Episode 10 · GATE

GATE

Youji Itami is a 33 year old JSDF officer and a full time otaku, and he is running late for a doujin convention in Ginza when the gate opens. Not a metaphor. A real gate, right there in the middle of Tokyo, and out of it pour armored knights and monsters that tear through the shopping district. Itami does what he can, saves who he can, and the military shoves the invaders back through. Three months later he gets a new assignment: lead a recon team into the world on the other side. Here is the twist. The place is not a den of demons. Most people living there just want to farm, trade and get by, and Itami's team picks up friends fast, an elf, a mage, a demigoddess, while they map out a culture nobody back home understands. But the JSDF is not the only one watching. The US, China and Russia have noticed the resources sitting behind that gate, and to them the Special Region looks like a prize to be taken. So Itami is stuck between two worlds. One wants him to play soldier and diplomat for a government with its own plans, the other keeps showing him that the people here are worth more than whatever is buried under their soil. Can a lazy otaku with a hobby he refuses to give up really keep a war from starting on both sides of the gate?