The JAM Are There Ray Fuyuki
YUKIKAZE WAS FIRST released in 1984, a year when the topic of literary conversation was dominated by George Orwell’s book. Today, there are probably people reading this revised edition of Yukikaze who weren’t even born then.
At that time, Chōhei Kambayashi was already known as an energetic rising star who enthralled science fiction fans with a succession of works overflowing with a wisdom so sharp that it seemed to threaten to cut off the fingers of those who turned the pages. Even so, to be honest, I think the unusual breadth of his body of work up to that point generated a vague sense of unease in not a few of his readers. Yes, genius is a fairly impressive thing to behold, but where was this author going? What would he try to write next? Would he fall into the trap of being a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, a writer who produced nothing more than a string of clever diversions? But when a lone plane soared through the skies of Faery, I was convinced: this author was going to become one whose contributions would be writ large in the history of Japanese science fiction.
With Yukikaze, Chōhei Kambayashi distilled the essence of the themes on which he would stake his life as an author and infused them fully into a single work. What are “words”? What are “machines”? What are the “humans” who make and use them, and who are made and used in return? These basic questions were not presented as abstract philosophical arguments but were instead developed as concrete reality for the characters to deal with. Kambayashi was able to take these questions, which he had initially raised in his early short works like Kotoba Tsukai Shi (The Wordsmith) and others, and turn them into gripping, exciting stories in both novel and serialized form with the publication of Kateki wa Kaizoku (Pirates Are the Enemy) and Yukikaze within half a year of each other. It was philosophical speculation turned entertainment, and the enjoyment of the stories led to fresh speculation. It was truly what science fiction aspires to be.
The reader who has picked up Yukikaze knowing it’s a special work but hasn’t yet read it might not imagine how the basic questions of human existence are hidden in what appears to just be a story about a cool fighter plane battling enemies in the skies of an alien planet. That said, you don’t have to read it as some sort of deep work that deals with these complicated issues. If you don’t go into it looking for deep meaning and simply become intoxicated by the story, as I did, then you will undoubtedly be led to think about these important things on your own.
There’re the JAM, who invade Earth via a hyperspace “Passageway” that appears suddenly in the Antarctic. On the other side of the Passageway lies the planet Faery, the actual location of which is unknown. To halt the alien invasion at the water’s edge, so to speak, humanity organizes a supranational air force and constructs frontline bases on Faery. Within the Faery Air Force are a group of coldhearted pilots who keep even their own allies at a distance: the 5th Squadron of the Special Air Force, a.k.a. Boomerang Squadron. Their duty is to not directly join in the battle but rather to single-mindedly gather combat intelligence and then get back to base alive, even if it means letting their fellow pilots die. And for this purpose, they have been given Super Sylphs, the most powerful fighter planes in the Faery Air Force, which are equipped with highly advanced computer systems, high-output engines, and powerful weaponry for self-defense. The soldiers of Boomerang Squadron are, naturally, ultra-elite pilots, and in carrying out their heartless duty they trust the judgment of their computers far more than that of their fellow humans. They’re people who require special personalities which allow them to practically become one with their machines; at one point in the novel they’re described as “machines that are, through some accident of fate, in human form.” First Lieutenant Rei Fukai, ace pilot of the SAF, flies into battle with Yukikaze, the plane he trusts more than any human, so that he can survive another day…
The basic architecture of the story is meant to separate us from the messy and complicated elements of human society and to create an isolated, experimental environment where we can observe humans continually fighting their enemies. Incidentally, this type of story—in which humans are placed in an isolated environment, subjected to certain rules and conditions, and then observed in minute detail—would become a hallmark of Kambayashi’s writing. It’s exactly the same as how a scientist cultivates a microorganism to experiment on and observe its behavior. Since these novels are written as though they are records of experiments, I like to refer to them as “experimental novels,” with the phrase possessing a meaning different from its more common usage.
From this simple initial setup, the subjects of observation in Yukikaze are relatively easy to grasp. In the first place, it’s not certain whether the enemy JAM are even living creatures. Or rather, they may be a type of life-form completely incomprehensible to us. Yet for all that they are an impenetrable mystery, the fact remains that they are a very real threat that “is here” right before our eyes. Yukikaze is used initially by Rei Fukai and the others as an interface to machine intelligence, gathering data in battles in an attempt to understand the JAM. You could say that understanding the JAM is the battle itself. In short, Yukikaze can be read as a story in which humans mired in ignorance fight a battle using “words” as an interface to clear a path to understanding and then to return through that field of unknowing. Kambayashi wrote this novel at a time when this was a recurrent theme for him as a writer. In creating the world of Yukikaze he peered into the unknown and carried out the special, dangerous duty—that is, the duty of a writer—of grasping what can be understood about the fundamental business of human existence, bringing it back to express it in words, and thus passing on the knowledge to other humans. For the author writing the story, for the reader who reads the story, and for all humanity, the battle with the JAM is not only alive but is nothing short of a living reality.
You can think of “words” and “machines” as strictly equivalent, indispensable interfaces that allowed people to affect and be affected by the chaotic natural world. This is because “machine” is nothing short of a “word” associated with a physical entity. When man differentiated himself from the natural world long ago, defined interfaces between man and the natural world— tools, words—simultaneously, necessarily came into being. Or rather, what we call “human” is likely that which seeks to affect the natural world through these interfaces.
Despite the fact that words and machines were created by humans they possess an independence and autonomy, moving on their own in ways which those who create them don’t anticipate. No, perhaps this definition is backwards as well. If they did not act on their own, they wouldn’t deserve to be called “machines” and “words.” So then, exactly what sort of being is a human, whose only means of affecting the natural world is through these mysterious things that he has no hope of exerting complete control over? Does the essence of being human really lie in the words and machines we create, with the thing we call “self ” merely a cast-off shell that remains here? And if our words and machines are what affect the world, won’t we eventually become unnecessary to them? “No,” Rei Fukai might mutter. “Humans are necessary in battle.”
When we delve deeper into the relationship between humans and words and machines, we end up running into the question of what the “self ” means in relation to a human. I’m not referring to the personal meaning of the so-called search for self. For example, as far as humans are concerned, self is not limited to the hardware that genetics bestows on us. Just as people who have lost an arm or a leg can experience the phenomenon of sensing a phantom limb, humans also have the ability to accept something added to their bodies as being part of themselves. I don’t mean that they become accustomed to them as tools or machines but that they are literally regarded as a part of the body.
The same goes for the mind. I hate to express it in such a complicated way, but there’s no evidence at all that the “you” which you believe to be yourself is actually real. That which you call your “real self ” is an extremely nebulous thing because humans, as social beings, cannot help but incorporate their valuation by others in the construction of their self-image. The nonsense you hear of “I’ve found my true self ” is a bit like having a piece of white paper painted black with only a bit of white left in the middle, and then having the white part insist “I am a white circle.”
I also regard with suspicion those who say that society and other individuals have no impact on them, those who view “I” as a single-cognizance subject. A being capable of recognizing that “I am here” cannot help but have its existence affected by, if nothing else, the simple impact generated by the act of observing itself. This is what the Heideggerian school of philosophy refers to as dasein, which roughly translates as “being there” or “presence.” While this is carried in rather pretentious-sounding concepts like geworfene Entwurf (literally, “a thrown projection”), it can be summed up crudely as the existence which is detached from the being who is “existing.” If a being exists in actual reality, its existence is not predicated on any description or understanding, and so a being that exists constantly saying “I am here” is engaged in a pointless reflexivity that is nothing more than ridiculous or pathetic. The moment that you are cognizant of “I,” a definitive separation is formed between you and that concept of “I.” If this cognizance doesn’t occur, then no concept of “I” will arise.
It seems that we humans, from the first moment of our being human, from the moment of creating the phenomenon of self, became sad creatures who constantly estrange ourselves from the natural world. Whether philosophically, psychologically, or by any other means, the more we try to contrive some sort of a reason for our existence, the more we seem to whittle away at our ourselves. Humans are, themselves, machines. They are also words. So where in this battle with the natural world do humans fit in?
This quibbling of mine has dragged on too long. Yukikaze grants us its charming insight without having to engage in such a sophistic buildup. “Humans are necessary in battle.” Kambayashi surely keeps writing science fiction to say this over and over again. Though it seems as if he constantly says in the novel that humans are manipulated by words and machines, that there’s no real need for humans and that everything should be left to the words and the machines, we cannot take these statements at face value. The more Kambayashi tries to impart power to words and machines—the more he tries to make what is human into what is inhuman—the more he succeeds in throwing the concept of humanity into sharper and more vivid relief. Rather than humanity just dissolving into nothingness, we see just how “Humans are necessary in battle.” Kambayashi is a unique author who writes about “humanity” by destroying it, in a style that nobody else can copy. If he were to be told that he couldn’t portray humanity, meaning that he couldn’t portray the clichéd emotions that you find rolling around anywhere in ordinary reality, he would probably take it as a compliment.
In 1999, fifteen years after Rei Fukai muttered “Humans are necessary in battle,” Kambayashi unleashed his carefully prepared sequel, Good Luck, Yukikaze, upon the world. As if his intervening works had meticulously laid the groundwork for a new flight for Yukikaze, the novel was a masterpiece that drew on fifteen years of battle victories. In the first book, humans faced the threat of having their reality collapse under the power of “words” and “machines”; the struggles of the characters left the reader with a strong impression of trauma and confusion. (And because of that, the author earned such comparisons as “the Philip K. Dick of Japan.”) In the sequel, however, humans seemed to be slowly but surely gathering the strength to take back their “world.” We may be beings who are trapped in ignorance, who are manipulated by other beings or things beyond our comprehension, but: we are human and we are here, and people are necessary for battle. Got a problem with that? Or so the characters seem to say. And before long, the inhabitants of Kambayashi’s world, these people who use words and machines as an interface to a natural world from which they are estranged, no longer seem weak but rather resolutely strong as they rise to confront that world. You could say that he’s gone from “If you’re not dancing, you’ll probably be made to dance,” the epigraph of Kitsune to Odore (Dance with a Fox), to “If you’re being made to dance, then dance it your way.” For example, this trend became extremely pronounced in 2001’s Eikyuu Kikan Souchi (Eternal Return Device). The novel’s characters fought with the author in a similarly strange situation, with the thrillingly depicted story of manufactured humans arguing with a superior being that could freely create and edit space.
I hope that those who have picked up this copy of Yukikaze will continue on and read its sequel, Good Luck, Yukikaze. It epitomizes the whole history of the evolution of Kambayashi’s work. (I can’t call it “growth,” because it’s evolution for the purpose of survival.) From that perspective, you can truly call Yukikaze Chōhei Kambayashi’s life’s work.
In bringing the JAM threat to her readers’ attention, journalist Lynn Jackson says this: “The digital world seems to run counter to the very essence of our humanity. Our language as well. Our civilization itself. So what, exactly, are we doing turning over more and more of our existence to computers?” It’s true that “our civilization” may run counter to human nature. So is the answer to go back to nature? I have a feeling that’s what the JAM would want. Placing human beings on this grinding battlefield that dehumanizes them, repeating “People are necessary in battle” over and over is what allows us humans to remain human in the face of the JAM. Your weapons are the words and machines you couldn’t otherwise comprehend. When you tire of the battle, you would do well to listen to the words of a soldier from Good Luck, Yukikaze: “It’s not a question of what you should do, but rather what you want to do. That’s the answer.”
The truth is, Yukikaze is a declaration of war against the world, made by Chōhei Kambayashi and by you, the reader, as human beings. Engage!
RAY FUYUKI