Yeah, whenever some giant robot or giant monster enters the Japanese airspace, they receive a complimentary attack by a squadron of Japanese Air Self-Defense Force planes, which they can destroy at their leisure.
It’s part of the famous Japanese culture of hospitality, I guess…since it’s so completely predictable, and also so completely pointless. Perhaps it’s also supposed to improve the image of the JASDF, but I would think it would need to be a little bit more effective, in purely military terms, to serve that purpose. It certainly does serve the purpose of allowing giant robots/monsters to show off their destructive potential, however… and since giant robots/monsters are a considerable economic factor for Japan, that counts as a public service in its own way.
The planes depicted in such scenes tend to be generic, if typical for the time period, in anime. In kaiju movies, they’re usually specific and identifiable planes used by the JASDF during the time period in question. For my own purposes here, I thus went with generic models suited to the time period of Tetsujin and Battle of the Planets. It’s really not terribly relevant, the outcome would have been the same in every case. The giant robots always win in these situations, and Shinji is a pretty experienced mecha operator by now, after all.
Still, 8-Megadork-8 comes over as a bit too callous regarding those lost fighters – the team might not have known where the fighters were coming from, but they still were kind of fighting on their side, weren’t they? Ah, well, I guess there’s a bit of 9-Megadick-9 in every 8-Megadork-8…
More on Monday.