The Earth is a Mother: Homelands in Sci-Fi Song Lyrics
Introduction
This may just be a pet theory of mine, but in science fiction anime; starting with Space Battleship Yamato, moving through Captain Harlock, and definitely through Gundam — all the way to modern entries in the Universal Century — with stops in other science fiction anime along the way; the Earth is a metaphor for Japan, and the tie of citizens to a homeland can also be understood as the bonds between parents and their children. Within Gundam, specifically, space represents a wider world beyond Japan's borders, and its people struggle with the question of national identity in the face of a homeland that cannot support the lives of all of humanity. I believe that in this framework, the Mother Earth itself is a cradle which humanity has outgrown, but must not destroy.
All of that sounds really dramatic, but I came to this conclusion by listening to song lyrics and thinking about Newtypes. You can walk away thinking that I'm talking nonsense, but if you'd like, please entertain me until the end of this essay.
To start with, I should explain that I learned Japanese mostly by listening to music, so it stands to reason that I'm constantly listening for snippets of poetry and stray metaphors whenever I'm translating from Japanese to English. (It also means my style of speaking in Japanese is… distinctive.) When I go on rants like this, I'm often told that I might be overthinking things, but I believe I'm well within the bounds of how literature and poetry are analyzed in scholarly circles.
The Songs
Although I claim that Space Battleship Yamato started the trend of "Earth as a metaphor for Japan," my lyric analysis starts with Captain Harlock's opening theme in 1978. Tomino reused this metaphor in Mobile Suit Gundam's end credits theme in 1979. Even Hideaki Anno is cribbing from this arrangement of poetic motifs in 1998's Evangelion: Rebirth. Finally, what forced my hand in writing this essay was noticing its presence in Gundam: The Origin's first OVA end theme from 2015.
(In the case of Evangelion, I'm not alone in noticing this parallel between the music in this show and the music in Yamato — you can read others' thoughts on the Wikipedia page for Evangelion's musical themes.)
I want to explain these connections, so I've taken the liberty of doing my own translations of the songs, to bring the parallels forward in English. Please don't take this as my attempt to "correct" any official translations; everyone is translating to a purpose. In my case, that purpose is this argument. There is no such thing as a "neutral" translation, in my view.
Space Pirate Captain Harlock
Let's first look at the example from Harlock. (This is the TV-length opening, rather than the full song.)
The sea of the galaxy is my sea
My boundless ambition
The song of the Earth is my song
The homeland I will never fully abandon
Dear friend, even though I know it is a planet with no future
After all, I will fight to defend it
I, who have abandoned even my life, will so live
I, who have abandoned even my life, will so live!
Eien ni Amuro
Compare the above lines to the ending song to the TV series version of First Gundam, which also talks about Earth as a homeland. (This is the full version, minus some lines which repeat.)
Amuro, don't turn away
The planet across the distance of the galaxy
Amuro, that's the homeland you're born into
Do you remember? The days of your youth
The mornings you awakened
Wrapped in warmth?
Amuro, don't turn away, Amuro
Men must hide their tears, hide them,
And look only to the future, foreverAmuro, don't turn away
The glittering planet at the end of the galaxy
Amuro, that's the homeland you've abandoned
You mustn't forget them; the vows you made in youth
Staking your youth itself
You must protect this happiness
Amuro, don't turn away, Amuro
Men must hide their loneliness, must hide it,
And look only to the future, forever
Tamashii no Refain
Once again, compare the above songs to the the chorus sections of the end theme to Evangelion: Rebirth.
Come home to me, to the wellspring of kindness and dreams
That line the halls of memory
Gravitate towards the stars once again so that you may be born
The refrain of the soul[...]
Come home to me, before you are to be born
Return to the land that once bore you
Return to my arms so that we may have our destined meeting
Any number of miracles will occur so that that can happen
The refrain of the soul[...]
Come home to me, to the wellspring of kindness and dreams
That line the halls of memory
You, too, must return to me so that we can love one another
Body and mind, repeating
The refrain of the soul[...]
Hourglass of Stardust
And, although this section is getting quite long, I would also like to present some lines from the end theme to Gundam: The Origin I. (This is just a small segment of the song, with the bolded section representing the second half of the bridge.)
[...]
Why do people love one another, hurt one another, and come to hate one another
As if we were lonely planets caught in one another's gravitational pull?
But at this moment, I want to believe in the genes within me, called "dreams"
That they'll transcend this suffering and these tears
Tell me, what kind of future
Awaits me?
I try asking, but the moon
Only smiles in response
And the stardust in the hourglass
Falls towards a future no one can predictNo matter how many lightyears stand between us
My homeland is a gentle bosomTell me, is it a good thing
That I was born into this world?
The moon, having no answer to give me,
Only wanes and waxes in response
And so, the young girl inside of me
Will grow to be an adult[...]
Lyric Analysis
I don't think these repeated references to a "homeland" are coincidental. I think they are indicative of a conversation that these creators are having amongst themselves, about what it means to move forward into a world where humanity departs the Earth and enters the boundless realm of space.
In 1978's Captain Harlock, Harlock exists outside of society, but protects humanity nonetheless. He was meant to appear in Yamato originally, but was instead spun off into a separate property within the Leijiverse. In either series, humanity has reached a breaking point, but in Harlock specifically, there is a sense that the corruption of the Earth's elites presents a backdrop in which Harlock cannot exist as anything other than an enemy of the state, even as he protects the people who live on the planet.
He cannot fully abandon the homeland of the Earth, even if he is relegated to the sea of the galaxy.
In 1979's Gundam, Amuro is a character who, in Lalah Sune's estimation, has no homeland, no family, and no one he loves, yet he fights on. Lalah calls that "unnatural." What's "unnatural" about it is the "fighting" part. Gundam is largely a discussion of when violence is necessary and when violence exacerbates existing problems, or prevents progress even as it tries to resolve the issues that necessitated such violence in the first place. It's my view that the idea of "a homeland" which must be protected is often at odds with the idea of living as people amongst other people rather than as citizens of warring nations, and this is why we see enemy pilots reaching understanding with one another, only to have that understanding bring no lasting peace.
Amuro has abandoned his homeland, but must fight, staking his youth itself, to protect the warmth of the future.
Starting with the text of Char's Counterattack in 1988, we see another theme brought starkly into contrast — the concept of the Earth as a mother. (If you want to see me talk around that topic, I did write a personal essay about that movie.) And this metaphor reflected in these later songs, where the concept of a "homeland" is not confined solely to Earth, but also to a motherly figure.
In 1998's Evanglion: Rebirth, "Tamashii no Refrain" plays when Asuka realizes her mother's presence in the heart of Unit 02. Evangelion is largely a pastiche of the tokusatsu and robot shows that have laid its groundwork, and it is truly a very fun, very rich text, but it says little about real-world politics. However, its themes of human connection, the difficulties of reaching out to others, the pain (and fear! and refusal!) of connection with others, and the courage it takes to accept oneself enough to seek out genuine relationships, all pivot around the Jungian ideas of a child's connection to their mother.
In order to be born, to live openly amongst others even though vulnerability is painful, we can't reject that first connection in our lives. We have to think about what it means to be related to our parents and thus to the rest of humanity.
In the end theme to 2015's Gundam: The Origin I, the moon being referenced is a reminder of Sayla's separation from her mother. Although the subtitle for this OVA is "Blue-Eyed Casval," the end theme reflects young Sayla's feelings as she is separated from her childhood and thrust into a world of other people, political machinations, and eventual war. She's much younger than her brother, and much more adaptable to this change, contrasted with young Char whose reactions to this separation are more violent in nature.
Although I don't translate any other Gundam theme songs here, the line about the gravitational pull between planets is a callback to one of the openings of Zeta Gundam, and the line about growing into an adult is a callback to the opening line of the end theme to the first of the Gundam theatrical movies: "People grow to be adults under the weight of sadness." Connection, loss, and growth from childhood to adulthood are all tied up in the idea of growing past our parents, the Earth, and into people who can see others without presupposing "enemy" or "ally" roles along arbitrary lines like national identity.
(I could go on and on about these themes in Gundam song lyrics. I could just as easily talk about Cucuruz Doan's theme "Birth Cries," but we'd be here all day.)
A Secondhand Personal Anecdote
Up to this point, I've only spoken from my own perspective, but I'm incredibly fortunate to have a friend who grew up in Japan watching Mobile Suit Gundam as it was airing on television in 1979 and followed the arc of the Universal Century as it unfolded in real time. I'd like to describe a conversation I had with her, keeping in mind that she spent several years of her childhood overseas, then more years visiting other countries for extended periods while living permanently in Japan.
According to my friend, overseas residency for Japanese nationals had been mostly limited to businessmen in the aftermath of World War II. It was only in the mid-70s that it became common for the wives and children of businessmen to be granted visas to live with their husbands overseas. Because of this, the number of children who were born in Japan, raised overseas, and then returned to Japan at some point, increased. There was a discussion going on amongst the media and society, at the time of Gundam, about what it would be like to have Japanese nationals with international perspectives live and work beside Japanese nationals who had never left Japan.
And into the society having these discussions, 1979's Mobile Suit Gundam was born. My friend said she finds Amuro, who was born on Earth, grew up in space, and returns briefly to Earth during the events of Zeta Gundam, interesting from that perspective.
As an aside, Amuro is likely not meant to be Japanese in any capacity, and even early interviews with the creators show Tomino being cagey on the subject of characters' nationalities. Kamille, however, was (at least according to the novels) born in Niiza, to non-Japanese parents, which by Japanese law wouldn't make him a Japanese national (not that nationality matters to Earthnoids from a legal perspective in the the Universal Century).
Still, if "the Earth is a metaphor for Japan" exists as a continuing thread from Yamato — and I believe it does — then Amuro, Kamille, and The Origin's Lalah are all Earth-born first-generation expatriates to space, Judau is (probably) a second- or third-generation native of space, and Char and Sayla are nth-generation Spacenoids; but what's interesting is that none are particularly loyal to Earth as a system of government or a "homeland;" even amongst those ostensibly fighting for the Earth Federation.
Final Thoughts from First Gundam
There's a hard-to-parse scene that was written for the third Gundam compilation movie, where Kai asks Bright if they should go fight the Federation after they defeat Zeon; Sayla says that she doesn't understand politics, but she does understand fighting for people's freedom; and Amuro states that it's necessary to fight any power that would limit the potential of its people.
To me, this is indicative of what Tomino was trying to say about Newtypes, the Earth, and our lineage as humans as we attempt to move past eras of conflict. Citizens of a given state who are not loyal to that state, or to the concept of the state itself, are surely disquieting to those in charge of the state. But to achieve an even somewhat-lasting peace, rather than the state itself, citizens should relate to one another as people, rather than relying on the idea of a nation, and think about what is best for all of humanity rather than just a subsection of its population. (Of course, this is difficult to do, as we have limited understandings of cultures to which we do not belong.)
I don't have a particularly snappy way to wrap up these thoughts, but I hope readers will keep an eye out for these metaphors as they are quoted and elaborated on throughout science fiction and robot anime. Let's all listen to songs and think about our place within the vastness of the universe, as we gravitate in one another's orbit.
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