In the first few episodes, why was so much effort put into Wegener passing the blueprints to the Japanese Science Minister personally, repeatedly putting him at great risk? Why couldn't he simply give the blueprints to Tagomi, who could then pass them to the Science Minister?
He didn't trust Tagomi fully and the blue prints were far too valuable for Wegener not to hand over personally. It's the key to the Reich's strategic advantage over Japan and one of their most closely guarded secrets
Why didn't Joe shoot the Yakuza boss? We know that he had no more bullets left, but he couldn't possibly know that about a gun he saw for the first time, could he?
Well, he is a gunsmith, so it's likely know the weight difference between a loaded and a unloaded weapon.
How did Heusmann's plan get as far as it did? Hitler's access to the film reels seemed to keep him one move ahead, did none of the alternate realities he was seeing show Heusmann for what he truly was? I mean even if those films only fell into Abendsen's hands everyone loses if the Resistance sits on the information.
The films that are collected give you information about alternate realities, but not all of it can be relied on. As The Man in the High Castle notes, some people are always the same, no matter the reality, while others are very dependent on circumstance. It's also worth noting that the characters are putting together clues from what they have. Film reels of a documentary on how the Battle of the Bulge went is easier to interpret and more useful than a Fourth of July celebration in the 1960s. There might not have been anything that provided a vital clue until after Hitler died of natural causes.
We can presume the reels only show footage that would realistically be taken in the timeline they originate from. There could plausibly be reels of Heussman giving a speech or a German-Japanese war, but Hitler wouldn't have any way of knowing that they would result from Heussman assassinating him.
Amazon's promotional image for the third season is a flag with what looks like some kind of Peace Symbol on it; the trailers and other promotional material associate this was the new resistance that begins in season 3. This makes sense, since it's the symbol for Himmler's secret Lebensborn corps, but inverted. The trouble is that while the new resistance selects a symbol to represent themselves, it's the "Sun setting on Kido" icon that Frank created; the inverted Lebensborn flag doesn't appear anywhere in season 3. On the other hand, it isn't tremendously surprising given that only very high-ranking people in the fascist forces or the resistance can move freely from coast to coast, and the lack of a free press to disseminate resistance images and memes, that the US East Coast anti-Nazi Resistance might select an additional symbol additional to or in stead of the anti-Japanese one Frank made.
This emblem and flag also never appeared anywhere in season 4 either, and it's still used in promotional material.
This applies to both the book and series. The neutral zone contains most of the country's farmland, the Pacific States have California, but how the hell does the Reich feed itself? (Even moreso in the book, where the entirety of the Midwest is part of the neutral zone.)
In the television show, the Reich extends basically to the eastern border of Colorado[1]◊ and encompasses most of the great plains. Moreover, the Reich also controls Africa and the show strongly implies they have continued the Holocaust there. Further, the show doesn't really spend a lot of time with lower class citizens of the Reich, compared to the focus on the slums in San Francisco. So it's probably a combination of having more land than the book, fewer people, and possible famines are simply not shown.
It is also distinctly possible that the Rocky Mountain States (in the book) were mostly kept de-industrialized, which would have allowed them to act as a "breadbasket" with the resulting foreign exchange situation sorted out through the sale of manufactured goods (e.g. cars, electronics, etc.).
Why would the Japanese suddenly fully withdraw like that? Sure the BCR did some strikes on their oil pipeline and demolished some of their buildings. Mind you, in our timeline, the Japanese fought an asymmetrical war in China that lasted 8 years, only retreating/surrendering after the nuclear bombs dropped and the Soviets entered Manchuria. All the BCR did was one coordinated strike (in the series) and it doesn't appear to have any significant results, yet the Japanese decided to do a full on retreat (instead of a multi-stage retreat) and effectively left all JPS territories to the BCR. Not only did the Japanese left a major oil pipeline in the JPS, they also decide to buy oil from the Reich, their long time rival that looks for any chance to invade them.
By that point, the Empire of Japan was probably beginning to have a couple of nuts and bolts come off and was maybe a decade or two from collapse. Sure, the JPS is a crucial piece of overseas territory to hold onto due to the land and resources it possesses but it’s just a waste of time, money, resources, and manpower trying to effectively police the JPS when it makes more sense and holds more practical as well as strategic value trying to rein in Asia instead of trying to control a large landmass thousands of miles across the largest ocean on the planet. I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple years later down the road the Japanese decided to also strategically withdraw from places like the Central and South American colonies/territories, Oceania, India, and Southeast Asia (all obviously in a controlled manner) in order to consolidate their resources and manpower towards holding onto China and Korea, leaving a much smaller but much more stable and practical empire for Japan to govern.
Japan could never realistically hold that much territory given the size of their population. The Reich managed it by incorporating the defeated Americans into the hierarchy and they still eventually lost control.
While it is true that they couldn't realistically hold that much territory given the size of their population, they did manage to do it somehow in the TV series. Their grip is also shown to be quite strong, considering they rooted out several resistance groups and can kill with impunity in the streets of San Francisco.
It's true that the real world Japanese could have never held any portion of the US, except perhaps Hawaii under the absolute best of circumstances. It logically follows that they could not logistically hold so much US territory. But given the fact that in this series they did successfully hold the entire US West Coast for two decades, the question still remains as to why they would leave after two decades of entrenching themselves, especially after one very minor terrorist action? It's the equivalent of the US completely withdrawing from the Middle East overnight over the destruction of a single oil tanker, all because the president's daughter asked for it.
It wasn't just one action, nor was it minor. Tagomi was murdered to open the season, then the BCR and Wyatt's group pull off the ambush at the auction which kills several VIP Japanese visitors, then the BCR simultaneously attacks multiple areas of the west coast oil pipeline and the tanker in the harbor. That's just what was shown onscreen. Further, there was a sizable offscreen rebellion occurring in China and key leaders in the "stay in the USA" faction turned out to be traitors.
Actions like those happened on a very regular basis during Japan's occupation in China, yet they still managed to stay in China for 8 years and maybe even longer if the nuclear bombs weren't dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They killed off two VIPs and destroyed some pipeline, sure, but that should not prompt the Japanese to completely withdraw in what looks like a week or two tops. What is more likely is the Japanese gradually withdraws from North America. Also why would they barter to buy oil from the Reich when they are deciding to withdraw from North America, knowing the Reich is planning to invade them?
A distinct possibility is that the BCR agreed to temporarily keep selling stuff to the Japanese (listen to the phrasing of their statements, which seem to be centered on "If you don't withdraw, we'll block up X", which implies "If you 'do' withdraw, we'll allow X to happen"). The other angle is that the Japanese seemed willing to simply toss the JPS over to the Reich and throw up their hands. The prospect of "pull out and let the Reich deal with this mess" makes more sense than "pull out and let a bunch of really pissed off natives handle it".
Related to the above, how does the Crown Princess of Japan have enough authority to convince anyone to unilaterally enact the full withdrawl from North America? I understand that she is in the family of the Japanese God-Emperor, but is there not more of a chain of command that should have a say, especially when this action comes only from one major terrorist action and the word of a single Kempetai advisor?
Why were the Chinese only mentioned in the 4th Season? In previous seasons, we can see that the Japanese have occupied the majority of modern China's territory, likely meaning the Chinese were pushed to northwestern China. Somehow the Chinese managed to reverse this and attack Japan in Manchuria within the year between season 3 and season 4. Also, how were they able to send weapons to the BCR in JPS? The Japanese have a full fledged navy in the Pacific when China doesn't even hold a single port (in previous seasons).
What was up with the crowd of people coming through the portal? Why on Earth would they want to come into the "Nazi Victory" World? Are they running from an even worse world?
That is entirely plausible. The filmstrips in earlier seasons showed worlds where the Nazis controlled even the Western USA, and even some which were in the aftermath of a nuclear war.
Alternatively, they're presumably coming from a world or worlds which is/are familiar with alternate universes just as Nazi Victory World is. And if Nazi Victory World can send spies into other worlds to undermine and wreak havoc in them, other worlds can do the same right back. They could be coming in to try and help liberate Nazi Victory World.
It seems pretty clear they are the people Julianna saw milling around in the wasteland in her visions. Add to that the fact that Tagomi (who was dead by that point) was also there in her visions, and she remembers someone telling her that Hitler came across the films while exploring his spiritualist beliefs (and the fact that Hawthorne tells Smith that the Nazis have killed so many people that the universe has become unbalanced), it is possible they were intended to be the victims of the Axis forces returning from the dead.
Ultimately, this is a Philip K. Dick adaptation. A slightly Mind Screwy metaphysical ending which requires you to draw your own conclusions about precisely what is happening is practically part of the job requirements.
Apart from only a few brief mentions (such as when a prominent general targeted by the resistance is cited as overseeing human experimentation operations) why is Imperial Japan's extensive biological weapons program, which presumably exists in this world as it did in OTL, not brought up or otherwise figures into the story? Given that in OTL it was advanced enough that in 1945 the Japanese had actually built a gigantic submarine carrying planes that were prepared to drop bombs filled with deadly diseases on American soil not long before the dropping of the atomic bombs (so much so that said giant submarine was actually found floating in the ocean by American naval personnel), why is it not mentioned as having potentially played a major role in the Japanese conquest of the West Coast, or as being a trump card that the Japanese might have on hand to use against the resistance, albeit most likely in a limited capacity?
Why did it take until the early 1960s for Imperial Japan to develop an atomic bomb when sources suggest they might have been close to developing at least a primitive one for testing purposes in the mid 1940s?
Presumably a bit of Rule of Drama meets a bit of Artistic History License. For the former, much of the geopolitical drama of the series comes from Imperial Japan generally being a bit weaker than the Nazis, whereas having the Bomb puts them both on more-or-less even keel. For the latter, for better or worse the Japanese atomic weapons program is less well-known than the Nazi one, so the program makers may have either not really known about it or assumed that most of the audience wouldn't.
Where, exactly, was Japan supposed to be importing that oil /from/? Wyoming would either be in the Reich or, more likely, the Neutral Zone (and thus not likely to be the source). Oil coming in from Texas would presumably just come out via LA (if it didn't just get shipped out via Galveston and the Panama Canal), and anything coming from Canada would presumably just go out via Vancouver (or maybe Seattle)...so that north-south pipeline makes very little sense. And besides, wasn't the "Southern Resource Area" in Indonesia, etc. supposed to be the supply Japan was concentrating on during the war?
There is a lot of oil in Northern Alberta which, if this troper understood the map right, fell into PJS territory. This was known by the Canadian government by 1943, so presumably if Japan scouted the area around the same time and witnessed the literal lakes of bitumen, they would have drawn the same conclusion. The Great Canadian Oilsands Project which was the first large scale effort at producing oil was active by 1962 which falls in line with the series. I would hazard a guess that Japan might have accelerated these efforts by a decade or so and the north-south pipeline was something akin to the Keystone pipeline today, bringing oil from the Fort Mc Murray area south to refineries in Texas. In this case, maybe they brought that oil to LA or Seattle and shipped it out from there.
◊ and encompasses most of the great plains. Moreover, the Reich also controls Africa and the show strongly implies they have continued the Holocaust there. Further, the show doesn't really spend a lot of time with lower class citizens of the Reich, compared to the focus on the slums in San Francisco. So it's probably a combination of having more land than the book, fewer people, and possible famines are simply not shown.
