Soranowoto, Imperial Japan, and Kokoro
Soranowoto is getting me to love anime again. Superficially, it looks like a less serious version of Haibane Renmei: a group of unrelated girls being sent to the countryside, in an abandoned stone building connected to a town (hell, the building looks a lot like Old Home), except with a little more moé fanservice than is really necessary. But there’s actually an immensely rich storyline going on underneath the surface, that breaks the characters out of their moé shells and gives them a deep meaning in Japanese history.
I think it’s fairly obvious that Soranowoto is a metaphor for Imperial Japan, but it’s somewhat less apparent what the hell is going on with the spatial and temporal setting. You start out with Kanata marching towards what we can easily recognize as some poor Jap’s travesty of a medieval French town, kind of like Spice and Wolf. Then all of a sudden it’s Holi! And then we see this:
Those are shimenawa, but rather than being used to create an enclosure as in Shinto, they’re being hung over the road like paper lanterns. What the hell? This is just the most jarring instance of what the animators chose to Westernize and what they kept Japanese, and in my arrogance I think I know why.
Over the first two episodes the characters explain that they are in the inaka, which is a very specific place in the Japanese heart: Higurashi was set there, for instance. But if this were the real-world inaka the buildings would be medieval Japanese. Instead they’re medieval European, and they must have been that way all along (if the buildings were new this couldn’t be inaka). So this story takes place in a very strange heart, where distant Japanese and European memories are blurring together, and cannot be reasonably distinguished from each other. Underneath all this confusion, though, lies the shimenawa. This is a land of kami and not of God; there’s a familiar Japanese kokoro, exemplified by Kanata, that is meant to give the series its iyashikei underpinnings. In the first two episodes, this spirit is emphasized not once, not twice, but six times! Okay, tell me if I’m overreading this.
The first point is the matsuri, obviously. Not only is there shimenawa, but Rio is holding the a wooden dipper you see at Shinto shrines. The second point is the matsuri’s conclusion, where Rio takes on the position of the otome who defeated the oni. For this she dresses up as a mountain ascetic. (One nice thing about this show is that women are shown playing men’s roles in a very traditional society.) Kanata plays her flute and the villagers actually think the oni came back.
The third point is Kanata saying yoroshiku to the building on her first morning at Platoon 1121. I’m not really sure in what context someone would say “Pleased to meet you” to a building in America, but it’s a very Japanese thing to do, and definitely not one of those Japanese things officially approved by the government. You might not think this is on purpose, but when we contrast it with Kureha’s worldview below I believe it definitely is.
The last three are gimmes: Noel’s last name is Kannagi, an old word for miko (you might be familiar with it?), they all belt out “Itadakimasu!” before eating, and the entire plot of the second episode revolves around looking for a ghost. That links directly into the second part of my story, so let’s get to it.
Kureha: The Voice of Bushido
Again, superficially, Kureha is a pathetic character because she’s still fighting for the Helvetia in a war that seems not to be going too hot– after all, there’s a platoon of 5 untrained girls on the front lines. But she’s a pathetic character in ways that are much deeper than that. She’s fighting for the perverse, fanatic bushido of urban, industrialized Meiji Japan in a place where pure, untainted kokoro reigns supreme. To put it in terms you nerds might understand, she’s fighting to turn the iyashikei into a mecha anime.
This is expressed in three different ways in Episode 2:
- City vs. inaka. This is the number one item, and it can’t be emphasized enough. I know I’ve been going on about what appear to be “Shinto values” for the whole first section, but that’s just because of the four years of liberal arts bullshit I went through, which culminated in me debunking myths about Shinto for my senior thesis because there’s no such thing as “kokoro studies” in America. It’s difficult to articulate what constitutes kokoro in terms of concrete values, because the language we have to use is so strongly influenced by Western concepts, but the mere effect of living in the city versus the countryside is the biggest marker. Kureha hates living in the inaka. It’s boring, nothing happens, etc. But she wouldn’t want to live in the city either, because she wants to fight. So, she’s “spiritually” homeless. Instead she clings to material things like the tank, and meaningless structures like who cleans the bathroom on which day. Kanata, on the other hand, is at home in the inaka. She humors Kureha, but she can see that she’s going to be great friends with everyone, so she doesn’t worry.
- Order vs. yuruyuru. Kureha is obsessed with following proper Army procedure, in a platoon made up of five people who are all friends. She has Kanata do a salute to the flag, and makes her ask permission to speak, and so on and so forth. This is where the show links into modern Japanese culture a little bit. The spirit of following hierarchies to the letter became an obsession in Imperial Japan, and it’s still prominent in the Japanese business world. But it’s never been in tune with inaka values. So, Kureha is fundamentally dissatisfied with the condition of her platoon: it’s too small, and not at all kept in ship-shape. But Kanata appreciates the incomplete and left-alone state of the platoon as something of beauty.
- Professed atheism vs. familiarity with the unknown. I guess the show leans on this a little too much, but that’s nice for me because I’ve made a study of it, and it plays out well in Episode 2. Kanata isn’t scared of ghosts, because her country town has always thrown matsuri giving thanks to them. Kureha is a city girl where such quaint and foolish concepts as having a matsuri for ghosts are scoffed upon. But the show throws that smugness right back in her face. When they go out to hunt for a real ghost, Kureha is a scaredy cat and her military routine falls apart.
Unfortunately all this pathos has been so far been exploited for moé, and the not-too-subtle joke that she’s a cute girl acting like a tough guy. I hope Kureha has a backstory; that’s something future episodes will have to prove.
On a completely different note
Two other things that I loved about this show. First, Imperial Japanese (military language) is used much more frequently than in previous shows that have actually attempted to set themselves in Imperial Japan like Taisho Yakyuu Musume, and its use appears to be almost completely ironic, for the reasons I’ve outlined above. The guy who takes Kanata to Seize is on friendly terms with her and is speaking to her warmly, but when he leaves her at the gate he seems to remember his “official duty” and breaks into a string of tired-out, empty Sino-Japanese. Similarly, Kureha’s vocabulary is littered with ridiculously melodramatic expressions like “KAISAN!” (“DI-SMISSED!”), while Kanata, the girl we’re supposed to appreciate as the more mature of the two, is giving it her best shot but making slipups like “wata… jibun”.
Secondly, there was a scene with the owl they caught that referenced a recent Japanese television meme, Popo-chan. If you’ve read this far you probably got that reference, though.
Who the hell cares?
I think Imperial Japan was a necessary, and well-executed, but ultimately unsatisfactory part of Japanese history. It’s unsatisfactory because they bombed Pearl Harbor — duh — but that was due to a carefully constructed ideology that was out of sync with the peaceful life of pre-Meiji Japanese farmers. This show throws those two worlds into contrast. Otaku have a strong conservative and pro-Empire bent, for reasons I’m still trying to figure out, but in this show iyashikei very nearly asserts itself politically. It will be exciting to watch these undertones continue to play out in future episodes. Of course, it could just take a turn towards fantasy, but it’s had a great start.
Anyway, I’d love to hear some more informed comments on this. Tell me what you think.
January 17th, 2010 at 1:07 am
>>Anyway, I’d love to hear some more informed comments on this.
considering the dearth of decent posts on something as easy to dig into as Kamichu!, I wouldn’t hold my breath :(
January 17th, 2010 at 2:08 am
If Kureha being afraid of ghosts is being played for moe value, then this is a very odd position. The character most like the otaku audience is both being made fun of and rendered the most lovable. But you know, sadly I don’t think it’s that complicated. This is far from the first time we’ve seen a little girl who tries to act mature and fails cutely.
I haven’t seen the second episode yet, so bear in mind I’m essentially shouting from the dark. But this was a great read. Cheers.
January 17th, 2010 at 4:55 am
CANNOT… TRANSLATE… INAKA… TOO… JAPANESE…
January 17th, 2010 at 4:57 am
listen shii you obviously have not read enough post modern literature or done enough drugs to completely interpret these things properly, and while i respect your buddhist studies i really feel the language problem is not a strong enough thesis as to why us dirty foreigners don’t understand a cartoon
January 17th, 2010 at 5:31 am
“Otaku have a strong conservative and pro-Empire bent, for reasons I’m still trying to figure out”.
May I propose a provocative idea? Otakuism as such rises out of the ashes of the Imperial project. Otakus are the repressed imperialists of the 21st century. As such, they look back to the Imperial era with yearning, despite the very obvious fact that had the Empire triumphed there would not have been any otaku.
In other words, otaku desire their own extinction (a not uncommon psychological condition).
I haven’t seen this show so I can’t comment specifically..
January 17th, 2010 at 5:32 am
About the worldbuilding. I recall seeing shimenawa, playing cards based on hanafuda, Peking Opera masks… and probably more, just in the first episode. Even for a post-apocalyptic world (as some have theorized), the cultural elements feel stitched together rather than smartly integrated.
The festival is lifted wholecloth from the Songkran (the Thai new year). The legend behind it is basically unchanged, except in one real world variation of it, the demon is the father of the maidens.
January 17th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Very interesting. Don’t feel like I can contribute any informed comment, but I found your remark to the effect that “Otaku have a strong conservative and pro-Empire bent” a bit surprising, at least if one is to take it at face value. While it is likely the case that most otaku are in some sense socially conservative, I don’t think we can say that they are by and large nostalgic of imperial Japan.
Of course, if one is to interpret “pro-Empire” in contrast to “pro-inaka” or something of the sort, it’s probably true that most otaku are “pro-Empire,” but then so is most of Japan, and most of the developed world to the extent that the opposition can be extended to other countries.
So I guess I have missed something there.
January 17th, 2010 at 10:42 am
@ak
The conservatism/imperialism thesis is actually not too controversial. I’ve heard variants on that multiple times. Some of it is based on subtext (very condensed version of the tl;dr explanation: otaku have set up a parallel system to the very conservative mainstream sex industry), while some of it is explicit, like the stories on Itai News. The headlines will be like sales figures for Blu-Rays, who is your favorite character poll, Final Fantasy XIII review, why Koreans and Chinese are swine and need to be exterminated, that sort of thing.
January 17th, 2010 at 11:29 am
I think you’re close, but its kind of flipped around – otaku don’t necessarily tend to be rightists, but net rightists (net-uyo, they even have a ja wiki entry) tend to be otaku, probably because they need something to do since they don’t leave their houses. I mean, I met some pretty chill Revolutionary Moenists at Comiket, and there seemed to be just as many of them as the fascists selling Miku doujins.
January 17th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
But there is the “Animentary Ketsudan” thing you mentioned in your last post; that’s from way back in 1971.
Also, rethinking what I’ve seen of Soranowoto so far, it definitely is a bit sloppier in terms of characters and setting than Haibane Renmei, Dennou Coil, or Kamichu. Perhaps some of the stuff I’ve drawn out was unintentional on the part of the animators. But there’s a lot stronger interplay between characters going on than in other iyashikei material like YKK, and that’s a joy to watch.
@shut: I am indeed a weeaboo, sorry shut, butt I don’t think many of the words I used have direct English translations.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
I’m not sure if many otaku were watching Animentary Ketsudan, and besides that, the 70s were kind of a politically charged time on both sides of the spectrum, what with radical student communists waving around copies of Ashita no Joe during street protests and all.
also, iswydt
January 17th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Yeah, if there’s so much anti-Korean hate speech on 2ch, or if there’s always ten angry comments crying lese-majeste on every Youtube video about Mako-sama (they don’t call her naishinnou denka!), it’s because netto uyoku have too much time on their hands and the rest are too apathetic too complain (or they know how useless it is to engage those guys).
Another point that doesn’t seem so clear to me is the opposition between yearning for inaka and nostalgia for imperial Japan. How does the infamous Kamichu episode about battleship Yamato (or whatever) fit in that picture? *That* looked like whitewashing of military history, along with the idea that the imperial army was all fun and games. Sorawoto might be hinting in that direction as well.
To take another example, as much as Takahata-kantoku was a leftist voice in the 70s, I found Omohide poroporo, his yearning for inaka piece, to be one of the most conservative anime films I’ve ever seen. Women are more happy as housewives in the countryside than when living independent lives in Tokyo? Yuck.
January 18th, 2010 at 10:45 am
mt-i: it might not have always been in the same way as Omohide, but there was a huge turn by leftists to that kind of inaka-yearning thought beginning (i think) in around the early 70s, after the revolution crumbled before their eyes. if the Art Theater Guild went this direction in the 70s, it’s not really a big surprise that Takahata did either. (incidentally, this is kind of what i’m writing my graduation thesis on)
I really haven’t seen much of anything mentioned in this entire article+comment thread (outside of Kamichu and Haibane, also popo-chan), but mt-i, outside of the gender politics in Omohide, is there much else blatantly conservative about it? the more I look into this stuff, the less Japanese nationalism (at least until a couple of decades ago) seems to be inextricably tied to conservative politics. it still seems like kind of a strange thought to me, since at least in America, they basically mean the same thing, but do you think you could read Omohide (or Soranowoto) that way? I’d have to rewatch Kamichu before I pass judgment on it, but I kind of recall feeling the same way about that one.
January 18th, 2010 at 5:30 pm
And all this before the conversation about miso in the third episode.
Very strange to have the sound of the skies be an American folk hymn (though one that Aaron Copeland used to refer to an American “inaka” and “kokoro” in Appalachian Spring).
January 18th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
It’s also interesting that the local doctor is also a nun (?); these roles would have been combined as a yamabushi or “kamisama” in most parts of medieval Japan.
January 18th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
kransom: Interesting. Was this inaka yearning of former revolutionaries a romanticized rejection of industrialized modernity (like the hippies reading Thoreau and smoking pot in SoCal) or closer to a traditionalist reaction?
I don’t remember overtly nationalistic themes in Omohide poroporo, and I don’t really think Takahata is nostalgic of imperial Japan either (heck, this was only 3 years after Hotaru no haka). So the backwards view of gender roles was my main problem with that movie.
In Kamichu (which I otherwise loved) however, the reference to imperial Japan is very explicit and not at all dismissive. I don’t recall many other examples of such references in recent anime, especially if we’re interested in early Showa (Taisho was politically very different). There are jokes about it (from Daimahou touge to Keroro gunsou) but serious allusions aren’t that common.
January 19th, 2010 at 1:15 am
[...] I’m sure others have noticed the weird fusion of Western and Japan cultural elements in the show, this episode finally made me [...]
January 19th, 2010 at 1:23 am
Yes, it’s as I thought, the “nun” was saying “Yaoyorozu”. Thanks Kurogane! But in medieval Japan there was no such thing as an orphanage. That half-brained idea was brought to Japan by missionaries after the Meiji restoration.
A quick comment about Soranowoto vs. Kamichu. Insofar as the modern concept of Shinto was invented by Hirata Atsutane, “kami” is the spirit of Japan, so it is completely unsurprising that Kamichu had an episode devoted to fond memories of Japan’s imperial might. But Soranowoto is not about Shinto, as much as I may have misled people on this; I’d say it’s about kokoro, and a highly motivated sense of healing, like Haibane Renmei. The parallels between episode 3 and the beginning of Haibane Renmei should be pretty obvious.
January 19th, 2010 at 9:24 am
mt-t: from what I’ve been reading, it seems to be more of the former. The 70s was when the high economic growth period was really kicking into full gear, and along with it came a large share of industrial pollution incidents, which would sometimes generate full-blown social movements as a result. There’s also the fact that modernity and Westernization are pretty closely tied together for Japan, and I’ve seen a fair share of people (most notably and off the top of my head, Marilyn Ivy) argue that the perceived loss of national identity that occurred after Japan’s defeat and the subsequent occupation lead to people doing things like looking to the inaka for this identity. I think Befu argues that this (plus the economic boom) lead to the boom in Nihonjinron, too.
January 19th, 2010 at 11:01 am
“Back to the land” is a fairly standard theme in “counter-cultures” — the narodnik movement in nineteenth-century Russia (“hippies reading Tolstoy”), and the “Thoreau reading hippies” alluded to above. Such back to the land movements can fit into differing worldviews — the narodniks probably had a faction who became nationalists, and others who became various sorts of liberals or leftists. Back to the land, in nineteenth-century Germany, ended up incorporated into the Aryan ideology of Naziism.
The nationalism/militarism of many otaku doesn’t seem surprising to me. Mecha are weapons, after all, and usually come with a military support system, a fondness for mecha may lead to a fondness for the military in general. The American science-fiction community has its Jerry Pournelle fans, after all, with people arguing over Heinlein’s place on the political spectrum (I think some of that is wishful thinking).
(A friend points out that I confused “Amazing Grace” and “Simple Gifts” — so never mind the reference to Appalachian Spring. It’s still an American folk hymn, however, and an interesting choice.)
January 20th, 2010 at 5:26 am
Damn interesting, I must say; offers a nice insight into what many others called a moe-pandering anime.
January 20th, 2010 at 10:19 am
[...] Ra No Wo To – Sora no Oto is more a hybrid creation than what it lets on. This is a good beginning to explain its uniquely Japanese appeal. It is truly authentic “Japanese” if you will, [...]
January 20th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
[...] language while talking about concepts with no 100% direct translation. It’s almost fine in blog posts (though I think footnotes would have worked [...]
January 20th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
I’ll defer to your expertise when it comes to the Japaneseness of the show, but I only have the benefit of a military lens and from what I have seen it is consistent with the volunteer army experience, or at least the American one. For now Kureha, Rio, and Kanata are consistent with archetypes one can find in a volunteer army. It could be a mixture of both though I don’t get a feeling of blood lust from Kureha, but a desire to be respected as they are the joke unit that is last on the supply chain and gets treated as a dumping ground for non-functional equipment. I don’t think Kureha is out there looking for trouble or for a fight, but only wants to part of something more respectable. I have not seen Army privates say hello to a building, but I have seen servicemen stare lovingly at their weapon system, usually heavy armor or a big ship, first time commanders of smaller vessels have a similar tendency. They don’t say anything though weirdness is made up for in other ways, I did see the newly minted CO of a ship skipping through the deck once when most of the crew was gone. I had a similar experience when I held my first fully automatic weapon and drove my first military vehicle.
Archaic and overly formal language is pretty standard when it comes to military ceremonies like retirements, awards, and promotions.
Though we lack confirmation that Kureha was a city kid, she certainly acts like a Private Major, the lowest ranking member who when given a chance to order someone else around gets all pumped up and wants to be perceived as more knowledgeable and “squared away” than she actually is. I’d think that if Kureha was the voice of Bushido she would have placed a little more importance on her uniform, though I am not sure if a smart military appearance is a perquisite.
I suppose that there is always going to be an attachment to a “lost cause” for groups that lose a major war. I am not entirely sure but I suppose there could be a high degree of romanticism associated with Imperial Japan much in the same way some Southerns idealize the Confederacy, the wonderful what if scenario, or rather their own fan fiction realized. Perhaps it is simply a desire for greatness that wasn’t possible in reality and Imperial Japan was a period where they could have been mighty in their day without the killing of their fellow Japanese but some foreign devil archetype. Given the turbulent years that Japan endured during the 1990s perhaps they chose the drink the tonic of nationalism as a means to ignore their own domestic woes. It happens often enough with other cultures, I never really bought into nihonjiron so maybe they aren’t all that different as they claim to be.
January 21st, 2010 at 1:51 am
The best part of this so far is how she can’t read musical notation for some reason.
January 21st, 2010 at 11:00 am
[...] a pinch of contrast, and then we have the strange mishmash of Western and Eastern cultures which others have covered in greater depth and breadth than I ever will. It is a very interesting point of [...]
January 22nd, 2010 at 4:54 am
@animekritik
>In other words, otaku desire their own extinction (a not uncommon psychological condition).
Not as provocative an idea as you think. You just described escapism in a nutshell, and definitely not something I would call a “psychological condition”. Pretty much everyone with a tiny bit of imagination left would gladly exchange their present world for the better ones they have dreamed of, even though they know that this would inevitably mean the complete loss of their current identity. But Gundam Otakus (for example) know very well that collecting MasterGrade modelkits is quite a pathetic activity compared to piloting real mobile suits, and that Char and Amuro probably don’t have any time or money to buy and build them. Loss of current identity with all its pleasures would be accepted in exchange for a better one, and basically everyone knows right from the start that the model kits always were cheap replacements for the real thing anyway.
It has become a bit more difficult with modern meta-culture anime like the famous Lucky Star, but even that series is escapism for a more mature (meaning less imaginative) audience who maybe gave up on yearning to pilot mobile suits and settled with yearning for an otaku life that is based on friendship and fun group activities rather than on consumerism. So it still applies that most otaku would gladly give up on their figure collection if they could exchange them for loveable otaku friends (maybe even cute female ones) they could hang out with, even if this would mean less time and freedom for internet surfing etc.
If giving up your identity of a wannabe-citizen of fictional Empires gives you the chance to become a real citizen of a real Empire, then choosing to go for it is the most natural and rational decision imagineable and far from being psychologically worrisome.
It’s definitely not just a Japanese thing either. German otakus and nerds also have a pretty high percentage of people enjoying nostalgia about the Third Reich, compared to “normal” citizen groups. The allure of Empires is obvious if you are a nerd yourself: They can do great things just by concentrating the work of lots of small people. And otakus long for greatness, for large scales and high complexity. Especially in technology (military vessels and aircraft are the origin of the super robot), sports (pretty close to being the superhuman feats from the shounen genre), military (ranks and orders and uniforms give it the alluring complexity that makes otaku learn them by heart) and civil order and advancement (huge landmark buildings to measure the greatness of the Empire with are probably the most reassuring to the otaku that they are part of something big): All these things are much more likely to happen and much easier to do in Empires.
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Thank you for the fascinating read. Unfortunately, I don’t have much to add except for the fact that “Amazing Grace” isn’t American in origin, but English–the lyrics were written by the Englishman John Newton, who at one time worked in the slave-trading industry. Of course, the melody of the hymn was taken from “New Britain,” which was written by an American.
Keep in mind, though, that the song might have been chosen more for its lyrics rather than its connection to Christianity or the United States.
“Amazing grace! How sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost but now am found
Was blind, but now I see.
‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed!
Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
We have already come;
‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be
As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.”
And then there’s the verse that was added to the song by African-American communities:
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise,
Than when we first begun.”
January 24th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
These are the most fascinating comments I’ve ever read.
January 28th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
the buildings may look a lot like Old Home, But they are exactly like the ones in Cuenca, Spain
January 28th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Also:
Cute Japanese and European teenage girls, wearing Wehrmacht uniforms, exploring a Japanese school in a Spanish town full of French people who make glassware on Switzerland’s French border, following a Shinto-Christian religion with a miko-nun, treating tropical diseases only children get, accepting yen as currency while not being able to read kanji, celebrating Spanish traditions mixed with Chinese New Years legends, shooting at African owls – that try to keep them away from schoolgirl ghosts – with German rifles, while piloting a multi legged, demon slaying, weather reporting, stealth and sniper mode capable, AMAZING GRACE SINGING, engrish speaking, 200mm coil gun firing “son of the god of fire” supertank from the past (aka Tank-kun).
February 10th, 2010 at 5:02 pm
I’m assuming you realize this now as well, but you’re wrong about Kureha. Your assertions were (and are) definitely valid, but for lack of a better phrase you “read into it” too much. Sora no Woto might be mildly intellectual, but Kureha as a character is totally generic. Maybe, your analysis is the core of what every character that’s exactly like Kureha is trying to be, but I highly highly doubt it. With that said, I heartily enjoy your over-analysis, and urge you to do more of this in the future.
PS: What are you doing nowadays shii?
February 14th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Should note that Miyazaki’s family is fairly important in Japanese history, as the first Japanese doctor to learn 1800’s Western medicine was his great-great-grandfather (or similar). Some of the very noted anime and manga guys come from families that were Not Approved by the thought police back in the thirties and forties. So… nationalistic, not so much. Patriotic, yes.
Anime in the seventies and eighties was much more peace peace peace, even on the most violent shows. Even as a little kid, I could tell they were still trying to keep the Bomb away. Shows got a lot more confident about fighting battles with amazing weaponry (as opposed to running the sorrowful music while blowing things up), when the Iron Curtain went down.
Space Battleship Yamato is an interesting case, though. The guy who thought it up really was very nationalist (not as creepy as Mishima by a long shot, though who is?). His idea was to basically refight WWII, yes. But by the time it got turned into an anime, people were into Japanese patriotism because Japan was making money off the rest of the world; and this blended fairly gracefully with Japanese pacifism opposing nuclear war and demanding world peace. So the idea of a Japan-helmed Star Trek or Star Wars, exploring the galaxy and saving the Earth instead of taking over, was what they liked. (That’s why it converted relatively gracefully over here into a sort of all-nations Star Trek-style anime, as Starblazers, with only hints of the Japanese nationalism peeking through.)
February 27th, 2010 at 11:45 pm
shobon: I don’t think he’s wrong about Kureha yet.
I revisited this post after seeing Mai Mai Miracle. I hope the connection makes sense to you. inc. trackback.
February 28th, 2010 at 12:53 am
[...] to watch Mai Mai Miracle. I am actually not exaggerating at all; the film is all about that inaka-crap. For the record, I probably don’t qualify for either, so maybe this is just over-reaction or [...]