Waifu Industrial Complex

Anduril, anime girls, and the militarization of fandom

Why is a defense contractor selling anime girl hoodies on KommandoStore.com? It could be the first step toward creating an unregistrable lobby—or a powerful engine for recruitment. This essay reads Anduril Industries’ recent forays into loot boxes, licensed waifu merch and visual novels as a new twist on a decades-old lineage that includes WWII bomber nose art: a way of turning government-owned-and-operated murder machines into objects of private, personal devotion.

If fascism aestheticizes politics, this could be the aestheticization of procurement.