Rejected By Japan For The Dumbest Reason: Kawasaki Ki-96 

A girl once broke up with me. I told her I could change. She said “change is inevitable, it’s improvement that’s required.” Devastating

It's particularly bizarre that the Japanese Army decided they didn't want a single-seat heavy fighter, given that the single-seat P-38 was being used so effectively against them.

I think it's really easy to explain: the Imperial Japanese Navy must have been looking at twin-engined single-seat fighters, and the Army just went "you can't have ours".

That single-seat Ki-96 is aerodynamically gorgeous. Thank goodness for the stiff-necked, dysfunctional infighting of the Japanese army leadership.

"rejection is a natural part of life" You know I'm something of a *naturalist* myself

I was rejected from an AT&T call center because they said I needed at least five years work experience or a bachelors degree (that would cost more than the jobs worth far as debt goes) to operate a telephone. …. I applied to this place for years despite having another job just to see if it was a fluke. They never hired me.

The real reason was it needed 2 engines. In 1943 Japanese industry was struggling,with production and a shortage of resources.They could have had 1 Ki-96 or 2 single engined fighters.

For all the jobs I’ve ever applied to, I have never once been formally rejected. Every time I check they still say “we are working on it.” It’s just easier for them to ignore you than come up with a reason to reject you.

Having the necessary qualifications, I'd applied for a job as an assistant librarian back in 1964. The library was in a British Army 'special' establishment and not your usual type of base. The library was an archive of R&D records and othjer such material and was mainly used by officers and I was rejected because, 'You speak with a South London accent'! it was felt that with my flat vowels I wouldn't 'fit in' with the general atmosphere.

That is about the best looking aircraft that Japan ever made.

No matter the capability of a design, it really comes down to resource availability and production capacity. The Japanese never had enough of either, and the supply of fuel and adequately trained pilots was an issue as the war went on. Hence, this aircraft wouldn’t have had much of a effect overall.

Heavy fighters also make great bomber interceptors, with their greater speed, range, and height ceiling they could reach bombers that traditional single-engine fighters struggled to do at the time. German heavy fighters were highly effective at taking down British and American bombers. Eventually though, fighters kept getting more and more powerful engines, and bombers kept getting bigger and bigger with greater and greater height ceilings.

who'd thunk back then you'd be buying kawasaki motorcycles from your former enemy in WWII?

The A-26 Invader is now a 3 major war legend.

"Make sure you watch my Ki-100 video playing on loop forever." LMAO. Now there is a unique call to action! Do you not play war thunder? I know it may be fo paux in the history community but they do serve as some nice visual representations, and also might offer some additional insight into the historical side of things from their wiki. They also have an x ray feature so you can see crew layout and module placement. The game might be hot garbage in some ways, but my favorite place in the game is the hangar, and test flights if I am feeling froggy. That said I have a special love and history with these planes, and Gaijin are pretty strict about placing things in the game that didn't have some kind of truth and or use to them. Prototypes are often premium vehicles. Nice work!

Worst rejection I had from an interview was I wasn't enthusiastic enough for the job. The job was sitting outside Salvation army on the weekends for minimum wage to make sure people weren't dumping trash in the collection bins.

What turned out to be the best heavy fighter was the Ki-83, sleeker looking, 435 mph, as maneuverable as the best single engine fighters, and armed with 4 cannons. Would be great to see a video on it.

1:13 I applied for a job at a cafe with all the experience and skills and everything needed for the position, plus more. I was turned down for not having the skills and experience needed

I was rejected from a company for being too clean. Said the other guy worked in dirtier environments and would be a better fit.

Without specific information regarding why Japan went back to the idea that heavy fighters should have rear gunners, it is outrageously unfair to accuse the reasons of being dumb, and more so to use the superlative "dumbest." The Ki-96 would have been an enormously better match for the U.S. fighters in widespread use when its specifications were developed than it was for the U.S. fighters in widespread use by the time Japan decided against producing a single-seat heavy fighter. That improvement in the opposition Ki-96's would have faced could easily have led to a decision that single-seat fighters were a better use of limited resources for some of the purposes originally envisioned for the Ki-96 and that for the remaining roles, having a rear gunner was worth sacrificing a bit of performance.

This is great-your best yet! I was grinning widely throughout the humorous segments. The fact-based bits were thoroughly informative, as usual. Thanks for your help on these topics! Since I’m here: I have always thought your “Cool Logo” is hilarious!

Heavy fighter / light bomber with two engines went on to glory in the US military with jets such as the F-4 Phantom, F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, and F-18 Hornet.

You need more viewers. I'd never heard of this Kawasaki dual engine plane had you not talked about it.

Great job as always. Thank you for your hard work 😊😊😊

I think it would be better to specify the Japanese Army, rather than saying the "Japanese military", as the latter leaves it unclear if you're talking about the army or the navy, and the two almost never did acquisition together.

Years ago, I submitted an article to a leading gambling web site. They said that they didn't like it and rejected it. A few months later, I saw my article written with an anonymous name as the writer.

Very interesting show, I have always had a "thing" for Japanese WW2 fighters, especially the more exotic late-war models. I had not seen much info on the Ki-96 so your account was a pleasant surprise. Could possibly gived the P-38 a run for its money!

3:00 The heavy fighter concept didn't go away, it just evolved into what we now call the Air Superiority Fighter: a big and usually twin-engined plane with a powerful radar, long range, and carrying lots of air-to-air missiles. It took the creation of the jet engine and reliable guided missiles to make the concept viable.

My boyfriend shared some of his rejection stories from job hunting, so I thought I would share them here. He says he was turned down for being “over qualified” for the position many times. Once because he was not gay, and twice for being too tall. As he is only 5’10 I find it laughable they said that. How height could be an issue for a min wage job as a stocker at a grocery store while in high school, I will never understand.

I really appreciate what you do. I have a lot of trouble falling asleep and my partners fan doesn't help. I just put your channel on and imagine his fan as high altitude prop noises and rack right out.

For Germany, this story reminds me of that of the Focker Wulf Fw-187, which was also rejected because the Lufwaffen did not want a single-seat aircraft with two engines. Focker Wulf then even installed a second seat in its test aircraft, although this second man was unable to take over any useful task, because everything was far too cramped in this thoroughbred fighter.

in the painting at 22:00, I'm curious as to what the American bombers in the background are. just a slightly funky artist's interpretation of a B-29? or some swept wing, 4-engined obscure aircraft I'm unaware of.

Also Mitsubishi Ki-83 was very sexy twin engined fighter(prototype).

The most stupid rejection I can think of was probably way back in 10th grade. Our school had this news paper thing, but it was more like a magazine, had just two editions per year and was a half voluntary thing (at the beginning of the year you can choose one "voluntary" subject, but you had to attend and it gets graded. We called it "Wahlpflichtunterricht" because this story takes place in Germany and what did you expect us to call something? Anyway my "wahlpflichtunterrichtsfach" (sorry^^ can't help my self...) in 10th grade was Journalism and I wrote a big thing on something that I can't recall, but I know it was something I cared deeply about, because otherwise I wouldn't have bothered doing more than the absolute minimum. And I wrote this thing, was sure to get an A and my first publicized article of sorts but instead my teacher called my over at the end of the day and told me that she won't print it and I get an F because the article was "to good to be from a 17 y/o boy" and that I surely have stolen it from "der Spiegel or something". I asked her from which article and since my Father was a journalist and could get all sorts of old magazines I offered her to bring her every Spiegel or Focus or Stern magazine ever printed, so that she could show me an article that even remotely compares to mine. Then I got kicked out of the school news paper. And that's how stopped writing. Well done, German schooling system. Well done indeed. I guess the moral of all this is: Kids don't even try.

My personal rejection that I always look back on and shake my head is when I was applying for a job and asked if I had a record with some misdemeanors should I even bother applying and the person working there said no don’t bother and took my application away. A black man stood up and said I guess I am out too but they told him due to DEI he could stay while I had to go because I was white and would be rejected for my misdemeanors while for him it would be ignored. Gotta love modern racism…

You should check out the Achi S21A2 heavy fighter the final evolution of the Ki-96 with two 2200 hp engines, remote turret and Schrage Muzik type cannons to attack B-29 bombers with.

Rejection is a good thing in this case, the Axis came up with all sorts of weapons systems that simply appeared to late and too small in number, many of which could have altered the course of the war or even its outcome had they been fielded earlier.

"Sometimes the performance of the plane doesn't matter..." The F 20 Tiger Shark knows that all to well.

Gotta love the watch my video on loop forever. Just add the the clamps to hold ones eyes open forever like in robot chicken.

The “Just say NO to twins” campaign must have started. The plane looks beautiful. Love the scholarly reference to SpongeBob - there’s still worthwhile lessons to be found in the classics. 👍🏻

Has some similarity to the RAF's Bristol Beaufighter which was pretty effective in the Pacific theatre.

I have ALWAYS found Japanese prop plane design from the WWII era to be aesthetically stimulating... which is the G rated verson of saying how 'cool' I think they were. I guess since there are so few of them that still survive to this day, they take on a bit of a mythical persona and make them just that much more appealing to me. I'll never forget the scene in the movie 'Empire of the Sun' where young Chrisian Bale's character slips onto the Japanese flight line and proceeds to try to touch and then caress a fighter plane. That is EXACTLY how I feel about their aircraft. There is just somthing about them that is unavoidably appealing... almost spiritual, indeed!

My stupidest rejection was for a programming job. I didn't have a degree, but had a dozen years' experience in their type of application, essentially inventory management. Because all the others had a Masters degree at least, I couldn't be considered. Sorry, but I think I dodged a bullet there as it sounded like a place where status was more important than results

I once got a job rejection form-letter email where they just didn't bother filling in the form. This is an actual line from that email. Although your [skills and/or qualifications] were very impressive, we’ve chosen a candidate who has more [qualifications or experience]. Trust me when I say that nobody had more qualifications or experience. They just didn't want to hire someone who is as old as I am.

Before, and early years of internet, getting formal rejections by snail-mail was far from uncommon. Today, one hardly get a rejection even by email. It really suck to be unemployed these days. The positive is, there is obviously no reason to ever reapply at such a place.

Nakajima Ki-37 is very briefly mentioned on page 93 of "Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War" by Rene J Francillon. Basically says very early on, Nakajima was allowed to drop out of development as they had more pressing work on their plate. Same for Mitsubishi and their Ki-39.

A pleasure to hear "Ki" pronounced correctly.

I wonder if removing the rear gunner and streamlining the fuselage would have improved the aerodynamics, reduced weight, and increased its top speed? Not that it matters at this point in time. My question being answered 3/4 of the way through the vid

I was rejected for several jobs during the 2003 recession because "I had a gap in my resume." (I had a gap in my resume because I had been laid off!) As soon as I lied in the resume I got hired.

It’s not a bad looking plane, but it does highlight just how their aviation industry was essentially non-competitive with the US by then. For example, the F7F Tigercat flew in late 1943 as well - twin radial heavy attack fighter (AND was carrier-capable) - it was almost ***100 MPH FASTER***. We’re not talking a slight disadvantage here, the Ki-96 would have been interesting in 1940-1941ish, but considering Japans state of affairs heading into ‘44, and the realization of what twin heavy fighter SHOULD be (hell, the P-38 first flew 4 years before this as well, and hit over 400 MPH on its first flight) - I’m not sure why anyone is surprised that they didn’t choose to produce this thing. Also many other heavy twin fighters have distinct advantages, the Tigercat was a carrier fighter with 4x cannons and 4x .50 cals, the definition of “HEAVY” fighter. The P-38 could cruise over 40,000’ with its turbosuperchargers, had exceptional range, and also had roughly twice the armament of the Ki-96. The Ki-96 was just a heavier, more expensive version of a regular single-engined fighter in my opinion. It was slow, had poor high-altitude performance (kinda important for a bomber interceptor) - same with climb-rate, minimally armored (by allied standards) and the kicker for me is simply having armament that would be considered weak on any single-engined fighter of the day. The 37mm is “interesting” - but its rate of fire made it useless against air targets - perhaps bombers, but still reduced the aircraft’s flexibility. So yeah, could have been interesting 4 years earlier, but just kinda embarrassing for a ‘43-‘44 design IMHO. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Know what's even better than a no call back after an interview? A job offer for "entry level position, masters degree and 7+ years experience required" like, really? Entry level. Masters. 7+ years xp. ENTRY. LEVEL. COME TF ON!

I don’t know how much it influenced these decisions , but it took me years to understand the depth rivalry between the services in Taisho- era japan 🤔. We naturally think of like “US-like” we don’t like to he other service so we are going to lobby to take their resources away”...Nope the IJN & army literally HATED each other, they completely doubled up on aspects & would murder each other’s supporting politicians 😮. I suspect if one service liked a plane no matter how worthy, they’d rather loose a battle than support the idea their enemy service did a good job.

Me getting rejected for a promotion for not liking to talk on the phone... While my work is literally to talk on the phone as a tech support. Yeah. Especially since that promotion job mostly used email.

In retrospect the popularity of these "heavy fighters" may seem strange. However, during that period a surprising number of "aviation experts" were proclaiming that the single-seat fighter was a thing of the past and that the "two-seat fighter" or even the "multi-place fighter" was going to be the future of air-to-air combat. The principal argument was that a single-seat fighter would be unable to bring down a modern bomber defended by multiple flexible machine guns. Of course, that argument was predicated upon the assumption that single-seat fighters would continue to be armed only with two .30 caliber guns. Of course, needless to say, that was not the case. For example, during the mid 1930s the British began to introduce single-seat fighters armed with no less than 8 forward-firing machine guns.

Not sure if by design, but at 3:47 the video shows Captain Michiro Okuyama and his Giretsu Kuteitai (義烈空挺隊) airborne commando unit depart on their suicide mission to Okinawa on May 24, 1945. It was a plan hatched by the Japanese Army's infamous Kempetai that ultimately led to the creation of this unit in November 1944, with the express purpose of attacking and neutralizing B-29 airfields in the Pacific. On this mission they did manage to destroy and damage a total of 38 aircraft, but not a single B-29 was lost. The story of the Giretsu Kuteitai is revered in Japan and their bravery celebrated every May 24th. There are two memorials to the Giretsu unit in Okinawa.

Thanks so much for creating and sharing this informative video. Great job. Keep it up.

Starts at 2:05

I don't know about post WW2 rejection of heavy fighters. IIRC, the mid '70's edition of JANES POCKET BOOK OF MAJOR COMBAT FIGHTERS listed a Soviet, Yak, believe, fighters called a "rocket fighter, being 98 ft long and 100,000 lbs

Perhaps Nakajima decided to pursue the J1N1 (“Moonlight” or “Irving” in U.S. war nicknames) or the Japanese military decided for them. The Moonlight served well with two 1100 + horsepower engines and a top speed o f 315 mph as a recon aircraft.

it's a beautiful machine though. Lovely proportions. Probably thrilling to fly.

A good video, wish you do one on the Me410 one day.

The real question is why was japan making and developing so many twin engine two seat fighters at all. They just kept designing and ending up with the same thing over and over. Even worse, the duality of design and production between the army and the navy meant that the production and design were in nearly parallel wasting 2x the time and effort.

When you Tage the old Definition to it, fighters like the F14 Tomcat are heavy fighters, 2 engines, more than 1 fighter, heavy load. So this concept is still in use today.

One sign of Imperial Japanese military dysfunction was that the Navy version of the Zero had a different caliber of ammo than the Army version. Towards the end of the war, a Navy plane couldn't land at an Army base to get ammo and vice versa.

Another excellent presentation and analysis.

"what's the point of anything anymore?" "tha's right, pass the sake! *hic*"

11:00 I think that "slight upward angle* of the 20mm guns is roundabout 45° and theyre actually mounted right behind the pilot. It was pretty much a Schräge Musik type arrangement. That particular variant, along with both others in the video and one more are all in Warthunder.

Thank you for NOT adding music.

One of the most aesthetically pleasing aircraft to look at IMO.

The heavy fighter didn't go away after WW2. They didn't call them that but the F-4 Phantom fits your definition of heavy fighter exactly. Same with the F-15EX.

My "job rejection that made no sense" occurrence was that I was overqualified for the position I was applying for...

What about Japans Messerscmiddt 410 , the 210 had lots of teething troubles but the concept as a whole had great potensial, a very progressive dasign!

I'm no expert on military hardware but you can start to see all kinds of advantages of adding the second engine when you think about it. Armor for one thing. Heavier cannons and just more machine guns in general. More ammunition. Those WW2 fighters didn't have a whole lot of firing time. With a multi role kind of deal you'd probably want to have it carry one of a number of different external options. Maybe external fuel tanks for longer range. Bombs. Torpedos. Rocket launchers. I'm not sure if Japan had any kind of radar or avionics but it must add weight. Honestly I'm surprised these things aren't even more noted for being devastating weapons.

So what about specifications? 😀

Great video of a virtually unknown aircraft. One question. Wouldn't the F-111 "Aardvark" qualify as a heavy fighter?

Now, if only the Kawasaki airplane would have been painted green and have everyone call it "Ninja"...

0:46 this is exactly what I am going through rn. Feel like just tying the noose around me neck.

That was very good, and yes I could evolve.........into the great man that I am today, after these 77 years

Doesnt this resemble the Mitsubishi Dinah? Did they already have what they asked for? Do i need pistachio ice cream?

Love, the SpongeBob analogy😁!!!

I kind of assumed it got cancelled because of the ongoing Screaming-Death-Hatred between the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy. Generally speaking, when ever the Japanese military do something really stupid or self-sabotaging, it's the vendetta between the Army and Navy that's at the heart of it

I applied for a job and got a phone interview. The reason they gave for not hiring me was that I lived too far away. 20 minutes was too far away. Okay then, whatever.

Wonderful timing video

The Ki. 96 had two actually _reliable_ engines for that plane (the Mitsubishi Ha.112 radials were actually paragons of reliability compared to the troublesome Nakajima Ha. 45 _Homare_ engine). Had it gone into service, it would have been a huge scourge against the B-29 _Superfortress_ becuase it was fast enough to keep up with the B-29.

Very amusing, subtle, dry, and even on occasion, self depreciating wit, permeates thru the narration on this channel.A bit unusual, coming from Uncle Sam land. Great stuff, including the exhaustive research therein.

Most likely Ki-96 didn't have good enough high altitude performance without turbochargers. Ki-102 Ko, Ki-102 Hei and Ki-108 with those were very few because the difficulty they had building reliable and power enough turbo systems. Ki-102 Otsu with simple supercharger was build in couple hundreds at least. Ki-45 armament: Ko 2x12.7mm + 1x20mm Otsu 2x12.7mm + 1x37mm - The single shot 37mm. Only about 20-30 of these were build. Hei 1x20mm + 1x37mm - Now automatic 37mm gun. Tei 1x37mm + 2x20mm - The latter were Schräge Musik style upward firing guns. All variants had that rear 7.92mm.

Never heard of this plane, awesome video 👏👏👏 excellent stuff 👌😉

2:14 Skip intro and get to the subject. For those that don't want to hear nothing but talking about random stuff.

I seem to recognize the sprite in the thumbnail of the video from somewhere... Perhaps not from a Japanese web browser game about anthropomorphized WW2 ships...

Did their night fighters ever get radar?

i love your mundane stories, oh and the plane stuff is ok too.

There are 3 Allied fighters that were "heavy" that worked.. Mosquito , P38 , P47

I was rejected from art school Good thing my backup plans are politics

It cant be a Kawasaki, its not green.

At the end of the war, Japan single engined fighters could do the job, just as well. Why use two expensive engines..

More likely since this is a Japanese Army plane, they discovered that the Japanese Navy was interested in it, the Army then HAD to cancel it.

The Japanese should have used twin-engine XF5F-style deck aircraft - it would have been completely sufficient to offset the advantage the Hellcats gave.

Would have been interesting to see this up against a Tigercat.

...video I made a few months ago...make sure you watch it on loop forever... :-)

Only major rejection I’ve had, I was 10,she was 18.😉