Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 452,

The waves are high, but the day is clear, part one.

When I think of the Kaijul Ji-Ai or Maritime Self-Defense Forces, Japan's modern Navy, though of course nobody uses the word Kaigun for it, two things come to mind.

And I think the contrast between them says something very interesting about what it for it, two things come to mind.

And I think the contrast between them says something very interesting about what is probably going forward with apologies to our friends in the ground and aerial self-defense forces,

the most important of Japan's three military service branches when it comes to the country's

defense.

The first is, of course, something you are probably familiar with, if you have any interest in

Japan and were around in the latter days of Internet 1.0 in the mid-2000s. This was the age when

GeoCities was still a thing, and when YouTube was more of a novelty instead of a cultural

juggernaut, I am speaking, of course, of an infamous recruiting commercial put out by the Japan

Maritime Self-Defense Forces in the early 2000s.

I first encountered it in a video mashing it up against a U.S. Navy recruitment commercial,

which in classic 2000s style

had an electric guitar riff over shots of Navy SEALs doing cool-looking stuff, with the great actor

Keith David dramatically reading the lines, if somebody wrote a book about your life, would anyone

want to read it? Then, of course, came the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces commercial, and, oh boy, it was something.

There's peppy music, there's an honest-to-god dance number done by people in sailors' dress uniforms.

These would be sailor suits, in other words, with the kerchief ties and everything.

The lyrics, transcribed directly here for you, are,

We have seamanship, seamanship for love.

We have seamanship, seamanship for peace.

...