Texhnolyze Meta
Texhnolyze:
Thanatos, or Peace in Death
I've just rewatched Texhnolyze. I enjoyed it the first time, but this time it walloped me. At some point, something clicked, and it struck me that Texhnolyze is a happy story, yes, a happy apocalyptic, dystopian, end-of-the-world story. This is not immediately evident because our expectations are so geared toward valuing survival/success/progress that we automatically read the reverse as "bad." Texhnolyze, however, finds fulfillment in the death drive. Like The Left Hand of Darkness (but more so), it emphasizes positive value in the "yin," if you will: in darkness, passivity, surrender, end.
(Spoilers Follow)
The figure who most profoundly embodies our usual goals of self-improvement, progress, utopia, etc. is Kanno, and he's the antagonist. More than any other character, he extols the progressive evolution of humanity. He promises a better world filled with stronger, better, functionally immortal people. What he delivers, of course, is a world where people are transformed into killing robots and the fabric of civilization is wrecked.
There's no question that most of Texhnolyze is extremely depressing. It's a tale of bad to worse to even worse. In a violent world, violence becomes increasingly prevalent. Dubiously functioning prosthetic limbs become increasingly indispensible if you "want to get ahead." Then, Organ (a.k.a. the mafia), which was corrupt but lent Lux some stability, implodes; people get their heads cut off and become a robot army. Even the upper class world (Class) falls apart, and it is revealed that the super-upper-class (above ground) is not an escape but just a group of tired folks waiting to die. Then, even the robots and prosthetic limbs stop working, and basically everyone dies.
Most of the series reads a mad scrabble to try to forestall this mess or at least carve out some nook where one might hide and survive. But the last act changes. It is a story of surrender. At some point, it simply becomes clear that no one will win. And those still left alive are left merely with the choice of how they want to die--and live their last few hours. The scrabbling almost completely stops. The fear melts away. A kind of elegiac peace descends, symbolically indicated by the blue and gold autumnal world passing away above ground.
Though much of the tone remains melancholy or, at least, bittersweet, we see example after example of peaceful consummation. Our last view of Doc finds her sitting in a pleasant hotel room. Toyama, who has dedicated his entire life to doing whatever he has to to stay on the winning team, dies smiling and enjoying the weather, thanking Ichise for cutting his head off his robot body. Shinji dies as he lived: the rebel, his final attack not designed to bring him victory but simply to take him as far as he can go in stabbing at the establishment, and he goes pretty far. Onishii, on his own way to go down fighting, notes that the first time he ever had affection for his texhnolyzed legs was when they stopped working. Ran asks several times to be killed. The people from above ground are content (even eager) to die in general. And Ichise, the last left standing, the one once in horror at the idea that he would be the last, ends by curling up with his flower vision and looking for, all the world, like he's ready for a good, long rest.
Philosophically, this terminal peace is personified by Gabe, the ultra-fatalists who, believing their seer's visions of the impending end, accept it. Indeed, they organize what may be the kindest and healthiest community in the story around a their quiet submission to the inevitable.
Perhaps I find Texhnolyze appealing because it is an object lesson in how to confront Death (be it one's own death or the end of the world as we know it). A survival drive is natural, and making the world a better place is certainly a laudable goal. But death (on the small and grand scale) has never ceased to loom, and in our post-atomic world, the End has, for decades, been no more than one careless day away. We all live in this consciousness, and we nearly all recoil from it. Texhnolyze confronts this fear and finds at its far end happiness.
Thanatos, or Peace in Death
I've just rewatched Texhnolyze. I enjoyed it the first time, but this time it walloped me. At some point, something clicked, and it struck me that Texhnolyze is a happy story, yes, a happy apocalyptic, dystopian, end-of-the-world story. This is not immediately evident because our expectations are so geared toward valuing survival/success/progress that we automatically read the reverse as "bad." Texhnolyze, however, finds fulfillment in the death drive. Like The Left Hand of Darkness (but more so), it emphasizes positive value in the "yin," if you will: in darkness, passivity, surrender, end.
(Spoilers Follow)
The figure who most profoundly embodies our usual goals of self-improvement, progress, utopia, etc. is Kanno, and he's the antagonist. More than any other character, he extols the progressive evolution of humanity. He promises a better world filled with stronger, better, functionally immortal people. What he delivers, of course, is a world where people are transformed into killing robots and the fabric of civilization is wrecked.
There's no question that most of Texhnolyze is extremely depressing. It's a tale of bad to worse to even worse. In a violent world, violence becomes increasingly prevalent. Dubiously functioning prosthetic limbs become increasingly indispensible if you "want to get ahead." Then, Organ (a.k.a. the mafia), which was corrupt but lent Lux some stability, implodes; people get their heads cut off and become a robot army. Even the upper class world (Class) falls apart, and it is revealed that the super-upper-class (above ground) is not an escape but just a group of tired folks waiting to die. Then, even the robots and prosthetic limbs stop working, and basically everyone dies.
Most of the series reads a mad scrabble to try to forestall this mess or at least carve out some nook where one might hide and survive. But the last act changes. It is a story of surrender. At some point, it simply becomes clear that no one will win. And those still left alive are left merely with the choice of how they want to die--and live their last few hours. The scrabbling almost completely stops. The fear melts away. A kind of elegiac peace descends, symbolically indicated by the blue and gold autumnal world passing away above ground.
Though much of the tone remains melancholy or, at least, bittersweet, we see example after example of peaceful consummation. Our last view of Doc finds her sitting in a pleasant hotel room. Toyama, who has dedicated his entire life to doing whatever he has to to stay on the winning team, dies smiling and enjoying the weather, thanking Ichise for cutting his head off his robot body. Shinji dies as he lived: the rebel, his final attack not designed to bring him victory but simply to take him as far as he can go in stabbing at the establishment, and he goes pretty far. Onishii, on his own way to go down fighting, notes that the first time he ever had affection for his texhnolyzed legs was when they stopped working. Ran asks several times to be killed. The people from above ground are content (even eager) to die in general. And Ichise, the last left standing, the one once in horror at the idea that he would be the last, ends by curling up with his flower vision and looking for, all the world, like he's ready for a good, long rest.
Philosophically, this terminal peace is personified by Gabe, the ultra-fatalists who, believing their seer's visions of the impending end, accept it. Indeed, they organize what may be the kindest and healthiest community in the story around a their quiet submission to the inevitable.
Perhaps I find Texhnolyze appealing because it is an object lesson in how to confront Death (be it one's own death or the end of the world as we know it). A survival drive is natural, and making the world a better place is certainly a laudable goal. But death (on the small and grand scale) has never ceased to loom, and in our post-atomic world, the End has, for decades, been no more than one careless day away. We all live in this consciousness, and we nearly all recoil from it. Texhnolyze confronts this fear and finds at its far end happiness.