Via Japan Probe, the U.S. Navy has created a manga to help foster cultural understanding on the eve of the arrival of the USS George Washington in Japan. There has been a spate of highly publicized crimes by US servicemen recently, as well as some local protests against having a nuclear vessel permanently stationed in Yokosuka. I guess the Navy felt something was necessary to ease tensions with its host country.
The manga, available in English as a PDF, follows a half Japanese sailor on his first assignment to the George Washington, and his first trip to Japan. It's well done, using humor and depictions of everyday life on board the carrier to humanize sailors. The characters have a deep respect for Japanese culture, and take classes to learn more about Japan. Towards the end the protagonist visits his Japanese grandparents for the first time, emphasizing the close cultural ties between the US and Japan.
I think it's a brilliant move. Not only does it embrace one of Japan's cultural institutions, but the manga format can convey a lot of information yet still be quickly consumed. And it's entertaining as well!
Friday, June 27, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The run-on sentences of Suzumiya Haruhi
As I was going through some boxes the other day, I came across my copy of the first 涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 book (Suzimya Haruhi no Yuuutsu, or The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi). Most people probably know the very popular anime of the same name best.
Leafing through it, I was reminded how I love the book's narration style, especially the artful use of run-on sentences. The very first sentence of the books is:
A translation without adding any punctuation would be something like:
Whew! At least the author gives us one comma to take a breath. Because of word order differences this kind of narration is hard to translate into English. This wiki translation breaks that sentence up into three sentences. That's probably more natural for English speakers, but I think it looses some of the flavor of the original.
Leafing through it, I was reminded how I love the book's narration style, especially the artful use of run-on sentences. The very first sentence of the books is:
サンタクロースをいつまで信じていたかなんてことはたわいもない世間話にもならないくらいのどうでもいいような話だが、それでも俺がいつまでサンタなどという想像上の赤服じーさんを信じていたかと言うとこれは確信を持って言えるが最初から信じてなどいながった。
A translation without adding any punctuation would be something like:
“How long did you believe in Santa Clause” is a trivial subject not even worthy of being the topic of idle chatter, but even so if I were to say how long I believed in an imaginary old man in red clothes like Santa I can say with confidence that I didn't believe in him from the beginning.
Whew! At least the author gives us one comma to take a breath. Because of word order differences this kind of narration is hard to translate into English. This wiki translation breaks that sentence up into three sentences. That's probably more natural for English speakers, but I think it looses some of the flavor of the original.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Superpowers old and new
You know how in comic books or other superhero stories, there are many cases where the author must invent transparent reasons why the one superpower* that would be extremely helpful in a particular situation can't be used? Well, that's been going on for hundreds of years. Take this excerpt from Journey to the West a story about a Chinese monk who travels west to bring back Buddhist scriptures, and is accompanied by a monkey and a pig with supernatural powers (From W.J.F. Jenner's translation, p. 511):
Apparently Ming dynasty readers, just like modern readers, wondered why Monkey and Pig didn't just use their super powers to solve the whole problem in a second and turn the 100 chapter story into a 20 chapter story. And just like today, the author had to explain why superpowers couldn't be used.
____________
* replace “superpower” with “technology,” and you have the premise of 80 percent of Star Trek episodes.
[Monkey said] “My somersault cloud can cover thirty-six thousand miles with a single bound. To do a mere two-thousand-mile return journey takes only a couple of nods and a bow – there's nothing to it.” “If it's so easy, brother,” said Pig, “you should carry the master on your back, take him across [the river] with just a couple of nods and a bow, and save us all the trouble of fighting the monster [in the river].” “You can ride clouds, can't you?” said Monkey. “Why don't you carry the master across?” “The master's mortal flesh and bones are heavier than Mount Tai,” said Pig, “So although I can ride clouds I could never lift him. Nothing but your somersault will do the trick.” “My somersault is the same as could-riding.” Monkey said, “except that it takes you further. I'm no more able to carry him than you are. As the old saying goes, 'Mount Tai is as easy to move as a mustard seed, but a mortal cannot be dragged away from the earthly dust.' ...Although our master cannot escape from the sea of suffering he wants to go to a foreign land, so he finds every inch of the way heavy-going. All we can do is escort him and see that he comes to no harm. We can't undergo all that suffering on his behalf, nor can we fetch the scriptures for him. Even if we went ahead to see the Buddha, he wouldn't give the scriptures to you or me.”
Apparently Ming dynasty readers, just like modern readers, wondered why Monkey and Pig didn't just use their super powers to solve the whole problem in a second and turn the 100 chapter story into a 20 chapter story. And just like today, the author had to explain why superpowers couldn't be used.
____________
* replace “superpower” with “technology,” and you have the premise of 80 percent of Star Trek episodes.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Comments on Ōkami
Well, with the semester having ended I finally got a chance to finish playing Ōkami (Okami [Ookami], if your browser doesn't support the O-with-macron). There's a Wii version out now, but I've been playing the PS2 version.
I'm convinced the game started as a pun. You play as the sun goddess Amaterasu, incarnated as a wolf. Ōkami (大神), or “Great God” (part of Amaterasu's more formal name, Amaterasu no Ōkami) is homonymous with Ōkami (狼), or “wolf.” I imagine a couple Clover employees were in a bar one night after work, getting a little drunk. Their conversation became increasingly boisterous, and went something like:
The next morning they were hung over and remembered nothing of the conversation, but in one of their pockets they found a crumpled napkin with the idea scrawled on it, and the game was born.
The game is a delightful romp (yes, I just wrote “delightful romp”) through the world of classical Japanese literature. In addition to the Kojiki, there are references to Issun Bōshi, Taketori Monogatari, Urashima Tarō, Shita-kiri_Suzume and Hakkenden. Even Benkei makes a cameo, as does Yoichi from Heike Monogatari. The capital city, Seian-kyō, is an obvious allusion to Heian-kyō, which is the centerpiece of the great body of Heian literature, including Genji Monogatari. I'm sure there are other references I didn't catch as well.
However, the most interesting aspect of the game is the main character. Amaterasu is generally the most revered deity in the Japanese pantheon, yet in the game she is depicted as a wolf, doing various things that are very recognizably canine; barking, growling, cocking her head, howling, curling up and napping, etc. She is accompanied throughout the game by Issun, who in addition to providing helpful explanations to the player also regularly berates Amaterasu for her slowness or misguidedness and addresses her by a pet name.
Because of this it is tempting to view Ōkami as an attempt to demystify Amaterasu. However, I think that would be ultimately incorrect. For one thing, Amaterasu does not speak, even to people who are able to understand animals. Lack of speech is, of course, very mystifying. Furthermore, she is portrayed as a weakened version of her true self. Throughout the game the player must strive to recover Amaterasu's thirteen “brush techniques,” which she uses to draw on the canvas of reality and create small miracles. At the end of the game, with the help of the prayers of all the people she has met, Amaterasu's true power is restored, and she becomes radiant and powerful. Naturally the player is only allowed to finish off the final boss battle with Amaterasu in this form, not perform any of the more mundane tasks that make up the staple of the game. So in the end the mystification of Amaterasu in her true form is maintained.
Most conspicuous, however, is the absence of Amaterasu's most prominent role: the ancestor of Japan's emperors. All Japan's emperors, including the current Akihito, can trace their lineage back to Amaterasu herself, thereby creating not only a divine right to rule but a personal divinity as well. In the game, there is no mention of this link at all. Amaterasu meets the emperor, but he does not show any signs of recognizing her as an ancestor, or even a goddess. In fact, the emperor is portrayed as an unremarkable, overweight, middle aged man more concerned with trading curio items than anything else.
Therefore it is clear that the game demystifies the emperor and de-links Amaterasu from him. At the same time it seems to maintain the mystification of Amaterasu herself. What can we make of this?
I think the game attempts to transform Amaterasu into a goddess suitable for the modern era. In the final stages of the game, Amaterasu regains her true power when all the people she has encountered throughout the game offer prayers to her. Significantly, she is portrayed as being accessible to everyone, not just the imperial clan. Worship of Amaterasu is not an exclusive imperial domain but appropriate for all people. Therefore, the game can be interpreted as an attempt to transform Amaterasu from an imperial deity into a national deity. Her worship (and, presumably, largess) sphere is shifted from a clan identity to a democratic, national identity.
How appropriate, then, that her “rising sun” brush technique, which the player can use to turn night into day, looks remarkably similar to the old Japanese flag, a powerful symbol of nationhood.
I'm convinced the game started as a pun. You play as the sun goddess Amaterasu, incarnated as a wolf. Ōkami (大神), or “Great God” (part of Amaterasu's more formal name, Amaterasu no Ōkami) is homonymous with Ōkami (狼), or “wolf.” I imagine a couple Clover employees were in a bar one night after work, getting a little drunk. Their conversation became increasingly boisterous, and went something like:
Employee 1: Dude, wouldn't it be crazy if, like, an Ōkami were an Ōkami?
Embloyee 2: (Trying hard to process that) Uh, what?
Employee 1: You know, like if an Ōkami from the Kojiki or something were an Ōkami, like a dog.
Embloyee 2: Oh... yeah, that WOULD be crazy!
The next morning they were hung over and remembered nothing of the conversation, but in one of their pockets they found a crumpled napkin with the idea scrawled on it, and the game was born.
The game is a delightful romp (yes, I just wrote “delightful romp”) through the world of classical Japanese literature. In addition to the Kojiki, there are references to Issun Bōshi, Taketori Monogatari, Urashima Tarō, Shita-kiri_Suzume and Hakkenden. Even Benkei makes a cameo, as does Yoichi from Heike Monogatari. The capital city, Seian-kyō, is an obvious allusion to Heian-kyō, which is the centerpiece of the great body of Heian literature, including Genji Monogatari. I'm sure there are other references I didn't catch as well.
However, the most interesting aspect of the game is the main character. Amaterasu is generally the most revered deity in the Japanese pantheon, yet in the game she is depicted as a wolf, doing various things that are very recognizably canine; barking, growling, cocking her head, howling, curling up and napping, etc. She is accompanied throughout the game by Issun, who in addition to providing helpful explanations to the player also regularly berates Amaterasu for her slowness or misguidedness and addresses her by a pet name.
Because of this it is tempting to view Ōkami as an attempt to demystify Amaterasu. However, I think that would be ultimately incorrect. For one thing, Amaterasu does not speak, even to people who are able to understand animals. Lack of speech is, of course, very mystifying. Furthermore, she is portrayed as a weakened version of her true self. Throughout the game the player must strive to recover Amaterasu's thirteen “brush techniques,” which she uses to draw on the canvas of reality and create small miracles. At the end of the game, with the help of the prayers of all the people she has met, Amaterasu's true power is restored, and she becomes radiant and powerful. Naturally the player is only allowed to finish off the final boss battle with Amaterasu in this form, not perform any of the more mundane tasks that make up the staple of the game. So in the end the mystification of Amaterasu in her true form is maintained.
Most conspicuous, however, is the absence of Amaterasu's most prominent role: the ancestor of Japan's emperors. All Japan's emperors, including the current Akihito, can trace their lineage back to Amaterasu herself, thereby creating not only a divine right to rule but a personal divinity as well. In the game, there is no mention of this link at all. Amaterasu meets the emperor, but he does not show any signs of recognizing her as an ancestor, or even a goddess. In fact, the emperor is portrayed as an unremarkable, overweight, middle aged man more concerned with trading curio items than anything else.
Therefore it is clear that the game demystifies the emperor and de-links Amaterasu from him. At the same time it seems to maintain the mystification of Amaterasu herself. What can we make of this?
I think the game attempts to transform Amaterasu into a goddess suitable for the modern era. In the final stages of the game, Amaterasu regains her true power when all the people she has encountered throughout the game offer prayers to her. Significantly, she is portrayed as being accessible to everyone, not just the imperial clan. Worship of Amaterasu is not an exclusive imperial domain but appropriate for all people. Therefore, the game can be interpreted as an attempt to transform Amaterasu from an imperial deity into a national deity. Her worship (and, presumably, largess) sphere is shifted from a clan identity to a democratic, national identity.
How appropriate, then, that her “rising sun” brush technique, which the player can use to turn night into day, looks remarkably similar to the old Japanese flag, a powerful symbol of nationhood.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Tsurezuregusa and Yokohama
I recently finished writing an essay about the Tsurezuregusa (徒然草) or Essays in Idleness (which I quoted here), and to take a break before writing my next essay I read a volume of Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (ヨコハマ買い出し紀行) or, somewhat awkward in translation, “A Record of Going Shopping in Yokohama.” I was struck by how similar the two works are.
Certainly they have their differences. Tsurezuregusa was written in the fourteenth century by a reclusive Buddhist monk, and contains his reflections on many things: the proper way for a gentleman to behave; precedent and the correct form of court ritual; anecdotes and stories he heard and terse pieces of advice. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, on the other hand, is a twentieth/twenty-first century fictional manga that focuses on a very human-like robot named Alpha who runs a coffee shop (she occasionally goes to Yokohama to buy coffee beans, hence the name).
Tsurezuregusa is renowned for its description of a certain widespread (although not universal) Japanese aesthetic. Yoshida Kenkō, the author, describes the aesthetic value of things that are asymmetrical, incomplete and worn out. In one oft-quoted line he writes that “It is only after the silk wrapper has frayed at top and bottom, and the mother-of-pearl has fallen from the roller that a scroll looks beautiful.” (page 70 of Donald Keene's excellent translation), and again: “Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring – these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration.” (p. 115)
This aesthetic appreciation for the worn out or faded, often called sabi, is brilliantly portrayed in Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. Alpha's coffee shop is located out in the lonely Japanese countryside in a world where the oceans have risen. She travels across highways that were great arteries in the past, but are now cracked and split, with sand blowing across them. In one of the more sublime scenes Alpha visits a former coastal town that is now submerged underwater. However, through (presumably) some oversight at the power company the streetlights are still hooked up. When night falls the lamps come on, and the pools of light reveal glimpses of the once great city that glitter up through the black water, turning the whole bay into an extraordinary, beautiful light show.
However it is not only the environment that expresses the aesthetic beauty of the worn out. In the series humanity itself seems older and more worn down. Yokohama still seems to be a bustling city, but outside of it there is none of the magnificent energy of human commerce. The roads are in disrepair and there are no trains hauling materials and products from place to place. Occasionally we see the remains of what seems to be an office building or hotel covered with weeds. Politically as well, the world seems but a dim reflection of its former greatness. The nation of Japan seems to no longer exist, at least as we know it, as small areas are referred to as countries and called by their old feudal names.
Other than the robots, human technological innovation seems to have halted. One volume introduces an old racing boat built by one of the characters, now an old woman, in her youth. Although it seems to have been a great accomplishment when she built it, now it is derelict and rusting, and as we are not shown any newer models, it seems that this reflects the general state of technological progress. Also Alpha is amazed when she sees a small, single engine airplane in flight, a far cry from the people of our day who barely notice great jets thundering above them.
But rather than depicting this human decline as some sort of apocalyptic dystopia (a theme that is a bit tired by now), the series basks in the aesthetic attractiveness of a world that offers but a glimpse of former human greatness. Alpha leads a very attractive life attending to her infrequent customers, taking pictures of old buildings, wondering what they were used for, and sipping coffee with her friends, watching the swaying pampas grass in the twilight of the human endeavor.
The two works are similar in other ways as well. Both posit themselves in a degenerate age that is but a pale reflection of the past. For Kenkō that past was the Heian era, the height of aristocratic refinement, which had been corrupted into the age of warrior power in which he lived. Tsurezuregusa is also a representative work of zuihitsu literature. Zuihitsu (随筆) literally means “following the brush,” and refers to a style of simply writing whatever comes to mind without restriction. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is not a zuihitsu work, since it is a work of fiction and must develop characters and events. However it is structured as a set of discrete episodes that, while they move forward in time, are often unrelated and do not build up dramatic tension within a structured plot, very similar to the zuihitsu style.
Kenkō was a Buddhist monk, and accordingly one of the themes of Tsurezuregusa is the Buddhist idea of mujō (無常), or impermanence; the idea that all phenomena are conditional and impermanent, and therefore attachment to them is the source of human suffering. Alpha is no Buddhist monk, and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is not didactic Buddhist literature. Nonetheless the work definitely conveys the idea of impermanence. Alpha is an unaging robot, and eventually all the people she has grown attached to go away. The children she plays with grow up and move away or move on, and she is conscious of the limited time left to the kindly old man who runs the nearby gas station. Everything she forms an attachment to will eventually leave her, including her original attachment; her distant, absent owner.
I think Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou brilliantly captures the themes and aesthetic sensibilities of Tsurezuregusa in an ambitious, futuristic, scifi-ish setting. I believe it belongs on the short list of manga deserving serious literary consideration.
Certainly they have their differences. Tsurezuregusa was written in the fourteenth century by a reclusive Buddhist monk, and contains his reflections on many things: the proper way for a gentleman to behave; precedent and the correct form of court ritual; anecdotes and stories he heard and terse pieces of advice. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, on the other hand, is a twentieth/twenty-first century fictional manga that focuses on a very human-like robot named Alpha who runs a coffee shop (she occasionally goes to Yokohama to buy coffee beans, hence the name).
Tsurezuregusa is renowned for its description of a certain widespread (although not universal) Japanese aesthetic. Yoshida Kenkō, the author, describes the aesthetic value of things that are asymmetrical, incomplete and worn out. In one oft-quoted line he writes that “It is only after the silk wrapper has frayed at top and bottom, and the mother-of-pearl has fallen from the roller that a scroll looks beautiful.” (page 70 of Donald Keene's excellent translation), and again: “Are we to look at cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when cloudless? To long for the moon while looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of the spring – these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with faded flowers are worthier of our admiration.” (p. 115)
This aesthetic appreciation for the worn out or faded, often called sabi, is brilliantly portrayed in Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. Alpha's coffee shop is located out in the lonely Japanese countryside in a world where the oceans have risen. She travels across highways that were great arteries in the past, but are now cracked and split, with sand blowing across them. In one of the more sublime scenes Alpha visits a former coastal town that is now submerged underwater. However, through (presumably) some oversight at the power company the streetlights are still hooked up. When night falls the lamps come on, and the pools of light reveal glimpses of the once great city that glitter up through the black water, turning the whole bay into an extraordinary, beautiful light show.
However it is not only the environment that expresses the aesthetic beauty of the worn out. In the series humanity itself seems older and more worn down. Yokohama still seems to be a bustling city, but outside of it there is none of the magnificent energy of human commerce. The roads are in disrepair and there are no trains hauling materials and products from place to place. Occasionally we see the remains of what seems to be an office building or hotel covered with weeds. Politically as well, the world seems but a dim reflection of its former greatness. The nation of Japan seems to no longer exist, at least as we know it, as small areas are referred to as countries and called by their old feudal names.
Other than the robots, human technological innovation seems to have halted. One volume introduces an old racing boat built by one of the characters, now an old woman, in her youth. Although it seems to have been a great accomplishment when she built it, now it is derelict and rusting, and as we are not shown any newer models, it seems that this reflects the general state of technological progress. Also Alpha is amazed when she sees a small, single engine airplane in flight, a far cry from the people of our day who barely notice great jets thundering above them.
But rather than depicting this human decline as some sort of apocalyptic dystopia (a theme that is a bit tired by now), the series basks in the aesthetic attractiveness of a world that offers but a glimpse of former human greatness. Alpha leads a very attractive life attending to her infrequent customers, taking pictures of old buildings, wondering what they were used for, and sipping coffee with her friends, watching the swaying pampas grass in the twilight of the human endeavor.
The two works are similar in other ways as well. Both posit themselves in a degenerate age that is but a pale reflection of the past. For Kenkō that past was the Heian era, the height of aristocratic refinement, which had been corrupted into the age of warrior power in which he lived. Tsurezuregusa is also a representative work of zuihitsu literature. Zuihitsu (随筆) literally means “following the brush,” and refers to a style of simply writing whatever comes to mind without restriction. Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is not a zuihitsu work, since it is a work of fiction and must develop characters and events. However it is structured as a set of discrete episodes that, while they move forward in time, are often unrelated and do not build up dramatic tension within a structured plot, very similar to the zuihitsu style.
Kenkō was a Buddhist monk, and accordingly one of the themes of Tsurezuregusa is the Buddhist idea of mujō (無常), or impermanence; the idea that all phenomena are conditional and impermanent, and therefore attachment to them is the source of human suffering. Alpha is no Buddhist monk, and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is not didactic Buddhist literature. Nonetheless the work definitely conveys the idea of impermanence. Alpha is an unaging robot, and eventually all the people she has grown attached to go away. The children she plays with grow up and move away or move on, and she is conscious of the limited time left to the kindly old man who runs the nearby gas station. Everything she forms an attachment to will eventually leave her, including her original attachment; her distant, absent owner.
I think Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou brilliantly captures the themes and aesthetic sensibilities of Tsurezuregusa in an ambitious, futuristic, scifi-ish setting. I believe it belongs on the short list of manga deserving serious literary consideration.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Cao and Mao
I've been reading The Romance of the Three Kingdoms recently, the translation by Moss Roberts. It is in need of some copyediting (it was published in Beijing), but Roberts has footnoteded the classic extremely well. He includes many comments from Mao Zonggang, the Qing dynasty editor of the story.
The below comment from Mao is about Cao Cao, the villain of most of the story, after he accidentally kills the entire family of his host for the night, purposely kills his host to prevent him from coming after him later, and utters the famous line “Better to wrong the world than have it wrong me!”:
I love Mao's admission (and universalization) of a secret desire to stick it to smarmy, hypocritical moralizers and look out for one's own best interests. That resonates strongly even today. Plus, he asserts that Cao and moral Confucian gentlemen essentially act the same, the only difference being Cao's frank admission of his motivations and the gentlemen's obfuscation of them. The implication is that morality is merely a facade that governs social presentation rather than actual action, although perhaps Mao would contrast the hypocritical gentlemen with an actual moral Confucian. Fascinating stuff.
The below comment from Mao is about Cao Cao, the villain of most of the story, after he accidentally kills the entire family of his host for the night, purposely kills his host to prevent him from coming after him later, and utters the famous line “Better to wrong the world than have it wrong me!”:
No reader reaching this episode fails to revile [Cao Cao]... They fail to recognize that Cao excels here too [in saying “Better to wrong the world than have it wrong me”]. Who has not felt this way? Who dares give such feelings voice? The good Confucian gentlemen speak hypocritically when they say, “Better to be wronged than wrong another.” Not that it doesn't sound good, but when you examine their conduct every step they take is in secret imitation of Cao Cao's statement. Cao Cao is simply an ambitious and amoral man who said what was in his heart. Such frankness is most refreshing compared to the deceits spoken by the other type. In this sense Cao Cao excels. (p. 552)
I love Mao's admission (and universalization) of a secret desire to stick it to smarmy, hypocritical moralizers and look out for one's own best interests. That resonates strongly even today. Plus, he asserts that Cao and moral Confucian gentlemen essentially act the same, the only difference being Cao's frank admission of his motivations and the gentlemen's obfuscation of them. The implication is that morality is merely a facade that governs social presentation rather than actual action, although perhaps Mao would contrast the hypocritical gentlemen with an actual moral Confucian. Fascinating stuff.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Macross as allegory
Matthew Alt has a fascinating article up on Néojaponisme that analyzes the classic Anime Macross as an allegory for Japan's WWII experience, arguing that its "creators... re-cast the narrative of Japan’s role in World War II within the context of their own comfortable modern consumer lifestyles." It posits the Macross as "a lone space-fortress, an island if you will, drift[ing] alone in the sea of space. Its inhabitants are outnumbered thousands to one by enemies from a completely alien culture." In the end, the Macross is saved by consumer culture, as Minmei's pop songs paralyze the enemy ships and accounts of consumerism brought back by spies seed dissent among their fleet. "Modern consumerism is venerated as the savior of all civilization, much as home electronics 'saved' Japan in the postwar era."
It's a very interesting argument, but I think I'd favor interpreting Macross as an allegory for the Cold War. Remember, the creator, Shōji Kawamori, wasn't born until 1960. WWII might have been something related by his parents, but the Cold War he knew personally. The series starts with a calamity and destruction, after which civilians must rebuild, just like the beginning of Japan's postwar period. Shortly after reconstructing, however, they are beset on all sides by a fearsome, expansionist alien race that is most notable for its total lack of culture. They have a strictly structured society that obviates any civilian culture or love (or indeed, contact with the opposite sex), and channels all energy into more war production, war-waging and expansion.
The day is saved, however, by capitalist consumerism. Away from the strict ideological indoctrination of their society, the Zentradi spies aboard the Macross quickly become enchanted with the many amazing things capitalism has to offer (as well as inter-gender relations), and bring stories and artifacts back to their fleet, eventually causing a wave of defection. We learn that this "protoculture," as the Zentradi call it, was something they used to have long ago, but lost in a series of utilitarian social changes.
The article argues that "The Zentradi aliens are... a mish-mash of old-school authority figures. Their obsession with war and willingness — even desire — to die in combat is stereotypically medieval or Imperial-era Japanese, while their utter cluelessness as to the 'protoculture' aboard the Macross is akin to that of American Occupation soldiers dropped in the midst of a society they only vaguely understood." However, I think a better parallel for America is the unreasonable, overbearing, stodgy Earth government, which refuses to let the Macross crew return home once they make it back to Earth, or even admit the ship's survival to the public. This reflects the sentiment that Japan, although it had come into its own in the postwar era and was ready to reemerge as an equal in the community of nations, was being held back by America for political reasons.
Incidentally, the Néojaponisme article criticizes Macross for positing a thriving pop culture in the middle of a warship plagued by weekly crisis. However I've always found that to be not only unproblematic (after all, what are a large number of civilians going to do for a year except create a civilian society?), but actually refreshing compared to other scifi works (I'm looking at you, Star Trek) that fiat a societal ideal, but then never actually portray that society because they can't figure out how it would work.
(The great image above is from an artist named Jason Park, apparently drawn on his DS!)
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