Sofia D'Aurio - Japanese Visual Culture

I'm so glad we got to watch Serial Experiments Lain, I've been meaning to watch it for several years! This anime gets so much attention on social media, I was really looking forward to watching it.

This anime came out in 1998, when the internet was still new but on the rise. I understand that the rise of the internet caused a lot of concern among people because something like that was previously unheard of. Serial Experiments Lain seems to highlight the dangers of the internet. Anyone can be anything on the internet, which makes it so dangerous. You can pretty much only be one person in real life, but there can be so many yous online. I think we missed a bit of context through these episodes though; How did Lain become some infamous internet creature? I know she started to get more interested in technology in a short amount of time, but suddenly more internet addicts started talking about her (i.e the news reporter and the VR guy). Also, was Lain always a "robot" or was she convinced that she was? By that, I'm referring to episode 7 where it is pointed out that she doesn't know her parents birthdays, implying they are possibly not her real family. I'm interested in learning more about that aspect of this anime.

It seems many characters were getting addicted to the internet throughout this anime, especially Lain. She started using it because of her interest in the email from the dead girl, but quickly became more fascinated and invested and I'm not sure why. Also by episode 12, her entire house was completely enveloped in technology and wires, but why? I felt like it was implied that she might be "watching" everything, thus warranting a strong computer and access to internet. Additionally, what are the Knights?

Shin Sekai Yori had an interesting ending that I feel was lackluster. It was interesting to find out that the monster rats were originally humans, though. I don't really understand why this choice was made thought, even though they explained it in the last episode.

The whole exposition in the anime was about how leadership wanted to prevent humans from killing each other, but in this effort, they killed more people than imaginable. I think we also missed context about who Squealer is, because I don't understand his significance. He praised Saki and Satoru and called them gods, but I wasn't sure why.

This anime seemed to primarily have commentary on control over humans and challenging authority, which is seen in the molerats uprising against the humans. Saki says that molerats and humans have an amicable relationship, but Squealer brings up a good point: who decides what is amicable?

Saki says that molerats are allowed to live and be left alone as long as they don't kill anyone, but once Squealer brings up a good point of retaliation, Satoru says that his words are ground for punishment for treason. I think this is a good example of the conditional freedoms that the molerats and other "lesser" species have, making them not truly amicable with humans. At the end of episode 25, they also bring up the previous slave colonies. These colonies were simply "turned into" molerats, but as it is implied, these lesser species may not truly be those species, just humans that are looked so down upon that the "normal" people are conditioned into seeing them as such.

I thought Shin Sekai Yori was a pretty standard anime with a message that didn't stand out to me. Similar to Eden of the East, this anime provided commentary on human nature and trying to achieve a utopia. I don't think this anime does a stellar job of making this commentary, and there are other media that do this better (not Japanese, but I think "The Giver" is a good example). I also felt that this anime had similarities to Psycho-Pass for a couple of reasons. In the world of Shin Sekai Yori, the higher ups/"government" attempt to create a perfect world by being proactive and removing any person who is deemed as a threat. With this system, only those who are deemed to be normal, calm, a productive person, etc. are allowed to live their lives as usual. However, these people, especially our main characters, have noticed that their classmates are disappearing.

The ending of this anime really cleared things up for me. At the end of the prescribed episodes, I felt that I understood the message of this anime, or at least partly understood. It seems that the creator wanted to show that despite popular belief, NEETs are not whats wrong with Japan.

People often look down on NEETs for being worthless and not benefiting society, but this anime has shown that no matter what a NEET even does, a weak government will always lead a country to ruins. As Saki expressed, the Japanese government doesn't take responsibility for anything, saying that everything happens for a reason and it can't be avoided. This mindset is dangerous and allows attacks like "Careless Monday" to happen.

I believe that NEETs are looked down upon because they are portrayed as "not contributing to society at all", which may be true in some cases, but as this anime shows, some NEETs aren't entirely useless. The reddit moderator looking character (I can't remember his anime) was a very skilled hacker and ultimately was a very important tool for our main characters to succeed in their goals. The reddit moderator guy was a prime example of how NEETs AREN'T whats wrong with the world. NEETs were just used a scapegoat for the issues in Japan.

Yikes, I've been slacking on my blog posts!

Eden of the East was a very interesting watch... it reminded me a lot of Mirai Nikki! The opening monologue gave me flashbacks to Penguindrum though.

I'm really enjoying Akira's character, though its frustrating to be learning about him at the same time he does. I find it very dissatisfying to be given exposition in this way. From the first few episodes, I also feel frustrated that I don't know enough about Saki. I want to know what she threw toward the White House, and why is she looking for a prince? I feel like she has some relationship to the game they are playing, but at the moment, I'm not sure what it is.

The anime/manga we look at in this class often have a very clear message, but this one I'm not so sure. Maybe we missed some exposition from episode 2, but why was Tokyo attacked with a missile? I feel like it wasn't talked about enough in the episodes we watched and thus left me pretty confused. However, I did sometimes feel that this anime was like a sarcastic version of the weird conservative manga we read recently. Some of the dialogue made it seem like the director/producer was sarcastically being like: "I love that our country is useless right now and we leave the protecting of our people to other countries!" The whole anime was really strange and confusing, but I did enjoy watching it. I like sly characters like Akira, so watching him get away with things is really fun.

I like Saki so far, but I still just don't know enough about her. Honestly I'm just confused about everything right now, I hope we'll get answers to our questions both tomorrow and in the next set of episodes.

My younger sister is a really big fan of Banana Fish and always tried to get me to watch it but I was never interested. She was happy to hear that I was assigned this anime for class.

This is no one's fault due to the nature of having to pick only 4 episodes of the series, but I felt that the episodes lacked a lot of context, which caused me to not develop empathy for the characters. I was sad to see Skip die early in the series, especially because it seems like he was just a kid, but again I didn't have any real connection with the characters. I would've liked to know where this took place (I later learned it was New York), I would've liked to know why Eiji was in America (I didn't know Eiji was the only Japanese guy until a character called him "the Asian guy" or something), or why Ash was involved in gangs in the first place.

I had heard a lot about the homosexual romance before watching, and without looking into it at all, I just thought it was the typical queerbaiting media. I was relieved to see that it wasn't simply queerbaiting, but in fact had a deeper context. It was really sad finding our about Ash's past being trafficked and a "child p*rn star" (for lack of a better term). It was especially disappointing when the police officer/detective who was interrogating him showed Ash the media he was part of and called him a "movie star" on his way out of the interrogation room. I don't know much about how human trafficking is dealt with on the legal end (ex. like how Ash was treated in that interrogation room), but I thought it was sad to see a victim be made fun of and looked down upon in such a way. Later in the series, some other guys call him a "whore" as well. It's a really harsh look into the lives that human trafficking victims live, but one that is necessary for non-victims to see. I think Banana Fish did a great job depicting the lives of trafficking victims.

This was the worst movie I've ever seen.

Just kidding, April Fools! 😁

This is my first time watching Your Name, and I thought it was very beautiful. I thought the messaging was quite strong and clear, and I liked the themes overall. In the first half of this movie, I was convinced this was a movie about the transgender experience, or the homosexual experience. The second half of the movie was quite disappointing for me, and I didn't like how this movie resulted in a love story between the two main characters. I don't think either of them were in love with each other, they are strictly in love with the lives the other is leading.

I was especially convinced about the transgender messaging through the life that Mitsuha was living. She wanted to be Taki, not be with him. Take my opinion with a grain of salt, though, because I am not transgender nor have I never experienced gender dysphoria. When Mitsuha plans their date with Okudera, she wants to be the one to go on it with her, not Taki. Her actions in Taki's body leads me to believe she wants to be a man, though her mannerisms are still feminine (which makes Okudera and the other employee at the cafe fall for her).

Taki also appears to be enjoying his time as a woman, though still not understanding many feminine mannerisms. He expresses his masculinity through her body, while she expresses femininity through his body. This is not to say that your mannerisms and actions define your gender, nor does going against gender norms make you transgender, but in the first half of the movie, I was convinced that this movie would be a social commentary about the queer experience. That's why I found the second half and the ending to be disappointing.

This manga is surely an interesting one, and despite it going against my political opinions, I still enjoyed reading it. I don't often read/consume media from right-wing sources, so it was interesting to see a manga portray such a view.

The author talks a lot about how he doesn't believe the Rape of Nanking happened, which is absolutely crazy to me. How are you going to make this absurd claim? He offers several forma of proof, but of course I remain unconvinced.

A lot of the author's arguments reminded me of arguments I still hear today. For example, teachers and schools want to teach the truth about slavery in America and not sugarcoat or censor anything, which has been met with a lot of backlash from right-wingers. "The kids are being taught to be ashamed of being white!" is what we often hear, but that is such an absurd take. No one is trying to teach anyone to be ashamed of their race or skin color. It is important to know the truth of tragic situations/events to prevent such things from happening again.

The author claimed that Japanese students are being taught to "accept American brainwashing", "lose their patriotism", and "learn to hate Japan/Japanese people". This could not be further from the truth. It is important for Japanese students to learn the scary, sad, and tragic truth of the war crimes their country committed in order to prevent a new generation of people who want to repeat that history from arising.

I personlly think it is horrendously irresponsible to claim that your country did not commit war crimes just because you refuse to acknowledge the truth and you refuse to believe your country did anything wrong. I do agree, however, that the war crimes of the WW2 losers were disproportionately brought to light in comparison to the winners. All sides, all countries committed war crimes during this time that should not go unpunished. However, to push aside your own country's war crimes to focus on "Oh, but these other countries also commit war crimes!" is extremely arrogant and irresponsible, as well as immoral and just straight up wrong.

We're finally done with Penguindrum! Genuinely disappointed that this wasn't a silly penguin anime, but I digress.

We learn that Himari isn't actually blood related to the brothers, but honestly, I'm still not convinced that this anime wasn't made to appeal to incest fans (imagine being a fan). Maybe I'm just being too critical, but I genuinely feel like this was a plot point later added to "make up" for the incestual themes we saw previously. As others have mentioned, there is NO reason for there to be incest. I feel that there is no narrative reason for Kanba to be attracted to his YOUNGER SISTER. It's just so gross to me.

The ending of this show was honestly confusing, but that is to be expected since we've only seen 6 episodes. Himari died countless times and was brought back countless times, but now she's back for good while her brothers are gone (kind of). We were told that fate cannot be changed, but I guess it can? I have to wonder though, would Himari have wanted this to happen? Why did both of her brothers need to sacrifice themselves for her? I feel like their sacrifice was selfish, but maybe that's just me. I just don't find this ending to be satisfying. What is satisfying is that after tomorrow's class I'll never have to think about Penguindrum again.

I've never heard of Penguindrum before, but I think penguins are very cute so I was excited to start this anime.

At first, episode 1 started off as a very cute display of siblings without parents just surviving. The sister is fatally ill and it almost consumes her i episode 1. I was sad to see her go, especially so soon, since I thought she was really cute and sweet. Initially, I wasn't sure what the relationship of the 3 main characters was so I looked it up, and saw many social media posts about shipping the characters so I thought they just might be friends. However, I later learned that they were SIBLINGS!

This is not an unpopular opinion, but I hate incestual relationship depictions in media. I think it is really disgusting to romantacize such a thing, so I was really disappointed by the ending of episode 1. I thought the hat-controlled Himari was very pretty, but she is still Himari. Maybe there is an underlying theme I didn't pick up on, but I think it is gross that Himari was displayed in such an outfit in front of her brothers, and then became naked as she embraced one of them. And then the end of episode 1 was even worse! Really disappointing. I think trying to hide incest behind a "oh, she's different because she's controlled by another entity! That's not Himari anymore!" is a really poor excuse to display an incestual relationship.

Evangelion day 2!! We finally met my absolute favorite character, Kaworu. We also met one of the most popular characters, Asuka!

Asuka is immediately shown to be a headstrong, confident girl who loves piloting her Eva, but we later learn that her traumatic past has brought her to be so connected with her Eva, that she simply doesn't see any point to her life aside from piloting the Eva.

I love Asuka's character because her outward and inward self are two completely different people, and it's heartwrenching to see her put on such a facade for the other people around her. Her outward self is confident and loud, it appears that she knows her worth. However, inside she hates herself, she feels like piloting the Eva is her only purpose, and she desperately craves love from the people around her to make up for her estranged father and dead mother, similar to Shinji's situation. She is a really good example of how trauma and mental illness can be invisible battles someone is fighting. Her longing for the love of Kaji and Shinji are no simple thing, she deeply craves this love, and especially with Shinji, is angered when she doesn't receive it.

Kaworu is my favorite character for so many reasons. As we discussed in class, the Angels progressively improve their technology and tactics to help them get into Tokyo-3 and destroy everything around it. Kaworu, unfortunately, is no different. Kaworu remains a mysterious character, particularly in origin, throughout the series. He is, of course, an Angel, but I feel his origins are still unclear. What is clear is that as an Angel, his "tactic" is warming up to Shinji and being exactly the type of person he needs.

It is widely debated whether Shinji and Kaworu were friends or potential lovers, I personally like the universe where they are lovers. Even though Kaworu was meant to die by the hands of Shinji, he is exactly everything Shinji needed in his life during this time. Kaworu is warm and inviting, and expresses that he loves Shinji (which, Shinji also desperately craved). It is so, so sad that Shinji's one "person to lean on" had to die by his hands, after already losing so many people close to him. Shinji knows he was an Angel, but he still felt so human. I personally believed Shinji loved Kaworu back, since Kaworu was the one person to be understanding and kind. I absolutely love their dynamic in NGE and the rebuilds. If you choose to watch End of Evangelion, which you should, you can anticipate seeing him again!

The last two episodes of Evangelion are alternative endings to the series due to financial restraint that was present during production. End of Evangelion is the true ending, which makes these last two episodes really strange and appear rushed. And of course, the famous "Congratulations" scene is a representation of Shinji rejecting the Human Instrumentality Project. I personally do not prefer this ending, even though it is a happier one. I think the true ending is a better fit for the story because it truly wraps things up (despite a few loose ends). I HIGHLY recommend watching the true ending!

Also, I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend watching episode 9, it's the best episode in the series!