blog page

Welp, this is the last official blog post for this class so here we go.

Assassination Classroom takes on the subject of discrimination in education pretty head on. It gets to the point where class A students become zombies that only desire to kill class E. And for what reason? just because they were told that class E is a bunch of inferior idiots and if they do not score better then their ego will be hurt? Not quite following there but it is still entertaining. Still, class E is pretty much sacrificed by the principal in order for every other student to succeed, and somewhat follows the utilitarian philosophy that anything that benefits the overall group should be done even if a few people suffer. In juxtaposition, Koro takes the opposite philosophy about education, adapting his style to every student's individual needs to bring the kids to their full potential. Before Koro, the class was full of the equivalent of punching bags for everyone else, but one teacher turned them into top students capable of challenging even the brightest of the other classes. It shows the importance of having a good teacher that is truly passionate about their student's education, I personally have encountered this where I didn't have a teacher for the first quarter of an AICE class (AP equivalent) and my high school ended up putting one of the AP teachers in for us even though she had no experience with the content. She was amazing and even though we were super behind, her attitude and desire for us to succeed is what allowed me to do very well on the final. Any other teacher and I guarantee that I would have failed. It is amazing what a good teacher can do for students, and this anime shows it very well.

This show highlights the social problem of division of the social classes. The first episode shows the treatment of the lower class in a night city. The show opens up with David trying to wash his academy uniform, but the washer was not able to continue washing his clothes due to insufficient funds. He tried to use a bootleg version of the software that was needed for his class. His mother is seen as tired from working hard to get David a good future in the academy. However, most children of the wealthy are able to afford to go to the academy so David was sticking out like a sore thumb. When David and his mother were in a car crash, the ambulance came they had to scan both David and his mom to see if they were important customers. Once they pronounce them as not important customers, they left them injured at the scene. Everything in this show is ruled by money. Even the doctor's decision was dependent on how much money David paid to save his mother's life. It is sad to see everything in the night city is dependent on money, even medicine. It shows that the poor are not able to climb their financial status as they are consistently challenged by society. Hence, the appeal of committing crimes for easy money is appealing. David becoming a cyberpunk was a bit sad. His mother, a former cyberpunk, had tried her best to give David a better life than hers. But, in the end, he became a cyberpunk. He had learned to steal, fight, and even kill from Maine and the crew. From Maine's words, he was becoming a man, especially after sleeping with Lucy. When Maine turned into a cyber psycho, he told David that this was his end and he should leave the scene. David had tried to become the new Maine with his new body and tech ware. In saving Lucy, he risks his psychosis and died saving Lucy. Well, at least Lucy got a chance to go to the moon.

Oh wow. My mind feels completely messed up after watching this one. The final 20 minutes was especially confusing with the repeated switches between reality, acting, and dream. There is so much to unpack with this one. So overall, the movie tackles the struggles of stardom and identity, especially through an exploration of the blurring of reality and illusion.

Mima is a former idol that transitioned careers to become an up and coming actress. However, through her new acting career, Mima is thrown into a much more mature and "tarnished" world that is completely unlike her old world of innocent idol singing. The stress from her new career causes Mima to slowly spiral into madness and start hallucinating her former idol persona. Mima feels haunted by her past self, feeling as if she had betrayed it. She struggles with coming to terms with her new identity. Is she Mima the Idol or Mima the actress? Does a distinction exist and does it matter at all? Such is the identity crisis that is represented by the blurring of reality and illusion that Mima experiences. The film, especially in the final 20 minutes, show an intensely mindbreaking blending of three worlds: the real world, the acting world, and the dream world. And the struggle to distinguish the three shows Mima's psychological deterioration.

Mima's manager, Rumi, is another person that struggles with identity and delusions. The film at first makes it seem as if Mima was the one with Dissociative Identity Disorder, but it was really Rumi all along. Rumi had been a former idol a long time ago, and she struggles to move on from it. As a result, she tries to live vicariously through Mima's idol career. But when Mima switched to being an actress instead, Rumi's delusions were shattered and she was pushed to the brink of psychological instability. Rumi started believing that she was the real Mima, the one that is still an innocent idol. She then, completely deluded, goes on a quest to destroy all who are "tarnishing" Mima the idol, with the hope that she can return Mima to her innocent idol persona. Rumi kills the scriptwriter and the photographer for exploiting and tarnishing Mima. Eventually, Rumi realizes that Mima was going to fully embrace the actress career and that she was not going to go back to being Mima the idol. Thus, Rumi then suffers an even further psychological break in her identity, and she starts believing that she herself is Mima the idol. Rumi becomes a physical manifestation of Mima's idol persona and now wants to destroy the real Mima for being a "tarnished fake". This is a severe case of DID and a further instance of the deterioration in one's ability to distinguish between what is real and what is an illusion/delusion.

Then there is Me-Mania, the ugly creepy stalker. He also has a struggle to distinguish between reality and fiction. He is representative of the obsessive idol fans who have bought into the illusion of the innocent idol singer in a way too deep and dangerous manner. Me-Mania has gone to the point where he cannot separate Mima's fictional idol persona from reality. He goes to obsessive lengths to interact with and "protect" that idol image; I think he has also been hired by Rumi to do some of the things he did. And it further shows how deeply consumed he is by the fictional image of idol Mima, that he is willing to believe an unseen online voice that matches his idea of what idol Mima is supposed to be like, and he goes as far to try to kill the real Mima because he was "commanded" by idol Mima (Rumi) to do so.

Well, even though I knew it was a work of right-wing before I read it, I still felt a little uncomfortable. It's ironic from a comic point of view. But as I said about Hetalia, Sensoron should not take what is said seriously. If taken seriously, it is problematic. Therefore, it is not a work suitable for general audiences, especially children.

Sensoron advocates anti-Americanism, arguing that Japan did the right thing for the war, and that young people now repenting for the SINS laid down by Japan are being brainwashed by the West. It also claims that the Nanjing Massacre did not actually exist, but was politically instigated by China and the West by creating fake photos. Finally, it says that the allegations of wartime rape of women are not valid because the women consented for money or something else.

The whole story seems to me more like sophistry, trying to lead the audience into an inherently wrong logic, and avoiding all evidence that would affect this wrong logic, to convince the audience that Japan is innocent and a victim of war. These charges are very subjective, for example, in the case of allegations about the authenticity of photos, it focuses on a small number of photographs that are in doubt and ignores a large number of others. It may be true that Japan was not the only guilty party in the war, but it was not innocent. It is totally unreasonable to disprove Japan's innocence with a few questionable photos. It is true that photo does not necessarily depict ‘objectively reality’, but it is also true that some photos tell us truth.

Now I've never seen this movie before, but I knew that it was going to be a 10/10 within 30minutes of starting. This movie is so good. The visuals are absolutely beautiful, and the soundtrack alone is enough to make this a masterpiece. The film has a very compelling story about two teenagers, Mitsuha and Taki, living in a different time and place randomly switching bodies with each other. It follows the entanglement of two completely different lives as they work to avert the comet disaster and change the fate of the residents of Itomori.

The dichotomy between their lives and the intersections of them illustrates key themes of gender and identity. When Mitsuha switches into Taki's body, she brings an element of "femininity" into his life, which lands him a date with his crush. And when Taki switches into Mitsuha's body, he brings an element of "masculinity" into her life, which makes her more popular at school and helps her stand up for herself more. Both individuals benefited from the introduction of elements from the opposite gender identity, which shows that conformity to a singular one is not necessarily an effective way to live and that the elements that are defined as "feminine" or "masculine" are not restricted to the bodily expression. Gender is not intrisincally tied to the biology; it is instead rooted in one's mind, and we see this when Mitsuha and Taki retain their individual gender identity while in the other's body instead of changing to conform to what their bodies signify. This also goes into the theme of identity. Both Mitsuha and Taki retain their individual identity despite embodying a completely different physical form. Their friends and family are able to tell when they are a different person. And it shows that identity is rooted in the mind. Identity itself is a spiritual concept that is not tied rigidly to one's bodily expression.

Another theme is the contrast between traditionalism and modernism. Mitsuha lives in a small rural town, while Taki lives in the urban city of Tokyo. Mitsuha's life is dominated by traditions such as her shrine maiden responsibilities. However, at the beginning of the film, she laments being stuck in her life of unchanging traditions, and she finds a lot of fun in experiencing the urban modernist life through Taki's body. But the film has an even stronger inclination toward retaining tradition and going back to natural/spiritual roots. This is shown through Taki venturing all the way out to Mitsuha's town and finding the tree. He is only able to get a second chance at saving the people of Itomori by drinking the sake under the tree, signifying that he has returned to that natural/spiritual root and becoming one with it. And it is through this embrace of traditional values that Taki and Mitsuha are able to save the people of Itomori from being destroyed by the falling comet.

This also goes into a theme of fate. I noticed that Mitsuha's hair tie and Taki's wrist bands are both symbolic of the red strings of fate. And of course the whole film is ultimately about changing fate. The film initially suggests that fate is immutable as Taki fails to save Mitsuha the first time around. However, a second chance is given when he revisits traditional values and becomes in touch with greater spirituality. Through that, Taki and Mitsuha are able to change fate and alter the course of history. But it also seems like fate has a role in the two meeting and becoming intertwined with each other's lives both in the beginning and once more at the very end. After all, why did they have to switch bodies with each other in particular? Is that not fated?

I cannot rate this with a good conscience ❤

I have autism and Hetalia is my special interest so this is literally 3k words long and I have absolutely no regrets. I could have gone on longer but I wanted to remain relevant to the class. If you don't reply to me I will cry.

I'm gonna break this into a few sections so you can skip around. I'm going to try and stick to just season 1 with this discussion, which won't be too hard cause it's the most insane one. Also, I just want to say that I wrote this all before I read the attached article and I'm now seeing that I literally could have written that article because I know everything about Hetalia.

When do we cross the line between stereotyping and just straight-up racism?

Hey, why are we idolizing WWII Germany?

Oh, we are portraying war as silly and funny, okay cool.

Is this Japanese Nationalism? (a surprisingly controversial argument)

The Sub and the Dub are 2 totally different shows

The Fandom (and linking back to other class-related terms)

Okay I'll name one good thing

Alright, let's get started.

1.

A lot of people will argue that Hetalia is not racist at all because they are making fun of everyone. If you are portraying all of the countries as their most common stereotypes then it evens out in the end. I would argue that this is in fact, not the case. Especially when you set your show during WWII. I will give Himaruya credit in that he mostly focuses on European countries to make fun of, making a lot of the stereotypes less so targeted at minorities. However, a lot of these jokes are still highly insensitive and frame some countries in a worse light than others

Just look at the difference between how Northern Italy is portrayed as opposed to Germany or Japan. Or how France is a predator, Belarus is into her literal brother, and Spain is seen as a creep. It is often times mocking an entire country's intelligence, appearance, or personality. While it is not always that serious, it does lead me to the second point.

When you personify a country and mock it, you aren't just mocking a piece of land, you are mocking an entire population of people. These jokes may seem harmless but they can still be hurtful. While I don't believe that liking Hetalia translates to your actual views on world events, it can unconsciously impact your real-life thoughts and behaviors.

(also why does Britain see imaginary magical creatures, what is that referencing? According to the wiki, it is some popular folklore story of a rabbit who lives on the moon but like.. what? If Himaruya was doing this much research into these countries' cultural backgrounds why is he portraying them like this?)

2.

This show portrays WWII Germany in too positive of a light for my liking. I've noticed a trend in anime where they seem to love Germany (or Germanic aesthetics) a lot (AOT I'm looking at you). Now I'm not well-versed in the interpersonal relationships between Japan and Germany, but the idolization is not it. The way that Japan in this show is portrayed as being literally obsessed with Germany is the biggest example (Italy is also shown having an immense appreciation for Germany and is often gushing about his positive qualities, even writing him a song while he was being kept prisoner). But I mean look at how Germany is portrayed, even his stereotypes are mostly positive, he is hardworking but helps out his fellow allies, makes great food, and is super strong. His only negative trait is that he sometimes doesn't understand social scenarios and that makes him very awkward. However, he will always go out of his way to try and better understand his friends (like Italy) by purchasing books to try and help him learn the appropriate way to act in scenarios).

This is 10x worse in the dub but we will get there. When one of your main characters, the one you are portraying in the best light, is a literal war criminal hot anime boy, you can understand why I would be concerned. I mean they gave him the whole blonde hair blue eyed appearance like come on. Now I'm not going to go into depth on fandom or anything here but Hetalia knows that its demographic is young tweens (primarily girls) so how can you be surprised when this portrayal of Germany leads to WWII fanfics sympathizing with Germany and 14 y/o girls in German military uniforms doing questionable things. (also Germany becomes a canonically gay character in Hetalia in like season 4 or something and that just makes me so mad, like yeah, of course, the gay character is WWII Germany that so cool) (okay, I would like to clarify that technically Sweden is the only confirmed gay character. Sweden is bad representation though because he has one-sided feelings for Finland and makes him uncomfortable by constantly referring to him as his wife)

3.

I mean yeah, obviously this isn't going to be an accurate portrayal of history but some of this is just totally misinformation.

Austria invading Germany is literally just Austria annoying him in his house for a really long time. But also there's like actual wars... and like all of the events of WWI are canon... and like there are some really serious episodes

Also, we literally see a bunch of countries going to war personally, like fighting on the frontlines. Which to me confirms that these people are all literal murderers, like mass murderers lowkey.

Do you know how many weird USSR jokes there are throughout this? So many. Lithuania is pretty much just in a running gag where he keeps getting manipulated by Russia into coming back to live with him. (Yeah, there are so many USSR fics as well).

ALSO! why is the American revolution portrayed as the saddest thing to happen thus far, the storyline is stretched out from episodes 16-20 and it is all drastically different from the tone of the rest of the show. Britain is literally on his knees crying saying that he can't shoot America (which also implies these countries can physically harm/kill each other). Like that is the war you wanted to make all sad and sentimental? Why? Is this how Japanese people think that we view the Revolutionary war? Because that is a pretty inaccurate view.

Anyways back to the original point. Some historical events should not be played for laughs sometimes. It is incredibly disrespectful for actual victims of these tragedies to portray these events as funny or goofy.

Though I will give credit because Himaruya does make all sides of the war look like idiots who have no clue what they are doing, which is a sentiment I can get behind.

4.

As a both non-Japanese and non-Korean person I can not really give my opinion on this however I can share with you both sides of the argument. This is mostly in relation to the original comic strip, but has some relevance to the anime as well. I just wanted to bring it up because it is interesting to me. (This is briefly mentioned in the article but I wanted to expand on the argument).

You may or may not have noticed that there is no South Korea character in this show, however, there was in the original comic. In the comics, South Korea is a pervert who is constantly touching Japan and he also takes credit for the inventions of other countries. Now I'm obviously not going to go into the past history of these 2 countries because that would be incredibly long but the South Korean National Assembly reviewed Hetalia and determined that it was a "crime against South Koreans, akin to slander". So yeah, South Korean people were not happy with this portrayal and the character was inevitably removed from the anime before release. (This is a real picture of the South Korean National Assembly reviewed Hetalia, the corner shows South Korea groping Japan inappropriately)

There are two opposing views to the Japanese Nationalism take and I'll link them both (Belittling Japanese Nationalism Hetalia: Axis Powers is the title of the first one)

The first one pretty much argues that Hetalis is not Japanese nationalism because it paints Japan in just as negative of a light as all of the other countries, no one is left out of being made fun of. Japan is seen as socially awkward, emotionally repressed, and obsequious.

The second argues that Japan is often shown to be more intelligent than other characters as well as often being of the voice of reason (especially compared to China) and most of his negative attributes are not nearly as harmful as some others in Japan’s case, even his “negative” stereotypes are inoffensive, as they pose no threat of meiwaku.

I think we see in the dub that Americans are a little more willing to make fun of themselves. Though there are a few good Japan self digs, like the capitalism joke in one of the first episodes.

5.

Oh boy I've been waiting for this.

The dub is 10x more offensive than the sub. Most people consider it a crack dub.

So many of the jokes are rewritten that it is practically a different show. The sub is from a Japanese perspective and the dub is from an American perspective.

First of all the accents in the dub are so bad like it is actually atrocious. Japan is really annoying because not only is his voice stereotypical but he always says 'nani?' instead of 'what?' as if that is a normal thing that people do. The narrator is the best part of the dub and she is hilarious.

So I don't really feel comfortable even typing out the jokes here so if you want to hear them I included the time stamps for the three nazi jokes I remember in season 1 (the last two being worse).

Episode 1 (1:35:1:38)

Episode 7 (2:13-2:19)

Episode 48 (1:28-1:31)

Those are just a few examples and it gets worse. The dub literally had no reason to include these jokes because there is not even an insinuation of them in the sub and it makes literally everything a million times worse.

I will give the dub some credit for being so utterly ridiculous that it's funny. I will provide a few timestamps for the funniest jokes that only appear in the dub from the first 19 episodes (but I really recommend looking up Hetalia dub funny moments on youtube because some of them are really priceless):

Episode 13: (1:45-2:05)

Episode 14: (1:12-1:22)

Episode 17: (0:59-1:15) (2:06-2:11)

6.

Now I've had this post typed up for a bit and originally I wasn't going to talk about the fandom but after reading the article that he assigned (and going through the fandom unit), I see that there is a lot of reference to fandom in particular so I want to at least mention it.

Not the 2 biggest problems with the Hetalia fandom are racism and the fetishization of gay men.

As mentioned in the article, there have actually been multiple fan incidents of them dressing up in WWII German military uniforms Germany/Prussia cosplay, and standing in front of temples with fake guns or doing nazi salutes in convention photos (If we want to bring racism and fetishization of gay men together there were two people who kissed in a holocaust memorial museum in Italy and Germany cosplay... there is no picture of this so it might be a rumor but it was well-known so it is worth mentioning). There were also a lot of people using imperialist Japan flags in cosplay/fanart and writing incredibly inappropriate fanfiction about real-life events.

If you would like to see any of these incidents feel free to look up "Hetalia the Boston Incident" I don't really wanna include the photos here.

The fetishization is not unique to the Hetalia fandom, but it is amplified to the max. Obviously, within Hetalia, there are almost no female characters, so this leaves only male characters to be shipped with one another. Now suddenly Germany is an uwu gay bean and not an actual war criminal. At the moment of writing this Hetalia has 32105 M/M fics on ao3 which is only one of the three fanfiction sites, with ao3 not even becoming popularized until after the peak of the Hetalia fandom. (the most popular ship being America/England who refer to each other as brothers in the show as England raised America, showing another problematic part of the fandom). I would argue that Hetalia has one of the gayest fandoms (My Hero Academia is giving it a run for its money though) and I agree with the article that it is inaccurate to say that this is only done by straight cis women. The fact of the matter is a lot of queer teens used Hetalia as an outlet to express their own sexuality through these characters. The straight women that do fetishize BL are likely only doing so because anime creators suck at writing good female characters.

I think that the "level of gayness" turns straight fans away from watching the show (again MHA is the same way today) as it is hard to interact with the fandom without seeing some yaoi content. However, many people view this as something wrong or cringy, when in reality it is a normal part of fandom culture. When gay people have such little content that is actually gay, you cannot blame us for creating our own through characters that we like/relate to. Again, I think the only issues that arise here are the problematic ships that give young people a bad impression of relationships (abusive, incest, pedophilia, etc) or the arguable problematic ones like China/Russia or Lithuania/Russia as again these are real countries with real political relations. (However, I will never forget the time that there was Russia/China fanart on the news, maybe they approve and I shouldn't be complaining)

The thing is, Hetalia only seems so bad because the fandom is so large and so young. A lot of shows have fandoms that sexualize the characters and have kinda problematic fans, but the sheer volume makes things seem worse. This is something that we covered when we watched Genshiken, but there is a lot of negative stigma behind this fandom in particular, but it is just a loud minority that gets a lot of news coverage between fandoms.

It also raises the question "Is a show responsible for the response of its fans?"

Because while Himaruya has no control over what people do with his characters or how they interpret a plot, if a majority of people are leaving your show spouting vaguely racist rhetoric and interpreting your show one way, isn't there some validity in that interpretation? I think a creator has to be aware of their audience, which in this case is a very young and impressionable audience who might not understand how offensive some of the things they are doing really are. They don't hold the same ability to separate fiction from reality.

That being said Hetalia had a large impact on fandom culture as a whole, largely starting things like 'ask a character' panels (along with like homestuck but we don't talk about her). If you go to any convention you will probably find a Hetalia cosplayer, and if you watch any dub there is probably a voice actor from Hetalia there.

I also want to mention Hetalia is also a fandom full of cultural capital, If you don't know every niche fact, you're not a real fan, If you haven't read Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart you haven't even met the entry-level requirements to be a fan. There are also no characters that are too sacred to be altered within the fandom. If you want to put Germany in a maid dress have at it, if you want to see all the characters as girls you're in luck cause Himaruya literally drew them. Fanfictions can take place anywhere from WWI to the present day and you can put any characters in any scenario and make it believable. There are thousands of pieces of fanwork, fan art, fangames, and fan AUs. These characters are malleable to fit your personal preference and there is really no way you could be mad at this as Himaruya does this himself, with no real established canon.

a Hetalia fan once said, "No one cares if Hetalia was written by a Japenese Imperialism apologist when you're 31 chapters deep into a human Au soulmate fic about Austria inviting Prussia to see his boyband perform in Berlin"

Himaruya is also the king of moe characteristics because he turned these Hetalia men into any cute thing he could think of, Chibi versions (Chibitalia), female versions (Nyotalia), and cat versions (Nekotalia). He has no reservations about drawing the characters in a dress or in cat ears. He gave the characters human names to allow for more standardized human AU's and made a DS dating game. He encourages fans to take his characters and use them in their fanworks as they see fit, canon is up to interpretation itself. I think Himaruya himself was a huge part of fandom culture (not that I could tell you cause no one knows anything about the guy) and saw how the female characters were often treated by fans and turned it on its head, allowing for females to sexualize the males this time.

Also, none of the male characters in this show resembles a Hegemonic form of masculinity. Even the most masculine character in the show (Germany) can be seen doing more "feminine things" like wearing a dress or proposing to a man. Which, you know, I guess is a good diversion from things you would typically see in an anime of this nature (but again there are a lot of instances of characters being feminine being played for laughs, like a man being girly is something inherently funny). Feat. Germany proposing to Italy with a tomato ring.

7.

I am Hetalia's biggest hater, however, I cannot deny the impact that it has had on my life and how much I love to talk about it. Hetalia is what introduced me to anime and fandom (and tumblr) for the first time. I met a lot of people I still talk to today because of this show. It encouraged me and a lot of other people to actually get interested in history. Thanks to this show I can identify every country in Europe, and it was a lot easier to remember historical facts if I just imagined the Hetalia characters. Also, Auf Wiedersehen Sweetheart is a literary masterpiece and there is a reason it almost has a five-star rating on goodnotes (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/22064556) I love you George DeValier I hope you're doing good wherever you are.

I would like to make it abundantly clear that despite everything I've said that might make me sound like a woke blue-haired liberal, I don't really think this show is some horribly racist show or that the people who enjoy it are racist. I just wanted to provide a deeper outlook on the impact a seemingly dumb show can have on real people. I can't really blame the show for the terrible response of the fandom and it did honestly get better in later seasons that are not focused on WWII.

Despite all the bad stuff, it is a relatively funny little 5-minute watch, and you can really just jump in at any point you want to. If you don't take it as seriously as I do you might even enjoy it a little.

If you actually read this far I have major respect for you, I'm really excited to see what the general consensus on this show is.

Prussia and South Italy were my favorites in case anyone cared

If you're wondering why I didn't do my presentation on Hetalia despite my extensive knowledge, it is because I would be incredibly biased and I would go off the rails I think.

These cutscenes were an interesting watch. I can't say that I fully understood what the game was about, but here's just some of the things I took away from it.

Firstly, I noticed there's a strong theme about humans and their relationship to the environment. The world of Xenoblade is not the first or original one. It was created by a guy named Klaus, because his own world was being destroyed by the actions of humans, namely war and exploitation of nature. Essentially, the world of Xenoblade serves as a second chance for a new humanity. Klaus created a new cycle of life to replace the one that was lost in the old world. However, the new world is also dying, as evidenced by the shrinking of livable landmass and the deaths of the Titans. It is once again being ruined by humans. And a major point of contention in the game is whether a new generation of humans, represented by Rex and his crew, is capable of being different and being able to save the world instead of destroy it again. There seems to be a questioning of whether humanity will always inevitably end up defiling their environment and thus destroying themselves.

There is also a theme of what it means to be human, as seen with the contrasts between Drivers and Blades. Both physically appear human, and mostly act and feel like humans. However only the Drivers are afford the luxury of being independent and retaining their memories. A Blade, on the other hand, has their life intrinsically tied to a Driver. Their motivations, desires, and even emotions to an extent, are determined by the will of the Driver. In that way, the Blades have no living will of their own. Furthermore, when a Driver dies, the Blade attached to them loses their memories and awaits to be reawakened by another Driver. A point brought up in the game is that the Drivers, due to their independent will and ability to pass on their memories and experiential knowledge to the next generation, have the capability to create culture and thus progress and evolve as a whole. But the Blades, due to their nature, are doomed to never enjoy those luxuries afforded to Drivers. It seems that the ability to create and possess a collective culture in that sense is what defines humans, especially human civilization.

The character of Malos, the main antagonist, is representative of cynicism and the view that humanity is always wretched and corrupt and therefore should be destroyed. He seems to view it as his duty to erase humanity as a way of actually saving the world. And the role of our protagonist, Rex, is to prove that humanity does possess the ability to learn from the past and change for the better, that the new generation of humans are capable saving the world.

At least that's just what I think. I could be completely wrong about these things. I don't really know anymore. (This game has a beauty soundtrack though).

I enjoyed watching this movie and really liked the beautiful landscapes that were drawn. I hadn't really seen many Miyazaki movies before this class but I have always heard good things about him and his creations and I feel like this movie met my expectations. The two main themes I saw were that of environmentalism and once again war.

Starting off with war, this theme sort of goes hand in hand with environmentalism in its portrayal in this movie. The major conflict we see in the movie is between the Tolmekian and the Valley of the Wind. Through it we are shown the downfalls of war. Though this time, not only the negative effects on humans but also the environment hence why I said they go hand in hand. We are shown the despair that everyone faces with the deaths of the innocent, destructions of homes, and displacement of people. But also how the militaristic and expansionist Tolmekian are once again using and polluting the environment rather than coinciding with it. Yet again, no good has come from war further promoting the idea of its futility and the senselessness of armed conflict.

Then we get to probably the major theme of the movie: environmentalism. The movie highlights the dangers of ecological destruction and strongly promotes environmentalism. The "Seven Days of Fire" is the major ecological destruction caused by humans in this movie which is quite relevant to the world today as we continue to face worsening global warming. The toxic jungle seems like a representation of the resilience and power of nature. It's a deadly and inhospitable place, yet still teeming with life and capable of regenerating itself. Nausicaä herself seems to be the centerpiece of it all having the ability to connect humans to the environment. She is gentle and cares for all the creatures of the toxic jungle showing her interconnectedness with the environment and the value in all life. This can also be seen as Miyazaki holding humans responsible for caring for all life.