Renata B.

Finally.. we're here.. the last blog post.. gosh. What a journey this has been. I'm just glad it's over. The content is enjoyable but finding 300 words 3 times a week is hard to commit to...

But anyways, for our final anime we took a look at Serial Experiments Lain which is funny cuz I just got into the song this show is known for, Duvet, but I haven't ever looked too hard into the actual series it's used in. I guess that's why I got some deja vu when I began to watch it.

SEL is a series that explores the sense of identity and reality; though, as if it were to parallel Paprika's subconscious focus, SEL focuses on the nature of consciousness which is also done with surreal and strange imagery. The connection between the digital and physical worlds was really interesting to watch and I really felt like I was navigating this mystery alongside Lain. I also kind of like the idea that Lain has a hard time embracing her true role and ultimately decides to remove herself from the problem rather than to try and actually solve it.

The Wired too made me think a lot of The Matrix with it's strange virtual realm. I guess other things like Ready Player One too ring a bell so It's interesting to see a Japanese take on the concept. It's scary how accurate to the modern day capabilities of technology the show is and I wonder how this show could have gone if it was made in today's age. Though, this kind of also felt like a technological version of the Human Instrumentality Project from EVA: this idea of wanting humans to evolve beyond a physical limit and reach a higher level of consciousness. It's kind of scary how many anime depict humanity as constantly wanting more than what is possible, but it could some day be reality...

Sorry I am actually like so tired of doing these posts. I mean watching the content is fine but 300 words is like. asking so MUCH from us ugh. Man. I don't know

We talked about it briefly in class but Paprika had my interest after learning that it was led by the same guy who did Perfect Blue. That was definitely one of the best movies we saw this semester so I was really looking forward to this. Thought, it definitely wasn't what I was expecting. While Perfect Blue was more psychological yet honed in on what it wanted to tell with its strangeness, Paprika is much more surreal and honestly kinda disorienting at times with its strangeness factor.

The film has this focus on the subconscious and its influence on our waking lives, which I guess justifies all the dream like and surreal elements of the film, but I kinda just had a hard time following along with it. It took a bit of research and like. a lot of reddit discussion blogs to break it down for me, but essentially it wants to portray dreaming as the manifestation of our subconsciousness, and that Paprika was a metaphor for how the subconscious self can take on an entire life of our own. All those thoughts and feelings were unaware of still play a major role in all of our actions. In that sense, the film carries this theme of identity, self-criticism, and warns of the dangers of letting this double-life subconscious take ahold of us.

Like Perfect Blue this is definitely going to be a film that'll need a second rewatch to truly digest, because there's definitely a lot to unpack. The animation once again is stellar though and the character designs were honestly pretty neat!!

I'm starting to notice a trend in the anime we've been watching in this class recently involving a desire for ideal qualities in Japan. The pursuit of a utopia in Shin Seki is interesting but I didn't find myself left with anything super in depth to talk about honestly. Like now DUH that removing people who seem threatening is a system that could very easily be manipulated. It just doesn't feel like anything noteworthy, but I do like the focus on the classmates and their disappearances, so I guess the premise was more so just set up for this.

Though, even if the story centers around this mystery we still have glimpses of this society having become normalized among the cast. Like with the ball rolling game tournament a player completely vanishes after the team was exposed for cheating, and no one seemed to give a single crud about it. It was a little jarring when the cast cared so much about their own classmates. I did find that part particularly interesting just because of the sheer contrast from the cast's usual care for their own classmates, it's like there's a bias and I guess that's the best commentary I think the anime can give.

There's also the whole psychic stuff which honestly I feel like the anime would've been more interesting without? It just feels like a lot to be juggling in such a short amount of time and I'd rather they'd focus on just the disappearing people aspect since I find it more interesting. If they were to stick to the humanistic aspect of society I felt that this would've been a stronger narrative, especially from the viewpoint of these classmates, the perspective of someone in critical developmental years in a world like this has a lot of potential.

I found the ending of this anime to be satisfying and answered several questions. NEETs aren't the cause of all of our suffering! It may seem that way because NEETs are portrayed to be lazy and worthless, but it's important to take a step back and realize why NEETs are the way that they are. Who created the system for them to end up like this? Do they not want to get a job, or are they incapable? Itazu was a very talented hacker and helped Akira out a whole lot with his skills, but he is a NEET so he must be useless still, right? The problems that this anime commented on all come from billionaires, the government, and a conformist society who doesn't want to step on anyone's toes for the sake of the "greater good". However, while outsiders often see Japan's society as extremely respectful, disciplined, and efficient, their current overall society lacks the willpower to stand up to an unhelpful, restrictive, and ultimately exploitative government.

According to this anime, the Japanese government exploits workers and makes life after education a nightmare, as we've seen. Japanese workers often commit suicide or end up leaving Japan, which is by no coincidence. I guess becoming a NEET is one way to escape the Japanese working hellscape and express yourself more confidently online and engage in hobbies that would otherwise be looked down upon or seen as useless. I don't see a point in being an active, productive member of society through the eyes of others if we're just backing an exploitative government. The problems in Japan still existed while the 20,00. NEETs were still kidnapped, so clearly the problem isn't them. In fact, you could probably argue that kidnapping all of those NEETs prevented progress, since Itazu was ultimately the trump card for our main characters.

Hoogh I wrote so much about work culture and crunch in my last two Japanese classes so I did myself a favor of swapping my discussion leader day out from this and on over to EVA.

But! that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy Eden of the East! I'd say it's one of the better anime we've watched recently, though, I don't know why we have this trend of skipping the episode 2's of these anime hahaha.

After reading the work culture document I went into this kind of expecting all the things I talked/wrote about in prior classes, but was kind of surprised by all the stuff that happens. We got memory loss, these crazy Selecao members, brain surgery and murder, like missing people and I just like whoa whoa whoa what slow down. I can't imagine what the later episodes on Monday are gonna be like but goodness gracious. Tokyo was seemingly attacked by a missile and Saki supposedly did something with the White House and it just keeps going like this with a lot of crazy details but, yknow what. That's okay. I'm so tired now at the end of the semester that watching something so bonkers like this is fine, really.

Akira is a really interesting main character cuz despite his memory loss he's really sly and knows how to get his way around things it's really funny and Saki is adorable, depending on how these next few episodes go she may or may not become my next "silly character of the week." This anime is also just really funny with a lot of cute animations and a pretty charming artstyle, I'm looking forward to seeing and learning more about the characters and I sincerely pray that this does't turn south really badly or anything.

The shift from the first batch we watched of this anime to today's is certainly something. As I mentioned in my previous post, Zipang performs this balancing act between being both pro-war and anti-war, and it made for a far more interesting watch than most other anime in this class, and made for a much more interesting discussion in class. A lot of us were wondering which direction the anime would fall into and the answer to that is strange in nature?

In today's episodes we see a timeline alteration and get a glimpse into a new third kind of Japan: one that never surrendered in shame, but at the same time, a nation that still cared about war in great detail. So while a nuclear fallout was avoided, this Japan is still incredibly militaristic and with fighting spirit. It's a little unfortunate that we ended up picking a side (pro-war if I got that correctly), because I think that we were really on something super interesting with this anime, I wish we leaned more into that fine line approach more but we ended up with another anime that simply picks a side with no further thought. It's really sad, this show legitimately started strong with a narrative that really questioned war and patriotism in a way I have never seen before, but then just ends up being all for it in the end. The neutrality of the story prior to these episodes was a hook that I think would've been for the better to hold onto. At the very least, a new third Japan was an interesting outcome, but I wish it further played into those themes. In a way it feels it was trying to connect both sides, but it just ended up being back to overly patriotic and war-effort-y.

Man I wanna see the eclipse today..

I mean uhm uh.

Furuhashi was a neat watch. The whole conflict between soldiers of the past and present and how the culture and social norms of Japan have drastically shifted between the two eras was really interesting. Normally in this class the content we watch leans completely into one facet one the other, but this one seems to have commentary that connects both in a way that retrospectively asks us (or.. I guess just the soldiers) how to look forward to the future. Past motivations are difficult to reconcile with, especially with a country as notoriously militaristic in the past as Japan. I appreciate that the anime goes in neither direction as i feel that it is unnecessary to have another story that continues to point fingers at a "culprit" for war without any further and more interesting introspection, so the narrative being so grey honestly is to the anime's benefit, helping it stand out further amongst other selections we've seen in this class.

We got these two readings though, I think unrelated since Mr. Smith said some things moved around amidst the essay extension (thank GOODNESS....). But I was honestly kind of intrigued by what Saito was talking about in "Sexuality" (what a title lol) with the nature of Otaku behavior, and whether or not these traits are inherited or just commonly observed and stuff.

"Media Effects" was interesting because I do legit wonder about the effect media has on us sometimes. Like remember when President Bush himself was critiquing the Simpsons for portraying a broken (yet accurate) depiction of America? Or like when we bring up Skynet from The Terminator every time AI gets more advanced. There's also that time where Reagan was launching a space laser initiative nicknamed "The Star Wars program." Obviously this isn't the same type of thing Gauntlett was discussing but it's what popped into my mind throughout reading all this.

At the very least this anime does have something to talk about in regards to hikikomori and other "low-lives" in Japanese society, but it was still a pretty uncomfortable watch. It comes to no surprise that there's just more instances of objectification here and it's just to be expected at this point. It's really a shame that this is what we gotta pick because it's like "the most discussion worthy" ugh, idk it gets old. But yeah the Otaku stuff made me think a lot about Perfect Blue and how dwelling so hard into this stuff and hiding yourself from society can really make you go down a scary rabbit hole. The sexualization here is tricky since granted it does play into the perspective of the character but I feel like theres so many artistic ways to go about portraying that without outright emphasizing it directly. It just feels cheap and honestly kind of like it's perpetrating the cycle it's trying to portray. I can see so many otakus and shut-ins and whatever going "he's just like me fr.." but never actually doing anything to change.

I think the only notable thing I can give the show though is that it's interesting how the NHK members aren't really like "example pupils" but they're also people with broken lives who slowly made their way back up from it, and it's also nice to see Sato eventually learn to grow and improve as a person, even with his uncomfortable quirks. At least the animation was neat and there's some interesting things that they do outside of the stuff I didn't like. Like all the fake anime and games throughout the series and like the funny faces that the characters make sometimes can be really charming. Yeah sorry, just not my thing.

April Fools Haha. There is no blog post

But see that's the April Fools in of itself because there actually IS blogpost.. haha... sigh.

I've never seen Your Name before but I did see Weathering with You and Suzume, which I thiiink are both made by the same guy don't quote me on that but yeah this was definitely a beautiful watch and I'm shocked I haven't seen this movie sooner when it's just that good.

The art style and score is just spectacular and it made me think of the breathtaking visuals Suzume had when I saw it in a massive movie theater, I sincerely hope that this film at some point gets an anniversary rerelease. Compared to Penguindrum this film is a lot more accepting of change when it comes to fate, and that we and the people we surround our selves with really can make a difference to change destiny, and it's just so sweetly handled. It doesn't feel overwhelming or "now duh" or whatever it's just a genuinely sweet and heartfelt message. I absolutely love human connection stories and this film was really no different, and it touched me in a way that I can't even begin to explain. The way that the characters learn and grow to come to that conclusion, by literally walking in each other's shoes, is really interesting but I do wish the film had more time to explore that concept just a little further. It all just comes together with the memories at the ending to really drive home the message about how the experiences we have, both good and bad, are really what make us who we are. While we aren't purely defined by them, I think that journey, growth, and acquisition of agency is what makes life so special.

I absolutely love the character designs too the main girl is so silly and cute (kind of awesome!)