Katanas of the Rising Sun: Difference between revisions

* [[Cultured Warrior]]: Well, that was the samurai stereotype anyway. But don't expect much from the troops.

** Officers ranged from this to [[Blood Knight]]. Or both.

** The wrong end: most later operations in New Guinea. At least once the casualty ratio climbed to well over 1000 Japanese to 1 Australian.

** Battle of the Philippine Sea and Battle of Leyte Gulf. They pretty much destroyed the Japanese Navy and Airforce.

** Six months after the empire declared war on Britian and the US, every battle turned into this in favor of the Allies. Iwo Jima, Saipan, The (land) Battle of Leyte, the Phillipines Campaign, etc. The latter had 14,000 American and Australian soldiers killed, and ''340,000'' Japanese soldiers killed. Though in some battles, usually between the Japanese and British (the Burma and Boreno campaigns come to mind), the losses were about even. Which is the closest the Japanese came to winning.

* [[Cycle of Revenge]]: While in the beginning there was sometimes a feeling that it was [[Nothing Personal|just business]], later the mutual racial prejudice that they started with and the atrocities committed made it [[It's Personal|different]].

** Europe, at least in the Western theaters, had more of the [[Just Business]] attitude toward it then the Pacific. Oddly enough it may be reversed now and less resentment may remain toward the Japanese then the Germans. [[Your Mileage May Vary]].

** Operation Olympic/Coronet, the invasion of the Home Islands, would have been the ultimate in final battles as far as [[WW 2]] went, with even its planners describing it as a "blood-soaked apocalypse". Fortunately, the atomic bomb rendered it unnecessary.

* [[For the Evulz]]: Some of the things Japanese grunts did for fun are truly horrifying and pointless. For example, see [[Eats Babies]].

** Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto: ambitious, politically adroit, intelligent, and with a gift for picking good subordinates, he was a prophet of air power and managed to reach nearly the pinnacle of his profession despite having advocated some extremely unpopular causes. Yet Yamamoto's strategic vision ultimately failed him; Pearl Harbor was a resounding victory but ensured that the United States would never seek a negotiated settlement and thereby cost Japan the war, while sending ''Shokaku'' and ''Zuikaku'' to support the Coral Sea operation cost Japan its margin of superiority in carriers and lead directly to the annihilation of First Air Fleet at Midway.

** Vice Admiral Jisaburo Ozawa. Regarded by his adversaries as the only competent Japanese carrier commander of the war, he was renowned in his own Navy for his intellect and his outspokenness; any mention of Ozawa will invariably quote one of his staff as saying he "[[Surrounded By Idiots|did not suffer fools gladly.]]"

** To be precise, Japan was a military-industrial anarchy, more or less. There wasn't even a single cabal of generals that did all the decisions (primarily because their own juniors frequently assassinated them for not being militaristic enough!). It was an Emperor with a defined but small power, and a military force with an undefined but massive power.

* [[Honor Before Reason]]: Or [[Lawful Stupid|"honor without reason."]]

* [[How the Character Stole Christmas|How the IJN stole Christmas]] : "Yesterday Dec 7, 1941..."

* [[Impossibly Cool Weapon]]: The Yamato. Which did almost nothing but is the most famous ship in the IJN because it was the largest battleship and thus fulfills the [[Rule of Cool]].