Joshi Kouhei
a review by atomx
a review by atomx
Have you ever questioned if everything you see around you, the things you perceive and the people you talk to are all fake? That none of the things you do have any meaning. Maybe the You that is currently reading this review exists in a separate dimension to the You that is projecting this illusion? What is the meaning of life if everything is predetermined? Does God exist?
Joshi Kouhei takes all these questions and portrays them in the setting of a multidimensional war held by giant schoolgirl robots. This review is focused on the meaning behind the story (Spoilers Ahead) but before I get into it here is a small story summary, since it is not written chronologically and can get a bit confusing (as with any Matsumoto manga).
The story revolves around Lieutenant Takigawa who pilots a schoolgirl robot called “Love-Fox 04” and his enemy Tsukiko/Swamp Venus 01. In their world (Multi-Dimensional Age, 2011) people have migrated to an alternate dimensional space and started an armed rebellion for independence against the original earth. To fight the rebellion the United Army of Earth deployed Assault Girls, massive robots that look like school-girls that are piloted by normal soldiers, who reside in their cockpits (heads)
Chronological Arc Order
Lieutenant Takigawa Backstory Arc
13th Independent Assault Girl Hunting Platoon Arc
Lieutenant Takigawa Arc
100th Assault Girl Cavalry Brigade Arc
Plan To Capture Encampment 666 Arc
Dimensional Floating Battleship Arc
Mercenaries Afternoon Arc
Dispatch Arc
Kiriko Arc
Lieutenant Takigawa Backstory Arc
2005, Multi Dimensional Age Earth
Created under the The International Prophet Management System Organization “The Prophet” is a supercomputer that gathers data from any field imaginable and utilizes it to support humanity.
Takigawa works as a police officer and is married to his wife Yoshiko who suffers from severe depression. The police is investigating a group of terrorists but Takigawa doubts the predictions of the Prophet as he is investigating a women that meets with one of the suspected terrorists (Ivankov Wender)
Yoshiko routinely tries to kill herself with Takigawa’s gun but it does not work as it is designed for only him to use. A fingerprint system made by The Prophet ensures that only he can fire any bullets from it. She is later taken to a mental hospital.
He tails the woman, although his colleagues advise him not to. On a street crossing he comes across two girls called Kiriko and Tsukiko. While breaking into the women's room he discovers that she has not been given a bomb by Ivankov but a Dildo, his suspicions were wrong and the woman discovers him. This leads to the terrorists escaping and him being temporarily discharged from the force.
Takigawa and his wife decide to take a vacation and go to a small seaside town. His wife’s condition worsens and she tries killing herself. Somehow his gun identifies her print as his and she manages to kill herself. Since it is impossible for that to happen, Takigawa is arrested as the killer.
All this causes Takigawa to become the pilot of Love-Fox 01, the first version of what is now Love-Fox 05.
The 13th Independent Assault Girl Hunting Platoon Arc
The 13th Independent Assault Girl Hunting Platoon, also called Hyena Platoon, is a group of Assault Girls that are tasked with eliminating dimensional arms that can no longer be controlled aka any Assault Girl whose mind has been corrupted too far. Mind-Corruption is a phenomenon unique to Assault Girl soldiers, if you stay in the robot too long without getting any maintenance your mind will get corrupted and the boundary between Imagination and Reality gets worn away. One member of Takigawa squad, Yoshioka, has already reached Mind Corruption Level 5 and suffers from derealization, he gets calls from imaginary family members and friends. Takigawa is exempt from this and the whole idea of losing your own Ego is incomprehensible for him.
During a mission Takigawa receives a call from a person called Tsukiko, telling him about their enemy. She calls him Kiriko and he is confused since he thought he wasn’t corrupted this far. They fight their enemy and Takigawa gets discharged from his service as he used permitted weapons.
Lieutenant Takigawa Arc
Due to his dischargement Takigawa is put into a mental hospital. He knows that he will be taken to be used as a testing guinea pig the next day so he decides to spend one last night getting drunk before killing himself. He ends up not killing himself and it turns out that he was not meant for testing anyway. Love Fox gets maintenance and is upgraded (now Love-Fox 05) and for the first time the Prophet is mentioned.
He gets a new enemy called Tsukiko (Holy Name) and his goal is to sneak through the enemies front line and break through the zones they control. The mission was personally assigned to him by the Prophet.
The 100th Assault Girl Cavalry Brigade Arc
During their mission they encounter a group of assault girls that briefly help them fight against the DLF (the weapons of the alternate dimension). They get further into the enemy territory but are suddenly teleported in an area controlled by the DLF (MI-8). As they escape Y-Ko, a member of Takigawas squad, ends up in a prophet controlled area and gets deleted. Although Takigawa is also in the aria he does not get deleted as the system crashes and shows a system error caused by Tsukiko
The Plan To Encapture Encampment 666 Arc
While they try to capture an enemy encampment Takigawa tells Colonial Graftenberg to use a dimensional thermobaric bomb on his position. Once again Takigawa survives the bomb due to the help of Tsukiko but this time she tells him to bring Kiriko, his phantom-ego, to her.
Dimensional Floating Battleship/Mercenaries Afternoon Arc
The airship carrying Takigawa gets shot down during battle and he is rescued by a group of mercenary assault girls that work at a bok choy production plant. They all haven’t received maintenance in a long time and their corruption level is unusually high. In contrast to him they embrace this instead of fighting the corruption. Takigawa stays for dinner and gets druged and raped. He has to fight between his phantom-ego (Kiriko) and his real ego (Takigawa). His real ego ends up winning and he abandons the mercenaries.
Dispatch Arc
Dispatch Officer Corporal Moriyama delivers packages to Takigawa and the other two remaining squad members. In it are guns, food, and a TV with a VHS cassette. On the cassette Takigawa’s boss explains the truth about his mission to him:
Swamp Venus was designed by the prophet to be a prototype of the next generation of assault girls. The major flaws that occur in assault girls that it was to fix was mind corruption. The problem with the corruption lies with the pilots instead of the robot itself. Reason for this being the non-perfect compatibility of the human. To fix this Swamp Venis is not piloted by a human but an extremely smart AI. It can access the prophets network and understand multidimensional physics that remain lost on any human brain.
The first problem with the AI occurred 3 months in development where Swamp Venus got an email by a person called Tsukiko. The AI starts developing a phantom-ego called Tsukiko that thinks that the real world is in the phone instead of the current reality. She instantly reached corruption level 5 and went on a rampage killing everything around her. Her goal being to fabricate the “fake” world of the prophet in the alternate dimension into a real world where she can exist as Tsukiko.
TLDR - Tsukiko is a bug that the Prophet accidently created
The solution to this “bug” is Love-Fox. Love-Fox has the unique ability to receive Tsukiko’s emails. Although Tsukiko can alter space and create anything she wants, Kiriko (Takigawas alter ego) remains exempt from her reality. Love-Fox is an elaborator trap that allows Takigawa to reach Tsukiko and possibly eliminate her.
Tsukiko is hoping that Takigawas corruption will become so big that he transforms into Kiriko to join her in her reality.
The Prophet hopes that Takigawa can remain conscious and kill Tsukiko
Kiriko Arc
Some more info from the tape is revealed. Love-Fox compatibility is extremely low and Takigawa was the only person that could pilot her effectively. Since he wouldn’t voluntarily pilot Love-Fox the Prophet created a plan to make him do it. The reason why his wife could kill himself using his pistol was because the Prophet allowed it.
As the group moves on they reach the prophet-controlled area and use the keycard to bypass the security system. They end up at an island surrounded by a giant ocean that is seemingly a circle in itself. The concept is incomprehensible for the three soldiers and it becomes clear that this is a trap by Tsukiko to drive Takigawa insane. He gets help by the Prophet but denies it and manages to escape the trap by running into the water.
They arrive in an alternate world that resembles modern tokyo. Finally they have reached their goal - Tsukiko’s fake reality. In this reality all three assault girl pilots are known by their holy names and exist as normal highschool girls. Their attempt at escaping the trap-island was seen as a suicide attempt and their families think they have gone insane. Takigawa spends some time living as Kiriko to understand the new reality and how to escape it. Tsunefusa and Harada have both lost their minds and embraced their schoolgirl persona.
Takigawa decides to try and open his cockpit by stabbing a knife into his neck. He manages to open it and is finally freed from the illusion. He sends a message to the military to initiate a bombing of Tsukiko's reality. For the last time he meets with Tsukiko at the river. She gives him a way out to not be killed by the bombs as well and so ends the reality.
Back in reality Takigawa is still fighting now with a new goal - hunt down and kill the Prophet.
Interpretation
Now that the gist of the story is obvious what remains is the meaning of it. Compared to Freesia Joshi Kouhei is much more complex and convoluted with more philosophical questions
Reality
Is there anything such as a fake reality? The word itself already contains the term real so is it even possible that something as a fake exists? With the existence of multi dimensions the term “reality” becomes much more abstract. The dimensions exist in the original reality but are a different reality altogether. When Takigawa ends up in Tsukiko's dream world he is still in his original reality but in another dimension of it. One constant motive appearing in the story are venus comb snail shells. They signify the existence of multiple dimensions throughout Takigawa’s journey.
Most of us consider reality the place that we exist in when we are not distracted by any other means. Books, video games, any form of media is often called “escapism” as they allow us to “escape” our reality and go into another world but isn’t this world just a part of our current reality? What differentiates one form of escapism over another? What is different in reading a book or talking to a friend? Aren’t both just a way to escape our reality?
What I am trying to get at is that there is no form of escapism. All of it is already part of our reality and you are not escaping from it. You are simply taking part in the already existing parts. However there certainly are ways of losing yourselves represented in the Assault Girls piloted by humans.
Our reality is shaped by our minds. It absorbs information, processes it and provides us with what we call reality. Currently you have a brain and a personality that is attached to it. This would be your Ego, the personality that you currently have. With mind corruption it is possible that your Ego is replaced by a new one. It’s normal for a personality to change, technically your Ego is constantly destroyed and redone, but in the case of Assault Girls it is a complete loss of the Ego in which it is replaced by a non-existent Ego.
Causality and Substance Monism
“All things are subject to the law of cause and effect. This great principle knows no exception, and we would search in vain in the realm of experience for an example to the contrary. Human progress has no tendency to cast it in doubt, but rather the effect of confirming it and of always further widening knowledge of the scope of its validity. Its continued and growing recognition is therefore closely linked to human progress.” (Carl Menger)
Takigawa’s alternate ego Tsukiko is nonexistent - It possesses no history. “History” is the word used by the General and it becomes Takigawa’s way to discern what is real and what isn’t. This is also how he manages to figure out that Tsukiko’s reality is fake. While he and the other two remaining squad members exist in her reality, their backstory and everything else has no history. It is all a fabricated lie.
History is just another word for Causality or “Cause and Effect” (as said by Corporal Moriyama). Every action that is taken, everything that happens whether a chemical reaction or you reading this review. All of it was caused by another event. What might seem like an obvious scientific fact is much more interesting philosophically. We all know that if I spill my cup of coffee the stain on whatever it landed on is caused by the initial spilling. Now apply the same logic to the last decision you took. Maybe you clicked on this review because the title looked interesting or because you love Jiro Matsumoto or perhaps you didn’t click on it at all. Whatever decision you may have taken, it was influenced by all prior events. You only read manga because your friend told you about it and you only met that friend because you went to high school and you only went to highschool because your parents told you so and…
“Every singular thing, or anything which is finite and has a determinate existence, can neither exist nor be determined to produce an effect unless it is determined to exist and produce an effect by another cause, which is also finite and has a determinate existence; and again, this cause can neither exist nor be determined to produce an effect unless it is determined to exist and produce an effect by another, which is also finite and has a determinate existence, and so on, to infinity.” (Spinoza)
What this also implies is that free will, or at least the common understanding of free will, does not exist. Under free will we would have the choice to make all of our decisions ourselves. This is often believed by religious groups (christianity, islam etc) and although an omniscient god has created man he still allows them to make their own choices. Causality refutes this as any choice you take has already been made and was influenced by all your previous experiences.
Two relevant questions arise
Quarks are the smallest form of matter that we currently know of and they make up everything you have ever seen. But what created a quark, what is at the beginning of all? What is the ultimate cause?
Spinoza defines this thing as Substance or God/Nature (Deus sive Natura). It is an infinite substance that is the imminent cause of all. It is the cause for itself and a necessary existence. This necessary existence entails that everything else is determined by it. Spinoza believed in Substance Monism i.e. that there is only one substance, which is God. Although he uses the word God it is not to be confused with the Gods we commonly know. He is not referring to a mystical being worshipped by us but a metaphysical concept.
Free will being a simple illusion might sound bleak. If everything is already determined then why am I even living. While absolute free will is just an illusion there still is a certain freedom in our lives.
Imagine two doors in front of you. To get out you have to choose one of them. You go through door A and escape the room thinking you have made a choice. Turns out door B was locked all along. No matter what you would have chosen, only door A could let you escape from the room. What you might consider as free will is the illusion of choice that you have. By ignoring the causes you gain a sense of freedom.
What is certain is that an action has to be taken. The freedom that we are left with is activity. Acting instead of being acted upon is what ultimately constitutes Spinoza’s definition of freedom.
“I say we act when something happens, in us or outside of us, of which we are the adequate cause, that is, when something in us or outside of us follows from our nature, which can be clearly and distinctly understood through it alone” (Spinoza)
Throughout Joshi Kouhei Takigawa is constantly on the verge of life and death but he keeps moving on. He tries to kill himself but always fails at it and even if he does not know why he has to go on he simply does not stop moving. Other characters often question his reasons for being an Assault Girl pilot and especially in the Mercenary Arc he has the chance to embrace a much more comfortable life surrounded by friends. His answer to it always is that he has a job complete but he is not talking about a regular job.
“Even in the real world, one must work as long as they’re alive. It might be pretty dull to talk about, but I think even if I don’t have any dreams or desires, as long as I’m alive, I’ll still at least be working. It wouldn’t be just to make money, but it would also be work just to do something. Even people who feel like they’re doing nothing, as long as they’re alive, they’re doing some kind of work.” (Matsumoto)
With being alive comes the task of living and that initself is already an action you are taking.
Knowledge and Ignorance
“Suppose a stone is created that nobody could ever possibly lift. The laws of dimensional physics would make it possible to lift this stone without contradicting this predicate. You think a man would be able to comprehend what happened if he saw such an event occur? If someone saw that. He would probably develop an abnormality in his mind and die insane. Such a thing would go beyond human cause and effect.”
It is during the Mercenary and Dispatch Arc where it becomes increasingly clear that Takigawa does not have the answers to the complex questions that exist in his reality. When he tries to leave the mercenary squad Naomi threatens to kill him and asks him how he can be certain that he is going to kill Tsukiko? Where is the proof that he will accomplish his goal?
Simply said there is none. Takigawa cannot prove that he will be able to kill Tsukiko, he cannot prove that Naomi won’t shoot him dead but he also can’t prove the opposite. There is no such thing as absolute truth as that would be the same as God. The rubix cube he sometimes plays with is also a symbol for this. A rubix cube has one solution but Takigawa never completes it. He embraces the fact that he is powerless and refuses the struggle to live.
Knowledge is the sole avenue for liberating oneself from the limits and fallibility of an average human existence. In a world that is so complex and abstract knowledge is the only way to guarantee an active and affirmative existence. The quest for knowledge itself however is certainly risky. You are sacrificing the comfort of an everyday routine and things that humans usually consider to be the highest goods (wealth, honor, pleasure). True knowledge will not lead to pleasure and wealth but to a greater understanding of yourself. The infinite search for momentarily pleasure will be replaced by an internal confidence that your existence is not measured in wealth or any materialistic or sensual pleasure.
Spinoza defines three kinds of knowledge
“For example, a soldier, having seen traces of a horse in the sand, will immediately pass from the thought of a horse to the thought of a horseman, and from that to the thought of war, etc. But a Farmer will pass from the thought of a horse to the thought of a plow, and then to that of a field, etc. And so each one, according as he has been accustomed to join and connect the images of things in this or that way, will pass from one thought to another. “
Naomi tells Takigawa “The Story of Kaneko Takahashi” before he leaves. Takahashi was a soldier that had returned from war and found his wife cheating with another man. Without feeling any rage or disappointment he killed her for it was the law he had learned on the battlefield.
“Law” is just another term for knowledge. When you are placed in a reality you have to learn its laws to find out how to operate in it. Takahashi spent so much time in a different reality (war) that when he returned to his normal life he was unable to differentiate between the laws he knew. It’s the same for Takigawa, not as bad of course but in a way he has also learned the laws of his reality. He has accepted the fact that there is no certain truth and that the only way to live is by obtaining knowledge.
“In that sense I feel sympathy for the man known as Kaneko Takashi but not for you”
Naomi is the opposite of Takigawa. She knows that she is just playing pretend and she knows that the story of Takashi is not meaningless. She denies the knowledge that she has learned to comfort herself in the pleasure of being a highschool girl. Mind corruption is the antithesis to knowledge. Where knowledge offers a partial understanding of truth, Mind corruption destroys it and creates an eternal pleasure. In the end Naomi dies, she reaches a level of corruption too high to ever return to a normal state and calls Takigawa a lunatic. She was the fool all along.
“But that doesn’t make it right to taint the common understandings that we derive from ideologies, religions, and in interactions. Those who speak of the true nature of things are either just cheats or men of god” (Takigawa)
The Prophet
“God says you will not be forgiven if you disobey him, but humans have free will, don’t they? The Prophet is the same way. It is almighty, and yet it does not rob humans of their free will. As for what the point is, it means that humans are not slaves. Whether it’s a god or a giant computer, you’re free to believe in it or not.” (Matsumoto)
The role of the Prophet might seem unclear at the start of the manga. Introduced as a supercomputer that helped humanity solve their greatest problems he sounds like the greatest thing ever designed but after learning about Takigawa’s backstory and Tsukiko's existence it turns from a helper of humanity to a cruel god. In this case “God” is not connected to Spinoza's definition but the usual abrahamic one. While the Prophet did not create humanity he has reached a status of almost omniscient knowledge and is worshipped by humanity, which is still not living in peace. It’s a caricature of modern day religion. People blindly worship Gods that talk about heaven and peace while injustice and suffering is still everywhere.
“Tsukiko should’ve realized already what my mission really is. Perhaps I may have already fallen into a trap. But her abilities are an irreplaceable element to completing my task… to hunt down the damned prophet.” (Takigawa)
Tsukiko’s Fate
Tsukiko’s AI is an empty existence that has no method of self affirmation that humans might have. It’s why it was so prone to believing in the fake world that existed in her phone. If an ego does not have a physical body to pursue its desire in a physical space then there is no point in living. In contrast to humans the AI is a completely materialistic being. It is not interested in divine salvation, meaning of life or any spiritual knowledge. In a philosophical view Tsukiko, and Takigawa as well, is a representation of human as seen by God. She was able to defy the will of the prophet and create her own reality.
“Those flames… they are so beautiful but they’re not worth anything at all. Maybe… this was all just a dream”
It’s quite a tragic story. Her life is empty. It’s an existence with no history and no matter how beautiful the world she creates is, it will always be fake. What she only realizes when it’s too late is that she didn’t need Kiriko. She could have befriended Takigawa but was too deep in her delusion to see it.
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