Fridge / Gate

Fridge Brilliance

• The fact that the vast majority of prisoners claimed by Itami are female aside, a close rewatch of episode 6 shows that they all have unusual features or abilities. In fact, the last one shown "the one with a feather in her hair" is not only a Beast Man but is the one who was using spirit magic during the bandit attack back in episodes 4 and 5. Even without humanitarian motives, Itami's choice of prisoners is well justified, tactically, and strategically.
• Rory serves Emroy/Emloy, the god of death. Yet as she makes clear in episode 11 and its equivalent chapter in the manga, having a meaningful death means living a full and rich life, and so Emroy (and by extension Rory) is also a god of life (or at least living, which is not the same thing) by proxy. Rory considering choosing to become a goddess of love upon her ascension to goddesshood is a logical extension of this since being born into the world out of love and into a loving family greatly improves one's chances of living such a life and as such having such a death.
  • The light novel specifies that while Rory has no problems with banditry per se, she, and her patron god, Emroy, have serious problems with people who do not live and are unwilling to die, based on the tenets of their own moral compass. Bandits, by and large, are both hypocrites and cowards. She also shows respect to Japanese civilians killed in the Ginza incident because, traditionally, all souls of those killed in combat or violence/crime belong to Emroy, and she was showing respect for their "sacrifice."
  • In and around the Mediterranean sea, many ancient love goddesses had vast portfolios that include war or other devastating events: Inanna is the goddess of love, fertility, and war and later increased her portfolio by outright conquering the domains of other gods; Venus is the Roman goddess of love, purification, fertility, good fortune, and victory in battle; Hathor is always considered the Egyptian goddess of love and the sky and one of the personifications of the Eye of Ra, and thus Ra's wrath incarnate, that in some versions of the myth of the Destruction of Mankind nearly wiped out humanity in a single day; and even Aphrodite, the "softest" of said divinities, started her career out moonlighting as a War God, and is not only feared by other gods, but two of her children are also the personifications of fear and terror. Rory is already associated with the war god of a culture with strong Roman undertones, becoming a love goddess is a logical extension.
• Explicitly mentioned in the work itself but easily overlooked afterward: The JSDF expeditionary force has primarily been issued weapons and equipment that are already being phased out of service in Japan, some dating back to the mid-Cold War. This was done deliberately, as such equipment can be abandoned in the advent of a retreat, are already 'paid for' and cost Japan less to support, and especially in the case of aircraft, don't require sophisticated infrastructure like GPS satellites that don't exist on the other side of the gate.
• As mentioned in his entry under the trope Overranked Soldier, Sugawara is way too young to have achieved a rank commensurate with his role as a national envoy in Japan's seniority-based system. However, he is being assigned to a foreign power in another world where assassination is certainly not out of the question. In other words, he's effectively expendable; none of the more senior members are likely willing to risk their hides in an assignment that might literally get them stabbed in the back by a dagger.
• Pina and Bozes calling yaoi doujinshi fine art is meant as a joke, but historically it isn't too far off considering the Greco-Roman influences on their society. This could also explain why the empire is tolerant of same-sex relations within the military aside from the obvious consequences of heterosexual relationships.
• The Oprichnina Secret Police showed in episodes 19 and 20 has raised some eyebrows, is based on a 16th-century Russian organization in a country based on 9th-century Franco-roman civilization. Still, there is wiggle room in the original work to allow for this. In chapter 39 of the manga, Emperor Malt shows access to knowledge he should not have when negotiating with Sugawara, like being very knowledgeable about Japan's history, up to and including the removal of Japan's emperor by its citizenry. The novels specify that one or more of the books Piñ a brought back from Ginza and had translated covers this aspect of Russian history, and Zorzal not only thought it sounded like a good idea, he decided to implement it as the very first act of his regency to "root out cowardly traitors" to cement his Pro-war position.
• Crossing into Author Tract, why are the Russians depicted more sympathetically than the Americans or the Chinese? Because the current Russian government has a pronounced Right-Wing bent and uses its military power in foreign relations. This is a strong contrast to Communist China, while America defeated Japan and still has a dominant role in the bilateral relationship. Given how right-wing the author is, it would not be out of reach that he actually respects Putin.
  • To expand this logic a bit, Uyoku Dantai, the Japanese Far-Right movement, nowadays is largely composed of two major branches, both of them concentrated on China as their main target, but differing in and largely defined by their opinion of the US and the Mutual Defense Treaty. One, the so-called Old Uyoku, somewhat entrenched in the establishment, still believes in the alliance and strives to maintain it as strong as possible. The other, New Uyoku, is composed of the younger, more fiercely patriotic members, somewhat resembling the old nationalistic groups of the prewar Taisho and Showa eras, who see the outcome of the Pacific War as a national shame, and is decidedly anti-US. Ditching the alliance, however, leaves Japan open and threatened by their major rival, China, and thus New Uyoku is gradually warming up to Russia as another geostrategic counterweight to Chinese influence in the Far East.
• There's a very good reason for Zorzal (and Molto) to want to conquer the JSDF and Japan. If taking captives and enslaving people of a foreign nation, with which the Empire is not at war, is a crime by Imperial standards, then taking Noriko and the other Ginza captives, enslaving, abusing, raping, and killing them makes him a lowly criminal, no better than a bandit, and bandits tend to face the death penalty. Of course, if Japan is conquered, there's nobody left to complain, and Zorzal can go back to doing whatever he wants.
• Why does Itami retain Rory's favor throughout the whole story? Simple; Emloy and, by extension Rory, respect those who remain true to their principles even (especially) in the face of death. Itami has never done anything but living by his principles, going so far as to admit freely that he works to support his hobbies when such a view would be massively unpopular in Japanese society at large let alone the JSDF.
• In combat between the Order of the Rose Knights and the soldiers of the Empire and Oprichnina, the Order manages to hold its position (on open terrain surrounded by forest with a large building to protect) despite being horribly outnumbered and previously being considered a decorative unit by the Empire at large. Why? Many of the best soldiers of the Empire were slaughtered during the Ginza incident, so the Imperial troops and secret police are both largely composed of recently trained and inexperienced troops. Since the Order was not part of that operation and only a small portion of its forces were at Italica, it is still intact, organized, and well trained. The Order is primarily composed of women who have trained since prepubescence with Pina co Lada and experienced veterans who joined to train them and as a sinecure reward for their service (good pay, no combat expected). In both training and experience, they have the upper hand, and with Pina co Lada's clear orders and subsequent arrest, clarity of purpose bolsters them.
• In the manga, after the Ginza Incident, we don't see many orcs, trolls, or goblins. The reason is that those races don't reside near Alnus or the southern Imperial area.
• Zorzal's belief that he can fight Japan is considered by many a sign of his idiocy, but to be fair, the only weapons he actually sees initially are pistols and rifles, which he might simply consider analogous to archery. Unlike Pina and Bozes, he didn't see the tanks, nor did he witness the mortar demonstration with the other nobles. Even with the destruction of the Senate building, he only sees the aftermath, thus may not understand how easily the end result was to achieve. It isn't until a sniper bullet had a near miss, and only because it was ordered to be so, that he begins to realize how dangerous Japan can be to him.

Fridge Horror

• Combined with Fridge Brilliance. Remember which deity judges the souls of those that died in battle? Well, consider what happens to Zorzal and Tyuule, Well, the "charming" prince is probably going to be paying his karmic debt, with interest, for eternity, and it's huge.
• In episode 6, Youji picks all female prisoners to take back with them. Though he's called out on this immediately by his female subordinates, he claims it's just a coincidence. However, had they been left behind in Italica, they likely would have been subjected repeatedly to rape by the male citizens as payback for the bandit army attack that killed a lot of their people.
  • In the anime, Kurabashi explicitly says that the female prisoners can't be left behind.
    "I understand that we can't just leave the women here."
  • In the manga Kurokawa sees through his claim, saying that Itami is concerned for their well-being. Itami also selects one guy at the end in the manga as well.
• Earthquakes translate through the Gate, even with the doors shut. What else can translate through? Or worse, the Gate's very existence is causing earthquakes to occur in places they never have before, such as the capitol. What does that mean if the gate stays open too long?
• The light novel expands and elaborates on Itami's "slacker and" premise. Although Itami admits that he was just "bullshitting them," his superiors took his premise seriously because his stance had merit. There was a high rate of suicides among Itami's fellow recruits because they were trying too hard! Here's why he passed Ranger training and went into special forces while the guy who worked harder, and was more competent washed out, as a result of an injury.
• Imagine if Zorzal wasn't a completely charmless, brainless, self-serving ass. Lelei has shown just how quickly a keen mage can analyze, adapt and replicate modern weapons with magic, or at least their destructive power, if not outright surpass them. Had Zorzal been a bit more patient, reasonable, and deserving of loyalty, the empire could have completely negated Japan's tactical advantage in a matter of months, tops by hiring a mage corps. Now can anyone imagine the horror of a culture that sees war as little more than a license to Rape, Pillage, and Burn, and sells prisoners of war into slavery, especially sex-slavery equipped with modern weapons? With official government backing and territory? Without the technological gap, the JSDF would have been completely outnumbered and outmatched, and it would then take outside intervention by the UN and a combined force of many superpowers to ensure victory.
  • Not likely. Firstly, even if Zorzal had started research, modern weapons take an incredible amount of training to wield safely. The moment Japan realized what they were doing, they would have immediately jumped in and steamrolled them before they could train their soldiers properly. Using rifles and grenades without knowledge would be just as likely to hurt you as it would the enemy, and Japan could always enlist major powers to nuke the Empire if they posed too big of a threat here. Secondly, this tactic cuts both ways; with Lelei and Tuka on Japan's side, they would have cooperated with expert scientists and traded knowledge with them. Even if Zorzal can advance as fast as you describe, Earth with our centuries of experience in the scientific method would always be faster. Attempts to "close" the power gap still wouldn't have closed the knowledge gap, and the UN would have armed Earth with both sci-fi tech and magic in the time Zorzal would need to even get to our present level. All in all, no matter how smart Zorzal had been, Earth almost certainly would always keep itself one step ahead on the technology tree.
    • Even ignoring that, and assuming that modern weapons require less extensive training to become proficient then swords, war is somewhat a numbers game. The population of Tokyo is around 13 million people. In comparison, the population of the empire is likely to be somewhere between 10 and 50 million. This comes from the 100,000 soldiers representing almost their whole trained army. Counties in our world have .02% to ~1% of their population in the military. At 1% the empire's population is 10 million, and at .2% it's 50 million. (And they probably are at 1% or higher given their culture.) They just can't play the numbers game against Japan when their entire population is probably less than just one of Japan's cities.
• There are some mages in the Special Region that know how to alter the composition of fluids. What if they managed to, for example, solidify the diesel and gasoline used to fuel the JSDF's ground vehicles, rendering the fuel unusable and the vehicles immobile. What if they could, somehow, solidify the jet fuel in their aircraft, or worse, solidify the hydraulic fluid that is required to operate the control surfaces on said aircraft? The result of all this would mean that the JSDF would have no airpower whatsoever.
  • Consider that the people who would give the Empire a trump card against the JSDF are largely persecuted by said Empire itself. Most spirit magic users that we have seen are non-humans like Myute (harpy), Tuka (elf), and Yao (dark elf). All Zorzal would have to do to get them on their side is to give them status in the Empire. It would not work on everyone but there would be enough takers to form the core of his mage corps. The Lindon school of magic has been superseded by cannons as a battlefield force and Leilei's innovations could see them become a force to be reckoned with once again. Basically, Zorzal can entice two currently disenfranchised groups to even the odds but he would never even countenance extending his hand to either one of them.
  • I don't see this possibility as that threatening. Firstly, with Lelei and Tuka on Japan's side, they could always either place protection charms on the aircraft, or heck, even change them to run on magic alone. Second, disabling the airpower would hardly hinder everything else the JSDF has.
• The second season-ending is a minor Fridge Horror, and maybe even a slightly comedic one. But the idea of Rory going through basic training is terrifying. Imagine what she would be like if she actually worked out, knew modern, military martial arts on top of her natural experience, was trained in modern weapons, and knew modern tactics and strategy.
  • Rory has super strength, considering how easily she twirls around her car-sized halberd. She could probably carry and fire an M60 or Minigun with ease.
  • The Manga reveals that Rory has ranked among the JSDF. Myuute, as Military Police, is her direct subordinate and was trained by Rory.
  • Think Rory working out is scary? Try Lelei. Her magic abilities depend on her stamina. As of the Flame Dragon arc, she can match the firepower of an entire armored battalion. Imagine just how scary she would be if she could last longer, and understood modern military tactics, strategies, and formations.
  • Tuka, an Elven archer who can control wind through magic would make a fearsome scout-sniper, and there's the fact that she can call down lightning. The implications of that boggle the mind.
  • Episode 24 shows that both Lelei and Tuka can easily each put an army to sleep with magic. Consider the implications of that.
• The gods of the Special Region. None of them seem to care about the reason the Gate was really opened. Any efforts to try and advance the understanding of magic or study certain parts of the Special Region scientifically are treated as serious affronts. They have a vested interest in keeping the status quo in check, so what happens when the JSDF finally oversteps a boundary they might not even know about?
  • On the other side, what happens if the gods piss off the JSDF? We know Japan is not stupid nor are they willing to take threats just as they are. If the JSDF manages to kill a god, what will the implications be?

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