The Zone

I thoroughly enjoyed this anime, and I found it to be a pleasant viewing to wrap up this class. The series follows a group of outcast students who are tasked by the government to kill a mysterious and powerful entity who will serve as their teacher for a school year unless they fulfill their mission. The show provides a fun coming of age story that incorporates many relatable feelings towards the rigorous nature of school and the hardships of growing up. Ultimately, the class and their new teacher bond over the experiences and the knowledge and wisdom he imparts to help them complete their assassination, move forward in their education, and succeed in life. Koro Sensei shows his students that no matter how people view you, you have the potential to obtain something valuable by being diligent in your education. 

Throughout the show, there is a conflict between Class E and the rest of the classes at the junior high school. The students in Class E are looked down upon heavily, humiliated for being the outcasts of society and worthless, and painfully discriminated against in their academic existence. The leader of the school makes active attempts in keeping the status quo of inferiority of Class E. In spite of this, Koro Sensei inspires the class to grow beyond their labels of underachievers and instead take pride in what they do. The students use these pieces of wisdom to push themselves in their studies, and develop in their assassination training. I like his message a lot and I think Koro Sensei provides invaluable advice to students who need reassurance in themselves that despite difficult circumstances, they can achieve greatness. Koro Sensei fulfills the teacher’s purpose by giving the children the tools they need to succeed. 

I liked this show a lot, and it has some good moments. The show is violent, gory, action-packed, has great visuals, and is oddly heart-warming. The series follows David Martinez, a young street kid who joins a life of mercenary crime after attaining powerful cybernetic enhancements. After his mother is tragically killed, David is fed up with his existence and decides to shape his own story. The show features aspects of the economic divide between classes, commentates on hegemonic masculinity, and highlights the power of love and the quest to achieve one’s dreams. 

The show demonstrates the class divide early on as motivation for David to make a change in his life, even if it is to start a dangerous life of crime. He and his mother are barely making ends meet in a slum neighborhood despite being surrounded by a technologically advanced skyline. His mother puts in long hours to ensure that David gets an education, but David is not accepted by his peers because he does not belong to their echelon of society. The show provides a glimpse into the social order of this futuristic society that is still stratified by wealth and opportunity. Despite this, his mother wants him to have a fighting chance, and wants to instill a work ethic that will help him strive for top corporate positions. I feel that this sentiment sort of reflects the corporate culture in Japan as well as America, in which corporate jobs are highly sought after. When his mom dies due to a lack of quality medical care and he is bogged down by debt, David becomes motivated to do whatever it takes to survive and make money, even if it means suffering cybernetic repercussions and leading a life of crime. Society won’t change, so the individual must. His motivation to improve his standing in society through criminal means offers an interesting look into how class divisions and economic pressures can affect an individual.  

The show also tackles traditional representations of hegemonic masculinity. The tribulations that David endures through, including the detrimental side-effects of his cybernetic enhancements and his role in the mercenary crew, highlights his need to perform as a strong and capable contributor in order to belong. Ultimately, when David wants to back up Maine in a pinned down situation, he finds that he can’t fight back, and fails to perform traditional masculinity but leaves with his life. This is contrasted by his crew-mate Maine. Despite Maine struggling to control his cybernetic enhancements, he feels that he needs to in order to maintain his tough image and be trusted by his team. He feels like he can’t turn back, despite the Cyber-psychosis taking its toll. Maine represents an unhealthy obsession of trying to perform traditional hegemonic masculinity, even when he is faced with death. 

This watch was definitely stressful. I enjoyed the fantasy psycho-thriller vibe to it, and it reminded me a little bit of American Psycho, but I did not care for some of the graphic scenes, even if they were fake or imagined. The film follows a pop-idol turned actress and her subsequent identity crisis as she deals with the pressures and serious dangers that come with fame. The film addresses issues of mental health and positive self image, as well as the decrepitness that can come from obsessive fan culture. The film questions the perceived realities that individuals can create from their subconscious, and the importance of being comfortable in one's own skin. 

A great deal of the conflict that arises within the film comes from Mima, the main character, and her struggle to accept herself and come to grips with reality. After leaving a career as a pop idol to pursue the risque lifestyle of an actress, Mima undergoes a psychosis that morphs into dissociative identity disorder, where reality and her subconscious combine to torment her. Mima is visibly emotionally and physically shaken from the pressure to perform well, and is consistently put into situations that dehumanize her and take advantage of her femininity. Mima represents the harsh lifestyle of celebrities who are pressured into doing things that they would not otherwise do under the guise that they must in order to succeed in their profession. On top of this, she is further influenced by a disturbing online presence that plays into her doubts about the life she lives. Mima eventually overcomes this nightmare by confronting her tormentor, and coming to the self realization that she is who she is. The film demonstrates that the power of having a strong sense of identity holds more value than the opinions of others. 

I was excited to read Sensoron today. Even though I enjoy anime, I am much more of a manga reader these days - additionally, as someone who is at least marginally interested in history, I found the prospect of a revisionist-history Japanese perspective after World War 2 a very compelling premise. As I went through this work, I found it to bring up some interesting points, but overall it almost seems like a rambling from a bitter conspiracy theorist who just wants to see WW2-era Japan in a more positive light than it deserves.

I found the overall work of Sensoron to be, as mentioned earlier, a great example of revisionism and, at times, flat-out misinformation. Given what the author was trying to communicate, about how 'Japan was treated unfairly' and 'the Allies did bad stuff too' clearly attempts to downplay the atrocities committed by the nation during the war. Instead of taking an objective standpoint and accepting that, while the Allies did do some morally questionable things during the war, Japan is guilty of the same, the author attempts to frame the West as the REAL bad guys, and the root of a grand array of problems in modern Japanese society.

One thing I think the author did not intend to showcase (but does) is the mental gymnastics that he has to go through in order to justify Japan and delegitimize the West. I thought the entire first sequence about the trials and the subsequent Western involvement in Japan was far-fetched, with elements of truth buried in it - but as soon as the author started accusing photos displaying Japanese war crimes as fake, comparing them to UFOs and ghosts, the argument lost any shred of legitimacy. Through these perspectives, Sensoron communicates a perspective that is unhinged at best and deliberately deceptive at worst.

Your Name (Kimi no Na wa)

This is literally my favorite movie ever. I’ve seen it a countless number of times and can’t recommend it enough to anyone who hasn’t had this viewing pleasure. The animation looks absolutely stunning, the music is the type of beat I still hum to this day, and the characters are fun and memorable. The anime revolves around Mitsuha and Taki, two teenagers living in different towns and times who mysteriously swap bodies. They are tasked with preventing a comet disaster from occurring that would kill Mitsuha and her whole town. They prevail and eventually fall in love with each other, making for a really wholesome and fun watch. The anime talks about a vast array of themes including the possession of power, the idea of fate, modernity vs tradition, and sexuality and its connotations.

The idea of power is prevalent throughout the anime. Power is something that exists everywhere and is a force that a person can exert. With this in mind, the question becomes who holds power, or better said, who has the ability to control fate and exert a force of change? When the two main characters switch bodies, the power to control the lives of Mitsuha and Taki respectively shifts to the other protagonist. They are no longer in direct control of their lives, and are subjects to the power exerted by each other. Thinking of this idea on a larger scale, the entire cast is at the mercy of the power exerted by fate and destiny. Since Mitsuha lives in the past, fate has exerted power and control over her by controlling how she will die. It’s initially fated that her town will get destroyed. However, this power is subject to resistance in the form of Taki’s character. His determination to meet Mitsuha and save her town switches the position of power from fate/time to Taki. He, using Mitsuha’s body, helps devise a plan to save everyone. However, when he switches back to his own body and Mitsuha takes over the town’s evacuation effort, the position of power is given to Mitsuha, where she can now determine her own fate.

The idea of fate goes hand in hand with this idea of power. The red string of fate, a popular symbol for the control of one’s destiny, is a prominent theme in this movie. Mitsuha’s grandmother describes how strings represent time, how strings flow but can sometimes come undone, meet new ends, and reunite to form new threads. The idea is symbolic of destiny. Strings are the flow of time that represent the timelines in which certain events are meant to happen. However, certain “masters of fate” (string weavers) can cut the timelines, change them, and create a new future. Since Mitsuha is a string weaver, literally, she holds the power of fate. This is also symbolized with her red hair tie which is an alias for the literal red string of fate. She symbolically shares this power with Taki who is given the red string by Mitsuha. He wears fate on his hand and uses that power to change the course of history. When Mitsuha unravels her hair tie at the start of the movie, she undoes the current timeline. Taki, by wearing the hair tie, is making a new timeline by having the string meet a new end. At the end of the movie, when he gives Mitsuha her hair tie back, she wraps it around her head once more, solidifying the new flow of events.

Taki and Mitsuha contrast each other in not their bodies, but also in the locations, cultures, and ideas each character was raised in. Taki’s life is very modern and is rooted in a city where traditional beliefs are not the main focus of life. Conversely, Mitsuha lives in a rural town surrounded by nature where religious practices and traditions encompass a large facet of her life. Though the idea of a body swapping adventure sounds fantastical and nonsensical, the movie has many allusions to Japanese spirituality for its explanation of the phenomena. The movie alludes to the notion that many facets of life such as fate, time, and salvation are tied to spiritual practices and how believing and partaking in old traditions are the key to understanding and controlling such concepts. It is implied that someone living in a modern setting is devoid of such understandings of the world and thus incapable of changing the world nor their lives compared to a person of spiritual background. As a result, the movie suggests that we need tradition and spirituality in our lives in order to be true masters of our own lives. For example, Taki, in order to save Mitsuha and her village, had to commute from the city to the nature filled town out in the countryside. Once there, he was only able to get another chance to save Mitsuha by drinking sake made through traditional means in a shine.

Finally, the movie touches upon the idea of sexuality. Though I have talked about this topic a lot in the past few posts, I will say this anime has a similar mindset as other anime where it suggests that there shouldn’t be a gender norm. When each main character switches bodies, the people around Taki and Mitsuha notice how each of them act either more “masculine” or “feminine.” Their bodies act differently and show different sides of people that exist within them. Not all boys are super tough and unaccepting of emotion while not all girls are soft and frail. This show challenges the idea of conformity and encourages you to express yourself however you want. The fact that friends and families of each main character seem happy (for the most part) about their differences in behavior critiques how society should accept people who don’t conventionally fit into any preexisting mold of gender.

I was initially suspicious of this show going in, and I felt like it was questioning my intelligence and wasting my time, but I warmed up to it as it went along. The show takes a satirical and comedic approach to portraying nations through personifying their exaggerated cultural stereotypes. These episodes mostly focus on the relationships of the Allied Powers of the USA, Great Britain, and France, and the Axis Powers of Germany, Japan, and Italy. The show reinterprets historical events and interactions by acknowledging the hilarity of the nation’s grievances and misunderstandings.

The anime intentionally plays into the stereotypes of each personified nation, and gives them exaggerated characteristics that reflect these stereotypes. In the English dub, each character speaks with a heavy accent of their respective nation, and they act according to their generalized and stigma representation that they have garnered in pop culture over time. This blatant stereotyping is meant to not only draw cultural comparisons, but also commentates on the unique disconnect of interaction between people over the internet. Among the Axis Powers, Germany is obsessed with rules and discipline, Japan is unfamiliar to Western ways, and Italy enjoys food. The dynamic illustrated not only allows for a soft education of the audience through broad representation, but also serves as an example to the “Moefication of Geography” that Annet eludes to in World Conflict, in which the media and fandom have oversaturated the database of elements with their own fictitious and emotionally charged interpretations to the point where factual elements associated with these countries and their culture and have been replaced.

Xenoblade 2 cutscenes

Xenoblade is an insanely good franchise that I’m currently playing through right now. I’m still on the original game (Xenoblade Chronicles) and have about 40 hours on it right now and doubt I’m even halfway done with the game, it’s just that fun. Though the second game’s story is mostly self-contained, the big focus on social topics and deep stories are a shared facet of the Xenoblade games. Issues talked about in this game include posing the question about what it means to think for yourself and how nature is at the mercy of humanity.

Rex goes through the hero’s journey through the game. Though he isn’t scared and too naive at the start of the game, he learns throughout the story to respect the will of others and to take sacrifices for the sake of a greater good. His stubbornness to continue fighting after the deaths of his comrades showed his rash nature and unwillingness to stop after a threshold. This caused a devastating fight and put others in harm. Though it awakened Mythra who was integral to the story, it showed how early Rex was stubborn. His separation from Pyra and Mythra at the end of the game and his acceptance of their own decisions (which were different from his) showed how he had grown as a person through his quest. This shows how people should be determined but not hard headed. There should be a good mix between doing what is best for you and best for those around you.

Rex isn’t the only critique on human nature. The very idea of drivers and swords bring up the idea of what it means to be human. Is it human that we die and forget our memories? Is forgetting a bad thing in every circumstance? Do we really think for ourselves? Swords are born from crystals and can be reincarnated several times before becoming titans (rumbling?…..who said that). They are awakened by a driver who uses the power of the sword for combat and other activities. The bond between driver and sword is similar to a friendship but with a catch: the sword takes on the ideas and motives of the driver. This means that swords hardly think for themselves initially. Though they look and sound human, they don’t have an independent mind per say, and their ways of being are partially shaped by the driver. Furthermore, their life and existence also depends on the driver. If a driver dies, the sword is remade into a crystal and their memories are reset. Though swords look and act like drivers, why are they always subject to the wills of drivers? What makes them less human than us? They were unwillingly born into the world as swords and have no choice but to be what they are, yet they are subjects to the wills of others who look just like them. Though some relations are good, some sword-driver relations teeter on mere tools. This frustration can cause a chain reaction of oppression and malice like we saw with Malos which can bring about an ugly future for everyone.

A final message I noticed in my watch of Xenoblade 2 was the critique on humanity’s relationship with nature. Humans in our world have been slowly degrading the natural world. Resource extraction, industrialization and expansion, and the burning of fuels all contribute to a declining state of nature that will inevitably lead to natures destruction. Though our actions are hurting nature, are human activities considered natural, or are we separate from nature? The idea of Xenoblade 2’s world having a shrinking amount of land resembles the idea of increasing sea levels on Earth. Our land masses are shrinking as oceans increase due to the bad habits humans have had on global warming. Similarly, the large scale death of titans and small inhabitable land were caused by human interactions. The character of Klaus also resembles human intervention. He wanted to play God and create new worlds because the fighting in his world had gotten out of hand. The planet was in shambles and he saw no other alternative. This shows how human interaction, if left unchecked, could cause nature a lot of turmoil. Klaus’ creation of organisms in the new world, however, shows how humans aren’t far removed from nature. Just like any other animals in nature itself, we come from the same source and location. Just like a beaver’s nature is to build a dam, human nature involves creating culture and societies like the ones we live in today.

I thought that this film was pretty okay, it wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible. The heroism of Nausicaa and Lord Yupa definitely carried. The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world a 1000 years after the collapse of industrial civilization, and the landscape has turned to a toxic jungle like The Last of Us, which spreads and threatens the survival of the human race. I thought the dynamics of the plot also held similarities to Dune. The film has a strong anti-war sentiment and is heavily focused on the dire ecological consequences of humanity’s pollution. The film features a young princess named Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, and her struggle to protect her people and save humanity from certain extinction. Nausicaa is a protector of all life, and uses her strong connection to nature and her strong yet gentle disposition to save the day.

Nausicaa is portrayed as an idealistic strong female protagonist, as she is capable of overcoming insane tribulations while maintaining traditional femininity. She is a pacifist and nature conservationist at heart, and is willing to be the sacrificial lamb at any moment. While she is more than capable of fighting for her people, she becomes afraid of herself when her rage drives her to kill during the siege, and breaks down when she encounters others who are willing to wage war. This is meant to show the downside of the hegemonic masculine norm, and the harm of violence and warfare. Nausicaa represents a balance of a kind spirit who is willing to lay it all on the line for the righteous cause. Her selflessness and steadfast determination make her the ideal candidate as the prophesied savior, a metaphorical Christ-figure, who is meant to guide humanity back to purity. 

The film’s anti-war sentiment can be seen through the devastating effects of war on not only the planet, but also its inhabitants. The Kingdoms beyond the Valley of the Wind are torn by war and starvation, which have led them to become heartless conquerors and rulers. Despite Tolmekia coming in the name of peace, its true goals were much more nefarious, and its counterpart Pejite was no better. The nations have become infected with greed, and have lost sight of their shared humanity, much like the world of their past. The differences in ideology can also be seen in Princesses Kushana, a warmongering maniac who, despite being saved and shown mercy, continues on her destructive path. Nausicaa on the other hand is appalled at the justification of killing people for the good of the planet, and stands in defiance of solutions born of violence.