The Great Shaman King Reread Part 2 + Terror in Resonance
I finished my reread of Shaman King the other day and there were so many things I'd forgotten or that hit very differently when I was younger. XD I am now 100% convinced Takei was trolling us with some of these reveals, something that hadn't really occurred to me in the past. Allow me to elaborate.
The first thing being the X-Laws. I distinctly remember this group coming across as a lot more serious when I first read. Maybe this was an impression formed by the anime of the time? I don't think they became such jokes as time went on in that, but in the manga I cannot take them seriously after a certain point. I mean, Marco's fighting costume alone is just... XD And their angels are cars?! It's all so completely absurd that I can't decide if it's genius or utter nonsense. I can't completely dislike it, I guess, so there's that.
Also, Ancient Aliens is a legit thing in this universe?! I don't think I knew about that show when the end first came out, but I sure do now and the fact that the Patch tribe was connected to ancient aliens and that the whole conspiracy of aliens influencing human behavior and crafts is just casually announced as being completely true is... huh? What do you take me for, Takei? XD This is not The X-Files! And if it were, Mulder or Scully should have been monologuing about how small we are and how the universe is vast and unknowable!! I... I just don't even know.
And then there's Hao's mom being the solution to everything. On one hand, kinda love this, but on the other, we needed so much more buildup. Honestly, I think that's the problem with a lot of the later plot. The series was originally cancelled and when Takei was finally allowed to finish it he had a very limited amount of pages to make it happen and so much of this plot just needed so much more time to make any sense at all. Also, why are the Patch evil suddenly? I'm still not sure I fully understand that. Were they supposed to have always been allied with Hao or was it just that they would defend whoever became Shaman King no matter what? Why was Silva punished? It didn't seem like he did anything to me. Very confused on that whole point.
I think my main feeling is that I like the basic idea of love and family being enough to save the world and that all people, even people like Hao, can be redeemed, but sometimes it felt a little... undeserved, frankly. Some of these people committed heinous crimes, and I get that Shaman King is all about radical forgiveness, but I think certain people probably should have been punished more than they were. Like Faust. He never really apologized to Manta for slicing him up, but they're apparently totally good with one another? And Ren's family; they're a bunch of murderers and never said they'd stop murdering a ton of people, but they're suddenly treated as totally forgiven. Why? XD And much as I love Hao, he literally annihilated all of humanity and still got to be Shaman King AKA God. Uh... I mean, sure he brought everyone back, but it's supposedly a test to see what happens. I guess I need to read the sequel to see how all that pans out....
I guess while I'm critiquing Shaman King I should bring up the whole Chocolove/Joco thing because there's no getting around how awkward that is. I really don't understand how Takei messed up his design so badly when he's drawn other African characters and they look fine. No blackface problems at all. But then there's Joco and, just, ouch. Granted, this isn't just a Takei problem, but a manga problem more broadly as this article discusses. Basically, Japan hasn't felt much need to tackle the problem of blackface because they don't see it as a problem in their country. *sigh* The latest anime has made efforts to sort out his design and that's much appreciated, but it's still rough.
I'll admit, it's kind of hard to go back to this series and realize it had more problems than I ever realized as a kid. I'm glad I have more awareness now, of course, but it is a bummer. Still, there's a lot of good to the series and I actually did enjoy my reread despite these many criticisms. There's something inherently wonderful about Yoh and his utter belief in people and his desire to lead a calm, relaxing life. He never puts on airs; he just wants things to be better than what they are. Something about working crazy hard to lead an easy life later resonates with me, and I can't help but admire him.
I also truly loved rereading his and Anna's first meeting and Matamune's sacrifice. I also loved seeing everything to do with Hao's backstory. All of these things had the right tone, in my opinion, and I think that if we'd focused more on this sort of thing the series would be much improved. There are still so many things I want to know more about and I'm still very attached to the characters, so I'll have to read the sequel and possibly crank out a couple of oneshots because there are a couple ideas I'd really like to explore.
So, to put it succinctly, I still love Shaman King despite its issues and I can't wait to see more of the new anime. This series exposed me to a lot of different cultures as a kid and introduced different ways of thinking and I do appreciate that.
But as the title of this post implies, I didn't just finish my Shaman King reread, I also watched Terror in Resonance for the first time! And can I just say, wow, that was an incredible show. Interestingly, the thing that got me to finally check it out was the
sunshine_challenge. Someone linked the ending theme and pointed out it was by Yoko Kanno, which had me immediately intrigued. I listened to the song, loved it, and knew I had to watch the show. Turns out it was also directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and made by Studio MAPPA, which means it had quite the credentials! Very glad to say it held up to such high expectations.
I knew going in that this series was going to have a sad ending, so I was able to brace myself for that. Lately I have a harder time with sad endings even the ones I, myself, want to write. (^^)" I think it's because some part of me is an optimist at heart and I can't help but ask "Why couldn't it end differently?" More and more I want to see people given a chance to make things right or to have justice. Still, there's no denying this was a well-handled sad ending and sometimes sad endings suit better than happy ones. It's a difficult balance.
But, oh, this was a good plot. Kind of hard to describe, but essentially it's about two men (Nine and Twelve) who want to gain recognition after suffering in a series of experiments and they do this by creating terror through explosions. A woman (Lisa) suffering from clinical depression eventually joins them, not so much because she wants to be a terrorist but because they're the only ones who can understand her.
Lisa's role really confused me at first. There's no denying that more often than not it feels like she's there mostly to mess things up for our other two protagonists and I wish that had been handled a little differently. But the show itself points out that it isn't her fault; Nine and Twelve (mostly Twelve) keep encouraging her to stick around even as they know it will bring her nothing but hardship. It's Twelve's own loneliness that causes the difficulty here. And it's not like Lisa was wanting to cause trouble or even to help necessarily; she just wanted to escape an abusive home and school. She's deeply depressed; she wasn't out to change the world, and in that sense I think they depicted her story well.
I think if the show had had a couple more episodes than it did we could have explored her depression in a little more detail and that would have done a lot to help flesh out her story. I also wouldn't have minded a few more details about these tests Nine and Twelve underwent and what kind of health issues it gave them.
But this is a really well handled short story. We get to see how abuse can change someone and how what we all crave is recognition in some format, recognition of our humanity and our hopes. It was really powerful and I loved the tension of wondering whether or not Nine and Twelve could possibly succeed, and I actually did quite like how certain things were left vague and up to interpretation. Subtlety can be a wonderful thing in storytelling. I'd also like to write some fic for this series at some point as well.
Therefore, I highly recommend this anime provided you're up for a sad ending and some intense philosophizing.
I'm trying to decide what I might watch next. Probably those other two anime I mentioned earlier in another post, Kageki Shojo and Wonder Egg Priority.
The first thing being the X-Laws. I distinctly remember this group coming across as a lot more serious when I first read. Maybe this was an impression formed by the anime of the time? I don't think they became such jokes as time went on in that, but in the manga I cannot take them seriously after a certain point. I mean, Marco's fighting costume alone is just... XD And their angels are cars?! It's all so completely absurd that I can't decide if it's genius or utter nonsense. I can't completely dislike it, I guess, so there's that.
Also, Ancient Aliens is a legit thing in this universe?! I don't think I knew about that show when the end first came out, but I sure do now and the fact that the Patch tribe was connected to ancient aliens and that the whole conspiracy of aliens influencing human behavior and crafts is just casually announced as being completely true is... huh? What do you take me for, Takei? XD This is not The X-Files! And if it were, Mulder or Scully should have been monologuing about how small we are and how the universe is vast and unknowable!! I... I just don't even know.
And then there's Hao's mom being the solution to everything. On one hand, kinda love this, but on the other, we needed so much more buildup. Honestly, I think that's the problem with a lot of the later plot. The series was originally cancelled and when Takei was finally allowed to finish it he had a very limited amount of pages to make it happen and so much of this plot just needed so much more time to make any sense at all. Also, why are the Patch evil suddenly? I'm still not sure I fully understand that. Were they supposed to have always been allied with Hao or was it just that they would defend whoever became Shaman King no matter what? Why was Silva punished? It didn't seem like he did anything to me. Very confused on that whole point.
I think my main feeling is that I like the basic idea of love and family being enough to save the world and that all people, even people like Hao, can be redeemed, but sometimes it felt a little... undeserved, frankly. Some of these people committed heinous crimes, and I get that Shaman King is all about radical forgiveness, but I think certain people probably should have been punished more than they were. Like Faust. He never really apologized to Manta for slicing him up, but they're apparently totally good with one another? And Ren's family; they're a bunch of murderers and never said they'd stop murdering a ton of people, but they're suddenly treated as totally forgiven. Why? XD And much as I love Hao, he literally annihilated all of humanity and still got to be Shaman King AKA God. Uh... I mean, sure he brought everyone back, but it's supposedly a test to see what happens. I guess I need to read the sequel to see how all that pans out....
I guess while I'm critiquing Shaman King I should bring up the whole Chocolove/Joco thing because there's no getting around how awkward that is. I really don't understand how Takei messed up his design so badly when he's drawn other African characters and they look fine. No blackface problems at all. But then there's Joco and, just, ouch. Granted, this isn't just a Takei problem, but a manga problem more broadly as this article discusses. Basically, Japan hasn't felt much need to tackle the problem of blackface because they don't see it as a problem in their country. *sigh* The latest anime has made efforts to sort out his design and that's much appreciated, but it's still rough.
I'll admit, it's kind of hard to go back to this series and realize it had more problems than I ever realized as a kid. I'm glad I have more awareness now, of course, but it is a bummer. Still, there's a lot of good to the series and I actually did enjoy my reread despite these many criticisms. There's something inherently wonderful about Yoh and his utter belief in people and his desire to lead a calm, relaxing life. He never puts on airs; he just wants things to be better than what they are. Something about working crazy hard to lead an easy life later resonates with me, and I can't help but admire him.
I also truly loved rereading his and Anna's first meeting and Matamune's sacrifice. I also loved seeing everything to do with Hao's backstory. All of these things had the right tone, in my opinion, and I think that if we'd focused more on this sort of thing the series would be much improved. There are still so many things I want to know more about and I'm still very attached to the characters, so I'll have to read the sequel and possibly crank out a couple of oneshots because there are a couple ideas I'd really like to explore.
So, to put it succinctly, I still love Shaman King despite its issues and I can't wait to see more of the new anime. This series exposed me to a lot of different cultures as a kid and introduced different ways of thinking and I do appreciate that.
But as the title of this post implies, I didn't just finish my Shaman King reread, I also watched Terror in Resonance for the first time! And can I just say, wow, that was an incredible show. Interestingly, the thing that got me to finally check it out was the
sunshine_challenge. Someone linked the ending theme and pointed out it was by Yoko Kanno, which had me immediately intrigued. I listened to the song, loved it, and knew I had to watch the show. Turns out it was also directed by Shinichiro Watanabe and made by Studio MAPPA, which means it had quite the credentials! Very glad to say it held up to such high expectations.
I knew going in that this series was going to have a sad ending, so I was able to brace myself for that. Lately I have a harder time with sad endings even the ones I, myself, want to write. (^^)" I think it's because some part of me is an optimist at heart and I can't help but ask "Why couldn't it end differently?" More and more I want to see people given a chance to make things right or to have justice. Still, there's no denying this was a well-handled sad ending and sometimes sad endings suit better than happy ones. It's a difficult balance.
But, oh, this was a good plot. Kind of hard to describe, but essentially it's about two men (Nine and Twelve) who want to gain recognition after suffering in a series of experiments and they do this by creating terror through explosions. A woman (Lisa) suffering from clinical depression eventually joins them, not so much because she wants to be a terrorist but because they're the only ones who can understand her.
Lisa's role really confused me at first. There's no denying that more often than not it feels like she's there mostly to mess things up for our other two protagonists and I wish that had been handled a little differently. But the show itself points out that it isn't her fault; Nine and Twelve (mostly Twelve) keep encouraging her to stick around even as they know it will bring her nothing but hardship. It's Twelve's own loneliness that causes the difficulty here. And it's not like Lisa was wanting to cause trouble or even to help necessarily; she just wanted to escape an abusive home and school. She's deeply depressed; she wasn't out to change the world, and in that sense I think they depicted her story well.
I think if the show had had a couple more episodes than it did we could have explored her depression in a little more detail and that would have done a lot to help flesh out her story. I also wouldn't have minded a few more details about these tests Nine and Twelve underwent and what kind of health issues it gave them.
But this is a really well handled short story. We get to see how abuse can change someone and how what we all crave is recognition in some format, recognition of our humanity and our hopes. It was really powerful and I loved the tension of wondering whether or not Nine and Twelve could possibly succeed, and I actually did quite like how certain things were left vague and up to interpretation. Subtlety can be a wonderful thing in storytelling. I'd also like to write some fic for this series at some point as well.
Therefore, I highly recommend this anime provided you're up for a sad ending and some intense philosophizing.
I'm trying to decide what I might watch next. Probably those other two anime I mentioned earlier in another post, Kageki Shojo and Wonder Egg Priority.