GATE is fundamentally a show that wants to be treated seriously but catastrophically fails at even an inkling of that. While some people can rightly find this show offensively bad, reeking of militarist and ultra-nationalist ideas, that may ironically be giving GATE too much credit. To put forward and articulate those points would require it to be an intelligent, coherent piece of propaganda or apologia. Instead, it could be argued that this show bungles its way into such unsavoury territory through its own sheer stupidity at attempting to mix its military fetishism while pandering to its audience; either not knowing or not bothering to consider the full implications of its ideas and narrative that it sloppily puts together.

None of this is said lightly in a cheap attempt to be scathing, GATE really does beg many of these questions. However, even attempting to discern what this show is going for is difficult. It clearly puts on a serious veneer, discussing the political ramifications of a gate to another world opening. There is talk about the extraction of resources from this world, the resettlement of population to this world, the subjugation or vassalization of the local polities, and even ideas of extermination are hinted at. It is hard to have characters discuss these points, even if they are later ignored or dropped, and then expect the audience to go back to treating the show like it is meant to be a feel-good fantasy where one turns their brain off to enjoy the spectacle. What makes this show controversial and even offensive is not the fact that these ideas are being discussed. Or even necessarily what side it decides to so obviously take. It is that it is handled so incredibly poorly with such blatant attempts at sophistry.

Before getting into its asinine handling of many of its ideas, the show first stumbles in its tone. The fact that it brings up complex political topics and even attempts to address them is sufficient to conclude that it wants to be treated seriously, at least in this regard. Not only that, but the points raised are not simply vague or generic political babbling that is meant to set the atmosphere or give the appearance of stakes. The ultimate politics of GATE has a best that level of substance, but more concerning than that is how specifically its politics and questions revolve around certain issues, all of which indicate a great deal of intentionality in trying to further some idea or message. On the other hand, it fills itself with not just fan service, but inane and obstructive instances of it. Not only is this a substanceless waste of time that is merely meant to titillate the viewer, but it reaches a point where it gives the impression it wants to be a fun romp exploring this zany world. This tonal conflict is something that far better shows find hard to balance. GATE abjectly fails, making the viewer question if it wants you to think hard about the world it is creating or just give it a hand wave in the name of fun. At best, it undermines any kind of serious point it can make with how immature it appears, and at its lowest points, it appears almost flippant to the seriousness of these questions. It is almost as if the show is attempting to present the viewers with an idea and then distract them so they do not consider things more thoroughly and subconsciously accept it. This facetious tone, mixed with how it covers its themes, is what drives this show's unsavoury and distasteful image.

This inane fantasy haram-lite fan service is in constant sharp contrast to its gratuitous ultra-militarist scenes. Even in its opening scenes, hordes of laughably brain dead fantasy enemies are mowed down by the might of modern military machinery. While much can be said about how this fails to set up any kind of compelling antagonist, interesting imbalance of power, plot, or even commentary, the worst of these pandering efforts is how lacking they are to an actual military enthusiast. Outside of the mind-numbing spectacle, there is nothing else that can be appreciated since there is little consideration of how two asymmetrical forces would clash in a compelling and convincing way, something that would greatly intrigue a knowledgeable viewer and somewhat justify this farce of a premise. GATE blatantly relies on nostalgia for older pieces of Japanese military hardware that it becomes unbearably shameless and presents only the filmiest of justifications as to why the JSDF would be deploying third-rate equipment to such a critical operation. All this serves only to undermine the series as shallow military fetishism instead of anything to actually do with the organization or people of the armed forces.

Where the show truly reveals its vapidness is in its seventh episode. GATE's Ride of the Valkyrie scene can hardly be considered a spoiler anymore and was barely one when the show aired with how blatantly and shamelessly it mimics the entire sequences from Apocalypse Now. The show goes beyond paying homage and turns it to a close to full-scale replication, copying even scenes that make no sense in this context, like one of the helicopter airmen sitting on his helmet to protect himself from groundfire when there are only bows and arrows being shot at them. That in itself is not grounds to write it off just yet, plenty of shows have sequences that are just for spectacle. What makes it particularly gratuitous is how it replicates the Ride of the Valkyrie without really thinking about what it is. In Apocalypse Now, Colonel Kilgore is razing a Vietnamese village to the ground. Even if the scene is impressive and blood-pumping, ultimately, the narrative paints it as quite literally the insane excesses of war. There is nothing wrong with being impressed to the point of wanting to include an air assault scene in a military show. The stupidity of this show is exposed when the helicopter assault is not just carried out as a spectacle but included in GATE's plot without realizing its very clear implications. To have the citizens of the town cheer and wave off the JSDF helicopters for saving them is more than just ironic. It can only be interpreted as sheer stupidity, not understanding the implications of what they are referencing, or as deliberate, meant to be intentionally ultra-militarist in nature with rather disgusting implications. The worst part is that other shows like Jarhead have referenced this very scene with much more nuance, pointing out the contradiction between Apocalypse Now being an ostensibly anti-war film yet having combat sequences shot to be entertaining that unwittingly glamorising the war. All this complexity is absolutely lost on GATE despite it deliberately taking on this baggage and begging such questions.

To give GATE the final benefit of the doubt, there is nothing necessarily wrong with taking a pro-military stance. The military, like all government organisations, is complex with its functions, problems and virtues. The problem is that for a show that wants to be taken seriously and ostensibly sway the opinions of its audience, it does a pathetic job of examining these conflicts. At best, it makes it difficult to take any positive conclusions they make about the role of the military seriously with how blatant it is in its framing and the softball questions it poses. At worst, it makes their portrayal of the disgustingly jingoistic with it brushing aside any and all difficult questions. The show strawmans the anti-military positions it presents as trying to denigrate soldiers and the JSDF instead of this being civil society or even the Diet's checks and balances on the military fulfilling their function. All this constantly suggests that the military is not only right but needs greater support, autonomy, or even power. This position is made eye-wateringly dubious given the history of Japan. The poor handling of its question with simplistic, militaristic, nationalistic and even comically childish answers can rightly be said to be the work of an apologist, and a very laughable one at that.

This issue is made incredibly apparent when the show offers up the idea that what separates the JSDF and modern society from the fantasy world is our sensibility and ethics. It shows the JSDF as superior not just technologically but morally with how it talks down the inhabitants of this medieval fantasy world as backwards with their discrimination, ignorance and superstitions. It is this morality that gives them the right to do as they please in that world and is the reason why everything turns out successfully. At best, this is simplistic chronological snobbery, and at its worst, it is a dubious superiority complex disguised by separating the two groups by time instead of some other determinant like culture. GATE then exposes its hypocrisy around this idea with the narrative dismissing elements of our modern ethics as unnecessary and pointless moralizing when it suits the needs of the military while turning around and flaunting it as what makes them superior during others. In particular, the entire scene where a Diet representative questions the actions of the JSDF is so blatant that it is hard to decide if it's a laughable caricature or disgusting anti-democratic jingoism. It is understandable why someone, in particular an elected representative of the people who is supposed to exercise civilian control over the military, would be concerned with over a hundred civilian casualties within the JSDF's area of responsibility. If this were to happen in reality, it would be grounds for a massive inquiry, something the show seems to only dimly appreciate when it brings this up since it attempts to use it as a point of realism or drama. Yet GATE makes it seem like this is just an attempt to drag the military down instead of acknowledging it as an actual concern that they have willingly drawn attention to in the narrative only for them to dismiss it. Worse, it seems to use its fantasy veneer of a dragon attack as something incredulous to frame the entire line of questioning as an unreasonable concern in what amounts to a pathetic piece of sophistry trying to obfuscate that this is an inquiry into what could be military negligence. At the same time, this flies in the face of the lack of questions being asked about the military's massive overmatch in the initial battles that ended in massacres and the morality of such a conflict. In essence, the show picks and chooses when modern ethics, namely the higher value of life compared to the past, is a virtue and when it is excessive. These instances of moral flexibility all conveniently happen to be in the benefit of the military's positions.

GATE not only lacks answers to its ideas that would make it just mediocre, but the answers it gives are outright insulting or dishonest most of the time. Frankly, it is clear from its very pandering attitude that the show has no intention, let alone ability, to properly explore or deliver on the ideas it was bringing up. But even after humouring the show and going along despite its early tonal failure and many instances exposing its cartoonish vision, it gives little to redeem itself with. Even the "world-building" that others seem to praise is mediocre at best. The interstate politics of the real world is a caricatured circus where Japan seemed to be able to dominate everyone else and thwart their "evil" colonialist ambitions. The most idiotic part is that this is presented without a hint of irony or self-awareness. GATE's fantasy world is just that, fantasy. A distorted pastiche of tropes that are themselves a distortion of historic societies. While this makes it no worse than most fantasy worlds out there, pretending like it should deserve praise for any kind of intricate politics or societal structures is ridiculous. Perhaps the most disgusting part of all is the interactions with the fantasy world are also blatantly colonialist in nature, just dressed up enough that people can forget it or give it the most wilted and pathetic of fig leaves for apologists to hide behind.

Despite everything that has been said, there is nothing wrong with enjoying this show by turning your brain off and watching the sheer spectacle, so long as a viewer is aware that nothing about its ideas or plot can be taken with any measure of respectability. Yet, we cannot pretend that it is anything more than that: reasonable-looking military and fantasy action spectacle that is entertaining for the sake of it instead of having anything deeper. The main issue with this show is its pretence of being deeper than it actually is in all the worst ways instead of just being a pulp action-adventure story and unburdening itself from the baggage of its dubious ideas. If it were just a fantasy romp about exploring the world as members of the modern military, it would not deserve nearly as harsh treatment and any unfortunate implications could have been potentially forgiven as unintentional. With how willful, blatant, and even clumsy GATE is at bringing up its ideas and attempting to forward them, it is hard to look past this as anything but unforced and painful errors. Anyone who is railing about this show being taken too seriously or misinterpreted is either being disingenuous, wishes to avoid the uncomfortable reality of what they have derived their entertainment from or, at best, genuinely misses the point and framing somehow. Essentially, if one is uncomfortable about politics being brought into shows; they should watch shows that don't involve such weighty politics instead of failing to question ones that bring it up so blatantly and include it in their premise by necessity.

In the end, this show could very well deserve a 1 out of 10 for how botched its promise is, bordering on being an apologist piece of propaganda half the time. I choose to give it the last pathetic benefit of the doubt GATE can have. Ironically what saves the show is its own inane fan service that paints the picture of a show too stupid to have intentionally be forwarding its distasteful ideas. The show puts forward a clumsy and thoughtless combination of military fetishism and anime audience pandering that has been promoting ideas that it has no deeper understanding of. Even then GATE is nothing more than a 2 out of 10, and that is being extraordinarily generous. If you really shut down your brain and don't think about anything, maybe it can then be a four. But at that point, why not watch something else that is either more intelligent or actually entertaining without these strings attached?