LCD Crossing to the Future, it's Not Easy to Be a Man

Actually it's not like she really minds pretending to be a boy as much as you think her to be and she is currently just a child and cannot do as she pleases. She lacks real power in the political game of the military. It would be very stupid if she pulled off some stupid stunt and endanger her mother. The others don't count as they are what you call as loyalists and outsiders. If ling lan is not promising enough then they won't mind betraying her like the side branch of ling family or that protector who nearly assassinated her around ch 50-60.

 

The answer to this is inside the very post you of mine you quoted. Is she 'mind' or 'not mind' is beyond my argument, which scales way outside of her personal opinion of the matter. It's not included. You see? It's not included in my argument and because of it, it cannot be used against it.
And my complain is not about her 'now', but 'in the future', in the moment she WILL have power to decide some thing she needs to rethink the issue to progress her Dao. I'm not an idiot and I understand that she is not a fate-decider right now and moreover, she is just in the beginning of her Dao cultivation. I do get it.

 

Your point is correct. I think at least right now her dao is not directly threatened so she hasn't taken any drastic measures but this might change in the future. Ling lan may face a situation where it will become necessary to fight for her fate. She won't go down without a fight and I hope that in the future she can openly continue what she does even when her true gender is ever released.

 

Ok, it will come when it come. I understand. Are the mecha go Gurren Lagann or gundam though?

 

The racism is positively flowing out of every pore of this arc. I hope it ends soon.

 

I'm not sure. I think it may have some basis off of gundam? but im not v familiar with either series lol (im a lone wolf lover of Five Star Monogatari). The author tries to keep things vague and leave most of it up to imagination.

 

If his superior knew that he liked torturing and killing children, then why was he still in the squad? Unhinged people like that are a danger to everyone around them. Even if he was so inhuman as to not care about the actual nature of his subordinate's illness, he should at least have cared about that.

It seems pretty stupid to so clearly mark your best pilots. It’s like saying, “Here! Shoot here! Destroying this unit will do far more damage than destroying any other unit on the field! Don’t bother waiting and analyzing the battle to figure out who the most important targets are! Ain’t nobody got time for that! Strategic advantages exist to be squandered, especially when they take decades of hard work and untold amounts of luck and resources to create!” It’s f’ing stupid.

I guess inertia doesn’t exist. Otherwise, that speed dive into a gymnastics move would have crushed Ling Lan like a pancake.

How would “chinks” even make sense in a universe without China? Even if we accept that the Federation originated from China, why would that particular racial slur have survived? I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve never heard anyone using racial slurs for Italians that were originally meant for Romans from two thousand years ago in their everyday vernacular, and (as far as I can remember) there’s a hell of a lot more than 2k years between this series’ present and ours.

 

I'm betting Qi Long recognized her voice.

I wonder if she'll be able to keep her mecha operating abilities secret. Killing/defeating three ace pilots at the age of thirteen is sure to make her a target for pretty much everyone in both empires, either for support, or immediate destruction.

I kinda hope she'll just lead those two into a Federation ambush. It would make a lot more sense than her getting continuous sudden power ups and defeating them herself.

 

I just assumed that somewhere in the intervening 10,000 years the nations broke off into separate colony planets but the old racial slurs never died.

 

And that's what doesn't make sense to me. Racial slurs are very much a product of their time. After 10k years (with very few of them likely to have been peaceful), there would have been millions of confrontations and trillions of incidents that would have resulted in much more topical, personal and meaningful racial slurs than something from an era that I doubt anyone in their own era still remembers. Heck, I don't think it's even been a century since that particular racial slur was created and I personally have no idea how it came to be or why it's meant to be degrading.

It's like if someone called you a jaywalker. You'd just shrug it off, at most thinking that it was referring to someone that crossed the street without checking for cars, never realizing that it was rooted in a classist slur from the early twentieth century. Or maybe it would be more like gay, which originally meant happy, then meant homosexual, and which some people have tried to appropriate as a slur. Or possibly it was a slur that was appropriated by the targeted community. I honestly don't remember. The point is simply that the word's meaning changed rapidly over the course of less than a century, and will likely change again before the next century, so how likely is it that "chink" would maintain anything like its original, hateful meaning after 10k years?

 

Spoiler: C149 and 150

C149: Considering the speeds of the mecha, the length of time that Ling Lan was described as fleeing for, and the brevity of any truly high intensity fight, how could her team have any hope of catching up? Honestly, I doubt they’d even be able to get close enough to see the battle, much less participate in it. But I somehow doubt that will stop them from showing up shortly after the battle ends.

C150: If the missiles were useless against mecha, and mecha are far and away the most common enemy that any mecha will face, then why was the it even equipped with those missiles? Wouldn’t it just be a waste of space, training and other precious resources?

Trying to force the beam saber through the shield instead of using it to keep him distracted while she used her other weapon to destroy vital systems on his mech, is just stupid. It's like she doesn't know anything at all about fighting.

Also, why hasn't Lil' Four hacked, hijacked or scrambled the enemy's communication channels? The only reason Ling Lan is having so much trouble is because he hasn't done that, and it's been shown numerous times that doing such things is not difficult for him at all.

 

The actual term is "支那人". The english slur is most the most relevant one in the West (in meaning and use) to the term that's actually used. The term itself is a very old word and over time (a good part of the blame falling on Japan) began to be seen as negative racial slur. We cannot imagine what the terms in the far future would transform into, but bc the setting itself is a very major country derived environment, it's an accurate word to explain the context where it is used.

 

Breaking my no double posting rule... Also, warning, somewhat sensitive content below.

I feel like most people here that are reacting to most recent arc involving the Twilight Empire (pseudo future Japan) don't realize the cultural context as to why most (if not all) Chinese media involving Japanese characters throw them into a bad light.

Spoiler: Not a Spoiler, but will clarify your questions, probably.

I'm not saying anything against modern Japan (outside of a few specific areas that is their problem) as this is a more historical issue (similar to how you wouldn't be against modern Germany for Nazism); however, Japan has, in the past, committed atrocious war crimes that to this day, they have not apologized for or even acknowledged. This is not an individual issue, but more of a governmental issue, as Japan is heavily nationalistic and intentionally pushes for placing their country and culture in a positive light. (Yeah, it's a form of propaganda, but is more insidious and harder to detect)

During Japan's occupation of Northern China (Dongbei) as well as various other East Asian and South East Asian land areas, they committed horrendous war crimes, reflected on mainly women and children (sometimes even men). I'm sure everyone here has heard of the term 'comfort women'. That's what the Japanese army violently forced onto countless women and children, often treating them as nothing more than beasts that they could kill ad rape at will (yes, even children were not spared, especially girls). I'm not going to really elaborate deeply as it's a very explicit and horrible issue, but for those who want to know more, please look up the documentaries involving comfort women during the world war, especially the ones involving Korea as well as looking up the Nanjing Massacre.

Speaking of the Nanjing Massacre, this is probably the biggest reason as to why China carries a heavy hatred for the Japanese army (and thus, Japan) that's so easily refreshed by the government propaganda. Nanjing was the then capital of China during the Second Sino-Japanese war. It was a horrendous event of mass murder and mass rape over a period of 6 weeks of completely unarmed non-combatant civilians, with death tolls estimated to be from 200,000 to 300,000 (200,000 being what historians have estimated while 300,000+ is China's estimation). When Ling Lan talks about the 'hidden wound' of citizens of her past life/Japanese army massacring people during the King's Trial (the arc where Ling Lan is saving villagers in the learning space), this was the specific event she was referring to.

The issue isn't just this, but also Japan's blatant attempts to pretend this never happened despite actual evidence and even their own veterans confirming the massacre. As a result, many East and Pacific East Asian countries have issues regarding Japan and often do not view them in a positive light. In truth, a lot of the negative stereotypes reflect very real historical issues.

Anyway, I hope this helped clarified as to why so many non-Japanese media content (especially China and South Korea) tend to bash Japan/throw them in a negative light. Although I don't blame individuals of Japan for history, it's still a huge burden that their government needs to bear (or, at the very least, admit).

 

I hope this isn’t leading up to her friends using that discarded weapon to save her. It was definitely destroyed in that blast.

 

Spoiler: C153

I thought Ling Lan was 13, not 10?

I knew that beam cannon was going to come back again. That thing was definitely destroyed in the first blast, and even if it hadn't been, it would still have been multiple kilometers away. There's no reason they would have needed to search that far for stretcher materials in a forest, nor any way that they could have dragged a cockpit that probably weighed more than all of them combined to its location, even if they only needed to drag it 1 meter.

I wonder if they'll try to get her to teach them how to pilot mecha now, or if they'll wait until they've been granted official permission to start learning.

Also curious what Number One's critique of the battle will be. I expect he'll be unhappy, since he always is. I'm just curious as to his reasons. Hopefully it'll be her ineptitude at long range, but I doubt it.

Also wondering how the attackers will react to their ace squad dying. Hopefully it won't be too racist or stupid, unlike everything else related to them in this arc.

Anyone remember what the status above Ace was? I don't think it was god, but I can't remember.

 

Imperial

 

I wonder if this fight qualifies her as an Imperial operator. I mean, her opponents are all ace level, and she fought three of them in quick succession, with the latter two possibly counting as being at the same time, so normally I'd lean towards yes, but she doesn't really have the knowledge that would be expected of an ace operator, much less an imperial. Well, assuming that there's more to being an ace operator than Irregular Flicker and other advanced usages of basic techniques that get new names due to improved execution. Though, even if it is just the same techniques performed more perfectly, we only really know of the one that she can perform to the appropriate standard.

 

Chapter 130 mentions that the kids are 10. This is right before they leave for the hunting trip.

 

Ah, I was misremembering then.

 

The beam cannon they used was the one voluntarily discarded by the ace squad capitan to free up the arm for better close range combat. It was never even damaged.