Japanese manga series The Silent Service has inspired a generation of Taiwanese naval hobbyists, said Lin Ying-yu (林穎佑), an assistant professor at the National Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.
A live-action adaptation of the manga, written by Kaiji Kawaguchi and originally published from 1988 through 1996 — is to hit the big screens in Japan in September.
The Silent Service revolves around fictional Japanese nuclear ballistic missile submarine Yamato, whose captain went rogue and declared his boat an independent nation.
Photo: Screen grab from Toho Movie’s YouTube
Lin, a fan of the series, on Tuesday said that news of the film sparked considerable excitement among manga enthusiasts, who had thought that the plot was impossible to adapt.
The Silent Service arrived in the world of manga when military thrillers were not a common genre, and the series was a jolting experience for Taiwanese youth at the time, he said.
As most people had little access to knowledge of military affairs at the time, Kawaguchi’s creation shocked, inspired and educated readers on how militaries function, he said.
Although the manga series might appear outdated to a modern audience used to realism and having technology at their fingertips, The Silent Service is well-researched and informative, he said.
Certain plot elements — including one escapade in which the Yamato rode the explosion of a torpedo to fly out of the water — are outlandish and would never happen in real life, but there are other examples where the story demonstrates realism, Lin said.
In one chapter, the Japanese submarine charged head-on into Russian torpedoes and emerged unscathed by passing through the volley before the torpedo primers could be armed, which is theoretically possible, he said.
The protagonists’ evasion of US attack submarines in the North Sea by leveraging the opponent’s lack of a sound profile for the Yamato is a realistic scenario, as real-life submarine captains go to great lengths to avoid giving away acoustic clues of their boat, Lin said.
The Silent Service lives up to its premise by creating a convincing portrait of submarines as an unseen weapon of deterrence that can check the actions of adversaries, he said.
The ability of submarines to put the enemy under constant threat has tremendous value and explains the urgency with which Taipei is pursuing its indigenous defense submarine program, he said.
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