Looks like Mihashi wasn’t outraged by Honest-Abe-kun’s use of an ethic slur after all – although, in his defense, he might not be even aware that that was a slur. Living in splendid isolation in Japanada, he’s probably encountered spaghetti a lot more frequently than actual Italian people. He might think it’s some sort of compliment – after all, spaghetti can be pretty great.
But, no, what did shock him was apparently Honest-Abe-kun’s proposed use of deadly violence. Seems Mihashi is a pacifist. Which, I guess, surprises no one.
While Honest-Abe-kun would consider himself a realist, I guess? A machine gun is not his go-to approach to problems, but it’s not his run-away-from approach either. Machine guns are a sometimes food…uh, I mean solution? And, honestly, as far as machine guns go the Lewis is a pretty light type. Barely even mass-murdery, unless you have a very dense target. Which even herds of Emus aren’t likely to provide, which is way this is the gun with which the Emu War was lost.
But of course I then shy away from supplying any kind of conclusion to their argument – Honest-Abe-kun scares the Italians off just by shooting in the air. He had cleverly anticipated that these wouldn’t be authentic or realistic Italian soldiers, but only soldiers based on the popular perception of Italian soldiers. And that perception claims that the Italian troops fighting in North Africa in WWII had horribly low morale and were prone to run away or surrender at the slightest sign of trouble. Which is, of course, a drastic misconception, even if there is a small bit of a basis in reality for it.
In the first version of this strip, Honest-Abe-kun’s reference to “this place” was an explicit reference to them being in a webcomic, but later I decided to tone it down to something more ambiguous. He could be referring only to the location. There is no evidence that real Italian soldiers ever got close to the Secret Pyramid of the Pitch of the Gods, after all. Especially in case all of this takes place in the backyard of some Japanadian Egyptologist. It makes much more sense to run into fictional Italian soldiers in such a place, doesn’t it?
More on Thursday.