The Imaginarrium of Dr. Parnassus, Tideland, and Re:Kinder: How Style Gives Way to Substance
I watched The Imaginarrium or Dr. Parnassus yesterday, and Tideland this morning. I meant to watch them Saturday, but I didn't... Since these are films, and not books, I will likely just copy and paste the plots from Wikipedia to help streamline this particular post, because I'm not sure if I can really give a beat-for-beat explanation for these stories like I did for the others. Before we get going, it should be noted that these movies are both directed by Terry Gilliam. Terry Gilliam, for the uninitiated, is a film director most known from films like Brazil, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Before this, I only really knew Monty Python, and nothing else. To start off with the positives, I'll be upfront and say that Gilliam has an eye for cinematography. In both of these films, there was an undeniable eye for detail that makes a lot of shots stunning to look at, so with these films, I can at least say you're getting something nice to look at. I will also say that his films are unforgettable in both good and bad ways, as we will see with both of these films. If I can, I will be sure to include photos and shots from both films just to get you an idea of what we're dealing with. To be honest, I think if Parun got anything from these films, it was the aesthetic. To be clear, I did enjoy the Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, and I'm still reeling from Tideland, but I will say that while the former was visually engaging and an enjoyable story with good twists and turns, the latter made me incredibly uncomfortable and was not one I enjoyed watching, but couldn't really look away from. It wasn't a trainwreck, as it was well acted, especially by a young Jodelle Ferland, who played our main character, Jeliza-Rose, well shot, and well directed, but... I struggle with finding a message in this film. I think there's one, but it's lost in trying to make the audience feel as uncomfortable as possible. Now, for Dr. Parnassus, Parun likely was just inspired by the imagery, as in my eyes, I didn't really see much of anything that could lead to his story being inspired by it. For Tideland, I can definitely say there were aspects of the story, and themes definitely had a hand in inspiring the themes of Re:Kinder, and I would even argue that Parun handled the themes of Tideland better in Re:Kinder and succeeded in giving us a message to think about when compared to Tideland. But that will be talked about in due time, before we officially begin, I do want to say one more thing before we continue... I'm not a fan of Gilliam as a person, he's a transphobic piece of shit who in the last 6 years has called the MeToo movement a witch hunt, victim-blamed the victims of Harvey Weinstein, and has made transphobic comments trying to get a laugh that very much failed to make anyone laugh, and when called out on his behavior by people trying to work with him for a stage production of Into The Woods, he recommended to watch a comedy skit by Dave Chappele, another wellknown transphobe and supposedly a comedian. So... yeah, Parun couldn't have known any of this, as he died a decade before he showed his true colors, and I can only speculate how he would've responded to his behavior, but that being said, he got something of value from his work, and even though I dislike Gilliam, that doesn't mean his work is without merit. So, with that being said, let's begin...
The Imaginnarium of Dr. Parnassus (Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Blackface and Innapropriate relations between a teen and adult.)
An elderly sage, Doctor Parnassus, runs a travelling theatre troupe, which includes his teenage daughter Valentina,Β barkerΒ Anton, and dwarf Percy. The troupe's main attraction is a portal to a magical "Imaginarium", a surreal dream world that transforms according to its participants' desires and offers them a choice between difficult self-fulfillment or easy ignorance. After a surly drunkard is swayed to the latter, Parnassus says he has lost "another one" to Mr. Nick, a suave personification of theΒ Devil, who often taunts Parnassus and gloats over Parnassus's failures. He reminds Parnassus that in three days Valentina turns 16, and her soul will belong to Mr. Nick. Hundreds of years ago, Mr. Nick tricked Parnassus into accepting immortality.
As the troupe crosses a bridge, Anton notices someone hanging beneath it. They rescue the man, and he spits out a golden pipe that allowed him to continue breathing while being hanged; the man claims to haveΒ amnesia. Mr. Nick visits Parnassus and reveals that the rescued man is disgraced philanthropist Tony Shepard, who was hanged by Russian gangsters for owing them money. Mr. Nick offers Parnassus a new wager: Valentina can stay with Parnassus past the age of 16 if Parnassus wins five souls before Mr. Nick.
Tony joins the troupe as a barker and persuades them to remodel the show into a more modern act. Tony lures a posh, affluent woman into the Imaginarium and follows her; they enter a pastel-coloured dream world representing the woman's imagination. The woman's imagination changes Tony's face as well. Tony dances with her, and they encounter a motel run by Mr. Nick, but Tony persuades the woman instead to take a gondola ride that wins the first soul for Parnassus. Tony falls out of the Imaginarium, his face returning to normal. The woman exits shortly after and gives the troupe a vast sum of money as thanks for her experience. Three other women enter, each re-emerging elated. Mr. Nick claims the souls of four Russian gangsters hunting Tony down for his debts after they chase Tony into the Imaginarium and fall into a trap laid by Mr. Nick, with Tony's face changing again in the process.
Parnassus reveals to Valentina her past: after aging from normal mortality, Parnassus made a pact with Mr. Nick to be youthful again, in order to win the heart of a woman he loved. In exchange, any child he fathered would become Mr. Nick's property at the age of 16. Valentina is horrified by her father's revelation. Having discovered that TonyΒ stole organsΒ from orphans in developing countries and sold them to wealthy westerners, Anton confronts Tony, but Tony fights him off, pushes Valentina into the Imaginarium, then joins her. Influenced by Valentina's desires, Tony's face changes to that of her dream lover, and they float along a river in a gondola, fulfilling their shared sexual feelings. A child in rags disrupts their trip, transitioning the scene to one of Tony as a philanthropist, speaking at a fundraiser for impoverished children. Anton appears in the form of an outspoken child exposing Tony as a fraud. A mob of angry benefactors pursues Tony. As the landscape disintegrates, Anton confesses his love for Valentina before falling into a void.
Distraught over her father's bargain, Valentina gives her soul over to Mr. Nick even as he tries dissuading her. Disillusioned by the easy victory, Mr. Nick offers Parnassus another bargain: Valentina's soul for Tony's. As the mob approaches Tony to hang him, Parnassus presents Tony with his golden pipe that will allow him to survive the hanging, and, he also gives Tony a brittle replica. He then tricks Tony into choosing the replica; Tony dies when the mob lynches him. Mr. Nick frees Valentina's soul but does not reveal her location to Parnassus, who is abandoned to wander in despair, trapped in the Imaginarium.
Years later, Parnassus finds himself a beggar back in London, when Valentina walks by. She is married to Anton, has a daughter with him, and lives an affluent life. Percy walks up to him, dissuading him from interrupting Valentina's new life. Parnassus and Percy team up again, sellingΒ toy theatresΒ of the Imaginarium and the troupe on a street corner. As Mr. Nick appears and beckons Parnassus to him, Percy tells Parnassus to return to work.
And that's the story. I will be fully transparent and say that this summary is directly from Wikipedia. Mainly because I wanted to get my own thoughts on here. So... all in all, this is a good film. I have my issues, and they're pretty big ones, but all in all, it was good. It had very beautiful imagery, even if the CGI was a bit dated in some aspects, it was overall a creative movie, if not a bit shallow in terms of any complicated and daring themes, but not everything needs to be thought provoking and meaningful. Sometimes, a movie can just be a good ride, with a decent story, and fun set pieces. For those that want to watch the movie, I discovered plenty of uploads of the full movie on Youtube, and if you ever want to watch it without putting money in Gilliam's pocket... Well, you know where to go now. I don't personally believe in rankings or scores, so I'll go by what I liked and didn't like about the movie.
In terms of the story, it was a fun ride. I don't really have any complaints with most of it, outside of a couple scenes that I take a very big issue with, but first, let's go over the characters. They're very much the right kind of characters for a story like this. Not quite normal, but not so crazy that it doesn't distract. The actors in this film did a great job, and I have to get shoutout to the late Heath Ledger (along with the three other actors who played him in the Imaginarrium after Heath Ledger passed away, making him unable to finish the film, more on that later), the late Christopher Plummer, Andrew Garfield, and Lily Cole. All four of them delivered a great performance and they're worth seeing the movie for. The other actors in this film also do a good job, and I honestly have nothing more to say on that front. Plummer plays Parnassus as both a man trying everything to save his daughter, while still clearly being a very imperfect man who lies to her. Heath Ledger does a good job playing the twist villian, and so do the other three actors who had to play him in scenes where his face changed. The choice to have three actors play him in the Imaginarrium is a great example of an idea brought about by both unfortunate circumstances. Since Heath Ledger died before the film was finished, Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Collin Farrel were brought on for three different scenes to help complete the movie, and they all do a good job convincinly playing the same character which is not an easy feat at all. Andrew Garfield is Andrew Garfield. He's great in pretty much everything he's in, even in movies where they're not that good. I will say his character did annoy me at first, but he came around for me towards the end, and the story did a good job in vindicating his hatred in Tony, if you can't tell by the plot summary above. But despite all these great performances, the standout for me was Lily Cole, who played Parnassus' soon to be 16-year-old daughter. She both plays a character with a strong moral compass, while still clearly being a teenage girl trying to find her own strenght and is well rounded character in her own right... However, this does lead to one of my major criticisms of this film... The film kinda has a love triangle between Valentina, Tony, and Andrew Garfield's character, Anton... now before the twist with Tony being a complete scumbag is revealed, the movie strongly pairs Valentina and Tony together, and there's a scene where Tony almost kisses her, and there's a scene where they do actually kiss and it's implied that they made love... And Tony is very clearly written as an adult... No age is given for either Tony or Anton, but it's very obvious that Tony is at the very least in his late 20s and he's openly flirting and taking advantage of Valentina's attraction to him before the film ever outright says he's a horrible human being. The film doesn't actually call this out as inappropriate. There's even a scene where Parnassus and Percy (played by the late dwarrf actor, Verne Troyer), discuss both Anton liking Valentina, and Valentina being attracted to Tony, and while Parnassus does say neither are good enough for her, him being a full blown adult is never once brought up as a reason, and the film is perfectly content with telling the audience that their relationship is okay and normal until the reveal of him being an organ trafficker is brought up... Now, while Anton's age isn't brought up, he looks closer in age to Valentina, and very easily passes as being the same age as her physically, and there are a lot of moments where his behavior is more akin to a teenage boy, not a grown man, so it's honestly a releif that Val and Anton end up together at the end of the film because, yikes... Another thing I have to criticize is the use of blackface in this film. At one point in the movie, right around the time Tony starts getting a bunch of customers into the Imaginnarium, for some ungodly reason, they had actor, Verne Troyer, who played Percy, dress in blackface, complete with an afro wig...
I should not need to explain why this is bad in the year of our lord 2026. It was bad in 2009 too, and the people making this film should've known better. But considering Gilliam has once mockingly said that he''s and I quote, a black lesbian in transition (BLT... Yes, I know. It's bad), asshole likely didn't care... And no... the film doesn't acknowledge this as bad and it's not really treated as such, it's just a cheap joke and nothing more, and considering how the world grew tired of blackface by the 1940s... Like... this is just highly disrespectul and a giant what the fuck.
Other than those two very egregious parts of the film, I do praise the performances, the visuals, and the overall product is still worth your time... Just maybe watch the film on Youtube and avoid giving Gilliam your money.
Now, onto how this movie, might have inspired Parun... To be blunt, the visuals. The visuals, and nothing else. None of the plot of this film, as far as I can tell, is used as direct inspiration. And to be honest, the visuals are the best part of this film. I'm going to show a few images, a concept art, the trailer, and a couple scenes to really showcase what I mean, because while this movie isn't perfect, and in fact, there's plenty wrong with it as I've just discussed, the visuals alone are almost worth the price of admission.
There's quite a bit more beautiful visuals in the film, but I think I've proved my point with this. All in all, the film doesn't really have anything in the plot to make think it's related to Re:Kinder in anyway other than visuals. If anyone can see something that I might have missed that proves otherwise, please give me your thoughts. Again, the film is on Youtube in pretty good quality, just... keep in mind that there is blackface in this film, and Valentina, while still a good character in her own right, is still the object of desire for a grown man, and is sexually harrassed in the beginning of the film... while being described as 16... I seriously wonder why 16 was picked for the age instead of 21, which would've been closer to the actress's age at the time of the films release, or at least make her 18, just... anything is better than having her character be 15 going on 16. But, it's whatever at this point. I'm ready to move on.
Tideland (Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Child Abuse, mentions of depictions of inappropriate adult-child relationships, and drug use. If these are all uncomfortable, you can skip this part. Honeslty, I wouldn't blame anyone for doing so.)
Jeliza-Rose has solitary adventures during one summer in ruralΒ TexasΒ while staying at a rundown farmhouse called What Rocks. The girl creates an increasingly dark, imaginativeΒ fantasyΒ life with the aid of dismemberedΒ Barbie dollΒ heads that she often wears on her fingertips. With names such as Mystique, Sateen Lips, Baby Blonde and Glitter Gal, the doll heads not only engage in long conversations with Jeliza-Rose, reflecting different aspects of the girl'sΒ psyche, but also act as her companions while she explores the barren Texas landscape.
After her mother overdoses on methadone, Jeliza-Rose and her father, Noah, flee to Noah's mother's home, a remote Texas farmhouse. Before they leave, however, Noah fears that with all the drugs in their house he will lose Jeliza-Rose and be sent to prison, so he attempts to set it alight, although Jeliza-Rose manages to stop him. They find the farmhouse abandoned, but they settle in anyway. Their first night there, Noah dies from aΒ heroinΒ overdose. For much of the rest of the film, Noah's corpse remains seated upright in a living room chair with sunglasses covering his eyes. As her father slowly begins to decompose, Jeliza-Rose doesn't readily acknowledge his death because she has grown accustomed to him being unconscious for long periods. Instead, she retreats deeper and deeper into her own mind, exploring the tall grass around the farmhouse, relying on her doll heads for friendship as an unconscious way of keeping herself from feeling too lonely and afraid.
During Jeliza-Rose's wanderings, she eventually encounters and befriends her neighbors, aΒ mentally impairedΒ young man called Dickens and his older sister Dell, who is blind in one eye from a bee sting, and who has a past connection to Jeliza-Rose's deceased father Noah. The eccentric neighbors take the girl under their wing, going so far as to preserve Noah's body viaΒ taxidermy. Amorous feelings, initiated mostly by the much younger Jeliza-Rose, begin to creep into the childlike relationship between her and Dickens, and it is revealed that the deeply troubled Dickens once drove a school bus in front of an oncoming train and keeps a stash of dynamite in his bedroom that he intends to use against the "monster shark" he believes is roaming the countryside (in reality, the nightly passenger train that travels past the farmhouse where Jeliza-Rose and her dead father reside). It is also revealed that Dell and Noah were once "kissers", as Jeliza-Rose finds pictures of the two in the room Dell shares with her own taxidermied mother.
Following a violent confrontation between Dell, Dickens and Jeliza-Rose, aΒ train wreckΒ is caused by Dickens' dynamite, creating a scene of chaos near the farmhouse. Wandering the wreckage among the confusion of injured travelers, Jeliza-Rose is discovered by a woman who survived, who assumes she is another victim of the wreck. The woman offers to adopt Jeliza-Rose, and they sit together by the burning train and watch as fireflies flit through the sky overhead.
Hoo boy, where do I even begin with this film? It was... certianly a movie. I'm still not sure if I liked it or not, but I'm leaning towards an, it's complicated... The movie has stellar performances, great visuals, solid direction, and a lot of questionable stuff... Very similar to our last movie, only this time the questionable stuff is very much designed to make you feel incredibly uncomfortable... It's to the point that I honestly struggle to recommend this film. The film very much has a lot of dark aspects with this film,as you can tell by the summary... If anyone wants to, the film is available on Youtube for free with spanish subtitles, but I will not be linking either films because I don't want Tumblr to get mad at me for linking two full length movies. So... let's move on to my thoughts...
Well... I will say this, this movie is uncomfortable. This movie is a "your mileage may vary" kind of film. For me, I appreciate it bringing attention to some very uncomfortable topics and themes, child abuse, incest, drug overdose, mental illnesses, and how it all effects a child having to witness it all to the point it's their normal life... No one in this film is particularly likable, except for Jeliza-Rose, and that's because Danielle Ferland does a great job playing her as a girl escaping into her fantasies just to cope with her surroundings. Very early in the film, both of her parents die of a drug overdose. Her Mom dies around 10 minutes into the film, and her Dad dies 30 minutes into the film. After that, the girl just kinda wanders around the Texas prairies just playing pretend as she's used to her Dad being out for days at a time... Yeah, I guess I'll go into that first. Jeliza-Rose's home life isn't good... Her Mom and Dad are both heavy drug users, and her Mom espesically doesn't treat her very well in the little time we spent with her, being very rude and mean to her daughter, but the next minute she's crying and telling her she's sorry and that she doesn't want her to leave, and then saying she'll do something nice for her real soon, only to hit her for trying to take her chocolate, and then proceeding to cry and apologize. Her Father, isn't much better... He definitely acts a little nicer towards her, but he partakes in heroin habitually leaving her to fend for herself while he's off on "vacation" as he puts it... The film doesn't stay on either of them for long...After her Mom dies, they leave for her deceased Grandma's home, and then 10 minutes later, her Dad is dead. And for a good chuck of the movie, her Dad just rots in a chair, while Jeliza-Rose convinces herself he's just sleeping... It isn't until later she meets her neighbors, Dell and Dickens, and both are... not right... Dell is confusing, going from mean, to nice, and back again, and is very much not right in the head... And then there's Dickens, her brother, who is mentally disabled and has bouts of epilepsy... and is implied to be a victim of CSA...
Honestly, this whole film is designed to make you more and more uncomfortable as possible as we a girl disaccociate with her surroundings, playing a fantasy in her head to the point of very unhealthily getting attached to her neighbors. While her relationship with Dell is contentious for most of the film, her relationship with Dickens is... uncomfortable. So, uncomfortable, I'm not even sure I really want to talk about it more than the summary does... If you read it, it does mention Jeliza-Rose initiating an amourous relationship with Dickens... Who is a grown man. Despite his mental disabilties and him being very childlike, and unlike Imaginnarium, the film makes it very clear that this is not okay. And the tone of the film makes it clear that Jeliza-Rose's infatuation with Dickens is nothing more than based on her fantasy of him, rather than the reality of him being a mentally unhealthy man, with delusions and a penchant for seeing the world around him as something it isn't. To the point of causing very serious, yet intentional destruction. The film, I feel, lingers on the two's "relationship" far more than necessary, to the point that at a certain point in the film, I verbally said "Stop!" out loud. It seriously made me uncomfortable. And I think it's to the films detriment. We do not need a scene of a child kissing a grown man on the lips, even if they are just innocent pecks. It's gross, disgusting, and I hate it so much. And I'm going to stop talking about it here because it genuinely makes me upset and uncomfortable.
Moving on. The film does have a good ending... It's the only time in the film I felt a sense of relief. At the end, Jeliza-Rose goes towards a train wreck caused by Dickens and she meets a young woman who thinks she was a passenger. The film has the woman sit and comfort Jeliza-Rose knowing she's been through a lot, but not exactly knowing what. The movie implies that the woman is going to care for her from now on, ending with a hopeful scene of the two watching fireflies over the wreckage. After everything I witnessed watching this film, I just hope Jeliza-Rose gets the help she needs with that kind woman, far away from the craziness that is Dell and Dickens...
In terms of message, I struggle to really say this film has one... but I do think it wants to say that there's an ugly truth in how children cope in situations with adults indulging in unhealthy habits and ignoring how those habits can affect those children, and how we expect them to be aware and know how to handle these situations. Jeliza-Rose is seen twice giving heroin to her Dad, which implies a normal, and she plays with the heads of Barbie dolls, putting them on her fingers, and pretending they talk to her as she just wanders and plays into the Texas prairies... Jeliza-Rose oftens makes up stories for her surroundings, and is very much inspired by Alice in Wonderland. She actually reads the book around the beginning of the movie. There's also a couple of moments that directly reference Alice in Wonderland, such as her falling into a tree in her mind, while in reality, she's just unconscious and taken back to her farm house, where she wakes up to find Dell applying taxidermy to her Father's pretty decayed corpse by this point.. Once both of Jeliza-Rose's parents die, she escapes into her mind to cope with her neglect and abandonment, and eventually finds neighbors are very much not safe for her, and the movie is aware of this, but it's not till the end where we're given any amount of hope that she'll be okay...
Yeah... I think it's safe to say after writing all of this that I wasn't a big fan of this film. Like I said, there are parts that are good. But the story is far too disturbing and indulgent for my liking, and anything I can say in positive about this film comes with a "but." The performances are great, but I can't get behind the story. The visuals are great, but sometimes I wonder what I'm looking at. The themes and message are daring and important, but I'm not sure if it does a good job in really selling those message in a tasteful and coherent way. Considering, I had to really think about this deeply for this film, I can see many people coming out of this film thinking it's just there to be uncomfortable with no point...
And honestly, that seems to be the common consensus. While now, you'll find people defending this movie and what it's trying to say, this film was not a critical or financial success except for one major exception... Japan... Apparently this film did really well in Japan critically and financially, which explains why Parun listed it as an inspiration for Re:Kinder. Overall, though, this film is either loved, despised, or people didn't know what to think. Which, I fall into the last category... Which leads me to discuss how this film was used as inspriation... I think Parun was really attached to imperfect, and downright horrible adults indulging in vices around children and not considering how it all affects them. But where Tideland feels exploitive and indulgent, Re:Kinder feels a lot more conscious and self-aware. Re:Kinder takes the interesting parts of Tideland and does a better job at really showing how kids deal with certain situations in unhealthy ways, by virtue of having the characters being at least a little aware that how they're handling the situation likely isn't the best way, but they don't know anything else. This isn't to say Jeliza-Rose being unaware makes her less interesting, I'd argue Jeliza-Rose is probably a more realistic portrayal of a child using unhealthy coping mechanisms, but the film never really outright says it's unhealthy, it just kinda expects the audience to see it as such without really acknowleding that being aware of what is being shown and portrayed as unhealthy and uncomfortable is sometimes not enough to assure an audience and acknowledgment goes a long way in making sure an audience can stomach the story. I really feel like Jeliza-Rose's family and neighbors can be seen in Yuuichi's family dynamics just without the drugs, incest (Yes, apparently, there is in incest in Tideland, but I mercifully missed it), and very uncomfortable adult-child relationship. Jeliza-Rose's Mom saying she'll do something to make her daughter happy, while making it clear this is probably not the first time she's heard that, mirrors Yuuichi's Mom saying she'll hang in there, only to rely on her own son for comfort. Jeliza-Rose's Dad is well meaning, but incapable of seeing what's best for his daughter, not even once considering that maybe his daughter is better off away from him, and indulging in vices that end with him leaving his daughter behind, mirrors Yuuichi's Dad and how he abuses his wife who clearly needs help, and leaves his son to handle everything, knowing that she'll likely use him to make herself feel better. He knows, and understands that what he is doing is wrong, but either can't or won't do what he knows is right because he's too much of a coward to do what is necessary for his son, while indulging in an affair that would only exacerbate the harm he's causing. And that's just going into Yuuichi and his parents. As much as I write Shunsuke's Mom as a good mom, she still willingly participated in an affair with Yuuichi's Dad knowing that it could hurt his family. And while we don't know much about her relationship with Shunsuke's Dad, we can assume that she didn't know he was married until later, which makes her a victim in that regard, but she still didn't tell Shunsuke his Dad was likely not going to come home at some point. Now, granted, this is much less bad than Yuuichi's parents, and I think we can give her some slack, since we have enough to determine that she was likely a good Mom, at least in Shunsuke's perspective. But as for the other kids parents... even if we don't know exactly what their issues are, we are given enough to know that whatever thier issues were had a profound affect on all of them.
Ryou, for example, tries to help whenever he can, and plays pretend with Sayaka, roleplaying innappropriate relations. Ryou likely had to help out around the house whenever his Mom was tired and depressed, at roughly nine years old.
Sayaka says a lot of out of pocket things for attention, which is indicative of her likely not getting a lot of attention at home due to her Dad's suicidal ideation. Because of this lack of attention, she knows about a lot of scenarios she really shouldn't at her age. She probably didn't get a lot of attention and thus did and said whatever in order to get any kind of attention.
Aya is self-explanatory. Her parents divorce profoundly affected her to the point of her getting depression, and while we do have enough information to discern that her parents divorce wasn't dramatic, it was still a surprise that affected her deeply. And her Mom taking care of her, likely didn't help as much as it should've.
Rei is surprisingly self-sufficient and independent. While she has a few moments of being spoiled and selfish, she's overall intelligent, strong, and surprisingly responsible. But she's in 5th grade. That's 11 years old at most. Outside of that, she's also surprisingly concerned with fashion and looking good, which tells me that she was taught at a young age to be considered pretty, or you'll be worthless. And her strength and smarts reads as compensation to me.
Hiroto is the character we know the least about, but he's the one who says "When someone like Yuuichi opens their heart to another, they tend to lean heavy on them. If you arenβt ready to provide that kind of support, you shouldnβt even be thinking about saving Yuuichi." I've discussed this at lenght in his Musical Character Analysis post, but he has to know that because both of his parents had the mind illness, which put him in a position where he had to take on responsibility at a young age. With him being so mature and responsible, it's easy to forget he's in 6th grade, making him 12 at most.
These are all kids forced to cope with the failures of adults without fully understanding why they act the way they do. They just do, and that's their normal. If there is anything I can appreciate Tideland for, it's inspiring Parun to take what Tideland was trying to do, and doing it better. Even if that wasn't his goal, in my eyes, he took a movie that is profoundly uncomfortable and hard to watch, and used some of it's themes and messaging to make what I consider to be the best, and most underrated RPGMaker Horror game of all time... I just wish he was still alive to hear this praise...
Alright, with that... we've only got Yasashi Watashi and Revolutionary Girl Utena next. I've just got a Japanese copy of Volume 2 of Yasashi Watashi, and will be using lens to translate and follow through the whole story. I do have thoughts on Volume 1, but I wanted a complete view of the story before I gave my full thoughts. As for Revolutionary Girl Utena... I will likely just be discussing my personal thoughts on the show, and how the themes connect with Re:Kinder rather than give a full summary of the story because it's a 39 episode anime, and I'm not about to blog my thoughts for all 39 episodes, I am not that bored in life. Honestly, of the list, I was most highly anticipating Revolutionary Girl Utena and Night on the Galactic Railroad. Well, the latter didn't disappoint and was one of the most profound children's book I've had the pleasure of reading, and Revolutionary Girl Utena is a classic that is very dark and has a lot to say, so it's very exciting that I'll finally be watching it. Until then, I'll see you all later...
