Which one is better, real history or alternate history?

**LVUER** · 01-24-2011, 10:23 PM

I want to make a manga (a real serious one, meaning I will want this one published, so I have to think about the target market). I have plan pretty much about everything (character, setting, story, etc).

It's about war that happened in my country. The setting is at WW2 and the enemies are Holland and Japanese (yeah, we fought against both Allies and Axis, scary...).

One last problem is... is it going to be real history genre or alternate one. If it's real history, then well... that's it. Nothing fancy, just a war manga. If it's alternate, then I will add quadpedal mechanized units into the war along with tanks, and some weapons that several years of the time.

According to your personal opinion, which should I choose? And why?

**Bardic-Dragoon** · 01-25-2011, 01:00 AM

If it's alternate history, your going to have to do more than just "add quadpedal mechanized units into the war along with tanks, and some weapons that several years of the time." you have to justify why these exist within said alternate timeline, or even since you seem to have a real event occurring parallel to/as your story you might want to give some reason as to why events have otherwise played out exactly as they have in this reality, sans the obvious advanced weaponry.

personally on this case i would go with real history, it's simpler to deal with personally the whole near future warfare stuff feels a little overplayed (though WWII is not exactly fresh material either so...).

I might also suggest taking the same concepts and premise (world at war, split largely into two factions, one nation having representatives of both sides as their enemies) but change the names and chronological setting to something more fitting what you want to add. your stories premise and tone stays mostly intact (assuming that there isn't a major reason for this being set specifically in uh...wherever you happen to live.) and you still get to have you fictional war machines, like having your cake and eating it to.

also, can't say i know for you homeland specifically but weren't tanks around in WWI?

**LVUER** · 01-25-2011, 02:04 AM

I also thought at some point to use real history... but that means I also have to "mimic" that time perfectly (or at least very close). The problem is I have lack of confidence to do that (I'll bound to create historical inaccurate things). Not because I'm lazy to research, but there's lack of documents available here (there's even less on the internet).

Anyway, thanks for the input. I've never though about why the technology become so advanced...

I live in Indonesia. Strategically placed, VOC invaded us, and then Japan came, and finally after Japan lost in WW2, Holland back. So we fought against 2 big nations...

There is a reason why I choose that timeline and place, which is I want to use the premise of my country independence day (also known as the August 17th).

With tanks, I mean the quadpedal mech unit still doesn't that almighty, it needs organic support from other tanks and infantry. I will use Sherman 2 and Sherman 2 Firefly as the tanks (already exist, though I don't know if they're actually fight in my country).

**Kodos** · 01-25-2011, 02:14 AM

There's enough crazy inventions in WW2 that you have a fair bit of freedom. I'd highly reccomend reading Zack Parson's hilarious book on the crazy inventions of WW2; My Tank is Fight.

Also you sent me a PM a while back and I replied, haven't heard from you since. Have you been checking your PMs? @_@

**PWhit** · 01-29-2011, 10:33 PM

If you plan to have a really serious manga, I would have as much realism as possible. That's just my thoughts on this issue.

**LVUER** · 01-30-2011, 01:09 AM

Your thoughts will be much appreciated ^_^ Yeah, the manga would be very serious (it's a war after all). I want to add some mecha for two things:
1. To appeal younger audience (since I think they love mecha)
2. To find excuse if there's some inconsistency with technology at that time.

For reason #2, I know and have researched about WW2 era (weapons and technology). But I never do research which of those technology that enter my country (I think most of them would comes from Japan though, since they invade us from 1942 to 1945). One thing I absolutely know is that our forces really like Bren Light Machinegun.

And also, I want to know how's life at that time here (and how's technology that used in daily life). No one to ask and there's little resource to read... I guess I will just use what I can get from Wikipedia.

BTW, some people vote for alternate history. I wish they want to explain why they chose it.

**Regantor** · 01-30-2011, 11:50 AM

Yeah, I'm generally all for mecha, but right here they seem kinda gratuitous combined with this type of serious plot... Perhaps taking an original point of view, like a tank crew or aircraft pilot, would kill two birds with one stone? I'm not sure if your country even had any at the time, admitedly, but some sort of new perspective would certainly help set it appart IMO. ;I

**LVUER** · 01-30-2011, 06:56 PM

No, my country didn't have any of that. Holland (the invader) have it, but my country is forced to guerrilla tactics. In fact, my country is one of the founder of such tactics. There's no way we could win such a large scale forces without resorting to "dirty" tactics... or I would prefer to call it special forces tactics, huwahhh ^_^

Actually the story would be taken from a sniper and company leader POV (a girl and a guy). It will feature a "battle" that doesn't recorded in history, but taken place behind the major event of my country history.

BTW, how much inaccuracy could you tolerate when reading a WW2 war manga?

EDIT:
Oh, so that I'm not mistaken, Kenshin (or Samurai X) is categorized as a real history, right? Even if with the almost unrealistic nature of the sword fight?

**Rio** · 02-03-2011, 07:00 PM

Kenshin is marked as history since that is it's genre. "Realistic", though, is a bit of a stretch. In some sense it is realistic such as the setting and situation but as you say, the fights are totally out-of-this-world. That's bordering in fantasy genre territory.

Regarding inaccuracy, as long as it's not something totally and blatantly inaccurate like D-Day being any other day than June 6, 1944, then I think it would be fine. You should still strive for accuracy though such as cultural beliefs, dresses, food, technology, and so on.