The Vast Ocean Is A Casino

To truly understand a nation, it is essential to comprehend its military, specifically the Imperial Japanese Navy. From its early establishment characterized by subservience to its remarkable rise that captured global attention in just forty years, it subsequently vanished completely from the earth after nearly another forty years.

This is an army characterized by a gambler's nature, as well as a highly creative force. It is capable of disregarding all existing political, economic, and military rules and conclusions to take bold risks, thereby establishing numerous "firsts" in combat methods and innovations. At the same time, it is an extremely conservative army, stagnant and trapped in outdated ways of thinking that have lagged behind the times for decades.

Two extremely contradictory natures are interdependent, which precisely embodies the character of the Japanese nation. This also foreshadows that, apart from a tragic outcome, there can be no other conclusion. Ultimately, its destination can only be the depths of the ocean—an area that is less a battlefield for them than a casino, and even more so, a graveyard.

The warships have become wrecks, yet the software legacy of the Imperial Japanese Navy has been preserved almost intact. A careful observation of Japanese society reveals that the influence from the former Imperial Japanese Army is indeed minimal, to the extent that it can be said to have nearly disappeared, while the influence from the former Imperial Japanese Navy is quite significant. Many phenomena or behaviors that are currently considered unique to Japanese society have a history that is not as long as people might imagine. A considerable number of these are legacies left by the Imperial Japanese Navy, with only a history of several decades to a few hundred years. This is a legacy that has both positive and negative aspects; Japan's post-war recovery owes much to this legacy, while the subsequent stagnation and fluctuations of the Japanese economy seem to also reveal clues within that legacy.