I think his movies trying to be more friendly with China would be a problem. In fact, a lot of Hollywood are trying to be China friendly to get all that money. Let's just assume he makes this movie without appeasing China because later in the story we have Russian and Chinese intelligence teams infiltrating and starting a fire fight.

For me, I'd keep Itami as a character, even going far to give him an American nickname of "Tommy" and because I favor the Marines, I want him to be a Marine, specifically in the Marine Raider Regiment since the original character was technically special forces. He's visiting Chicago for comic-con when it happened. The reason why comic-con instead of Anime probably because the genre still isn't as mainstream enough for the American audience to relate to. Also depending on which studio picks this up, there might be copyright characters to work around.

If Micheal Bay does get this role, then we can expect obligatory Salient Arms product placements in the hands of our characters. Though I would want Itami to be armed with something the Marine Raiders would use like the Daniel Defense MK 18s I keep seeing in the promotional videos.

Though, I actually like the director of Kong: Skull Island, who is said to direct the Metal Gear Solid movie and he's reportedly an Anime fan, so he might do this more justice.





So, anybody else got ideas for this crazy concept.

Just imagine US forces going up against Roman style soldiers and just wrecking them.

[Spartan198]

I doubt any of the 10" ARs being used by Raiders are actual Daniel Defense guns. Probably just CQBRs with Block II RIS handguards.

[Mazryonh]

An American adaptation? Like how Edge of Tomorrow was an Americanized version of All You Need is Kill?

The on-screen guns would be relatively easy to procure for a major studio, but who would play Rory Mercury? Given her relationship with the main character, I think it's likely that elements of her story would be toned down to appease the pro-censorship people.

[Excalibur]

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

An American adaptation? Like how Edge of Tomorrow was an Americanized version of All You Need is Kill?

The on-screen guns would be relatively easy to procure for a major studio, but who would play Rory Mercury? Given her relationship with the main character, I think it's likely that elements of her story would be toned down to appease the pro-censorship people.

I would say better than Edge of Tomorrow since that basically changed a lot of the characters from age and placement to adding their own little stupid story and then creating an ending to the war in the movie vs the war continuing in the original story.


Depending on what movie rating this could end up as, specific characters would have to be changed. I'd say get an actress that's young looking, can be charming and not token to the cast. If this was HBO, we could get away with using recent star power of actors. I can imagine Maisie Williams be Rory. She can definitely look young for the part. Though the real life prop of Rory's halberd needs to be smaller to be manageable

We could eliminate a few side characters to condense time and production, but I would rather have all the characters from the original represented.

If this was an HBO series, we could get away with sexual content to an extent and even blood guts and gore without much approval.

I'm really entertaining this idea based on how the anime was really lackluster when it came to portraying the action and violence.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

Depending on what movie rating this could end up as, specific characters would have to be changed. I'd say get an actress that's young looking, can be charming and not token to the cast. If this was HBO, we could get away with using recent star power of actors. I can imagine Maisie Williams be Rory. She can definitely look young for the part. Though the real life prop of Rory's halberd needs to be smaller to be manageable

If this was an HBO series, we could get away with sexual content to an extent and even blood guts and gore without much approval.

I'm really entertaining this idea based on how the anime was really lackluster when it came to portraying the action and violence.

Thinking about this again, I think you missed my point about Rory. She's a bit of a cultural in-joke among the Japanese. Her name "Rory" is an actual name in English but it's also a pun on how looks like a "goth-loli" girl (i.e., a young woman who wears Gothic Lolita fashion and looks younger than 18 years of age) and yet is a demigod who's centuries old and ends up wanting to lose her virginity to Itami. The "moral guardians" in North America wouldn't hear of this, and the casting agency would probably end up casting an actress who is the same age as Itami's actor, losing some of the references behind Rory Mercury's name. That's the current wave of censorship for you.

Of course, if all you want is better action sequences, then that's easily done with the right director and funding, but then you might end up with fans of the original work who complain about the story being changed or condensed in a way they don't appreciate.

[Excalibur]

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

Thinking about this again, I think you missed my point about Rory. She's a bit of a cultural in-joke among the Japanese. Her name "Rory" is an actual name in English but it's also a pun on how looks like a "goth-loli" girl (i.e., a young woman who wears Gothic Lolita fashion and looks younger than 18 years of age) and yet is a demigod who's centuries old and ends up wanting to lose her virginity to Itami. The "moral guardians" in North America wouldn't hear of this, and the casting agency would probably end up casting an actress who is the same age as Itami's actor, losing some of the references behind Rory Mercury's name. That's the current wave of censorship for you.

Of course, if all you want is better action sequences, then that's easily done with the right director and funding, but then you might end up with fans of the original work who complain about the story being changed or condensed in a way they don't appreciate.

I thought so too. Thinking how an Americanized version would take away about of the original point of the story. The actual book was very nationalistic for Japan and even the writer wrote off why America didn't get involved in an actual attack on Japan by a foreign power. The defense treaty would been used regardless and we'd see a combined JSDF and US military presence in the story but there isn't.


I'm sure if this was adapted for America, they'd make it a satire of US military involvement in foreign lands as a negative instead of moral superiority of the Japanese military is portrayed in the Anime and book.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Excalibur

I thought so too. Thinking how an Americanized version would take away about of the original point of the story. The actual book was very nationalistic for Japan and even the writer wrote off why America didn't get involved in an actual attack on Japan by a foreign power. The defense treaty would been used regardless and we'd see a combined JSDF and US military presence in the story but there isn't.

I'm sure if this was adapted for America, they'd make it a satire of US military involvement in foreign lands as a negative instead of moral superiority of the Japanese military is portrayed in the Anime and book.

It's not uncommon for these kinds of stories to ignore or downplay American involvement. If you look at the wiki page for Brotherhood of War, a film based on the Korean War, only the North Korean and South Korean forces get much of a presence in that film despite the UN and ChiCom involvement. I don't know if you can call that "patriotism," but leaving viewers/readers with the impression that "it happened on our soil and we did all the work" isn't hard to find in this kind of story.

There's another reason Rory Mercury is a Japanese in-joke. "Rory" to them is pronounced more or less the same as "Loli," because they don't make much of a distinction between "L" and "R" sounds. So the pun (that Rory is a loli-type character) doesn't work much outside of Japanese.

As for what the "moral guardians" would say about characters like Rory, more especially if she were put into a live-action adaptation, I advise you to check out the passage from this article where a former Vogue Editor-in-Chief received a firestorm of protest about putting a model on the cover of a 2007 Vogue issue, photographed in a treehouse.

If that gets real-life people reaching for their torches and pitchforks, I don't know what Rory Mercury's plot elements, including what she planned to do with Itami, would provoke if they were more well-known.

[Spartan198]

If there were to an American adaption, I'd bet my last dollar that Rory is cut completely out of it.

[Mazryonh]

Originally Posted by Spartan198

If there were to an American adaption, I'd bet my last dollar that Rory is cut completely out of it.

It might get made anyway if someone sees it as a way to stir patriotism, either American or Japanese. The author is a right-winger, and there is still nationalist sentiment in Japan. Is this video from Japan a cheering section for a fictional army (from a live event for Fate/Zero), or actually from a Japanese nationalist rally? If you didn't know what was going on you might not know the difference.

Also, remember how the Battleship movie had a Japanese character working with the American Naval forces? Someone might want to try that again with a live-action adaptation of this light novel too.

Can't disagree with you on Rory's potential for controversy though.

[Excalibur]

Most likely, they will probably combine all the female characters into one generic one to save casting and the low attention span of the general American audience that can't keep track of everyone.